Whenever I hear a progressive soul declare, “I support the troops,” I’m instantly skeptical.

In most cases, I’m not buying what they’re selling. Every time I hear that phrase, it sounds like an inadvertent revelation of true feeling — sort of like when somebody says, “I have lots of black friends.” You hear that, you can almost always be sure it’ll be immediately followed by some bigoted remark.

It’s possible to both support the troops and oppose their current mission in Iraq, of course. A childhood friend of mine, a well-regarded screenwriter, can be caustic about the Bush administration’s conduct of the war, but he’s genuinely supportive of military people. He’s a veteran himself, and understands the value and purpose of a well-trained military.

But when the N.C. Bankers Association announced plans to sponsor a parade in Raleigh this past weekend, a flurry of letters to the editor of the News & Observer made clear that many people simply can’t abide what the military is, and does. There was this declaration, for instance:

Is this a salute to our troops or a salute to our violent capability and an opportunity to promote violence to our youth? … Showing off our killing machines doesn’t strike me as a way to entertain the community.

Ma’am, if you subtract the “violent capability” that is the U.S. military from the world altogether, is it a better place? Ask any Kosovar or any non-Taliban Afghan — or for that matter, any European old enough to remember the Second World War — and get back to me.

Then there was this:

The upcoming Salute to our Troops is right out of the playbook of the German military leaders of the 1930s, designed to build support for an ever-increasing militarization of the nation to be financed by the taxpayers.

Forget about the noxious equating of the military with Nazi storm troopers; this guy may not have understood that civilians (specifically, bankers) organized the parade as a thank-you to military families. But I’m being generous here. He probably did know that, and didn’t care. The military is evil, you see, and strict adherence to fact is a luxury when you’re fighting evil.

Want more? Try this one:

Eager to deflect growing discontent with the Iraq War, the military was happy to answer the call when the bankers put forth a plan to host what can only be called a celebration of war.

Oh, please. If firemen drive their trucks in a parade, can it “only be called” a celebration of fire?

This stuff is not just nonsense. It’s fatuous, hysterical nonsense.