"Supporting The Troops" Does Not Mean Sporting a Yellow Bumper Sticker!

It means preventing horse-pucky like this from occuring: "A group of House Republicans have proposed a plan to offset the costs of relief and rebuilding after Hurricane Katrina that includes trimming military quality-of-life programs, including health care."

And this: "Pentagon still not reimbursing troops who buy own body armor"

And this:

""What is shown on the photographs and videos from Abu Ghraib prison that the Pentagon has blocked from release? ”

We're not just talking about giving people a humiliating experience,' Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina told reporters after Rumsfeld testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee. 'We're talking about rape and murder -- and some very serious charges.'"

A report by Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba on the abuse at the prison outside Baghdad says videotapes and photographs show naked detainees, and that groups of men were forced to masturbate while being photographed and videotaped. Taguba also found evidence of a 'male MP guard having sex with a female detainee.'"

Rumsfeld told Congress the unrevealed photos and videos contain acts 'that can only be described as blatantly sadistic, cruel and inhuman.'" The military later screened some of the images for lawmakers, who said they showed, among other things, attack dogs snarling at cowed prisoners, Iraqi women forced to expose their breasts, and naked prisoners forced to have sex with each other.

In the same period, reporter Seymour Hersh, who helped uncover the scandal, said in a speech before an ACLU convention: "Some of the worse that happened that you don't know about, ok? Videos, there are women there. Some of you may have read they were passing letters, communications out to their men .... The women were passing messages saying 'Please come and kill me, because of what's happened.'

Basically what happened is that those women who were arrested with young boys/ children in cases that have been recorded. The boys were sodomized with the cameras rolling. The worst about all of them is the soundtrack of the boys shrieking that your government has. They are in total terror it's going to come out.""

No, sorry -- putting a yellow ribbon on your car, calling anyone who protests our unnecessary and illegal little war in Iraq un-American and a traitor, and backing at all costs this corrupt administration that lied our troops into this war to begin with and refuses to make it official policy that torture is not acceptable -- is not supporting the troops.

Refusing to allow this Republican administration to claim that they support the troops -- while at the same time they are reducing soldiers' family-leave allowances, combat pay, and health care, refusing to provide them with updated body armor other than Vietnam-era flak jackets despite 2 1/2 years -- and an order from Congress -- to do so, re-upping these guys with their back-door draft, failing to instruct them on the strict prohibitions against torture in the Geneve Conventions, and punishing any whistle-blower who dares to have the courage to speak out about some of the horrors they've witnessed -- is supporting the troops.

Pressuring the psychopaths that are running our country to make it concrete policy that the troops cannot torture and rape detainees, is supporting the troops.

Refusing to buy into the right-wing echo chamber's (yeah, that means you Bill, Sean, Rush, and all your "fair and balanced" friends) attempts to discredit anyone who speaks out about this war, whether it's Joe Wilson, Cindy Sheehan, Richard Clarke, Paul Hacket, or any of the brave soldiers willing to testify to the attrocities being committed by our own, is supporting the troops.

Calling for an immediate end to this occupation is supporting our troops.