keyboard1.jpgJillian and Digby both find examples of right-wing metaphorical “spitting on the troops” that seem to be more omnipresent as the days go by. These soldiers just do not live up to the image of a “new Sparta” that wingnuts grow misty-eyed fantasizing about, and their disappointment tends to manifest itself in screeds like this:

The liberal mindset is what causes PTSD. Boys being raised to men without a strong male role model, and having a false sense of what life is about is causing our young men to go to war and come home freaked out.

Yes, people do come back from war “freaked out”:

Officials say as much as 20 percent of troops are returning from Iraq and Afghanistan with stress symptoms or brain injury. The Pentagon has been working for some time to end the stigma of seeking psychological counseling.

A process I am certain that is aided in no small part by a bunch of keyboard commandos challenging the manliness of those who do seek help.

But I suspect that’s not really what put a bug up the proverbial wingnut ass, I imagine this is more the genus of “freaked out” that has the mouth breathers…well, “freaked out”:

Until recently, veterans remained relatively quiescent on the nastier politics of the war on terrorism. But the fifth year of the Iraq war has brought not only a surge of American soldiers to Iraq, but a surge of Iraq veterans to Washington: For the Webb vote, 40 VoteVets members and 250 VFFers descended on Capitol Hill. There were so many vets walking around last week that you could have mistaken the hallways of the House and Senate Office Buildings for Camp Pendleton.

Or this:

In one of his first major public speeches since leaving the Army in late 2006, retired Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez blamed the administration for a “catastrophically flawed, unrealistically optimistic war plan” and denounced the current “surge” strategy as a “desperate” move that will not achieve long-term stability.

[]

“There was been a glaring and unfortunate display of incompetent strategic leadership within our national leaders,” he said, adding later in his remarks that civilian officials have been “derelict in their duties” and guilty of a “lust for power.”

It’s a bit hard to make Sanchez out to be a DFH — he is, after all, the guy who ordered those in his command at Abu Ghraib to “go to the outer limits to get information from the detainees by people who wanted the information.” He referred to the ACLU as “a bunch of sensationalist liars, I mean lawyers, that will distort any and all information that they get to draw attention to their positions.” (Which makes his recent speech all the more amusing, where he whines about journalists who call him a “liar” when “I have never even met you,” then goes on to defend poor Michael Brown.)

Though his pro-torture, anti-media bona fides should make him a member in good standing of the lizard brain elite, the poor judgment he shows in criticizing Fearless Leader’s flawless handling of the Iraqi infidel incident will no doubt bar him from future entry.

He’s probably just stressed out because his mom went braless in the 60s or something.

Well get that spit shield up, General. He who who picks his face, sucks down Mountain Dew and hath no pity for injured 12 year-olds shall give no quarter to you.

Such is life in The New Sparta.