Brushing off thrown shoes

Video footage of the event showed outgoing U.S. President George W. Bush was apparently quite skilled in ducking down and successfully evaded the "shoe assault" launched at him. Yet, the event did not stop reporters at the American president’s next stop in Kabul to exchange jokes amongst themselves about whether taking of shoes and entering the press conference room has become a requirement of presidential security measures.

Throwing shoes, indeed slippers, at nasty kids - without really aiming at them - has been a rather accustomed tradition of particularly the nannies or elder ladies of the families. As one of those nasty kids who often came under "slipper fire", I remember collecting the slippers thrown at me and burning them…

Among the adults, there is also an insult in Turkish slang: "Kiss the bottom of my shoe!" It more or less is equivalent of the English slang of "kiss my..." and implies strong disapproval and discontent of someone. However, according to an Associated Press report - which recalled that Iraqis whacked a statue of Saddam with their shoes after U.S. marines toppled it to the ground following the 2003 invasion - throwing a shoe at someone was a sign of contempt.

As a person in whose competence of extraordinary understanding and intellectual skills there is a universal consensus, it was rather easy for Bush to degrade the degrading shoe salvo at him as nothing significant. He reportedly just brushed off the incident and said, "So what if a guy threw his shoe at me?"

Anyhow, is it much different than how we react each time when Bush or some other American officials talk about "victory" in Iraq? As people who do not have the luxury of closing our eyes to the developments in Iraq, the bitter democratization sufferings of the Iraqi people under the boots of the occupying U.S. troops and their local collaborators, we have developed the skill of just ignoring all claims of "big American success" in Iraq as just empty talk... The reality on land testifies to what the U.S. achieved in Iraq and at what cost!

Farewell to ’Mr. No’
At the age of 21 he was a member of the youth branch of the notorious EOKA gang, the Greek Cypriot underground organization aimed at kicking the colonial British administration out of Cyprus and unite the eastern Mediterranean island with Greece.

At the age of 24 he not only had become the leader of the youth branch of EOKA, but also the labor minister in the first post-independence government led by Archbishop Makarios. For 12 years he served as minister in Makarios governments, while at the same time ascended the ladders of power in the EOKA gang to become one of the ideologists of the criminal group that had started in 1963 aiming at annihilating Turkish Cypriots - the major obstacle in front of achieving "enosis" - union with Greece. He was one of the authors of the failed Akritas plan, which was put into implementation on Dec. 21, 1963 and according to which, Turkish Cypriots were to be annihilated in 24 hours. Papadopoulos was as well the "launderer" of the "dirty money" of some "former" communists, like Slobodan Milosevic.

When he was elected president of the Greek Cypriot-run Cyprus Republic in 2003 a UN peace plan for the island was in completion stage. He effectively fought it, rightly earned the title of "Mr No" and convinced his people to reject the plan at an April 24, 2004 referendum, but despite his arrogant and anti-peace policies, the EU granted his government full membership and left the Turkish Cypriots, who overwhelmingly accepted the peace plan, out in the cold. Last year he lost elections to incumbent Demetrios Christofias... Last Friday, he lost his battle against lung cancer, though he was successful earlier in the fight against larynx cancer and colon cancer.

His death reduced by one those who oppose a settlement on the island...