The Bush administration supports the troops.That is, if by "support the troops," you mean use them as backdrops for photo ops, to hide behind when he has something unpopular to say. He supports them, if by "support," you mean sending them off to Iraq and Afghanistan in longer and longer rotations. It's support if by "support," you mean using them as human sacrifices to keep a failed policy going until Bush is safely out of office. Then someone else gets to take the blame for "losing Iraq."
It's "support" only if you radically redefine the word.
It's more honest to say that Bush uses the troops to support him. They're this lame duck's crutch as he hobbles toward the end of two disastrous terms in office. Bush uses soldiers as human political shields, a way to pass the buck. This president gets to call himself a "War President," but pretends that war is entirely out of his hands. We're supposed to believe that Gen. Petraeus runs this war, that decisions are left to "commanders in the field," as if the military were a government in itself over which the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of civilian government have no legitimate control.
See, that way, when things go horribly, horribly wrong -- as they have with Abu Ghraib or at Walter Reed -- it's not Bush's fault. No, President Bush is the first president in american history to have no responsibilities. Nothing is the fault of the White House -- ever. If you were to believe what Bush says, you'd have to believe that everyone under him just does whatever the hell they want to...
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