European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - April 11, 2007, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Wednesday april 112007 stars and stripes Page 17 opinion Foo safety system has gone to the dogs Washington Post editorial americans love their animals most of us have pets and each year we spend some billion for their care and feeding so the fear and anger caused by the deaths of cats and dogs that ate contaminated pet food is understandable the most useful outcome though of this National scare is to strengthen the current system of safeguards not Only for animals but for humans a lot is still not known its unclear How Many pets have died eating the tainted food there have been 16 confirmed deaths mostly cats but the food and drug administration expects the numbers to Rise the Fra which regulates pet food has been inundated with 12000 com plaints More than double the number it normally gets All year millions of cans and pouches of pet food have been recalled and most recently dog biscuits became suspect the suspected contaminant is melamine a chemical used in fertilizer that has been linked to a chinese company that supplied wheat gluten used by the pet foods manufacturer if s not certain that melamine is the culprit but imports from the firm have been blocked that a contaminant could make its Way into the country via imported food Points up weaknesses in How the Fra inspects food products from other countries the amount of foodstuffs being imported into the United states has increased fivefold since the mid1990s overwhelming the resources of the Fra critics have Long argued that the Fra needs to implement a More rigorous inspection system rather than simply taking importers at their word in Many cases this recall suggests that the critics Are right that the Fra cant confirm the number of animals affected also Points up the need for development of an information net work when human food is involved the centers for disease control and Preven Tion gets involved but with animals the Fra is on its own the Senate plans to hold oversight hearings on the investigation into the contaminated pet food and a Coo headed postmortem on How to improve systems is Welcome As is looking at whether an Agency entrusted with such important safety issues As what a nation eats has the resources it needs that said criticism that the Fra was slow to respond is an unfair characterization of an Agency that acted with dispatch once it was alerted to a problem love and War in the comics but no laughing matter by Dan Neil los Angeles times Switzer and flab Tergast Are pinned Down in a bomb shattered apart ment building in Naji Aff of Baguistan with insurgents closing in and the air incandescent with tracers an enemy mortar team has their Range if s times like these when a gis fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love Welcome to new comic and dont forget to Wear your Mil spec condom in the words of its writer Rick Veitch imag Ines How surreal the current War might get in five years As the military struggles to Market itself to a new generation of recruits before another sentence passes let me reassure you the Switzer character is female the comics opening gambit involves a live fire tryst what Switzer Calls join ing the hot zone club while her patrol is engaged in House House fighting Post coitus the pair joyfully return fire vip Tzung while squatting naked be Hind a Wall at one Point Switzer stands up to expose her breasts to an instantly mesmerized jihadist As flab Tergast takes aim now that s unit cohesion the action takes place on a near future Battlefield where a National guard unit from Edgefield township no is coping with the stresses of War and an endless grinding military occupation of dear with the help of the motivation and morale program a secret Pentagon initiative that has reversed the military anti Rater Niza Tion policy in a big Way in fact Momo encourages frontline troops to go on sexual retreats think girls gone wild but instead of fort Lauderdale fort Benning thanks to the Momo program casualties Are Down and kills recruitment and reenlistment Are Way up when the history books Are written says Momo officer Healey  say we took the Al important first step to Victory notwithstanding the laughable notion of a Pentagon organized orgy i wonder if Veitch might be on to something satire has a habit of becoming prophecy and no one can doubt that among the zillion or so things the military never accounted for in Iraq was the Low Grade madness of hundreds of thousands of Young men and women kept from Home year after year for Bidden from having sexual relationships among themselves and denied any respite in the local population As comedian Bill Maher asks what Good is Liberty Call in a land where there is no Liberty comics and graphic novels have proved in the past to be singularly acute antennas of the zeitgeist and the publication of the first Issue went on Sale March 21 comes exactly at the moment when sex int Heater is confounding us like never before Salon com and the new York times Magazine have run Sto Ries in recent weeks about incidents of sexual harassment assault and rape of Ameri can servicewomen by their comrades the theme has been picked up by Garry Trudeau doonesbury comic strip by in counselling for the loss of his leg meets a woman in the waiting what kind of counselling Are you Here for he asks sexual trauma she replies the american military Prim denial of sexual expression is at a sad disconnect with the reality on the ground of so i have no idea How to respond to that he says she says neither did i neither do we the Sweet gallantry of arguments against women in combat one of which was that they might be captured and raped by the enemy turns out to have elided a More menacing truth that everyone knows and few would say out loud they might be raped by our own Guys but in order to confront that problem you have to con cede that under Neath the full Battle rattle american male soldiers Are not Warrior monks obviously rape is not the same As sex and there is Zero excuse for it regardless of the circumstances but there is an explanation Young aggressive soldiers in an insane and dehumanizing situation May act out on their frustrated sexual impulses War is a brutalizing experience witness Laditha theres no reason to think that brutality will end at the Barracks door like All Good satire Veitche comic explodes in All directions dragging everyone involved the american military Prim de Nial of sexual expression whether if s dont ask dont Tell the fraternization code or the torpid response to the problem of at a sad disconnect with the reality on the ground the jihadists meanwhile with their Reli Gio stoked misogynistic loathing of sex Are obviously at a tactical disadvantage if the sight of breasts freezes them in their tracks americas sex glutted youth culture comes off no better the soldiers Are a Rowdy Bawdy Bunch brought up on Paris and Tommy Lee says Veitch in an authors note at the Back of the comic Book the trope of the whole series is that recruits must be bribed into serving their country with promises of easy Conse Quence free sex not exactly the greatest generation the truest things Are said in jest per haps As we Mark the months in year 5 of the Iraq War a War we cannot win and cannot quit we should consider How we Are going to accommodate our troops in convenient status As sexually needful human beings meanwhile i have no doubt that some where in the innards of the Pentagon some officer is thumbing through and wondering what if Dan Neil is a times columnist prickly City by Scott Stantis Doest like