Doonesbury by Garry Trudeau for January 23, 2025

I wonder if G. W. Bush saw that movie.

Yeah, but think of all the advances made with prosthetic devices.

And how much better off the Yew-Nited States is, along with the rest of the world.

Can his stupidity get any worse???!!!

Greenland may not go down as easily…

Which one?

Who cares? They’re all losers and suckers. The president said so.

>

park of the issue with BHD was that the americans had used the same plan multiple times. the somali’s knew what was coming and had cooked up a response.

Not just “sometimes”. Every time.

War is a failure of human endeavors. We measure our history and our religions by wars.

The U.S. Military policy of ‘Total War’ has been in place since 1864. The concept behind ‘total war’ is first as a deterrent, and secondly as a means to and end of the war. Would an enemy attack us if they knew we would destroy every square inch of their people, country and ability to make war until they surrendered. If you don’t want to die in a war, don’t start one. Don’t allow your leaders to start one. We do not always practice ‘total war’, as in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan. Those wars went on and on with many dead. ‘Total War’ brought the end of our Civil War to a quick end. Should we implement that concept again?

But now the warmongers are getting the boot

“What did I join the Army for,anyway?”

“To defend your native soil”

“Well,they don’t have to feed it to me!”

Abbott&Costello—BUCK PRIVATES—1941

All these guys lack are a couple of “Im with stupid” t shirts, then they’d be all set wouldn’t they . ;-)

[Chorus]

What did you learn in school today

Dear little boy of mine?

What did you learn in school today

Dear little boy of mine?

[Verse 1]

I learned that Washington never told a lie

I learned that soldiers never die . . .

. . .

[Verse 4]

I learned that war is not so bad

I learned about the great ones we have had

We fought in Germany and in France

And someday I might get my chance . . .

—Tom Paxton

I was part of that day on a Navy ship off the coast. Flew to my ship by helo the day before the it happened.

OTHER people get killed……right?

Just a note: When the helicopter was hit, it was on its way to an attack.

It was a time of great and exalting excitement. The country was up in arms, the war was on, in every breast burned the holy fire of patriotism … on every hand and far down the receding and fading spread of roofs and balconies a fluttering wilderness of flags flashed in the sun … nightly the packed mass meetings listened, panting, to patriot oratory which stirred the deepest deeps of their hearts, and which they interrupted at briefest intervals with cyclones of applause, the tears running down their cheeks the while; in the churches the pastors preached devotion to flag and country, and invoked the God of Battles beseeching His aid in our good cause in outpourings of fervid eloquence which moved every listener. …

Sunday morning came — next day the battalions would leave for the front; the church was filled; the volunteers were there, their young faces alight with martial dreams — visions of the stern advance, the gathering momentum, the rushing charge, the flashing sabers, the flight of the foe, the tumult, the enveloping smoke, the fierce pursuit, the surrender! Then home from the war, bronzed heroes, welcomed, adored, submerged in golden seas of glory! … The service proceeded; a war chapter from the Old Testament was read; the first prayer was said …

Then came the “long” prayer. None could remember the like of it for passionate pleading and moving and beautiful language. The burden of its supplication was, that an ever-merciful and benignant Father of us all would watch over our noble young soldiers, and aid, comfort, and encourage them in their patriotic work….

An aged stranger entered and moved with slow and noiseless step up the main aisle, his eyes fixed upon the minister, his long body clothed in a robe that reached to his feet, his head bare, his white hair descending in a frothy cataract to his shoulders, his seamy face unnaturally pale, pale even to ghastliness. … he ascended to the preacher’s side and stood there waiting. …

(continued)

The stranger touched his arm, motioned him to step aside — which the startled minister did — and took his place. During some moments he surveyed the spellbound audience with solemn eyes, in which burned an uncanny light; then in a deep voice he said:

“I come from the Throne — bearing a message from Almighty God!” …

“God’s servant and yours has prayed his prayer. Has he paused and taken thought? Is it one prayer? No, it is two — one uttered, the other not. Both have reached the ear of Him Who heareth all supplications, the spoken and the unspoken. Ponder this — keep it in mind. If you would beseech a blessing upon yourself, beware! lest without intent you invoke a curse upon a neighbor at the same time. If you pray for the blessing of rain upon your crop which needs it, by that act you are possibly praying for a curse upon some neighbor’s crop which may not need rain and can be injured by it.

“You have heard your servant’s prayer — the uttered part of it. I am commissioned of God to put into words the other part of it — that part which the pastor — and also you in your hearts — fervently prayed silently. And ignorantly and unthinkingly? God grant that it was so! You heard these words: ‘Grant us the victory, O Lord our God!’ … When you have prayed for victory you have prayed for many unmentioned results which follow victory–must follow it, cannot help but follow it. Upon the listening spirit of God fell also the unspoken part of the prayer. He commandeth me to put it into words. Listen!

(continued)

“O Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth to battle — be Thou near them! With them — in spirit — we also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to smite the foe. O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames of summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it — for our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet! We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen.

(After a pause.) “Ye have prayed it; if ye still desire it, speak! The messenger of the Most High waits!”

It was believed afterward that the man was a lunatic, because there was no sense in what he said.

—Mark Twain, “The War Prayer” (1904)

America has always used wars to distract from domestic problems. Take your choice, jungle fever or frostbite.