It is time to fight....

As many of us have suspected for years, when victory comes - those who have a base desire to bring down those who served while they pontificated will come out of the woodwork to smear, slander, and slime the Veterans of this war just like they did the Vietnam Vets.

Mark Steyn has done the best job of calling everyone to the barricades.

Have you been in an airport recently and maybe seen a gaggle of America's heroes returning from Iraq? And you've probably thought, "Ah, what a marvelous sight. Remind me to straighten up the old 'Support Our Troops' fridge magnet, which seems to have slipped down below the reminder to reschedule my acupuncturist. Maybe I should go over and thank them for their service."

No, no, no, under no account approach them. Instead, try to avoid making eye contact and back away slowly toward the sign for the parking garage. You're in the presence of mentally damaged violent killers who could snap at any moment.

You hadn't heard that? Well, it's in the New York Times: "a series of articles" – that's right, a whole series – "about veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan who have committed killings, or been charged with them, after coming home." It's an epidemic, folks. As the Times put it:

"Town by town across the country, headlines have been telling similar stories. Lakewood, Wash.: 'Family Blames Iraq After Son Kills Wife.' Pierre, S.D.: 'Soldier Charged With Murder Testifies About Postwar Stress.' Colorado Springs: 'Iraq War Vets Suspected in Two Slayings, Crime Ring.'"

Obviously, as America's "newspaper of record," the Times would resent any suggestion that it's anti-military. I'm sure if you were one of these crazed military stalker whackjobs following the reporters home you'd find their cars sporting the patriotic bumper sticker "We Support Our Troops, Even After They've Been Convicted." As usual, the Times stories are written in the fey, more-in-sorrow-than-in-anger tone that's a shoo-in come Pulitzer time:

"Individually, these are stories of local crimes, gut-wrenching postscripts to the war for the military men, their victims and their communities. Taken together, they paint the patchwork picture of a quiet phenomenon, tracing a cross-country trail of death and heartbreak."

"Patchwork picture," "quiet phenomenon."… Yes, yes, but exactly how quiet is the phenomenon? How patchy is the picture? The New York Times found 121 cases in which veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan either "committed a killing in this country, or were charged with one." The "committed a killing" formulation includes car accidents.

Thus, with declining deaths in the war zones, the media narrative evolves. Old story: "America's soldiers are being cut down by violent irrational insurgents we can never hope to understand." New story: "Americans are being cut down by violent irrational soldiers we can never hope to understand." In the quagmire of these veterans' minds, every leafy Connecticut subdivision is Fallujah and every Dunkin' Donuts clerk an Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

Read it all, my post on it last week, and the PowerLine posts, then click the Stolen Valor tag at the end of the post to see - this is all part of a standard, normal Course of Action of the Left. If we are all basket cases, then our opinions and ideas and deeds are just as unworthy of a sane world.

Good people, like Chaplain Key and those who take the specifics of their experience and believe it applies to the general population, will be taken in by the web of poorly designed statistics and outright lies - but just as well you will find those who have a political or financial reason to make everyone believe that we are all walking time bombs.

We have the "New Media," use it. Don't let them get away with this. Like I always suggest, go to Amazon and buy new or used copy of Stolen Valor: How the Vietnam Generation Was Robbed of its Heroes and its History, by B.G. Burkett and read the cold hard facts of what was done to the Vietnam Vets. The anti-war Left is using the same playbook this time, except now we have it as well. Don't let them get away with this.

I will do my part; you do yours. Again, from the Steyn article,

In 2008, the editors of the Times, our college professors and Hollywood celebrities, are horrified by a fiction. Faced with a historically low cost of war, they retreat into fantasy. Who's really suffering from mental trauma? Who needs the psychotherapy here?

No, I won't give them the easy out. My vote, as is my nature, is when you find yourself under attack - you go on the attack. Fixed fortifications (family, good will, mythology of the people's support) are monuments to the stupidity of man. Attack, attack, attack, attack.

These people hate; they hate victory, they hate their country, they hate those who serve things greater than themselves, they hate Western Civilization, but most of all they hate themselves. Treat them as such.