"Support our troops" is a once-meaningful phrase that has been hollowed out and stripped of all meaning. Like "freedom" and "democracy," like "victory" and "success," it's a flimsy phrase connoting not its original meaning, but the dog-whistle politics of its speaker.
Republicans have used the phrase to attack everything from non-binding resolutions to Representative Murtha's funding proposal to revoking the war authorization. Their goal is to put Democrats on the defensive, to goad them into a response which falsely suggests to the American people that "supporting the troops" is actually up for debate.
And Democrats, all too often, willingly walk into that trap. There is no such debate on the issue of supporting our troops. The debate we're about to have--the debate we need to have--is about much more than yellow ribbons on SUVs and red faced rants of treason on the Senate floor. It's not just about supporting our troops, whatever that phrase means at whatever politically opportune moment that hollow phrase is uttered.
It's about saving them.
Go and read the whole thing, I just touched on the surface of the post.
We all support the troops. I don't know one person who's placing the blame of Iraq's disastrous consequences on the troops - it's all about the people who planned and implemented this tragedy. However, to say that Democrats can't move to block funding of the army because it somehow isn't supporting the troops is intellectually dishonest at best. It's not about supporting the troops - it's about saving them.
Anyone who argues otherwise wants to keep the troops there longer, where more of them will be maimed and die in the thousands. The ones who survive will come home to hospitals that can't care for them and will be scorned if they try to receive the mental treatment they need.
How is that supporting the troops?
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