All right, y'all, welcome to the Scott Horton Show.
I'm the Director of the Libertarian Institute, Editorial Director of Antiwar.com, author of the book Fool's Errand, Time to End the War in Afghanistan, and the brand new Enough Already, Time to End the War on Terrorism, and I've recorded more than 5,500 interviews since 2003, almost all on foreign policy, and all available for you at scotthorton.org.
You can sign up for the podcast feed there, and the full interview archive is also available at youtube.com slash scotthortonshow.
All right, you guys, introducing Mujtaba al-Zaidi, famously threw a shoe at George W. Bush in December 2008, and we were recently connected by a mutual friend and follower on Twitter, and I'm very happy to welcome him to the show, and also his friend Susan, who's going to be helping with the translations here.
How are you guys doing?
Welcome to the show.
Thank you very much, Mr. Scott.
Thank you very much.
Great.
Thanks very much for joining us today.
Really appreciate it.
So, can we start with, can you tell us, what exactly did you say to George W. Bush when you threw those shoes?
Okay, I will speak in Arabic, and Mrs. Susan will translate about what I told to President George Bush when I threw my shoe over him.
I told him this is kiss of goodbye from Iraqi people, and I told him, you killed my people.
You killed my family.
Iraqi is my family.
You killed my family.
You killed Iraqi people.
That's a word after when I throw, and before when they took me outside.
Now, it was reported at the time that you were arrested and taken off and presumably tortured under the new government that America had created there.
Is that true?
It was, it was the Iraqi government force or people who did that, not the Americans.
The same.
The same.
Iraqi forces or American forces.
The same.
Yeah, they are the same.
They took order from President Bush and the U.S. Army.
So, what they tortured was the personal protection, not the Iraqis, the personal protection of the Prime Minister who appointed them to the American side.
Yeah.
So, he was arrested by the security guys of Nur al-Maliki, who was the Prime Minister at that time, who was appointed by the Americans.
And so, it was a kind of cooperation between the two that made sure that he was arrested and tortured back then.
Sir, if it's not too difficult, can you describe the torture that they put you through?
The first stage of torture happened in the same conference place where he was pulled down to the ground and beaten up, where he, consequently, he broke his nose and his teeth.
Okay, and the next stage was he was pulled outside the place where they brought a metal pole and he was beaten up by it.
And then they dragged him to like, what do you call it, like where the water of the rain has accumulated and it was winter and cold and then they continued like beating him up.
And then he was, I think I read, sir, that you were sentenced to prison.
Is that right?
Yes, that's right.
The torture did not end there.
And by the way, what was happening outside, what I just mentioned, it was the American army, they were witnessing the whole scenario.
Okay, and at the same place, the Americans took a sample of his blood to make a test if he has been under drugs or if he has any alcohol or drug in his blood.
Though they didn't have to take a sample of blood because he was already covered with his own blood because of all the violence he was exposed to.
Yeah, well, I'm glad he's got a sense of humor about it now.
Or you, sorry, third person.
He said he already had a sense of humor when he threw the shoes on Bush.
Yeah, clearly.
And, and listen, I'd like to mention, I've noticed on your Twitter feed that everything you say is all very positive and uplifting and funny stuff and blessing people and wishing them well all the time and all this seems like you do have a very positive attitude, huh?
Yes, totally.
I agree.
I mean, I know him personally and he is a very, very positive person and very uplifting exactly as you observed.
Yeah, really cool.
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And then...
So eventually he was picked up and he was already disabled, very disabled or weak to move by himself.
So he was picked up and put in a car where they drove him to a place that belongs to the prime minister.
And they continued torturing him physically by all means.
And then he was moved to another place that was like an empty, deserted house where he stayed the whole night there and where they also continued torturing him.
And the next morning he was brought into the isolation cell where they continued torturing him under the supervision of Ahmad Zahary, you said?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Who is the inspector in the defense ministry today.
Yeah.
And then he was sentenced to three years in jail where he completed nine months or a year.
He stayed in the isolation cell for three months.
And that's like a chapter in itself.
That's like the ultimate torture.
Then he was moved to another cell with other people or with other imprisoners.
Okay.
So it's like it was decided that he should stay in the isolation cell for as long as or for, yeah, until all his wounds were healed.
So no one could see all the marks and bruises he had after the torture.
So they waited until he was healed.
Then they moved him to with other prisoners.
And he was only allowed to go to the bathroom, to the toilet three times a day.
That's like the maximum.
And if he needed to the toilet more than three times, he had to do it in the same place where he was staying.
Don't tell him!
So now the nine months, he got out of solitary confinement.
And then after that, were they still torturing him after that?
Or that was just the rest of a regular old prison term, as bad as that goes?
Yeah, I think it finished there, but I have to confirm with him.
So yeah, that's basically what concerns the arrests and the torture and the process of the whole imprisonment.
All right.
Now, George W.
Bush said after this happened that I think the quote was, I don't know what the guy's cause was.
So he missed the point.
But so what really was the point?
I asked you earlier what it was that you said, but what really was the point of trying to throw those shoes at George W.
Bush?
Well, there is, I know, let me, I memorized the whole history, but let me tell you, George Bush says that he didn't understand the reason why you threw the shoes at him, but the point is that, you know, because he has been a journalist and a correspondent for a TV channel, so he was very much involved in all the damage and casualties of the Americans under the occupation.
So he was very much exposed to how people were killed, humiliated, and how children were left without their parents because they were killed.
So basically what he said about that specific incident of throwing the shoes on Bush, that he did it for the children of Iraq who has lost their life, their parents, and their future.
So that's the whole point.
There's another point that Mr. al-Zaidi always tried to make clear in all the interviews I've been watching, that there is a myth of that the Americans came to Iraq to liberate Iraq, and that the Iraqis were so grateful and happy for this.
So, and that was like the, mostly the Western media coverage that was always pointing to that, to that point that the Iraqi was, were very grateful for the American intervention.
So he wanted to make a clear point that, no, the Americans were not welcomed, that it's a myth that the Iraqis were grateful and happy for their presence.
Yes, so he has a comment to what you said about Bush's reaction to when he was asked, and he, as you said, he missed the point.
Al-Zaidi says that his response was exactly when you ask someone who committed a murder, and he will say, why did the person die?
I mean, he died because you killed him.
So it's like kind of plain stupid, you know?
Yeah.
Well, listen, I think this is really important that you understand, and you probably already know, but that really mattered because it was the very end of George W. Bush's presidency, and that was his last trip to Iraq.
And as you say, he was trying to spin it that he had done a great favor for the Iraqi people, and they were all very grateful.
And this incident really destroyed that public relations narrative.
And it was an absolute humiliation for him.
And just the look of stupidity on his face during the time.
So in other words, it worked.
It really worked.
And it took the piss out of him, as the British would say, on his way out the door there.
And so thank you so much for that, because he absolutely deserved that.
We all only regret that you didn't hit him in the head.
Yeah, but the humiliation is the same, even if it didn't hit him, you know?
But it would have been better, of course, if it has hit his head, you know?
But it did work.
It did work for the purpose there, humiliating him and ruining his little PR stunt, his little victory lap.
I don't know if that's an idiom in Arabic, victory lap.
But that's something we call in English, you know, where you win the race, you run around one more time bragging about it or something.
That's what he was trying to do.
And you destroyed that.
Yes.
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah, he says that the president, Bush, he was supposed to be held accountable for not defending the American flag.
Instead of catching the shoe, it hit the flag.
So the American people should have put him into being accountable for that.
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All right.
So now I wanted to ask you, you know, well, a two part question, I guess.
The first is, what would he have?
What would you have served people know about that war?
And then also your opinion of troops, American troops remaining in Iraq to this day?
OK.
So what he's saying is that he really want the Americans to understand that they have given their votes to and they've elected a president that has really let them down and disappointed them in making such a tremendously wrong decision entering the country of Iraq.
And because of that intervention, that military intervention or occupation, five million children told to me today are actually orphans.
And and he says that I know that the American people are not very political aware and they really don't know that much of what's going on in Iraq and what has happened really in details.
But like the responsibility, they still have a responsibility of electing a president that has caused so much damage to to to other to another nation, you know.
And he will also recommend that for more information about what has happened back then, and that he you know, he has a I don't know if you know that he has a book or he has written a book about it all.
So it will be a great idea if this book was translated to English and got more attention in America.
Yeah, I wish it was.
I actually read that this morning in a Washington Post article and I tried to search for it on Amazon.com or anywhere in English.
I can only find references to it, but I can't find anywhere where it's for.
Yeah, it's because it's yeah, it's because it's not translated.
But it's actually I'm surprised that it's not translated.
It's just now I know it hasn't been translated to English, but it should actually.
And it should like gain some publicity there to like for them to know that what what what what did our politician do?
I mean, when we gave them our votes, you know, this is like, quite important.
And we'll just we'll just go on.
Regarding your, his opinion about the Americans troops still existing in Iraq, he's saying that it's also very important to make the Americans aware that sending military troops around the world is actually not defending the sovereignty of America.
It's like they are defending their country in one case if there is a direct attack through the borders.
But what they're saying, what they're doing by sending their troops to other countries, it's, it's not defending.
But it's, it's an aggression.
It's an act of aggression.
And it's also like, as he said, that politicians sitting there being protected, and, and sending some innocent soldiers and, and military people who, who gets traumatized in these wars will only like, create even more hatred, you know.
And he said that, he referred to Muhammad Ali Klay, you know, the boxer.
He, as he said that when he refused to joining the army, going to Vietnam, he said that the real the true enemy is inside of our country and not outside of it.
So that's like, also a very important point to make the Americans aware of.
Okay, and now to end, I read that you have a nonprofit humanitarian foundation for helping up victims of the war and you're a journalist and all that.
So I wanted to give you a chance to talk about that in the future.
So what he's doing right now is that he's sweating because of the Americans who promised to bring civilization and urbanization to Iraq, has actually brought the country's like hundreds of years back because they had electricity and now they don't and they haven't had electricity that's working properly.
Since the Gulf War where the Americans, they bombed all the electricity infrastructure.
So this is what he's doing right now.
He's really sweating.
Okay.
You know, as you know, Mr. Scott, the foundation has the aim of helping victims of war and it started back then after 2009 after the incident of Bush and it was established in Switzerland.
The problem is that the government appointed by the Americans has not solved any of the problems because of all the corruption and they haven't like done anything for this country because it's not a national government.
It's a government that was appointed by the occupiers.
So they haven't been working for the interest of the people.
So 17 years after the occupation, things are just going downwards.
It's getting even worse.
So the country is still suffering a lot of problems, like poverty and bad health care and etc.
So he is very eager to to keep on his work.
But of course, he needs the means and the financial support to go through with his projects because, I mean, his intentions alone is not enough.
So he's really eager to to find fundraising that could support his like, especially the humanitarian work that he's doing.
And he is very concerned about like children.
I mean, and this is like his main issue.
And the humanitarian work in general.
Especially the health care and stuff like that.
So, yeah.
Well, I think what you should do is go into the shoe business and you'll be the most famous shoe company in Iraq.
And then you divert 10 percent off to the orphanage.
Wow, that's really a fantastic idea.
It's not even a joke, really.
I'd wear some.
I don't understand how he didn't think about it before that.
That's why I'm around.
He said that this is like the problem is that it's going to make his whole cause look so silly that people will say, OK, he threw the shoe on Bush to make a business out of it.
Yeah, but you know what?
It's been 13 years.
I think it's time has passed.
Enough time has passed.
It's not too soon.
I think you'll be all right.
I read an article that said that there are two different companies that claim to make the shoe that he threw.
So it seems like those are the obvious targets to just go into business with one or the other.
Yeah, I mean, did you did you hear that when they traced the shoe and they found out that it was it was made?
Actually, it was made in Turkey and the shoe company that produced that shoe that was thrown on Bush got like that, got like out of stock.
All his shoes were suddenly sold and his like income raised like crazily after the incident.
Did you know that?
No.
No, that's.
Yeah.
So it's.
Yeah.
So the company who produced the shoe was suddenly going completely having a very, very high times economically because it got so popular.
That's fine.
All right.
Well, listen, I better let you guys go.
But thank you both so much for doing the show.
I'm sure I'm saying your name.
But I'll but Mr. But Mr. Scott, I'll convince him to to do that business.
Do it.
Do it.
I'll buy some.
You guys.
Yeah.
To the show.
It'll be great.
All right, guys, that's a month on our Al-Zaidi, the hero who threw the shoe at George W. Bush's head.
A couple of them and his very nice friend, Susan, the translator.
Thank you both so much for doing the show.
Really appreciate it.
See you soon.
Oh, thanks to you.
Thank you, Mr. Scott.
It was nice meeting you.
The Scott Horton Show, antiwar radio can be heard on KPFK 90.7 FM in L.A.
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