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Love the troops, hate the war
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    Almost all the things I write about here on Friday come from one of three situations. Sometimes its a personal experience I've had here in Statesboro - a business transaction of some sort. Also, there are the keen observations I make about the inadequacies of government in order to dispel the ridiculous notion that the federal government is, in any way, here to help you.  Then, there are those bits of random conversation that happen to stick with me after the talk stops and I walk away.
    This is one of the latter.
    Recently, a few chaps and I were hanging around and discussing various innocuous topics, when suddenly the phrase "war on terror" popped into conversation. Then, the phrase "you have to support the war effort in order to support the troops" made an appearance.
    I've heard them a hundred times, but this time they stuck in my head and got me thinking.
    First of all, how can you have a war on terror?
    Isn't that a bit like having a war on fear? Or a war on horror?  A war on the willies?
    Aren't these things feelings? How do you fight a feeling with bullets?
    I have been confused about this for some time now.
    Time to take some aspirin.
    As usual, I digress.
    What I really want to focus on is the idea that you can't support the troops without supporting the war.
    Using the ever popular, middle-school cheerleader defense: Uh-huh, can too.
    Indeed, you can support troops and hate the war.
    My sports example is George Steinbrenner, the owner/tyrant of the New York Yankees. He is not always a well-liked guy in the baseball universe. New Yorkers are frequently put off by his childish antics. However, New Yorkers loves their Bronx Bombers and generally support its players. Especially when they're winning.
    So, a fan can love the team and the players but hate the decisions the owner makes about the operations of that team.
    My corporate example centers in Houston, TX, around the year 2000. We've all heard how the management of that little company called Enron completely robbed it's employees of their savings.
    Did the public hate Enron itself or the employees who were so royally hosed? Nope. In fact, the general public reached out to help many of the employees who had lost all of their retirement money.
    But the public (and a government prosecutor) was ticked off at the executives who ran that company into the ground. It's the executives (a small minority of them anyway) who ended up on the other side of prison bars.
    Again, a person can be angry at management without being angry at the employee.
    Now, a number of nationally syndicated radio hosts would say I'm un-American for not supporting the war.  Because if you're not supporting the war, you're not supporting the troops and that means you're risking the troops' lives.
    However, I'm pretty sure it's our leaders - for their own political, religious or corporate reasons - who are risking the troops lives. I only have a keyboard. Even if I hit the troops with it, I don't think it would be life-threatening (except maybe to me).
    The bottom line is this: much like a five-year old can't really decide where he is going to school, the majority of the armed forces - enlisted personnel and lower-ranked officers - can't really decide where they're going to fight.
    So, we can raise our hands and give a big Bronx cheer to the decision makers and their crummy decisions  while still cheering the troops and sending them cookies. Savvy?
    Better yet, we should support the troops by telling our leaders  were sick of this war on terror and tell them to bring the troops home before any more of our young people can never come home again.
    REO Speedwagon said it best when they said, "I can't fight this feeling any longer."
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