Iraqi Journalist Shows Kenyan Counterparts The Way

I hope Nyambane and Fredrick Odhiambo are watching. This is how it should be done! During a press conference on his final tour of Iraq, George W. Bush was ducking more than questions after an Iraqi journalist threw his shoes at him shouting, "This is a farewell kiss, you dog!" 

Perhaps a new report which describes the US effort to rebuild Iraq as a $100 billion failure is what had the gentleman, identified as Muntadar al-Zeidi, a correspondent for Al-Baghdadia television, so riled up. The report lays bare the general incompetence of those tasked with the effort and their attempts to cover up their failures by resorting to Saddamist tactics (The document has former secretary of state Colin Powell complaining that after the 2003 invasion, the Defense Department "kept inventing numbers of Iraqi security forces -- the number would jump 20,000 a week! We now have 80,000, we now have 100,000, we now have 120,000.'")

Whatever his grievance, the reporter was beaten up and arrested by security agents. If the Kenyan example of how we deal with those who disrespect our big men (as Internal Security Minister George Saitoti described the Jamhuri Day protests) is anything to go by, I think the Iraqi journalist deserves all our prayers.