DoH! I forgot, this is Salon. Let's blame the Jews for this shitstorm. My bad.

When is this craziness going to end? Bush and his Neocons, the Israel Lobby and their Christian fundementalist buddies don't get it. America is not Israel!

In Israel, the "war on terror" is used as a smoke screen to steal Palestinian land and resources and ethnically cleanse the inhabitants of the West Bank to create a "racially-pure" Jewish state . Many Americans don't know about this and would resent it greatly if they knew how their tax dollars (and troops' lives) support a system of apartheid and ethnic cleansing in Palestine. Jimmy Carter's book "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid" explains how this system of apartheid is allowed to flourish using lies and spin.

Americans do not want the "war on terror" to be used as an execuse for questionable agendas promoted with the lies and deceit of the Bush administration and Israel Lobby. People may put up with this theater of the absurd for some time, because of the powerful propaganda and fear, but, underneath all the spin about democracy and terrorism, people are starting to understand what this war of choice is really all about.

"Those who are concerned for Israel's security .... should recognize the need for American success in Iraq and responsible exit," Ehud Olmert (Israel's Prime Minister) said in remarks to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) on March 13.

Speaking by a video link from Israel, Olmert called Iran the greatest threat to the Jewish state and said it was building sophisticated weaponry systems and trying to create nuclear capacity.

- Reuters, http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N12400820.htm

How many rifle humping grunts are there? Support operations are at least as large. Seems that all those injured troops could count socks, type and whatnot. Not everyone is a steely eyed killer you know. And if those cases could be sent to do administrative/support duty then is that so bad?

Creepy, isn't it? I keep thinking of wounded, demoralized Wehrmacht soldiers being sent to the Russian Front in the last days of Nazi Germany. The U.S. Army is reduced to this? Please wake me up and assure me that this nightmare isn't happening- the Walter Reed scandal, vets neglected in other Veterans' Hospitals, and now wounded soldiers pressed back into battle to fill out "The Surge"? It isn't just the President who has betrayed the country, it's the officers who allow this to happen. "Support The Troops?" My ass.

John Potter

As President George W. Bush reminds us so often, he is the War President, the "decider", and the supreme authoritarian commander in chief. He has micromanaged the Iraq War since day one. So it would appear he is the one who ordered these injured troop back into battle. I wonder how many these military mmembers voted for Mr. Commander in Chief in 2004.

Mark Benjamin: You serve our troops with your reporting. This article should be a lead story in every paper in America.

Instead I believe they are still focusing on a Speaker of the House who went overseas, just as members of Congress often do. Unbelievable.

JenniferInMO: I loved your letter. What is sad (as one letter writer pointed out) is that putting a yellow ribbon on a car saying "Support Our Troops" should signify actual support. But the language has been twisted so that such ribbons became a rallying cry for (and an excuse for?) blind faith in a war that has killed our children. You inspire me to action.

I appreciate the subsequent writer's link to SoldiersAngels.org. Is that political action? Perhaps not in the classic sense, except that generally in my area actually sending letters to the troops has tended to be associated with groups that support the war, if only in image (not in truth) the association lingers. I'll check out the link.

Salon: When I read pieces like this, and read the excellent reporting and commentary that has spanned the pages lately, I am very glad to have my Premium Membership.

"Support Our Troops" as displayed on car bumpers is code for "support the imbecile Bush." Actually supporting the troops would entail their not being playthings in the wrongheaded fantasies of the ideologically retarded.

Deploying unfit troops is right out of CEO 101 - a simple case of dwindling supply and voracious demand. Not enough people are deluded or desperate enough to join the active forces or stay in reserve units past their obligation any more. Make the numbers look good - send anything in a uniform.

If they complain, marginalize the issue...

A beautiful sentiment by Tony Orlando and Dawn. What does that song have to do with anything? Wasn't he coming back from prison or something?

Does it symbolize supporting our troops or supporting the gang of cut throats who have put them in harms way to make some big bucks?

I bet it is made in China so I guess we really know who it supports.

What I really love about the yellow ribbon magnet emblems is how many of them are affixed to gas guzzling SUVs.

To me, those ribbons symbolize irony and hypocrisy.

The war is begging to end. The Pentagon is as ill as wiggled-jiggled arch enemy of rational thought-'evil' beezlebozo sad-sack creeps thought can get. When these career lifers (ever meet them? ever wish to pinch 'um to see if they are really a robot machine?) rave their maddest ravings, it's mild compared to the ferocious rage that festers within a indiscreet youth who has eye-witnessed unnatural barbarism's perpetuated at home with 'puff' remarks, "Support The Troops."

We have seen nothing yet. Post war trauma can be a emotional-nuke bomb inside a sensitive human. A psychopath thrives in war with a gov-mint permission and sanction to murder. Maybe a returning soldier's face gets blush-red, appears punched-up like a fist as it squints, and a voice booms loud and people disperse..." The fury to the uninitiated will make the scrotum shrink, it's said in warfare climates. No ice cold water can squelch mr. PFC ape-donuts in the pentagon zoo...

O, the war seems to have f***ed with his head," observers may say...as a "troop" uses war ling, a voice screaming sad and vague memories not allowable in the public arena...But the pro-kill them "mutton's" chattering careerists are stark ill-in denial. I am Not saying good leaders are impossible to find in the military, but far too many career lifers are just the effrontery-type: wear a peacock medal chest...'Um say all day drinking coffee and reflecting how cautious they need to be and who the 'lifer career' person must impress to get nice Hawaii tours and higher rank...so- the career devotee may hear at the gynO. cool. wow, what posture, spit shine shoes, a straight gig-line...impressive--a good conduct medal--neat!"

The Pentagon's pro-war folk groan and try to deny and distract even themselves from the insane-mess within their own wounded person-hood. I must abstain from entering more into my expressions of cynical disgust about THIS war and our failed "leadership."

They are like a group of 'twerps' who think the best thing in life is to have comradely chat and pleasure talk to "surge" and be "victorious" in war. It's just sick, un-grown up men, engaging in 'locker room' talk...'Um it's "unloading their balls."

balls--being analogous as Montaigne's use the word in Latin for balls, 'vases,'...using our precious youth as war tools.

"PTS-Stress" is a killer. It is a monstrous emotional hurt that can kill the one who hurts, or in rare situations a sufferer can be transformed into a form of 'emotional contribution' to inform society. My thinking is we are all becoming a bit 'frenzied' with a epidemic-mild dose of post trauma and we can get more stressed-out. Trauma can percolate and become a volcanic 'surging' with a anti-insane-madness...we witness in our ill-administration. Please Stop this ill maladministration!

You can't even have a sustained conversation with the pro-warmonger crowd. It's too weird to listen to their raving. O, and mine too? I'll sit down next to my immaculate made bunk-bed and sit in a fetal position all day on the floor and spit shine my farm boots? I'll be okay. I support a surge of cow-moo-flop on the White House steps. Wow. 'Shad up.'

I wandered off the planet and focused on Not thinking about war in the post Vietnam 70's. I was in in denial. Then I began walking via the proverbial American jungle landscape during the Contra slaughter days, Not wanting to eyewitness bloodshed. I was unaware I was walking in a stateside hyper-vigilant "platoon," and war-hurt packed deep within, begged for release. The pain had to be released. I wept.

I worked as a counselor in the Vet Center Outreach Program in the 80's...the wounded veterans who had Not succumbed to premature death or repressed thoughts that mentally deranged them...Oh IRONY!...were my best informants and healers. The V.A. job, doing advocacy, helped me express in a non-groan-rage, and how vainly I tried to distract myself from wars memories. Apologies for the ramblings/ravings...It pleases me most to read those who have Not been too scared and numb...speak with a measure of rational ant-war calm. Salon, Now, I will do-down-time and shine my boots, yes sir drill Sargent, General Benjamin. Thanks! ? ~*~ unload water from a vase and pick some fresh daffodils? okay. check for comma's and coma's. What's G.G. ranting about?