Support Our Troops - I see it on bumper stickers, though less often than a few years ago. And I've heard many people assert that if you don't support the Iraq war, you don't support our troops...though, again, less often than a few years ago. I guess we are finally separating the ideas of supporting a policy of war and supporting our troops. We realize we can support our troops and not support a war.
It's like supporting students but not supporting the school.
Sometimes the best way to show your support is to pull the students (or soldiers) out.
Troops are pawns of a government's policy. They have no control over where they end up or what they do.
Bush should never have set out the equation:
support war = support troops
He should have maintained the separation of troops and policy, something we failed to do during Vietnam, where the returning soldier were blamed for a failed policy. That should have never happened again. If Bush understood the unfairness of that equation, he would have said something like:
"Blame me for the policy--don't blame the troops."
By doing that, he would have take that burden of blame, which is rightfully his, away from our troops, who have enough burdens to bear. But I've not heard Bush do that. Instead he continues to assert that supporting our troops = supporting the Iraq war.
How cowardly of him.
Support Our Troops ≠ Support the War
Anatomy of Deceit: How the Bush Administration Used the Media to Sell the Iraq War and Out a Spy by Marcy Wheeler |