Doesn’t this same also fit for example Russian troops too
Yhea, but I think it is more important to criticise “your” side for doing that. I hate when russians do that, but I am not going to call or write my Kremlin representative? I am in Michigan and so I call and write to my representatives and hope they are primaried the fuck out.
Like the BS of “do you condemn Hammas”? yhea, i did, I called my Hamas representative and gave them a mouthful? you see? condemning the other side, especially if you only condemn the other side is just BS propaganda. Condemn your side for the crimes your representatives are supporting and your taxes pay for.
And here comes the whataboutism.
I mean sure but also way less people disagree with that and I don’t see how it’s relevant to this meme.
It just targets “Westoids” meanwhile that’s what Russia is doing right now, that’s why I wanted clarification
Could have easily criticised the wealthy and those in power instead.
It’s really all nation states. But yeah it doesn’t take away from criticising the west who loves to paint themselves as guaranteer of human rights or whatever.
that’s what Russia is doing right now
Russia has been part of the West since Yeltsin shelled the Moscow Parliament into submission.
The Cold War ended 30 years ago. Capitalism won. What we’re experiencing today is post-Soviet imperial powers in a turf war.
When people talk of Western world Russia is pretty often not counted in that
When George Bush Jr was meeting with Vladimir Putin to coordinate the War on Terror across Central Asia, “people” did.
Not enough raping.
Not for the lack of trying believe me. They would do a lot more if they were better at annexing territories.
NAFO types really hate it when you mention how much JSOC or the Canadian Mounties or Royal Marines have made sexual assault a cornerstone of their organizations.
Don’t ask anyone in Okinawa why the island’s rate of unprosecuted teenage sexual assault is through the roof
Yeah yeah yeah. America! Fuck yeah!
The troops are part of the working class.
So are the police. Troops are class traitors in the same way.
Being working class doesn’t give you a blank check to murder innocent people. If you thought that’s what leftism is, you should probably read a book.
Just following orders
To be fair, more people join the army for Healthcare or to not be homeless than for a college education. Poverty is the main driver of recruitment in the US.
lol, “if you lack adequate healthcare and housing, it’s understandable you would go abroad and murder innocent people.”
Absolutely insane logic, and I know for a fact you wouldn’t even entertain these excuses if the victims were white people.
And I’m sure your Taliban ass feels proud of 9/11, Paris Night Club or any other rediculous reason that your “team” executes individuals.
Comrades, is not supporting capitalist invasions the same as terrorists attacks?
Jesus Christ, listen to yourself.
We condemned and still condemn every attack on civilians who are not participant in any sort of aggression or colonialism (otherwise it will be called resistance)
That’s the difference between you and us
The Muslim world suffered the most from terrorism done by people who claim to be Muslim or doing it for Islam. Algeria was in the 90s the most affected country by terrorism by people who claim they are doing it for Islam, nobody supports when this shit is done to Europeans too.
In my opinion this is a reductive take on the issue. Realize that human beings can make mistakes and that not everyone understands the world the same way or even has the same knowledge.
I won’t excuse murdering innocent people, but I don’t think most people joining the US military go into it thinking “yippie time to murder innocents.”
I think most people who join have been indoctrinated (usually from a very early age) to think that the military is something it is not. While this does not excuse their behavior, it helps us to understand that the issue is not about an individuals misguided decision to join the military but rather the large scale manipulation/brainwashing of poor people. Blaming the soldier makes sense if they do something horrible or if they are truly aware of how bad the military’s actions are and continue to serve, but blaming ALL soldiers just for the act of joining is pointless because most of them don’t fully understand what is going on.
I don’t think most people joining the US military go into it thinking “yippie time to murder innocents.”
Everyone joining the army understands fully that military force is violent and involves killing people. The army isn’t some vague concept that people are getting tricked into. Violent military force is one of the most celebrated concepts in America. What the absolute fuck are you talking about?
Well I am talking about how I think most people who join the military are brainwashed.
More explicitly: yes they know that the military is about violent force, but I think most of them have a warped worldview pressed on them from a young age (often from an upbringing in a military family) that describes the situation very differently from how you or I would see it. They are indoctrinated to understand their participation in the military as a duty - both to their family and to an inner voice. I think most of them would say (when first joining) that the military kills “bad guys,” which obviously isn’t true but they have been conditioned to see it that way and much of history (especially concerning military atrocities) is omitted from their upbringing. So in my opinion your take that they are joining with the intention of murdering innocent people isn’t really accurate for most of them.
You don’t apply this logic to nazis do you? Their victims were worthy enough for you to dismiss excuses like this, but not the victims of modern imperialism. One group of victims were white Europeans, and the other group are Arab/Muslim. I see exactly who you are. You’re not slick.
Yes I do in fact apply this same exact logic to soldiers in WWII - just as it applies to many of the people who made up fighting forces in the past. There is a long, loooong history of using dogma, duty, brainwashing, even intoxication, to manipulate people into fighting to the death.
If you read firsthand accounts from German soldiers (or really ANY nationality) during WWII, you will quickly realize that they were heavily propagandized in a way we can only begin to understand today. Young German men during WWII had grown up under Nazi rule and had it drilled into their heads at every possible moment. And the choice was to conform or to be shunned (or more likely killed). This does not excuse any of the atrocities they committed, but gives context to their actions and shows how blaming only the soldiers misses a big part of the picture. The same goes for atrocities perpetrated upon the German people by the red army, or for atrocities carried out by IDF in Palestine, etc…
Also, I think you should reflect on the language you use in your comments. I am attempting to be polite, but your comments are outwardly rude.
Sorry if I’m not the kindest to a person that is defending nazis.
Also you’re framing my point as being only critical of soldiers and not the administrations that use them, which is just incorrect and a poor read of my comments. Truly insane what you’re trying to minimize right now.
I guess you don’t know any facts. And those aren’t excuses. It’s literally a system of poverty put into place to funnel recruits to the war machine. You wan’t to know why the US doesn’t guarantee it’s citizens healthcare and an education? Well now you know.
love how this rustled some westoid jimmies.
Lol, almost all the comments are “but whatabout Russia!”
“No you can’t mention America anytime we call out Russian crimes or China’s dictatorship.”
Same people the minute you say America did war crimes in the last ~5 minutes:
“BUT WHAT ABOUT RUSSIAN WAR CRIMES?!”
It will really be a joy to see Americans decide more and more countries are imperialist, as their sanctions work on fewer of them. Five years ago, a glorified gas station. Now, a great power. You guys are great at playing the victim.
the real problem is when those murderers come home and feel sad. Will somebody think of the poor state sanctioned murderers!!
I’m glad they have PTSD 🤷♂️
The PTSD is part of why they have the join the military mentality.
Yes, because the way to cope with cycles of abuse is to perpetuate it.
Do you recommend that people should beat their kids if they got beaten up as kids?
That’s not the point. The point is that fully funded, comprehensive health care rather than over-funded death and destruction would give people emotional survival skills beyond perpetration of aggression.
Still their fault the moment they decided to become the abusers and inflict more horrors on the world. that is a choice they made.
But yhea, healthcare and education should be universal and not tied to being a mercenary for the empire
How people are socialized (brainwashed) from birth is a thing. I didn’t do it, and I taught my kid not to do it, and that’s hard in a society that has kids pledge allegiance to a flag from preschool onward. I was heavily pressured by my whole family but one grandparent who shared with me the horrors of shell shocked brothers returning after mandatory conscription. I also read a lot, still mostly propaganda. I consider myself fortunate. Not everyone has the mental fortitude to withstand the pressure and accusations of not being patriotic. Do I think they bear personal responsibility? Yes; and the blame goes back to the very foundation of the United States.
https://storychanges.com/what-is-the-child-development-hypothesis-of-ivan-pavlov.html
Yhea, but my rule of thumb, the moment someone chooses to stop being a victim of those cycles and becomes the cause of that cycle all empathy and and understanding get flushed away. and instead I rather focus on their victims.
Agree. If the system is codified to allow them to get off absolutely free, in terms of legal culpability, at least they get to pay in some other form. Compared to their victims being, ya know, dead, a somewhat-modicum of eternal torment seems reasonable.
The closest thing to their victims haunting them.
If someone has PTSD for something that happened to them, like being victims of abuse or being invaded by westerners who killed your family, then PTSD is valid. but I think PTSD is not valid if that person is the one committing those atrocities, that should be diagnosable as guilt and something they have to live with. Therefore, I think war criminals crying about PTSD and have flashbacks of driving over children on a tractor, then fuck you, that is not PTSD and it distracts from actual PTSD victims.
Tbh, that’s the best argument.
people downvoting you can fuck off.
In a just world they would face consequences for their actions. instead the closest thing they get is to “feel sad about it” then the whole state bends over backwards to coddle them and make them feel good.
Fuck off, I hope the guilt of their actions haunts them till their dying breath. They choose to enlist when they were legal adults. if an 18 year old gets drunk and runs over some children no one would care about them. but if an 18 year old signs up to kill children in the other side of the world it’s ok? they are then called heroes and given discounts?
yhea, we can vent on how the states encourages it, but by the end they willingly signed up to murder people. what did they expect?
Wishing harm on the internet is massively pathetic.
Please go touch some grass you desperately need it.
Oh man, how dare we be mean to the people who signed up to murder brown people! Won’t someone be civil to the murderers?!
You’re not being mean to them, you’re clogging up my feed with you trying to act tough on the internet.
It’s just weird and kinda pathetic. If you’re so tough why don’t you actually tell them instead of spamming your safe space with empty posturing?
Gladly, point me to one so I can mock them for killing innocents.
Sure post your address and I’ll point you to the nearest military base. Unless you’re just all talk
For many it is their only hope of escaping poverty or owning property. “Convenient” for the state that this is the case.
Desperate people are willing to do horrible things. To what extent are they to blame for being exploited? The state’s policies allow and encourage poverty, destitution, and desperation, then exploit it.
I don’t think one is just or even absolved by their exploitation, but I can have empathy.
–
The state doesn’t treat veterans much better than dogs. Some get to leave with work experience, savings, and education, others get to crawl in the streets until they starve.
there is no soldiertariat. the person who joins the USian military is typically white, welloff and ideologically aligned with imperialism. they joined because they could and they wanted to. the military is the vanguard party of fascism.
I don’t have any sympathy for those who joined from a position of privilege. I acknowledge that is likely the majority of service members.
There’s also the many, many poor rural children that join for nationalistic reasons, already far down the path to fascism.
We can talk all about that. but the moment they agree to play the government game and make their lives better by destroying lives somewhere else they are now part of that system and not it’s victims. Same with all those ICE agents.
Have empathy with them until they decide to be a class traitor. If it was up to me they would be in jail to mellow with their PTSD. not in the general public.
Same as joining a gang. Participate in violence and you get a roof over your head and maybe a couple meals. Wether or not it makes them “bad people” or “class traitors” doesn’t change the pressures and incentives at play. There are few alternatives and fewer viable ones.
For many it is their only hope of escaping poverty or owning property
Fuck that shit ass-political whitewashing lie; the US is not and has not ever been in that bad of a situation that the options are “engage in mass murdering or die”. They literally invade entire other countries of the world.
Don’t want to engage in mass murder? There’s at least 380 options! You can be a nurse, a fireman, a municipal councilor, a packager, a uber driver, or if you’re THAT desperate, a drug leader for your local drug dealership branch.
then the whole state bends over backwards to coddle them and make them feel good.
You should do stand-up. That’s pretty funny.
How often it calls them heroes? or gives them healthcare (still shitty because it’s America, but more healthcare than the general population)? or makes it socially unacceptable to criticise them, like I’m doing now and bootlickers are downvoting men and complaining.
fuck em all, you know how easy it is not to get PTSD from murdering people in poor countries? it’s super easy, just don’t sign up to kill people in poor countries.
Keep going. You’ve almost got a tight 5 there.
Oh no, I’ve upset the bootlickers, woe is me
Oof. You aren’t the brightest, are you?
The only thing that seems to curb their baser impulses is the haunting memory of the horror they committed.
It’s not the soldier with PTSD who should scare you. It’s the sociopath who came back seemingly normal.
It’s not the soldier with PTSD who should scare you. It’s the sociopath who came back seemingly normal
Chris Kyle
Taking your cold-as-ice schizophrenic friend to the gun range, then treating him like shit.
What could go wrong?
This is actually a propaganda tactic called shooting and crying.
Of course it is a hebrew expression from the IDF
Former Marine here. This illustrates the prevailing excuse endemic to the whole imperialist war machine. Every bloody cog has some way of passing blame up the chain. I fixed electronics so I never had to personally pull a trigger but the electronics I fixed helped fix aircraft whose pilots and aircrew were responsible for atrocities I can only imagine. I used to rationalize that this separation erased my culpability but now I understand it actually enhanced it. At the level of maintenance I was at a broken twidgit tip unaccounted for could ground an entire air wing for several days.
If you have made the massive mistake of joining the military please use your power of being a rusty cog. Report every chip on every tool to maintenance control, send every piece of gear missing a screw or emp braiding in for parts/DRMO don’t run to the hardware store for a quick replacement, CDI time is valuable and limited so make sure to never skip a CDI verification step and ask for their opinion on every anomalous reading, if you drop a torque wrench or break a cal seal ground that gear and send it back to the shop, take your time and verify every measurement, don’t gundeck MAFs, and follow all procedures to the letter. Don’t be afraid to involve maintenance control to make sure your shop is fully compliant and not taking shortcuts. If you had just sat on your rack and refused to work you would just get replaced, now you have weaponized the regulations and bureaucracy in a way that covers your ass for the rest of your enlistment while crippling the whole air wing. You can now get out and try to make amends for the catastrophic damage you have done to the world. However if you reenlist fucking die in a fire.
I regret every day that I joined and wish I was aware of the evil the system I was a part of was perpetrating. The few times I talk about my time in the Marines in the last few years is to warn people about how fucked up it is, how they brainwash and strip the individuality from recruits, and most importantly the reality of what the US Military does to innocent people all over the world and the environment.
You recognize what’s going on and not brush it off, you didn’t directly kill and rape people, so that puts you really on the good side.
There is a reason that 18 is a prime recruiting age - not enough life knowledge to know better.
Prefrontal cortex stops developing at 23 to 25. Let that sink in as you remember all the decisions you made prior to 23.
Thats actually just pop science and a misunderstanding on one studies wording.
We’ve not reason to believe there is any sudden stoppage of development vs trailing off.
It’s pure exploitation by the state of the ignorance and naivety of the average recruit as well as the capitalist system weaponizing its own failings. Most people in my boot camp platoon were under 20 and the vast majority of us came from disadvantaged backgrounds. I didn’t know the term at the time but most people joined for the hope of class mobility along with getting the fuck out of wherever they came from. It also showed the strength of the US propaganda machine, especially in the immediate wake of 9/11, where the media was complicit in a massive coverup of US/ISAF atrocities and a whitewashing of the savage inhuman brutality that is implicit in war.
That does not excuse our ignorance since millions of people our age marched against the wars, especially Iraq. In retrospect we unconsciously chose cowardice and selfishness and cloaked it in a delusion of honorable sacrifice.
Inaccurate. The child is still alive and not raped.
People down voting this makes me puke
Probably for the “westoid” part - as if eastoid (lol) soldiers have never “just followed orders”
When I see “-oid” in someone’s post and I instantly know that it’s just another dog shit chronically online opinion.
Even if I agree with the opinion, I don’t want to associate with them. It’s like someone using twitch lingo outside of twitch
Eastern soldiers are not infantilized the same way as western troops. American soldiers are just naive boys that got tricked by evil Washington. It’s okay they killed those innocent people because they got free college for it.
Ok sure man you’re right, no eastern army has ever been brainwashed into atrocities
Saying “westoid” makes you look like a manchild on 4chan regardless. Not a word a serious person users lol
It’s funny that tankies think that talking like a chronically online loser upsets anyone except their already disappointed parents.
I never implied otherwise. You didn’t even engage with a single point I made. You just made one up then knocked it down lol.
westoids’ feelings were hurt, i see.
I don’t like my country so there’s no amount of western insults you can hit me with that will do anything but make you look like a terminally-online manchild
then why are you so mad we are calling you names?
Making fun of you isn’t the same as being mad at you, but I wouldn’t expect someone who says “westoid” to have the capacity mental capacity to recognize it
My feelings are hurt? At least I’m allowed to have them without a trip to a re-education camp.
at least i’m allowed any education instead of being sent straight to slave-labor prison camp for my opinions.
You mean the ‘education’ that teaches you how to report your neighbors, build the re-education camps, and thank Dear Leader for the privilege of not being sent there yet?
Not sure how you are quantifying “infantilized” or even “eastern”. However, most soldiers throughout history are barely adults who are manipulated by governments to do horrific things and have horrific things done to them as well.
A good book that I think addresses all your claims is Zinky Boys by historian Svetlana Alexievich. It’s a book of memoirs from the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
“Sorry I killed your parents kid, the big evil government manipulated me! I’m just a 21 year old child like you!”
Lol, yes. Once you grow up a little, you too will think 21 year old people are still basically kids.
Do you actually think any 20 year old has valid personal reasons to go to a different country to kill someone? Of course they are being manipulated by things like nationalism.
Your rebuttal offers nothing but insight to your own immaturity.
lol you heard it here folks! 21 year old children… If you kill someone and you’re 21, oopsie!
Lol, my dude… No one is claiming that being a young adult absolves you from war crimes. Just that young people are easier to be led to do war crimes.
My claim was that virtually all wars are fought by young people being misled by governments with varying degrees of alternative motives. Not that those young people are free of blame, just that they are also victims to a lesser extent.
Zinky Boys is a haunting but great read
Also her Voices from Chernobyl is fantastic
Afgantsy by Roderic Braithwaite is similarly great, and is written with a more historical perspective in terms of the political landscape that led to that conflict being so bitter. (relatively – all conflicts are bitter)
Yeah, those Russian contract soldiers totally aren’t doing it for the money. And Papa Putin’s fever dream of imperial glory totally isn’t guided by ideological delusions. Completely different.
Not true. Everyone’s soldiers are innocent beautiful boys. The enemies are ruthless monsters. Has been forever.
They’re all dumb as fuck. Why is signing up to kill people ok because it paid off your loans?
Lotta western “leftists” arent actually leftists.
Being a leftist and pro imperialists are mutually exclusive concepts.
I want workers rights end poverty, but also bomb the shit out of poor courtiers because fuck them poors. no solidarity no leftism
This is a pretty conservative take. Does OP understand why someone living in desperate circumstances would join their local gang, or why they would choose a much larger and much more powerful gang like the military? Does OP understand the difference between explaining why a bad thing happens versus excusing that thing?
I don’t think adults should give heroin to vulnerable children and traffic them into sexual slavery either, but the reason that’s happening isn’t because a bunch of heroin selling hobbyists decided to be as evil as possible for fun, it happens because of economic context producing survival-orientated people who behave ruthlessly for their own self interests. People making anti-social livings probably wouldn’t have chosen the road they’re on if they had the opportunity to have a comfortable life doing something safe. A lot of the time they were conned into it in the first place and can’t get out. Nothing justifies murder, but to stop the murders you have to understand the context of why they’re happening.
Joining the military is not ok. Trying to understand why a kid would be think it’s ok to kill people overseas and then willingly do it is ok.
How exactly does it help if I, or you, understand the why? I would argue that a lot of people are aware of the whys, nonetheless there are still gangs and militaries.
Because understanding that the cause is poverty encourages everyone who understands it to focus on solving poverty. Poverty should not be allowed. If there was no poverty in the US there would be less of an incentive to do desperate things such as join a gang of any size.
Yes, I agree, but now we’re at least 2 understanding that, but nothing will change. It probably won’t change in the next 50 years.
If you think discussion and communication are so worthless… Why keep commenting on Lemmy? We are all here to exchange ideas and I think that we can agree that ideas and how they spread can change the world in a big way.
Silence/lack of discussion is part of what has allowed this issue to become so serious.
The meme isn’t wrong but “westoid”? Only the terminally online could have dreamed up a term like that.
You know I just realized, incels also call women “femoids”…
“I was just following orders” is what all the Nazis said.
I believe that should not be a valid defense, ever.
If you’re not OK with what you’re ordered to do, you should not do it (and we should have a system of justice and social support which honors that).
If you actually do something you’re responsible for that deed, ie possibly culpable.
If you’re being pressured/manipulated/… the person doing so is responsible for that, so culpable as well - but not in place - if applicable.
German law actually contains an apologetic first step in this direction, called ‘Remonstration’. I think we can all guess how it wound up in that particular legal system.
Besides being able to point at the article and say “see, we fixed it”, I’m not aware of a single (let alone significant) case where it was actually/successfully used.
In somewhat interesting contrast, German law does not codify protection of whistle blowers, for example.
In somewhat interesting contrast, German law does not codify protection of whistle blowers, for example.
No, there is the Hinweisgeberschutzgesetz from 2023, which does codify whistleblowing. I have no idea how good it is and it is new enough that it has to prove itself in the real world, but then again codify is a low bar.
Had someone from the IDF explain to me why they are the most moral army in the world.
He told me that they are ordered to disobey illegal order (wow,really? like every army in the world technically does?)
He then explained that they have absolute trust in orders because it is the most moral army in the world, and defying an order is a crime, because the order cannot be immoral or illegal because the IDF is the most moral army in the world.
I think I stopped the conversation around there, because I doubt they can understand basic logic that goes beyond propaganda.
Last I heard of him he was sad because he got alcoholism from doing minor war crimes in gaza, just casually talking about the things he looted, which he considers “rescuing” from the rubble.
Disagree. One of the main purposes of military training (in most, maybe all, cases) is to strip everyone of their individual autonomy.
If you’re not OK with what you’re ordered to do, you should not do it
The problem with this that soldiers are explicitly trained to not even consider their own judgement of their orders. They don’t stop, judge, then pull the trigger. They just pull the trigger. If they disobey an order, they’re court martialed. It’s the military’s justice system that then gets to decide if the order was unlawful. The system is designed to strip soldiers of their power.
If a 28yo enlists, they share some responsibility simply by knowingly joining an immoral organization. But most new recruits are in high school. They don’t know what the hell is going on.
All this to say: the leaders who have stripped young boys of their autonomy in order to have them commit horrific acts that will scar them for life in order to protect their own regime, they’re the real villains. I see the individual soldiers as victims.
If you’re being pressured/manipulated/… the person doing so is responsible for that, so culpable as well - but not in place - if applicable.
This would then also be valid for young people being brainwashed into blindly following orders. Nonetheless, I feel like they still are partly responsible. And all those soldiers abusing their power and committing atrocities are also responsible for that (although the structure they are in also enables and produces this abuse).
I have mixed feelings on the matter. When the state can force you to comitt atrocities each person is going to have to weigh at what point are they willing to forfeit their own lives.
If your military is committing war crimes then they’re probably not above imprisioning you for a very long time or just executing you. So at what point does your morals outweigh your innate drive to survive? This gets more complicated if you have a family back home.
Of course this goes away when you are looking at a voluntary military. Part of the reason the US went this route. They can grab the desperate/poor and feed them into the war machine. The average citizen then ignores the suffering and the country never creates ladders out of poverty so they can keep a steady supply of soldiers.
All in all it’s pretty fucked
German law does not codify protection for whistle blowers
gross. Although in the US the law is pretty much useless, so I guess at least Germany is honest? 🤷♀️
I yearn for the day that American soldiers are put on trial and hanged for their crimes against humanity.
Ooh, ooh, can we start with the Commander in Chief? Why did the assassins have to miss 😥
All Americans are welcome to (re)try. They even have an Amendment for that.
The US has given itself permission to invade the Hague before allowing that to happen.
The capitalist version of the Nuremberg excuse… “We all have a mortgage to pay”
