Well, it's obviously Nelson's column being parodied, and a quick search on Google suggests that Nelson said "I see no ships" (holding his telescope to his blind eye) as a pretext to ignore an order to disengage.
(Of course, Bell doesn't remind us that Nelson was thoroughly victorious in that battle.)
I saw another cartoon yesterday, I believe, that was actually about the Afghan election, and I couldn't make heads nor tails of what the hell it was supposed to be saying; it featured Karzai, Bush, and a few other American Personages, mostly speaking incoherently. I can only assume the "artist" found it somehow compelling or insightful in a way beyond my mortal ken.