Who supports the troops?

There's been an amazing series of articles running in The Washington Post the last few days about the decrepit and disgusting conditions injured veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars are finding themselves in at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.

Rodent- and roach-infested rooms. Black mold growing in some rooms. Broken elevators. No one to shepard the injured vets or their families through the complicated bureaucracy. Not enough staff to make sure vets get the ongoing therapy or medicine they need.

These are military members who have lost limbs, have been severely burned over much of their body, are suffering from deep psychological trauma. And they're tossed into this crap hole.

Today, The Post is reporting that the army is rushing to suddenly start fixing the problems. Of course, they're only doing it now that the shocking story was on the front page of the paper. They've basically been shamed into finally doing the right thing.

And it once again points out the sheer hypocrisy and depravity of the right-wingers and their political party, the Republicans.

For years, all the right-wing blow hards in Congress, the hatemongers on talk radio, the dutiful lapdogs of Fox News, have screeched about the evil liberal media, the MSM (mainstream media) as they sneeringly call it – usually meaning The Post, The New York Times, AP, CBS, NBC, and ABC News, CNN, the LA Times, Time, Newsweek, etc.

They charge that "the media" is somehow hurting the morale of “the troops” by daring to report that Iraq has turned into a world-class cluster fuck. And that the Democrats, who want to end the war and bring the troops home, are somehow “cut and runners.”

The implication being that if you oppose the war, oppose Bush and his horrendous mismanagement of this unnecessary war, it somehow means you oppose the troops. (I never quite got the logic of how wanting to end the war and brings the troops home out of harm's way means you oppose them, by the way.)

And now we find out, thanks to that dastardly MSM, that the troops the GOP claims to love so much are treated like crap after their lives have been turned upside down. And this after they've been thrown into battle often without adequate armor, leading to these grievous injuries in the first place.

Yet we're supposed to believe these flagwaving blowhards are the ones who support the troops?

They are the ones who have sent over 3,000 U.S. military to death in a war against a country that had not attacked us. They've got the military straining to keep pace with the chaos, forcing units to serve second and third tours without a break. And now they want to send 21,000 more Americans into the middle of the bloody sectarian civil war erupting in a country Bush's incompetence has plummeted into chaos.

But somehow it's the media – and the Democrats – that don't support the troops?

And, of course, when these right wing skunks had their own opportunity to actually serve themselves – from the White House and Congress down to the screaming heads on talk radio and Fox News – strangely enough the overwhelming majority of these superpatriots somehow managed to avoid putting on a uniform. As Dick Cheney famously said, he had “other priorities” during the Vietnam War era, and Rush Limbaugh had an anal cyst that kept his fat ass out of the draft.

But, hey, they all support the troops. So much so that they want even more of them to go fight for the glory of Dear Leader. And when they get injured, oh well, toss them forgotten into a dysfunctional hospital. And scream some more about those commie libs who don't support the troops.

Pathetic.