...who allegedly spat on the Viet Nam vets and the vets who fielded that spit. The author couldn't find them and concluded that the stories, however ubiquitous, are apocryphal. Although spurious, they serve an essential function in squelching dissent. Like other Salon readers, I squirm when I see the yellow ribbon on an SUV. I urge all vets' organizations to target such beribboned vehicles. Stop them and procure donations. Stop them again and again and procure more and more money. After all, if such people truly support the troops, they will give and give.

Sadly, I can assure all that if vets' organizations started stopping beribboned SUVs, their owners would remove the stickers. They support the troops in much the same way as the proselytizing alleged Christian who steps over the homeless man supports the tenets of the Christ: with syllables.

Those who profit from war have always found religion, race and patriotism to be effective tools for marketing war.

The nice thing about slyly afixing the religion and the race labels to the effort is the ability to label opponents as not being against war, but against the religion and the race.

it is about war.

You'd do an article on the science, you'd do an article on the neurochemical system that underlies the phenomenon of conditioned fear. That article Salon did before was bullshit. It stopped short of the actual science. You got to the science and mumbled something about chemical receptors, and stopped because you had to stop otherwise you'd enter into a subject that is censored here at Salon.

Salon was foreced to obfuscate the science on PTSD because the root cause of PTSD, and the most likely cure for PTSD (the one armies have been employing for thousands of years), are subjects that are simply too dangerous for the Democrats to even talk about openly right now.

There's just all kinds of people right now who are letting down soldiers and other people afflicted with PTSD.

You're letting them down because you have your own war going -- the war to get Democrats elected.

You've got the PTSD soldiers enlisted in YOUR war -- and so you can't afford to endanger that war by digging too deeply into the root neurochemical cause of their suffering and the most obvious chemical cure.

You know, I hate having to write things like this. But you're supposed to be promoting knowledge.

When it comes to PTSD, because of the politics, all you end up spreading is more ignorance.

I'm against ignorance, even when it's useful to the Democrats.

And by the way -- I've had chronic PTSD since I was about twelve years old.

And from that point of view -- I spit on you and your politically convenient ignorance and your feigned concern for people with PTSD.

"I wonder how many these military mmembers [sic] voted for Mr. Commander in Chief in 2004."

-- Margaret N. Tipple

It's too bad those silly, inferior troops of ours were so stupid that most all of them voted for Bush and therefore, they are getting what they deserve. So we can wash our hands of them and smugly say, "You should have had more sense than to go into the military." They are all Republican stooges so let them rot!

Well, thank you Margaret. For a few decades there, I was heartsick over how the DOD treats enlisted ranks and how the Veterans Administration short-changes them after they get out. But thanks to you, I no longer have to carry their burden or worry about them because you have so wisely absolved us all of any responsibility.

"If joining the military was about defending your country then it wouldn't be bad to sign right up but they haven't defended this country since world war 2 [sic]. anyone who voluntarilly [sic] signs up either actually believes all the commercials, gung ho war movies and propaganda or else they are doing it for purely economic reasons due to lack of jobs, opportunity and education.

We have a mercenary army that doesn't defend this country, but defends corporate interests and imprerial [sic] ambitions."

-- Rupert_c

Well, thank you too, Rupert. I guess now is the time to tell Mark Benjamin and Salon to get off of this kick about mistreated soldiers and veterans because after all, they are just a bunch of mercenaries that don't defend our country, they are just a bunch of greedy, stupid tools of the corporate imperialists.

I'm glad you showed me the error of my ways, Rupert. I was so blind all these years! Instead of giving our soldiers any health care or benefits when they return from their corporate marauding and crushing the innocent people beneath their combat boots, we should instead try them all for war crimes, put them in detention cells and let them all rot!

We don't need no stinkin' military! There's never a reason why we would need to defend our country. We should disband all of our armed forces and live in peace and harmony with all the peaceful and harmonious peoples of the planet.

Kumbaya, my lord, Kumbaya.

Many Jews have opposed the Neocons' plans for the invasion of Iraq and have been leading voices against the Bush Administration's mad rush to war.

It is a fact, however, that most leading Neocons are ideologically aligned with the right-wing Likud party in Israel. They themselves explained their motives in "Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm" a report prepared by The Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies’ "Study Group on a New Israeli Strategy Toward 2000." for the Netanyahu Likud government at the time (the authors incuded leading Neocon idealogues Richard Perle, James Colbert, Charles Fairbanks, Jr., Douglas Feith, Robert Loewenberg, David Wurmser, and Meyrav Wurmser). In the report they stated:

"Israel can shape its strategic environment, in cooperation with Turkey and Jordan, by weakening, containing, and even rolling back Syria. This effort can focus on removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq — an important Israeli strategic objective in its own right" http://www.iasps.org/strat1.htm

THE US HAD NOTHING TO GAIN FROM INVADING IRAQ AND THE WAR WOULD NOT HAVE TKEN PLACE WERE IT NOT FOR THE FALSE INTELLIGENCE AND SPIN OF THE NEOCONS. Surely, any objective observer of facts can see this!

Also to gain better insights into the Neocons' plans for Iraq, you may want to read about it on Counter Punch http://www.counterpunch.org/walsh03092006.html