Special Forces #1

[history79]

11 pages of 33

Comments

[alicemacher]

So, "TRUE news stories"* inspired this comic, did they? Pray tell, was one of those stories "Army orders women recruits to wear skimpy uniforms and, if they're injured in combat, to fall into a 'posing for Maxim' position?"


*How good of Baker to give us a quick and easy way to distinguish real from fake news: apparently if it's from the "weird hippie" alternative press, it's automatically fake. Thanks for clearing that up!

[super_fly]

Amazing that whatever knocked her out and killed all her comrades only destroyed most of her clothing

[agent8]

even more amazing it apparently totally destroyed her pants legs without disturbing the pistol holster or thigh straps securing it

[leahandillyana]

I can maybe understand epic WW2 films starring American army, but in every conflict after that they were the invaders. How am I supposed to care about soldiers dying when they are invaders and the story shows no empathy towards the people who were invaded? ! Same for the Indo-Chinese independence wars or North African independence wars so freaking glamourised in French fiction. I despise it.

[cyberghostface]

' How am I supposed to care about soldiers dying when they are invaders '

Because it's possible to say that going to Vietnam or Iraq were bad decisions while still having empathy for the young men and women killed in the war, especially since soldiers were drafted in Vietnam and didn't have much of a say in the matter.

And in cases like Afghanistan, the US isn't going to sit on its feet after you're complicit in the deaths of 3,000 of its people via coordinated terrorist attacks.

[leahandillyana]

Let's reword it: I'd sympathize with real, living soldiers that were sent to fight and die in other countries for the glory of the empire due to falling for propaganda (like Adam Driver, among others, did) or having no say in the matters (either due to poverty, draft or other circumstances). I, however, have no sympathy for fictional characters starring in propaganda media that refuse to grant "the other side" full scope of humanity.
Aphgani army did not invade the United States - in fact, the last army to do so was Canadian army during the Napoleonic wars. A Saudi multillionaire fanatic ensnared men from one of the poorest countries on Earth into his insane scheme. Yet the people who paid the price were the Aphgani, the Iraqi, and later on the Syrians, Kurds and other Middle East peoples - but not the Saudis. I cannot call it other than invading for the glory of the empire.

[jlbarnett]

I can't help but feel that people have dramatically changed the definition of empire for the purpose of saddling the US with it

Osama Bin Ladin was Saudi, but he was not a member of the Saudi government nor were the people who fought for him based there

[leahandillyana]

Every superpower on at least regional scale is an empire. Countries like Sweden, Austria or Lithuania used to be empires at different periods. The word should be used more often in America.
Saudi Arabia is the place where the dangerous, violent fanatism grew. Interferring in the matters of SA would actually be within the interests of the West, and the fact that they decided to attack a country that was already a fallen nation is a sign of cowardice and hypocrysy.

[jlbarnett]

it is, but in general wars are fought where attacks come from. Afghanistan didn't view itself as very fallen as it was willing to take in and protect those people and also thumbed it's nose at other nations frequently. See the destruction of the Buddhas

[jlbarnett]

we did not invade Korea. Hell, we didn't even invade Vietnam. We may have kept a war going longer than it would have but in each of those conflicts we were fighting with native soldiers who didn't want the local governments to be replaced with the governments who launched invasions into their territories. I don't believe the US Army even advanced into North Vietnam's territory during the Vietnam War

And in 1991-92 we invaded Iraq after Iraq invaded Kuwait and we had to push them back.

Where's your empathy for the South Koreans, South Vietnamese and Kuwaitis?

[leahandillyana]

You did. You very much did. Americans have been fighting proxy wars at the expense of the peoples on whose territory the wars are taking place for over two centuries. They have been subjugating and exterminating peoples whose territory they obtained one by one since the very first colonial settlements were established. And governments of both South Korea and South Vietnam were authoritarian right wing regimes sponsored by the USA to begin with. Korea remained an authoritarian right wing regime not so different from the communist states until 1990. Not to mention that the fact that we have Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia etc. and not United Arab republic spread from Marocco to Iran and Turkey is because of UK & France repeateadly breaking their promises of independence to the Arabs, which in turn planted the seeds of distrust towards the West in the Middle East.

[jlbarnett]

They were authoritarian regimes, we supported some real trash, but they were regimes that maintained their own borders and didn't invade their neighbors

And considering the enmity between Sunni and Shi'ite, Muslims, plus the Wahhabist sect and history between Persians and Arabs, is it really so likely all of these people would have allied into one nation

[shadur]

I was somewhat worried when I saw the cover and the use of the phrase "SPECIAL forces".

It turns out I wasn't nearly worried enough.

That's a big ol' 'Yikes' from me, sarge.

[wizardru]

Is the comic meant as a Frank Miller parody? I kinda asumed that's what Baker was attempting. Then I look at that cover and the 'autism HUR HURR' text piece and I'm not really sure what's going on here. But I'm pretty sure I don't like it.