Well - I don’t think they are presenting it as risk free. As the article said, after playing the game, they watched a video about a guy who was wounded in a convoy ambush and received a silver star, who then came in and talked to them about his experience.
So while it may not go into all the horrors of war, I don’t think they’re calling it risk free.
They probably would were it not for the people that would scream that they are promoting an agency of the government and demand that their tax-exempt status be removed.
The problem is that it’s an unjustified conflict. When conflicts are justified, people enlist in droves.
There’s also an implicit trust that the civilian leadership will not go into conflicts without justification. The miltary does not exist to provide revenues for Halliburton.
I don’t know where you’re getting contempt for soldiers from me. My contempt is for the civilian leadership who misuses them and wastes their lives for nothing. Just because I’m not in the miltary anymore doesn’t mean I don’t have a right to care about the lives of those in the field.
Didn’t they have young men lying about their age so as to be able to enter the Arm(ies) for the Civil War and World War II?
And if this is what the advertisements, recruiters and video games emphasized, I’d have no problem with it. But it’s not. As the mother of a 15 year old boy, I see what he sees, and it’s the same thing young men have been told for millennia, that being in the army is about honor and personal growth and being “a man”. And it’s just as bullshit now as it was when The Lionheart was killing Muslims for fun and profit more than 800 years ago.
Yes, you may learn honor, you may experience personal growth, and those of you with penises will certainly be “men”, but that’s not what the Army is about, as you yourself acknowledge. And hiding what the Army is really about behind this facade is unethical, in my book. There’s no way to gain informed consent when kids have been influenced by this sort of charade.
I think even the most starry eyed kid knows he may be wounded. What he’s probably unprepared for is becoming a killer of real people for a dubious cause - not the morally unambiguous scenario in this “game”.
Did the CinC use the term, or did you?
The Allied forces are achieving something like a 200-to-1 exchange ratio. While there is cannon fodder in the fight it is not on our side.
What possible difference could that make?
The ratio is irrelevant when the conflict is unjustified. Every American who gets killed by an IED is a life being wasted for nothing.
I am trying to determine who used the insulting term to describe our soldiers. You seemed to indicate it was the President. I think you might have misspoken.
Cannon fodder do not race to the Tigris in biblical speed. Cannon fodder do not achieve near-colonial exchange ratios. Allied forces are doing a very professional job of dealing with a shitty job society gave them to do. Same as always.
==edited to add==
This generation would probably have preferred the moral clarity of WWII. They probably would have preferred to have been born in a world with no conflict. But soldiers must deal with the world in which we live. They are doing a good job with that.
Not cannon fodder.
I’m not the one who siad that, but it doesn’t make any difference who used the term. What Baldwin said was that the CinC himself is “showing contempt” for the troops simply by putting them in harms way without justification. Whether he openly admits that he’s using them as cannon fodder is neither here nor there.
Professionalism has nothing to do with it. What makes them cannon fodder is the fact that they are being exploited and used to absorb bombs and bullets for the personal agenda of the President and the pecuniary agenda of his cronies rather than for the defense of their country. Calling them “cannon fodder” is not a comment on the abilities or personal character of the soldiers but on the misuse of those things by their civilian leadership.
So would any generation.
There wasn’t any conflict until we started it.
What kind of job they’re doing is irrelevant to the conversation.
“Cannon fodder” is a comment on how their lives are being treated as casually expendable. It’s not a comment on the soldiers themselves at all.
I am about to start getting ready for bed. Please talk amongst yourselves.
But all in all, it come down to this. Soldiers are given dirty, dangerous and nasty jobs to do. The classic case is that of the Allied bomber crews in WWII. They killed thousands of women, children and noncombatants. Make almost any claim you like and it is probably true of these men.
Still it is wrong to condemn them and call them names. In the larger sense, all of society sent them out there. Some guys got to fly spitfires over the White Cliffs of Dover, others were told to level Dresden. They did not do what they did because they wanted to do it. They did it because 'we" wanted it done. They are only instruments of the society they serve.
Sorry, Diogenes the Cynic if I came across as a little hot, but I find your moral reasoning to be flawed and your position indefensible.
[QUOTE=WhyNot]
Didn’t they have young men lying about their age so as to be able to enter the Arm(ies) for the Civil War and World War II?
While that certainly happened, both wars also had drafts to fill ranks. Eight percent of the Northern soldiers were draftees or paid substitutes in the Civil War, 63% of the members of the Armed Forces in World War II.
Y’know, I’d prefer an honest (and *fair *- women and students included, no deferments for rich kids) draft to the lying we’ve got going on now. Simply say, “Dude, we know this job sucks, but someone’s gotta do it and no one really wants to (or at least not enough someones), so we’re going to pick names out of a hat.” At least that’s honest. At least the politicians on the Hill who chose to get us into these messes would have an equal chance of taking the personal responsibility for it (or their kids would). And maybe looking into their kids’ eyes at the dinner table and knowing that they have a 1/n chance of being the kid shipped over there might cause them to think twice about authorizing force in such ambiguous situations.
I don’t actually have as many moral qualms about a properly conducted draft as I do about this video game.
The only good bug is a dead bug.
I didn’t condemn any soldiers and I didn’t call them names. I’m sorry you find my opinion that their lives deserve to be valued and respected rather than cynically expended for the personal gain of their civilian leaders to morally indefensible. I don’t know what to say to that. I guess I can’t force you to agree that their lives have any more worth than that. Have a good sleep.
“They are only instruments of the society they serve.” I’ve heard that argument before.
I can see how you intended the phrase, though I can also see how ‘cannon-fodder’ would be considered insulting. Essentially it means troops so disposable and readily available that they can be hurled against cannon with little concern for their welfare. Perhaps ‘election fodder’ might be a more appropriate term in this situation.
My position is that Bush et al regard them exactly this way and are using them in exactly this way. I don’t see why it insults the troops to observe that their leaders don’t value their lives.
Perhaps to you, the term ‘cannon fodder’ has no connotation other than lives expended needlessly, but in general use it refers to low-quality troops expected to die in large numbers, such as are found in the arse-end of the draft. Bush may have chosen his military objectives poorly and bungled the planning and execution. He may have been heavily influenced by political interests. But I don’t think you could say he’s throwing low-quality troops against overwhelming odds, expecting them all to be killed for a minor strategic victory. The casualty balance is overwhelmingly on the side of the US; I don’t think Bush really wants or expects the troops to be slaughtered like cattle, and I don’t think Bush considers Iraq to be a minor strategic objective. ‘Cannon fodder’ just doesn’t fit.
But you are wrong and your term is insulting…especially since it’s become increasingly clear you haven’t got a fucking clue what ‘cannon fodder’ actually means. Why not just apologize for using the term and go on with your point? I don’t agree with your point that this attraction is bad or immoral or whatever…but you DO have a valid point there and you are just getting bogged down in your thoughtless insult instead of moving forward with it.
You can of course do whatever you like…just an observation.
-XT
Thats it right there. You have a problem with the conflict we’re in, not the military. Its just easier to bitch about the army than it is to bitch about or to the civilian government that got us into this mess.
I’ve been on active duty for 18 years. Next weekend I’ll be volunteering to help a group of soldiers that were wounded in battle…some seriously. I don’t blame them for the conflict, I blame the current administration.
I’m not wrong and I’m not buying into this bullshit that the phrase “cannon fodder” MUST contain some kind of implied deprecation of the troops themselves. I didn’t insult the troops. Everyone KNOWS I didn’t insult the troops, and I have nothing to apologize for. The troops ARE being used as cannon fodder, as bullet sponges, as shrapnel magnets. I’m not apologizing for stating an undeniable fact.