Joint Chiefs Fire at Toles Cartoon on Strained Army

[MountainLaurel]

In a protest with an unusual number of high-level signatures, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and each of its five members have fired off a letter assailing a Washington Post cartoon as "beyond tasteless."

The Tom Toles cartoon, published Sunday, depicts a heavily bandaged soldier in a hospital bed as having lost his arms and legs, while Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, in the guise of a doctor, says: "I'm listing your condition as 'battle hardened.' " Toles said he meant no offense toward American soldiers.

The letter to The Post, signed by Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, the vice chairman and the service chiefs of the Army, Navy, Marines and Air Force, said: "We believe you and Mr. Toles have done a disservice to your readers and your paper's reputation by using such a callous depiction of those who have volunteered to defend this nation, and as a result, have suffered traumatic and life-altering wounds . . .

"While you or some of your readers may not agree with the war or its conduct, we believe you owe the men and women and their families who so selflessly serve our country the decency to not make light of their tremendous physical sacrifices." The letter, which a reporter obtained from the Pentagon, is being published today.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/01/AR2006020102465.html

For those who are interested, here is the original:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/opinions/cartoonsandvideos/toles_main.html?name=Toles&date=01292006

[Chimichurri]

1. The cartoon hit a nerve. I hope WaPo doesn't cave to their bullying.

[Bob3]

2. If they could untwist their panties for a second they would see

that the cartoon's target is not the troops but of course Donald Rumsfeld and his cretin like followers (or sorry that's them) who are letting the army get ground down to a nub rather than admit failure.

[BOSSHOG]

3. I'm a Veteran

and I say fuck you Joint Chiefs of Staff. No one is making light of our troops physical sacrifices. Our kids are suffering because of the ignorant, selfish cretins in the White House. That is where you should direct your wrath. Yes, our kids volunteered to protect our country and they are being used as pawns in a moron's political gain. I would think four-star officers would be more concerned about where we are going in Iraq then a political cartoon which apparently has hit pretty fucking close to home.

[meatloaf]

4. No wonder things are going so well in Iraq.

If the joint chiefs are so obtuse as to think this cartoon makes light of the soldiers as oppsed ro Rumsfeld and the others in charge, namely the joint chiefs, then our boys and girls are in worse shape than we ever imagined.

[applegrove]

5. Nefarious types don't have senses of humour. So it is a battle they

cannot win. Assholes humour is based on them diminishing someone and taking their spirit. Look at Ann Coulter. It is humour all about their narcissism. Which is untrue (they are not the centre of the world - nobody is).

They have neither the skills nor the humanity to make great humour.

Humour (which in its adult form involves punching through to truths and empathy) is a front we should never give up.

[Zenlitened]

6. Um, that's called deliberately misconstruing the meaning.

Toles' cartoon in no way comes across as a slap at soldiers -- it's plainly and obviously aimed at the bosses who are getting them killed and maimed.

Yet, like the skilled propagandists that they are, the right-wing powers-that-be deliberately skew the point, then crank up the Outrage Machine. Goebbels would be proud.

What hope is there for the men and women in the trenches when the brass is willing to employ techniques based on lies and distortions?

How many more political points are going to be scored off the bodies of the wounded and the remains of the dead before GI Joe and GI Jane decide they've had enough?

:shrug:

[Mr_Jefferson_24]

7. The faux indignation of...

...the Joint Chiefs rings laughably hollow. Where is their public condemnation of what occurred at Abu Ghraib, Fallujah, the lack of vehicular armor protection for our troops, America being deceived into war, millions for reconstruction of Iraq squandered by crooked contractors, and on and on---not so much as a fuckin' peep out of the Joint Chiefs on any of this. No, it takes something really, really horrific to get them worked up enough to speak out---it takes a cartoon!

[Lisa]

8. isn't Toles basically depicting a truthful situation, though?

Soldiers with physical injuries or PTSD, in fact, ARE being redeployed (in fact, there was even a piece on CNN about the high-tech artificial limbs which some amputees will be wearing when they go back on active service).

Yet the Joint Chiefs are deliberately ignoring that -- and the main intent of the cartoon, which is ridiculing THEM, not the troops.

[MountainLaurel]

9. You're absolutely correct

I'm sure if Toles had been actually making fun of grunts in the field, the higher ups in their nice offices back in DC and their cozy townhouses in Georgetown would not give a shit.

[Lisa]

10. thank you ...

If they go after Tom Toles, it's probably just as well that Bill Mauldin has already passed away! He would have had a field day with the story (posted last year here on DU) about soldiers returning to the green zone after a exhausting mission, and being shooed out of a restaurant by the brass, because their uniforms weren't clean.


"Th' hell with it, sir. Let's go back to the front."

http://www.5ad.org/BillMauldin.htm


"One photograph of Mauldin shows him sitting on ruins in Italy, sketching with a prankster's smirk as if whipping up the very cartoon that made General Patton flip his lid (which he did, in 1945, giving Mauldin the riot act for depicting GIs splattering officers with tomatoes)."
http://flakmag.com/opinion/mauldin.html

[Mabus]

11. Where was their outrage over Bush's combat with a cedar comment?

Where was their outrage to Bush's "callous depiction of those who volunteered to defend this nation, and as a result, have suffered traumatic and life-altering wounds..." and where was their reprimand of Bush when he didn't have "the decency to not make light" of the of the tremendous physical sacrifices" of "the men and women and their families who so selflessly serve our country" when he spoke to the wounded themselves at a military hospital and had the audicity to compare his "combat" injury with a cedar tree to the wounds of our troops?

On New Years Day, President Bush met with wounded veterans of his Iraq War at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio. He shook hands and said some kind (albeit forced) words. Then he negated the sentiment of his condolences to troops wounded in combat by redirecting the press’s focus to a boo-boo on his forehead that he apparently got on his ranch.

Pointing out a cut over his left eye, Bush struggled to name what exactly the wound was from. In his own words: “As you can probably see, I was injured myself not here at the hospital but in combat with a, um, with a, uh, cedar.”

for the rest and the video of Bush's remark go to http://www.finktank3000.com/wordpress/?p=380

This is just another bullshit attempt to cast dispersation on critics of the war and the Bush pResidency.

:grr:

[AmericanErrorist]

12. Even the DAV gets it

From the article above:

Dave Autry, deputy communications director for Disabled American Veterans, said he was "certainly not" offended by the cartoon.

"It was graphic, no doubt about it," he said. "But it drove home a point, that there are critically ill patients that certainly need to be attended to."

[genie_weenie]

13. Maybe the Pentagon should burn down the WaPo

sorry that's a different thread, seriously, this is great, I hop ole Pete Pace keeps yammering on about a cartoon (ala Al Franken and the please sue us, O'liely) because when enough Cogs are removed the War Machine breaksdown....

[Joey Liberal]

14. The Joint Chiefs were silent about the mock Purple Hearts

I have no respect for the military yes men that are the Joint Chiefs in the Bush cartel.