Drawn! The Illustration and Cartooning Blog

Cool comic...Finally got to see it

And it's sad that these comments have been hijacked by those wishing to 'out-argue' Look at the bigger picture. It's not about who wins a frigging arguement

(Cheering danO on from the sidelines) Brilliant retort and elaboration on your earlier points! I love seeing a leftie who thinks he can out-argue a rightie get his come-uppance. He was quite civil in parts, but still didn't rise to the challenge of the argument back at you.

For even more spectacular entertainment along the same "hand the lefties' asses to themselves on the subject of national security" lines, read or listen to Hugh Hewitt hang, draw and quarter the execrable Joel Stein of the LA Times:
http://www.radioblogger.com/#001332

why we're having this discussion at the Drawn blog, I don't know. But it's good target practice, at least...

third times a charm so here goes:

he portrays their decision not to testify in a FAVORABLE LIGHT.

he chalks it up to honor and dignity rather and bypasses the obvious skepticism that any objective person would look at that decision with.
because, if i'm not mistaken - its a crime to make false statements to to a senator in the presence of an attorney.

these two men have no credibility, an unknown history, no witnesses and backed down when brought to a real power to present their case.

the US military has an established protocol with checks and balances, a chain of command, and servicemen who are just like me and you.

so in the same manner that Sacco has doodled a sympathetic light to the consummately hateful violent and crooked Palestinian command, he has here bent over backwards and twisted the perspective to a dizzying extent in regards to the outlandish stories of these two men.
.. who backed down when pressed for statements in front of real authorities and not syccophantic journalists.

and it takes a rube like you to not only miss this point but blindly believe what you want to believe because it subscribes to your hollywood perception of world politics.
-when we pursue an enemey, we will find out that the enemy is ourselves!
-if we are at war with another people, then we just don't understand them!

idiocy defined.

danO - Much better! Ok, now I do think you did read the comic.

You're right that Sacco doesn't make a clear criticism with that segment (thanks for agreeing with me). There is no (obvious) judgement. The individual reader makes the call. Again, his tone is not that of the wild-eyed paranoid that you originally described.

You seem to be on to something when you allude to Sacco's caricatures of "big fat ugly american servicemen"; it can be argued that he unfairly stacks the deck with his style. On the other hand, he doesn't spare himself by drawing himself heroically - in fact, there are some really unflattering (but funny) self-caricatures in past comics (Palestine comes to mind). Furthermore, the way characters are drawn and exaggerations are just one more way that underlines the strengths and weaknesses of the comics medium when it's used as a form of journalism.

As one who's very familiar with Sacco's work, you probably have something significant to say but you've buried it in irrelevant, trifling rants. Too bad. At least you'll be able to recycle this stuff for some other nutso artist later on. But Sacco doesn't fit the bill for what you've written here.

simply awesome.....10x for link !

oh yes Essrog, how could i have missed the clear crticism of the two men Sacco displayed when he dispalyed their reluctance to tell their story to the Senators....
you've got to be kidding right?

Sacco deftly presents this decision as one made with solemn dignity and honor - for the men are so noble they want to move past the horrific crimes that have been inflicted upon them by the big ugly american servicemen.
at what point are their stories presented as POSSIBLY being false?
they never are.
i'm very familiar with Sacco's work(most of all his short strips that have been in NY Times Magazine), and this is more of the same: the delusional, victim card
drummed up in sequential art form with big fat ugly americans displayed in a manner that only the self loathing left wing american artist can muster.
we must be the bad guys, because look at how poor other people are...
its gotta be our fault.

please.

Perfectly put Essrog.
Big fan of Sacco's work thanks for the link.

danO, I'm convinced by your comments that you didn't read Sacco's comic. Instead, you've recognized an opportunity to stuff unsupportably loony assertions into the mouths of anyone less than a whole-hearted supporter of Bush's war - hardly original, so I'm actually not so ruffled by it.

If you approached it with an open mind, the tone of Sacco's comic is actually pretty dispassionate in retelling the stories of the plaintiffs. He doesn't openly make judgements about whether the stories ring true or false (I was actually surprised by the part in which the plaintiffs turn down a request to see a senator - I would have assumed they'd be more eager to tell their stories and get more publicity).

I guess it can be argued that by the very act of training his attention on the story of torture and retelling it, Sacco is not a neutral observer (the way news photographers are not neutral observers). But you aren't making this argument. Face it: Sacco's cunningly deadpan work amounted to less than your ideal, conspiratorial protester stereotype, but it successfully managed to draw out your own variety of uninformed outrage on the subject -

(- the way it unsurprisingly triggers the sometimes-uninformed outrage of those against the war in Iraq, etc.)

You been played.

One last comment. I think you mean to say in your last line that this is more of his "drivel" - not dribble.

Bye!

danO: great points - well made. Sacco is just another garden variety America hater, as the other commenters here, most likely. The Dems/lefties are not only on the wrong side of history, they're backing sentiments like Saccos which will lose them elections. Unserious about national security, they fail to understand how most sane Americans would rather US forces DO torture islamofascist prisoners if they are suspected of knowing vital information that we can use to save lives or defeat them in the war.

i just find it funny that the CLAIMS of two men which are highly highly dubious(NO witnesses to access to the zoo, No witnesses to the movement of dozens of prisoners) - once again the entirety of the militrary is in on this evil scheme. any idea how many people would have had to be in on this?

you realize that Aby Ghraib was REPORTED to military officials BY our military servicemen. it wasn't uncovered by the media. the whistle was blown by deent people just like you and me who make up our armed forces.
do you even KNOW anyone in the military to make a judgement of them?

i would imagine you do and you look past their character to put all your faith in two Iraqi businessmen that you know nothing about. you bend over backwarfds to believe they implemented this elaborate interrogation technique under cover of darkness for shits and giggles, like they aren't even busy over there...
no you're right, its totally believable that this was all executed secretly and the conspiracy involves dozens and dozens of military officials who are part of the illuminati.
plus, all the soldiers stationed in the Saddam's palazes who were either duped or know but are part of the eeeeeeevil conspiracy!

use your head.
Sacco sat down and dedicated how much time to illustrating a story built upon the word of two men we know nothing about levied against a military that almost all of us know a member of.
its so crazy how they are all in on the secret network a la John Carpente's "They Live"

Sacco is a dunce and this is more of his dribble.

Awesome, awesome, awesome. Sacco is fucking awesome.

Ironic to use the word "unsubstantiated" in regards to a story about false imprisonment by US forces.

danO, yeah, Sacco really should have searched for Rumsfelds and the opinions of those soldiers that did those things. :roll:
if it's against the United States as the pillar of freedom and democracy it can't be true, right? if americans are being accused, those that are accusing are simply lying through their teeth and have been trained to do so by the AlQaida operatives, right?
the sad thing about this whole ordeal isn't really that they will (or could) never get repaid for everything that's been done to them; neither is it the fact that the people that allowed these tortures to happen will never be held accountable and sent to jail as they deserve a thousand times: no, it's the fact that people will deny that it even exists, that it's still happening, just because it's happening to people that LOOK like the people that crashed those planes on 9/11.
And Sacco is as always right to the every point. love his style ever since i read "Safe Area Gorazde" and always look forward to it. that was what i wanted to write in the first place but had to reply to ths comment.

as per usual it is a very convincing unsubstantiated story put forth in a wild paranoid yarn with its sole purpose to villify the united states as an eeeeeeevil empire.
its good to keep things simple, myopic, and delusional.

As per usual with Sacco's work I was shaking with anger after finishing this story. Very strong, (though I wish the scan had been a little better).