ADVERTISEMENT

NYT Publishes Bizarrely Despicable Cartoon

R.O. Blechman (photo credit Michael D. Leroy)
August 14, 2014

The New York Times has published a cartoon by R.O. Blechman that is ... well, I don't know. Of questionable taste and minimal sense? Absurd? Despicable? An esoteric commentary on the idiocy of anti-Iraq-interventionists? I honestly have no idea. But it's worth breaking down frame by frame to really dive into the awfulness of it all. Here's how it begins:

Screen Shot 2014-08-14 at 11.59.05 AM

Let's just look at this introduction to the cartoon, specifically the phrase "some Arabs." First off, that's awfully othering. As if "some Arabs" aren't people too. Blechman, I am disappoint. On top of that, though, it's worth pointing out that the Yazidis—the aid to whom, I presume, Blechman is denouncing in this cartoon—aren't actually Arabs, as David Kenner noted on Twitter.

We're off to a stellar start, aren't we? Here's the first frame:

Screen Shot 2014-08-14 at 12.04.04 PM

Here are some fun facts from a Washington Post story bemoaning cuts to food stamps:

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) currently costs about $80 billion per year and provides food aid to 14 percent of all U.S. households — some 47 million people.

The idea that America is doing nothing to provide food to the unfortunate in America is laughable, at best. And the idea that a few million bucks worth of water drops to the Yazidis—who are facing death at the hands of barbaric Islamic militants—is taking food out of the mouths of our people is insulting and monstrous.

NEXT FRAME.

Screen Shot 2014-08-14 at 12.10.28 PM

We've covered the "they're not Arabs" thing.

Screen Shot 2014-08-14 at 12.12.09 PM

False. Is anyone stupid enough to believe that all of the mountains—even all of the mountains in coal country—have been "cut for coal"? Hold on, let me Google "the rockies" for you.

But this next frame. This next frame. It's just ... well, you'll see.

Screen Shot 2014-08-14 at 12.13.53 PM

I try to keep it clean on The Editor's Blog, but: what the fucking fuck? Are you for serious right now, Blechman?

So lucky:

In an exodus of almost biblical proportions, thousands trudge across a river to escape killers belonging to the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, or ISIS.

Entire families carry nothing but the clothes on their backs. Some are barefoot. ...

Jamir said after ISIS arrived in his town, Arab neighbors of his turned on the minorities and helped ISIS kill. "They join them, and actually they kill us."

So, so lucky:

Islamic State fighters abducted over 100 Yazidi women and children when they captured the northern Iraqi town of Sinjar last week, a senior commander in the group told CNN on Wednesday.

Militants from the Islamic State, formerly known as ISIS, killed many of the Yazidi men in Sinjar and have taken the women and children to Mosul, a city controlled by the extremist group, the commander said in a telephone interview with CNN.

So remarkably lucky:

Several Yazidi survivors have recounted horror stories of having to watch their daughters, wives and sisters forcefully taken away them by Islamic State militants.

When Islamic State stormed the town of Sinjar, forcing out the Kurdish Peshmerge forces,  the Yazidis - whom the Islamic State State considers as "devil worshippers" - had only two choices - stay and risk being killed and raped by the jihadists or flee across the desert, facing starvation and thirst.

And in its week-long offensive in the areas in and around Sinjar, the militants reportedly executed more than 500 people. Also, around 300 women were kidnapped by the militants, who plan to use them as slaves, accordign to Reuters.

In one incident, a 23-year-old was brutally raped and was then asked to run to the Sinjar mountains.

Again, I almost have to wonder if Blechman's piece is a critique of the anti-interventionist point of view. Because no one would be so callously monstrous as to score weak political points on the back of a genocide.

Would he?