War Is Boring

by DAVID AXE Cartoonists Ted Rall and Matt Bors — the artist on my new graphic novel — are in Afghanistan to chronicle the plight of everyday Afghans in a series of quickie comics. You can support Matt by buying a print.

Torrential monsoon rains since late July have flooded Pakistan’s Swat Valley and portions of neighboring Afghanistan, killing nearly 2,000 people and displacing around 2 million. Relief efforts have included deployments of troops and helicopters by the Pakistan military, the NATO force in Afghanistan and, perhaps surprisingly, the nascent Afghan air corps. “Right now, the Afghan air force has four Mi-17 helicopters in Pakistan supporting that relief effort,” said U.S. Air Force Brig. Gen. Michael Boera, head of Afghan air training.

On August 1, the Dutch army abandoned Afghanistan, ending its five-year occupation of the southern province of Uruzgan. I visited the main Dutch base, Camp Holland, in 2007 and was struck by the sheer comfort of the facility compared to other NATO bases. Lots of big NATO bases have gourmet coffee, but few feature the coffee plus exquisite, air-conditioned and armored living units, wireless Internet and a weekly smorgasbord of fresh fish.

Explosive Devices have accounted for around 800 of the roughly 1,100 U.S. combat deaths in Afghanistan. To counter these increasingly-lethal bombs, the U.S. military is spending billions of dollars on blast-resistant vehicles specially tailored for Afghan terrain. But in addition to their high cost, the complex new vehicles can be a logistical burden.

Cartoonists Ted Rall and Matt Bors — the artist on my new graphic novel — are in Afghanistan to chronicle the plight of everyday Afghans in a series of quickie comics. You can support Matt by buying a print.

Cartoonists Ted Rall and Matt Bors — the artist on my new graphic novel — are in Afghanistan to chronicle the plight of everyday Afghans in a series of quickie comics. You can support Matt by buying a print.

Cartoonists Ted Rall and Matt Bors — the artist on my new graphic novel — are in Afghanistan to chronicle the plight of everyday Afghans in a series of quickie comics. You can support Matt by buying a print.

Cartoonists Ted Rall and Matt Bors — the artist on my new graphic novel — are in Afghanistan to chronicle the plight of everyday Afghans in a series of quickie comics. You can support Matt by buying a print.

The Portland Mercury interviews Matt Bors, currently cartooning from Afghanistan.