And the Magic Word is: al-Qaeda

What? We're still fighting 'al-Qaeda' in Afghanistan?

Say the magic word and we can have troops there until doomsday.

“You Bet Your Life!” “Say the magic woid,” Groucho would say, but our answer today is, “and we can have troops anywhere until doomsday.”

President Obama made a surprise trip to Kabul the other week as part of his up-and-running campaign against the Mittster to emphasize that HE was the one to have success in our Middle Eastern snafu, that the troops supported him and–possibly an afterthought–shore up some agreements about our post-2014-withdrawal presence in Afghanistan. What? you say–we’re going to keep a presence in Afghanistan? You bet your bippy. We still have a “presence” in Italy, Germany and Japan, 67 years after the end of WWII, much to the dismay of the Japanese although, except for the Okinawans, nobody is saying it very loud.

So the issue is, how many troops will we keep in Afghanistan after we remove all our troops from Afghanistan? I bet you thought “removing all our troops” mean “removing all our troops”! How cute! Don’t you know? According to the President, we’re still fighting al-Qaeda in Afghanistan.

AHhhh, the magic word! Al-Qaeda! Everything is justified after 9-11 by the use of that name! It justifies almost 11 long hard years of wasting countless dollars and thousands of American lives–not to mention the 100s of thousands of Iraqi and Afghan lives–and is the ne plus ultra raison d’etre for this morass (and I do mean MORE ASS!).

Now you may argue that there’s really only two al-Qaeda operatives IN Afghanistan since almost all of the left for Pakistan. We don’t really know what we know about al-Qaeda levels–it’s one of Mr. Rumsfeld’s unknown knowns. But that’s the way we are. We can’t make war on an ally, so we do the next best thing and make war on their next-door neighbor to prove how tough we are. That doesn’t mean we can’t break the rule sovereignity by pulling an assassination raid in Pakistan to get rid of Osama bin Laden–al-Qaeda again justified it!

Now our friends on the Republican side of the aisle and Fox and Friends have been raising a stink lately (a year later) over whether or not Obama SHOULD have authorized a raid that THEY would have authorized in a New York minute but now have to be critical of since Obama led the charge. AND getting upset that Obama is “spiking the ball” for having accomplished it, forgetting that George W. Bush spiked the ball on first down before we’d gotten anywhere NEAR the endzone. But that’s the way it is. Remember, they were FOR killing Osama before they were against it!

The I Ching says the superior man’s actions are both good AND correct. Unfortunately, superior men seem to be in short supply in politics today.

I will be in the Philadelphia area next weekend for ZENKAIKON, specifically, the Greater Philadelphia Expo Center in Oaks, PA, May 11-12. I’ll be returning on Sunday, so I won’t be doing a cartoon next weekend, but will return on the 20th. Happy Mother’s Day to all the moms out there!

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Ted Nugent Now Down With The Secret Service? Did He Get Them A Discount?

The Secret Service asks for student discounts at a Cartagena brothel.

Obviously, their government discount didn't apply...

Before we go anywhere, we’d like to say Thank You to Jimmy Kimmel for saying something to the POTUS that he needed to hear. It’s one thing for the President to hear criticism on “the TV” where he can ignore it as background noise and another thing to burst through the bubble and say it to his face. With a demonstration. All those who’ve never smoked marijuana raise your hands, said Jimmy at the White House correspondent’s dinner. A few hands shot up and then sheepishly went back down when the owners of said hands realized that it wasn’t necessary to be an enthusiastic liar at this moment. Probably a lot of the people who didn’t raise their hands were trying to look cool (as in the “Of course, I’ve had anal sex” variety of cool), as well. But it was high time that President Obama realize that HIS youthful indiscretion was shared by the majority of the population. And that it was no longer necessary to “atone” for it by enthusiastic scrupulosity in applying the existing BAD laws. As one commentator noted, all that was needed to get around the Defense of Marriage law was to say, “Stop enforcing it.” Why can’t Obama do the same, at least for medical marijuana? Or was that another unspoken part of the deal with Big Pharma to lower their opposition to Health Care Reform? Anyhow, thanks Jimmy Kimmel.

Now on to the Secret Service. By now, we all know that 11 Secret Service agents hired 21 prostitutes in Cartagena and got into trouble by trying to “stiff” a particularly high-priced lady. Umm, by not paying her fee. 11 agents, 21 pros. The question we’re all asking–which one of you guys couldn’t handle 2 girls?

The fact that PROSTITUTION IS LEGAL IN CARTAGENA seems to have been ignored by most of the coverage. We are outraged by the “sex scandal”. The more important part of the story is that these Secret Service boys were bragging about their jobs and relations with the President to a large group of women whose security clearances were probably flimsier than their nighties. Cheese and Weisswurst! Have we started drafting our POTUS’s bodyguard out of high school? Or isn’t there a “brain” requirement anymore?

If that is true, I have no doubt that Ted Nugent is down with the Service. Despite his inflammatory displays of guns at rallies, opining in 2007 “Obama’s a piece of shit, and I told him to suck on my machine gun”, besides his recent displays of bravado (considering his claims of elaborate ruses to escape the Vietnam era draft). He says now that the Secret Service and him are good buddies now. Hopefully because they told him to STFU. But if their Cartagena exploits are any indication of their brain pan measurements, Ted Nugent might not be the arrogant lying loudmouth he acts like.

In other sex scandals, Ricky Santorum, being the Dick that he is, had his picture taken with Lindsay Lohan and is denying it. Oh, come on, now, Ricky. You don’t ALWAYS have to act like a prick with a stick up his rectum! On the other hand, maybe you do.

And finally, in other news, Mitt Romney gave us his solution to soaring college costs. Students should borrow the money from their parents. Why not? He did.

And that’s where it stands.

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Santorum: A Frothy Mix of Bad Theology and Worse Economics…

Jesus would no doubt approve of Rick's updating of his message.

Since Rick Santorum thinks that the United States is a theocracy instead of a democracy and that President Obama is unqualified to lead it because he has the wrong “theology,” we thought it would be instructive to review the Eight Beatitudes of the Sermon on the Mount, as re-written according to RICK’S theology. Further, we wish to start a fund to send Rick a lifetime supply of ipecac to aid in his digestive problem since the constitutional separation of church and state seems to make him ill. We’ll all need some if he manages to foist his theology on us…

Blessed are the uneducated, for you can’t wash an unused brain.
Blessed are the blah people, for they won’t get food stamps (I didn’t say black!).
Blessed are the rich, for they shall have even more money than you do.
Blessed are the K Street lobbyists, for they shall get what they paid for.
Blessed are the women who have been raped, for they are bearing a special gift from God.
Blessed are the gays, for I’m going to get back at them for that frothy crack. (Umm, did I say that right?)
Blessed are the impoverished sick, for that’s all the help they’ll get from me.
Blessed are the soldiers, for they will soon be spreading Christianity in Iran.

A special thanks to Fred and Bert Squirrel, who recorded his blathering while gathering some … nuts.

I had a great time at Katsucon last weekend. Thanks to Kevin who helped me at the table (after my adventures in oral surgery the week before, I really wasn’t up to running an artist alley table all by my lonesome) and to Kristen who also pitched in at some crucial moments. A further thanks to everyone who stopped by my table and admired my art–with a double helping for those who actually bought something And shouts to all the friends I saw, Murder Nurse, T, Tala, Charlene, Jasmine, Alicia, Peter and all my other friends who have their own tables! I’ll be posting my con schedule for the rest of the year as soon as I get a few more confirmations.

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FINALLY!

A tank leaves Iraq--a little bit more peace on earth.

Going home--now let's wind up Afghanistan

Four score minus 72 years ago–the length only SEEMS Lincolnian–eight, nearly nine years, to be exact, the United States armed forces gave up the hunt for bin Laden when only a football field away from his cave to go into Iraq and do–something. It was never too clear what that something was. It was supposed to be to disarm and save the world Saddam Hussein, the mad dictator who possessed thousands of WMDs in a country that had been under UN economic sanctions for over ten years. The world was treated to visions of mushroom clouds, dancing over their heads, if this action wasn’t taken. For some reason, the French, Russians and Chinese weren’t impressed. We focused our indignation on the French and named them “surrender monkeys,” and without imprimatur of UN resolutions, blitzkrieged our way to Baghdad.

Funny thing, turns out the French were right. No WMDs. That’s OK, they’re still surrender monkeys to the vast numbers of Americans who were convinced that Saddam Hussein was going to nuke their mall in days if we didn’t invade. Turns out the country was broke–that decade of economic sanctions had done its work. The troops who faced the American-led onslaught barely had shoes, let alone WMDs. The country was SO broke in fact, that Saddam Hussein was using his reputation for insanity and for once having WMDs to protect his country from being attacked by one of his neighbors! Talk about a strategy being too successful!

The war, we were told, would pay for itself. The oil that we’d get first crack at would lower the energy bills for the United States 10 times over. Hmmmm, I wonder how THAT worked out. Forty-five bucks to fill the tank of a Honda CIVIC??? We were also told the war would be so cheap that it wasn’t worth putting on the budget. Nearly a trillion dollars later we can chalk that up as another miscalculation.

Lives? Only about 5000 American, British and “coalition of the blackmailed”. But over 100,000 Iraqi lives. The wounded figures are far greater and the wounds they suffered are far more severe because we can save lives better than we can save limbs or protect heads from explosions. The number of Americans with PTSD number in the hundreds of thousands.

A little over 8 years ago, I began a cartoon series, Hail Dubyus! lampooning the Bush administration in the hope of being even a small voice of sanity. Like the WMDs, my influence was vastly over-rated When the Bush era finally ended and the new era of hope began, I changed the name of my cartoon. I was under no illusion that things would be immediately better. In some significant ways, they are. In others, we’re in worse shape than we were before, mostly due to Congressional obstruction and economic advisors whose loyalty to Wall Street has been greater than their concern for Main Street, a chief executive who thought that good faith negotiations were possible with people who have pledged themselves to his destruction, and a Supreme Court that thinks that while all men are created equal, dollar for dollar they’re not quite as equal as corporations. On top of that, as our troops finally leave Iraq in accordance with our word to the government that we set up, these same Congressional obstructionists ask if we shouldn’t stay there a little longer to better fulfill our goals.

WHAT GOALS?

I lift my voice in thanksgiving that some of our forces will be home for Christmas, Chanukah, Yule, Kwanzaa, Saturnalia, Solstice and whatever other year end celebrations they will be able to partake of without being shot at. Happiest of holidays for them and their families! My wish for the New Year is that soon we will be able to finish whatever it is we started in Afghanistan and bring those troops home as well. And so we shall be able to say ourselves, as GIR observed when Invader ZIM told him that he could now self-destruct:

FINALLY!

Happy Holidays to Everyone. We shall take a winter break until January 23 to have time to update the website and work on other projects and get fat on Christmas cookies.

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