"The Economist" on "The Seething Genius of Get Your War On"!!!!
Ta-da! OK, well, in fact, it's not exactly The Economist, but rather its sister publication, More Intelligent Life. But still, whatever you think about its politics (and you know, to give them credit, they're sticking with the free market despite a rough few weeks for that agenda...), their writers can write. And I've craved their approbation for a while. And now, courtesy of Get Your War On, I have it. And they admit they're wrong, sometimes.
Between fusillades, Rees reveals some surprising characteristics for an angry cartoonist. One is prescience; in early 2002, he was riffing about war in Iraq, although it would not begin for another year. In spring 2006 he began to rib John McCain for shedding his maverick suit for an ill-fitting orthodox Republican one. And he has long criticised the way America's relentless campaign in Iraq has pulled resources and attention away from Afghanistan, well before Barack Obama made this concern mainstream. It is worth checking his website for animated vignettes with these characters, which are reliably entertaining.But perhaps Rees's most striking quality is his persistence in spotlighting the unending bloodshed. The years have ushered a parade of Washington obsessions--the Iraq Study Group, the Plame Affair, the Democratic takeover of Congress, warrantless wiretapping, etc--yet Rees has been rare in his dedication to reminding readers that real people continue to die violently, and at an alarming rate. One of the last strips in the "Get Your War On" book, from August 7th of this year, could almost be the first oned (unfortunately an image of this strip is not available):
A: Will you remind me what our goals are in Afghanistan?
B: Same as Iraq: Large piles of dead terrorists. Freedom. Fewer beards. Bragging rights. Stability.
A: "Stability." How does that work, again?
B: Easy: you just invade a country and keep killing people until it calms down.