Gathering Threats

I drew this cartoon last week and it was rejected by my editor who said "that's just so far away."
Well, here we are less than a week later and General Pervez Musharraf, dictator of Pakistan, loyal friend and ally in the "war on terror," has suspended the constitution, fired the chief justice of the supreme court and declared emergency rule. So much for the idea we're spreading freedom and democracy around the world.

Here is a rejected cartoon that is several years old. I did this drawing when General Musharraf was on one of his speaking tours to the US, preaching to the choir of neoconservatives. I decided to look up all of the dictators and tyrants our government has supported over the years and fit them into one cartoon. This cartoon appeared in David Wallis' book "Killed Cartoons: Casualties From the War on Freedom of Expression." The drawing proudly hangs in my office.