...and far more nicely than I would have. Barbara of Mahablog noticed this White House-Talking-Point-disguised-as-an-Op/Ed:
What does it mean to support the troops but oppose the cause they fight for?
[..](T)here is no end of Americans who insist they "support" US troops in Iraq but want the war those troops are fighting to end in defeat. The two positions are irreconcilable. You cannot logically or honorably curse the war as an immoral neocon disaster or a Halliburton oil grab or "a fraud... cooked up in Texas," yet bless the troops who are waging it.
It is not at all irreconcilable to oppose the Iraq War but wish to support the troops fighting the war. "Supporting the troops" means seeing to it they have whatever they need to stay as safe and healthy as possible, both while at war and after. It means providing state-of-the-art body armor now, not three years from now, maybe. If they are wounded, it means providing first-class medical care, not parking them in moldy, roach-infested hospital.
Bill Maxwell writes in the St. Petersburg Times ("White House delivers surge in lies, hypocrisy"):
Here is a substantive example of the reality of who supports the troops and who does not. The Washington Post reported last week that the Army, which has suffered the largest number of fatalities, began the Iraq war in 2003 with an estimated $56-billion shortage of equipment - including advanced Humvees equipped with armor kits designed to reduce troop deaths from roadside bombs.
Well, guess what? Nearly four years later, the Army, the Marine Corps and the National Guard still do not have an adequate number of Humvees equipped with the needed FRAG Kit 5 armor manufactured with more flexible materials that slow projectiles and contain debris, thus causing fewer deaths.
Is this support of our troops?[..]
Yet Jeff Jacoby, who (I infer) "supports" the troops, doesn't write a word about armor or hospitals. Indeed, he only obliquely refers to the war in Iraq. Instead, he writes about the "cause." What does it mean to support the troops but oppose the cause they fight for?
But what is the cause? If the cause is making the United States safer from terrorism, then it is perfectly logical to support the cause and oppose the war. The war is counterproductive to that cause. This was the conclusion of a National Intelligence Estimate of April 2006 portions of which were declassified and released in September 2006. Keep reading...
I am absolutely fed up with these ridiculous strawmen arguments being put up by the enabling media for the White House. When the vast majority of the American people can figure out that this is an unwinnable and life-wasting occupation that is hurting-- not helping--us, why the hell are we giving the brain-dead media who are unable to cogitate reality a platform to tell us that we are wrong? Especially since--all the way down the line-- everything we said has been right, and they have been wrong.
The General asks again, "Who is really supporting the troops?"