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May 19, 2006
Hamster Don't Surf
Reading today's strip I'm reminded of the opening scene in "Apocalypse Now" where Martin Sheen is have a nervous breakdown in a hotel room, thrashing about, breaking mirrors, losing his mind. That's how I imagine Scott Stantis trying to come to terms with just what the hell he's been trying to do over the past two weeks at Prickly City.
Yesterday things seemed to go back to normal. Carmen was the optimistic war cheerleader, saying next we should bring in more troops! Winslow on the other hand goes back to his liberal roots, calling to bring the troops home. Ah yes, all is well in the world of PC.
But then today happened.
We see Winslow, the pensive soldier, marching back and forth. He doesn't care what the Iraqis - er, I mean the hamsters think. He doesn't know a thing about their culture. In fact, they don't factor into his thinking at all (odd jump there, btw). So why can't he stop thinking about why they hate us?
Now I'm guessing Stantis intended to answer his own question today. Too many people anxious to invade Iraq to "liberate" the Iraqis and bring them "freedom" sort of forgot to actually consider what the Iraqis wanted. It would have been interesting to know if they would have preferred the tyrannical leadership of Saddam, or the deaths of 100,000 innocent men, women, and children that's led to a brutal civil war where dozens are dying every day. Not only did Bush and Co. not send enough troops, they didn't send enough translators. They didn't plan for desert warfare. They didn't send enough body armor. Hell, they didn't have an exit strategy. And now we're still there, with no plans for the future other than "stay the course" - even though we have no clue what that course is.
"Saigon. Shit. I'm still only in Saigon."
Congressman John Murtha, who called for the redeployment of our troops in Iraq six months ago, asked a simple question in his blog this past week: Does anyone think that things will be better 6 months from now?
Will he be asking the same question another six months from now? Six years?
Scott Stantis had a chance to tackle a very serious issue with some light-hearted humor while making an important point. But he failed miserably. Part of it is he can't keep his damn characters straight. And part of it is because he, like so many Bush supporters, can't reconcile the fact that they were wrong, and their mighty leader lied (misled, goofed, whatever word you want to use for "only listened to the info that told him what he wanted to hear instead of the mountain that said we had no good reason to invade"). Now we're stuck in Viet Nam #2 with Bush saying it'll be up to future presidentS to decide the fate of Iraq.
"The horror...the horror..."
Comments
'Round and 'round.
Posted by: Sacki at May 19, 2006 12:59 PM
