Will Obama help our veterans?

"Support the troops," say the Republicans and the yellow-ribbon magnets that adorn the rears of their big bloated all-American gas-chugging SUVs.

But do they? Support the troops, I mean.

Apparently not. Talk, after all, is cheap, dontcha know.

If this nation truly supported our troops, we wouldn't have 200,000 U.S. veterans sleeping on the streets of America on any given night, as recently revealed in an article by Aaron Glantz for the New American Media.

Our brave veterans made unimaginable sacrifices while Dubya's then-congressman dad pulled enough political strings to get his boy into the elite Texas Air National Guard to avoid Vietnam.

Our brave veterans made unimaginable sacrifices while Dick Cheney arranged for five separate Vietnam deferrals because he had "other priorities".

Given their own cushy deferments, wouldn't you think that Bush and Cheney would take good care of those who actually had the guts to serve, i.e., to cover Bush's and Cheney's elite draft-dodging asses and -- decades later -- fight for their elite imperialist agenda?

If you think so, please guess again.

Our veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan may be truly brave heroes, but they are also unwitting and tragically abused pawns and victims in the Bush-Cheney-PNAC agenda.

And, to add insult to injury, they return home to loneliness, untreated physical and mental issues, homelessness, and worse.

Every time an election rolled around, the Bushies would accuse their critics of being unpatriotic. But how patriotic really is the Bush administration, which has allowed our veterans to rot on the streets?

While Obama is not a veteran, he appears to have a heart. I hope that he, along with his Veterans Affairs Secretary, Gen. Eric Shinseki, will make it a priority to provide proper care, treatment, benefits, and dignity for our vets.

If they don't deserve good care, who does?