Categorical Aperitif

The baffling, disturbing remarks of counter-protesters at yesterday's festivities in Washington (emphasis added):

I've seen how leftist politicians hate the military. It's disgusting. We're fighting a war not in Iraq but with them," said Lt. Col. Robert "Buzz" Patterson, a retired Air Force pilot.

War supporters staked out three blocks on Pennsylvania Avenue to await the war protesters. A large police presence and metal barricades separated the groups, but not their words.

"Commies out of D.C.!" came the chants from one corner of 10th Street NW. Across the street, two middle-aged men shouted obscenities into the face of a young man in full camouflage and a bandanna that concealed all but his eyes. The young man remained silent amid the screaming, holding a sign over his head that read "Support the troops, end the war."

A bus had been painted with antiwar slogans including "Impeach Bush-Cheney Now!!" A man at Pennsylvania Avenue and Sixth Street shouted "Drive your bus into the Potomac. You're all idiots. . . . Relieve us of your stupidity."

Like many yesterday, Deborah Johns, the mother of a sergeant who has served three tours in Iraq, raised the Vietnam War for comparison.

"We're not going to let the domestic enemy here at home defeat us like they did then," she said. "No retreat, no surrender. Not now, not ever."

What is it with these people? We have ample evidence that the folks who got us into this war are, at best, tragically incompetent and, at worst, shameless liars; we know that the war is wrecking our army, squandering billions upon billions of dollars that could be used to better effect elsewhere, alienating our allies (what's left of them), and encouraging the growth of terrorism. Yet these people think it's war opponents who are hurting the country; hell, some of them seem to think that the real war is with fellow Americans who won't come to heel like good dogs, who won't stay obediently in the herd and follow their masters wherever they might lead, even if it's over a civilizational cliff. And they think this slavish devotion to fools, liars, and lunatics is patriotism.

Y'know, I was an optimist during the buildup to war: I actually believed that an America that had lived through Vietnam, Watergate, Iran-Contra, the Lewinsky scandal, etc. would not be foolish enough to buy the crap that the Bush Administration was selling. Oops. Then, as the occupation dragged on, the body counts mounted, the coffers emptied, and the news never really seemed to get better, I remember thinking Surely in the aftermath of Vietnam, Watergate, Iran-Contra, the Lewinsky scandal, the Iraq boondoggle, etc., Americans will no longer be suckers for the stupid, simplistic either-or logic which says that in time of "war" (however far away and however manufactured) you either unquestionably support the government or you're a traitorous "domestic enemy" who must be brought to heel. Surely enough Americans have read 1984, for God's sake.

One of the things I have come to hate most about this time in America is how often it vindicates my pessimism.

Update: Sinfonian from Blast Off! was at yesterday's protest and recounts a confrontation with "a flag-draped USA cap-wearing mouth-breather":

Mouth-breather was wearing a button saying "I'm fighting the insurgency at home." I guess that's us. Whatever.

No matter how you interpret that button, the results are disturbing. If "the insurgency" refers to the one in Iraq, and the button is the wearer's way of proclaiming that he is fighting the insurgency from the comfort of home—well, that's just clueless and confusing. If "the insurgency at home" refers to Americans who oppose the war—if the button is meant to equate war opponents with people who are actually, you know, shooting at and blowing up American soldiers—then it's just sick, sick, sick. Ditto, if you'll pardon the expression, for someone who would wear such a thing.

A lot of the pro-warriors seem to have skipped past "honorably misguided" and gone straight to "clueless and/or insane."