EDITORIAL – Misinterpreted ‘toon not unpatriotic

Last week, the current administration missed the point – again. All of the Joint Chiefs of… Last week, the current administration missed the point – again. All of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and their chairman sent an angry letter to the Washington Post regarding an editorial cartoon the newspaper had published.

Kudos to them for exercising their freedom of speech, and kudos to the Washington Post for publishing the critical letter – but all the same, this letter represents nothing more than another attempt by the administration to shift the focus away from itself. This letter proves that rather than accept constructive criticism, the military’s high-ranking officials prefer to misconstrue the facts and strike out on unwarranted offensives.

The cartoon, drawn by Pulitzer Prize-winning Tom Toles, features a heavily bandaged, quadruple-amputee soldier lying on a hospital bed. His chart reads “U.S. Army,” and the line on the graph is sloping steadily down. By his side, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is playing doctor; he announces, “I’m listing your condition as battle hardened.”

At the bottom of the cartoon, a smaller Rumsfeld is drawn below the caption: “I’m prescribing that you be stretched thin. We don’t define that as torture.”

So, what does this mean? Is Toles making fun of soldiers and veterans? Is this some way of trivializing the wounds of American soldiers?

Most people don’t think so. The cartoon is clearly making a strong statement, but that statement is about the Army as a whole, and about the careless treatment of the soldiers’ well-being. Toles himself said that he drew the cartoon as a response to comments that Rumsfeld made two weeks ago.

A Pentagon-sponsored study stated that the war in Iraq risks “breaking” the Army. Rumsfeld, ignoring the study, called the military a “battle-hardened” and an “extremely capable force.” This may be true, but even a battle-hardened, capable organization can find itself in a vulnerable position.

What’s more, the deputy communications director for Disabled American Veterans issued a statement saying that he was not offended by the cartoon, but rather that, “it drove home a point, that there are critically ill patients that certainly need to be attended to.”

Still, the letter to the editor pronounced the cartoon callous and asked Toles not to “make light of their [the soldiers’] tremendous physical sacrifices.”

Perhaps the Joint Chiefs of Staff should spend their time attending to these patients instead of writing letters. Every citizen in this country – Toles, Rumsfeld, Pitt students – is in this mess together, and most of us want the same thing: a minimal amount of harm coming to the soldiers.

By trying to cast Toles and the Washington Post in a negative light and as insensitive to soldiers’ struggles, the Chiefs of Staff don’t just ignore this unity; they actively try to destroy it.