Cartoon wrong on start of Iraq war

There was a cartoon in the Sept. 1 Daily Herald, depicting "Dubya" on the phone in the Oval Office. George says, "Vladimir, how on earth can you justify invading a sovereign country and demanding regime change?" Vlad replies, "Ha! Ha! Good one, George!"

It would be a good cartoon, if it weren't so grotesque. The clear implication is that the U.S. invasion of Iraq was unilateral (i.e., that 40-some other countries were not involved), unprovoked (that Iraq was not training terrorists how to hijack aircraft), that Iraq was a "sovereign country" (no country harboring terrorists or pirates is "sovereign"), and that "regime change" in Iraq was not desirable or appropriate in 2003.

Georgia did not start wars with her neighbors, did not use WMDs on her own citizens, has not been torturing to death 2,000 to 3,000 people per day, has not been aiding and abetting terrorists around the world, has not been paying "rewards" to families of suicide bombers, has not flaunted a long series of U.N. "ultimatums," and has not been stirring up trouble with Putin's Russia, or any other country.

Putin's invasion of Georgia was unilateral and unprovoked, very much like Hitler's invasion of the Sudetenland, and was in no way comparable to the allied coalition invading Iraq. Putin clearly appears to have been courting the Russian portion of the population in Georgia in his effort to gain control over the oil and gas pipelines running through Georgia.

If the Daily Herald thinks there is such a thing as "journalistic honesty," it should apologize for running that cartoon.

Peter G. Malone

St. Charles