Some toys have to be seen to be believed. And so it was that we battled the crowds at Toys 'R' Us to check out the most reviled item of this brink-of-war Christmas season: Forward Command Post, a two-story dollhouse that appears to have been blasted with bombs and occupied by a Army commando, a scene so disturbing that, at first glance, it seems too outrageous to be real.

But it is real -- right down to the faux tattered Oriental carpet, broken porch railings and bullet-pocked eaves, a three-dimensional depiction of collateral damage that has drawn the ire of parents and child advocates nationwide. They say the toy trivializes the toll of war and is inappropriate for children.

"I call it the Barbie dream house, nightmare version," says Daphne White, executive director of the Bethesda-based Lion & Lamb Project, which put the toy at the top of its annual "Dirty Dozen" list of violent toys to avoid.

White's group has issued such a list for six years, but this particular toy has gotten unprecedented attention, she said. Not only has the Forward Command Post been criticized in newspaper and television stories across the country, it has also been the focus of a widespread grassroots e-mail campaign urging consumers to express their feelings to stores that have carried the toy, including Toys 'R' Us, J.C. Penney and KB Toys.

The product is made in Hong Kong by Ever Sparkle Industrial Co.; no U.S. representative of that company could be reached for coment. As for the retailers, no one from Toys 'R' Us returned phone calls, a KB Toys spokesperson had no comment, and a J.C. Penney spokeperson said the product had not been pulled due to the controversy, even though it was no longer viewable on the company Web site last week. "Everything we sell is not for everyone," the spokesperson said.

Outraged consumers had far more to say about the toy

"It's taking one of the horrors of our times -- the killing of innocent civilians -- and making a plaything out of it," said Barbara Johnson, 55, a Baltimore woman who sent her cut-up credit card to Penney corporate offices in protest after a friend sent her an e-mail about the product.

Another Baltimore resident, Sarah Ford, 43, wrote in a letter to top Penney executives: "The very image your toy presents, a soldier standing in a destroyed civilian home, appears to violate international humanitarian law, under which all feasible precautions must be taken to minimize civilian casualties and damage to civilian property."

Toy industry consultant Chris Byrne, editor of The Toy Report, sounded less concerned about Forward Command Post, which he says isn't being marketed to children, despite being listed as safe for ages 3 (or 5, depending on the model) and up.

"This is for the adult male action figure collector who likes creating dioramas with their figures," said Byrne. "It's not being promoted the way GI Joe is. I immediately saw it as a niche product for the collector."

The Toys 'R' Us online catalog now lists Forward Command Post as "not stocked or has been discontinued," but we had no trouble finding one recently at the chain's Towson store, where it sold for $29.99 and was displayed in the same aisle as GI Joes and other military toys. Inside the large box were the promised "more than 100 pieces," including a kitchen table and chairs, a plastic "tiled" roof with jagged bomb holes, and a mesh cloth to cover the second-floor room where the roof was blown away. The former residents of this suburban-style abode are nowhere to be seen; the current occupant is a camouflage-clad, mustachioed Army soldier armed with missile launchers and assault rifles. ("Shells load directly from ammo box into rifle chamber for continuous, rapid fire!" boasts the assembly instructions.)

As for the house itself, well, let's just say we pity the child -- or collector, for that matter -- who would have received the box that we purchased. The unassembled house was a pile of flimsy plastic supports which didn't lock together. The floorboards -- pieces of cardboard with drawings of ammunition-strewn floors -- were warped and wouldn't lie flat. Apparently, Forward Command Post isn't only the most controversial toy of the Christmas season. It's also a piece of junk.