Doonesbury by Garry Trudeau for December 21, 2011

Q: What makes it hard to defend the Iraq War?A: The facts.

One should always remember that George W. Bush did in fact have a foreign policy – and it’s as old as the Roman Empire:

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Veni Vedi ViciIran, Iraq, I Conquered.

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Made possible by a grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which the Lord Emperor Cheney failed to abolish; the Men and Women of Halliburton Corporation, where we don’t mind cheating our troops; Enron Corporation, which saved its cheating for the State of California; and from annual support from Viewers Like You. Thank you.

“The roots of irony: truth.” Or this: Truth is the Irony that smash-mouths Great Lie traditional hypocrisy. Just like the greatest Russian General of WW II, Gen Zhukov, smash-mouthed the Nazi “super-race” traditional hypocrisy through the eastern German reich and all the way to Hitler’s bunker.

“the Jewish state has made the public display of Christmas trees a crime! (1) Sounds like another anti-semitic lie. Prove it, Dandwriter1. (2) Your “history” of the Jewish Diaspora from the birth of Christianity as a non-violent Jewish sect in post-Maccabean Judea smells like the rotting corpse of a pig.

Readers of this arc for the last two days who have responded viscerally to the professor’s litany of villainsare missing the target of GBT’s satire. They should adopt skepticism of B.D. and especially Ray, who seems to have found the magic word—-irony—-that makes him look savvy in the classroom.This professor, an ex-officer, confessed he was all for the Iraq war until 2006. Now he’s looking for someone to blame for “the biggest policy disaster in U.S. history.” I hope Ray and B.D. aren’t the only ones to detect the pungent stench of self-exculpation in this pontification. The professor wants the younger generation to hold Bush & Cheney & Pearle et alii “accountable” so they won’t look into the professor’s military role.

Your “news” source, Ma’an, isn’t familiar to me. But it doesn’t support your point. It was only one mayor, not the head of Israel who did the banning. The Christmas tree public display ban limited to one town, one where few if any Christians live. We do this in America today in some locals. Bottom line: If your “tall tale” of supposed 2,000 year history is not supported either in Israel or occupied Palestine, then your evidence isn’t credible and your argument fails. 

Ray’s answer, “freakin’ ironic” goes right to the heart of the issue. To go “deeper” as the prof wants to do is going to get you into the guts, not the heart. You’re going to end up with a “more visceral”, less truthful, explanation. Yea for Ray!

The white prof sounds a bit racist by his use of the condescending inclusive "we"pronoun when he addresses Ray, a black man. The irony: Ray’s intellectual penetration of the subject (he’s been there; he’s intelligent; he’s up to date) subverts the prof, who must then take refuge in the phony “deeper” metaphor.

Re the prof taking refuge in the useful ruse, “Let’s dig a little deeper”, trying — but failing — to imply Ray’s shallowness, Simon and Garfunkel’s lyrics apply: 

I know I’m fakin’ it, I’m not really makin’ it. This feeling of fakin’ it— I still haven’t shaken it.

Let ’em have the trees. Trees have absolutely nothing to do with Christian faith.

I checked out your website source, “If Americans Knew”. It’s too one-sided to be reliable; it tends to be anti-semitic; IOW it sucks. Therefore your whole argument is rubbish.

1. Instructors using “we”: no big deal, happens all the time. I know it happened in my seminar classes in grad school.

2. An instructor agreeing that the student’s answer is correct, but not complete isn’t an insult, but rather part of the conversation that part of the socratic method.

3. The instructor was for the war before he saw and learned enough to conclude it was wrong. While a lot of people call that “flip-flopping”, I call that “learning”. People who can’t change their minds on anything, no matter what the evidence that their first position was wrong had better hope that they are as infalible as God.

“Have you ever read the Pauline epistles in the New Testament?” I have an M.Div. in Christian systematic theology, which includes New Testament studies. “You don’t think that the Jews have been pissed for a very long time by the way he wrote about them?” The two-millennia story is so much more complex than you imply here, that it’s obvious you don’t know what you’re talking about. “You think that the Jewish culture doesn’t have a payback complex?” Yes. (Only some Jews do.) “How naive.” No comment.

The best part about paper man arguments is you can leave out some facts. Before 2003 Christians couldn’t leave Iraq.

“Before 2003 Christians couldn’t leave Iraq” Where do you get that from, Tentee? Starting at least 30-40 years ago, Chaldean Christians started pouring into S-E Michigan. Hard workers, they own and run just about all of the independent grocery and party stores around here. The Chaldean diaspora strted way way before 2003.

Excuse me, but have “you” read them? Paul WAS a Jew and was proud of it. As were most of the early Christians. In fact, the very word “Christian” was coined by Nero during the Roman presecutions. Paul’s call to spread the word to the Gentiles was met with disapproval by many of the highest church elders. Christianity is not a replacement for Judaism, but rather a fulfillment of it. Paul’s problem was not with the Jews, but with the Jewish leaders. As a Pharisee himself, Paul was a legimate source of criticism. He knew the system from the inside. You call Dylan Thomas naive? Your post drips of anti-Semitic bigotry.

@ Jeff Kiser:

Please explain. The Marsh Arabs are Muslim. Saddam Hussein was Muslim. Are you suggesting that without Muslim dictators, Christians would have been destroyed or absorbed?

Y’all sound like a bunch of left wing bigots! ( I should’t say all but most! Merry CHRISTmas!!!!!

“Rome had freedom of religion, so long as you at least acknowledged their gods”.You do recognize that this statement is incompatible with a monotheistic faith, don’t you?

Fairportfan2 said, about 1 hour ago.“CHristians were persecuted in Rome not because they were Christians per se – Rome had freedom of religion, so long as you at least acknowledged their gods – but because they were prone to invade the temples of other sects and disrupt their worship and/or smash their idols and icons.”

Fairportfan2: Do you always make up history to what you WANT to believe and hope others believe these lies? Rome had freedom of religion???? Their Ceasar was their god, and as Christians worshiped another God, they were heavily persecuted.

Yesterday’s strip calling the Iraq war the worst mistake in American foreign policy implies that GT forgets Nam and LBJ taking over JFK’s domino policy. And now Cheney and other neocons will want to make war on Iran for kidnapping one of our drones. It’s good to point out that Christians were relatively safe in Iraq, Libya, and Egypt so long as they didn’t mess with the ‘dictator’ in place.

The only difference between a repressive government and a repressive religion is in the people and beliefs they persecute. It will take a couple of generations for any group of people to understand freedom of religion, even in this country, there are many who do not.

No matter how the West spins it, Iraq and Afghanistan were invaded so that we would have control of their resources, not to free them from oppression. Their whole society is based on repression of one part or another – it is up to the people to be those on top. Just as communism never broke the class structure (as they would have us believe), there is no form of government(puppet or otherwise), that will stop religious sniping.

I can’t wait to see how Easter turns out.

So Dumbya’s pre-emptive war religiously cleansed Iraq of Christians. Where are my Christian Bush supporters? Say, woot!

@Dandwriter1: Anti-Semitism is a movement aimed exclusively at Jews not Arabs, even though Arabs speak a Semitic language.

And Israel is the only country in the Middle East where the Christian population has increased in the last few years rather than decreased.

Your anti-Zionism is just another way of expressing your anti-semitism.

@Dandwriter1 And furthermore, most European Jews have DNA that connects them to the Middle East; very few Jews have Khazar DNA

The tradition of using trees for holiday celebrations comes from Pagans. The Pagans of northern Europe were depressed and looking for something to cheer them up during winter. Christians did adopt this tradition many centuries ago, but Christians didn’t start it. Santa Claus isn’t Christ either, but Christians are the ones who tend to own him since he is part of the holiday and has been for many centuries.

This year I’ve put up a Bo tree in my living room. I’m not stringing any electric lights, though. I figure if I wait long enough, illumination will happen in time…

I have a feeling this is more of a democracy than a censorship issue; if you get flagged enough, you’re gone.

Much too erudite and sensible for this forum, Sharuniboy. But I’m glad to know you’re still tuned in; all the Pi-in-the-sky blathering treats us to an apocalyptic comment on each strip. And in place of the two ghastly witnesses resurrected in Rev. 11:3-11, Pi seems to be channeling the shade of Joe Allen Doty.

“In other words . . . " Trudeau often uses “other words” to make a statement that has no real foundation. To say that the US invasion caused a Christian diaspora has no basis in fact. The “diaspora” was caused by what was happening in Iraq that brought about our “invasion.”

Or perhaps a group of intelligent readers who find name-calling bigotry disgusting…

The truth is that Bush/Cheney mismanaged the occupation. They never anticipated civil unrest after the invasion and had no plan and too few troops to deal with it. The invasion of Iraq was a sensible idea poorly implemented. Still, it helped lead to the Arab Spring, and helped drag a medieval region into modernity and the world community.

@Kaffekup: Thank you and well put.

@DanD: If you mean Arthur Koestler’s “The 13th Tribe,” DNA studies have proved his theory wrong.Anti-Semites love to quote Jews to prove they are not anti-semites.

Iraq was simply the worst violation of our Constitution, and common sense, in U.S. history, perpetrated by men who saw profit, and called all others “traitor” who attempted to stand in their way, like the millions around the world who pointed to the real facts, and protested.

Something around 2,000 years ago, in the late spring or summer, a birth took place in what Romans called “the Palestine” (“Anglicized”). Folks would call him “the Prince of Peace”.

For the next 2,000 years, the vast majority of his “followers” would distort his words to their own benefit, and revile peace, in favor of wars for conquest and profit, in his name. Around 700 years later, another man would look heavenward, with an egalitarian heart, and proclaim all men and women equal. HIS followers would also distort his message for THEIR own purposes. They too became warriors, and persecutors, not heeding his teachings, changing them instead through translations or “revisions” to “clarify” what they intended to be “the message”.

Of course, the original authors of the “first book” also had their own history of persecution and murder of all who stood in their way, but hey, they “kept the faith” right into modern times.

So at this time when we celebrate the birth of the “Prince of Peace”, by all means, let’s stir up animus over the origin of our “Peace to seize a piece, of any nation, or resource, our hearts desire.”

Merry Christmas, all! Best wishes for a new year, and the hope that only those who truly desire peace, survive to lead. (Take that literally, or metaphorically, whatever.)

Your reaching a bit far here. If you read any of the other GoComics comments sections, you’ll notice references to missing comments or you’ll notice a difference between the number of comments displayed versus the count number claimed. I doubt that Gary Trudeau heads up a conspiracy sanitizing the dozens of comics found on this web site of any “truthful opposition discussion of Zionism”. Instead a more realistic analysis would be that the owners of the web site removed the comments for reasons of there own.

Once I found out a person has a blinding bias, (racist, anti-semetic, anti-Muslim, etc.), I choose to no longer engage in a dialogue with that person.

“This year it’s Nazareth, next year? The whole of Palestine!”Actually your article is from last year. This year, it’s still Nazareth Illit. Next year the mayor will probably be voted out since he sounds like he’s got more problems…

http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/police-recommend-indicting-upper-nazareth-mayor-for-graft-1.352437

Oh, did I say you? Perhaps the guilty flee when none pursue?

“And you have absolutely no proof to back up your ad-hominem allegation that I am a name-calling bigot. You must be a tattoo-wearing employee of that same, above-named brigade.”.

Thanks for the proof that I was right.

If I were Ray, I would point out that the Professor’s discourse contains an “estimated” and an “about.” That should ring an alarm bell in his ivory tower.

DanD: Actually, I’ve had my own DNA tested and, according to the results, I’m 100% Middle Eastern even though all my grandparents were born in Eastern Europe.

The Eastern European Jews are descended from several thousand families who lived along the Rhine. They themselves were descended from Jews who lived in Italy after being taken there from Judaea by the Romans. Jewish literature from the Talmud on records the leaders of these families following their flock to Germany and then to Eastern Europe and naming them from father to son.

A few Khazar Jews may have mixed in with them, but the very fact that the Yiddish language is not only made up of German, but is mixed with Old French words (linguists often study the Talmud to see these Old French words that Rashi wrote in the margins) and there are no known Khazer (Turkic) words in Yiddish.

This info is not meant for a raving, paranoid bigot like you, DanB, but for the general readership.

My guess is that the originators of the Iraq war don’t consider 600,000 members of the worlds oldest Chritian community to be “correct” Christians. If they did, then they might care.

Relate to comic!

Wasn’t the Council of Nicaea where they threw out most of the known gospels, and took a vote on whether Jesus was a prophet or the son of god? All in a political effort to unite the Christian diaspora?

“CHristians were persecuted in Rome not because they were Christians per se … because they were prone to invade the temples of other sects and disrupt their worship and/or smash their idols and icons.” The above is unfactual. 

I love talking about WWII field marshals, but it’s seldom a Doonesbury topic and I hate to distract from the current bickering.

So any ways, the German command structure was suppose to be a strategic advantage, but the Russians had some able commanders too. Zuhkov may have been the best commander in the war, on any army. Another one was Konstantin Rokossovsky, which is pretty amazing, since he was put in the gulag and tortured during one of Stalin’s purges. I don’t know if he had steel teeth as a result like some of the other generals, but I’ve never seen a picture of him smiling. On the other hand they say, “Russian field marshals never smile.”

One of my favorite images of Rokossovsky, is of him interrogating FM von Paulus (commander of German 6th army) in the basement of the Stalingrad Department Store. Von Paulus became a propaganda tool for the Soviets, and was treated rather well. Ninety thousand Germans were taken prisoner at Stalingrad. When they were finally released in 1955, only 5000 survived to return to Germany. Von Paulus was released 2 years before his command was, and later developed a motor neuron disease that left him paralyzed. He showed symptoms of the disease at the time of his surrender with an uncontrollable twitch in his cheek. He died 14 years to the day after his surrender at Stalingrad.

“…Doonesbury will mourn the fall of the Syrian dictatorship. People shouldn’t buy into simplistic cartoons. They aren’t real and they aren’t very smart. But then Doonesbury, like Saturday Night Live, hasn’t been funny since the 1970’s.” You pretty much had me aboard till you started in with this opinion. Trudeau is too sophisticated and up on current events to “mourn the fall of the Syrian dictatorship” if it falls, which I personally doubt. Beyond that, I would say that Doonesbury is indeed real in its use of hypocrisy-exposing satire, such as today’s strip. It’s also sharp and smart. It bitches. It boots backside. It exposes the truth in subtle ways. If it didn’t it certainly could not have achieved the prominence (not to mention haters) it has. Above all it remains funny, at times it is hilarious.

“many of the early Christians having been born Jews, thought that they had the right to use Jewish synagogues as much regular Jews, who strongly disagreed with that position.” There is no evidence that I’m aware of — that Christian Jews “thought that they had the right to use Jewish synagogues as much regular Jews, who strongly disagreed with that position” — that this is so. Other than the New Testament ACTS OF THE APOSTLES and PAUL’S EPISTLES. In these documents it was Paul who entered the synagogue, like Jesus did, as a Jew and began trying to prove from the Hebrew Bible (probably the LXX version) that Jesus was the messiah. The synagogue Jews (understandably) didn’t like that and kept throwing him (with his followers, including, goyim “godfearers”) out.  Again, according to these documents, these incensed Jews would contact the Roman authorities, who tended to react against Paul and his followers. On at least one occasion, they met “down by the riverside”, starting that tradition of which the song sings. But then they tended to meet in private homes of sometimes wealthy Christian goyim. The synagogue Jews then left them alone. However, by meeting in homes, they began to raise suspicions.

I guess, " left", never fought for anything other than, another box of choc milk.

We fought for our cause. America !.

I jus’ get so tired of folk’s cuttin’ us for what we did.IT DID MAKE A DIFFERANCE ! In a very good way for Iraq, America , and if you were not there… only heard a new’s report or decided that picking a daisy and offering it to an American fighter, made a statement about your value’s…

You have forgotten the lesson’s of your youth. Grow up.

I’m not sayin’ that we’re alway’s right but… BY GOD… We are the only one’s that will try. We cannot stand by and let people die by the hundred’s,can we?

Can we, as the last super power, let folk’s jus’ starve cause we’ll look the other way?

I think we are better than that…If the solution is fighting and diein’ for this cause… Thank God for the American fightin’ person in harm’s way!

By the way… MERRY CHRISTMAS ! Guess that ticked Gary off, huh ?! LOL!

OMG… I just realized that only the liberial left’s note’s are posted up front on this site.

My mistake, guess when I wished the folk’s a, " Merry Christmas", Gary went bonker’s ! LOL !

The " Christian religon only started, AFTER the death of Jesus.

The follower’s were sent out unto the world to effect the result’s you describe.

The Christian’s never attempted to, invade a synagoge. That would have very dumb at the time and feelin’s against such an attempt would have esulted in the death of Christ believer’s at the hand’s of the Jew’s. ( Once again).

GO back to school Dude !

Havin’ lived with the host of the liberal host of the,Today Show, all this time has not tainted your , " Jane Fonda", view’s ? She must of had somethin’ really special back in her day… huh??? ( You dork ) !

Trudeau is an idiot!