LA Times columnist says "I don't support our troops"

If there are reasonable people in Los Angeles, they don't seem to be writing for the papers.

Joel Stein writes in yesterday's editorial about the war in Iraq and says we shouldn't have parades for our returning troops.

I'm not advocating that we spit on returning veterans like they did after the Vietnam War, but we shouldn't be celebrating people for doing something we don't think was a good idea. All I'm asking is that we give our returning soldiers what they need: hospitals, pensions, mental health and a safe, immediate return. But, please, no parades.

Stein perpetuates some common falsehoods advanced by the MSM. In fact, I would have to put him right square in the middle of the MSM category.

After we've decided that we made a mistake, we don't want to blame the soldiers who were ordered to fight. Or even our representatives, who were deceived by false intelligence. And certainly not ourselves, who failed to object to a war we barely understood.

But blaming the president is a little too easy. The truth is that people who pull triggers are ultimately responsible, whether they're following orders or not. An army of people making individual moral choices may be inefficient, but an army of people ignoring their morality is horrifying. An army of people ignoring their morality, by the way, is also Jack Abramoff's pet name for the House of Representatives.

Excuse me? Did I read that correctly? I think he's actually implying that the troops should disobey orders while in harms way! Is he an anarchist, or is he really that much of a fool?

He does seem to have one part correct:

But I'm not for the war. And being against the war and saying you support the troops is one of the wussiest positions the pacifists have ever taken — and they're wussy by definition. It's as if the one lesson they took away from Vietnam wasn't to avoid foreign conflicts with no pressing national interest but to remember to throw a parade afterward.

I have to agree - this foot-shuffling position is a very tenuous one. The leaders who take this position need to hear from their constituents that their little dance isn't fooling anyone.

I think even Patrick Henry would have trouble defending this guy's right to free speech.

[via Drudge Report]