PLAYING POLITICS WITH THE TROOPS
Speaking for myself, and myself alone, I’d like to propose that we strike the phrase “support our troops” from the English language…if for no other reason than it’s been rendered completely and utterly meaningless. Depending on your point of view, “support our troops” can mean anything from well-intentioned drives to create care packages to lazily and cynically slapping a magnetic ribbon on your SUV to using it to bludgeon those who don’t unquestioningly support Our Glorious and Benevolent Leader’s © Excellent Adventure in Iraq.
The reason I’m tired of the phrase “support our troops” is that no reasonable person DOESN’T support our men and women in uniform. They’re our sons and daughters; why wouldn’t we support them 110%? This is not about not wanting to properly fund and equip them, or whether they are worthy of our moral and emotional support. Those of our sons and daughters doing the fighting and the dying deserve, and are receiving, our support. They aren’t the problem. Those who sent them to where they’re risking their lives ARE. The neoCon thugs who created this war out of whole cloth, and then used 9.11 to sell it to us are responsible for creating and managing a war that has NOTHING to do with the war on terrorism in general or 9.11 in particular. What Iraq is about is anyone’s guess, and I suppose the answer to that question will depend on which side of the political divide you happen to fall on.
The whole “support our troops” charade was created by those with a vested interest in using our sons and daughters as political pawns in their geopolitical chess game (and who likely also hold stock in companies that make magnetic ribbons). “Support our troops” has become code for unthinkingly falling into ideological lockstep behind The Worst President EVER © . Those who refuse to fall in line can be, and have been, branded as “unpatriotic”, “unAmerican”, and- even worse- “not supporting our troops.”
I’d like to propose that use of the phrase “support our troops” be punishable by immediate and summary execution. This may seem a bit draconian, but you have to admit it will force the American sheeple to think (Yeah, that pain you’re having? That’s a thought….) twice about parroting the propaganda they’ve been fed since 9.11. Perhaps if enough of the American sheeple can be forced to think about what they’ve been party to since 9.11 we can end this travesty and bring our troops home.
WE DESERVE BETTER.
To me the notion of “supporting the troops” might first involve a look back over how they have been treated by this administration and Donald Rumsfeld in particular.
To me, “supporting the troops” would mean;
not rushing them off to battle without adequate support battalions, those that carry such apparently optional equipment such as fuel, repair parts, water, food and medical supplies. Nope, let’s just round up the guys with guns and send ‘em packin for Bagdad.
not sending troops to battle in un-aromored Humvees.
not sending troops to battle without bullet-proof vests, some of which had to be supplied by the soldier’s own families.
not promising the troops a send-home date, then turning them around and re-deploying them, for double or triple the time they were originally promised.
not banning the reporting and photgraphing of the fallen in their flag-draped coffins, so as not to dampen the pro-war spirit back here in the hinterland.
not putting troops on an artificial time-line that caused gross battlefield errors, such as the friendly fire death of Pat Tilman.
and not sending them off to a god damned manufactured war in the first place.
Yes indeed, this administration has one hell of a record of supporting the troops, doesn’t it?
At least now there may be limits, and a reversal of some of this nonsense. The rest of the world is (and I am) hoping/waiting to see if America is at last stirring from its delirium. Could be.
As much as I’d love to see retribution served up—cold, nasty, and bio-excruciating—to Bush/Cheney/Ashcroft/Rice/Gonzales and the rest of their inhuman/subhuman ilk, I’d settle for the American people’s simply reorienting themselves to reality.
Reality’s messy. Reality doesn’t feel obligated to comply with ideology or faith. Reality is simply whatever reality is, and it not obliged to justify itself to any world view. To the precise extent that any world view (religious, ideological, etc) conflicts with hard evidence, it is defective—for example, America’s default view that history is some weird, inevitable Holy March to a Brighter Future.
The Administration publicly in pillories and photographed for history books would be gratifying. But I’d settle for each injured, orphaned, and widowed Iraqi and American having a private 30-second turn at them.
Outstanding post. I’ve linked to you in my blog, so my twos of readers will be rushing over here to check it out any minute now.