So Ted Rall is at it again. You may remember his previous cartoon that got him into trouble by making fun of Daniel Perle’s wife for coming on TV after her husband had his throat cut by his captors in Pakistan. Well, he’s at it again, and this time, he’s ranting about…wait for it…Pat Tillman.

OK–say you’re a pacifist, opposed to any war whatsoever. Then you can criticize the war in Afghanistan and the lionization of anyone who goes there and is killed. But if your concern is that any war fought be legitimately against terrorism, then you can legitimately criticize the war in Iraq, but last time I looked, Afghanistan wasn’t in Iraq.

Rall is apparently unaware that there is a distinction between the two countries. He never refers to them separately. He also compares an occupying soldier getting shot to a suicide bomber or a kamikaze pilot…actually a more accurate analogy would be to a Soviet soldier in, well, Afghanistan being shot and lionized as a Hero of the Revolution, but I’m guessing Rall would find that comparison offensive.

What’s truly weird is that the cartoon and rant both suggest by conflation that Afghanistan has oil. Wow, that’s some George W. Bush-level geography. Hint, Mr. Rall: Basra isn’t in Afghanistan, it’s in Iraq. These are two separate places.

I believe our invasion of Iraq was unjustified according to the reasons that Bush gave for going in. However, I’m not in favor of just pulling out and letting it become another, well, Afghanistan, where rule of law is rare and Islamic extremists dominate the country. We broke it, we bought it.

But, in case anybody doubts this, I am 100% behind the war in Afghanistan, and I hope that we don’t lose Afghanistan in our bid to deal with Saddam Hussein. The U.N. has once again proved utterly ineffective and the E.U. is providing a tiny fraction of the aid to Afghanistan. So I don’t hold out much hope for them.

If Ted Rall can’t see that invading a country that was hiding Osama bin Laden was justified, then he needs to become a pacifist and condemn any war, anywhere, as opposed to those started by Bush.

Hey, Bush probably thought the sky over DC was predominantly blue today. I’m not going to argue it was lime green just because I disagree with Bush on most political issues.