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1. 

   Mark said, 4 months ago

   This is over your head, isn’t it?
2. 

   Craig Linder said, 4 months ago

   Turn about is fair play.
3. 

   edinbaltimore said, 4 months ago

   OK Ted. We get it. You’re against drone strikes. I don’t like them either, but we didn’t choose the jihad. Or would you rather we lose more American lives on suicide missions in unfriendly countries? Especially ones whose military undermines our objectives while paying lip service to “helping” us eradicate the terrorists, who they support! As to rightisright, if they couldn’t operate those things, why are we effing worrying about them? Or about suitcase nukes, dirty bombs, etc. Let’’s just abolish the TSA to start, and save billions of our tax dollars!
4. 

   Respectful Troll said, 4 months ago

   @ rightisright – you obviously haven’t met enough Pakistanis
   ^
   Years ago, I knew a man who flew A10 Warthog’s against Hussien after the invasion of Kuwait. His CO made the unit visit the highway between Kuwait and Baghdad where US aircraft strafed hundreds of trucks hauling loot home as they withdrew in preparation to end that war. The pictures were graphic.
   After that, he was part of the program that resulted in the drones we have today. He had flown in Bosnia, Croatia, Kuwait, Iraq, and had a comment I thought shocking at the time. He felt using drones was akin to using suicide bomber, an act of terrorism that failed to properly target legitimate military targets and was just as likely to harm innocent civilians. My daughter was in the second Iraq war and I thought it better for a drone to attack our enemies than for our sons and daughters to be sent into harm’s way.
   I am conflicted. I don’t want our neighbors to die for our country, I want the bad guys to die for theirs. However, I do not want the next Malala to be killed in a drone strike just because her house was too close to where a terrorist was hiding. I don’t want a young man inspired to join Al Qaeda to avenge the death of his family.
   DC comics use to have a large line of military themed comments… the ghost tank, sgt rock, more…
   In the late 1960s, they began ending each story with these words…
   “Make War No More’.
   Not practical with humans too conflicted to even be nice to each other, but…
   Hopelessly, Helplessly, but still..
   Respectfully,
   C.
5. 

   Ms. Ima said, 4 months ago

   Is ‘the enemy of my enemy’ the jihadists? If you join them to overthrow the US government and it falls, how do you then get rid of you ‘friend the enemy’ as they will get rid of you once it’s fallen? Little facts like that is why revolutionaries always fail.
6. 

   Michael wme said, 4 months ago

   @edinbaltimore

   Ed is quite right. Mr Rall went and spoke to the goatherds who all plan to kill us, and came to the ridiculous conclusion based on what he actually saw and heard that they were mostly harmless. He should have gone embedded with the US military who could have explained that, no matter what lib academics might report, we know for certain everyone killed by the US military—as long as the US soldiers were acting under orders—was a heinous criminal jihadist on the verge of killing millions of Americans in their beds, and was stopped just in the nick of time, and using drones helps keep our brave, brave US soldiers safe, so that’s the way to go. We have solid proof of the irrefutable guilt of all those killed, but, of course, it must remain classified. And, fortunately, the criminal justice system in the US is also moving in the right direction, and is wasting less and less time for the duration (i.e., forever) and just convicting defendants based on classified information that the prosecutors know, but never have to present in court so their sources will be safe (and also their conviction rates).

   
   In fact, if the US leadership were really clever and literate, they’d read how the Brits managed their Empire as economically as possible using poison gas to kill everyone in a rebellious village. The US only uses ‘double tap’ (illustrated in the Hunger Games, book 3) setting off a small, non-lethal bomb, then, when rescuers arrive, sending a large salvo of highly lethal anti-personnel weapons. But poison gas would be even better.

   
   And those who fear that relatives of the dead will become jihadists have the wrong idea. We want them to become jihadists. Drones create good jobs, and great profits for the defence CEOs, and that’s THE main purposes of the US government, a purpose well served by killing a man’s wife and children while he’s at work.
7. 

   The Wolf In Your Midst said, 4 months ago

   Remember, it’s okay when WE do it, because WE are the GOOD GUYS. Therefore, everyone we kill is a bad guy, because the good guys only kill bad guys!
8. 

   babka said, 4 months ago

   keep on, Ted. way to go.
9. 

   ARodney said, 4 months ago

   Once a drone, launched from an Islamic or gun-rights militia extremist compound, manages to attack the Pentagon, the White House, or Congress; we’ll suddenly want to ban them as war crimes. It’s like land mines or poison gas. Once everyone has them, it’s going to be trouble for us as well.
10. 

    Gregory Kruse said, 4 months ago

    Maybe they would need a secure base and a few other nicities to reach the white tribes of the USA, but they must be thinking about how useful drones might be in a war with India, as India is thinking about how useful they might be in a war with Pakistan.
11. 

    Bill said, 4 months ago

    @Respectful Troll

    So we want the “bad guys” to die for their countries? Shouldn’t we remember that one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter? It all depends on one’s viewpoint, doesn’t it?
12. 

    JTG01 said, 4 months ago

    “I tremble fory my country when I reflect that God is just”

    - Thomas Jefferson
13. 

    Ted Rall said, 4 months ago

    @edinbaltimore Abolishing the TSA might be a really good idea. After all it’s not like they really do anything other than just annoy everyone. Actually, not only did we choose the jihad we provoked it and now we are continuing to create new recruits with our policies. What we really should do is stay out of these countries and leave them alone. It’s always a good policy to mind your own business until you have solved all of your own problems. Last time I looked around, the notice states wasn’t in any position to tell anyone else about anything – our economy sucks, we have no civil liberties, our educational system sucks our health care system sucks, we can’t even hold fair elections.
14. 

    bikerusl said, 4 months ago

    Good for you Ted this work of showing the perspective of your enemy is honourable work but the majority will be scornful and derisive. I don’t know why it doesn’t rationally occur to them that this is something one is obligated to consider if one is to fight a war.

    In 2001 I made an art print for a school project of my face transposed with Osama Bin Laden called “Our enemies, Ourselves.” I was amazed how few people “got it.” I would get feedback like: “Do you want people to beat you up?” I still get stupid feedback, to this day, on that self-portrait.

    Keep up the good work.

    Did you ever read the March to Death comic by John Olday. Pretty amazing stuff. 1943. Pretty great bio I just came across: http://www.takver.com/history/meetings/olday.htm
15. 

    lifebyc said, 4 months ago

    @Ted Rall

    Sometimes I agree with you, sometimes you urinate me off, but I always respect that you read and often respond to your readers’ comments. Thank you. As regards today’s strip and drones in general, the idealist in me wants to agree with you. The practical mind wonders how much of 9/11, etc. we “brought on ourselves” – I lived in the Middle East pre-9/11 (not military) and, while confined to fundamentalist minorities, the hatred for Western Culture is deeply rooted and probably unavoidable – unless we had stuck with Washington’s farewell advice from the very beginning (non-intervention). It is far too late for that now, and the question becomes whether we withdraw completely and wait for the next attack, expose American soldiers to danger overseas, or use robots to make admittedly illegal and sloppy preemptive strikes. It’s a nasty conundrum, and every American needs to remember that only two of us know what it’s like to sit behind that desk and make post 9/11 decisions. Thank you for your perspective, and for reading mine.
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