The West lost those two wasteful wars.
The Iraq War was based on lies.
The Afghanistan War was based on lies, and the US government lied, as revealed in December 2019.
Post-1975, American Vietnam War veterans were spit on and mocked by some anti-war protesters.
As more and more of these men and women return home to their Western nations, how will they be received and how will people view the war and the veterans?
There seems to be some controversy over your premise that vets were ever spat upon.
You only have to go to a baseball game to find out.
The US has oddly tied their jingoistic nonsense with their sports venture.
Now we have jets flying over…a veteran walks across the field…we cheer him…we take our hats off and gaze lovingly at the flag while the National Anthem is played…the vet throws out the first ball…we stand for God Bless Fucking America…
You tell me how these vets who get special parking places, special discounts, dont have to pay taxes in some places…and further deified on Memorial Day, and Veterans Day will get treated?
WOULD YOU LIKE TO KNOW MORE?
The specific soldiers who are known to have committed torture of prisoners or other war crimes will probably remain not very popular with a large section of the public.
But AFAICT the average American who’s disillusioned about the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan tends to regard the average servicemember as a fellow victim of the war-hawks’ scam rather than as a perpetrator of it.
With what people know about the Taliban and Isis I dont think anyone would have trouble with anyone who had fought them.
Yankees 1996 Champs:
Care to elaborate on that? Were the then-rulers of Afghanistan not harboring the group that committed the 09/11/2001 attack on America?
My hope is we stop with this imperial worship of veterans and the military. There was a brief moment after Vietnam where we had some contrition and reflection. But my guess is that we’ll make a hundred action movies in which muscled men that don’t act well kill a bunch of Iraqis and/or Afghans. We talk about how the fault with those wars lie with civilians that didn’t care enough about them, and we finally build a fascist arch on the National Mall to commemorate the veterans.
The new PC is Patriotically Correct. Troops are to be worshipped. Nobody else is to be revered and honored. When a celebrity dies, immediately people have to whine about why nobody remembers Joe Schmoe who died in Afghanistan “last week” where in reality it as 15 years ago. The flag and the national anthem are theirs and theirs alone, and if you don’t stand up put your hand over your heart and think gushy thoughts about [/swooning] the troops [\swooning] then you are an ungrateful bastard who should leave the US immediately. When our 55th president thinks about withdrawing from Afghanistan, there will be massive outcries. This war is eternal even though it can never be won and that land can never be governed.
Not exactly new. After GHWB invaded Iraq we needed to do huge parades with fireworks and any protest that didn’t start and end with a statement of support for our troops was seditious.
It’s not worship. Its called respect for sacrifice. A lot of Americans are not strong enough to serve. They don’t have the guts. Americans don’t worship bureaucrats. They worship people that actually do the battle.
I’m not particularly satisfied that most veterans engage in exceptional sacrifice, only that they are told that they do, to the point that many of them come to believe it, and even see it as right that they should be so revered. But this can’t go on forever, if nothing more than because war ain’t what it used to be.
I predict that some day, perhaps in the not too distant future, as war deaths from honest to god enemy action become even less common than they are today, we will find ourselves not only venerating veterans classified as MIA from past wars (the numbers of whom are legion) or showing up to the occasional funeral for a veteran who died without next of kin as a show of patriotism and support, but combining the two ceremonies to bury an empty coffin for a veteran that literally no one can name, and possibly didn’t even exist, just so we can fulfill our “obligation” to venerate the troops.
This will become the new way, and at some point will even be seen as preferable to just doing things for living veterans, as living veterans can be corrupted (may have always been), but an empty coffin dedicated to the idea of “the self-sacrificing veteran” may live on forever in our hearts as something to aspire to. And then the patriotic display will be right and truly perfected as a metaphor for itself: an empty coffin for an empty gesture.
I disagree strongly. These vets volunteered for various reasons. Now, as a group they are grabbing with both hands, assuming they are entitled to a perpetual privileged status.
Some limited action in Afghanistan was likely called for, but centuries have consistently told the folly of attempting “nation-building” in that tribal quagmire. And invasion of Irag was inexcusable. If some idiot signed up because he/she supported those actions, he/she was a fool - or worse. And the fact that someone voluntarily agrees to support an inexcusable action doe not earn them any plusses in my book. A good number of folk signed up for less than noble reasons, ranging from prejudice and a desire for revenge, to personal economic advantage. Their choice of a job ought not entitle them to ongoing special consideration. And- IMO&E, a HUGE percentage of these whiners claiming PTSD are simply whores milking the system.
You asked.
The Taliban was out of power within six months. Not sure what we’ve been trying to accomplish since.
Wapo has had a series this month on the subsequent boondoggle.
Dinsdale:
What are the alternatives, given that “limited action” was called for? Deposing their government and then walking away, leaving anarchy and chaos behind in a strongest-takes-all civil war (incidentally likely to have been the government that had just been deposed)? Outright takeover? Attempting to create a friendly but independent native government was the least worst option.
One of the biggest criticisms of the war was “Stop Loss”, which was specifically pointing out how soldiers were being forced to serve beyond the terms they signed up for. The media used to talk a lot about soldiers suffering from PTSD (and in sympathetic terms).
I think the current crop of military officers are (in general) seen as professionals. They didn’t want to be micromanaged by Obama, and they are shocked at Trump’s incompetence (such as abandoning the Kurds or protecting war criminals).
Bullshit. Lots of people sacrifice, but we only stop military in airports to say “Thank you for your service.”
And really, what service? I live in Baltimore. ISIS, the Taliban, Al Queada, none of them are any more of a threat to me than the Viet Cong.
If I don’t give special thanks to, and forgive the war crimes of US marines, then a bunch of goat herders are going to what?
l0k1:
I live in New York City, and they very much were, and would continue to be if the US military (and its international allies) did not keep them under control. If that seems too far away for you to care about, you might think of the Pentagon, only an hour’s drive away from you, which they also attacked.
Do you really think the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have made terrorist attacks against the US less likely? Osama bin Laden didn’t give a shit about you or me or anyone in the US until the first war in Iraq. These wars do not and have not protected us from engagement, they have only draw us further in. I live in Baltimore now, but I’m from DC. I had people in both New York and DC on 9/11. I know survivors. Using war crimes to radicalizing shepherds makes me feel less safe.
l0k1:
The one in Afghanistan, absolutely. I am making no arguments for Iraq (the second Iraq).
That might be true (if we can trust what bin Laden said about his own motivation)…but what’s also true is that the US military’s presence in Saudi Arabia, the matter that he claims as his motivation, was at the request of the Kuwaiti and Saudi government because they were scared of Saddam. Should the US have refused requests of its allies because some (then-unknown) terrorist would take offense? I do not think that that can reasonably be thought of as something that was necessarily more likely to put America in harm’s way.
The threat was miniscule to begin with. We started locking the cockpit door to make it even smaller.