Stanek Sunday funnies, “Terrorism around the world” edition
Good morning, and happy 14th birthday to our oldest grandson Gabriel! Sad that on this day I have to spotlight how fast the world is spinning out of control. Here were my top five six favorite political cartoons this week. Be sure to vote for your fav in the poll at the bottom of the post!
by Michael Ramirez at Townhall.com, Iraq…
by Nick Anderson at GoComics.com, Afghanistan…
by Glenn Foden at Townhall.com, Gaza…
a twofer by Lisa Benson at Townhall.com, more Gaza, and “As the World Burns”…
by Gary Varvel at Townhall.com, Russia…
[polldaddy poll=8237205]
Aug.10, 2014 8:40 am |
Cartoons |
Jill Stanek is a nurse turned speaker, columnist and blogger, a national figure in the effort to protect both preborn and postborn innocent human life.
The cartoons about Gaza are very interesting. I do not support Hamas or any other terrorist organization but the violence against innocent civilians must stop. I just can’t understand the support given to Israel by the right, especially Christian Right. They just ignore the numerous human rights abuses by Israel and paint the Palestinian as barbarians. What’s ironic is that most American Jews are very liberal and look on conservatives, especially conservative Christians, with scorn and contempt. With Eric Cantor leaving, I don’t think there are any Jewish Republicans in Congress at all. Meanwhile the US gives Israel millions of dollars to build weapon systems that are used to kill Palestinian children. No wonder the Arab world hates us. I STAND WITH GAZA!
I’m voting for #5 this week.
Please keep the family of my aunt (by marriage) in your thoughts & prayers these next couple of weeks. They live in the Ukraine & we’ve received word that they have taken shelter in the basement of their home, due to bombing two blocks away, and have little food & water.
“What’s ironic is that most American Jews are very liberal and look on conservatives, especially conservative Christians, with scorn and contempt.”
I don’t think that’s truly ironic considering we are speaking about defense of Israeli nationals. What might be ironic however is that Hamas would gladly kill these liberal American Jews you speak of without a second thought.
Phillymiss, I think there is so much bad history at work that there certainly is no easy solution, maybe no solution at all.
I do not support Hamas or any other terrorist organization but the violence against innocent civilians must stop.
Ugh. I agree. I can hardly imagine what it’s like, over there. Have to say that Hamas has got to go, for the cessation of violence against civilians. Hamas purposefully shoots missiles where they think the most people are (you can’t really do much more as far as a ‘human rights abuse’), to start with, and they hide among the civilians on their side.
I guess the Arab world does hate us – we are among the biggest players, or are the very biggest – that is preventing them from having their way.
They certainly hate Israel, and Israel is surrounded by them, like a big dog:
http://i1377.photobucket.com/albums/ah56/porkloin1/IsraelSurrounded_zps7f620d0c.png
Israel is hardcore about a lot of things, yeah, and they simply have to be. They had some help from England back in the late 1940s, but it was still just about a miracle that the country ever got established. That the Arab countries were then like the Keystone Cops is what allowed it.
Directly and indirectly, Israel advances the interest of the US in the region, and so we’re going to support them. Ain’t got a whole lot of other options.
If Hamas lays down its arms, then the fighting stops.
If Israel lays down its arms, then there is no more Israel.
If somebody was shooting missiles over our border at us, and digging tunnels underneath, to send in killers, I’d say we would take quite a hard line as well.
Some of this stuff goes back thousands of years, and to think that it can even be stopped is questionable, to me.
Even just within the Islamic world itself, we have the Sunnis and the Shiites, both sides which are apparently basically unsatisfied with anything less than killing everybody on the other side. Where is that going to go?
Imagine growing up as a Palestinian or Israeli – your whole life you know who “the enemy” is, all the bad stuff they’ve done, the threat they pose to you – is it any wonder the conflict continues?
I’m sure people get so ground down by it all that in the end they don’t care about anything except striking at the other side.
Saw a TV show where some teenagers, both Palestinians and Israelis, were brought together for a while. It was slow going in the beginning, but over time they saw that “the other side is just people like me.” There was even some friendliness.
A follow-up, a year or two later, showed them back in their home territories. They remembered and acknowledged meeting the kids from the other side, but overall the feeling was that, “the situation between our people is still the same, nothing has changed.”
Doug my daughter’s father, my ex husband, is Jewish and a grew summers she was able to visit Israel. She got to meet with some Palestinian students and they talked about how badly they were treated. My daughter was so upset she was in tears. They had a big pro-Israel rally here and there were some Palestinian counter protestors. I was talking to one young woman and she said that they were treated like second class citizens. Yet Israels supporters ignore this. They also discriminate against the Ethiopian Jews. I just hate it when the U.S. supports countries with human rights violations like Israel and Saudi Arabia. I try to avoid buying Chinese products but its almost impossible. Say the U.S. stops giving Israel military aid. What would happen? Saudi Arabia is supposedly our ally, but how many of the 9/11 hijackers were Saudi?
Say the U.S. stops giving Israel military aid. What would happen?
Not sure, Phillymiss, but Israel is surrounded by countries who more or less have their position as “There should be no Israel.”
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Saudi Arabia is supposedly our ally, but how many of the 9/11 hijackers were Saudi?
Well, I totally hear that. If we did not need Saudi oil so much, it would be a different story.
The ruling Saudis walk a narrow tightrope – not really wanting to mess with Israel nor take part in the divisive politics in the region, but still needing to placate the more aggressive Muslims in their country.
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On the treatment of Palestinians, yeah, a lot of them get a raw deal. But Israel cannot separate the rest of them from Hamas – Hamas sees to that. I don’t know if Hamas could be kicked out now, by the rest of the Palestinians, they are quite entrenched, literally and figuratively. But there was a time when Hamas could have been kept out of power, and the Palestinians didn’t do it.
There is a lot of sentiment among Palestinians for not giving in to the Israeli demands, no matter what. “Second class citizens,” yes, probably; after all, they are the enemy.
For cartoon #1, does anybody really think the US could have ensured lasting peace in Iraq, short of killing off either the Sunnis or Shiites?
For #2, yeah no doubt – Afghanistan is an easy deal to lose, maybe one where there is no real other possibility. Plenty of people have invaded them long ago – Arabs, Mongols, Greeks, Turks, Persians… More recently, the English in the late 1800s, the Russians in the 1970s, and now we’ve seen how tough it is to really change anything there.
As I recall, while I don’t know to what extent the Taliban supported Al Queda and Bin Ladin, they wouldn’t give him up for extradition, so we went into Afghanistan and thus the war started.
Now, the Taliban are back to power in some parts of the country, and increasing their power overall, and I imagine this will continue. Yes, they treat women and girls horribly, and great suffering results. But unless the Afghan people really don’t want them in, and are willing to fight them, then I don’t think outsiders can achieve it.
It reminds me of Vietnam, somewhat. A good bit of why the North won was that the South Vietnamese just didn’t want to fight.
Doug, The work of our troops had achieved an Iraq where where Sunni’s and Shiite’s were living together without killing one another. We could have had peace (through force) for the foreseeable future if we hadn’t cut completely and run.
So truth – you seem to advocate that the US should forever have a presence in Iraq – yes? How many military personnel?
Truthseeker: Doug, The work of our troops had achieved an Iraq where where Sunni’s and Shiite’s were living together without killing one another. We could have had peace (through force) for the foreseeable future if we hadn’t cut completely and run.
Dude, we were there for friggin’ years already. We cannot be the “World’s Police.” Yes, we could have kept things damped down by force, but that would never end. The Sunni/Shiite deal has been going on almost 1400 years. The two sides have long memories and a patient approach – little things like the US coming in for a while doesn’t change it. One could also say that even the history of the US itself is of relatively small consequence to the long-term Muslim mind.
More recently, and no doubt still “fresh” in the Shiite minds, was Saddam Hussein and the Sunnis running things and being hard indeed on the Shiites, to put it mildly. That is not going to go away.
Are you saying that there could never be places in the mid-east where the less extreme Muslims can live and work together in peace?
Ex-RINO, the number of troops and how active they would be and how long they would stay depends on what is happening on the ground. We sacrificed too much blood and treasure to just cut and run the way we did. It was gross incompetence on Obama’s part. He is in way over his head. He better stick to the contraceptive war on women.
TS: Are you saying that there could never be places in the mid-east where the less extreme Muslims can live and work together in peace?
Of course not, Truthseeker, after all, it’s already happened at some times and places. But I don’t think it was going to be in the non-Kurdish-controlled part of Iraq.
Thanks for your reply Doug.
I don’t know what the solution is either. My daughter had some good experiences in Israel, but she was also came back saddened and disillusioned. She wanted to get more in touch with her Jewish heritage but she said that felt more aligned with the Palestinians as people of color (though technically they are white and some are pretty light-skinned). My daughter is also light-skinned and does not look identifiably black. I had a professor in college, a Polish Jew, who said that the darker you are in Israel, the worse you are treated. They have even had race riots there against the South Sudanese. It just annoys me that if anyone points out that Israel has problems like any other country, they are accused of being anti-Semitic.
Phillymiss, true – there is often a knee-jerk response like that, i.e. “you’re anti-Semitic,” when it’s not the case at all.
How vicious does Israel have to be? It’s a question.
You may see me in the news soon. Gonna set outside the fence of some Israel bashing democRATs house and start launching water balloons into her/his backyard.
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How long do you think it will be before the police show up and cart me off to jail?
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What are the odds that the democrat won’t press charges?
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About the same that they can publicly define ‘rich’ and ‘fair share’?
Don’t know a whole lot phillymiss about what goes on in Israel and Gaza but have heard a totally different story from Brigette Gabriel who grew up in Lebanon where they were bombed by Islamic militants, stayed in bomb shelters for years, whose friends and relatives were decapitated, raped, and tortured because they were Christians along with moderate Muslims who were not radical. Her mother was taken to an Israeli hospital, she was treated before Israeli soldiers because she was in more critical condition than they were. She said they were treated with compassion by the Israelis not any other groups. I think her story is in her book “Because They Hate”.
Don’t know much about it like I said especially about racial issues between Jews and Ethiopian Jews but I don’t think there are many countries like Israel who send warnings before they bomb an area to try to avoid harming innocent civilians. It is more complicated than I know about and these people have been fighting each other for centuries and the Bible foretells of “wars and rumors of wars” before Christ’s return. I will continue to pray for the peace of Jerusalem as instructed by the Bible. I know that Israel does not do everything perfectly but if you get a chance to hear Benjamin Netinyahu’s(sp?) last speech listen to this man talk about their wish for peace with Palestine. God bless you. How is your family doing phillymiss?
I don’t understand unwavering support of Israel no matter what they do, either, Phillymiss. Of course, I don’t understand why we act high and mighty about the horrific human rights abuses in some countries but ignore the ones committed by our “allies” either. International politics is beyond me. All I know is we really don’t have the resources to fix the entire world and can’t leave half our military in various Middle Eastern countries indefinitely.