Katy Roberts, editor of the Week in Review for the NYT

Editorial Cartoon Selections

The complaint is that we like cartoons to be funny and witty.

I thought that was the point. Apparently not. Funny too often turns into fluff, the critics say, and we're accused of avoiding hard-hitting political jabs. But what they ["the cartoonists" - Ted Rall 12/04/08] consider daring and controversial is often sanctimonious, heavy-handed and obvious -- the Vultures-Over-Darfur School. Wit is far more powerful than finger-wagging.

At least I think so. All the Week in Review editors have had different tastes, but we've all been accused of loving the ha-ha-ha cartoon.
___________

Gus: having been a political cartoonist since the age of five, I have no idea what a political cartoonist should do... One like me can fall in a sad and bitter groove, thus Katy Roberts may be right... I just do what goes through my head, using my prejudices as wrenches. I started long ago with army and police figures and it looks I have not stopped ever since.

But I have stopped. I have painted beautiful butterflies, shells, fine building and lots of people, all with the best of beauty I can distill...

But as we were coerced into going to war in Iraq in 2002, I felt a strong compulsive need to rekindle the old drawings long vanished since they were drawn on slates with a stone "scriber" but are still as pure and sharp in my crumbling mind.

Generally, I don't remember much. Usually I have too many waspy concepts of various purposes running in my head and I do not remember any. Except for some prejudices like "I hate war"... It could be totally irrational and I don't care: I hate war. Thus my earlier slated cartoons depicted goofy generals with all the decoration and the funny hats they could wear. And silly policemen too. In those days there weren't police women. This could have been confusing for a five year old. My cartoons in 2002 were pretty crude, badly-drawn and rude... I felt that way. These days I try to be a bit more off the planet.

When I concocted the cartoon above (Petraeus and his brass-ware), I had no witty punch line except "Yes Ma'am, we surge for another six month and I'll have the full set". The problem for me is that, in all the pictures of Petraeus, I can't see pass anything else but his gleaming decorations. He's like a military Christmas tree. It annoys me. He should appear in civvies: he'd make more sense saying the same thing. But I was not sure about my tag-line...

Meanwhile, out of the blue, I thought of cartooning a "Surge" corn-flake packet with slogan stuff like "pops, crackles, explodes" and "unlimited extra serves" on it... Obvious stuff... But no-one can ever have the "full set", the back of my mind was telling me. So I married the two.

Yes, Ma'am Katy, I am heavy handed and obvious but it makes me laugh. My family members find my cartoons gross, childish and disrespectful. That's all that matters.

---------------

What can we do to improve our mix? If things are tough for newspapers, they're even tougher for traditional newspaper cartoonists, and their ranks are dwindling. We've checked out Web-based non-establishment types. So far we haven't found much. We'll keep looking. Next month, we'll post updated guidelines and instructions for submissions. (Our print space is limited. But there's a large editorial cartoon collection, not chosen by us, on NYTimes.com.)

-----------

Gus: I'm sorry Katy, that you have not found much... I'll stay in the not much bunch, munching on the heavy-handed obvious punch. "The bourgeoisie and the petty bourgeoisie have armed themselves against the rising proletariat with, among other things, culture. It's an old ploy of the bourgeoisie. They keep a standing art to defend their collapsing culture." said (or wrote?) Grosz... That was then... Now the proletariat has been "upgraded" to being "bourgeoisie" by the necessity of the financial market in need to widen its base of sucklings and to enslave more people through credit. Not much proletariat left at the bottom of the food chain except in China. Smart.

Culture? Ha-ha-ha... Culture deserves a ha-ha-ha cartoon or two... War deserves many sad and bitter satirical pictures. I hope I hit the board more times than I hit the wall...

Iraq Dismisses 1,300 After Basra Offensive

By STEPHEN FARRELL
Published: April 14, 2008

BAGHDAD — The Iraqi government announced Sunday that it had dismissed 1,300 soldiers and policemen for refusing to fight or performing badly during last month’s offensive against Shiite militias in the southern city of Basra.

see also: Secret Iraqi Deal Shows Problems in Arms Orders (April 13, 2008)

Maj. Gen. Abdul-Kareem Khalaf, an Interior Ministry spokesman, said that 500 soldiers and 421 policemen were fired in Basra, including 37 senior police officers up to the rank of Brigadier General. Police officials said the remainder were fired in Kut, where fighting also spread.

“Some of them were sympathetic with these lawbreakers, some refused to battle for political or national or sectarian or religious reasons,” General Khalaf said in Basra.

-----------------

Lawbreakers? After many years of the same crap, people can have some different ideas as to whom are the law breakers... What the US has constructed in Iraq is an army and a police force, ordered to fight kith and kin. This always lead to serious problems within a country and even extends bloody sectarianism should army be of a kind and people of another. This can lead to civil war, if only smoldering.

Imagine for example a US Army of blacks, or even of mixed "races", having to fight WITHIN AMERICA other black people or some whites from the NRA, for possessing weapons... Rule #1: Army should only be employed to fight an outsider (the invaders perhaps : the US, Al Qeada, etc); rule #2 : Police force should only be employed to fight criminals and law breakers (robbers, murdered), after investigation — not a whole social network of several million people on the whim of an Iraqi president under pressure from US pantomime administration eager to have its "mission accomplished" well-oiled.

In fact, the US has forced the Iraqi government to adopt a system within Iraq which is quite similar to that of Saddam's repressive means, and there is going to be some objections.

The US Army of blacks, having to fight WITHIN AMERICA other blacks, including their own families, would find it quite horrendously difficult or fighting whites from the NRA would prove deadly for many.

I'm surprised there has not been more desertions (not counted in the government figures above?).

April 21, 2008
U.S. General Sees Afghans Gains in 3 Years

[US general forecast afghan gains in 3 years from now] 

By CARLOTTA GALL

KABUL, Afghanistan — The Afghan Army and police forces should be able to secure most of Afghanistan by 2011, allowing international forces to start withdrawing, the American commander of the NATO-led force in Afghanistan, Gen. Dan K. McNeill, said Sunday.

“By about 2011 there is going to be some pretty good capacity in the Afghan National Army,” he said in an interview in the Kabul headquarters of the International Security Assistance Force.

“It will take them a few more years to get their air transport and air support platforms online, but they should be covering a lot of battle space by some time in 2011, in my view,” he said.

By then, barring any cataclysm, the countries contributing troops to the international force could look at whether such a large international force was still desirable, General McNeill said. “I think you begin to get to a juncture and say, ‘Probably not, maybe we should be starting to change the way this force works,’ ” he said.

The issue has been important to the discussion within NATO about its mission in Afghanistan. Some members of NATO, which has taken over much of the security for the country, have been reluctant to send troops, or to allow their troops to operate in areas where the insurgency is active.

General McNeill said that the United Nations-mandated force, which includes 47,000 troops from 40 countries, would be better named the Interim Security Assistance Force, in recognition of its temporary role until Afghan forces can take over.

---------------- 

Gus: the proper title for this story is "US general forecast Afghan gains in 3 years from now while reading tea leaves". But a war that has been festeering for 7 years now, with another 3 years to come for "improvements" and another few years to settle the air transport and air support platforms, sounds a bit chumy and long for a UN force that was set up temporarily... More of the same, here and there in Afghanistan for another 25 years? Bets?... 

From the New York Times:

WASHINGTON — Gen. David H. Petraeus, who has commanded United States troops in Iraq for the past year, will be nominated to head the United States Central Command, which oversees military operations across a wide swath of the Middle East, Africa and Asia, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates announced Wednesday.

The announcement that General Petraeus, 55, will head the Central Command, and Mr. Gates’s emphasis on operations in Afghanistan as well as Iraq, reinforced the impression that Pentagon leaders expect the United States to have significant numbers of troops deployed in those two countries for some time to come.

---------------

Gus: what's 50-years-some-time-to-come between whatever...?... Congratulations for the appointment and the incoming medals. Someone's got to do the general-in-chief bizo, hasn't it?.

So far this month another 34 US troopers have lost their lives in Iraq... around 500 (no precise figure available at the moment) Iraqi would have lost their lives directly because of the "war" — a war that is more a skirmish extinguisher than a real war... (note: between the first salvo that destroyed a restaurant in Baghdad where Saddam was supposed to have dinner — that only killed innocent diners, a few waiters and the chefs — and Dubya's infamous "mission accomplished" at end of war, about 100 US soldiers had lost their lives. Since then another 3950 have gone to the grand peaceful battlefield in the sky.)

Fully equipped armies such as those of the US have been ousted, in the past, by skirmishes and the US is fully intent on making sure this does not happen here... So be prepared for a conflict in Iraq lasting more than 50 years. The babies of today will be the grand parents of the fighters of tomorrow, unless... who knows... I am neither optimistic or pessimistic.

General Says He’s Hopeful About War Against Taliban

KABUL, Afghanistan — Less than 12 hours after NATO troops in Afghanistan defeated an ambitious attempt by the Taliban to storm a provincial capital in the far southwest, killing dozens of the fighters, the top American commander in the country urged doubters Sunday to believe that the war against the Taliban would be won.

The commander, Gen. David D. McKiernan, who leads more than 65,000 troops from about 40 foreign countries, including 33,000 Americans, said at a news conference in Kabul that there had been “too many” reports in the media recently asserting that the foreign forces and their Afghan allies were losing the war.

“I absolutely reject that idea, I don’t believe it,” the general said, adding: “It is true that there are many places in this country that don’t have an adequate level of security. We don’t have progress as even and as fast as any of us would like. But we are not losing in Afghanistan.”

At another point, he was more emphatic. There are major challenges facing the war effort, he said, “But we will win.”

The Pentagon has become embroiled in a row after the US Army released a photo of a general to the media which was found to have been digitally altered.

Ann Dunwoody was shown in front of the US flag but it later emerged that this background had been added.

The Associated Press (AP) news agency subsequently suspended the use of US Department of Defence photos.

A Department of Defence spokeswoman insisted that the photo had not violated army policy.

Ms Dunwoody, the highest ranking US female military officer, was recently promoted to become a four-star general.

In an original photo of her, she appears to be sitting at a desk with a bookshelf behind her.