the caption in the upper right says: "the new american plan in iraq."
the other day when i last punted my thoughts over to a mahjoob cartoon, a couple of people seemed to misunderstand what the cartoon was saying (and what i meant by posting it). i guess the presence of the english word "oil" in that cartoon may have confused things as led at least one person to believe it was saying something about iraqi oil. instead, the oil in the cartoon represented u.s. troops. by adding troops to iraq, the cartoon was saying bush was throwing oil on a fire.
today's cartoon has a similar idea. the tank may be painted red and labeled "fire department", but it's still a tank and tanks aren't all that good at fighting fire.
the thing the two cartoons have in common is the idea that u.s. troops are making the situation in iraq worse, not better. which means that bush's plan to dump more troops into iraq can't solve the problem and might inflame the situation more. i think a lot of americans have a hard time on a gut level not thinking of "our troops" as the good guys. and because of that basic feeling that we wear the white hats, it is sometimes hard for americans to realize that it is far from crazy to feel threatened by a bunch of heavily armed foreigners marching through your city. while i have no doubt that many soldiers are just trying to do their job, their very presence as an occupying force is making the situation worse.
