On the anniversary of 9/11, as I stepped off the bus from work, I approached a group of sign-wavers demonstrating in front of the local library. I had just moved to the community and didn’t realize this was a weekly event until I stopped to chat with a few of them. And like last week, the “Bring Home the Troops’ and “End the War” sign-wavers were quietly chatting amongst themselves or standing in silent vigil.

But tonight there was another group holding signs gathered on one street corner. Their signs read, “Support the Troops, Support the Mission.” At first, I thought they were part of the group I’d seen last week, but their behavior told me otherwise.

These demonstrators brandished American flags in front of passing cars, volleyed pro-war slogans across the intersection. It appeared they were trying to instigate a face-off with the “anti-war” movement.

I stopped and watched for a few minutes and then went over and picked up a sign from a pile stacked against the library and stepped up to the street corner.

My son will be home in a few days after serving 15 months in Iraq, mostly in the troubled Diyala Province near the Iran border. May was a bad month for his company, the 5-20 Stryker Brigade. His stryker was blown up, two of his best friends died, and he saw six others blown to bits in another explosion. And I'm sure he's seen things he'll never be able to talk about.

Yesterday I read his brigade lost 47 during this deployment. Tragically, another from his company died today from injuries sustained that week in May. My heart ached for his family back in my home state of Oregon.

And two young women I spent some time with this last year are coming to grips with the grim reality that they will not be part of the joyous homecoming celebrations that will be held at Fort Lewis next week, because their loved ones were lost that bloody week in May.

“Support the troops, support the mission,” the man standing next to me shouted over the top of my head.

I turned and asked: “Sir, do you have any family members serving in Iraq?”

He shot me a look and said, “Well, not in Iraq – but we all serve!” he quickly added. “We have to win! Otherwise, my grandchildren will be fighting to keep us free. Our troops are doing this for them. It’s people like you that are keeping us from winning this war.”

I guess he thought I was a member of the anti-war movement he and his group were trying to challenge.

“Sir, my son has served two deployments in Iraq. And it’s because of people like YOU that he keeps having to go back there again and again.”

I thought he was going to hit me with his huge sign. But, instead, he walked away and stood near another man who was carrying a sign that read, “Impeach.”

He soon came back.

“Everyone has the freedom to their own opinion,” he said, “but I don’t think your son would appreciate you holding that sign.”

“Sir, my son knows exactly how I feel. He has told me preserving my freedom to speak my mind IS worth fighting for, but I don’t believe he has to go to Iraq to do that.”

“Then you don’t know what this war is about,” he shot back.

“However,” I said, “I see that it’s OK with you that MY son sacrifice his life for YOUR beliefs, but it’s not OK for YOUR grandchildren to die for the same cause.”

“You’re a stupid, stupid woman.” He turned and walked away.

Perhaps I am stupid. But if I am, it’s because I’m senselessly in love with my son, dulled witless with worry over his safe return and stupefied at how ignorant and insensitive and self-absorbed people can be when it’s not their child – or grandchild – in harm's way.

That man and many like him aren't "supporting the troops," they're supporting their egos, too insecure to admit they trusted an administration that lied, blindly supported a political party that cooperated in reducing our freedoms and were too lazy to step outside their self-rightous comfort zone to check the temperature of the cold, hard truth -- they made a mistake.

My son will be home in a few days; and I could have just passed on by with very little effort. But who will stand up for all the others who are still in Iraq, still in harms way, still dying for this administration's lies?

And who will stand up for those preparing to return to Iraq for their third and fourth deployments so that Mr. Flag Waver's family doesn't have to?

I looked up at the sign I was holding: “Bring the Troops Home,” and wondered: Would that man still call me stupid if I were standing on a street corner holding it up for a total stranger, perhaps, HIS grandson?

Or would HE be the one holding that sign?

I know one thing: I sure wouldn't call him stupid.

In today's headlines from the Washingtonpost.com, here's a story that all of you who want to know why we military familes worry and want to know what our loved ones are going through in Iraq need to read.

One Month, Two Brushes With Death:

In Iraq, 'Lucky' Is Difficult to Define

by Joshua Partlow

Washington Post Foreign Service

BAGHDAD -- Pvt. Kodey Briggs slid out from behind the wheel of the Humvee. He looked at what was left of his driver's-side window -- the spider web of cracked armored glass, the layer that didn't break.

His thin chest heaved. His pale hands trembled. Why didn't it break? He lit a cigarette. Then another. He took off his flak vest and helmet, sat down on the ground and leaned against a pile of sandbags. He seemed so fragile in that position: 18 years old, 152 pounds, a fuzz of short blond hair on his head. The other soldiers in his unit approached him deferentially, with pity and wonder.

"Most people don't live through one of those things," remarked Cpl. Richard Smith. "Briggs has lived through two."

READ

And then go here to find out what you can do to help support our troops.

Will somebody PLEASE take that man's pen away from him?!! He's written a new edict in the form of an executive order giving himself MORE POWER.

UPDATE: Some feel that this is a benign piece of paper that really doesn't change what is already being done and is only applicable in instances where there are "threats of violence." Well, here's another take on it. This administration has trotted too many executive orders through Congress that, on the surface, look innocent. But so do wolves in sheep's clothing, as that old phrase warns. Join a growing movement of people who are preparing to send a message to Congress and media "watchdogs" to take action to protect the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

I, GEORGE W. BUSH, President of the United States of America, find that, due to the unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States posed by acts of violence threatening the peace and stability of Iraq and undermining efforts to promote economic reconstruction and political reform in Iraq and to provide humanitarian assistance to the Iraqi people, it is in the interests of the United States to take additional steps with respect to the national emergency declared in Executive Order 13303 of May 22, 2003, and expanded in Executive Order 13315 of August 28, 2003, and relied upon for additional steps taken in Executive Order 13350 of July 29, 2004, and Executive Order 13364 of November 29, 2004. I hereby order: .... read the rest of his abuse here.

I'm heading out to buy some orange paint ... here's why.

Will somebody PLEASE take that man's pen away from him?!! He's written a new edict in the form of an executive order giving himself MORE POWER.

UPDATE: Some feel that this is a benign piece of paper that really doesn't change what is already being done and is only applicable in instances where there are "threats of violence." Well, here's another take on it. This administration has trotted out too many executive orders through Congress that, on the surface, look innocent. But so do wolves in sheep's clothing, as that old phrase warns. Join a growing movement of people who are preparing to send a message to Congress and media "watchdogs" to take action to protect the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

I, GEORGE W. BUSH, President of the United States of America, find that, due to the unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States posed by acts of violence threatening the peace and stability of Iraq and undermining efforts to promote economic reconstruction and political reform in Iraq and to provide humanitarian assistance to the Iraqi people, it is in the interests of the United States to take additional steps with respect to the national emergency declared in Executive Order 13303 of May 22, 2003, and expanded in Executive Order 13315 of August 28, 2003, and relied upon for additional steps taken in Executive Order 13350 of July 29, 2004, and Executive Order 13364 of November 29, 2004. I hereby order: .... read the rest of his abuse here.

I'm heading out to buy some orange paint ... here's why.

I followed the link in M.J. Rosenberg's blog post Chickenhawk Bill Kristol Says Antiwar People Even Bereaved Moms Are Against the Troops," and I was livid. I'm so offended by Billy Boy's neocon propaganda that I had to respond. Beware: this post contains a LOT of profanity -- all mine.

Kristol writes:

Cindy Sheehan, mother of a soldier who was killed in Iraq, emerged on the American political scene two years ago. Distraught and unstable, she was shamelessly exploited by opponents of George W. Bush and the war while such exploitation seemed to pay political benefits. When she became an embarrassment, she, like others before her, was tossed onto the trash heap of history by her progressive minders.

Don’t forget, Billy Boy, she was also vilified by Bush supporters like YOU for political purposes, too. But I guess all's fair in love and war. Right? Especially when you have I LOVE THE RIGHT tattooed on your ass. Tell me, Billy, when you travel, do you have to make three right turns before you can start going in the other direction so you won't have to make a LEFT turn?

Sheehan was useful to the antiwar left in a particular way. As Jonathan Cohn put it in the September 12, 2005, New Republic, "Sheehan's value isn't as a barometer of public opinion or as a source of foreign policy wisdom. It's as proof of one very simple point: that a person can criticize the war and still support the troops."It's unclear that Sheehan was particularly interested in "supporting the troops"--unless one means by that lamenting the fate of the troops as victims. The fact that relatively few soldiers see themselves as victims, the fact that few families understand their loved ones' service and sacrifices in that light--that didn't matter.

As member of the aforenamed families who has a loved one serving in Iraq, you don’t know what the f**k your talking about, Billy Boy. You need to get out of your tight-ass circle of neocon cronies and get your SpongeBob body over to Iraq and spend some “quality time” with our guys and gals with boots on the ground – mono y mono. Have you attended any military funerals lately? I doubt it, too damn depressing, huh? Do those two things, then I'll start listening to you SPEAK for the troops and their families without thinking you're full of crap.

With the ongoing progress of the surge, and the obvious fact that the vast majority of the troops want to fight and win the war, the "support-the-troops-but-oppose-what-they're-doing" position has become increasingly untenable. How can you say with a straight face that you support the troops while advancing legislation that would undercut their mission and strengthen their enemies?

Again, you’re NOT LISTENING, Billy Boy. Our troops love serving their country, are proud to be fighting – and dying – for a noble cause. But they don’t want to sacrifice their lives, nor their futures with their families, to fight an ENDLESS WAR that YOUR PRESIDENT got them into by lying to EVERYONE. Nor are they willing to serve 15-month tours over and over and over again so that your weak-kneed progeny, who don’t have the stomach to VOLUNTEER to fight alongside them or in their place, can sit home watching TV, partying, going to college, banging their girlfriends, and dreaming up new schemes for taking other people's money.

The troops want you and your own to get off your fat asses and give them a f**king BREAK. But, nooooooooo, you just click your heels and say “sieg heil” to your fuehrer George Bush and say, “Keep on fighting, troops! We support you.”

... those on the cutting edge of progressive opinion are beginning to give up on even pretending to support the troops. Instead, they now slander the troops. Two progressive magazines have taken complementary approaches in this effort. In its July 30 issue, the Nation has a 24-page article based on interviews with 50 Iraq veterans. The piece allegedly reveals "disturbing patterns of behavior by American troops in Iraq"--indeed, it claims that the war has "led many troops to declare an open war on all Iraqis." Needless to say, the anecdotal evidence in the article comes nowhere close to supporting this claim. There are a few instances of out-of-control behavior, some routine fog-of-war and brutality-of-war incidents, and much that is simply trivial. The picture is unpleasant, as one would expect--but it comes nowhere close to living up to the authors' billing: "The war the vets described is a dark and even depraved enterprise."

So, let me see if I have this right? A few instances of out-of-control behavior, like killing a taxi cab driver, because you’re afraid his car might be carrying bombs that could blow up you or six more of your friends like the day before, is OK? And some routine fog-of-war and brutality-of-war incidents, like accidently blowing up women and children who are about the same age as your kids back home is TRIVIAL?!

OK, Billy Boy, I challenge you to go rent every GRAPHIC (as in blood and guts graphic) war movie and spend the next 15 months watching them 24/7. See how that starts affecting your outlook on the world. Then you just might have some clue as to how trivial the not-so-nice-things about war are to the mental health of our loved ones for whom war is f**king REAL.

May we send you the bills for the psychiatric counseling our children might need to keep from going postal or committing suicide after they get home? Think of it as just another way you can show your support for the troops for fighting YOUR war.

Having turned against a war that some of them supported, the left is now turning against the troops they claim still to support. They sense that history is progressing away from them--that these soldiers, fighting courageously in a just cause, could still win the war, that they are proud of their service, and that they will be future leaders of this country. They are not "Shock Troops." They are our best and bravest, fighting for all of us against a brutal enemy in a difficult and frustrating war. They are the 9/11 generation. The left slanders them. We support them. More than that, we admire them.

Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Well, Billy Boy, if you and your neocon buddies admire them so much, how come your loved ones aren’t lining up at the recruiter’s office BEGGING to be so admired? Better yet, let's see your beaming mug out front signing up fresh recruits at the next Young Republicans convention, instead of wasting all your machismo beating up those whimpy liberal Democrats.

Now THAT would be supporting the troops who have aready DONE THEIR DUTY!

Here's another -- less emotional -- perspective on Billy and Friends.

On July 27, a new documentary film will be released that promises to give the American public the unvarnished truth of what happened after we invaded Iraq.

As one of those interviewed said, "I just can't hold my peace any longer."

Here's the synopsis:

The first film of its kind to chronicle the reasons behind Iraq’s descent into guerilla war, warlord rule, criminality and anarchy, NO END IN SIGHT is a jaw-dropping, insider’s tale of wholesale incompetence, recklessness and venality. Based on over 200 hours of footage, the film provides a candid retelling of the events following the fall of Baghdad in 2003 by high ranking officials such as former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, Ambassador Barbara Bodine (in charge of Baghdad during the Spring of 2003), Lawrence Wilkerson, former Chief of Staff to Colin Powell, and General Jay Garner (in charge of the occupation of Iraq through May 2003) as well as Iraqi civilians, American soldiers, and prominent analysts. NO END IN SIGHT examines the manner in which the principal errors of U.S. policy – the use of insufficient troop levels, allowing the looting of Baghdad, the purging of professionals from the Iraqi government, and the disbanding of the Iraqi military – largely created the insurgency and chaos that engulf Iraq today. How did a group of men with little or no military experience, knowledge of the Arab world or personal experience in Iraq come to make such flagrantly debilitating decisions? NO END IN SIGHT dissects the people, issues and facts behind the Bush Administration’s decisions and their consequences on the ground to provide a powerful look into how arrogance and ignorance turned a military victory into a seemingly endless and deepening nightmare of a war.

Watch the trailer for "No End In Sight". Send it to everyone on your e-mail list.

The movie has a blog site, too. Sign on and get viewers involved in Constitution Day Redress Campaign.

And then go to Tricia's post "As I See It" to see what we need to do and to Tom Wright's "Seeking Redress En Masse" to join others coordinating a special redress campaign for Sept. 17, Constitution Day.

As one of the TPMCafe Bloggers who is participating in the Constitution Day Redress Campaign, I've been thinking about what I will be asking of Congress and the nation on Sept. 17th. The list is so long, where to begin? What specifically do I want to see Congress do?

I had thought that much of our efforts would best be applied toward chipping away at the base of Bush’s "block" of GOP conservatives who protect him from this Democratic Congress, preventing it from doing The People’s business.

I even spent a day gathering names of GOP Senators and e-mail addresses of editors at major newspapers in their home states, thinking that thousands of e-mails bombarding the newspapers’ servers would have the same effect as “tagging” the front of their buildings. It would get their attention; it would be news worthy of at least a couple of paragraphs on the front page or an editorial.

Several members at Tom Wright’s “Seeking Redress En Masse” have gone to considerable effort developing a long laundry list of legitimate constitutional issues that need to be addressed by this Congress.

But I know how short is the attention span of the average reader. (TPMCafe readers are ABOVE average.) And as a former copy editor, I know how important headlines and lead paragraphs are. So, I’ve been looking for “something” that would put all the issues – Iraq, the Bill of Rights, spying, torture, abuse of power, etc. – into one nut graph within my personal message.

Today, while reading the news and columnists online, I found the words of a few others that helped me find what I intend to ask Congress on Constitution Day.

“If the Democrats Want to Win...” By Robert Parry, July 18, 2007

If the Democrats really want to prevail over George W. Bush on the Iraq War and on his authoritarian vision of presidential powers, they would put back on the table two options that their leaders have removed: a cut-off of war funding and impeachment. …

The Democrats would call on the American people to stand up at this dangerous moment in their history – when the president and vice president have become enemies of the constitutional system devised by the Founders, a Republic based on the idea that all people possess inalienable rights and governments must ensure those rights.

Why is it the Democrats' job to clean up the mess this Republican president, vice president and Republican controlled – and now blocked – Congress have made of our country and Constitution?

Do Republican leaders believe they get a “pass” because only Democratic leaders are questioning this administration’s interpretation of the Constitution? Are Democratic leaders waiting for Republicans to begin using the “I” word before they can then jump on the bandwagon?

Every American citizen, regardless of party, ought to be concerned about the threat to our Constitution. And if they're not, they either haven't read it or aren't paying attention to what this administration is doing.

Our nation – and the lives of our troops and the Iraqi people – can’t wait until hell freezes over. It’s obvious as tits on a hog that Bush isn’t going to change his position; and this Congress is petrified of taking any kind of decisive action against this administration until 60 members of senate agree on what kind of action to take and/or until 90 percent of the nation threatens to fire the whole damn lot of them – Democrats and all.

In his column on Truthout, Ray McGovern writes that Bush is guilty of wooden-headedness, which historian Barbara Tuchman defines as:

Wooden-headedness ... plays a remarkably large role in government. It consists of assessing a situation in terms of preconceived fixed notions while ignoring or rejecting any contrary signs. It is acting according to wish while not allowing oneself to be deflected by the facts."

And it appears as though several GOP members of Congress are suffering from wooden-headedness, too. While Democratic leaders try to "kill" this GOP impasse through death by a thousand papercuts issued from a blizzard of legislation and subpoenas, congressional and presidential approval ratings are sinking like petrified wood in Lake Erie, our troops as well as the Iraqis are dying or being blown apart, the world distrusts us, and Bush & Company are wiping their asses with the Constitution.

Americans are outraged. But what to do?

We have shown up at the polls in record numbers to elect people who said they would set things right. But that was eight months ago, and very little progress has been made because too many members of Congress have shown themselves to be more loyal to their party than to their country, and who have worked harder to defend this wooden-headed president than the Constitution.

And now we’re hearing rumors and rumblings that Bush & Company have more treacherous plans in the works and don’t give a damn about the Constitution or the Rule of Law or the Bill of Rights. They are now openly operating under their own set of rules. Meanwhile, Congress is playing by the rules our forefathers set up for them – well, except for one rule.

McGovern believes the Constitution holds the answers for dealing with this dangerously wooden-headed administration.

Thanks to the prescience and courage of those who crafted our Constitution, a wood tool is available. It is a precision tool that, with some courage, can be employed almost immediately. It is called impeachment, the orderly political process the Founders left to us for use when the president and/or vice president or other high official needs to be removed to save the Republic. (The emphasis is mine.)

Since Bill Moyers put impeachment back on the table this weekend and because nearly half the nation now wants impeachment proceedings, discussions are beginning in earnest.

A page right out of Karl Rove’s and Dick Cheney’s playbook says that when something is said three times, it becomes truth -- even when it’s a lie; and when something is repeated over and over again, it becomes policy.

Repeat after me: "Impeach. Impeach. Impeach. Impeach. Impeach." The more people talk up impeachment, the less frightening it sounds and the more likely it will become policy.

Perhaps dropping the political version of a nuclear bomb at the feet of the Republican Party will motivate its leaders in Congress to end all efforts at putting out individual "bushfires" and face the very real prospect that the survival of our nation is at stake. And maybe, just maybe, they'll remember the oath they took:

I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God.

Bruce Fein said on Bill Moyers Journal, July 13, 2007, our nation needs congressional leaders who will stand up and say, “My country is more important than my party.”

Therefore, on Sept. 17, Constitution Day, I will be joining the growing chorus of Americans asking Congress to cut off funding of the Iraq war and to begin impeachment proceedings against President George Walker Bush and Vice-President Richard Cheney to save the Republic.

I want my children and my grandchildren to see that the wisdom and foresight of our forefathers who wrote the Constitution and the courage of our civilian and military leaders in upholding that Constitution can overcome any threat to our nation – even when that threat comes from INSIDE the White House.

TPMCafe Blogger, Tricia, has been working on this for a long time and has amassed a wealth of information in her post Impeachment Watch. Check it out.

And there's a new site, too: The Los Angeles National Impeachment Center

"I believe there are more instances of the abridgement of freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments by those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations."

-- James Madison

Morgan