Friday TOON Roundup 2 -Women in the military

[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.