What the hell, some G.I. Joe!

[seriousfic]

So the Joes are in South America to do something involving a coup. This being G.I. Joe, Cobra, Destro, a fruit company cartel, and other sinister forces are at work. But in the midst of all that, our boys pay a visit to the embassy.







Happy Memorial Day everyone, and remember to check for angry gun-wielding soldiers before you do any flag-burning.



Tags: creator: larry hama, publisher: marvel comics, title: g.i. joe

Comments

[jlbarnett]

so you're okay with someone going into another country's embassy and destroying it?

[rordulum]

I'd be more worried about the ambassador and his staff than about some guy threatening to burn a piece of cloth. But that's just me.

[angelophile]

Yeah, that's it. People are what you die for, not a flag. I know in the US it's representative, but in the UK, really, it's just a flag. Our country's flag, sure, and there's a certain amount of national pride tied into it, but I do remember being completely baffled about this scene when I first read it when I was younger.

[davidklecha]

It's one of those things buried pretty deep in the American psyche. The flag represents the nation, which are the people, no matter how few of them you have gathered together. The flag is the centerpiece of our national anthem, and the two go together inextricably before one of our primary socio-cultural convergences: sporting events.

It's a symbol, and a rather powerful one, made more powerful by the experience of war and combat. The flying flag means home and safety (to some degree) even when that means a little triangle of berms and concertina wire in a jungle in SE Asia. So soldiers twig to it even more strongly than the average citizen.

Here, rather than promoting this brand of jingoism, I would suggest it's meant to reveal something about Roadblock's character. He (and only he, not Hawk or Psyche-Out) is that wound up in what the flag means to bring the mission to a halt in order to protect it.

[geoffsebesta]

I'm gonna have to say that Roadblock was just the mouthpiece here for something Hama wanted to say. This scene is entirely consistent with all of the GI Joe comic.

[davidklecha]

To each their own. My memory of the comics (and I just reread most of them a month or so ago), is that Hama put more emphasis on "the buddy to your left and right" than on the flag as an inviolate object.

[geoffsebesta]

Don't know if this matters, I'm just pointing this out -- I'm the guy that wrote the Liberal Apologia for GI Joe series back on the old scans_daily. This means two things:

1. I've been over the entire series with a fine-toothed comb
2. I tend to see the series real politically, maybe more than it deserves.

So YMMV, to me the GI Joe series is a veritable zoo of every type of jingoism. I love the "protect your buddy" side of the story. I'm more than a little troubled by the nationalism.

If you're interested, I think Roadblock is in the wrong here, but I see where he's coming from.

[cmdr_zoom]

My guess is that it has to do with being a polyglot people from the start, a nation of immigrants and an assemblage of states with not much in common, who had to invent a national identity and history for ourselves. The idea of the US (as represented by the flag) is the one thing we all agree on, even if it means something a little different to each of us. It is - in the literal, traditional sense - our icon: our object of worship, the material representation of the immaterial.

And like davidklecha says, it comes to stand for other things as well - home, American society and values, the things we like to pretend that our country alone/best represents (because we are just the most awesome country there ever was, amirite?) even when embarrassing examples of us acting just like every other big country litter the history books and newspapers. The flag is a symbol for the impossible American dream we cling to all the tighter as the reality disappoints us, the ideal that will never fail us.

No surprise, then, that Captain America literally wears it. He is the American we'd all like to be, if only we didn't have to actually work at it or sacrifice anything. :p (Like wanting to be Batman without the childhood-destroying trauma or years of constant training or emotional constipation.)

[geoffsebesta]

If there's one thing I'll always respect Marvel for, it's the way they keep Captain America a good guy, instead of a jingoistic supertool.

[geoffsebesta]

Well...why were these nationals so angry at America? Did they have a good reason?

I mean, if the Iraqis destroyed the American Embassy at the very beginning of the Iraq war, that would make sense, right? It's an act of war between two countries at war?

Not sure if that's the situation here, but that's one situation where I'd have to say, yes, if America attacks your nation without provocation, raiding the embassy is an act of war no better or worse than most other acts of war.

[davidklecha]

If one nation attacks another, chances are excellent that the attacking nation has already withdrawn its embassy. The US had no diplomatic relations with Iraq since 1990, and so there was no embassy to attack.

The US embassy in, I believe, Sarajevo was attacked in the last few years over a US decision to recognize Kosovo's claim of independence, well outside of any actual hostilities. Flags may well have been burnt, even, though the attackers never breached (or tried to breach) what is called the "hard line" behind which is all the secure stuff--crypto books, visa forms, the actual ambassador, etc. That's generally where the Marines (not present in this story) would make their stand.

[geoffsebesta]

Truth.

That's the problem when you follow GI too closely -- it tends to fall apart. Like when Libya formed an alliance with Cobra...huh?

That said, if this is a withdrawn embassy then it's no longer American soil and Roadblock's definitely in the wrong. If it's a real functioning embassy, then the entire sequence beggars imagination, as feyandstrange pointed out, and we're back where we started -- what does it mean when a foreign national burns an American flag?

[davidklecha]

The ambassador was still there, ergo the embassy was not withdrawn. By treaty, that is American soil. Even if they came to pull the ambassador out, and destroy the crypto books and sensitive documents and stuff, that would not necessarily mean the embassy was withdrawn.