It is smart to like the Army, to recognize them as members of your society in good standing, and to have the Army members FEEL like members of society in good standing. Just ask any Egyptian.
Actually, it was those people doing the demonizing and deriding of US soldiers that prolonged the Vietnam debacle and told the world that the US military did not have the strength from its people to see a military campaign through to its conclusion. It certainly brought into question the value of US democracy as well. Hence it is taking longer and longer for wars to complete and the world has no respect or fear of American military might. Many more lives have been lost as a result.
People who attempt to demoralize the troops, are simply traitors and assholes. I have no problem with people advocating opposition to a war. That is part of the political process. There is nothing political about undermining the morality of your armed forces.
Hey, he should try using the Internet in North Korea.
You’re aware that the House of Saud has literally thousands of members, right? (Wiki says seven thousand.) When a member of the Saudi royal family does something, that’s not necessarily the same as the Saudi government doing something.
(That said, it’s not clear that the Taliban could have “handed over” Al Qaeda —I’ve never really felt toppling their government for Al Qaeda’s actions was legitimate, though I doubt that any other course would have been politically feasible.)
I’m not aware of the US showing much restraint when it came to destroying, or trying to destroy the people north of the border (and some south…).
You guys dropped over 600.000 tons of bombs on the country over the course of the war - that’s ~15 tons per inhabitant, for reference. Although that’s using the pop tally for both Viet Nams, not just the North - so I guess the real number would be more like 20 tons of bombs per individual Commie.
Where I come from that can be transliterated as “fuck all of y’all”.
You know, it really wasn’t. It was bullshit power games and dick-waving contests with the Soviet & Chinese, using a civilian population as the game board. A population which quite evidently did not want you or anyone else getting up in their business to begin with.
And then the war turned *real *ugly.
I pity the poor schmucks who got roped into this and thrown into that butchery - on both sides. But noble ? Pfft.
What an amazing ability to accuse a bystander for a robbery that went wrong.
The whole Vietnam War was a fraud of massive proportions. The instigating incident, the on-going mess of a strategy and loss of human life including grave violations of civilian life and, its ending that should have come much, much earlier.
Oh, come on now. You really expect us to believe that the US high command cares for the well-being of foreigners everywhere? That a selfless concern for their rights, rather than an imperialistic grab for global hegemony, is what’s really driving US foreign policy?
Reality seems to contradict this brazen statement. You mentioned Yemen… Where were your warplanes and soldiers when its dictator was recently slaughtering the protesting Yemeni people in recent months? Did your failure to protect them have anything to do with the fact that the brutal dictator was an ally of yours? And when are you going to go after the horribly repressive regime in Saudi Arabia? When will you save the Palestinians from the Israelis? When will you put boots on the ground to stop the horrific human rights abuses being perpetuated by the Pakistani secret service? If your words were true, the questions above would appear reasonable rather than preposterous.
I don’t know about you, but I personally do not believe that a society should ever be expected to set policies based on fear of its own armed forces.
That’s a very scary type of thinking, and one of the reasons why I believe that this idolization of soldiers has to stop, and stop soon. Once you’re blindly admiring your soldiers and placing them on undeserved pedestals, it begins to make perfect sense to dismiss those that refuse to partake in this hysterical adoration as “traitors.” And from there, it’s only a small hop and a skip to prison camps, firing squads, and other measures intended to purge society of the “treasonous” element. Let’s stop this nonsense while we still can. The soldiers are not angelic creatures that eat rainbows and shit freedom, and I am ** not ** a traitor for being willing to say so.
I feel sorry for the soldiers. They are taken far from home and told to fight in wars that make no sense.We are not defending the homeland from invaders. Although the last few have had oil. That must be a coincidence. We of course are involved in Libya and Somalia. They also have oil. We hate Iran and Venezuela. They have oil and wont let us control it.
I’m sorry, but it’s not possible for a reasonable person to believe you actually think this since you’ve repeatedly made it clear you’re a fan of “authoritarian socialism” and supported Joseph Stalin and Mao Zedong who did execute millions and locked up millions more in prison camps for displaying insufficient patriotic fervor.
Unless of course you’ve changed your mind and now oppose the gulags and the executions of traitors and “counter-revolutionaries”.
Do you?
Because, as I said, if you don’t it’s impossible for anyone to believe that you mean what you put in the above post.
And no, I’m not calling you a liar or a troll, merely asking for clarification.
How are we currently fighting a war in Somalia?
Perhaps, but you advocate for hate towards your own.
America isn’t currently fighting in Libya either, but they are involved as Gonzo states.
Right.
Well, maybe not, but they could have stopped actively training Al Qaeda operatives in open training camps, paid for & run by the Taliban. And, they could have said that they couldn’t hand over Osama, instead of refusing to do so.
Readers should be aware that Commissar has gone on record and stated that one can never state that a military action violates international laws and/or is illegal unless an international judge has already ruled on it. As such, he has refused his own claim that the war is “illegal”. And it is curious to see that he is making such a definitive claim after so forcefully denying that anybody can ever do so.
Commissar has also gone on record stating that the “self defense” clause is so broad that a nation does not have to be threatened in fact, nor even believe that they are or were being threatened. As such, he has refuted his claim that self defense does not apply. And it is curious to see that he is making such a definitive claim after so forcefully arguing that self defense has nothing at all to do with a nation defending itself and.
Ah well.
Through waging preventative war and driving back aggression (see for instance Persian Gulf War I
Not demoralized. Maybe the cost wasn’t worth it.
The South Vietnamese lost.
Cite?
And replaced by impractical idiots with a Pre-Pearl Harbour mentality (ie ultra paleocons and libertarians) or pacifist cowards who wouldn’t sneeze at a Soviet.
We win most of these wars, we feel that way due to rabble-rousers at home.
They make no sense to fanatics of various stripes (both on the extreme right and left)
And in most cases we were driving back attackers and invaders in America. Plus in Libya not a single American life has been lost and in Somalia we do not have any boots on the ground just the occasional bombing mission or pirate-hunt.
Back to the notion of the illegality of the wars… How can 20-somethings be expected to judge that? They aren’t lawyers and by no means do they have the authority to declare this or that illegal.
Yeah, if the command is, “Scalp these prisoners”, a soldier may have clear grounds to resist.
But if the command is, “Hey soldier, time to go to war! Your enemy is x.” how the heck are individual soldiers going to have any confidence in declaring that illegal? Again, politicians make the call, and the courts decide what’s legal. Soldiers follow orders.
It is coming. I read that Somalia attacked a town in Egypt. That is opening a door for us.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/02/world/africa/02somalia.html We are using drones in Somalia though.
A lot of conservative people have a DISTINCT tendency to conflate opposition to a war with undermining the morality (morale, I bet you meant) of the armed forces. That is why “support the troops” is such a popular sentiment among them – it’s a subtle way of supporting a war.
I don’t think you will find many who disagree with you. But here in the USA, our armed forces formed from regular every day people. It is not some privileged permenent warrior caste.
Who mentioned fear? I didn’t. Helping soldiers feel a part of mainstream society keeps them attached to the norms of that society and prevents them from becoming simple killing machines, especially with regard to their own people. I don’t think the Egyptians think of the army as their own people out of fear, not do I think Americans think of soldiers as Americans first and soldiers second out of fear. Good for the soldiers, good for their society. Bad for dictators.