This time a shoe thrower was shot

September 18, 2009

This time a shoe thrower was shot

A resident of Fallujah.

A man who lived through the "cleansing" of Fallujah by occupation forces. Two battles - not one.

He saw his city burn, his friends killed, his neighbours maimed.

His mind broke, and he became imbalanced.

He roamed the streets with long unkempt hair, disheveled clothes and a wild look in his eyes.

Whenever he saw an American military convoy pass, he would shake his fists in the air and raise his voice and swear at them. He would sometimes pick up a pebble and hurl it at them.

On Wednesday he took of his sandal and threw it at a passing American military convoy.

The answer was bullet shots in his lung, very close to his heart.

Iraqi police took him to the general hospital in the city. The doctors all but gave up on him saying the injury was too close to his heart and that his lungs were in bad condition. One doctor took the chance and decided to perform the surgery, and succeeded.

Now the man from Fallujah is lying between life and death. His brother looks on, "He was a very gentle man, the best auto electrician in the city – but the war affected him in this way. He lost his mind because of the horror of what he saw. What we went through left no man or woman unchanged."

Posted at 10:08 AM | Permalink

TrackBack

TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.typepad.com/services/trackback/6a00d83451c64169e20120a5d66b7d970c

Listed below are links to weblogs that reference This time a shoe thrower was shot:

Comments

The other side:
Thank you; that makes a lot of sense. I can understand that.

Posted by: Judith | September 30, 2009 at 09:52 PM

About the embassy and the Iraqis having no power, etc.....do you think that just happened overnight and do you think the US by itself did that much damage?

WWMD...Yes, our way of life is so wonderful that the Iraqis do want it and are grateful. Your brain fried logic clearly demonstrates you have not been there and have no idea what you are talking about.

Posted by: BobbyD | September 22, 2009 at 05:27 AM

I cannot imagine the pain this man has suffered in the last 6 years of war in his country, and the decades of life under an oppressive regime he endured before that, but let's flip this around. Why was he shot?
The Marines in that convoy believed what he was throwing was a grenade. More specifically, an RKG-3. The leading tactic by the insurgency is to throw these RKG-3 armor piercing anti-vehicle grenades. They are capable of blasting explosively formed projectiles through the armor on any vehicle, and have killed many coalition forces in the past several months. The only logical counter-tactic to this is to be especially weary of people holding something in their hands, and to shoot them once they display intent to throw it at you. Go to liveleak, search for rkg, and see if you can discern whether what the insurgents in each video throw is a sandal or a grenade - before it explodes, possibly killing soldiers or Marines.

Posted by: the other side | September 21, 2009 at 10:04 PM

Eric,

Does throwing a sandal at a car really equate to burning down a building or throwing a rock at someone's head? Do you SHOOT someone who's throwing a sandal? Please think--use your mind.

Posted by: Judith | September 20, 2009 at 07:33 PM

Eric:

This guy didn't burn down anything. He threw his sandal.

Posted by: John Fillin | September 19, 2009 at 12:57 PM

And then the Americans build this plaice called an embassy in front of Iraq people half the time don't have power, clean water, electric or sewer's.

Posted by: River Rat | September 19, 2009 at 11:04 AM

Is it just me, or has anyone else noticed that the 9/11 terrorists were Saudi Arabians? We've been punishing the Iraqis for 6 years for something they didn't do or support.

Why on earth should Americans expect the Iraqis to be grateful to us for taking over their country? Is our way of life *so* wonderful that the Iraqis ought to ditch 2,000 years of their own culture to embrace ours?

The fact that our troops shot up a crazy man who was throwing a shoe shows that they are beyond brain fried. They need to be brought home NOW. The Iraqis can take care of their own country without any more "help" from us.

Posted by: WWMD | September 18, 2009 at 10:31 PM

I see. So if an American decides to burn down a mosque or throw a rock at a Muslim's head because he was traumatized by 9/11, then that would have to be filed under "understandable rage" too.

Posted by: Eric | September 18, 2009 at 07:45 PM

one more casualty of BUSH. I would love to see him brough up on charges, he and a quite a few others for crimes against humanity...Oh well, I can dream, can't I???

Posted by: Oliver Grill | September 18, 2009 at 07:01 PM

The comments to this entry are closed.

Sun	Mon	Tue	Wed	Thu	Fri	Sat
1	2	3	4	5	6	7
8	9	10	11	12	13	14
15	16	17	18	19	20	21
22	23	24	25	26	27	28
29	30

Sun

Mon

Tue

Wed

Thu

Fri

Sat

September 18, 2009