(no subject)

[teddywolf]

Over the past 5 years, I've heard a great deal about how Republicans Support The Troops more than Democrats. Blanket statement there, so this once I am giving a blanket response.

Supporting our troops means not sending them into an unnecessary war, thus endangering their health and their lives needlessly.
Supporting our troops means giving them top medical care if they get injured on the job, including an unneccesary conflict which endanged their health and their lives needlessly.
Supporting our troops means not sending them back into danger after not giving them proper medical care from injuries on the job from an unnecessary war which endangered their health and their lives needlessly.

While admittedly a member of the public and not somebody who is privy to any sort of classified information, I did not find any of the supposed evidence presented by the Bush White House purporting Saddam Hussein to have weapons of mass destruction to be credible. I did not want the troops to go in the first place. I supported our troops, even if more quietly than I could have. The Bush White House's rush to send these soldiers into a war they knew they did not need suggests that they do not support our troops.

I am fully in favor of full protective gear and full supplies for our soldiers in their military endeavors, and proper medical care should they be injured. In this I support our troops. Given how long in advance the Bush White House planned to invade Iraq - remember the Downing Street Memo? - the lack of these materials and the lack of care indicates that they did not support our troops even then.

I am in favor of our injured troops given honorable retirement from service with full and proper benefits. In this I support our troops. Given how some members of Congress voted to cut benefits earned and deserved, I would say the GOP Congress didn't support our troops even while saying they should be in harm's way.

I am most certainly not in favor of ordering disabled soldiers into a war zone. Even if we were invaded and only they could make the difference, I would not do more than ask as their injuries earned from taking orders has given them the right to not be ordered like this. In this I support our troops. The Bush White House sending disabled soldiers into harm's way says to me that they not only don't support our troops, they want some of them to die.

There are many Democrats like me, and a good number of Republicans, and Greens, and even some Libertarians. Support Our Troops is not supposed to be a mantra used to justify what you are doing. Support Our Troops means you should, y'know, support our troops.

I will not sit quietly and be told that my disagreement with the President's and the previous Congress' treatment of our military means I do not support our troops. I think I support them a lot better than they have, and you can quote me on that.

Feel free to forward, and if you want to comment, feel free to do that too.

Comments

[gingicat]

*CLAPCLAPCLAPCLAPCLAPCLAPCLAPCLAPCLAPCLAPCLAPCLAPCLAP*

[oneagain.livejournal.com]

Well put. I can not pretend to understand how such trouble has been initiated and allowed to continue. It is exasperating to note the level of stupidity.

[thnidu.livejournal.com]

Agreed. And well said.

Personally

[shmuelisms.livejournal.com]

The long history of abusive attitudes regarding USA soldiers, from both the government and their own high-command officers, goes back at least to WW-II (where reportedly thousands more, died on D-Day, just to "prove a point" between the out-of-danger Generals). Just look at the current enlistment agreement (http://www.rethinkingschools.org/archive/19_03/military_enlistment.pdf) the US-Army uses - the one and only "obligation" that the US-government has towards its troops is to pay their salary (item 5, and even that is subject to "change without notice"). So anybody stupid enough (or forced by circumstances) to enlist, making themselves a [disposable] "resource" for the US-Gov, pretty much gets what they asked for.

In this regard, the present administration is really no different than previous ones. It may be argued that they have simply taken this attitude to a new extreme. It may also be argued, that they have also hyped the "Support the Troops" rhetoric far more than other administrations, most likely because this war is the least obviously justified and thus least popular.