Troop Morale?

I am sooo tired of hearing the warhawks prattle on about how if we say anything that is not 100% in favor of the current administration's idiocy, that we will be hurting our troops' morale.

Morale? What morale?

Think of how you'd feel if you were packed onto a cargo plane and shipped to a godforsaken desert nine thousand miles away from home. Where you are to fight a war you never had a prayer of winning from the git-go against people who have been killing each other for more than a thousand years over which Caliph should be dancing on the head of a pin.

Where every other person you see on the street would happily kill you if he could get away with it. Where, every time you take a ride in your Humvee, there's a good chance some religious fanatic is willing to blow himself up to get you, or that there's an IED on the roadside with your name on it, and that you are protected by armor slightly more effective than Saran Wrap. That the National Guard guy riding next to you is somebody's grandfather.

That three thousand of your fellow servicemen and women have died in this burgeoning civil war you are refereeing, ten times that many have been wounded, many of them maimed and crippled, missing limbs, deaf, or blind.

That your tour of duty never ends because the military can't collect and train enough new cannon fodder to replace you. That most of the word hates you for being here, and that hundreds of thousands of the locals are dead since you arrived, more than a few by your hand.

It was me? My morale would be in the toilet. If I didn't think most of the citizens back home wanted nothing more that to shut this lunacy down and bring me home, I'd be really depressed.

So enough with the "It hurts troop morale to think the public doesn't support them." bullshit.

Fuck that.

And of course, our new Congress, the broom that we brought in for a clean sweep to end this war is girding their ball-less loins and buckling their belts over gutless bellies to bring forth a non-binding resolution!

How forthright of them! How brave! Harsh language to make the President feel bad. Colbert's wag of the finger. Ow, ow, stop!

About as useful as tits on a boar hog, that, and no way, no how what we hired them to do.

Oh, Steve, you have all the answers, do you? What would you do?

Easy. I was Congress, I'd look at my watch: Look, George, it's two o'clock. Let's say, by ... end of August, you have all the troops packed up and on their way home, hey? Or we shut off the money spigot that has been wasting the taxpayers' dollar on this brainlesss business, end of discussion, period.

All the rest of the rationalizations are just pouring more people and money down a bottomless rat hole. Surge? A surge is something that happens when you floor the accelerator on a Dodge Viper. Sending more people into harm's way isn't going to do jackshit except cost more lives.
Everybody with two neurons to spark at each other knows this. Shiites, Sunni, and Kurds aren't going to listen to the Crusaders this time, any more than they did last time.

Fuck it. Bring 'em home. We're coming up on five years into this mess. Bring 'em home.