2. I was worried I'd get drafted
The Iraq War I was more in-tune with people who warned that the WMD evidence was thin/nonexistent and the ties to Al Qaeda were thin/nonexistent.
Aside: If you look back at 9/11 response from Iraq, a kinda "sad to see, but the US had it coming" should be a text-book example of what not to say to your enemy. Then fast forward to the terrorist attack on the Irani Parliament in 2017 and the US gave pretty much the exact response. it was pitiful.
Statistics: Posted by poorpete — Thu Dec 12, 2019 1:20 pm
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“We don’t invade poor countries to make them rich. We don’t invade authoritarian countries to make them democratic. We invade violent countries to make them peaceful and we clearly failed in Afghanistan.”
A dishonest representation of what America does (in fact sometimes we invade democratic countries to make them authoritarian), but as close as I've seen to a idealized US military mission statement. For better or worse, that's supposed to be what the world's police force is supposed to do. And under that ideal, it kind of shows how Afghanistan was a just war but also a failure.
Blah.
Statistics: Posted by poorpete — Tue Dec 10, 2019 4:00 pm
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Statistics: Posted by Phoebe — Tue Dec 10, 2019 12:35 pm
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One of things I don't understand is that many enlisted military people have a strong loyalty to the military as an institution, even though the officers (especially the generals) often do things that hurt the enlisted people. In this case, for example, a lot of soldiers were being sent to a war that officers believed was fundamentally flawed--and many of those soldiers were killed or wounded. I get the loyalty to your fellow soldiers/sailors/airmen/marines. But to the institution? I don't understand--the institution often fucks them.
To be fair, I don't have a military background, and I don't know many people in the military, so I could be lacking understanding because of that.
Statistics: Posted by akiva — Mon Dec 09, 2019 8:31 am
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