In a response of around 250 words (feel free to add as much as you'd like), please identify one primary argument, and several secondary arguments or claims (supporting arguments, competing arguments, or contradictory arguments) you think that Lappe and Goldman are trying to make in Shooting War. Post these on this page or in the comment boxes.
Dillon Fitzgerald
The War on Terror is not only one of the most discussed topics today, but also one of the most controversial. The graphic novel titled “Shooting War” takes a very interesting approach on presenting how they feel about it. In this novel, Lappe and Goldman argue that the American government and media is corrupt and untruthful through the use of a fictional field reporter Jimmy Burns’ experience in Iraq. Another argument that is presented is that America feels the need to change everything and force our own views on to other countries, and in this case it caused Iraqi’s to turn on themselves.
The idea that our own American government and media are corrupt is thoroughly presented in many different ways throughout the novel. During Jimmy’s time in Iraq he undergoes many devastating events, including when his helicopter goes down, his men are killed, and he is first kidnapped by Adallah. While he is kidnapped he is forced to get a live stream of Adallah’s message to America. Adallah made some bold statements about Americans, saying we have been killing all kinds of innocent people, bombing and destroying cities and civilizations, and even turning the Iraqi’s against one another. Now it is easy to tell that this man is an extremist, but this really opened Jimmy’s eyes and he even came to the realization that much of what Adallah is saying is true. This idea is reinforced later in the novel when Jimmy as well as a bunch of soldiers are located in Mogadishu. Many children are standing in the way of the American soldiers, and rather then getting these children to safety, they let them die. These are not Iraqi soldiers that they are up against either, it is just the Iraqi people fighting for their country, but the American soldiers kill them all, even the ones that did not present a threat. At the end of this section, the leader of the American troops says “There are no civilians in Baghdad.” This shows that this man has no remorse for killing all of these people, and says that he is just “taking orders.” This really opens up Jimmy’s eyes and helps him see that maybe what Adallah was saying is true. Adallah and his group “Muhammad’s Sword” present pure hatred for the American troops. But after all, the troops are only as corrupt as the ones giving the orders, the government. At the same time as all this is happening, the media, in this case Global News is filtering through Jimmy’s footage to present only what they want America to see. They show the killing of American soldiers and other brutal deaths of American’s raising a hatred for Iraq, when really they do not know they other side of the story.
Toma' Blue-
In the Graphic Novel "Shooting War" I found it to be really cool and fun. The comic is surrounded by a character named, Jimmy Burns. He is the main source for the story and he's very interesting. I think the claim for the comic/novel was to show that technology and blog sites can be helpful and useful for critical times, even when it wasn't meant to be used in that way. The Government and Media as well can get credit for broadcasting something that they didnt even go out and analyze for themselves. The story line revolves around a bombing that took place underneath Jimmys residence, this had changed his life in a huge way. Although he blogged what happend and let the world know that help was needed, he didnt really intend for it to go global and have success. The media basically took his footage of the onsight bombing and broadcasted it as if one of their very own reporters were standing right there to relay what happend to the society. Jimmy does go through many other events during the story as well. Jimmy went to Iraq which didnt end up to be much fun at all. He lost his helicopter, his men were murdered, and he got kidnapped by a guy named Adallah. Jimmy had tp be put on live tv to let America know the message that Adallah had for them. This story really did put alot of thoughts into my mind.
Colton Dale -
Well, this graphic novel, called "Shooting Wars,” is certainly an interesting one. The story focuses on the somewhat realistic, yet fictional experiences of the main character, Jimmy Burns, who is, at the beginning, an independent video-blogger. For the creators of this illustrative novel, Anthony Lappe and Dan Goldman, the main objective is to convey and uncover the corrupt behavior of the media and the government. They really take a stiff jab at main-stream media and the American government by arguing that both of these bodies together are hiding the truth about the war on terror.
One specific example of how they attack main-stream media is when in Chapter 2, parts 4 through 9, Jimmy Burns is being interviewed on a news station about the horrific terror attack that he had witnessed, and caught on camera, earlier that day. The lady interviewing him seems to be so fake and careless towards Jimmy and his well-being, she cuts him off while speaking a few times, as well showing no sympathy to his situation. This is, perhaps, to portray the overall carelessness of today’s media. Main-stream media’s only daily objective is to ignorantly report the news and make a profit off of it, regardless of the well-being of their interviewees and audiences. Lappe and Goldman do a great job of conveying this.
Another example of how the writers argue against the government's actions towards the war on terror is when in the closing parts of chapter 7, and throughout chapter 8, the story goes to focus on an ambush on Jimmy and his crew. The ambushers kill several civilians, some even being kids, as well as an American combatant, and injuring a few more. This is supposed to show the reader that these atrocities are in fact occurring, which is bad enough. Also, another point is that in chapter 9, the leader of this group of presumably American combatants, Lieutenant Colonel John Crowley, gets interviewed by Jimmy. Crowley, ever so ignorantly says, "What happened was we just eliminated eight terrorists from the most vile, murderous terrorist organization operating in the Iraqi theater, I call that a good day". He says this as if he just doesn't care that innocent civilian lives were lost. This is to convey the ignorance of the US government.
Anthony Lappe's and Dan Goldman's objective in creating this graphic novel was to convey and uncover corrupt behaviors of the media and the government. In my opinion, they've done a good job of this and have properly used some strong rhetorical tools to persuade their audience towards their own biased views.
Amy Schneider-
Shooting War has arguments about the media and the Iraq war and how when putting them together you can get pretty corrupt. Personally having a V for Vendetta poster in my room and reading several Political graphic novels like the complete Persepolis, Ctrl.Alt.Shift Unmasks Corruption, and of course I have read and own V for Vendetta and have not just seen the movie, political novels seem to be my guilty pleasure and well these novels all have the same concept of corruptions and compared to the other graphic novels I have read Shooting War has very good points to its arguments. He claims that the media is hiding the horrible parts of the Iraq war like how American soldiers kill women and children. Let’s be honest we aren’t in a war over in America so how do we know what is going on? Most people see the last war on American soil being the Civil War but on the contrary we still have wars going on today such as; the war on drugs, the war on gay marriage, the war on Political involvement, just to name a few. We see in these everyday wars that the people who were supposed to be the good guys aren’t always the good guys. In 1993, the united states ATF had a horrible mistake called Waco. The Waco fire being infamous for the mistake of the government. Being scared from the history of Jonestown, the ATF burned down a religious compound killing 76 innocent people. The people that were supposed to be protecting America destroyed one of its core values. But even Spiderman had a dark suit. The media is hiding this from us and that’s what Shooting War is saying that the media is corrupt along with the government. The way that John McCain can’t get out of a war because of the amount of oil, money, and blood already put into the war is a poor excuse. It’s almost saying that if you were getting punched by your alarm clock every day you would keep it because it is of use to you and you spent money on it. I mean you already got hit this morning so why not suck it up and just keep it. Its these arguments that are well portrayed in the graphic novel Shooting War.