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1. 

   HUMPHRIES said, 4 months ago

   Bush’s defence system was like his ego, it only worked for him.

2. 

   tpenna said, 4 months ago

   Shouldn’t Bush’s program be represented by a dodo bird?

3. 

   Anthony 2816 said, 4 months ago

   Asay has officially lost it.

   Why does he hate peace so much?

4. 

   michael said, 4 months ago

   Asay is against big government, unless its spending over $100 billion dollars on missile defense we’ll never use. And it wasn’t Bush’s system, it started under Reagan, which begs the question, why are we still spending billions on it?

5. 

   dwyant said, 4 months ago

   How many missiles have you seen over your house?

6. 

   Kylop said, 4 months ago

   Close Chuck. The bird on the left panel needs to be closer to 1/2 there…1/2 under construction/ not ready yet. The bird on the right is the one I prefer.

7. 

   HOWGOZIT said, 4 months ago

   Middle finger is the only bird appropriate for most of the above.

8. 

   DrCanuck said, 4 months ago

   So, what’s he saying here, Republicans prefer war to peace?

   Well….yeah. Rather astute, I’d say.

9. 

   Robert Peters said, 4 months ago

   Anthony 2816 said,

   “Asay has officially lost it.”

   How could he? He never had it to begin with?

10. 

    GNWachs said, 4 months ago

    We indeed were idiots to declare war on the Japanese after Pearl Harbor. We should have apologized and sent a dove to discuss our surrender.

    Humphries, our defense system only worked in our minds? There were more terrorist attacks by mad Muslims in England, Germany, Spain and Canada than there were here.

11. 

    ezdeb said, 4 months ago

    Oh, GNW, how many of those terrorist attacks by “mad muslims” were made with missiles? Poor Europe and Canada! If only they had our consoling missile defense capabilities, right? Those subway bombings, hotel bombings and suicide bombings had NOTHING to do with missile defense! When “mad koreans” launch (an actual missile) at Hawaii, then we will see what 30 years of pouring billions into this endlessly whining hawk has accomplished. Oh, and Ass-ay could just as easily have made a more accurate cartoon. Despite the right’s tantrums, there will still be 3 of 4 missile defense bases in AK. One is being cut, and it never did come online. It never was finished, and the DOD (NOT Obama) is requesting it be scrapped because it duplicates the bases already in existence. If you can, GNW, please tell us how this is Obama’s appeasement. How about you, HQ? No. All you need is the little smirky comments from ppl like Asay and you are happy. Morons.

12. 

    ezdeb said, 4 months ago

    …and the little Obama in the corner of the cartoon says “Hey, we have to cut spending somewhere.” Can any of you idiot righties point to any defense department spending that is being cut without a request from the DOD? That’s Department of Defense, if GNW isn’t even THAT informed. Did you know, GNW, that the defense budget, already massively more than any other ten nations put together, is still getting budget increases, but at a slower pace than before? Not cut, not slashed. Still growing. Look up F-22. Then call your congressperson and ask for 25 MORE F-22’s to be built so we can use them against the world!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I repeat: moron.

13. 

    ezdeb said, 4 months ago

    Oh, I just can’t help one more comment, cuz I ran out of coffee and can only have one cup this morning, and am filled with rage. :)

    Note Mr. Asay’s choice of facial expressions on Uncle Sam. First panel, he’s pretty confident because we have this cool hawk. The next panel SHOULD show 9/11/01, and Uncle Sam’s perplexed expression as to why the hawk is still sitting on his hand, possibly with its hood off but completely unable to use its wings to fight this threat. Mr. Asay, what is the purpose of war? To bring that goofy looking dove? Ppl like HQ and GNW think doves are silly. All they like are hawks. But without any thought to the present world and its changing dangers, they can only bring Pearl Harbor metaphors in. Terrorism does not require a missile. Two people with rifles shooting at random from the trunk of a car in DC can bring a city to a standstill. Whatever. Keep yourselves surrounded by defense from 1962 dangers. Until you die, this will be the right’s version of political cartoons. Sweet lil’ Uncle Sam!

14. 

    Gladius said, 4 months ago

    I would rather see research and spending on anti- ballistic missle systems that might be needed than uneccessary spending on offensive weapon systems that aren’t. I don’t know if anyone was paying attention when ‘Congress” added more F- 22 Raptors than the DOD had asked for. Gates has already scaled back requests for cold war era items. However, it seems certain lawmakers just can’t seem to resist that alluring smell of pork.

    While terrorists do not have significant missle capability today, both Iran and N. Korea. have been improving their missle capability. Iran, unlike Korea, was able to put a satellite into orbit. Korea doesn’t need too much more distance to reach Hawaii and they can already hit Japan.

    I agree that the anti- ballistic missle system is not yet reliable but it does seem to be feasible. It needs more development.

15. 

    ezdeb said, 4 months ago

    Geez, Gladius, I just mentioned the F-22 in the post one up from yours. ABM is not yet reliable? Seems to be feasible? Needs more development? If only someone on the right would be so charitable about health care reform. Let’s pour billions/trillions into healthcare anti-poverty missile systems and see how prosperous we can be!

16. 

    dtroutma said, 4 months ago

    The ABM is the “Bernie Madoff” of defense. Patriot missiles killed more of our troops than SCUDs. In fact, they didn’t apparently even really hit any SCUDS. The “more advanced” system has only come close to working when targets were programmed to be exactly where the “defender” missile was intended to go. At 22,000 mph- and the size of a basketball, not a semi-truck, a target gets even harder to hit when launched by “surprise” and NOT on the flight path we program.

    The best defense is PREVENTING HOSTILITIES, not fomenting them.

17. 

    DrCanuck said, 4 months ago

    GNWack-o. There were Muslim attacks in Canada? Oh, educate us, please; where and when?

    (Or are you just making up stuff again?)

18. 

    GNWachs said, 4 months ago

    Saturday, June 3, 2006 Posted: 2056 GMT (0456 HKT)

    Authorities detained the suspects Friday. They are expected to make a court appearance on Saturday.

    TORONTO, Ontario (CNN) – Canadian police said on Saturday they had halted a “real and serious” terror threat in and around Toronto.

    Twelve men and five youths said to have been inspired by al Qaeda were arrested in the operation involving hundreds of officers, authorities said.

    The group was “planning to commit a series of terrorist attacks against solely Canadian targets in southern Ontario,” Royal Canadian Mounted Police Assistant Commissioner Mike McDonell said at a news conference.

    “This group took steps to acquire three tons of ammonium nitrate and other components necessary to create explosive devices,” he said. (Watch police chief describe how suspects got bomb materials – 0:36)

    “To put this in context, the 1995 bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City that killed 168 people took one ton of ammonium nitrate.”

    The detained suspects are all males, Canadian residents “from a variety of backgrounds” and followers of a “violent ideology inspired by al Qaeda,” said Luc Portelance, assistant director of operations for Canadian Security Intelligence Service. (Full list of adult suspects)

19. 

    GNWachs said, 4 months ago

    (CBS/AP) Police said Monday more arrests are likely in an alleged plot to bomb buildings in Canada, while intelligence officers sought ties between the 17 suspects and Islamic terror cells in the United States and five other nations.

    A court said authorities had charged all 12 adults arrested over the weekend with participating in a terrorist group. Other charges included importing weapons and planning a bombing. The charges against five minors were not made public.

    The Parliament of Canada, in Ottawa, is believed to be among targets the group discussed. Toronto Mayor David Miller said CN Tower, a downtown landmark, and the city’s subway were not targets as had been the speculated in local media, but declined to identify sites that were.

    A Muslim prayer leader who knew the oldest suspect, 43-year-old Qayyum Abdul Jamal, told The Associated Press on Monday that Jamal’s sermons at a storefront mosque were “filled with hate” against Canada.

    Authorities said more arrests were expected, possibly this week, as police pursue leads about a group that they say was inspired by the violent ideology of the al Qaeda terror network.

    “We’ve by no means finished this investigation,” Mike McDonell, deputy commissioner for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, told AP. “In fact, you might look at it that, really, we’re just starting with the arrests. We have a responsibility to follow every lead.”

    The developments are sure to fuel fears about security along the United States’ northern border which, at 4,000 miles, is the world’s longest and — some fear — already an overlooked path for terrorists to enter the United States, CBS News correspondence Cynthia Bowers reports.

    “To assume that the United States is safe from attackers who would come through Canada is entirely whistling past the graveyard,” CIA veteran Michael Scheuer told CBS News.

    Although both Canadian and U.S. officials said over the weekend there was no indication the purported terror group had targets outside Ontario, McDonell told AP on Monday that there are “foreign connections,” but he would not elaborate.

    A U.S. law enforcement official said investigators were looking for connections between those detained in Canada and suspected Islamic militants held in the United States, Britain, Bangladesh, Bosnia, Denmark and Sweden.

    American authorities have established that two men from Georgia who were charged this year in a terrorism case had been in contact with some of the Canadian suspects via computer, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the investigation is continuing.

    Prosecutors have said the Georgia men, Ehsanul Islam Sadequee and Syed Haris Ahmed, traveled to Washington to shoot “casing videos” of the Capitol and other potential targets.

    Sadequee, 19, a U.S. citizen who grew up near Atlanta, is accused of lying to federal authorities during an FBI terrorism investigation. Ahmed, 21, a Georgia Tech student, faces a charge he provided material support and resources for terrorism.

    In Atlanta, Ahmed’s lawyer, Jack Martin, told the AP there may have been some connection between his client and the suspects, but he insisted it wasn’t part of any terrorism plot.

    “Other than having the possibility that they may have met at some point, I know of no indication that anyone believes my client had anything to do with what these guys were up to,” Martin said.

    A U.S. counterterrorism official said the 17 suspects in Canada are an example of a type of group that authorities have been concerned about for some time: self-organized, ad hoc cells of homegrown extremists, a development first seen in Britain.

    The official, also speaking on condition of anonymity, said Canada’s government rightfully considered the 17 a serious threat because there was evidence the group was far along in planning attacks.

    “It came to a point where our concern for the safety and security of the public far outweighed our appetite for collecting evidence,” said McDonell, the RCMP deputy commissioner.

    The U.S. counterterrorism official added there was no reason to believe the group had U.S. targets in mind, but also no reason to exclude the potential.

20. 

    GNWachs said, 4 months ago

    Video: Ontario Canada Islamic terror Training Camp
    By Eeyore | September 19, 2008
    Video of alleged Ont. terror group released
    Posted: September 18, 2008, 6:44 PM by Ronald Nurwisah
    Canada

    Update: The Post’s Chris Wattie has more background on the video:

    A U.S.-based anti-terrorism group has posted a video on its Web site showing a training camp in rural Ontario allegedly attended by a group of Toronto men charged with plotting large-scale terrorist attacks in Toronto and Ottawa.

    The video, which was played inside a Brampton court earlier this year in the trial of 11 men charged with planning terrorist attacks in Canada, shows masked men wearing camouflage parkas, firing weapons and waving a black flag from atop a small hill in the snow-covered woodlands near Orillia, Ont., and chanting “Allahu Akbar.”

    The non-profit Nine-Eleven Finding Answers (NEFA) Foundation obtained the two-and-a-half minute video after it was played in a related trial in the United Kingdom.

    It shows up to 10 men, their faces concealed either by parka hoods or Arabic scarves, marching through the snow, practising shooting and unarmed combat and evasive driving techniques, while Arabic music plays in the background. Police seized the tape in a series of raids in 2006 in which they arrested 18 men from the Greater Toronto Area and charged them with planning terrorist bombings and other attacks on targets in Toronto and Ottawa.

    “The video features footage of the men receiving instruction on the use of handguns, sniper tactics and basic calisthenics,” NEFA says in its introduction to the video on its Web site. “Crudely edited by its creators to include nasheed music, the video also shows the men practising evasive driving maneuvers at night in an abandoned parking lot.”

    The video is part of the evidence against 11 men who were among the 18 arrested in 2006 and are accused of taking terrorist paramilitary training. Some of those accused are also charged with plotting a truck-bomb attack on downtown Toronto.

    One of the accused, who cannot be named because he was under 18 at the time of his arrest, is awaiting the verdict in his trial, which concluded last month. The others, who cannot be named under the terms of a publication ban imposed on the trial of the youth, have yet to be tried.

    Earlier this year, charges against several of those accused of taking part in the training were dropped.

    The video, which authorities say was shot by the suspects for propaganda purposes, was played in the trial of a British extremist who had contacted members of the Toronto group and who was convicted last month of being a terrorist propagandist. NEFA acquired a copy of the video after the trial.

    It shows scenes from a winter training camp in early 2006 and shows men firing a handgun and a rifle with a scope.

    The only man whose face is identifiable in the video is that of Mubin Shaikh, the police agent who has since testified about how he infiltrated the group for the RCMP.
    ——

21. 

    wbr said, 4 months ago

    hey n. k. can only hit hawaii no big lost

22. 

    Gladius said, 4 months ago

    Fairly insensitive. (reg above post)

    Other posts:

    I have no intention of defending the stupid propaganda regarding the Patriot. I do believe that anti- ballistic missle technology will eventually be successful. I believe that funding that research is reasonable. It does not preclude peace negotiations. I would be perfectly happy if the world suddenly became non- violent. The fact of the matter is that there are a lot of people out there who hate America. Many of them may be completely justified. However, I’m not particularly interested in allowing them to kill me for it. Yes, work to improve our image and relations with other countries but don’t give up our ability to defend ourselves.

    ez: my post did not disagree with your F-22 comment. I merely expanded it to include other cold war items, I hoped some others might look at it if stated a little less violently. (More coffee less rage)
    You still didn’t address the possible missle threats and you sudden shift to medical funding is a rather pathetic rhetorical tactic. Dtroutma had a much more reasonable argument which I hope I have addressed even if he doesn’t agree.

23. 

    William Wilkerson said, 4 months ago

    How poetically correct; a blind, overfed, captive system that only works when you point it at a pre-arranged target and even then mostly does what it wants and is is No Way What So Ever designed to defend you or anything you value… just a big expensive toy kept by those with more more money than sense to show off how powerful they supposedly are… Bravo!

24. 

    DrCanuck said, 4 months ago

    Wack-o, still waiting for some reports of “attacks.” Suspicion of plotting hardly qualifies; people plan stuff all the time and never go through with it. Christian militants in Idaho plan and train constantly but never act.

    But why stop at “Muslim” terrorists? Let’s add the Christian terrorist attacks on abortion providers, liberal churches, government buildings, malls, schools, etc., and see how THOSE numbers stack up against Europe and Canada.

25. 

    nomwein said, 4 months ago

    ezdeb: “morons.” please no insults on the boards.
    why is everyone against asay? hawks are much better than doves.
    DrCanuck: Christian terrorist attacks are ONLY against abortion providers.

26. 

    GNWachs said, 4 months ago

    MrCanuck: I would assume at the school where you received your PhD (if indeed you have one) they taught you the inadequacy of ad hominem arguments. Has no one ever called you before when you falsely claim to be a physician?

    If you are truly unable to see the difference between individual deranged men and an organized effort with billions being spent then you have left the rational world.

27. 

    oldlegodad said, 4 months ago

    Dost thee not remember a short while ago a ship borne anti-missile missile was reprogrammed rather quickly and shot down a wayward satellite? Wake up idiots we have the technology in place operationally.Your “friends” in the media at the bidding of their messiah would keepest thou in mushroom school (in the dark covered in horsehocky)

28. 

    Gladius said, 4 months ago

    There are still plenty of bugs in the system o-dad. However, I definitely think it’s worth continued funding.

29. 

    DrCanuck said, 4 months ago

    GNWack-o says: If you are truly unable to see the difference between individual deranged men and an organized effort with billions being spent then you have left the rational world.

    DrCanuck responds: You are, of course, refering to the Christian terrorists who used the American military to invade Afghanistan and Iraq? I can easily distinquish them from, say, a Timothy McVeigh.

    (And I have NEVER claimed to be a physician; others assumed it.)

30. 

    dtroutma said, 4 months ago

    Gladius et al- a system to take out the launch vehicles (or intermediate stages-which the shelved laser system would do) is much more likely to succeed than trying to hit warheads. HItting a rather large satellite on a known path is also easier than warheads, especially if they’re capable of changing course. “Aviation Week” makes interesting reading on all aspects of “defense” projects and civil aviation. Drone stuff (Now called UCAS- Unmanned Combat Aircraft SYSTEMS, instead of “vehicles”) is REALLY getting weird, and more dangerous than ballistic missiles.(cost AND “effectiveness”) Given the long-lasting effects, I actually doubt even someone as loony as Kim is really willing to try using nukes today. Wait a minute, “bunker busters” from Bush???? Psycho. Note the “Bush system” is still hooded and wearing jesses.

    Despite “questionable technology advances”- I still stand by the point that AVOIDING conflict is more logical than hitting a target, of any size or speed.

31. 

    parkersinthehouse said, 4 months ago

    Hang on Y’all - you really strung up JL-Dobie for all those extra long posts; isn’t anybody gonna jump GNWhacko? Let’s keep it “fair and balanced.” This has all been great reading nevertheless.

32. 

    DrCanuck said, 4 months ago

    No one ever bothers to read Wack-o, so it’s no big deal.

33. 

    Gladius said, 4 months ago

    I’ll go with avoid but I’m not willing to buy into the fantasy that it is always possible.

34. 

    David said, 4 months ago

    I’m sure little Kimmy’s shaking in his boots……

35. 

    ezdeb said, 4 months ago

    Gladius, Perhaps I misunderstood your first comment, where you said “I don’t know if anyone was paying attention when ‘Congress” added more F- 22 Raptors than the DOD had asked for.” I was jesting that I just HAD mentioned it. I didn’t think you were disagreeing w/me, just amused that you wished someone would mention it when I had…sorry. In regards to the healthcare “veer”, my point was that republicans seem so willing to continue to pour money into problem-beset programs if they are military. For years and years, because the program “deserves a chance if it can possibly possibly help at all”. But if we poured that much money into any social programs, they would scream bloody murder, and I don’t understand that. That is all. More coffee, less rage is an excellent mantra, however. I bought coffee yesterday, so all is calm today. Happy 4th America!!

36. 

    ezdeb said, 4 months ago

    Just a quick peeve; not rage (!) The word is missile, not missle.

37. 

    tsuga said, 4 months ago

    This is the best Asay cartoon ever! Unbelievable irony from the man with the self-proclaimed biblical worldview.