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1. 

   Ken Warren said, 16 days ago

   The gift from Cheney/Bush keeps on giving.

2. 

   ray32648 said, 16 days ago

   Maybe you forget the pair that didn’t prevent those 3000 deaths even though they were warned it was in the works. Were they “traitors” as well?

3. 

   cartwrights said, 16 days ago

   And it wasn’t just americans who died that day, either. There were people of other nationalities in the twin towers, including Muslims.

4. 

   M Kitt said, 16 days ago

   Don’t know why I bother, Scott, you sanctimonious little fundamentalist twit, but you and the rest of the chickenhawks should “mount up” and put your’ sorry little asses on the firing line instead of sending more of our troops to support right wing policies and wars that W & Cheney “War Incorporated” dragged the rest of us into.

   Then come home and discuss your’ “traitor” label with people who know the difference, if you survive.

5. 

   revertemark said, 16 days ago

   does anyone in D.C. read history ?

   the romans could not subdue the parthians . every empire from britain [ twice ] to the soviet union that has attempted to go into afghanistan has gotten their bleeep kicked .

   i am sick of american hubris practiced by way upper–clbleeep people who have no feel for the common man . as of yesterday…since 2001…the “wars ” in iraq/afghanistan have cost american taxpayers 950 BILLION dollars .

   enough is enough !

   mark mac

6. 

   HOWGOZIT said, 16 days ago

   ray–no, no one could forget Clinton and Gore.

7. 

   olfart said, 16 days ago

   There is nothing in Afghanistan to win. Rocks. Dope. Fanatics. Which of those items does the U.S. need badly enough to die for?

8. 

   HOWGOZIT said, 16 days ago

   Right on olfart–we have enough fanatical dopey rocks in Congress now.

9. 

   Red Stook said, 16 days ago

   The politicos come and go but business as usual triumphs.

10. 

    lalas said, 16 days ago

    The enemy of my enemy is my friend.

    Until they become my enemy:
    Joe Stalin
    Manuel Noriega
    Osama Bin Laden
    Karzai?

11. 

    vhammon said, 16 days ago

    Olfart-
    Trans-Afghanistan oil and gas pipelines.

12. 

    omQ R said, 16 days ago

    Do you see Punk offering a poppy?

    Pardon my ignorance, but does the poppy flower also represent veterans in the USA?

    Today’s the 4th of November, Remembrance Day is a week away on the 11th November. I read on wiki the poppy as a symbol for WW-I was based on a Canadian’s poem…

    ”Remembrance Day – also known as Poppy Day, Armistice Day (the event it commemorates) or Veterans Day – is a day to commemorate the sacrifices of members of the armed forces and of civilians in times of war, specifically since the First World War. It is observed on 11 November to recall the end of World War I on that date in 1918. (Major hostilities of World War I were formally ended at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918 with the German signing of the Armistice.)”

    The poppy’s significance to Remembrance Day is a result of Canadian military physician John McCrae’s poem In Flanders Fields. The poppy emblem was chosen because of the poppies that bloomed across some of the worst battlefields of Flanders in World War I, their red colour an appropriate symbol for the bloodshed of trench warfare.

    And of course the poppy in Afghanistan symbolises something else…

    The poppy of wartime remembrance is Papaver rhoeas, the red flowered Corn poppy

    The opium poppy, Papaver somniferum

13. 

    DrCanuck said, 15 days ago

    In Flanders’ fields, the poppies blow
    Between the crosses, row on row….

    Every Canadian child can recite McCrae.

14. 

    Corosive Frog said, 15 days ago

    ^ it’s on our ten dollar bills

15. 

    d_legendary1 said, 15 days ago

    @Frog From the heroine addicts?

16. 

    teslagirl said, 15 days ago

    The mark of successful scum is how well they manage to find people to protect them, fund them and share the blame with them. Too bad the CIA still thinks of this guy as a resource.

17. 

    ahab said, 15 days ago

    Marvelous cartoon. Fun fact to know omQ R. Orange above!

18. 

    illostr8 said, 15 days ago

    Who the hell allow these idiots in the office(government) anyway , we’re fighting a pointless war anyway!!!!!!

19. 

    Ronshua said, 15 days ago

    In Flanders fields the poppies blow
    Between the crosses, row on row,
    That mark our place; and in the sky
    The larks, still bravely singing, fly
    Scarce heard amid the guns below.

    We are the Dead. Short days ago
    We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
    Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
    In Flanders Fields.

    Take up our quarrel with the foe:
    To you from failing hands we throw
    The torch; be yours to hold it high.
    If ye break faith with us who die
    We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
    In Flanders Fields.

    
    
    • John McCrae
    
    

20. 

    DrCanuck said, 15 days ago

    Just as a philosophical point for anyone who cares to think about it: the last verse is never recited in Canada.

21. 

    fritzoid said, 15 days ago

    This is more appropriate to Oly’s 11/3 cartoon, but…

    HAPPY GUY FAWKES DAY!!!

    I wonder how the RC outreach to the disaffected C of E will appear by the light of these particular fires…

22. 

    motivemagus said, 15 days ago

    Poppies are not symbolic on Veteran’s Day in the US, but of course Oliphant is an Australian by birth (US citizen now). I’ve been to Adelaide…I understand why he left…

23. 

    fritzoid said, 15 days ago

    You can still see the occasional U.S. Vet selling poppies (from trays?) leading up to Nov. 11, but they’re rarer.

24. 

    Corosive Frog said, 15 days ago

    No, the poem “in Flanders Field” is on the canadian ten dollar bill.

25. 

    comYics said, 14 days ago

    Well at least a foreigner is making better cash than you from America.

26. 

    Cpt. Jay said, 14 days ago

    I agree with Matthew Hoh about the Obama Admin’s handling of the war…

27. 

    buffalo102 said, 14 days ago

    As a Viet-nam vet, I cannot believe that the Generals who think they can win this “war” don’t see, or refuse to see, the striking similarities to Nam. A population and it’s leaders, that sit on their asses while American troops fight their battles for them. Corruption is a way of life in that part of the world. Get out now and leave that s**t-hole to the natives.

28. 

    deadheadzan said, 13 days ago

    After Viet Nam I thought our leaders would never jump in to a war of opportunity in Iraq. I was wrong. Cheney, the Viet Nam draft dodger wanted his friends at Halliburton to gorge on war profiteering.

29. 

    Nurb said, 13 days ago

    Why the hell are we there anymore? We’ve got corrupt morons in our own government we need to worry about and any government that was supported by a western nation would collapse among fantatics anyway.

    Afghan national epigram: “When God wants to punish a nation, he makes them invade Afghanistan.”

30. 

    M Henri Day said, 13 days ago

    DrCanuck, I found your comment about the final verse of John McCrae’s poem of great interest. Not to step on any toes, but I believe W H Auden’s «September 1, 1939» better expresses the present situation :

    I sit in one of the dives
    On Fifty-second Street
    Uncertain and afraid
    As the clever hopes expire
    Of a low dishonest decade:
    Waves of anger and fear
    Circulate over the bright
    And darkened lands of the earth,
    Obsessing our private lives;
    The unmentionable odour of death
    Offends the September night.

    Accurate scholarship can
    Unearth the whole offence
    From Luther until now
    That has driven a culture mad,
    Find what occurred at Linz,
    What huge imago made
    A psychopathic god:
    I and the public know
    What all schoolchildren learn,
    Those to whom evil is done
    Do evil in return.

    Exiled Thucydides knew
    All that a speech can say
    About Democracy,
    And what dictators do,
    The elderly rubbish they talk
    To an apathetic grave;
    Analysed all in his book,
    The enlightenment driven away,
    The habit-forming pain,
    Mismanagement and grief:
    We must suffer them all again.

    …

    Henri

31. 

    DrCanuck said, 13 days ago

    And again and again and again. Thanks, Henri.

32. 

    oldlegodad said, 12 days ago

    Remember the orginal foe was(is) radical Islamofacist;

    http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=511702

33. 

    comYics said, 12 days ago

    Oldiegodad, I seriously think we should sign a petition to have that koran examined and found whether it supports peace or hatred and murderous tendancies as a form of propaganda.

34. 

    Jase99 said, 12 days ago

    There are copies of the Koran printed in English. You don’t need a petition. Go to the library and read it.

    Much like the Bible, the Koran is open to interpretation. Just as some “Christian” fundamentalists use some Biblical passages as an justification to kill, some Muslim fundamentalists use certain passages of the Koran for their justification.

    Ask a peaceful person, and he will tell you his religion inspires peace. Ask a warlike person, and he will tell you his religion calls on him to fight.

35. 

    comYics said, 12 days ago

    The Holy Bible is not telling me to cut off heads of infedels.

    John 16:2,3
    They shall put you out of the synagogues: yea, the time cometh, that whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God service.
    3 And these things will they do unto you, because they have not known the Father, nor me.

36. 

    Jase99 said, 11 days ago

    It didn’t tell Christians in Medieval Europe to torture and murder millions of people in the name of converting them to Christianity. What’s your point?

37. 

    Fairportfan2 said, 11 days ago

    scottfreitas said

    There weren’t anywhere NEAR “millions” of people “tortured and murdered” in the name of “converting” them to Christianity

    Had the population at the time been what it is today, and Christianity inspired the slaughter of the same percentage as it did, the Church militants numbers of dead would exceed Stalin’s.

    And that’s not even considering the Crusades.

    comYics said

    Jase99, your the only one trolling this conversation.

    Right - you and scott are sincere raving lunatics.

38. 

    Fairportfan2 said, 11 days ago

    Another great Canadian poet, Robert W Service (known to most people today mostly for “The Creation of Sam McGee” and “The Shooting of Dan McGrew”) had this to say - he was talking about the Boer War, but its universal):

    the cruel war was over – oh, the triumph was so sweet!
    we watched the troops returning, through our tears;
    there was triumph, triumph, triumph down the scarlet glittering street,
    and you scarce could hear the music for the cheers.
    and you scarce could see the house-tops for the flags that flew between;
    the bells were pealing madly to the sky;
    and everyone was shouting for the soldiers of the queen,
    and the glory of an age was passing by.

    and then there came a shadow, swift and sudden, dark and drear;
    the bells were silent, not an echo stirred.
    the flags were drooping sullenly, the men forgot to cheer;
    we waited, and we never spoke a word.
    the sky grew darker, darker, till from out the gloomy rack
    there came a voice that checked the heart with dread:
    “tear down, tear down your bunting now, and hang up sable black;
    they are coming – it’s the army of the dead.”

    they were coming, they were coming, gaunt and ghastly, sad and slow;
    they were coming, all the crimson wrecks of pride;
    with faces seared, and cheeks red smeared, and haunting eyes of woe,
    and clotted holes the khaki couldn’t hide.
    oh, the clammy brow of anguish! the livid, foam-flecked lips!
    the reeling ranks of ruin swept along!
    the limb that trailed, the hand that failed, the bloody finger tips!
    and oh, the dreary rhythm of their song!

    “they left us on the veldt-side, but we felt we couldn’t stop
    on this, our england’s crowning festal day;
    we’re the men of magersfontein, we’re the men of spion kop,
    colenso – we’re the men who had to pay.
    we’re the men who paid the blood-price. shall the grave be all our gain?
    you owe us. long and heavy is the score.
    then cheer us for our glory now, and cheer us for our pain,
    and cheer us as ye never cheered before.”

    the folks were white and stricken, and each tongue seemed weighted with lead;
    each heart was clutched in hollow hand of ice;
    and every eye was staring at the horror of the dead,
    the pity of the men who paid the price.
    they were come, were come to mock us, in the first flush of our peace;
    through writhing lips their teeth were all agleam;
    they were coming in their thousands – oh, would they never cease!
    i closed my eyes, and then – it was a dream.

    there was triumph, triumph, triumph down the scarlet gleaming street;
    the town was mad; a man was like a boy.
    a thousand flags were flaming where the sky and city meet;
    a thousand bells were thundering the joy.
    there was music, mirth and sunshine; but some eyes shone with regret;
    and while we stun with cheers our homing braves,
    o god, in thy great mercy, let us nevermore forget
    the graves they left behind, the bitter graves.