Express yourself!

Normally I look forward to the thrice weekly Rockwood dose, but today's strip was so overtly political it struck a sour note. In going partisan, you you are turning off large numbers of your readers. Rockwood successfully mines "the people's" foibles for humor. It strikes a discordant note when suddenly your cast start making completely out-of-character observations. It brings a whiff of those awful SF books wherein wooden characters expostulate the author's (usually naive) political views ad nauseum.

Regarding your strip of 3-29-2004, I believe Clarke's point was that the Bush administration had been keen for quite some time to come up with a reason to attack Iraq. When a 9/11 connection didn't pan out, they started talking up WMDs, which, according to Bush's own recent, rather insensitive visual jokefest put on for the amusement of the press, still have not been found in Iraq. Clarke was not complaining that Bush attacked Afghanistan - rather, he has been making the point that attacking Iraq is counter-productive to an effective anti-terrorism strategy. I appreciate that there isn't a lot of room in a three-panel strip to go into the complexities of an issue, but I think that makes it even more important to be on point about the issue.

...containment of Saddam would not be enough. The "immediate military threat" might be held at bay for the moment. "But even a contained Saddam" was "harmful to stability and to positive change in the region." And in fact, containment was probably not "sustainable over the long run." It was "a costly policy, in economic and strategic terms." The pattern of the previous years--"Iraqi defiance, followed by force mobilization on our part, followed by Iraqi capitulation"--had left "the international community vulnerable to manipulation by Saddam." The longer the standoff continued, "the harder it will be to maintain" international support. Nor was there any question what Saddam would do if and when containment collapsed. "Saddam's history of aggression, and his recent record of deception and defiance, leave no doubt that he would resume his drive for regional domination if he had the chance. Year after year, in conflict after conflict, Saddam has proven that he seeks weapons, including weapons of mass destruction, in order to use them."

Oops. Our bad. That quote was from the Clinton administration.

Now, before you think Team Rockwood is about to go off on a round of Clinton-bashing, once again, there's plenty of bashing to go around. The truth is, the person most at fault for 9/11 was...

Osama bin Laden. Let's not forget that, okay?

But you want to know who in the U.S. can be blamed? Fine. We'll tell you that, too.

It's you. No, not "you" as in "Bascom," "you" as in "everyone who's reading this and looking for someone to blame."

If you're a rightie looking to blame Clinton, admit it. Had Bill bombed Afghanistan back in the late '90s you would have been drafting up more impeachment papers faster than Monica could show someone her thong. Your constant opposition to everything Clinton made it political suicide for him to do the right thing.

Oh sure, laugh it up, leftie. We're coming for you next. For all of you Bush-haters who think that W should be impeached for attacking Iraq now but letting the Taliban slide until it was too late, consider the shaky ground from which you argue. What you're saying is that you would have approved the United States--the world's only superpower--attacking a country that had a yearly per capita income equal to a McDonald's employee's weekly salary, but that you currently have a problem attacking a larger country with a larger military and a proven record of atrocities because "there's no evidence of WMDs there." Puh-lease. Had Bush bombed Kabul on September 10, 2001, the screaming about that would have far drowned out the whining over "whether he'd actually been elected." Again, political suicide.

Man...spring break is over and school is back in session. Good news is the Matrix: Revolutions comes out in a week. Yay!