In case you missed it, above is the video from a press conference held on yesterday in Baghdad when President Bush was announcing the new security pact between Iraq and the U.S. This new security pact has American troops scheduled to be out of Iraq by 2011.

Why a shoe you ask? Well in Middle Eastern culture showing someone the underside of your shoe (and especially throwing your shoe at someone) is a major sign of disrespect. Shoes represent dirt and degradation, and if you remember well enough, when Saddam’s statue was torn down the Iraqis celebrated by beating it with their shoes.

There is a strong tie between these two events, and before Iraqi television journalist Muntadar al-Zaidi threw his shoes he stated: “This is a goodbye kiss from the Iraqi people, dog,” showing his strong contempt for Bush, even though President Bush doesn’t view it that way. His naive cultural understanding doesn’t even allow him to recognize when he’s getting one of the biggest insults a Middle Eastern person could do, he just sees it as a guy throwing a shoe at him.

It’s obvious that the Iraqi people are enthused about the end of Bush’s reign, as Muntadar al-Zaidi has become a ‘folk hero’ to the Iraqi and Arab people (read all about that one here on the New York Times).

I’m not going to get on a whole big thing here about this pitiful war, but I do just want to say that it’s pretty evident that these people want us out of their country. What if things were reversed? What if Iraqis came over here to spare us of Bush, while killing innocent women and children daily? Don’t you think we’d want them out of our country as well? Can’t we just leave these people alone already.

January 20th couldn’t come sooner…