The Economics of Cartoon Spinoffs

Occasionally I receive emails such as this one from Jim:

First, I love your work. Your comics are absolute genius and your columns a refreshing, hard-hitting dose of unapologetic liberalism amid Yahoo!’s boring roster. Your most recent cartoon, about the logic of pre-emption, strikes me as something perfect for a wall poster. Have you made posters out of any of your comics? Would you? I could use something to put up in my dorm room besides football and movie posters! Thanks, and keep fighting the good fight,

Of course I’d love to do some posters. I made two available as free downloads during the 2004 presidential campaign. But the sad truth is, there’s no way to make printing posters economically feasible. Here’s why:

The minimum print run to make full-color posters viable is 1,000. That may not sound like a lot, but as fellow cartoonists have told me, you’re lucky to sell a couple of hundred. Each poster costs $1.50 to print, which makes the print bill around $1,800 when you include set-up costs, shipping and sales taxes. Let’s say I price the posters to move, at $5 plus shipping. Then I sell 200. I’ve made $1,000. Net loss: $800.

Truth is, the only way to make posters work is in conjunction with some event where the organizers sell them as a momento of the evening.

This is also why so few cartoonists do postcards.

Of course, all of this would change if fans were to buy more than one copy of these items they crave so badly if and when they came out. For instance, readers are constantly asking when I’ll publish another collection of my editorial cartoons since the last one, SEARCH AND DESTROY, came out in 2001. The answer is: sales for cartoon collections are always terrible, even for big-time Pulitzer winners. Readers claim they want them, but they don’t buy them. That would change, of course, if fans took to buying 10 copies of their favorite cartoonist collections and giving them out as presents to their friends and relatives. But it seems terribly unlikely.

Sending Up Jesus

A concerned reader asks:

I have just read your new article about “Republican Jesus.” I must say that it was quite entertaining. Any commentator could write a column that criticizes politicians, but here, you have managed to cleverly express it in the form of a parody of stories from the Bible. That is something unique that I have not seen in a while.

However, there is one question I have for you about this. If I am not mistaken, you wrote this

article as a satire on how Republicans constantly overuse Jesus and Christianity as a tool for pushing their political agendas as well as how much the real Christ differed from President Bush.

You are not mistaken.

Unfortunately, not everyone seems to have gotten the message. Talking online, I have noticed that some people who read the article have interpreted it as an outright slander and insult to Christianity. This a big argument that right-wingers use to discredit liberals: that they are cold-hearted athiests who ridicule and demean the beliefs of the devout and religious.

I know that you desire to try and convince conservatives to change and see things the liberal

way. But is this really the right way to do that? Could it cause a backlash?

Christ himself suffered from the fact that not everybody got the message, including most so-called Christians, but that doesn’t mean that the message wasn’t worth delivering. It’s true that not everybody will understand satire, especially delivered in an unorthodox format. That said, if a reasonably intelligent person does get it, the odds are that it’s sufficiently obvious for most people to get it if they make an effort. Whenever I’ve dumbed down an idea to accomodate some misguided sense that people are too stupid to understand more sophisticated approaches, I’ve found the results disastrous. Far better to lose a few people–who probably don’t want to understand anyway–than to lose everybody.

Long-time readers know that, before Generalissimo El Busho seized power, a significant portion of my work was devoted to “social commentary”–observations about relationships, the workplace, etc. Unfortunately I haven’t gotten to do much of that stuff for the last four years. When I write that I haven’t gotten to do it, I mean that it would have seemed irresponsible to draw a cartoon about the foibles of living with a pot-addled roommate while living in a nation that was dropping bombs on anything that moved. There was so much to say, and so few other cartoonists were saying it, that trying to convince people that Bush was evil became something of a chore, a duty. And the media–well, even the altie/liberal media barely scratched the surface of Bush’s evil.

Now that Bush is seemingly installed for another four-plus years (hey, the Constitution is only a suggestion, as Alberto Gonzales and Antonin Scalia know), going after Bush personally won’t accomplish much. After all, he can’t run again. Politics is big picture again. If Bush starts war against Iran, as he is obviously trying to do, I’ll go after him but my focus will be rightly (no pun intended!) on the American public, legislators and journalists who let his gangsters get away with it. And I definitely intend to do more cartoons like the piece that prompted one FOR to write:

Man bites God is the greatest thing you’ve done so far. But I’ve no doubt that there is plenty more where that came from. Keep it up. We need to hear dissenting views, and when they come from deep left field, so much the better.

If you liked Man Bites God, there’s more work like that from the books that collect my 1990s work.

Another Reason I’d Love to Debate Ann Coulter

FOR Tom sends:

Normally we wouldn’t allow such a large picture of Ann Coulter to appear on this website, but we wanted to afford our readers every pixel of Coulter crow. The conservative talking head was being interviewed by Bob McKeown on Fifth Estate on Canada’s CBC in that low droaning voice we’re huge fans of when she got her facts terribly, terribly wrong about the Vietnam war.

Coulter: “Canada used to be one of our most loyal friends and vice-versa. I mean Canada sent troops to Vietnam – was Vietnam less containable and more of a threat than Saddam Hussein?”

McKeown interrupts: “Canada didn’t send troops to Vietnam.”

Coulter: “I don’t think that’s right.”

McKeown: “Canada did not send troops to Vietnam.”

Coulter (looking desperate): “Indochina?”

McKeown: “Uh no. Canada …second World War of course. Korea. Yes. Vietnam No.”

Coulter: “I think you’re wrong.”

McKeown: “No, took a pass on Vietnam.”

Coulter: “I think you’re wrong.”

McKeown: “No, Australia was there, not Canada.”

Coulter: “I think Canada sent troops.”

McKeown: “No.”

Coulter: “Well. I’ll get back to you on that.”

McKeown tags out in script: “Coulter never got back to us — but for the record, like Iraq, Canada sent no troops to Vietnam.”

The full video is available on Crooks and Liars.

Always Complaining

Jorge writes:

I will preface my comments by telling you I consider myself a moderate Republican. I am not a zealots and I do take issue with some of the stances taken by the Bush administration. I have been reading your column now for several weeks and find that you are very good at criticizing all the actions of the Bush administration. In fact I have yet to find one positive thing you have to say about Republicans. All well and good, it’s easy to criticize. What I do not see in any of your work are answers! It is easy to sit back and criticize how the U.S. interrogates terrorist suspects, it’s easy to criticize who they nominate for cabinet positions, and it’s easy to complain about the health care system or social security. Now the hard part….what is your suggestions to address these problems?

It’s my job to criticize, not to parrot the Administration line. Sometimes I agree with what a politician does. For instance, Bush announced during his State of the Union address that he intends to make it easier for death penalty defendants to get DNA testing for their defense. Great! About time, long overdue, and assuming he’s not lying again or doesn’t intend to fund it, I say, “Go, Bush!” But really, Bush doesn’t need me to say that. He’s got the entire national press, most television and of course his party machinery. The role I play is to point out the stuff that people aren’t, but ought to be, saying. And that stuff is mostly critical.

1. In Iraq they captured 3 suspected lieutenants of Al-Zarqawi, how would you get them to talk or would you? What would you allow our forces to do to get the information that may lead to the capture of the leader? What tactics would be OK in your book?

They should be afforded all of the rights and privileges as prisoners of war captured under the Geneva Conventions. That means that they can refuse to answer questions, and may not be subjected to sleep deprivation or other physical means of coercion.

2. You want a national health care system. Ok how do we get one, how much would each American pay in taxes? Like the vast majority of people in the U.S. I live pay check to pay check….I really could not afford too much more than what I already pay for health insurance. Sure you could say well you won’t pay another penny. Fine, who pays for those who do not have employer based insurance…self employed people, minimum wage people, or the unemployed?

We NEED a national healthcare system. I’ve outlined my detailed proposal for financing such a system in my book WAKE UP, YOU’RE LIBERAL. If you’re broke, get your library to obtain it for you. The basics are, however: soak the rich and corporations for the taxes they ought to be paying, and used to pay 40 years ago.

3. It may not be a crisis but it is known that at some point in time SSI will begin to pay out more than it takes in. Ok say it will be OK for another 50 years, do we then just turn our backs and let whoever is in charge then fix it. What is your idea to fix the problem we know is coming or should we just ignore it? Finally, if the privatization of SSI is done on a voluntary basis, why are you so much against it?

The problem, as I wrote in my column a few weeks ago, should not be ignored. That said, it’s not a crisis. We can take our time and carefully consider the options before rushing into or being bullid into accepting the Bush proposal.

Of course privatization would begin piecemeal, on a voluntary basis. Never doubt, however, that that would soon change. Politics is always incremental; just look at the way the elimination of the estate tax was sold as a deal that would expire in ten years, only to see Republicans turn around and call that expiration date (which was their idea!) a Democratic tax increase. Greater and greater proportions of the Social Security trust fund would be privatized on an increasingly involuntary basis. And then the stock market will crash, as it always does, and everyone will be sad and confused and surprised.

Report Alberto Gonzales

FOR Greg writes:

http://public.afosi.amc.af.mil/eagle/index.asp

Got an enemy you want to dispatch? A buddy you want to play a prank upon or just fuck with an innocent bystander? Then submit their name(s) to the US Air Force’s Operation Eagle Eyes, their version of Big

Brother in the extremis. Supposedly, when East Germany was still part of the USSR, that country’s internal spy agency, the Stasi, had over 1/3 of the people spying on the rest of the country. Where in the hell is the escape hatch?

Damn Slacker

Dierdre demands:

Ted, update the already! I look forward to reading it each week.

Sorry about that. Just got back from civilization, er, France. I was shilling books.

The Iraqi Resistance

Jason writes a letter that reveals much of the mindset of the pro-invasion set:

So, Ted, I was wondering if you were willing to acknowledge, at this point, that the despicable terrorists in Iraq aren’t quite the bold Freedom Fighters that you had painted them out to be. Not too long ago, you were

painting them out as to be noble fighters for the common Iraqi against the oh-so-sinister American regime. I’m just wondering if your opinion has changed now that they have bombed Iraqi mosques, killed Iraqi judges and done everything they can to usurp the democratic process.

First and foremost, let’s get our terms straight. There is no democratic process in Iraq. Iraq is occupied by 150,000 U.S. troops. The Baath and other parties are proscribed from participating in elections or holding public office. In a real democracy, voters are free to choose from any party. In a real democracy, a foreign occupation force does not exert any political influence whatsoever. And in a real democracy, people aren’t afraid to venture out into the streets, risking rape or kidnapping in order to vote. You can’t have democracy without basic security, period.

So this is not democracy.

Which gets us to the next term: “Iraqi judges,” etc. By definition anyone who holds public office in an occupied country is a collaborator. This would include, for example, Palestinian Authority “leaders” under the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. Now a collaborator may or not be a good person, and he may or may not be laboring under a benevolent occupier, but he is certainly a collaborator and thus a fair target for nationalist/patriotic resistance forces seeking to expel the occupiers.

Collaborators are, in some ways, even more of an enemy to the Iraqi resistance than the Americans. They demoralize the resistance and set an example of subservience that other Iraqis may emulate. It’s not surprising, therefore, that Iraqi guerillas would choose to execute them.

I can understand your fear that we, the filthy Americans, seek to set up a puppet regime in Iraq. However, I can’t see how any civilized person would believe that blowing up voting stations and killing candidates is the proper

way to retaliate against such an alleged invasion.

The puppet regime is already a given. And the election is a lame attempt to legitimatize that puppet regime. Iraqis who vote in this show election are no different than Frenchmen who cheered Marshall Pétain during the Nazi occupation. Had there been an “election” under Vichy rule, it would have been the patriotic duty of every Frenchman to bvoycott it.

I’ve known many of your type and I know that you never, ever are willing to admit to a wrong. You were unwilling to admit that you had severely overstated your case against the Nazi werewolves, and I’m sure you’d be unwilling to admit that you were incorrect in your support of these vile murderers.

I can and do admit when I’m wrong, as readers of the well know. And, by the way, I checked into the comparisons with the Nazi “werewolves” resistance after the fall of Germany at the end of World War II. As I wrote originally, there are no documented cases of casualties inflicted by them. None. They may have cut a few power lines, but they had nothing like the effectiveness of the current Iraqi resistance fighters–to which the Hard Right tried to compare them.

So go ahead and put my e-mail address up on your blog if you wish. All of your fanatical fans are just as blinded with anti-American hatred as you are, and I always love to hear from such idiots. And, please, Ted, drop the

pretense about you being a great patriot. You’re not. You’re a fucking socialist piece of shit who abhors everthing about our nation – other than the wealth and the freedom of speech that it bestows upon you.

I only run your email address if you cross the rhetorical line outlined in my email rules. (Which Jason didn’t.) Whether or not I am a patriot is for others to judge. I do love this country, however, and I’m fighting my damnedest to remind my fellow Americans of our core values, those we all learned as children, and to stop the Hard Right from revolutionizing us into a neofascist nightmare. (By the way, I don’t recall labeling myself. And another by the way: since when are socialists anti-patriotic?)

If you would in some way condemn the Iraqi terrorists, then perhaps I’d think a little bit better of you, but – until then – you are disgusting.

And I might think better of you when you stopped using loaded rhetoric like refering to resistance fighters (a clearer and more neutral term) as “terrorists.” Unless, of course, you also consider George Washington to have been a terrorist, in which case we’ll let it go.

For the record: I don’t share the vision of radical Islamism that some of the anti-US resistance in Iraq apparently wants to impose on Iraq and the Middle East. I wish nothing more than to see the people of the world rise up, overthrow their dictators and autocrats, and create just, peaceful, representative political and economic systems that reward people for their hard work and provide security in their everyday lives. Taliban-like theocracies are obviously antiethical to that goal.

But ultimately it’s up to the citizens of each nation to decide for themselves, sometimes via civil war and acts of violence, to determine how they want to live. Who is to say that my vision, that our vision of democracy, is best for every country? Besides, we still have too much work to do here in the United States of America before we can hold ourselves up as a shining beacon of hope to the rest of the world. We have an unelected dictator for a a”president,” a nation that denies tens of millions of people access to basic healthcare, kids throwing their unwanted babies into Dumpsters, young adults plunged into student loan poverty, systemic racism that divides our cities and suburbs into haves and have-nots, a wildly inadequate retirement system that the ruling party is trying to get rid of–like I said, we have a lot of work to do.

The choice between radical Islam and American-style pseudodemocracy is a false one presented by the Hard Right. There is 0.0% danger that Islamists will take over the United States. And it is 0.0% our business whether it takes over other countries.

Plagiarism?

FOR Jarrett writes:

Robert Higgs has decided to copy your December opinion without referencing you. See http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=1452. Does it annoy you when others copy your material?

There’s nothing more annoying than being plagiarized. A few weeks after I sent Michael Kinsley a bunch of cartoons in his capacity as a magazine editor, he wrote a column that appeared to lift the rather esoteric concept of my cartoon hook, line and sinker. Of course, I’m not 100% certain. It may have just been a coincidence, though I still doubt it.

There are some remarkable similarities between my column comparing Bush to FDR and the above-referenced piece by Robert Higgs. But is it plagiarism?

Perhaps. Perhaps not. Some ideas occur to different people simply because they’re true or make sense at the time. This could be one of those times. Or Higgs thought that no one in the UK reads my Yankee Dog writing.

Seriously: I don’t know. And when I don’t know something, I assume the best. Unlike, say, the Bush Administration.

Ted Rall Clipping Service

It’s time once again to put out a shout out to faithful Ted Rall fans living in cities where my cartoons and/or columns appear in your local paper. I need tearsheets! Mainly to show to prospective clients but also to enter contests like the Pulitzer. Here’s what I need from you: When you see my stuff in print, cut out the WHOLE PAGE and set it aside. Every 2-3 months or so, drop that stack of tearsheets into the mail to yours truly. That’s all there is to it. In return, you get my undying gratitude and a free signed copy of every new book I put out. (Speaking of which: I’ve lost a few addresses of previous TRCSers, so please get in touch if you’re one of them. I want to send you your loot.)

I only need one correspondent per city, so please email me at chet@rall.com. Thanks!

A Note from the Morally Oblivious

From the mailbag:

You are correct, Ted. The Taliban and it’s fighters are not there to kill Americans. They are there to make sure that every man, woman, and child within their grasp has a chance to enjoy being flogged, and have their fingers, toes, eyes, arms, and legs removed for the pettiest offenses. Perhaps, if the subject of this paragon of virtue and fairness that you so loyally defend is doubly lucky, he/she might be able to participate in a public execution in front of the home fans.

And where did I ever say that that stuff was OK? Quite to the contrary, I was loudly decrying the Taliban when they were running most of Afghanistan. That said, what Afghans do to Afghans isn’t my business, your business or George W. Bush’s business. Political change sticks when it occurs organically, without outside interference. Moreover, I’ll happily follow Dubya’s Global Campaign for Freedom when he applies it without concern for oil reserves and/or ideology. When he attacks Saudi Arabia and Uzbekistan with the same zest he applies to regime change in Iraq and Iran, I’ll be right there with him. Until then, forgive me if I doubt his motives.

America is not perfect. Nor are it’s citizens, government, and leadership. Sure, we’ve made mistakes, as do all countries.

Is murdering 160,000 innocent Afghan and Iraqi soldiers and civilians a “mistake”? Well, I guess it is. But it’s also an act of genocide on par with the worst moments in human history, and I’m not going to make excuses for the regime that carried it out or the people (including me) who stood by and watched while it went down on CNN.

We are also the only country in the world that is capable of helping other nations.

Really? Tell it to India, a big donor nation for tsunami relief despite being hit hard themselves. Or the Europeans, who gave a lot more than we did on a per capita basis. Or the Soviet Union, who “helped” Afghanistan when they crossed the Friendship Bridge from the Uzbek SSR to invade. Invaders always say they’re there to liberate; hardly ever has it been true.

We citizens of the U.S. will never agree unanimously on the correctness of these efforts to help, or whether they are being carried out in the correct fashion, in the correct places, with the correct amount of money and other resources being allocated to the correct people. The decisions involved in our various aid processes has got to be mind numbing to say the least, and only people who are able to make decisions and withstand criticism from know-everything-do-nothing columnists and media personalities like you should be in positions of leadership.

Yeah, because pundits are so much more of a pernicious influence than, say, Halliburton and other corporate sponsors of the two parties.

You see, Ted, that way we Americans are able to continue to enjoy the freedom to criticize our government, instead of worrying about our government shooting us in the back of the head in front of our friends and family for disagreeing with the Friendly Neighborhood Taliban Radical Islamist that you so staunchly defend.

Except: the Taliban never threatened our freedoms. On that, surely, every sane American can agree.

Friends of Rall

Several correspondents ask, slightly sarcastically: What is required to become a full-fledged FOR (Friend of Rall)? To which, after long rumination, I must reply this: If you have to ask, you probably don’t have it.

Illegal Immigrants

This week’s column on illegal immigration is provoking some interesting mail. Among the replies is this excellent question from Theo:

Your current column states that there are “nine million illegal immigrants… living and working in the United States.” And that “ten percent of the U.S. workforce is currently undocumented.” Is that a typo? It can’t be true that only ninety million Americans work, out of a population of 280 million, can it? Perhaps I am mistaken. But if you are in error, please correct your column. You know that the right-wing

morons are always looking for some way to twist your words… let’s not give them any ammunition, even by way of an honest mistake.)

No, let’s not. Theo is quite right; the US workforce is significantly larger than 90 million. You get to 10 percent by adding the 9 million undocumented illegals who live here permanently to the migrants who go back and forth betweem the U.S. and their nations of origin (usually Mexico).

But the Doesn’t Pay Anything

Bill writes:

big fan of the cartoons, though now enjoy the even more. As a Brit, though living in Southern Africa (countries down here get election monitoring teams from Europe and America – perhaps Botswana should have sent some to the US in return last year), I have a question: I realise that the US and it’s administration is your major focus, but have you deliberately chosen to lay off the other members of the coalition of the willing? Like the UK and Tony Blair? Now there’s a country where seemingly most of Blair’s party didn’t support the war and he got more support from the opposition! A lot of Labour supporters want him out, but the party to stay in. And one of the biggest complaints is of his `Presidential style’ and the `US corruption of UK politics’. Actually, maybe it just isn’t funny enough…

We kind of have our hands full with Bush, don’t you think? Besides, Steve Bell does such a good job savaging Blair that I hardly think I could compete. But there’s more to it than that. First, it’s true that American readers and editors just aren’t really interested in the assorted toadies and lackeys in the coalition of the shilling. More importantly, Bush and the US are the root of the problem, which is why I focus on them.

But Merch Does

Lee writes:

Are you still selling signed books? If so, how much for Generalissimo El Busho and Gas War? Thanks!

As a general rule, I sell signed copies of my new books when they first come out. That way I can buy the correct number from my publisher and send them out without having to turn my home into a warehouse. I have very few copies of EL BUSHO or GAS WAR around so I’m loathe to sell them at this point. What I will do in these situations is sign books that you send me to sign. Here’s the procedure:

1. Send the books you want me to sign to: Ted Rall, PO Box 1134, New York NY 10027

2. Make sure you include a self-addressed STAMPED envelope large enough to hold the books and containing sufficient padding to protect them during shipment. Postage should be sufficient for the weight of the books.

3. Include a note letting me know how you want it signed (“For “Bob,” just my signature, whatever).

4. Allow up to 4 weeks for me to send them back.

Ted Rall Subscription Service

By popular demand I’m issuing a reminder about the Subscription Service for 2005. For $10 per year you get my cartoons and columns emailed directly to your address, sometimes days before they go online. It’s a good way to save web-surfing time and to pay my legal expenses at Guantánamo, so if you’re game, here’s how to sign up:

1. Send an email to chet@rall.com indicating your interest.

2. I’ll respond and tell you how to pay via PayPal or:

2b. Simply send $10 to Ted Rall, PO Box 1134, New York NY 10027 with a note containing your email addess.

Original Artwork

While we’re shilling, this is a reminder that I do sell my original artwork. Prices vary between $300 and $500 per cartoon. Please bear in mind that you’ll be getting the ink drawings only–that means no colors or grayscale shadings are included. Still, original cartoon art is highly collectible and way cool to have on your wall, so if you’re interested in a piece just shoot me an email at chet@rall.com and I’ll let you know whether I have the piece you’re inquiring about. Payment can be done by PayPal or check/money order.

As an inducement good for the rest of January only, I’ll throw in a free copy of a signed book of your choice (one of my books, natch!) with the sale of each original.

Iranian Invasion Plans

A FOR writes:

Thanks for taking my previous tip to write a column about the upcoming war with Iran. Here is a news lead to further information that this is where Bush’s junta will take things after Iraq: http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20050116/ts_nm/iran_usa_newyorker_dc

This needs to be counteracted proactively.

One small point is that “the Left” needs to roll out the slogan: “Support Our Troops. Bring Them Back Home to Their Families Today.” Not to imply that a slogan will have much impact, but that is (yet another) point where the Right has gotten the upper hand back (by equating patriotism with supporting troops to stay in a state of war). Bumper stickers galore with this slogan could change the perspective of the ambivalent middle of the American public.

One other key point is that legislation needs to be pushed through to end the tax exempt status of churches. As the recent election period has shown, these are just sociopolitical organizations, often involved in business-like operations (printing and distributing newsletters, bibles, publications, etc. in exchange for donations, to say nothing of the vast empires of real estate that some churches rent out as landlords or the vast health care systems that they control and profit from).

Thanks for your dedication.

I disagree. The “Support Our Troops” stickers should be replaced with stickers that read “Support Our Wars.” It’s a volunteer military, folks. If there’s no troops, there are no wars–at least not those without widespread support by the American people. I feel badly for the troops, sure, but I feel even worse for the innocent civilians and enemy soldiers they’re killing in foreign lands where we have no business being. This “Support Our Troops” shit is turning the left into fellow travelers in militarism.

As I Predicted Last Year

Well, me and many others. The New Yorker reports that the Bushists have sent troops into Iran. Of course, Iran would be fully justified if it were to delcare war on us for invading their sovereign territory. But we’re big bullies, they’re scared, and most Americans don’t have any problem with that.

Here’s another prediction: If we go to war against Iran, the US will never recover economically or politically. We may not go the way of the Soviet Union, but we’ll give them a run for their lack of money.

Sometimes Fascists Seem So Polite

Alan writes about last week’s column, “The Normalization of Horror”:

Are you actually suggesting that the current US policy of capturing armed guerilla fighters and holding them as Prisoners of War is the same thing as the Nazi policy of exterminating captured unarmed civilians? I do not possibly think I can explain to you how offensive this is to me, as a Jew, an American and as a former US Army officer.

Well, that’s the point, isn’t it? We’re NOT holding them as POWs. Remember? Bush says the Geneva Conventions don’t apply to Afghan prisoners. In Iraq, he said that they did but undermined that statement by endorsing the notorious “torture memo” written by Alberto Gonzales. The fact that Gonzales is about to become Bush’s attorney general tells you how Bush felt about his work.

The vast majority of Gitmo, Abu Ghraib and INS gulag inmates were not armed when captured. They were sold to the US by Afghan warlords for a fee. Most are simply someone’s political or personal enemy in the Middle East. According to the US government itself, only about 35 out of thousands and thousands of Muslim detainees held any leadership position in a terrorist organization.

US policy toward Afghan and Iraqi civilians is officially the same as the Nazis in their occupied territories: we don’t. In practice, there is a difference: Nazis were engaged in a systematic program of ethnic cleansing. The United States, on the other hand, drops bombs on civilian targets without care or concern for those living there. The end result is the same: lots of innocent people end up dead who would otherwise still be alive had we never come along. How a “Jew, an American and a former Army officer” could endorse the neofascist Bush Administration is a mystery.

Because I support the decision to fight against Islamic Fascism, you are trying to tell me that I am like a German who went ahead enjoyed life while my Government perpetrated genocide. You are trying to equate President Bush to Hitler and therefore the US Military to the SS and the Gestapo and therefore people like me to a German citizen who happily supported Nazi atrocities.

Lay off the Hitchens. There is no such thing as “Islamic Fascism.” There is radical Islam, of course.

I’m not trying to equate anything. George W. Bush equated himself to Hitler when he seized power in an illegal coup d’état and locked up his political enemies into concentration camps (definition: “A camp where civilians, enemy aliens, political prisoners, and sometimes prisoners of war are detained and confined, typically under harsh conditions”). The US military equated itself to the SS when it began breaking into innocent civilians’ homes during the dead of night and carried off fathers while their wives and children screamed. And we all live like good Germans every day of this wretched post-2000 nightmare that looks like America but is nothing of the sort. If anything, we’re worse than the Germans because we know what’s going on, yet choose not to do anything about it. or worse–like Alan–even make excuses for the neofascists in charge.

Well I suggest that it is people like you, who would rather stand back and do nothing that strengthened Hitler and allowed the Third Reich more time to operate. The Nazi’s did not stop what they were doing because they had a sudden change of heart. The Nazis were defeated militarily. They were destroyed, not persuaded to rethink what they were doing. The Nazi’s were destroyed by the American Military and I am grateful, not ashamed for that.

If Alan had read my work since 9/11, he would know that “doing nothing” has never been my prescription. We should have avenged 9/11, brought the perps to justice and taken steps to make America safer. It is George W. Bush and his neofascists who have done nothing…nothing positive, anyway. One thing is certain: if Bush had been president in 1939, he would have joined the Axis. Hitler was his kind of man, and the Nazis were his sort of peeps.

I believe that I owe my freedom and safety to the people who were and are willing to fight against tyranny. The very least I think we, as people who do not have to go to war ourselves could do, is not send enemy fighters back to the battlefield where they can resume killing U.S. Military personnel. If you think sending Taliban fighters back to Afghanistan to kill more Americans is OK, I would suggest that you are trying to destroy, rather than protect the United States.

Don’t forget, Alan: Taliban fighters weren’t in Afghanistan to kill Americans. They LIVE there. We don’t. If US troops want to avoid attacks in Afghanistan from Afghan resistance fighters, they should leave as most Afghans want them to do.