To broadly estimate the heroism of every other serving member in any singular statement is foolhardy, at best.
There are lots of good people doing good, heroic, insanely patriotic, admirable, and honorable things in that Military-Industrial-Surveillance Complex you describe.
Don't let the mistakes and abuses of the top give you some feeling that the system and everyone in it is corrupt. That system is literally putting themselves in front of bullets right now to defend your right to have such misguided ideas. What are you doing today?
Don't let the mistakes and abuses of the top give you some feeling that the system and everyone in it is corrupt. That system is literally putting themselves in front of bullets right now to defend your right to have such misguided ideas. What are you doing today?
Careful there chief. I'm not sitting in a swank control room in Vegas killing innocent men and women via drone strikes in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
No one is putting themselves in front of bullets for my rights. They're putting themselves in front of bullets for their own reasons, but not for me.
Again with the sweeping characterizations. Why do you assume that every single person in the armed forces is corrupt?
As someone with a brother and several close friends in the military, this attitude is disheartening. You are free to believe that the leadership or even large swaths of the military is corrupt, but you cannot honestly state that no one is putting themselves in front of bullets for your rights. I have personally met several who repeatedly face bullets and IEDs because of their belief that they are protecting the rights and safety of civilians back home. You may believe their actions are naive or misguided, but that doesn't mean that they are all mindless drones motivated by purely selfish reasons.
As arjie stated, I don't think they're corrupt. I'm saying they're not serving my interests as a US citizen. My liberty isn't in peril, and if it were, I'd be the first to sign up with BDUs and rifle in hand (my brother served as a Marine).
As I said, no one is standing in front of bullets for my rights. I'll stand in front of bullets for my own rights thank you, when the time actually arrives that my rights are threatened.
Well, technically speaking if there isn't anyone signed up with BDUs and a rifle in hand, then your liberty would be in peril. I mean, if the US government and her lands were just up for whoever wanted to call dibs, I'd take it.
That said, it stands to reason that the reason why your liberty isn't imminently in peril is because someone is already signed up and out there defending it.
To restate everything in broad terms: there's lots of people out in the world that don't like us. Your liberty is always in peril.
Do you want a totally anarchistic society, perhaps? I, for one, don't.
You make it sound like America doesn't have a large, well-off and well armed populace, with the backing of heavy industrial plants that can tool up for war.
I'm not saying America should have no armed forces, of course, but don't you think they're a little excessive?
No, it's not. It's advocating what the founders originally intended, which was a well-armed militia that obviates the need for an Army. In time of war (on American soil) they would organize like an army to fight off invaders. They did advocate for a Navy, however, because it was (and I suppose still is) necessary for the establishment of free trade routes between nations.
I am former military, as an aside, and once found the notion of not having an Army pretty silly, but the notion has grown on me slightly.
I think he isn't claiming that they don't believe it. He's saying that they're not doing what they think. I can fervently believe that I'm protecting American lives by slaughtering chickens in a yard, but that won't make it true.
Perhaps you philosophically disagree with the strategy of the upper management of our Military Operations - and rightfully so, IMO, on many counts - but it's a FACT that they are the ultimate line of defense for our nation's independence.
And without someone willing to put themselves on the front lines where the bullets fly, (to use a tired cliche) we'd easily be speaking German right now.
To take the stance that 'they're putting themselves in front of bullets for their own reasons, but not for me' is incredibly selfish and myopic.
Your other option is to try living in a country with a ragtag militia and government with an organized-crime-level-of-corruption. Let me know how that works.
And 'swank control room in Vegas'? You watch too many movies. :)
>To take the stance that 'they're putting themselves in front of bullets for their own reasons, but not for me' is incredibly selfish and myopic.
No, it is the result of a critical (and perhaps cynical) examination of and conclusion about the motives for the initiation and continuance of the war(s) our military is involved in.
>Your other option is to try living in a country with a ragtag militia and government with an organized-crime-level-of-corruption. Let me know how that works.
The reasons they are killing people right now do not include "our nations independence", or anything resembling it. That is just the propaganda line they use to sell the military to children in high-schools.
> That system is literally putting themselves in front of bullets right now
A fine thing. Deserving of respect, in most cases.
>to defend your right to have such misguided ideas.
That is tripe, and it is wasted on me. It is so well worn, and despite that I remain unaware of any imminent threats to my personal freedom other than from the Military-Industrial-Surveillance (and also Prisons and Police) Complex.
> I remain unaware of any imminent threats to my personal freedom other than from the Military-Industrial-Surveillance (and also Prisons and Police) Complex.
As someone who identifies as fairly libertarian, I'll give you that.
But it stands, to some degree, some aspects of the Military Operations of this country are necessary - and even supremely honorable in nature - in order for this country to exist as have whatever degree of freedoms we (still?) have.
There are _many_ individuals of the military that have put their lives on the line and some unfortunately had it taken from them. Some have done heroic acts that have not been revealed and others that just haven't been recognized. Just because you disagree with why they were put there doesn't make their actions any less admirable.
Bradley Manning put his life on the line and has essentially lost it also.
He joined the military, saw that his organization was acting in a manner that was morally reprehensible and then did something about it. Of course, the same system replied in a manner that's just as morally reprehensible as Manning demonstrated.
The danger of rationalizing evil through the old truisms of "Patriotism, Security, Etc" is that it can corrupt those that rationalize it instead of saying, "This has to stop."
> it's a FACT that they are the ultimate line of defense for our nation's independence.
It's a fact that the military-industrial complex exists to protect the military-industrial complex. Our nation's independence was sold to moneyed interests in the last century.
> government with an organized-crime-level-of-corruption.
that's a very good point, but there hasn't been an official Declaration of War since 1942 per the wiki (which is a whole nother issue, albeit a very valid one).
It was 'declared' by Congress in 2001 (see the AUMF), but either way it's not as if there's a DD Form which is issued daily to all servicemembers listing the enemies of the day. If they're flying jumbo jets into the nation's skyscrapers it's a pretty safe bet that they fall in the 'enemy' bin.
I could be the idiot here, but I'm pretty sure that New York and New Jersey are 2 of the 50 United States which the Federal government is obligated to defend from foreign aggression.
The answer to your first question can be illuminated a bit by considering a different question: Why do seagoing nations use Naval assets (instead of a coast guard auxiliary) to interdict and defeat pirates on the high seas?
The U.S. made a formal declaration (the 2001 AUMF).
But I don't even have qualms comparing international waters to Afghanistan, because you have to consider that if a given piece of land is completely ungoverned, does it belong to a specific nation at all?
If you say that the lands in Afghanistan from which AQ organized their terrorism was effectively governed by the Taliban and not a failed state, then it's even easier legally, as you have an actual causus belli for military action in response.
The same way Soviet spies aided the USSR even when we weren't engaged in 'kinetic warfare' with them? You keep pushing the idea that the only enemies you have are the ones you've declared war on, but that simply isn't the case in actual geopolitics.
Well when they make you the reigning monarch then I'm sure the military will bow to your personal definition of enemies. Until then the people have spoken by ballot.
Shoot, this "war" isn't even declared so I'm unsure how he could even be accused of aiding an undeclared enemy.