"Support the troops"

You know how pro-war people are always repeating the slogan "Support the troops"? Like it's some kind of magical phrase that separates the good people from the cancerous traitors? Like if you ever disagree them, that phrase will make them right?

"Hey Jane, I noticed that you didn't fill in the required--

"Support the troops!"

"Haha, yes. Ok. But before you sign up for the new FTP server we have set up, you just have to--"

"SUPPORT THE TROOPS!!!"

Yeah, it's easy to pick these people out of a line up because of their bumper stickers, t-shirts, lapel pins, etc.

I'm completely in favor of supporting the members of our military. However, us think-before-speaking types don't confuse "Support the troops" with "Support the WAR".

The bumper-sticker types will criticize you as not supporting the troops if you say "I don't think Canada's military belongs in Afghanistan." Now you're just spitting on the sacrifices made and risks taken by our selfless soldiers. They're out their risking their lives to make the world safer while you're sitting at home enjoying your freedom to watch the hit unreality tv show of the season while not exercising, and you have the nerve to insult them? Shame!

Of course, critics of the war are not criticizing the soldiers. They're criticizing the people who placed the soldiers. If you're watching a game of chess, and one player makes a move you disagree with, who do you criticize? The chess piece?

"No, you stupid rook! Dammit! Now you're gonna die! God you're a waste! See? I hate rooks!"

No, you criticize the person who decided to put the rook in danger.

The same is true of real war. Civilians back home work to pay the wages and expenses of the military whose job it is to defend them. And these civilian workers may actually have an opinion of the people in charge of the military. Not necessarily the people who work in it.

Now, here comes the real conundrum. What do the slogan shouters do when you criticize the war... and a soldier agrees with you? This I wonder. But we may find out, because a Canadian solider has just died, and now his family reports that he had been criticizing the war he was fighting.

Was this fellow failing to support the troops? Was he spitting on his own sacrifices? Was he a spoiled ingrate, refusing to appreciate the risks he was taking for himself? What about his family? Are they rotten no-good hippie pinko pacifist traitors for questioning the war that killed their boy?

Listen, warmongers. Please tell me what you're going to do with all your name calling when the soldiers you're supposedly representing are disagreeing with you. Are you going to lump our valiant defenders in with the traitors? Either you (1) agree with the solider and put down the war or you (2) disagree with the soldier and and put him or her down. Those are your two choices now. Which will you take?

When the soldiers disagree with the war, the warmongers have a tough slog on their hands. Unless, that is, the citizens can't or won't see through the spin.