American Veterans 🫡🦅🎸🇺🇸

FYI: top right is prisoner abuse in Abu Ghraib
- done by American genociders and murderers.
- The prisoner appears to be hooked up to mains power in the high res version of that photo.

I am a US veteran
Nothing makes me cringe harder than someone thanking me for my service
Even though I personally didn't do anything horrible, it's still making me remember one of the worst experiences of my life
- As a nurse who graduated in the middle of COVID (and was working in hospitals leading up to it), A Wizard's Guide to Defensive Baking by T. Kingfisher was surprisingly healing read.
  “You expect heroes to survive terrible things. If you give them a medal, then you don't ever have to ask why the terrible thing happened in the first place. Or try to fix it.”
- It only seems to be a US only thing. I assume it's because the military is such a big thing for the US where other countries just see having a military almost as a chore.
- gotta thank something, can't just let a stranger go about their day in peace
  
  Thank you.

There is absolutely no reason to blindly respect someone just because they’ve “served their country.” We don’t know what they’ve done. We have so many examples of soldiers doing horrible things to civilians around the world that blind respect is simply not warranted.
- Agreed. A friend of mine is a veteran, and did something that he regrets every day of his life. Guilt's been eating the guy. He told some people, and they cut off contact with him. Which he understands and agrees with. He told me too, and yet I can't blame him for doing something objectively wrong.
- Particularly the people we were indoctrinated to trust. Cops, military, politicians, businessmen (read as American Dream reachers), preachers...
- In my opinion the individual isn't respected but they're a stand in to show respect for the people who sacrificed their lives.
- Yea, but neither is blind DISrespect. There's a lot of examples of bad and there's a lot of examples of good. Kinda fucked up to lump an entire group into one side or the other... Don't ya think?
  Bet I get blasted for this take.
  
  You spend your whole life doing exercises and hauling supplies, but you massacre one village and suddenly everyone hates you.

There are many truths. All those pictures are true so are fighting Nazis, imperialism, and famine. See the whole picture not just the part that supports your bias and political position.
- Remember that good thing we did once? That means we can now ransack other 3rd world countries for profit, and fight in every country we can make a profit.
- The US fights for Imperialism and famine, though. It doesn't engage in war for moral reasons, but for profit, and as the world Hegemon, that directly incentivizes US Imperialism.
  
  The U.S doesn’t give a fuck about their people. Women are being charged when they have a miscarriage. Seriously. WTF is wrong with you people???
  
  You dont know much about the military. Maybe look up some information on the topic first.
- The ONLY reason they temporarily (and royally late) fought nazis was to stop the Soviets from liberating the whole of western Europe.
  European competition nicely destroyed after which these vultures made us their vasals.
  If anything they helped plenty nazis escape or rehabilitated them.
  And I'm sure they caused more famines than solved them.
- But, Elon is throwing the Nazi salute. Your government is stripping away peoples rights. The whole picture is, the U.S. is stripping people of their constitutional rights.
  
  Not really.
  They are just getting rid of any and every liberty that any reasonable society would provide.
  Not the rights though. We never had such rights. We just didn't realise those were needed to be written down because others didn't violate those expectations.
  Even in an anarchy, without any written rights, we would have those liberties, given a reasonable society. Just not here.
  
  Ok what rights have they stripped away?
- When have U.S. troops fought against imperialism?
  And if you're hanging your hat on (reluctantly) being on the right side of one war 80 years ago, it's time for a hard look in the mirror.
- Exactly. It's not a clear black and white issue and there are no easy solutions
  It is the common fate of the indolent to see their rights become a prey to the active. The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime and the punishment of his guilt. -- John Philpot Curran
- Yes absolutely. And many soldiers have paid the ultimate sacrifice for those things. Plus decisions regarding war are often made by politicians not soldiers.
  
  They didn’t pay enough sacrifice. They are evil and any moment not suffering is a reward they don’t deserve

“Protecting freedom” by torturing and bombing people halfway across the world

No no no. None of this should be acknowledged, because Whataboutism.

reminds me of how they always try to justify the nuking of japan cities that had hundreds of thousands of civillians (twice even)
- Yup, the mental gymnastics they use to justify war crimes. No other country has nuked a civilian population. They’ve nuked 2

This might get a lot of down votes but I want to say I don't think it's fair to blame the soldiers in the field for the choices of the decision makers in the office. Those horrible events were unwanted 'byproducts' of the goal of men with evil plans, they were not veterans going off-book. In other words, these veterans did what was asked of them. I'm not saying they didn't do some very bad things, but they aren't the people that should be 'thanked'.
- imagine saying this about 9/11 hijackers -- they're just fighting for their country, don't blame them, blame Bin Laden!
  
  I'm not saying don't blame the hijackers, I'm saying blame the hijackers for the hijacking (which in turn killed thousands) and blame Bin Laden for planning it and getting those hijackers to do the hijacking. They're both guilty, but without Bin Laden ordering 9/11 those hijackers wouldn't have done it. I'm not saying they wouldn't have something else bad. I'm not saying they're innocent. But Bin Laden did something worse than those individual hijackers.
- You are literally arguing the same as all Nazis did. "I was just following orders". US military decided to join an organisation that constantly attacks other countries.
  
  This was exactly the take I was looking for. "I was just following orders" is, and has always been, a bad take. Grow a pair and accept the consequences of your poor decision making.
- Ahh, yes, the mindless drone argument.
- In German penal law there were discussions on how to treat those that act under orders. Many Germans did act under orders and even in accordance to law in WW2 but also in regard to the Mauerschützen (the soldiers that shot dissidents at the inner German border)- meaning that there were difficulties persecuting them as it was technically legal. There were way too few persecutions, however something called the Radebrechtsche formula was developed. Paraphrasing it says, something that is morally wrong to every morally thinking being cannot be legalized or excused. It is simply illegal to act on orders that are naturally wrong.
  
  Sure, but how many 18 year old boys were convicted for being conscripted into the Wehrmacht?
  The US uses economic coercion to force poor kids into joining. They give veterans a massive priority bump for public sector jobs and the GI Bill is often the only way poor kids can afford college.
  Also, the US military uses far more obfuscation than the Nazis used. When I was in the Air Force, I worked in geo-spatial intelligence which was mostly extracting heat signatures from satellite collected data. They kept us in the dark on what our intel was being used for. All I knew was that our intel was helping to save the lives of our fellow soldiers somehow and that the government would pay for my college when I was done.
  
  I believe the word you want is "prosecute/prosecution" rather than "persecute", but thanks for this.
  
  I fully agree.
- They chose to become soldiers. They chose to commit these crimes. That’s not to mention that there are countless, countless examples of cruelty and violence that the average soldier chose to commit even if not ordered to
- Ah, the Nuremberg defense. 😶
  
  No that would be saying they didn't do anything bad because doing what is asked of you is always good.
  
  Nuance matters. You think a 18 year old boy that was brainwashed into nationalisl his entire life should be executed for being forced to serve as a cook in the military? The Nazis used conscription while the US uses economic coercion (gate keeping jobs, healthcare, and college for vets)
- In the aftermath of World War II, Carl Jaspers formulated in Die Schuldfrage that there are four types of guilt (/responsibility). Criminal guilt, political guilt, moral guilt, and metaphysical guilt. It is a great distinction in general. Yes, political leaders bear a different kind of guilt for the actions than the soldiers, but acting on clearly morally wrong commands do not obliterate guilt from the soldiers. Just like everyone who basically didn't give their life in pursuit of the good and the right bears some metaphysical guilt for what is happening in the world.
  Edit: I realized that, since I am neither an English native, nor very articulate in philosophy or politics, I would rather ask perplexity for a summary. So here it is: Karl Jaspers, in his work The Question of German Guilt, distinguishes four categories of guilt and assigns specific instances to each:
  Criminal Guilt: Definition: Violations of objectively provable laws that are legally considered crimes. Instance: The court, which determines the facts and applies the laws in formal proceedings.
  Political Guilt: Definition: Arises from the actions of statesmen and the shared responsibility of every citizen for the government of their state. Instance: The power and will of the victor, especially after a lost war, as in the case of Germany after World War II.
  Moral Guilt: Definition: Refers to individual actions for which every person is morally responsible, even if carried out under orders. Instance: One’s own conscience and dialogue with others.
  Metaphysical Guilt: Definition: A shared responsibility for all injustice in the world, based on human solidarity. It arises when one does not do everything possible to prevent injustice. Instance: God or transcendence.
  Jaspers emphasizes that this differentiation is meant to avoid simplistic or generalized accusations of guilt. He rejects the idea of collective criminal or moral guilt for an entire people, arguing that guilt is always individual.
  
  Yes. I wonder what the outcomes of centering the soldiers gult is?
  Do we want the solution to be that soldiers have to consider every order given within the historical context of the time to decide the morally correct actions and do them even if it means court martial or death?
  Don't get me wrong. I'm okay for soldiers to do this in extreme examples. But I don't think this should be the norm.
  I think we should shift the focus to the leaders instead of the soldiers. They are better positioned to make these decisions and have the time to do so.
  And it's their job.
  
  Never heard of this, thanks
- In other words, these veterans did what was asked of them.
  They could just have not.
- I would much rather see a concerted effort to like not do wars, instead of this overtly obvious attempt to stir the pot.
- I’m not going to go refind the examples, but there have been stories about things soldiers do that are definitely not ordered by anyone else. There can be a level of cruelty at times that is completely on the individual and they cannot always hide behind “I was told to”.
  
  O i totally agree, this is exactly why i started with 'this is might get a lot of downvotes'. But the crimes on the pictures where not crimes by individual soldiers. These things were done by individuals who were told to. I'm not saying that makes them innocent, I'm saying they weren't the most guilty. The most guilty in my opinion are the men who scheme and think up of plans like this, and then order others to execute it.

People got mad at this one streamer for saying American soldiers deserve PTSD. When you consider that most interventions by the US are not justified or just imperial power plays, and that many soldiers commit war crimes, you realize she has a point.
- Every US soldier signed up for killing, they deserve whatever they get.
  
  There are definitely some like that. The American system has a number of tricks to try to force people to do what they like as well though. Poverty, over policing of minorities, lack of social safety nets etc can cause people who grew up barely avoiding prison choosing military thinking the only choices they have are death or military, shoved at them when they're too young to really know the world. Add education that specifically avoids or lies about what US actually does overseas, plus a bunch of jingoistic propaganda making being a soldier appear to be a respectable profession.
  I grew up in a cult that avoided military so I never had those feelings myself, so I got to watch it from the outside, and even the pledge of allegiance every morning was weird jingoistic programming from early ages. It can be difficult to see past that at 17. I'm not saying they don't deserve any punishment, but I do disagree with the idea that every single one wanted to kill people.
  
  Exactly. When I signed up for the military, it was because I wanted to kill people, and not because I had no other good choices
  
  12 year US Army vet, deployed to Iraq 2007-2008.
  Number of people I killed: 0
  Why? I was a surgical tech. I helped save lives, including local nationals.
  But sure. I deserve “whatever I get” for literally signing up to help people.
- They deserve far worse than PTSD
- I mean. Jimmy just wanted to go to college. But was forced to go to Iraq. The soldiers don’t have much choice. Especially the boys in trailer parks. They have no opportunity and the military gives them that.
  
  Ooh poow widdwe Jimmy ... you know who didn't have a choice? the kids whose heads he blew off. I don't care if he had a choice in going there or not, Jimmy doesn't deserve a blink of sleep for the rest of his miserable cunting life if he didn't knowingly miss every single shot.
  
  Nobody was "forced" to go to Iraq.
  For some reason, people think it's ok to pull others down to get ahead but only in the context of the military. There are other ways to escape poverty, like selling crack or scamming the elderly. I wonder if you condone those approaches as well because "they didn't have another choice if they wanted to escape poverty." I doubt it. But if the victims aren't people in our own neighborhoods who you can actually see, if it's dead children on another continent who the news doesn't talk about, then somehow it's perfectly fine.
  Everyone in that position who chooses to work at McDonald's or Walmart or Amazon instead of signing up to murder foreigners is a better person than every troop, they are braver, more ethical, more heroic, and more enlightened. The cowards who pull others down to get ahead deserve no respect and no sympathy.
  
  If I grew up poor and joined a gang because I didn't have a lot of good options, how much slack should I get for killing someone?
  The answer isn't zero, but it's also not "these innocent troops were forced to do horrible things and none of it is on them."
  
  "though your path may be set, you can gain as much speed down that path as you would like"
  means, even if they had to go to war, they could have missed shots on purpose.
  
  If the choice is "be an acomplice to the destruction of an entier country and it's people" and "don't get a discount code for college", like, surely we can see that's not really a good excuse.

The amount of cope in this thread is astonishing. I never thought I'd see an actual person justifying killing hundreds of thousands of civilians with a straight face. But here we are
- Iirc, FBI or some USA government entity convinced? coerced? Hollywood into being the propaganda department of our government sometime during WW2.
  
  While I understand the frustration toward those critiquing military personnel, I believe we should consider the broader context of responsibility in our society. Emergency responders who assist during natural disasters deserve our appreciation, even as we examine complex institutional issues.
  If we're discussing responsibility, those in technology fields must also reflect on their contributions. Many STEM professionals work for profit-driven companies developing technologies with significant societal impacts—from military applications to automation that displaces workers.
  Throughout history, scientific advancement has brought both progress and devastation. The development of nuclear weapons, chemical agents, and military technology has often proceeded without adequate ethical consideration. When we examine figures like Oppenheimer or Einstein, we must acknowledge both their brilliance and the consequences of their work.
  The irony isn't lost on me that many who quickly assign blame may themselves contribute to systems that concentrate power and wealth. Rather than dividing ourselves through targeted blame, perhaps we should recognize our collective responsibility for the current state of our nation.
  I believe that fostering division only benefits those who already hold power. Perhaps approaching these issues with understanding rather than hate might offer a more productive path forward—even if that perspective seems idealistic in today's polarized climate.
- Amerikkka!

I wish I could post this here in Australia without getting rocks from every white Australian. You can search my post history to see their reaction to questioning this.
Australia was involved in every one of those crimes. And the celebration for those meaningless murders are everywhere. Questioning this is questioning the sacrifice of Jesus.
Though by order of our north american overlords the US should not be alone in that title.
- ❌Lest we forget
  ✅Best we forget
  Text Publishing — Best We Forget: The War for White Australia, - https://www.textpublishing.com.au/books/best-we-forget-the-war-for-white-australia-1914-18
  
  Thanks for the link. And this should be the new motto.
  Or I came up with a different one. Lest we forget how some struggled to kill many for the profit of few.
  And that includes the sacrosanct anzac. But that opinion can get me killed here.
- We really need to separate the trauma that formed the ANZAC legend from the fuckos of any warfare since.
  My great-grandfather was an ANZAC - actual, WWI, 23rd Battalion, 16 year old. I knew him extremely well, I was sixteen when he passed. I had a front row seat to what happened to those kids for the rest of their lives.
  I don't fucking venerate servicemen.
- Seeing the public reaction to some of the military adjacent cases over the past few years has been incredibly disheartening (e.g. McBride)

- Knew exactly what scene this was before I'd even taken a good look, let alone read the text. One of my favourites, along with "I will not carry a gun, Frank".
- A lot of excusing going on on that last panel
  
  This was also said in a context that included a military draft
  
  “Just following orders” etc etc.

The mods at non credible defence aren't going to like this.
- What even is the purpose of that sub?
  
  Fetishizing NATO, basically.
  
  It's just shitposting but defense themed
  
  Spreading war propaganda
  
  a place for chuds to cope
  
  The same as NAFO: shilling for the MIC
- They might still cum from the top left one
- Being an outsider I thought non credible defence was just memes about military things, are they specifically pro US imperialism?

ACAB includes the troops. Going to foreign countries to shoot brown kids doesn't make you any less of a bastard than doing it at home.
- Military and police are the two arms of the state that enforce the will of the ruling class. Police do it internally, and military externally.
- I don't think any cops have been drafted into police service. They also don't go to jail if they quit their job. And I haven't heard of police recruiters using predatory tactics and targeting disadvantaged groups. The military does, or has done, all of those things to recruit troops.
  
  If you chose to go kill and uphold imperialist aggression rather than just go to jail then you are in fact a bastard
  
  I don’t think any cops have been drafted into police service.
  The US (which is what this meme is focusing on) has an all-volunteer force.
  They also don’t go to jail if they quit their job. And I haven’t heard of police recruiters using predatory tactics and targeting disadvantaged groups. The military does, or has done, all of those things to recruit troops.
  There's plenty of pro-cop propaganda and plenty of people who join the police thinking they're going to do good. I'm sorry but at some point people have to be held accountable for their actions. Any troop that's not a bastard and who's actively trying to leave should understand why I call troops bastards. It was bastards who recruited them, after all, and it's bastards keeping them there.
  In any case, people make way too many excuses for these people, and all it does is reinforce the idea that it's ok, which leads to more people falling for that propaganda and those predatory tactics.
- When we discuss responsibility, we should consider it comprehensively. Scientists and engineers who developed chemical weapons and nuclear bombs made conscious choices about their work, yet they rarely face the same scrutiny as soldiers who carry out orders. Is this because educational privilege somehow absolves responsibility? Why do we focus our criticism on those with fewer options rather than those who designed the systems?
  The hypocrisy evident in some IT professionals' comments deserves acknowledgment. Many work for profit-driven corporations that extract wealth, exploit resources, or develop technologies with questionable impacts. Before casting judgment on others, perhaps we should examine our own contributions to systems we criticize.
  Every professional should consider their role in larger structures of power. The soldier following orders and the programmer writing code for a corporation that avoids taxes or exploits workers both operate within systems larger than themselves. The difference often lies in who society chooses to blame, not in who bears actual responsibility.
  Rather than directing our frustration toward individuals with limited choices, perhaps we should focus on the institutions and power structures that create these ethical dilemmas in the first place.
  
  Someone else mentioned in this thread that after WWII, Carl Jaspers wrote Die Schuldfrage (The Question of German Guilt) which discussed and categorized guilt broadly into 4 types. In terms of the people carrying out these orders, moral guilt applies: to act on clearly morally wrong orders does not absolve you of guilt.
  I think your comments are obfuscating the role of each of these professions in their proximity to power.
  Above all the jobs you mention, soldiers are the closest to power mainly because they hold a device designed for only 1 purpose: to end life. They may be performing this role out of financial necessity, but many still have the ability to avoid killing. In Vietnam, if one couldn’t dodge the draft, there were still many ways to avoid killing. Sure, they may be in a difficult position, but that doesn’t mean they don’t have agency every day to find ways to not kill.
  Regarding critique, we can do 2 things at once. We can both be critical of the systems that perpetuate violence and also critical of people who choose to make a career out of taking people’s lives. Sustained pressure (including negative social pressure) applied to both areas can be important. I’d argue that stigmatizing a profession is a necessary step in critiquing and eventually dismantling power.
  
  Scientists and engineers who developed chemical weapons and nuclear bombs made conscious choices about their work, yet they rarely face the same scrutiny as soldiers who carry out orders.
  They should face the same scrutiny. As a matter of fact, it played a part in me personally giving up on my persuit of physics, even if it meant doing menial labor instead. I used to think that developing new technology would uplift everyone and advance all humanity together, but the more I looked at the world, the more I saw ways in which technology was used irresponsibly, or for the benefit one group at the expense of another. Specifically with climate change, it became apparent to me that we already have the technological means to confront it, the problem is the way our society is structured, and as long as it's structured that way, no new technology is going to fix anything, and the idea that it might only serves to make people hesitant to confront power and change structures in the ways that are desperately needed. Technological development without social development only creates more advanced forms of oppression.
  Heinz Guderian was the developer of Blitzkrieg doctrine and maintained in trials and works afterwards that he had no interest in the Nazis' "politics," and that he was "just doing his job." There's a good chance he was lying to cover his own ass, but for the sake of argument, let's assume he was telling the truth. Is developing military theory for Hitler fundamentally different from developing theories of physics for Hitler, which would allow him to construct new weapons and bombs? I say no. There may have been people in Nazi Germany who ignored what was going on in the world and simply focused their attention, as many scientifically minded people do, on the interesting problems of their field, just solving problems without regard for whose problems they are or what they're going to do with the solutions. If such people existed, they are undeniably culpable - just because you find it more "stimulating" to work on the technical mechanics of a gas chamber than to think about whether the gas chamber should exist does not give you license to design it.
  I cannot fully fault everyone involved in the nuclear program in the US, because the US was on the right side of the war and potentially the bomb might have been needed. Nevertheless, a weapon of mass destruction was handed over to the politicians, to use however they see fit. Many of the scientists involved petitioned Truman not to use it (though others, like Oppenheimer, said the opposite), and many high ranking military officials considered it unnecessary. The fact is that there were multiple ways that Truman could've ended the war without the bomb, either through better cooperation with the Soviets at Potsdam (but then he'd have to share the spotlight), or by accepting surrender with the sole condition of sparing the emperor (which he planned to do anyway, but he wanted the newspapers to say, "UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER!"). Once in the hands of politicians, the decisions on whether and how to use it came down to political concerns, things like, "we need to use it to justify all the money we spent on it," not ethical or even strategic ones.
  Anyone involved in weapons development in the US today is certainly culpable in how the US decides to use them. And the US is an aggressive rogue state that has declared jurisdiction over the entire world, that it can and will drone strike wherever it pleases, regardless of soverignty, it routinely invades and oppresses soverign countries, and of all the many, many conflicts it's been involved in, the last time it was really justified in a conflict was 80 years ago. Anyone involved in weapons development in the US is a monster, and the only reason these sorts of people have been spared of blame historically is that the winning side found their expertise too useful to punish them.
  The arguments that you make in no way wash soldiers hands clean of the atrocities they directly commit, it only shows that other people have blood on their hands as well.
- You know, you could just make a different phrase for troops.
  
  Cops are cops, whether they be foreign or domestic. Why split hairs?
  
  I support the real troops
  
  "Fuck the troops"
  
  ATAB works too. But troops are essentially just cops we unleash on foreign countries.

Why would we celebrate LOSERS and SUCKERS?
- The only accurate thing Trump ever said
- One of the few things I agree with him on

When's the next war on bud light rainbow cans? 🤡🫡🤡
- On Thursday.
  
  Thursday is no good for me, planning on having my bros over for a no homo circle fuck and foot rub party. Can't do that without Bud light, obviously

Re bottom left photo, Phan Thi Kim Phuc was burned by napalm dropped by the Republic of Vietnam Air Force.
- An organization that would not have existed without U.S. support.

Praise your "heroes". It’s enlightening to watch a civilization confuse slaughter with honor.
- If we're assigning blame so broadly, let's be thorough about it. What about the factory workers assembling weapons? They recognize a gun when they help manufacture it. They understand what tank treads are used for when they connect them. Engineers fully comprehend the lethal applications of their drone designs and technical specifications.
  If we're truly committed to distributing responsibility appropriately, shouldn't everyone in these production chains bear their share of moral accountability? Or is our outrage selectively applied to those with the least decision-making power in these systems?
  Perhaps we should question why our society finds it easier to condemn those with fewer choices rather than examining the entire structure that creates these weapons of war in the first place.

What? It's just enhanced interrogation!

Did fighting Nazis go out of fashion again?
- The US was never really that against them. Their motivation in WW2 was not nearly as morally perfect as they like to pretend.
  
  Before the war, Hitler was inspired by Jim Crow laws when creating the infamous Nuremberg Laws.
  After the war - once the US secured unipolar hegemony - they absorbed more than 1500 former SS scientists into the US government.
  Birds of a feather
  
  Your comment and your home instance blew my mind
  
  It’s sad how little you personally know about history and the circle jerk of fellow know nothings.
- I seem to remember the creator of Wolfenstein asking that question shortly before the release of one of their games, in the late 2000s I think. We should have seen the writing on the wall.

The military? Excuse me, AREN'T THEY ALL FUCKING HIRED KILLERS!? SHUT UP! They are thugs and when we need to go blow the fuck out of a nation of little brown people, we'll let them know!

If you think the Things the US did as a democracy we're Bad Just wait and See what autocracy will bring.
Gonna be interesting who's gonna suffer more. It's own population or the others.
- usa: summons cthulhu to bring destruction of the universe
  people: what if it was a republican, things would be worse
  
  There's just good and bad. No one's really "good" good. So there's just bad. So fuck it all. Putin, Obama, Stalin, Trump, Hitler, Merkel. At least some of them don't even try to hide it so they're at least honest. That makes it easy.

War is hell.
- "No, war is war, and hell is hell. Og the two war is a lot worse" -Dr. Pierce, M.A.S.H.
  Edit: I see now that someone else already posted the whole exchange from MASH in another comment.
- That must be the reason they call America Big Satan.
- War… war never changes…

I don't look at it as thanking them for these things, but rather the fact that we're all doing those things with our tax dollars and they're the ones getting shot at because of it in my place. To a large extent if you live in the US and reap the benefits of American dominance you're just as guilty. Obviously the problem is - where else do you go? It makes infinitely more sense to stay and vote for a better world. Not blame the working class people the bad voters have abused.
- It's not fair to blame the soldiers and act as if the people who gave the leaders their power are innocent.
- Not even where, if one wanted. Without means, it's a trap.

I wanted to post this video, the words and images are compelling. And yes, I know about issues with Kennedy, etc. It's not the point.
Tw: images and sounds of war
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngo_6TPgldg

Reading through the comments I think maybe countries with free healthcare and education dont have a lot of room to weigh in on this.
I am not saying respect the troops or anything. But goddamn.
Edit: if you are down voting then at least give a reason to entirely alienate all the people who are actually trained to fight.
- I think maybe countries with free healthcare and education dont have a lot of room to weigh in on this
  Why not?
  You were the only country to invoke NATO Article 5. Twice. Both times you were the invading aggressor fighting countries half a world away while spinning it as "defense". Where you forced soldiers in countries with free healthcare and education (like Canada) to fight and die in wars you started. And then refused to pay us after the fact.
  And what does free healthcare and education have to do with anything? Are you going to claim that America "subsidises" us?
  
  I didn't do shit. I was in high school when that happened. Fuck off. You don't understand how people get pressured in joining and how recruiters con a bunch of kids to sign up using the lack if health care and education as leverage.
  I don't understand why solders from other countries even join up.
- I work with a lot of veterans and the thing that breaks my heart is how many of them really bought into the lie. They really think they sacrificed years of their lives, some of them went through hell, all for the people of their country. And when or if they realize that they were used, it can break them.
  Many, not all obviously, but many of them are victims of this self-same system of oppression. Taking it out on them is exactly what the people who pull their strings want from us.
  No war but class war.

Well the bomb was retaliation for the Bataan Death March.
Either way, no side is innocent.
- Yeah, I'm so glad the civilians in Hiroshima got punished for participating in war crimes
  
  Gotta blow em up make a point y'know
  
  I feel like it’s how my gut flora aren’t responsible for my actions or anything but will suffer my choices and others’ choices involving me.
- The bomb is one of the many crime against humanity US have commited and have not been punished for. Hiroshima museum is a testimony of this crime.
  
  Promptly swept under the rug and censored so the country doesn't get a bad rep
  .. oh wait
- It's not clear that this affected the decision to drop the bombs let alone the sole reasoning. Frankly, there was little justifiable strategic argument for use of them at that point in the war aside from as a form of intimidation against the Soviet Union. More likely the US would have dropped the bombs regardless and it was used as a justification after the fact: "the Japanese were barbaric, so this justifies our barbarism!"
  
  Solution: build bigger bombs!
- Ah yes, those Japanese children and citizens ordered the Bataan March. Yep, that’s how it happened
  
  For generations.
  
  Gotta be more inhumane than the enemy
  that's the art of war

The predicted Allied casualties for a mainland invasion of Japan were so high, especially with regard to the civilian fanaticism witnessed throughout the Island-hopping Campaign, the right choice was using the Atomic Bomb. After use of the first atomic bomb, when Japan failed to yield and refused to surrender, the return to consideration to a homeland invasion, along with running the numbers of anticipated Allied casualties, made using the second Atomic Bomb the correct choice. The best choice was made, with regard to the information on hand at the time.
- The predicted Allied casualties for a mainland invasion of Japan were so high
  Those estimates were made after the fact, in response to criticism. In reality, a mainland invasion was never in the cards at all. It's a myth. There's nothing about it in any of the letters or journals of the people making the decisions. There were two actual alternatives to the bomb:
  Cooperating more with the Soviets. The Japanese refused to surrender in part because they were holding out a desperate hope that the USSR would intercede as a neutral third party in peace negotiations, when in fact they were just stalling for time while they redeployed their troops from Europe to Asia. The US and USSR had planned to issue a joint declaration calling for Japan to surrender at Potsdam, but Truman pulled out at the last minute when he heard that the bomb had been tested successfully. The soviet declaration of war was only days apart from the dropping of the bombs and the Japanese surrender.
  Accepting conditional, rather than unconditional surrender. The Japanese had already offered to surrender on the sole condition that the emperor not be tried for war crimes. The US had every intention of doing that, and it's what they actually did after the war. However, Truman had promised "unconditional surrender" and he wanted the newspapers to call it that.
  The decision was all about prestige and politics and not sharing the spotlight. It wasn't necessary.
  This is a very long video about it but it's very informative and well sourced.
- the right choice was using the Atomic Bomb.
  Least rabid and bloodthirsty imperial dog
- I'm not interested in your American propaganda protecting American innocence.
- You think killing anywhere from 150,000 to 246,000 civilians to kill 10,000 military personnel is good?
- wrong

The atomic bomb is the last image is the reason we haven’t had a world war in 70 years. It has saved more lives that it took. It’s the reason you sleep safe in your bed at nights. It was essential in ending the war against the Axis. You guys need to be grateful.
Napalming kids though, harder to defend….
- The US only dropped the A-Bombs on Japan because they didn't want the Soviets to gain even more post-war leverage, they killed civilians in the many tens of thousands just for political leverage.
  
  ... and to avoid a boots-on-ground invasion of the main landmass of Japan, which would have cost probably a million soldiers lives, and who knows how many Japanese civilians.
  
  Ok, I assumed it was in retaliation for Pearl harbour?
- I'm genuinely wondering if the cold war was any better than a third world war, because it still wrecked various countries in Asia, Africa and South-America

Yes, only American military veterans did bad things.
Didn't check the instance I was on. My bad. I'll let y'all get back to it.
- Anyone who seriously looks at history would agree that yes, every wartime military has a war crimes problem. No exceptions.
  But anyone who seriously looks at history must also admit that American veterans have committed the vast majority of war crimes since the end of WWII. We have invaded over 70 countries and killed millions of innocents. No other country even comes close.
- not only usian veterans, but predominantly them.
  
  This is offtopic, but is there any reason for using a word derived from USA instead of saying veterans from the USA? Usian sounds wrong
- Listen, not all nazi soldiers were particularly bad. I'm sure a chef in the rear guard probably did not do a single war crime. But when the SS existed we know that the chef isn't what most people refer to when discussing war crimes of the era.
  Its the same in this era. Sure, there are bad guys all over the place, but compare to the US there's really only a handful of entities in the post WWII era that could be equals, and none more evil.
  
  No, any member of the SS was used and helped the SS to commit these crimes and kill people. Everyone in the SS was responsible in many ways.