War Crimes Edition

With self-styled Secretary of War Pete HIC!seth's Leave No Survivors rules of engagement in the present regime's gratuitous War in the Caribbean, Graphical History Tour takes a look at war crimes of the past.

"Das Ende" by Dorman H. Smith for Newspaper Enterprise Assn., ca. Dec. 1, 1945

80 years ago on November 30, a German U-boat commander and two of his subordinate officers were executed for war crimes.

It was during World War II, in the South Atlantic. The German submarine U-852 under the command of Captain Heinz-Wilhelm Eck torpedoed the Greek-flagged ship Peleus on March 13, 1944.

The submarine commander Eck feared the steamer’s debris would be observed by a passing airplane, and give enough information to Allied reconnaissance to enable it to find his ship. He therefore surfaced and attempted to have the debris field eliminated by machine-gunning and grenading it into the watery deep.

Per German rules of engagement:

No attempt of any kind should be made at rescuing members of ships sunk, and this includes picking up persons in the water and putting them in lifeboats, righting capsized lifeboats and handing over food and water. Rescue runs counter to the rudimentary demands of warfare for the destruction of enemy ships and crews … Be harsh, having in mind that the enemy takes no regard of women and children in his bombing attacks of German cities.

"Spectator" by Daniel Fitzpatrick in St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Dec. 3, 1945

The execution of Captain Heinz-Wilhelm Eck, August Hoffmann, and Walter Weisspfennig, was overshadowed by the Nuremberg trials of the Nazi high command, accused of the systematic murder of 6 million Jews, Roma, homosexuals, and Socialists.

"Nuernberg" by David Low in London Spectator, ca. Dec. 2, 1945

The Nuremberg trials came to pass because the Allies were triumphant in the War. Germans did not bring the Nazis to trial. 

Nobody was put on trial for the carpet bombing of Dresden. Or for immolating the populations of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The rules of war were followed there.

"My Lai?" by Paul Conrad in Los Angeles Times, March 31, 1971

A generation later, in another war, the world was shocked by the March 16, 1968 massacre of hundreds of unarmed civilians by U.S. soldiers in the Vietnamese villages of My Lai and My Khe. Expecting to find a Viet Cong battalion there, two Companies of U.S. Army soldiers gang-raped, mutilated, and slaughtered women and children when they couldn't find any men of military age in the town, then burned their homes to the ground. It was the largest confirmed massacre of civilians by U.S. ground forces in the 20th Century.

"Another Victim of My Lai" by William Roberts in Cleveland Press, March 30, 1971

The massacre had been documented in horrific photographs which were printed in national newsmagazines and on television.

The My Lai Massacre was an egregious, but not isolated case, according to an October, 1968 letter from Tom Glen, a 21-year-old soldier of the 11th Light Infantry Brigade, to General Creighton Abrams:

"What has been outlined here I have seen not only in my own unit, but also in others we have worked with, and I fear it is universal. If this is indeed the case, it is a problem which cannot be overlooked, but can through a more firm implementation of the codes of MACV (Military Assistance Command Vietnam) and the Geneva Conventions, perhaps be eradicated."

"Guilty" by Don Wright in Miami News, March 30, 1971

The responsibility for the massacre was taken all the way up to an Army Lieutenant, William Calley, Jr.. Calley's court martial became national news after a whistle-blower's letter prompted Congress to open an investigation. Calley testified that he had been following orders from his superior, Captain Ernest Medina. One witness testified that Medina's orders were that "anybody that was running from us, hiding from us" was to be shot. 

"Murderer" by Leonard Borozinski in Wisconsin State Journal, March 31, 1971

Calley received a guilty verdict in March of 1971 and sentenced to life in prison; yet, as the above cartoons suggest, emerged as a sympathetic figure. He was paroled in 1974 to very little public outcry.

"Time to Come Out of Hiding" by Wally "Trog" Fawkes in Punch, London, April, 1971

Meanwhile, in separate courts martial, Captain Medina and Captain Eugene M. Kotouc were acquitted of all charges. Commanding officer of Americal Division, Major General Samuel W. Koster was charged with covering up the massacre and acquitted, but demoted to Brigadier General.

"It's Not So Difficult Once You Get the Hang of It" by Bill Sanders in Milwaukee Journal, March 31, 1971

Before moving on, we would be remiss if we did not also remember U.S. Army pilot Hugh Thompson, Jr., who landed his helicopter between the villagers and the soldiers, interrupting the slaughter and evacuating some survivors to safety.

"This in a Land Where One Humiliation Is Worth a Thousand Retributions" by Mark Streeter in Savannah Morning News, May 3, 2004

In 2004, the U.S. was embarrassed by its soldiers staffing the military prison at Abu Ghraib torturing prisoners of war. The soldiers had even posted photos on the internet of themselves humiliating naked Iraqi prisoners, chaining them like dogs, and piling them up on top of each other. The most widely circulated photo was of one hooded prisoner standing on a box with arms outstretched while hooked up to electrical wires.

Punishment was limited to the lowest level grunts.

"Chain of Command" by John Sherffius in Boulder Daily Camera, August 20, 2004

What the Dubya Bush administration learned from this fiasco was to rely more and more on outside contractors, like Blackwater, whose civilian paramilitary employees massacred 17 Iraqis at a traffic roundabout in 2007. Said employees were not invited to the Blackwater annual Christmas party that year.

Two years later, the outside firm was ArmorGroup, hired by the U.S. State Department to provide security at the American embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan. CBS broke the story that ArmorGroup guards and supervisors engaging in what can only be described as a combination of the worst fraternity hazing with spring break at Fort Lauderdale.

for Q Syndicate, Sept., 2009

Hazing victims included Afghan nationals employed at the base, according to a Sept. 1, 2009 letter from Project on Government Oversight (POGO) to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton: 

"There is also evidence that members of the guard force and their supervisors have drawn Afghan nationals into behavior forbidden for Muslims. For example, photographs show guards posing with Afghan nationals at the U.S. facility at Camp Sullivan as both the guards and nationals consume alcoholic beverages in scenes that suggest drunkenness, and one photo shows a near-naked U.S. guard who appears to have urinated on himself and splashed an Afghan national."

And again, there were plenty of photos, posted to the unit's social media page. It's always the pictures that get people into trouble.

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War crimes have been committed by many countries other than the United States. Is it even possible to have a crime-free war, fought strictly according to the Geneva Accords? 

Seemingly not. That, however, takes us into Current Events, which are not in our Graphical History Tour's itinerary.

Not yet, anyway.

Jimmy, We Harshly Drew Ye

Today's Graphical History Tour leafs through some editorial cartoons from the scrapbook I kept back during Jimmy Carter's presidency. 

Back then, almost every major newspaper in the world had its own editorial cartoonist or two, and very often supplemented them with syndicated editorial cartoons from elsewhere. (And every major city had more than one daily newspaper.) Any given issue of Time, Newsweek, U.S. News & World Report and National Review would have several editorial cartoons illustrating their reportage, even occasionally commissioned for their covers.

So I got to see many cartoonists' work in print. I'm afraid this can't be a comprehensive account of every cartoonist's caricature of the 39th President of the United States. There were hundreds of editorial cartoonists plying the trade in those days, and most of them were quite good at it.

These are the cartoons I liked best for one reason or another: some for the artwork, and others that I thought were most effective at the time, even if I disagreed with them. None of my own cartoons are in that old scrapbook, so none of them follow. (Besides, I've done that post before.)

"Don't You Fret About These Little Rascals," in Chicago Tribune, March 27, 1977

I'll start with the only one of the cartoons in my scrapbook whose cartoonist I don't know for sure. There's no signature on this cartoon, and the Chicago Tribune didn't run a credit line under it. It was not someone who regularly appeared in the Trib. 

I was impressed by the stylish line technique, as well as the caricature; coming early in the Carter administration, cartoonists were just then having to develop a Carter characterization that did not involve him smiling broadly. Quite a few came to exaggerate the distance between nose and mouth.

Next up come two of the giants of editorial cartooning from that era, both here tackling the challenge of drawing President Carter without the smile. Even taking into consideration that both of them inspired imitators in the biz, I wouldn't need to see signatures to identify the work as theirs.

"Performer and Critic" by Pat Oliphant in Washington [DC] Star, April, 1977

The simplicity and spareness of Pat Oliphant's drawing apart from that tuba sells the cartoon. Jeff MacNelly's idea below is carried by the detail and heightened perspective.

"I Sure Picked a Rough Neighborhood to Run Out of Gas In" by Jeff MacNelly in Richmond News Leader, Oct., 1977

Jack Ohman wrote in his Substack this week that both Oliphant and MacNelly hated Carter — well, Oliphant hated everybody, Ohman says. He knew them both, and I don't. Anyway, Oliphant quickly began to draw Carter as a much smaller man than he actually was, and MacNelly gradually followed. By the eve of the 1980 election, both drew cartoons in which Carter didn't even come up to Reagan's knees — their way of saying that instead of growing into the job, Carter had done the opposite. 

"Not a Bad Man" by Dick Locher in Chicago Tribune, Feb. 1979

Such was also the point of this devastating cartoon by the Trib's Dick Locher. He must have really liked this idea, rehashing it decades later with President Barack Obama in the title role.

"For Human Rights" by Don Wright in Miami News, ca. Feb. 1977

I doubt that was the message behind the relative sizes of Carter and the Russian bear in Don Wright's cartoon, drawn only a month or so into the Carter administration. It does illustrate, however, a significant foreign policy change instituted by Carter to emphasize human rights. 

U.S. foreign policy after World War II had been focused on containing communism, even at the cost of allying ourselves with repressive right-wing regimes. That the Soviet Union was both communist and repressive meant that U.S.A.-U.S.S.R. relations were not likely to change all that much.

"Is It True You're Not Leaving Washington" by Mike Peters in Dayton Daily News, ca. Nov. 1977

In matters of style, Carter was given to performative gestures: walking from his inauguration carrying his coat bag, addressing the nation in a cardigan sweater, and cancelling a foreign trip because Congress hadn't passed his energy policy bill.

Mike Peterson posted a selection of cartoons from the Carter presidency on Monday, and Steve Greenberg observed that he was the only cartoonist in that bunch who is still producing editorial cartoons for publication. I believe that Mike Peters is the only such cartoonist in this here post. 

"Of Course I'm in Charge Here" by Clyde Peterson in Houston Chronicle, ca. Nov., 1977

Clyde Peterson drew under the pen name CP Houston with a fetching style all his own. I do suspect that had he drawn a Black politician with lips this large, he would have been labeled, even in pre-P.C. 1977, racist. Plenty of other cartoonists on this blog post would have run the same risk.

"Born Again" by Ivan Licho in Militant, New York, Feb. 3, 1978

This cartoon by Ivan Licho for the newspaper of the Socialist Workers Party (one of my college roommates had a subscription) unfairly likens Carter to the two presidents who preceded him, but I found the drawing itself compelling. 

Its caption's reference to President Carter's religious faith sets up this next cartoon, when Carter's sagging poll numbers were lifted by achievement of a peace agreement between Israel and Egypt:

"Borne Again" by Paul Conrad in Los Angeles Times, March, 1979

I'm not sure that there is anything special about Paul Conrad's drawing, aside from my hometown newspaper's decision to crop it rather severely. I just like the pun.

As I said above, this was not intended to be a comprehensive collection of U.S. cartoonists by any means; others have already tackled that task. What I haven't seen is any sampling of foreign editorial cartoonists; so here's a random bunch from my scrapbook.

"Either This Man Is Dead or My Watch Has Stopped" by Leslie Gibbard in Manchester Guardian, Sept. 1977

Under President Carter, the U.S. officially recognized the government of "Red China," 28 years after Maoist forces overthrew Chiang Kai-Shek. It was an opening made possible by Richard Nixon's historic trip to China in 1972, although our continuing "Two China" policy doesn't quite mean we've surrendered Taiwan to Beijing. Yet.

Even more impressive than transforming Carter into Groucho Marx is Leslie Gibbard's transformation of Chinese President Hua Guofeng into Margaret Dumont.

"You're Not Going to Let a Little Teng Like That Spoil Your Appetite" by Ed Uluschak in Edmonton Journal, ca. Feb., 1979

While I was in college, my parents gifted me a subscription to the monthly Atlas World Press Review, later just World Press Review, which published articles, columns, and editorial cartoons from around the world. (I continued subscribing to it after I graduated until I noticed that my income was falling far short of my expenses, forcing me to cut it along with Cinemax and pre-packaged frozen dinners.)

Ya'acov "Ze'ev" Farkash in Ha'aretz, Tel Aviv, ca. Jan., 1980

Soviet President Leonid Brezhnev sent Russian troops into Afghanistan to bolster a client government there in the winter of 1979-1980, while the Carter administration was hobbled by preoccupation with the hostage crisis in Iran.

by Keith Waite in Sun, London, Feb., 1980

Carter's response of pulling the U.S. out of Moscow's 1980 Olympic Games is beautifully skewered by Britain's Keith Waite. Russia retaliated by pulling out of the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles.

"Scoops" by Doug Sneyd, self-syndicated, Oct., 1980

In a way, what doomed the Carter administration from the start was that there was no outside voice coming to its defense or lauding its achievements. Its triumphs quickly faded, while the mistakes, misfortunes, and malaise lingered on.

I've read some historical fiction recently imagining Carter reelected to a second term. He would then have been in office as OPEC's grip on world economic power was broken, the Soviet Union became unable to hide losses in Afghanistan and two of its sclerotic leaders died in quick succession. The Equal Rights Amendment might have passed. He'd have gotten to name a Justice to the Supreme Court. 

He'd also have been in office as HIV/AIDS spread like wildfire, terrorists killed 143 Marines in Beirut, and the U.S. went through a recession.

Assuming he didn't get shot to impress Jodie Foster.

Instead, he went on to be one of the most exemplary ex-presidents in history, and his family got to celebrate his 100th birthday with him.

Q Toon: A Tucker Born Every Minute

I developed this week's cartoon in response to Tucker Carlson's fawning interview with Hungarian fascist homophobe President Orbán. Surely my "Any Day Now" scenario in which Mr. Carlson would be equally infatuated with the family, faith, and heritage clan's conquest of Afghanistan is utterly ridiculous.

Or maybe not so much.

It turns out that Carlson is already warming up to the Taliban proud boys' club in Afghanistan.

“Thanks to American-imposed gender quotas, dozens of women ultimately were installed as representatives in Afghan’s parliament,” Carlson complains. “How did that work? Well, the whole thing was a sham, as always.”

“It caused revolts, but officials kept doing it, they kept pushing radical gender politics anyway, because they could, because they were in charge of these Stone Age people they were going to educate. This is the face of the late American empire, gender studies seminars at gunpoint,” he claim[s]. ...

“It turns out that the people of Afghanistan don’t actually want gender studies symposia. They didn’t actually buy the idea that men can become pregnant. They thought that was ridiculous,” he continues. ...

He claims the Taliban rejects that because “They don’t hate their own masculinity. They don’t think it’s toxic, they like the patriarchy, some of their women like it too, so now they’re getting it all back. So maybe it’s possible that we failed in Afghanistan because the entire neoliberal program is grotesque.”

Once upon a time, it was conservatives who were all in favor of cultural imperialism — onward Christian soldiers and all that —; but when it comes to equal rights for women and the LGBTQ+, the right-wingers have suddenly discovered the virtues of medievalism and the divine right of the biggest psychopath in the land. If the local warlords want to imprison women in their homes and force them to wear burlap tents, if they believe in crushing innocent LGBTQ+ people under stone walls, well, you just have to respect local customs.

And sigh that those were the days.

Déjà Vu All Over the Place

Stop me if you've seen this...

This Week's Sneak Peek

Last week at this time, I was racking my brain wondering what the hell I was going to write Saturday's history spiel about. By Friday night, I had one all written and ready to publish when another topic landed in my lap.

August has a reputation for being a slow news month, but events, current or historical, never really take a summer vacation.

Meanwhile, here's a cartoon from Kladderadatsch dating from 100 years before America's decision to go into Afghanistan that seems a propos in light of its collapse around us as we depart.

"Latest English Plaques" by L. Sautz (?) in Kladderadatsch, Berlin, Oct. 20, 1901

Condemned to Repeat It

Trump's address to the nation on Monday night, in which he sort of announced that he was going to do something about the war in Afghanistan. He didn't say he was sending more troops (although he is doing exactly that); mostly he talked about what he would not do. "One way or another," he promised, "these problems will be solved."

He would not withdraw troops from Afghanistan. He would not discuss any change in strategy. He would not describe our military goals. He would not engage in "nation-building." He would not mind if Afghanistan were a kleptocratic autocracy.

Most pointedly, he would not set any date by which the U.S. would turn responsibility for the fighting over to the Afghans.

I'm reminded of a cartoon I drew back in 2008. The George W. Bush administration had steadfastly refused to offer a timetable to withdraw troops from his war in Iraq. Saddam Hussein had been quickly deposed, but extinguishing the insurgency was proving considerably more difficult. In the summer of 2008, Bush announced a "time horizon" for the end of U.S. troop involvement.

“In the area of security cooperation, the President and the Prime Minister agreed that improving conditions should allow for the agreements now under negotiation to include a general time horizon for meeting aspirational goals–such as the resumption of Iraqi security control in their cities and provinces and the further reduction of U.S. combat forces from Iraq.”

According to NPR, an unnamed senior U.S. official — which usually means cabinet-level — was reminded of another war from the past-as-prologue:

When asked before [Trump's] speech how long the U.S. presence could remain in Afghanistan, a senior U.S. official responded, rhetorically, "How long have we been in Korea?"

QToon: Tommy v. Tammy

National media attention this week has been on tonight's debate between President Barack Obama and Bain Capitalist Mitt Romney. Less attention gets paid to the congressional and senatorial debates around the country, by and large, although the Elizabeth Warren v. Scott Brown debate over the weekend did get some tongues wagging.

(As an aside: I don't buy the media spin that it was a gaffe when Warren started to answer a question about which Republican now in the Senate she could work with on major issues by citing Dick Lugar. Dick Lugar is "now in the Senate," as David Gregory phrased the question, even if Lugar won't be there once the next Congress is sworn in. And while a Democrat might be able to work with, say, Marco Rubio on immigration reform, or Rand Paul on limiting government surveillance of private citizens, on "major issues," the Republicans who will be calling the shots if Scott Brown is reelected have no interest whatsoever in working with any Democrats.)

Last Friday in the race to succeed retiring Senator Herb Kohl, former Wisconsin Governor Tommy Thompson and Madison area Congressman Tammy Baldwin met in what was billed as a debate. It was no such thing; the format consisted them taking turns answering questions from four TV/radio people. They each got to give one answer to each question, and there was no opportunity for rebuttal or response to each other. The one time a questioner asked what he called a follow-up question, he changed the subject from abortion to marriage equality. Well, that's not a follow-up question; that's a question asked out of turn.

Having breezed through several debates in his races for governor, Thompson was at ease with the format, repeating his favorite talking points frequently but as if they were fresh new thoughts each time -- so that any given one of those sound bites could be used in news reports or his own campaign commercials. Baldwin faltered a bit more at the outset, with enough umms and uhhs that I began to wonder if she had only crammed for the event on the drive to the studio. But she addressed the questions directly, with detailed facts, and without harping on a select few talking points all night; and she seemed more comfortable by the end of the hour.

And, unlike Thompson, Baldwin did not come off as downright scornful of her opponent. It rang strange when, after Baldwin had given her answer to a late-in-the-debate question asking what could be done to keep Asian carp out of the Great Lakes, Thompson blurted out with mock astonishment, "I'm absolutely surprised! That's the first time I haven't been blamed for something or George W. Bush!"

Thompson brought up his wife three times during the debate, although, curiously, he never said her name. Now, admittedly, that's fewer times than he said that he'd cut taxes 91 times, but one wonders what kind of point he was trying to make. There was nothing all evening that he said that he hadn't planned beforehand to say. I have to suspect that this was a "dog whistle" to the people whom he wanted to remind that Ms. Baldwin is one of those scary lesbians.

What else went on during the evening?

We learned that somehow, when nobody was looking, Tommy Thompson built a hospital in Afghanistan. The morning-after research finds that not all is well with that particular project:

A contractor's assessment of the hospital found that Afghan physicians at the hospital often did not have basic knowledge of anatomy and physiology and lacked skills needed to resuscitate women and infants. In addition, the hospital routinely lacked basic supplies, including surgical gloves and antibiotics.

More impressively, he also built Wisconsin. He even claimed to have brought Wisconsin unemployment down below 2%. (Politifact disagreed with an earlier claim of 2.1%.) But don't blame him for any of today's problems. He's not in Congress, he's a private sector.

This Week's Q Cartoon

The private security firm contracted to provide security guards to the American Embassy in Afghanistan has been replaced after allegations surfaced of wild parties and sexual harassment supported by photos of alcohol-fueled clothing-optional antics on the embassy compound. This week's cartoon offers them one last chance to make lemonade from their lemonhead employees.

I'm no prude, and I certainly appreciate that trying to maintain the security of an American outpost in a war zone is pretty stressful, but they really need to require embassy personnel at all levels to read The Ugly American before they arrive overseas to represent our country. Everyday Americans do not look kindly on behavior by foreign nationals at embassies on our soil that mocks American laws, norms and parking regulations. Al Qaeda's entire raison d'être springs from Americans merely setting foot on Saudi Arabian sand; the bacchanalia of these guards can only confirm Muslims' most hostile prejudices against Americans.

Come on, guys. Keep this kind of stuff at home where it belongs.