Doonesbury by Garry Trudeau
- October 29, 2009
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About Doonesbury
G.B. Trudeau’s Doonesbury is currently in its thirty-ninth year, tracking its eighth presidential administration. Trudeau maintains his studio in New York and his Web presence at www.doonesbury.com.
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© 2009 Universal Press Syndicate - All Rights Reserved.
Comments (26) Jump to Comments Form
jumbobrain
said,
23 days ago
It is funny, ironic, and kind of cool that the historic peacenik and flaming liberal Garry Trudeau now accords our troops more respect than the previous administration did.
WoodEye said, 23 days ago
Radios? We don’t need no stinkin’ radios!
farren
said,
23 days ago
jumbobrain, use some of ‘em. Many of us historic peaceniks and flaming liberals (I’m one) WERE our troops back in the day (I’m one). It’s total myth to say that if you are liberal, you’re anti-troop. Most of us aren’t - but we surely are anti-blowhards and anti-macho-posturers, like our late unlamented ex-Pres. There’s a big difference between “supporting our troops” and “supporting our selfish, power-mad and hateful government”.
OshkoshJohn said, 23 days ago
Farren, people who like to play soldier but not be soldiers are properly called CHICKENHAWKS. The previous administration was chock-a-block full of them. I am a veteran, but I never saw combat. I was in SAC in the Sixties, and if I had seen combat in Michigan, the Earth would have had a “Dr. Strangelove” ending.
Akenta said, 23 days ago
gee1a not sure I agree with your equation. From what I remember about Goebbels, he was very devoted to Hitler. I don’t see Rush being devoted to anyone but himself.
Ravenswing said, 23 days ago
It isn’t the least of Republican lies that “liberal” = hates soldiers. How many ‘Nam war vets - even disabled ones - have the Republican scum driven from office and questioned their patriotism because they didn’t vote the way the chickenhawks liked?
esobocinski
said,
23 days ago
For anyone else who wants to play comparisons, the original run is exactly 23 months earlier: Monday’s strip (2009/10/26) first ran on 2007/11/26. The four strips in the sequence so far are exact copies. By that timeline, the IED explodes Monday … or not. I’m guessing that it does explode, and that toggle was flashbacking it (or describing it to Alex) and we see a new current-time strip Tuesday with Toggle drawing the lesson forward.
Saturday’s strip includes a rather outdated Rumsfield reference. I’ll be interested to see if it stays an exact copy or if GT tweaked it.
pearlandpeach said, 23 days ago
i thought Toggle got his nick-name because of his expertise in toggling back between music and the radio traffic.
seems that was the original
Nemesys said, 23 days ago
Some folks have mixed a few paranoid flakes in with their Wheaties this morning.
Question: Afghanistan is Obama’s war now. He can end it, surge it, or keep doing nothing differently as he is now. If he doesn’t decide to get out entirely, does that mean HE’s now the war-mongering, anti-troop, power-mad, hateful chickenhawk scum?
Or when Obama validates him, doesn’t it mean that Bush was right all along? :-)
babka
said,
23 days ago
this is our post-traumatic flashback, folks. How Toggle got his black eye patch….the rerun….as intolerable wartime devastations endlessly replay through the ordinary daily tasks, and the troubled sleep of veterans, guilty chickenhawks, and all those who love them.
as the ghosts of slain soldiers circle the secret anguish of the survivors….
like the Yiddish proverb about how there’s an angel over every blade of grass saying, “Grow!”
the angels of the war-dead, soldiers & civilians, men women & children, saying to us: “Live!”
not just “give meaning to our deaths by amping up the
propaganda” but
live, although we have been martyred….
live in such a way that the precious uniqueness of each (holy) life may be seen.
Cackles said, 23 days ago
Not quite that simple, Nem. Inheriting a quagmire war and starting one are two entirely different things.
Not that that’s ever stopped most Americans from blaming the sitting president for the failures of the previous administration, of course (see: Jimmy Carter).
fbjsr said, 23 days ago
I am not addressing this as a political question but as a former Airman. Bush was a fighter pilot who volunteered for Vietnam 3 times. He was turned down as Guard units deploy as a group only. How is this chickecn hawking. And don’t give me this bleeep about using conections to get in the Guards. The Air Force DOES NOT put idiots in million dollar planes no mater who you are. Also the Guards fight just as hard as the regulars. A lot of people went into the Guards because you had a better shot at becoming a pilot. So demeaming some one because they went in the Guards is a bunch of rubish.
Joe Allen Doty said, 23 days ago
I never saw combat in the sense that I was not in a line company when I was with the US Army’s 196th Light Infantry Brigade at Chu Lai in 1967.
But, since my company was at HQ and on top of a hill with the South China Sea to the East and a peninsula south of the bay due East of where I was stationed, I did see choppers firing rounds at ground locations when I was looking East in the early evening.
But, while I was with the 196th at Chu Lai, we were under attack by snipers a few times and one of those times we had to leave our offices and head for cover.
One of the reasons that George W. Bush decided to join the Texas Air National Guard was that during the Vietnam Conflict, those in Guard units usually didn’t get out of country duty assignments unless the individual requested it. In fact, there was a box to check when signing up with the guard that could be marked requesting no out of country assignments.
Those who were in Reserve Units could be and were sent to Vietnam. One of the lawyers, Captain Brown, who was assigned to the JAG office of the 196th and arrived with it when it got to Nam, was actually and a Reserve Artillery officer. I wish that I could remember CPT Brown’s first name; we often went to Chapel and to the PX together. When we were outside of the office, we talked as friends.
Potrzebie said, 23 days ago
Umm, the vehicles over there have these fancy GPS’ called blue-force tracker, which Toggle doesn’t seem to have in his rig. IT’s sort of a military On-star. Even if he has his death-metal cranked to 101 % (mathematically impossible) then his shotgun can still read the messages.
And like JAD, I was a fobbit in the Green Zone during this oil war. In the first Oil war I was with the 4th MEB doing circles outside KC.
Nemesys said, 23 days ago
“Not quite that simple, Nem. Inheriting a quagmire war and starting one are two entirely different things.”
I 100% agree, Cackles. Nobody (of sanity) blames Obama for being in Afghanistan, although he has said many times during his campaign that it’s a nessisary war.
The question is, what’s next? When he makes his decision, it will be HIS decision. He’ll own it. Will he then also own the hateful labels that Bush had?
Chikuku
said,
23 days ago
The big dif between Goebbels and the Big Fat Liar is that Goebbels looked like a rat with shark eyes and the BFL looks like Jabba the Hutt, only fatter and more evil.
Chikuku
said,
23 days ago
The Devil left Georgia and is now the King of Iraq.
legacyshooter said, 23 days ago
Shrub did not have hateful labels, he cynically earned them.
He avoided service in Vietnam by full well knowing National Guard units did not go to the war. Only Reservists and very few of them. Those Guard members who did go to the war volunteered for Army active duty in order to participate. Part of a few units went for short periods of time (a unit of the Idaho Guard, for example) but they were very rare. Shrub made half-hearted requests because he knew full well he would not get approval but the request would look good and being a patrician old line family, he knew eventually he would need to “look good.”
Shrub fully earned the hateful labels because he used the most powerful office in the world to cover him while launching a completely unnecessary war with an enemy who posed absolutely no threat to America. In other words, he did it because he could.
Shrub earned the hateful labels because he let the people of New Orleans suffer without reason. “Heck of a job, Brownie!”
Shrub earned the hateful labels because he used his Justice department to carry out a political jihad against Federal Attorneys whose only fault was they took their time and actually studied the cases in question and determined they were politically motivated and involved no Federal offences.
Shrub earned the hateful labels because he littered the Justice Department with idealogues who were not qualified to read the law because of their pitiful training at Regent University.
Shrub earnd the hateful labels because he is a spoiled frat boy grunt wannabe who used America as a replacement for his cocaine and alcohol shrivelled balls.
This post has come from an old man who is so far left politically there is nothing left but thin air and a beautiful view. This post has come from an old man who served in Vietnam from 1967 to 1970 as a Marine Corps radio operator. This post comes from an old man who walked the paddies and mountains of “Eye Corps” with the likes of 3/9, 1 and 3/7, 1 and 2/5, the Korean Marine Brigade, the Combined Action Program, the 196th LIB, the 1st Air Cav, the 82nd Air Mobile Division, and the 101st Air Mobile Division (most of the jobs involved carrying a very heavy radio used to talk to Navy Cruisers and Destroyers and three times, the USS New Jersey throwing Volkswagens thirty miles. Other jobs involved using cutting edge radion technology to talk to people in airplanes and other such creations in order to make sure the grunts he was honored to serve with had a better chance to go home to mama).
This post comes from an old man who knows what it is like to fight in an illegal, unwillable, meaningless war, survive that travesty and waste of fine human beings on every side and come out at least partially sane after the passage of these forty years.
This post comes from an old man whose fondest wish is that Shrub, when he passes on, will be made to suffer one ten thousandth of the amount soldiers like Toggle do. That little bit for Shrub will completely destroy a vengeful little boy who hated his country and its people with such force he would rather see her destroyed than admit he made mistakes and wold accept his responsibility for his crimes.
The rest of you right wing poseurs remember this: America is not your toy to ruin. America is OUR home. You cannot have it. Brave young men and women like my brothers and sisters of forty years ago and the brave young men and women going in harm’s way today have and are earning their home. You conservative monsters are doing nothing but showing us how completely useless you are and how you do not have a right to America.
Susan001 said, 23 days ago
Chikuku, I think you have confused Goebbels with Goering. The latter was a fat Jabba the Hut coward who offed himself rather than face his accusers in Nuremberg.
But Goebbels was equally evil, and he, too, committed suicide–after murdering his wife and six kids.
Nemesys said, 23 days ago
“The rest of you right wing poseurs remember this: America is not your toy to ruin. America is OUR home. You cannot have it. Brave young men and women like my brothers and sisters of forty years ago and the brave young men and women going in harm’s way today have and are earning their home. You conservative monsters are doing nothing but showing us how completely useless you are and how you do not have a right to America.”
That’s nice, legacyshooter. But other than foam about how horrible Bush and etc. are and how wonderful you are, you red-herring’ed out of answering a very basic question.
Third time is a charm, and I’ll use your own words this time. If Obama initiates a surge in Afghanistan, and sends more brave soldiers off into harm’s way to fight his “nessisary war”,or leaves the ones who are there to fight alone, will he be the new monster?
Very simple. Yes or no.
Quantumtorpedo1
said,
23 days ago
God bless you Legacyshooter.
humormehere said, 23 days ago
I have seen more STUPID comments in this post by CRYBABIES and Historical NINCOMPOOPS than I have ever seen. I like Trudeau…he wears his satire in the open…but some of you folks have lost the right to speak. You are just that stupid.
Susan001 said, 23 days ago
humormehere, put your money where your BIG mouth is!
Josh 1360 said, 23 days ago
Getting back to those Northwest Airline pilots that over shot Minneapolis by a 180 miles (I think), they lied about what they told the law officals and the media: They weren’t surfing the web on their laptops or bickering, they fell asleep! They can lie to public about what happen, but there’s only one being who knows the truth, and that’s God!
Fer Lefer said, 23 days ago
And God only knows how will this current war end …
blueprairie said, 22 days ago
” Bush was a fighter pilot who volunteered for Vietnam 3 times.”
Odd that it never occurred to him to apply for a lateral transfer.