*American Denial Exhibit One

I don't know if that is the appropriate title for this post or not, because I don't really know how many American's are in denial about what I am about to write, or is it just the normal media narrative which becomes accepted as reality.

This particular bit of denial has to do with the now famous shoe throwing incident in Baghdad this past weekend and the continuing trashing of George Bush as the result of it. This is not a defense of Bush, the war or his policies, this is just a reality check on the insanity that is the media.

The narrative is that Bush through his policies and actions regarding Iraq has turned the world, particularly the Muslim world against the United States. My question is why are the World Trade Center Twin Towers not standing? Was Muslim hate towards the United States that was manifested so vividly on September 11, 2001, the result of George Bush policies towards Iraq? Of course not, he had not even served nine months of his first term.

The demonstrations of Muslims carrying shoes on sticks in support of the newsman who threw them is being portrayed as a denunciation of George Bush. Alright, what were the mass demonstrations following 9-11 the result of, the future Bush policies?

The truth is that for many years, as long as I can remember, Muslims have demonstrated against the United States, they are kind of like American Liberals in that respect. Until the hate Bush media really started cranking it out, it was widely known and reported that this was the result of our support for Israel. Not to say that Afghanistan and Iraq have not intensified this, but Bush is not the cause, just a continuation of antipathy that is over a generation old.



Jimmy Carter who was probably the most accommodating of our Presidents to Muslims, was pretty much brought down by demonstrations against America which led to the hostage crisis during his administration, nothing to do with Bush. By the way many people including some of the hostages themselves believe the guy escorting the American hostage above is the current Iranian President
Admadinejad.

During the Regan years there were countless demonstrations against America by the Muslim world and worse. Lockerbie, Libya , the Lebanon bombing of a marine barracks. Then of course there was the current president's father and the invasion of Kuwait but that pretty much involved a pathological mad butchering dictator, not exclusivly a Muslim issue. Of course Clinton had his run ins did you see Black Hawk Down ? Then there were embassy bombings when he launched missles into Sudan killing innocent people while trying get Bin Laden saying that "there will be no sanctuary for terrorist" sound familiar?. The first WTC bombing, the USS Cole, all of which brought protesters against the United States out into the streets of the Muslim world.

The facts are this, the United States and the Muslim world have been at odds for various reasons, primarily Israel, for decades. They did not start with George W Bush and it is very doubtful they will end with Barack Obama. This from a recent NYT article

More substantively, Mr. Gates’s four-day trip was an indication that Mr. Obama would be continuing much of the Bush administration’s latest policy in Iraq and Afghanistan, at least for now: reducing American troops slowly in Iraq but adding some 20,000 next year in Afghanistan.

That will not stop the Muslims who protest the United States, shoes or no shoes, stop, regardless of his middle name. A solution to the Palestinian problem might do it, perhaps he can, but history speaks against it.

The probable view of history will be that George Bush did more to help relations in the long term than to hurt them, but that is for the future to determine. For the here and now, thrown shoes have nothing to do with much of anything. The fact that a US President was in Baghdad having signed an alliance treaty with a democratically elected President of Iraq is important, very important, but virtually ignored by silly media types who can't see beyond their all too obvious political prejudices.