support the troops and not the war?

if you wanna have an interesting read about this try ""Manufacturing consent"" (i think thats the title) by Chomsky. Most interesting part is where he talks about ""supporting the troops"" and explains that this is a phrase with no meaning. So in a poll that is called ""do you support the troops"" its a given that the majority is supporting the troops, because you cannot find a good reason against it. I cannot explain this as good as he can, he is the linguist :). I am not of the same opinion in many of his political views, but I do trust in him as a linguist.
Sorry for the OT but the topic immediately reminded me of the book.

Chomsky must forget about the protestors who spat upon returning Vietnam veterans, forever destroying any chance of understanding between peace activists and the men and women of the Armed Forces.

I''m with Rat-Boy. Chomsky, who I generally respect though not always agree with, is constructing an argument from literal analysis without considering the real-world which is that you can support the troops in the same way you can support anyone who could use some help. My feelings about the war aside, it''s pretty much time to recognize that war is upon us, and the nation''s responsibility is now to complete that war as quickly as possible with as little casualty to innocent life on either side as possible, and then to give those fighting whatever help they need and that we as citizens can afford. I agree that the majority of people give ''supporting the troops'' as lipservice, but there''s a real commitment that can and should be made.

Chomsky who I could never respect needs to go back to being a linguist and not trying to conver the United States to Socialism.

My feelings about the war aside, it''s pretty much time to recognize that war is upon us, and the nation''s responsibility is now to complete that war as quickly as possible with as little casualty to innocent life on either side as possible, and then to give those fighting whatever help they need and that we as citizens can afford. I agree that the majority of people give ''supporting the troops'' as lipservice, but there''s a real commitment that can and should be made.

I never denied that in fact I am of the same opinion. But it is indeed true that just stating ""I support the troops"" has no meaning because it is out of context. Let''s just forget this, it was off topic anyway :).

Isn''t the question more complicated than this?

The issues at hand are:

Supporting the troops

Supporting the war

Supporting war

Supporting how the Bush administration went about going to war

Supporting how the allies went about going to war

Supporting the allies

Supporting the Bush administration

I think you will find very few people who will answer yes to all the above questions.