Yes, this was one of the common stereotypes I heard a lot, mostly from anti-war people who only view the military as a war vehicle. Fortunately, I had no direct involvement in terrorism during my service. We mostly engaged in humanitarian aid. Publicly, we promote ourselves as a humanitarian service, and in my experience, that was the majority of what we focused on. But some people (like myself, initially) only know the military through war films and assume we’re just there to kill people.
That’s not to say the US is completely exempt from bad deeds. For instance, the Iraq War should never have happened and there was literally no reason for us to be there. That was a very bad call by Bush Jr., who expected we’d find something to justify our campaign into the country. (Note: we did not.)
We have regulations about what type of orders we have to obey and what orders we’re required to disobey. Thanks to the Nuremburg Trials, we know that “just following orders” is not an excuse to carry out horrific actions. So if we’re given an order that violates the Law of Armed Conflict (LOAC), we’re expected to ignore those orders, and depending on the situation, we may even remove the person who gave those orders from command.
Honestly, I’m glad I retired when I did. I served during Trump’s first term in office and it was a dark time for us. But he was mostly restrained by a majority Democrat government that time, so most of the fascist ideals he demanded got shut down.
This time around though, he’s running with a majority Republican government and they’ve given him a green light to do as he pleases. He even replaced the Secretary of Defense with an unqualified alcoholic National Guard captain. Completely circumventing the promotion programs we have in place to ensure only the best and brightest are allowed to hold those positions. You’d better believe I’d be abusing the hell out of that regulation to disobey unlawful orders if I was still serving.
Are you serious? The US government as a whole is a terrorist organization. They have been responsible for untold amounts of death and destruction and suffering throughout the world for decades and they still are today. How many democratic governments have been overthrown and replaced with fascist dictatorships because of America? How many people starve to death because of American sanctions imposed simply because the country in question dared to disobey people who think they own the planet? You talk about Iraq as if it was a one-off, an outlier. Point to any random place on the planet and you’ll probably find the tentacles of America somehow involved.
If you were a member of ISIS, you would be considered a member of ISIS regardless of whether you were a janitor or secretary or worked in the cafeteria or you were a combatant. The analogy isn’t even too far off, given ISIS would not exist without the US. Humanitarian service, my ass.
So you ran PR for the murder machine then? What difference does it make. I’m not calling you an awful person for joining the military, a lot of people join really young before they have a developed understanding of the world and honestly, nationalist indoctrination (cultural osmosis if you want to call it that) plays a huge role. Despite that, serving in the US military IS an awful thing to do no matter the capacity in which you served. It is worth contextualizing the military through how it serves empire (regardless of who is steering that empire) and, through that, internalizing your role. The purpose of the US military is not humanitarianism, it isn’t world peace, it isn’t protecting American citizens. It exists to protect the interests of the American ruling class through violence. You helped do that. I am not asking you to beat yourself up about it, I am not even asking you to atone through actual community service. I just want you not to pretend that there is a single benevolent role that someone can play in a machine made for murder.
I guess it’s okay to join a terrorist org if it has good benefits 👁️👄👁️
Yes, this was one of the common stereotypes I heard a lot, mostly from anti-war people who only view the military as a war vehicle. Fortunately, I had no direct involvement in terrorism during my service. We mostly engaged in humanitarian aid. Publicly, we promote ourselves as a humanitarian service, and in my experience, that was the majority of what we focused on. But some people (like myself, initially) only know the military through war films and assume we’re just there to kill people.
That’s not to say the US is completely exempt from bad deeds. For instance, the Iraq War should never have happened and there was literally no reason for us to be there. That was a very bad call by Bush Jr., who expected we’d find something to justify our campaign into the country. (Note: we did not.)
We have regulations about what type of orders we have to obey and what orders we’re required to disobey. Thanks to the Nuremburg Trials, we know that “just following orders” is not an excuse to carry out horrific actions. So if we’re given an order that violates the Law of Armed Conflict (LOAC), we’re expected to ignore those orders, and depending on the situation, we may even remove the person who gave those orders from command.
Honestly, I’m glad I retired when I did. I served during Trump’s first term in office and it was a dark time for us. But he was mostly restrained by a majority Democrat government that time, so most of the fascist ideals he demanded got shut down.
This time around though, he’s running with a majority Republican government and they’ve given him a green light to do as he pleases. He even replaced the Secretary of Defense with an unqualified alcoholic National Guard captain. Completely circumventing the promotion programs we have in place to ensure only the best and brightest are allowed to hold those positions. You’d better believe I’d be abusing the hell out of that regulation to disobey unlawful orders if I was still serving.
Are you serious? The US government as a whole is a terrorist organization. They have been responsible for untold amounts of death and destruction and suffering throughout the world for decades and they still are today. How many democratic governments have been overthrown and replaced with fascist dictatorships because of America? How many people starve to death because of American sanctions imposed simply because the country in question dared to disobey people who think they own the planet? You talk about Iraq as if it was a one-off, an outlier. Point to any random place on the planet and you’ll probably find the tentacles of America somehow involved.
If you were a member of ISIS, you would be considered a member of ISIS regardless of whether you were a janitor or secretary or worked in the cafeteria or you were a combatant. The analogy isn’t even too far off, given ISIS would not exist without the US. Humanitarian service, my ass.
So you ran PR for the murder machine then? What difference does it make. I’m not calling you an awful person for joining the military, a lot of people join really young before they have a developed understanding of the world and honestly, nationalist indoctrination (cultural osmosis if you want to call it that) plays a huge role. Despite that, serving in the US military IS an awful thing to do no matter the capacity in which you served. It is worth contextualizing the military through how it serves empire (regardless of who is steering that empire) and, through that, internalizing your role. The purpose of the US military is not humanitarianism, it isn’t world peace, it isn’t protecting American citizens. It exists to protect the interests of the American ruling class through violence. You helped do that. I am not asking you to beat yourself up about it, I am not even asking you to atone through actual community service. I just want you not to pretend that there is a single benevolent role that someone can play in a machine made for murder.