Let al-Zeidi go free

I've been on the sideline for the al-Zeidi/George W. Bush shoe throwing incident. I keep thinking that Bush would issue a statement saying that he understood that what al-Zeidi did was a form of protest. And that, in the spirit of our core American value of free speech, Bush would like to see al-Zeidi freed. After all, he's already had crap beaten out of him while in custody awaiting his trial.

Consumers for Peace issued a press release calling for a protest in Washington to ask the Iraqi Government to free Al-Zeidi.

The treatment Al-Zeidi has received should shame all Americans and is likely to motivate as much anti-American sentiment as have the photos of torture at Abu Ghraib," said David Swanson, co-founder of AfterDowningStreet.org. "While our President and Vice President openly confess to authorizing torture, their puppet government in Iraq tortures a man for throwing shoes, in complete absence of even the pretense of 'interrogation,' much less a ticking time bomb. Freeing Al-Zeidi will not fix this situation. We must also put Bush and Cheney behind bars.

Good luck with the whole putting Bush and Cheney behind bars thing. Nobody in power has the stomach for the kind of self-destructive political process required to hold these men accountable. We will have to settle for making fun of them instead.

I think the Iraqi government should free al-Zeidi. It is the right thing to do. I would like to hear what you think.

Technorati tags: Al-Zeidi, Bush, Politics