Doonesbury by Garry Trudeau for December 25, 2011

Merry Christmas, and to all, a goodnight.

The Iraqi guy looks like a younger more debonair Saddam…

 Sorry ’bout Iraq. On, on to Iran!

“The Iranians are practicing closing the Strait of Hormuz.” —Newt Gingrich, 2011 Dec. 15, Fox News candidates’ debate for Republican presidential nomination. Watch him on video at:  http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2011/12/15/gingrich_obamas_decision_on_keystone_pipeline_is_utterly_irrational.html

8 months! We should never have invaded in the first place.

“Don’t blame the Americans, Captain.” Whom should the captain blame?

Have the Iraqis had NO responsibility for maintaining or even improving the grid over those eight years? They couldn’t be diverted even that much from killing and maiming each other?

Eight years of running Iraq into the sewer. Well, now let’s see where the US will be in eight years’ time.

It would help a lot, if everytime we built a power station, put in new lines, sub-stations, and transformers, that they didn’ get blown up the next day. And no we shouldn’t have been there in the first place.

I remember an article I read years ago. An Iraqi who was involved in the “resistance to American occupation” was asks why he was risking his own life to kill Americans. In all seriousness he answered, “Because I saw BRAVEHEART.” “Oh, would some Power the gift so give us to see ourselves as others see us! It would from many a blunder free us and foolish notion.” - with apologies to Robert Burns.

No hot potato tossing until Christmas dinner. Merry, your favorite icon winter solstice event to you all!

What the U.S. accomplished in Iraq was putting the civil war on hold for eight years. Now that the troops are gone, the Sunnis and Shiites are at each others’ throats again, except now the Shiites have the upper hand instead of the Sunnis under Saddam. They’ll only agree on going after the Kurds again.

I had hoped we had learned something out of the attempt in Vietnam. Now, I hope we have FINALLY learned something from the insanity of Iraq.

But the first thing we better remember is that the Iraq intrusion was vastly popular with the American public when it started—and yet it was built totally on lies. And when some other countries doubted those lies and were hesitant to join the invasion, we Americans thought we could bully them by making jokes about them.Cheney is richer and Bush was given 8 years and a whole lot of people are dead for that.And to top it all off, we go into a war that costs us more than a trillion dollars, and to pay for it, WE CUT TAXES!

 “The Americans are leaving behind them a destroyed country,” … “The Americans did not leave modern schools or big factories behind them. Instead, they left thousands of widows and orphans.” —Mariam Khazim of Sadr City (ally of Muqtada al-Sadr), Dec 15, 2011, New York Daily News

Can’t you guys even give it a brake on Christmas. And to everyone else, Merry Christmas, and I hope you have a great new year.

dauser, when a country is occupied, the occupiers are in charge of infrastructure.

We offered to stay,. The government refused. Now It is up to the Iraqis to get it right.

We never belonged there.

The Detroit Free Press chose not to run this strip today. Don’t know why – it’s always on the front page of the Sunday comics section

If Iraq had been occupied the way Germany was at the end of WWII, with 200,000 western and 300,000 Russian troops, and 100,000 Germans thought to be security threats interned, and most of the young adult male population already dead, and thousands of soldiers who could speak the language, knew the country, and felt affinity for it people, would that have made a difference? Rumsfeldt thought a military victory would be enough, and ignored all the experts who said that very much more than that would be necessary. I heard one of those experts speak a couple of months before we went in. In Iraq we never had enough troops to dominate the place or impose order, nor rebuild a country on the verge of collapse before we even went in. And we never could make up our minds if we were occupying an enemy country, or liberating a friendly one, and our policies showed it. Whether invading Iraq was a good idea or bad, it was carried out with such incompetence and ignorance at the top that failure was inevitable.

just the animation

You all make it so complicated. It is just about the m.i.c. Having all these wonderful new war toys and needing to try them out.

Pottery Barn called and your request is denied.

There’s always oil lanterns and camels. Dey made it just fine fo a long time dat way. Some of dem still do.The USA dime is up.Time fo dem suckers to go to work on their own GD mess.

Merry Christmas y’all!

DICK CHENEY IS NOT DARTH VADER! It’s obvious that he’s the Emperor! Why does nobody see that, for cryin’ out loud!

Whatever. This is no time to bicker and argue over who killed who. Merry Christmas, y’all.

Yeah! Your country wasn’t violent and corrupt enough under Saddam! So, we had to come in and fix that!

Will the last American out of Iraq please turn off the lights?

After the “first Gulf War”, which of course still hasn’t really ended, it took Saddam’s folks under three months to restore utilities back to “pre-war levels”. Primarily because Cheney/Rumsfeld/Bremer took away all the police, military, and operators after our invasion, it led to looting (among other problems), and after EIGHT YEARS, we, after spending billions on contractors, still haven’t accomplished “progress” that Saddam could! Pure idiocy from day one of the “W” fiasco!!

“… Jack Isn’t the risen part Easter?”  If the “risen part” isn’t 24/7/365/forever, then is your faith vain, null, void and of no account whatsoever. Yes, Jack, you got it the first time!

If everyone on the planet would say, “Merry Christmas! Christ is risen!” 24/7/365/forever, then there would be no more war. This is the real meaning of Jesus’ words, “The kingdom of God HAS COME [past tense] upon you.” There is no better way to celebrate Christmas than to decry the killing. The true meaning of Christmas is not a “Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer” sort of thing. (Nothing against that beast or the children who love him.)

Eight years later, and the grid still malfunctions? Sounds like someone got a no-bid contract.

get out the oil lamp

Advocating sexual intercourse to stop the killing involved in unjust, unrighteous war will increase the rate of rape as a weapon of war. People can only do so much sleeping. Sleeping is not the issue; death is. Hear Shakespeare’s Hamlet: “To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub;For in that sleep of death what dreams may come …?”

“The joys of American attack, conquest, occupation then pullout. No country would be more stable after that.”I agree – continue the occupation! After all, it worked in Germany, Japan and South Korea; why wouldn’t it work in Afghanistan, Iraq and Iran?:^*

“And Iraq was stable and prosperous before the US attacked them.”As were Germany and Japan. Go figure.:^* :^*