I think it's time for everyone who Supports The Troops actually to do so. I think if you applaud the Troops that are introduced at ballgames, or if you Thank Them For Their Service in airports, or stick yellow ribbons on the bumper of your SUV, you should be marching right now on the White House to protest the fact that the president* of United States has enlisted 5,000 of the Troops into a racist fantasy that he's peddling for political advantage—and a racist fantasy that already has a body count, at that—and to protest the waste of taxpayer money spent on moving a brigade-level mass of men to the southern border to fend off an "invasion" of shoeless Central American peasants who, in any case, are still at least a month of walking south of Brownsville.

If you Support The Troops, scream and holler and push back hard against the use of the U.S. Army as set decoration for his most recent spasm of bigoted insanity. From The New York Times:

“This is using the troops as props,” said Jason Dempsey, who served as an Army infantry officer in Iraq and Afghanistan and is now an adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security. “We’re using a bunch of people to waste their time while they backstop the Border Patrol.”



The military buildup is the culmination of Mr. Trump’s efforts in recent weeks to appeal to his most fervent supporters and to focus the nation’s attention on the migrant caravan. “Many Gang Members and some very bad people are mixed into the Caravan heading to our Southern Border,” the president wrote Monday on Twitter. “Please go back, you will not be admitted into the United States unless you go through the legal process. This is an invasion of our Country and our Military is waiting for you!”

You may recall that the Pittsburgh shooter had some thoughts he wanted to share about the impending Jewish-financed invasion.

This is both genuinely cynical and absolutely insane. Literally, there is nothing for these 5,000 soldiers to do down there, and there would not be even if the marauding infants were at the gates, except hand out shoes and blankets—unless the president* is prepared to ignore both the Constitution and the posse comitatus law, possibilities that spokesliar SaraHuck refused to rule out on Monday.

This comes as Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen has reassured us that the administration has "no intention right now" of shooting the refugees if and when they actually get here. In addition, the Media Auxiliary of Camp Runamuck is working every time-honored Otherness xenophobic lever in the manual.

Members of the migrant caravan walking from Central America to the U.S. Southern border. Spencer Platt Getty Images

(Does this low farce have a spiffy name? Of course, it does. "Operation Faithful Patriot." Once again, we refer you to Mr. S. Spade of San Francisco: "The cheaper the crook, the gaudier the patter.")

Goddamn, the American military doesn't deserve to be used in the service of this kind of rancid political puppet show. I can't believe that there isn't some serious grumbling up all the way through the ranks at being deployed in the interest of re-electing Ted Cruz and Steve King to Congress. (In itself, this is not a healthy thing, either.)

There are dozens of ways this can go terribly wrong. Here's one: some folks in camo show up at the border to protect the nation from the "invasion." The soldiers then find themselves between pitiful refugees and armed wankers on a blood-spree. You want a civil war, even a small one? You've got one.

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Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

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