More active-duty soldiers killed themselves in 2012 than died in combat.
Too Easy
Ted Rall
Ted Rall is a syndicated political cartoonist for Andrews McMeel Syndication and WhoWhatWhy.org and Counterpoint. He is a contributor to Centerclip and co-host of "The Final Countdown" talk show on Radio Sputnik. He is 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 "2024: Revisited."
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It’s time for it to be said …
http://www.tedrall.com is the slowest site on the web, bar none. Took twenty seconds just load the main page, another twenty to open the link to this cartoon, another twenty to login, another twenty to ….. what is the deal? Is this site running on a locally hosted machine from 1995 with 4k of RAM or something? I had better luck loading pages in the dial-up era with a 14.4k modem under heavy traffic, and that’s serious. Not a joke.
There’s no excuse for this site running so slowly. Cost? No — not an excuse. So what then?
My great irritation is that Mr Rall is absolutely right about Afghanistan (and a lot of other things) but few agree. All the US allies sent at least a token force to support the US War on Afghanistan. All the experts (even Snopes) blame Afghanistan for 9/11/’01.
As Hunter Thompson said, since the 19 shebabs who destroyed the WTC were all dead, the US HAD to attack and punish a random country. He was wrong, of course, Bush, Jr attacked and punished TWO random countries. The support for the War on Afghanistan was almost unanimous.
So how does Mr Rall know the truth, that all the ‘experts’ who say the US has every right to blame Afghanistan for 9/11/’01 are wrong? That the high rate of suicides shows that many of our soldiers do not think of themselves as fighting for Freedom, Justice, Democracy, and Peace, but feel depressed, feel that they are killing in an unjustified, immoral, stupid war?
As I have said before, I put this down to Mr Rall’s actually going to Afghanistan and seeing for himself with his own eyes and believing what he saw, rather than what the experts told him to believe. A mistake only Mr Rall and his companion reporters made. Every mainstream reporter queued to get their stories from the US Information Office. Less work, more money, adulation and Pulitzer Prizes. And a comfortable hotel conference room in the East Hamptons is not only close enough, but much safer than actually going to Afghanistan.
***
What I myself saw, that I think Mr Rall did not, was that the Bush, Jr administration had heard that an attack was imminent, and that they took every precaution advised by the procedure manuals from the ’90s. And blaming Bush, Jr for things that were NOT his fault weakens the case for the prosecution: that he responded by punishing the innocent in ways that should be considered criminal (but aren’t).
And Obama is continuing to punish the Afghani people in ways that should be considered criminal (but aren’t). (Not to mention the people of The Yemen.)
***
Someone on gocomics wrote that it’s all Bush, Jr’s fault. I repeated the insipid right-wingnut argument that Bush, Jr has been out of power for more than 4 years, and so can’t be blamed. I added to that the fact the Obama can’t be blamed, either, since he isn’t really Commander in Chief (born in Kenya, don’t you know).
The Obamabots keep saying Obama would have done the right things, except for opposition by the Republicans. I wanted to point out that the Commander in Chief is, in fact, the Commander in Chief, and has the right to withdraw from Afghanistan and close Guantánamo. The Obamabots were not amused with my comment.
One pointed out that everyone agrees that the Afghan war was necessary, and Obama is doing just what his generals tell him to do to achieve victory. So I agreed that all the experts say that Afghanistan is worse than Nazi Germany and Obama must stay the course.
The Obamabots were not amused.
New rule: Anytime anyone tries to blame Obama for not closing Gitmo, they have to provide a suggestion on how to close it that a) is legal, b)is sensible, c) will not be immediatley and comprehensively blocked by Republicans in Congress (like the last time Obama tried to close Gitmo that always gets conveniently forgotten about) and d) is actually doable (No Ted, flying to Cuba with bags of money doesn’t work).
Its time to put up or shut up, people- if you cant come up with a way to close Gitmo that passes the above smell test, you need to shut the hell up about it bing Obama’s fault its still open and place the blame properly.
But since it’s more important to most of the left these days to bash Obama and the Democrats, I won’t hiold my breath.
New Rule: The Idiot Whimsical must admit he’s a disingenuous scumbag. A really filthy piece of work who will literally bend over backward and tongue his own asshole if that’s what it takes to defend his savior and hero, Lord Obama.
To those people who are honest and demand accountability: The ACLU listed two things Obama can do to get the process of closing Guantanamo started. He can do these things unilaterally:
“One is to appoint a senior point person so that the administration’s Guantánamo closure policy is directed by the White House and not by Pentagon bureaucrats. The president can also order the secretary of defense to start certifying for transfer detainees who have been cleared, which is more than half the Guantánamo population.”
http://www.aclu.org/criminal-law-reform-human-rights-national-security-prisoners-rights/aclu-statement-presidents
There it is in black and white — but that won’t be sufficient for scumbag filth-monger Whimsical. Why not? Because for scum like him, Obama must be defended at all costs no matter what. That is the only priority for these Daily Kos fuckheads. Their allegiance is to their savior, not the facts.
@Whimsical: I really mean this. I would love to see you sent to Gitmo, tortured and killed. I mean that. People like you, the enablers, are truly the scum of this planet. You have zero principles and are therefore not worthy of breathing air you little shit. In fact, let the detainees that have been cleared have fun torturing scum like you, and televise it on PPV. I’d pay to see that. I’d enjoy some popcorn watching your have you nuts removed and forced down your throat. You’ve earned it with your enabling posture behind your savior, at the expense of innocent people. Rot in hell scum.
You know, plant, I decided not to respond to you anymore, cause I have no intention of helping you earn your money from your right wing masters, and every time I respond to you instead of doing something productive, the people who run you get to take this country a little further down the road to hell, with you barking at their feet like the little lap dog you are. Boy are you going to be surprised when you’ve helped your right wing bosses turn this country into a fascist theocracy, and then they turn around and discard you like the used condom you are.
But I’m on vacation, and if you can’t indulge yourself smacking down an idiot on vacation, well, when can you? Unless you can demonstrate how Obama gets either of those two motions through an insane obstructionist Congress- they are like you and the rest of your opinions- completely and utterly worthless.
As for the rest of your drivel, I have never seen a clearer case of projection in any of the psych hospitals I do IT work at. You clearly know you and those who are like you, and those who run you are directly responsible for dragging this country as far along the path to hell as its gotten. And there’s clearly a part of you that is disgusted at yourself for the way you’ve enabled them to do so. That’s why you’re so angry.
But you can’t give up the anger without giving up the right-wing teat, and you don’t have a shred of the principles necessary to do that- so you lash out- directing your anger everywhere but where it belongs.
Sad, pathetic little plant *pats your head* Go back to sucking Koch, little lap dog- the grownups are talking.
Oh, by the way- have the intelligence or moral courage to answer Alex yet?
Yeah, didn’t think so…
And just to be super, ultra, clear- just because Obama can do something unilaterally, doesn’t mean it can’t be blocked- see the Executive Order that your right wing masters keep ordering you to conveniently forget.
No, the only way to close Gitmo is to place the blame where it actually belongs and get rid of he Republicans blocking the closure. And making sure the Republicans stay in power is the reason for your very existence, so you won’t be facing the actual facts any time soon.
The sooner anyone and everyone stops listening to you and those like you and starts laughing instead, the sooner progressives will start to make actual progress in this country instead of having you drag them backwards and the country down.
Great cartoon, Ted – but it would be wonderful if the problem with the amount of time it takes to load the site described by exklodexian could also be addressed. I have a fairly fast cable connexion a nominal 100 Mb/s downstream, which checks out to 94-95 Mb/s in practice – but still loading this particular site takes half an eternity….
Henri
Needless to say, I am concerned about the slow speed of my site. I am becoming more convinced that I need a professional web maintenance person due to the large size of the site. But I can’t afford one. And I don’t know how to do the sophisticated programming required to speed things up.