• SnarkoPolo@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    The media will hype “the troops” while ignoring the fact that “the troops” are being killed for oil, to make billionaires richer.

    • eldavi@lemmy.ml
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      2 months ago

      it’s worse that that: a sizeable percentage of the troops know that they’re killing innocent people, but doing it anyways because of orders.

      some try to make up for it after committing those monstrous acts, but i doubt that’s possible since their voices are just as muted as any leftist.

  • merdaverse@lemmy.zip
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    2 months ago

    “Don’t worry! I’ll come back and be venerated as a hero for protecting Western imperialism. And possibly become a “progressive” candidate for Maine, if I get enough nazi tattoos.”

    • Billegh@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      So much this. The same people saying “thank you for your service” are the same people that constantly want to cut veteran services. Sure they care when you’re a tool for their goals, but why can’t you then just instantly become an invisible member of society once you’re done?

      Oh, you want more?! Wasn’t service enough for you? How dare you be traumatized by killing people and having bombs nearly blow you up! Maybe you should be a man.

      But maybe I’m just too sensitive about this…

      • bampop@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        There’s no contradiction here. The US military exists to preserve and extend capitalism. Taking care of veterans would be socialist. Being abandoned by the state, as soon as you no longer serve a purpose for generating profit, is the best way to say thank you. It shows that everything you fought for is successful and working better than ever!

        • MisterD@lemmy.ca
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          2 months ago

          Meanwhile, the suckers and loose…err soldiers get the healthcare and support that they deny the average citizen.

          Stop soldiering and they take it away.

    • LillyPip@lemmy.ca
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      2 months ago

      I don’t like Veteran’s Day and I’ve been called out for that.

      I do respect and appreciate veterans for what they’ve done, but I cannot respect or celebrate the military complex that has thrown people into a meat grinder and then discarded them for decades, which is what that day represents to me.

      I cannot support these wars, where people are brainwashed, used, then cast aside, to benefit elites and politicians who will never feel that pain and will literally party when dropping their bombs.

      Fuck everything about that.

      • Riverside@reddthat.com
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        2 months ago

        I do respect and appreciate veterans for what they’ve done

        WW2 veterans like, sure, but what other US veterans do tou respect for what they’ve done?

  • glorkon@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    I despise anyone who becomes a soldier of their own free will. The moment you enlist, you accept that you could be obliged to kill, and that you will have no control over whether that killing will be justified.

    In other words, you accept the possibility that you could become a murderer.

    • tempest@lemmy.ca
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      2 months ago

      That’s why the US likes to keep a well stocked under class which makes the Army one of the few options to get out of abject poverty.

      • Bloomcole@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        “I had to join this gang that kills 160 in a girls schools on the first day of our unprovoked war because I really wanted to go to university”
        This is what I want to hear in my imaginary court so I can have a laugh while sentencing this fucker to his deserved hanging.

        • Azrael@reddthat.com
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          2 months ago

          Good point. But let me ask you this:

          Without a military or nuclear weapons, what is preventing other countries from taking advantage at the first chance they get?

          Criticize the U.S. all you want. But the country is full of valuable resources that other countries want. Take away the U.S.'s ability to defend themselves and the risk of foreign nations taking advantage will spike dramatically. Nukes are basically the ultimate “don’t even think about it” sign.

          • Bloomcole@lemmy.world
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            2 months ago

            the U.S.'s ability to defend themselves

            If you have nukes and are the only sick fucks ever top use it why do you need to ‘defend’ yourself everywhere in the world unprovoked.
            get fucked with your BS. You’re parroting regime propaganda.
            Even they at least became less hypocritical in naming it the Dep of War, not defense.
            Maybe follow that lead if you want to be a little warcriminal imperialist bootlicker.

            Every fucking day there’s some fucker online that makes me despise that cancer country even more.
            Absolute scum of the earth

            • Azrael@reddthat.com
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              2 months ago

              They say ignorance is bliss. It must be nice to be as delusional as you and live in a peaceful hippy dippy little fantasy world.

          • djsoren19@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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            2 months ago

            sorry full of valuable resources? what, corn? dataservers? pedophiles?

            the U.S. is not some piggy bank waiting to be cracked. Realistically, the current US military exists to defend America from all the nations it’s pissed off by invading them in the past. It’s a self-fullfilling system.

            • Azrael@reddthat.com
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              2 months ago

              I’m talking about big oil and gas production, food and farmland, massive agricultural output and the ability to export it at scale, freshwater and arable land (underappreciated, but increasingly strategic as climate stress rises elsewhere), minerals (some, not all).

              And don’t forget non natural resources the U.S. has like:

              Capital markets: Deep, liquid markets that can fund governments and companies. Money is a resource; the U.S. is one of the main wells.

              technology and IP: Advanced R&D, software, aerospace, biotech, semiconductors design, and the companies that sit on them.

              Security alliances and military reach: Not a resource in nature, but it functions like one. i It shapes trade routes, deters threats, and sets terms.

              The world’s reserve currency system: Being able to transact, borrow, and settle trade in USD is a kind of meta-resource. Others want access to it more than they want a mine.

              That bundle is why the U.S. stays permanently relevant, for better and worse.

          • glorkon@lemmy.world
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            2 months ago

            I never specifically said “joining US military is bad”, I said joining the military in general is a bad thing. And neither did I talk about nukes, which are the ultimate evil.

            I also never demanded to remove the military capabilities of one country, leaving it open for other countries to attack. I never talked about these things, about balance of power, about mutually assured destruction and all these geostrategic aspects of military logic.

            All I said was - if you are a person who joins your country’s military, I despise you. Period. This is a statement I made completely disregarding all these other aspects you mention, and it is completely logically valid on its own.

            • Azrael@reddthat.com
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              2 months ago

              Correct. You never demanded to remove the military capabilities of one country.

              I said “I wonder what would happen if we didn’t have a military”, and you made a comment about the little girl’s backpack. I followed up with a counter argument.

              This is how conversations work.

            • gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de
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              2 months ago

              probably with some time delay, the germans love a good race (/s)

              apart from that, the military did some significant research into a lot of technology, including airplanes (and rockets), internet, nuclear energy.

              • glorkon@lemmy.world
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                2 months ago

                You failed to get the point I was making. Just because the military is a driving factor to technological progress, doesn’t mean it’s a good thing all of a sudden. And all that progress could also have been made by science. Wernher von Braun didn’t care who funded his research into rockets.

            • Azrael@reddthat.com
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              2 months ago

              Ah, I see. So when the U.S. bombs another country, it’s genocide. But if someone does it to the U.S. it’s a good thing? Got it.

              • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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                2 months ago

                The US Empire is an empire, countries opposing the US Empire are presently not imperialist. You’re comparing them by abstracting the concept of bombing outside of the necessary context it exists in, ie you’re using metaphysics to analyze reality.

                • Azrael@reddthat.com
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                  2 months ago

                  Depends on your definition. The U.S. fits the definition of “Informal Empire” pretty well, but it’s definitely not an old school empire like Rome or Britain

              • Sodium_nitride@lemmygrad.ml
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                2 months ago

                Yeah it’s a good thing when fascist states get bombed. You’d be the kind to both sides WW2 if it was socially acceptable to go to bat for the nazis

                • Azrael@reddthat.com
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                  2 months ago

                  And what about the innocent people who voted against the fascist government? They deserve to die too?

      • Modern_medicine_isnt@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        Thats the trick. If a country doesn’t have a military and they have something like resources other countries want. The become puppets of the countries that have militaries. The exceptions are small countries that don’t have enough of anything anyone wants for others to bother taking it. They don’t tend to do so well usually.

        It’s a race to the bottom.

          • OBJECTION!@lemmy.ml
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            2 months ago

            The “resource curse” is just people trying to pretend imperialism isn’t responsible. Norway has plenty of oil and they have a high quality of life, because nobody invaded them.

            Plenty of these countries had leaders who wanted to use their resources to help the people, but the powers that be, most often the US, didn’t want that. And so for example Mohammed Mossadegh of Iran, a peaceful, democratically elected progressive, was overthrown by the CIA, and he was replaced by a monarch who could be easily bribed and would use the oil to enrich himself. And when that monarch caved to domestic pressure and participated in an oil embargo, US support was withdrawn and he was overthrown and the current government came to power.

            There’s no “mystery” or “curse.” It’s just imperialism. The story generally goes that these resources were stolen by force during colonialism and remained in foreign hands after independence and the country still functions as a neocolony, leading to poverty and exploitation, or war and instability if they challenge it.

          • PolandIsAStateOfMind@lemmy.ml
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            2 months ago

            Yeah i’m sure it’s a curse, and not centuries of colonialism, imperialism, uneven trade etc etc.

            The Third World is not poor. You don’t go to poor countries to make money. There are very few poor countries in this world. Most countries are rich! The Philippines are rich! Brazil is rich! Mexico is rich! Chile is rich—only the people are poor. But there’s billions to be made there, to be carved out, and to be taken—there’s been billions for 400 years! The Capitalist European and North American powers have carved out and taken the timber, the flax, the hemp, the cocoa, the rum, the tin, the copper, the iron, the rubber, the bauxite, the slaves, and the cheap labour. They have taken out of these countries—these countries are not underdeveloped—they’re overexploited!

            -Michael Parenti

          • Modern_medicine_isnt@lemmy.world
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            2 months ago

            Very much so. So ewhere there is a balance of having enough to be a stable country, but not so much to draw attention. But it’s a very small point to balance on.

    • Ensign_Crab@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      If we had free college tuition and universal healthcare, there would be no one to fight the pedo oligarchs’ wars for them.

      Which is why republicans and centrist democrats oppose both free tuition and universal healthcare.

      • Zink@programming.dev
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        2 months ago

        That’s an angle that more people should talk about, honestly.

        The mistreatment of the American populace isn’t just to keep a steady supply of cheap labor for the rich people’s investments, it’s to keep a steady supply of cheap lives for the government to do their dirty work.

        My generation’s dead and disabled veterans fell in service to that sweet Iraqi oil. Oh and the Saddam hidden underground meme, can’t forget that one!

  • merc@sh.itjust.works
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    2 months ago

    This might work for anybody who signed up for the military after Operation Epstein Fury started, but my guess is there aren’t going to be many of those.

    Most of the rest probably signed up while Biden was president, and thought at worst they’d be going to war to help keep the oil industry profitable.

    • Diplomjodler@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      Trump has been in power for over a year now, so at least a couple of ten thousand new people have signed up since then. And a couple ten thousand more renewed their contracts. Everyone in the US military is part of the war effort and nobody can claim innocence.

  • Modern_medicine_isnt@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    I know the nuance will be hard for some. So I will start by saying that I am very against the actions of our government, and have been since a pretty young.

    But, the vast majority of our troops are in the military because it was the best or maybe only option to make a living. And that is the way the government design the economy. They make sure people have no or few other choices.

    Now compare what the military is doing to distract from the epstien files to what the billionaire class is doing. Then look at who you work for. Odds are your job in some way supports the very people who made epstien possible. So we are all complicit. Yet we all have little choice but to work. So instead of pointing your anger at someone who just like you is complicit. Point it at the people actually responsible.

    • Gathorall@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      Drug dealers and mobsters are often in it because that’s their viable option for social mobility. Therefore I will give soldiers the same respect owed to drug dealers and mobsters. All accept the reality of maybe having murder innocents for some rich jackasses too.

      • Modern_medicine_isnt@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        Hm, the percent of drug dealers and mobsters that don’t have an active combat like role is very very low. But the military has people like doctors and nurses among other very much non combat roles. So it isn’t really a fair comparison. And some people join the military to avoid becoming a drug dealer or mobster. It’s a step up, mostly because it is legal. And for some, they do one tour and then become productive members of society. That happens far less with drug dealers and mobsters. So at least give them the respect for choosing not to become a drug dealer or mobster.

        • Gathorall@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          It is completely fair to to your weazel words that amount to: MY LIFE IS THE MOST IMPORTANT IN THE WORLD AND I WILL EVEN KILL INNOCENTS WITHOUT HESITATION, NOT TO PRESERVE IT BUT JUST TO IMPROVE IT SOMEWHAT. That is what they all signed up for, many soldiers proudly.

          Also mobs have a high amount of support personnel too and their master’s goals necessitate far less of slaughter of innocent civilians.

    • gnuthing [they/them]@lemmygrad.ml
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      2 months ago

      US troops are disproportionately middle class. Full article is on scidb if you wanna read the whole thing. But here is the important part:

      We show that recent recruits tend to have higher than average socioeconomic background: they dispro- portionally come from the middle of the family income, family wealth, and cognitive skill distributions, with both tails under-represented

      https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01402390.2019.1692660?src=recsys&journalCode=fjss20

      Also they are not doing this to distract from Epstein. The rich got away with that, we have not taken out any of them in retaliation. We’re not even protecting kids from troops at Ft Brag. We don’t care enough to stop them, they can do whatever they want until we hit our breaking point. Just shitty to know that pedos running concentration camps for kids is not our breaking point

  • Vile_port_aloo@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    I understand the message here, but surely the remaining population could push for change while the military part worked down their contracts.