CSotD: That Old Familiar Feeling
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This isn’t a Juxtaposition of the Day because it’s a Juxtaposition of 23 Years. Bramhall’s is current, Englehart’s ran back when we went into Iraq in 2003 with the same goal of stopping terror.
Both cartoons comment on the foolishness of the effort, but Bramhall focuses on the president who blundered into a hopeless maze, while Englehart was commenting on the dilemma the troops would face. Both make valid points.
And Englehart was right: 4057 Americans and a number of our allies, plus countless Iraqis on both sides and also on neither side died, and that was just in Iraq. Englehart speaks of fighting terrorism in general. We lost 2461 Americans in Afghanistan, and, again, allies and local people also paid the price.
It’s important to point out that Bush proved crowing “Mission Accomplished” doesn’t change things. As Slyngstad suggests, if Trump were a more cautious soul, he might have gone to W for pointers. Indeed, Bush wrote the book.
(I was making memes before they called’em that.)
Deerings’ cartoon came before the Kuwaitis accidentally downed three of our jets, and it’s good that the crews bailed out safely, but at roughly the same time, the Secretary of Greasy Kid Stuff was conducting a bizarre press conference that showed the impact of another blunder, since the hand-picked loyalist reporters he had gathered asked him tough questions like “As you’ve said, there are a large amount of U.S. service members that are in harm’s way right now. What is your prayer for them?”
And although that was a dumb question and a waste of everyone’s time, it turns out we apparently do have a prayer for our troops, since Hegseth had sent out an invitation to a Christian prayer service at the Pentagon that many military members and contractors interpreted as operationally mandatory.
Furthermore, according to Jonathan Larsen, a variety of military members have complained to the Military Religious Freedom Foundation of being told by their officers that the war is the beginning of Armageddon and the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. However, that is a single-source story and should be taken with a grain of salt until it’s independently confirmed.
Still, Hegseth has been noted for promoting religiosity in the past, though he’s also been known to intervene for soldiers accused of war crimes, and his policy of killing men whose boats have been disabled in the Caribbean has been said to violate the rules of war.
Doesn’t matter. In yesterday’s press conference, he announced that the US military will not be impeded by international rules of war:
America, regardless of what so-called international institutions say, is unleashing the most lethal and precise air power campaign in history. B-2s, fighters, drones, missiles, and of course classified effects. All on our terms with maximum authorities. No stupid rules of engagement, no nation-building quagmire, no democracy building exercise, no politically correct wars.
Varvel and Summers are among the 21% of Americans who support our attacks on Iran. Presumably they expect our efforts to be more successful in bringing peace, justice and democracy to Iran than they were in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya.
Sipress, in the meantime, isn’t even convinced that we’ll be able to bring peace, justice and democracy to our own country.
Ramirez celebrates the death of Khamenei, though he doesn’t specifically say it will usher in a world of peace, justice and democracy.
Certainly that one man wasn’t operating without support, though Ramirez doesn’t note that the evil witch killed by Dorothy’s house was only the sister of the Wicked Witch of the West. Evil continued without the Wicked Witch of the East.
Chappatte tosses a quick pie at Dear Leader over the whole thing. He’s certainly right about Trump’s egotism and grandiose narcissism, since he didn’t even offer Congress a heads’ up, much less consult them about his plans to plunge the nation into war.
Morland offers a considerably pessimistic view of what Trump hath wrought. He includes a hand grenade, an opened can of worms and a nest of hornets among the things loosed from Pandora’s Box, and, like Chappatte, touches on Dear Leader’s egotistical lack of forethought and restraint.
Anderson points out that Trump’s “America First” policies put Americans in peril, and he could be talking about the individuals who are being called upon to fight this war of choice, or he could be reflecting the likelihood of revenge on America in the form of vengeful terrorism.
As I write, we’ve only lost six Americans, though “only” is not the way their families would phrase it. Dear Leader does, however, seem intent on fighting this war from a safe distance, with bombs and missiles rather than direct engagement.
That’s not quite as safely as he fought the Vietnam War, of course.
There have been many comments about Baron and whether heel spurs can be inherited. Buss goes further and suggests that false claims of heel spurs could certainly become a family tradition. Of course, there’s no draft today, so Baron would have to actively volunteer to end up in the military, which seems unlikely.
I wouldn’t mind a return to the draft, though I didn’t agree during Vietnam. But I took my II-S deferment along with millions of other American college students. It infuriates me to hear Trump described as a “five-time draft dodger,” because a lot of college graduates, like Al Gore, John Kerry and Rocky Bleier, served honorably after school.
Trump’s ignorance of tariffs and trade imbalance mark him as probably one of the slackers who stayed in college strictly for that II-S, but only those who went to places like Parsons were considered dodgers.
Working-class kids, however, were at the mercy of a system in which their families had little influence, while movers and shakers who could have made a difference had sons with II-S deferments. Half my high-school classmates went to Vietnam. Few of my college classmates even knew anybody in the service.
A draft of young men and women without student deferments would focus the minds of American parents.
At least the ones who didn’t know a friendly physician who would diagnose heel spurs.
Mike Peterson has posted his "Comic Strip of the Day" column every day since 2010. His opinions are his own, but we welcome comments either agreeing or in opposition.
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