Which is more wrong: invading a country, killing its people, peeing on the dead, or filming it? The New York Times editorial board votes “D.”
Name the Morally Objectionable Action
Ted Rall
Ted Rall is a syndicated political cartoonist for Andrews McMeel Syndication, WhoWhatWhy.org and Counterpoint. He is a frequent contributor to The Wall Street Journal, a graphic novelist and author of many books of art and prose, and an occasional war correspondent. He is, recently, the author of the graphic novel "The Stringer."
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What is even “wronger” is to simply be too lazy to cut off their heads and drag them behind vehicles up and down the streets – or string up the bodies and whack ’em like pinatas. It isn’t anything new – it’s business as usual in wars. That’s why wars need to be avoided, because people always have and always will act berserk. No such thing as a white-bread war with the crust trimmed off. They are all bloody and horrible and they always bring out the worst in people whether they are Americans, Japanese or Germans.
Let me see: If “A” had not occurred, there would be no “B”; no “C”; no “D” — right???
So when are Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, and Powell being tried for their crimes?
(BTW, I recently saw in the news that Germany is asking their courts to incarcerate a 90-year-old Nazi criminal.)
And we wonder why the Afghan army learned that it is easier and safer to turn their guns on NATO troops instead of on their own people.
Morally objectionable only matters if you’re paying attention and have morals. Americans fail on both counts. Somewhere along the line we divorced ourselves from the reality that war itself is a moral outrage. Now it’s just background noise, the ugly maintenance necessary to keep an empire running.
I say good for Germany (re: the 90-year-old Nazi). It’s not like the Nazis only took certain ages of Jews to the camps. Just think, eventually the sarcastic line will be, “It sounded better in the original American English.”
To derlehrer:
Re Germany jailing the Nazi: It won’t happen here until America’s reemergent fascist menace is soundly thwarted by some coalition of the “we’re tired of your chronic global entitlement tantrums of mass destruction.”
The wrong action is (at least) a 935-way tie among the lies told by the Bush/Cheney junta to “sell” their wars.
The lies link: http://www.iwatchnews.org/accountability/iraq-war-card
Gosh darn – this is the first time that we seem to have reached a common ground here at Ted’s Place, and i won’t argue with anything anyone has said. War is evil. War is horrible. War is watching your friend next to you have half his head blown off or having to pick up his pieces – picking up the pieces is really the hardest part. When you come back – no one cares or wants to know.
Really good cartoon, Ted.
Thanks, Russell!
Ted: I have written to other bloggers, asking why they never mention your blog. That’s a shame, on them!
Very funny cartoon, Ted, when Obama wins in November, this might be the one I pick, so…don’t sell the original. Of course, you might do something even funnier by then so I’m not saying for sure…..
Need you ask, Ted ? «D», of course – after all, it’s generation Z that rules the roost (or at least, so they are led to think, by those powers who wield the levers of political and economic control)….
Henri
In any decent society this cartoon would be fine on its own, but I think for a depressingly large portion of American’s to understand its true meaning and purpose (in light of what is being implied to them by papers whom they trust) you needed to add a choice “E) All of the above.” Then a few of the indoctrinated commoners would, mentally reach over to check the choice “D)” that they have been programed to accept as the answer, see choice “E)” and stop and think for a moment. It might not change their final decision but at least they would stop and think, however briefly, about an important perspective that they are not getting in the main stream media and the other propaganda streams from which they get their “information” and accepted views.