America Doesn't Support the Troops

An' it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' anything you please;
But Tommy ain't a bloomin' fool - you bet that Tommy sees! ~ Rudyard Kipling

If a loved one of yours isn't currently serving or hasn't been to Iraq or Afghanistan you really don't support the troops. Except perhaps in same nebulous way people support ending poverty or ending worldwide hunger. You'd like to as long as you're not burdened. And if Yellow Magnetic Stickers or care packages of Beef Jerky are your idea of support you really need to read about what is going on in Iraq and examine your conscience.

“Someone being sympathetic to this? I don't know if I'd be sympathetic if I wasn't in the army. After you watch this, you're gonna go get your popcorn out of the microwave and talk about what I said, and you'll forget me by the end of this.” ~SGT Beatty, Gunner Palace.

The latest incident involves Bill O'Reilly repeatedly insulting homeless veterans. To Bill, Veterans are homeless because they don't "work hard and keep it honest" like Bill.

Do you think the Government supports the troops?
When they lose 26 million veterans personal information?
When David S. Chu complains Veterans benefits are hurtful to national security?
When after Chu's comments the scandal at Walter Reed finally comes to the attention of the people?
When more and more emotionally scarred veterans are abandoned and left to take their own lives?

To the Government the troops are expendable, once you are used up advancing the National Interests you are to be discarded and forgotten. In fact for them it's better if you died gloriously on the battlefield. Then you could be enshrined and eulogized. Liars and Chickenhawks can place words like Honor, Bravery, and Duty on your dead lips. And if the Dead Hero, like Pat Tillman, doesn't agree with the Imperial ambitions of the Government and is against Wars of Conquests, why you can simply say like Hannity and Coulter, "I don't believe it".

But, of course, it gets worse. Many troops have reservations about the war but realize their situation. An endless stream of authority figures have instilled and ensured that the individual soldier knows he is powerless and if he opposes the War of Occupation: He'll:

be court-martialed,
be called a coward or traitor,
receive a dishonorable discharge,
be ridiculed back home,
be labeled as anti-American,
be called an anti-war pussy by some washed-up, has-been, pompous ass.

And if the soldier stands against the Government and says No Sir I won't go, he'll stand alone. After all who voted to send him there and who continues to vote to keep him there? Congressmen can’t be counted on because they have one priority, getting re-elected. And as John Bruhns stated on Huffington Post it has been "established that we have a bipartisan majority of Congress with a crystal clear intent to keep the U.S. military in Iraq..."

What does Supporting the Troops mean? I don't know.

Of course, I know the sinister reason the Warmongers use the Support the Troops mantra, to give cover to those whose actions are quite the opposite. Inadequate personal body armor, no rush to up-armored HMMWVs or even M113s, extending troops rotations in country and reducing time back stateside, the advancement and prosecutorial immunity gifted to Blackwater and Walter Reed should be enough evidence to prove the Government, War profiteers does not “support the troops”. But, in hiding behind the Troops and casting dispersions on the Anti-war position they gain the advantage. And it is an advantage they will never relinquish.