Re: Bring the Troops Home Now, yes. Support the troops? No.

["Mark Lause" <MLause@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I tend to agree with you, Fred, though I don't see this as a matter of
principle and am open to considering anything within those bounds. And I
don't see this as an issue to be resolved on an email list.

It is worthwhile to suggest that, if members of the military and their
families want to use "support the troops" in protesting the war, I have
no objections so long as the context is made clear...by coupling it to
the BTTHN and other antiwar slogans.

More than this, the American military sees itself as both obligated to
follow orders and, as citizens, entitled to have a hand in shaping those
orders.  This is as true of the contemporary "volunteer" as of the
Vietnam era draftee.  For all the reasons you've pointed out, the U.S.
government doesn't support its soldiers in the sense of
recognizing--much less defending--the exercise of their basic rights as
citizens.

In that very fundamental sense so basic to the American soldiers'
self-definition, we do support the troops in a way the government don't,
won't and can't.  I'm for making this as clear to those in uniform as we
can, using anything that will do it.

Solidarity!
Mark L.