Sources: Iraq, Afghanistan withdrawals delayed

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/US/02/08/iraq.afghanistan/index.html

This article was published in February 8th 2009. This article is mainly about the withdrawing of U.S soldiers in Iraq and sending soldiers into Afghanistan to resolve the security situation in there. The decision of when the U.S soldiers are going to be withdrawn was delayed because Obama wanted to have more details about the risks of withdrawing and sending soldiers in. Barack Obama wanted to make sure to see other options to this problem and see which option has which risks. There were 3 withdrawal options and they were 16, 19 and 23 months and the dates 19 and 23 months were offered by the military. It was said that by the end of the year it is most likely that there will be 12 brigades instead of 14 but this information is unclear.

In addition to the withdrawal problem in Iraq, the decisions were delayed about sending troops to Afghanistan. According to one official, the official pointed out that everyone knows that the security conditions are urgent in Afghanistan. But because of strategic and risks, the decision is to be made more carefully.

Using Comic Terms and Concepts: Pride of Baghdad

Page 103

Layout

Panel: This panel consists of 3 frames covering the whole page. The panel is about Fajer the bear looking at the horses galloping towards him and being frightened. Ali is the one who made the horses run towards Fajer.

Frames: All of the three frames are a rectangular shape and the top one is the biggest, bottom one the second biggest and the one in the middle is the smallest. There aren’t any overlaps in the frame.

Gutter: There is equal space between the frames however for the bottom two frames; there is space on the side which isn’t equal to the top frame.

Bleed: There are no images which extend beyond the edge of the page.

Foreground, mid-ground and back ground:
For the first frame in the foreground, we can see Ali chasing/ frightening the horses to make them gallop towards Fajer. In the mid-ground, we see the horses running away and the little stones give an effect to the fact that the horses are running away. In the background, we can know the time. We see that the color of the sky is yellow and orange which shows it is about sunset.

Additionally, in the second frame in the foreground, we see the back of Fajer the bear. Also in the mid-ground we see the horses galloping straight towards Fajer and as said before the little stones flying up give that effect. In the background, we can see smoke coming up which shows the continuation of bombing.

Finally, in the third and last frame in the foreground, we can see Fajer surprised and knows that something bad is going to happen or he is going to die. There is particularly no mid-ground and the background is just one color red. This might resemble the fact that the next scene is going to involve blood.

Graphic Weight:
For the first frame on this panel, we can see that there is most graphic weight on Ali the baby lion because first of all, he is the biggest in the picture which makes him the subject. Also, since Ali says something, it draws the attention to him. Finally with the colors, Ali has a different color to all the horses which makes it stand out.

In addition, with the second frame, there is most graphic weight on Fajer the bear. All the mid-ground and background consists of bright colors such as orange, yellow and white. However, the only dark thing on this frame is Fajer the bear which makes it gain attention.

In the final frame, there is most graphic weight on Fajer like in the second frame. A dark colored bear with a red background shows that the subject in this specific frame is Fajer. Since the bear has a darker and a deeper color than the red, Fajer is the focus in the frame.

Figures: None of the two are related to this panel.

Text

Captions: There are no captions in this panel.

Speech balloons: This could be an external dialogue or an internal dialogue. It could be an external dialogue because there are exclamation marks in this panel and also it looks like the bear Fajer is shouting at the lions. However, it could be an internal dialogue because of the shape of the speech bubble. It is different to when Ali speaks. Also it could be him murmuring himself.

Special-effects lettering: There were two words in this panel which were bolded and they are tongues and cavalry and this is to emphasis the words. And it could have been bolded because it is the important word in that specific text. It is to draw attention to the words but there were no words which reinforced the impact of words.

OPTIC- Pride of Baghdad

OPTIC

O: This is the part when Fajer the bear fights Zill the male lion and gets its nose ripped off by Zill and falls out of the palace to the ground. Then, the horses which Ali the baby lion chased runs over the bear and kills it. After this scene, they see the horizon and along with the view of the horizon, they get shot by an American soldier and meet their death. First, Zill the lion dies and after that Safa tells the other two lions to run away and gets shot by pretending/trying to attack the American soldiers. Right after Safa dies, Ali and Noor gets shot too by the Americans.

P: This frame shows when the bear Fajer is getting stomped by the horses which were intending to run away from the baby lion Ali. In terms of color, I see that since the horse it white it shows pureness and peace and that the bear is black which shows evil. So, this scene is like seeing peace and pure stomping and winning over the evil. Also it shows that lots of weak but pure beings and beat a single strong but evil being.

T: There is no text in this specific frame.

I: Since there is no text, there is no relationship between the text and the image. The image itself could have been a message. As said above, the message might be the pureness and peace stomping and getting rid of the dark and evil. Also, it might be a message saying lots of weak ‘good’ can win over the strong ‘bad’. I think this part is one of the climax parts according to the plot because this part is when the evil dies which is considered a climax in most stories. In one’s opinion, the other climax is when the lions are killed and the soldier said that they are not wild and that they are free.

C: To sum up, this frame is when the two female lions went into the palace and met this big bear called Fajer and tried to kill him but failed. The consequences were that Safa became blind completely. Then, Zill appeared and ripped this nose off and pushed him out of the palace onto the ground. After that Ali chased the horses towards where Fajer was and the horses stomped over Fajer which caused him to die. The he was getting stomped was the frame and in that frame though there was no picture it was telling a message that pure and peace wins the evil and lots of weak, pure and peaceful beings beats the one strong and evil being.