Support the Troops

You know those ubiquitous yellow magnets that folks buy & stick on their cars & SUVs & monster trucks? Support The Troops. Those bother me. I tend to think of the people who stick them on their cars as indulging in "patriotism-lite" whereby they assuage their conscience for driving gas-guzzlers and show their neighbors how civic-minded and patriotic they are, how sensitive and aware of the supreme sacrifice they know our fighting forces are making: by putting a magnet on their freaking car.

Boy, I know I'm moved. Go USA! We're number one!

Such displays are especially moving when accompanied by those W04 or Bush/Cheney campaign stickers. I mean, the message is clear enough, isn't it? The zombies who embellish their wheels thusly, brains long since sucked away from too much Fox News viewing without protective tin-foil beanies, are stating their belief that to support the troops and to support the Bush regime is the same thing.

Those nutty peacenik liberals on the other hand want to "suppoort the troops" by bringing them home! What a nerve!

There is a long and damning article in today's New York Times about how our troops are being "supported" by the Bush regime. The article opens with:

On May 29, 2004, a station wagon that Iraqi insurgents had packed with C-4 explosives blew up on a highway in Ramadi, killing four American marines who died for lack of a few inches of steel.

The four were returning to camp in an unarmored Humvee that their unit had rigged with scrap metal, but the makeshift shields rose only as high as their shoulders, photographs of the Humvee show, and the shrapnel from the bomb shot over the top.

"The steel was not high enough," said Staff Sgt. Jose S. Valerio, their motor transport chief, who along with the unit's commanding officers said the men would have lived had their vehicle been properly armored. "Most of the shrapnel wounds were to their heads."

Of course, the folks that complacently put silly yellow magnets on their cars proclaiming their proud "support" won't be the ones reading the article and getting steamed at the way the Bush regime is pissing away the country's lifeblood. Of course, it's just the lifeblood of the poor, and they only count when they're unborn fetuses. But it bothers me. A lot.