I would like to take a moment to thank you for reminding me of this website which is, in itself, a giant flaming pile of WIN in the lonely darkness that is the internet. 
What’s the best way to get them to you?
Off the top of my head:
-approaching someone in uniform & saying thanks
-sending care packages
-donating to related charities
-volunteering at the VA or VFW or cemetery
-attending Memorial Day & Veteran’s Day functions
-petitioning your congressperson for better services
obviously the common denominator is that “support” is something demonstrable, not simply a feeling.
Oh. Well, then, definitely not. I am functionally indifferent to their plight, at least for the most part.
I suppose people laid up in hospitals & serving prison sentences also fail to support the troops, understandably.
Hey-I aim to please! 
I was speaking of SDMB members rather than Americans as a whole. I’m sure there are “some”. I don’t know how many “some” is, but I hope it’s a small number. As far as Dopers though, if there are others who wish death on US soldiers I don’t know who they are. Then again I don’t read every GD thread so maybe I just missed them.
To really understand the term support the troops you have to go back to the Vietnam war. Back then when the troops came home, there were no parades, no yellow ribbons, no thank you for your service. When the soldiers got home nobody cared was the best they could hope for.
hell Bruce Springsteen even wrote a song about it
When Gulf War I came along, the Vietnam Vets made damn sure that these troops didn’t get shit on like they did. This was the beginning of the “support the Troops” movement.
[Actual incident] I was doing laundry at the laundromat. This was right after GW I. A guy about my age was there.* A TV was showing one of the welcome home parades. He commented that when got back to the world from Nam no one even thanked him, or welcomed him back. I walked over, stuck out my hand and said, I didn’t know you then, but can I thank you now? He took my hand, I shook it and said, thank you for your service to our country and welcome back. I could see tears well up in his eyes as he shook my hand.
*FTR I am of the age of guys that served in Nam. I was not drafted, so I did not serve. [/AI]
My cousin’s daughter-in-law was killed by an IED…
As was my good friend’s husband. It’s a horrible thing.
Anyway, the whole point of my reply was to tell Rick that you did a really wonderful thing. Seriously, that man will never forget what you did for him.
Bear, how about a box of flat soccer balls and a hand pump with a couple of needles? Shoot me a PM with the address and they are yours.
Deb
PS- I am so sorry for your loss, Maniac Man. I joke because if I don’t, well, hell, who wants to cry and be scared all the time? But I apologize if my flippant post caused you pain- that was not my intent.
The slogan generates confusion, it was designed for it, it is passive-aggressive propaganda.
It allows the speaker to presume the moral high ground before any evidence can be offered, it permits an absolute, which so many crave. Well, of course you support our troops? Shirley you don’t wish death and defeat upon them? Shirley you want them to come home safe (and victorious)? Well, then, it necessarily follows that you oppose anything that might adversely affect morale amongst those troops, you oppose home front treachery by the liberal-peacenik-dirty fucking hippies (hadn’t been for them, we would have won in Viet Nam, everybody knows that’s true…)
The purpose of the slogan is to put us DFH on the defensive, to force us to twist our thinking to cognitive dissonance, we support the troops but not the war.
If I were not an American, I wouldn’t have this problem, but I am, and I do. In the cold dead light of realpolitik, I would have to say I don’t think it is in our nations best interests to win in Iraq, I think an imperial America that asserts its will by force is a kind of blasphemy, it wipes its ass with the dreams of Paine and Jefferson. And I think it would lead to our ruin, as that which is gained by force must be maintained by force.
There is no comfort to be had, there is no position of complete assurance. Does an anti-war movement “embolden” the enemy, and thus endanger our own? Most likely. And that is a bitter cup of tea. But the alternative is to let these deranged jackals get away with it, to let their plans proceed without hindrance, to cooperate, to collaborate. And I believe to my very soul that if they had their way, we would be shoveling our children and grandchildren into this machine for generations to come. And for nothing but to support the gradiose delusions of men who want to play Risk with real people.
It is not our fault we are forced to choose between evils, and it is our duty to make that choice, we are the Americans, what is done in our name is done by us. We must either choose between evils, or shrug off the responsibility for that choice.
And I curse them before all the gods, real or imagined, the men who forced this poisonous choice upon me. May their food turn to ashes in their mouths, may their wine turn to vinegar, and may their dicks shrivel like a worm on a griddle.
Pretty much the entire democratic party who are faighting against those who are trying to protect us from islamic extremists.
They keep saying the war in Iraq is an illegal war…
Hmmm, let’s see… the UN voted on it back during the first Gulf War and Saddam refused to cooperate and the first war’s UN decaration gave the US the legal right to invade again if needed.
Then, the UN voted on it again before the second invasion, then our own Congress voted on it, and continue to vote to authorize funding…so this is a perfectly legal war.
Sure it probably could have been managed better such as shutting down the Iranian and Syrian borders…but they didn’t think of that until the crap hit the fan.
Harpooning your gonads with toothpicks might very well be legal, doesn’t make it a good idea.
OK.
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I support the troops as individuals put in an extremely tough spot.
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I DO NOT support the enraged, greedy, paranoid nutjobs that put them in that spot; neither do I support the USA invading a country unless it is the ONLY way to stop that country from causing real (not imagined), imminent, and calamitous harm to our nation and its citizens.
With me so far? Easy-peasy, right? Because so far I have roughly outlined the stance of the vast majority of American Liberals and at this point in the Iraq Cluster-Fuck, a whole bunch of American conservatives, too.
However, my support for the troops gets extremely dicey when it comes down to who must die in a given battle–those defending their sovereign nation, or those invading said nation. I wish no one would die in that battle, OK? But that’s is not an option; when people are fighting a foreign invader they will usually fight to the death, I think.
So-- do I hope to see American soldiers, Marines and airmen killed in Iraq? I do not. But I can not blame Iraqi’s for using any force necessary to combat foreign invaders. This can and does result in the deaths and injury of American service-persons. I am sorry about this, just as I am sorry that Iraqis are also dying in this conflict. I wish that the Iraqi’s could inflict sufficient strategic damage to the invading force that would repel the invaders from their country, thereby lowering the ultimate number of casualties on both sides. It would be wonderful if they could magically inflict this strategic damage without hurting a soul. Sadly, it would take maybe 30,000 U.S. war dead to trigger an immediate pullout, and that would be beyond horrible.
Beyond horrible like all the Iraqi civilian death is beyond horrible. Solution? Withdrawal, of course, but the ******* won’t do that and the ********* Democrats who were elected to lead Congress to force a withdrawal won’t do their jobs either. So the invaders continue to engage the invaded. How can I choose an American invader’s life over an Iraqi defender’s–even if the invader is an American like me?
**
Mini-Godwin------- ** Were the German civilians who wished military defeat (and all the death and suffering that entailed) on the Nazis during WWII right or wrong?
Can you understand why a German in that position desire defeat for his own countrymen? Because I can understand why an anti-Nazi German in that situation would desire the opposite: Allied defeat and death over Nazi death every time. I think they would for the reason that some Americans would now prefer Iraqi death over American death every time. Because one finds it so very hard to accept harm for his/her fellow countrymen-- even if those countrymen are pawns in an unjust aggression. One that morally, one knows (deep-down or not so deep-down), is all wrong.
When I read our dear Der Trihs “anti-American” posts I often think (and hope) that this is somewhat where he is coming from.
But feel free to hate me too.
The U.S. has democratic parties?
No worries…
Themselves ? The Democrats have shown an occasional interest in “trying to protect us from Islamic extremists”. Not the Republicans. Osama is still on the loose; the people behind the Clinton era WTC bombing aren’t - because as a Democrat, Clinton actually cared about stopping terrorism, not using terrorism as an excuse to attack random countries or cut cil liberties. as a Republican, Bush is at best indifferent and in general is going to be pro-Islamic terrorism. Terrorist attacks give him a bloody shirt to wave, and his and their ideologies have a lot of similarities.
I don’t really care if it’s legal or not. It’s evil and stupid. That’s a lot worse than illegal.
And what does that have to do with anything ?
And there’s been nothing about this war and occupation that has been done well, from the basic idea of doing so to everything else.
Exactly. You can’t support the American troops without supporting the deaths of Iraqis who are simply defending themselves. The “I support the troops but I don’t support the war” position is fundamentally dishonest, or delusional, depending on if you actually believe it. Supporting the troops IS supporting the war, and supporting the killing of Iraqis; that’s what they are DOING. Right now.
I have come to hate America because of what it has done and what it is doing. I used to not hate America; it is America’s own behavior that has brought me to my present attitude towards it.
I supported the Soviet troops but not the occupation of Afghanistan. I also supported the French troops but when they tried to conquer Mexico while we were busy with our Civil war…yeah, not cool guys.
During the initial invasion–oh about four years ago–you would have had a point. But that’s not what’s going on over here now. It isn’t Iraq against the United States. It isn’t some organized group of Iraq Civilian Militia or Iraqi Underground trying to repell some oppressive occupational force. What’s going on over here is more analagous to a violent gang war fighting over power, and religion.
Just yesterday I was out patrolling with–get this–the Iraqi Army! Yup, Iraqis. How crazy is that? I wasn’t trying to kill them. They weren’t trying to repell my invasion. We were just working together trying to find certain Al-Queda leaders who probably aren’t even Iraqi citizens to begin with.
Has a GD (or maybe IMHO) been done on this? I wonder if it’s true, but am not sure it could be proven either way.