Doonesbury by Garry Trudeau for May 09, 2011

Oh, Ray…

Anyone know the date of the previous strip in this arc?

I think the last time we saw Ray, he was on leave and BD had to bail him out after a brawl. Ray said he’d come to prefer life at the front. Now he may be forced to go home.

^Which makes his life a living hell no matter where he is.

Clark Kent said, “…All they were interested in was Iraqi oil, and valuable natural resources in Afghanistan.”

I agree…

How would we have gained the intelligence if not there? How would we have a base for the helecopters to deploy from if not there? Inquiring minds want to know. Media victories are needed. Should have waited until Aug 2012.

So where is all this Iraqi oil that we were supposed to get? Last time I filled my car, gas was almost $4/gallon.

I think we were there for a dozen reasons, some directly contradictory to others. In other words, our foreign policy is borderline schizophrenic psychotic.

there’s no lack of supply of oil. Just greedy futures buyers that think something’s going to happen to it. First quarter oil profits went up again…..

big bucks for Halliburtin….very nasty blowback for us, and more to come, not to mention the tide of PTSD husbands who find mental illness and domestic life and no jobs so boring compared to the thrilling roulette of war…

wcorvi - nothing borderline about it.

If this doc has any scruples, Ray won’t be doing any more patrols. He is way past the limits of human endurance no matter what he thinks.

The philosophy about oil pricing is really quite simple - get as much as you possibly can for it.

Price it higher than the competition, and you’ll lose money. If everyone prices it too high, and consumption falls off, then back off the price before alternatives look more attractive. If people keep buying even after the price goes up, then just raise the price a little more. Then a little more. Sort of like the neighborhood drug dealer who starts off by passing out free samples and then keeps upping the price knowing that addicts will have no choice but to pay up.

Riding that fine line is all it’s about for the oil business. Talk about speculators, Halliberton, wars, supply, etc. are just distractions. Prices are high because we’re paying them.

Nemesys said oil “Prices are high because we’re paying them”. Agreed - it is as simple as that. We need to ween ourselves off this drug as best we can. But it is so tough to break any cycle of addiction…

Getting a purple heart for traumatic brain injury is still a hard sell, like getting one for PTSD. Ray must be pretty scrambled by now, both ways.

^ There is an unwritten agreement among gasoline retailers of “follow the leader”. If one station in a locality raises it’s price, then all of the others follow suit. It is price fixing but without a paper trail like that which Senator Metzenbaum used in his lawsuit against the oil companies in the 1980’s. Then the oil companies had to refund $millions to consumers by lowering prices to below wholesale.

^ Obama has ordered the Justice Dept. to investigate oil and gasoline prices for evidence of price fixing or other improprieties and to prosecute where such evidence may be found. Did President Bush ever do that?

The only thing Iraq was NOT about was terrorism…..Many in that administration are war criminals. No one died when Clinton lied….Cheney and Bush are murderers…

Catch 22 coming up watch for it!

did anyone note the medic holding an iPad?

For the interested, there is a cover story in a 2002 or 2003 edition of the Wall Street Journal (not exactly a source of liberal bias) that oulines how Mr. Bush had the Pentagon drawing up war plans for Iraq within the first few months of taking office and well before the events of 9/11/2001. Bush was spoiling for a war with Iraq and used whatever he could find to “justify” it. I would commend this article to anywho who wants to know at least a bit more about why we are in Iraq.

New point: The oil prices we see quoted are from futures trading. That market represents less than 1% of all the oil bought and sold in the world. But they are the price-setters and if speculators want to run up prices, the rest of the world follows. Another thing, that is the price for a type of oil called Texas Sweet Light Crude. A lot of what goes into American refineries is a much dirtier (i.e. sulpher) and more viscous crude that is more difficult and costly to refine. A drop in the price of that sweet light crude may not occur with the stuff going into our gasoline.

How many have to get blown up how many times before we realize it is the general public and electorate that is actually brain dead? Defending either of our current wars, or the men and women who started them for potential personal profit is itself a criminal act defined by the Constitution.

Bush did indeed want a war in Iraq, but not for “Daddy”, and not for Iraq’s oil (although “No Blood for Oil!” was a very amusing bumper sticker when I’d see it on the back of SUV’s). It was the Saudi oil he was concerned about, and it is what Obama is still concerned about today.

fnjsr, I don’t know if Obama has “oil buddies”, but I did notice that most big oil companies made record profits last year and paid no federal taxes on them. That puts them in the same boat as GE, who is indeed an “Obama buddy”. Let’s see what happens in 2012. We report, you decide.

dtroutma, the Constitution does not define criminal acts. It defines government limitations on what can constitute criminal acts, and defending anything is well covered under its first article. I think you just caught today’s fever, but extra points for creativity.

He can still do the math, he’s fine.

Dang!!! The “Recent GoComics Activity” list in our profiles has been reduced to FIVE ITEMS!! Thanks a lot GoComics, NOT.

Afghanistan was the launching platform for the 9/11 attacks and they were harboring Bin Laden and his Al Qaeda group.

Where will we be when the GOP does away with income tax for corporations, cuts veteran’s benefits and health care, and does the rest of their nonsense? How long will our countrymen fail to understand their real goal?

Remember my friends, it was the CIA under Reagan who bankrolled Bin Laden and Taliban in the 1980s when they fought the Russian military in Afghanistan. Now they want puppet Karzai. Similarly it was the CIA under GOP who installed the puppet SHAH and created lasting hate for the U.S. among the people of Iran that he terrorized. The CIA overthrew the legally elected socialist government in Iran to do this. NOW the CIA and NATO are going to install another group of renegades in Libya. Where will that country be in five years?

Back off, dirt bags! 1. No body forces anyone to sign an enlistment contract (not any more, at least. Back in the draft days, a judge might give you the option of his favorite branch of service, or a stint in prison. Some choice!) 2. Ya ain’t been there, keep your comments about battle trauma to yourself. Been there, done that, got the “Mommy, I forgot to duck” ribbon to prove it (Thank you President Regan for that line. I’ve used it since Hinkley tried to get you. RIP.) I got lit up on my first tour in Vietnam with 11 months in-country. The second tour ended with a Medivac after less than two months (and the hospitalization lasted for a year.) And I tried for a third tour! I was a stupid 18 year old when I went the first time, and 20 the second time. Why? Because you will never feel more alive than after a firefight. I’ve been “dead” (emotionally) since 1971, and would take a tour in Afghanistan in a heartbeat, just to feel that “alive” again. 3. Ray has nothing on the real (vs cartoon) grunts. Try 13 tours (by a Special Forces NCO, their tours are mission oriented and do not last 12 months like the Regular forces do. Even harder on the spouse and kids. My hats off to all of them), and I know one NCO (now medically retired) that claims to have turned down the Purple Heart 9 times (he has a PH with 1 Silver and 3 Bronze Oak Leaf Clusters - Silver is in lieu of 5 Bronze - 9 awards) because he did not consider himself to be injured the “other” 9 times. 4. When you consider the qualifications just to get into the service, and the numbers of couch-potato kids in the US, Ray will probably return to duty. Getting knocked on your bupkis is what he does for a living. You don’t want him going back, go yourself in his place.

Sometimes all the namby-pamby, “get our troops out of” where ever talk gets to me.

Also, all this talk about “blood for oil” is nuts. If you have a great idea for producing the petroleum that runs this world, kindly get off your duff and produce it so the rest of us can utilize it. I am no happier paying $3.79 a gallon than anyone else is (especially since I’m old enough to remember gas wars and the price being $0.19.9/gal. In the 60’s.) Just saying that “we have to use less oil and gas,” and that “there is a conspiracy by Big Oil to keep the profits high, does not make it so.