Friday TOON Roundup 2 -Women in the military

[n2doc]

[grantcart]

1. Love your threads

But have to say that Ted Rall consistently is neither funny or really on point.


Having women in combat roles will allow them to interact, meet and talk with women directly minimizing male/female interaction. To charachterize American troops in Afghanistan as primarily occupation troops that massacre middle class families is as uninformed to the Afghan realities as one can be. BTW the Taliban (that he supposedly is representing) would not be allowing their daughters to read.

[Jim Lane]

4. You assume that every victim of a U.S. attack is a Taliban.

I'm completely confident that our drones have, in fact, killed girls whose parents allowed and even encouraged them to read.

The very point of the cartoon is the indiscriminate killing that occurs. (Incidentally, criticizing one aspect of a military operation does not constitute an assertion that the operation is "primarily" about that. To label something "collateral damage" doesn't justify sweeping it under the rug.)

[grantcart]

5. Well you are correct that in any armed conflict civilians get killed

In Afghanistan more civilians are killed by the Taliban than by NATO forces by a large factor. Compared to other types of weaponry drones have the least amount of civilian collateral damage.

The rest of your comments indicate that you may not be familiar with Ted Rall.

He is a terrible artist, his cartoons are not funny, he continually includes significantly wrong factual asides and he is well known for confusing outrageous untrue shock blab as provocative progressive commentary.

He has been dropped by most progressive publications, like the Village Voice, for his lack of humor and reckless statements.

Here is a classic Ted Rall low ball:

http://assets.amuniversal.com/33f0e450635f012ee3c300163e41dd5b

Here are the factual errors in that cartoon:

1) Pat Tillman was not an ignorant racist who wanted to "kill Arabs". He in fact was a progressive who wasn't tied to materialism and wanted to defend his country after 9/11.

2) Tillman did not support "Bush's wars" and did not want to go to Iraq, a conflict he didn't support.

3) Al Queda was never based in Pakistan

4) Afghanistan is resource rich and is not ever going to be a major exporter of mineral or energy resources due to accessibility, security and transportation obstacles that will remain for decades. The one natural gas project that guys like Rall grasp on to is a UN paper study of using natural gas in remote areas of Afghanistan to be used in energy deficient areas in remote ares of Pakistan.

5) Tillman was never an idiot or a sap, that is who Rall is.

6) Rall is no longer a commercially viable cartoonist and isn't published in any publications that I am aware of.

7) Rall was a frequent visitor on Hannity and Colmes where they would use the tactic of getting some whacked out 'liberal' and get them to make outrageous points and then show how whacked out liberals are. He was also employed for a while by the country's largest RW talk show radio station KFI.

8) His most recent publication is a denouncement of President Obama. This is his description of the book:

http://www.amazon.com/Book-Obama-Hope-Change-Revolt/dp/1609804503

In The Book of Obama Rall revisits the rapid rise and dizzying fall of Obama--and the emergence of the Tea Party and Occupy movements--and draws a startling conclusion: We the People weren't lied to. We lied to ourselves, both about Obama and the two-party system. We voted when we ought to have revolted.

Ted Rall is consistently wrong on just about everything. Even when you agree with him on a policy you can't help but his outrageous distortion of fact.

I just don't think that Ted Rall is DU worthy.

[Jim Lane]

9. Any cartoonist has some strips that are better than others. I find Rall worth reading.

When, on the "Greatest" page, I see a link to a Rall cartoon, I always click on it. You presumably ignore them. If one is embedded in a collection, as in this instance, you just have to make a minor effort to scroll past it. I hope n2doc won't put Rall on a cartoon blacklist.

(By the way, n2doc, thanks for assembling these collections for us!)

You write, "In Afghanistan more civilians are killed by the Taliban than by NATO forces by a large factor." You're certainly not alone in making this tu quoque argument in this context, and it enjoys more widespread usage as well. It's never impressed me, though. Our conduct is to be assessed on its own merits. If the Taliban do something evil -- something that on a 1-to-10 scale of vice is around a 7 -- that doesn't mean that we get a free pass to do what we want in the name of fighting them as long as we don't get any worse than 6.

To take an example from another war, I've seen people defend the bombing of Hiroshima by pointing to Japanese atrocities in Nanking and the like. There are some at least half-way respectable arguments in favor of the bombing, but that isn't one of them.

[rhett o rick]

2. k&r

[MerryBlooms]

3. kick

[99Forever]

6. K&R

[SteveG]

7. All toons

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022257241

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022257246

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022257257

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022257269

[Dyedinthewoolliberal]

8. Thanks for the Toons!