this post was submitted on 20 Nov 2025
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But americans use this logic all the time for everyone else! They dehumanized the people of iraq, the people in el salvador, in cuba, the press makes loopsided reasons to justify killing innocents. I've known this all my life. Why should i be tactful about rightfully calling killers what they are if americans cannot have an ounce of mercy? This is that good ol american privilege, "dont call us bloodthirsty in our social media! “ they will stomp on childrens heads and crybully about stubbing their toes in the process, and then recede back and say," hate the government, not the people, like their warmachine makes that distinction.
If those veterans were invading my country i would not want them to return home.
Huh? The war in Iraq was protested, along with the Cuban blockade. The actions in El Salvador were and still are reviled by those who have that level of empathy here in the states. I myself have participated in local, state, and federal elections and have supported candidates that try to resolve the underlying problems that led to those events in the first place.
Something you have to keep in mind about the actions of the US public is how diluted our voices truly are at the federal and international level. I live in a state that only has 2 senators and 52 house representatives for our population of almost 40 million people for one state. That's not counting things like unequal representation for the people of Puerto Rico, Guam, and Samoa, where they have no federal delegates. On top of that, you have special interest groups, lobbying, greed and incentive structures from players like the "Military-Industrial Complex", and the whole thing spirals from there.
Again - the armed forces of the United States are held under the command structure I mentioned earlier. Held by a president that never won my state, who my community and I did not vote for, and who does not represent my views. That is the problem with our form of government - we have no representative (or I guess universally supported) decision making regarding war. Especially since presidents decided to bypass Congress in taking military action without a declaration of war.
If the voices of the good people are as diluted among the bad, isn't time to leave for a better place?
If nazi germany is about to explode in fascism isn't it better to leave the fascist project?
And if someone knows the American army causes atrocities, why stay there? Why be their instrument?
It works both ways i can anknowledge the big evil system as an individual, but americans can do this as well. If you don't want to be a killer, why commune with them?
(and yes i am using the arguments the american press and warmongers od the drug war use to justify killing the innocent families of the people presumed to be associated with the cartels.)
Well for starters, I can't afford to leave, and I don't have sufficient connections/legal status in another nation to stay there (and that's assuming my existing skills carry over).
There are actions taken by my state (California) to try and defy the absolute clusterfuck that is the federal government. We are trying to set up our own assistance and aid programs, and to use our economic power to leverage what is best and desired by those who live here rather than what those diluted national representatives say.
However, that's all local. The Governor of California doesn't have jurisdiction over the actions of deployed soldiers overseas. They don't even have control over the state guard - the President can nationalize them.
I can't withhold my federal taxes and only pay state ones, they are partially withheld from my paycheck and going to federal prison for tax evasion is not exactly on my bucket list.
The greatest influence my community and I have is at the local level - city, county, and state. Federally, we're fucked, and we all know it. Statistically, most of us can't leave either.
Edit: Also, soldiers are allowed to defy illegal orders - something that is coming to prominence after recent events. Whether something happens IDK.
I think that an alternate universe washington post or new york times would write that you were dealt a shit hand for being born in that rock and not being able to leave.
I've been trying to avoid asking about your nationality or persona because this isn't about insulting you or anything. I have ni respect for american military or their men, i think that serving in the military might have hurt them, I think American ideology in general is tearing the country apart for that. Matter. Do i want to insult the american army? Always, am i praying for intercontinental missiles falling on certain aircraft carriers, take a guess, would i be thinking of the traumas of those soldiers that happened? Take a guess as well.
But we don't live in an alternate universe - so what's the point of saying this? That the US is the wealthiest nation / most powerful nation / has a global hegemony has little impact on the present reality that despite polling showing record high number of people wanting to leave the US they can't actually afford to do it. Everything thereafter, working within the geographic boundaries of the country they live in to mitigate the harm done, flows from there.
Why are you not engaging with what they're saying, in favor of exhorting your bloodlust for the US military?
Because My country is not the one declaring war on yours? (Actually no war is being declared!) Because my government is not trying to meddle with your elections? Because i would not like to be worried, or have people i love be worried about getting invaded? And because your whole problem seems to be tone policing. I am not allowed to say that an individual fighting for an evil empire is culpable for their actions, and they have orders of magnitude more agency in their situation than the people they are killing?
I will repeat, the people in the american military have more agency to stop the killing than their victims! Because again, a lot of these are not even real wars. This is a high tech militarized empire killing fishermen, farmers and countries that are way weaker than them. A war is when two armies are fighting. The american military has no honor, no shame, and they are lowly COWARDS!
This whole conversation is about saying stuff on the internet, and what is allowed and what is not. So I'll clarify: Do i think American military men are killers? yes; Do i think that military service might increase proclivities of normal human beings to kill? YES! There is even mounting evidence and this is not a new phenomena. Do i think American ideology increases the proclivity of it's people to become extremely sensitive of internal affairs and dismissive and dehumanizing towards those harms done externally? FUCK YES!
Ooo, I do love being spuriously accused of things.
No, I am not policing your tone - I can't speak to other people's motivations, but I personally don't think that's their intent either. At least in my case though, you've either wildly misread my point or are intentionally refusing to engage with the subject. You're shouting about the evils and cowardice and so forth of the american military, when that's not really in question - I haven't seen anyone yet defending the US here, everyone is attempting to explain that the situation is a great deal more complicated than you seem to want it to be, and that passionate ignorance is highly counterproductive when discussing the actions of a global empire.
Again, I have yet to see anyone make any claims in defense of the US military - only that your explanation, that they're all mentally ill evil monsters, is ridiculous. They're people, and if you choose that to interpret that as a defense of their behavior, you have fundamentally misunderstood the dangers of nationalism, humanity and the entire point people have patiently been trying to explain to you.
People, holding guns for an empire whose wars have mostly been extermination campaigns. People in Kevlar uniforms killing farmers who can't buy shoes. People who press the buttons to liquify buildings full of women and children. They are guilty of these crimes because they have more agency doing these killings as members of a rich militarized empire. You want to make things abstract by staging these poor men as victims of their system of bad presidents and secretaries of defense; but you can be a victim of your system and a killer as well. These are not mutually exclusive. These are military men, not slaves. Military service is not even compulsory in America these days. I am not going to be granular about the suffering of nazis. You guys are not empathic to the suffering of nazi soldiers yourselves, and rightly so!
Bingo, it's people doing those things.
You're taking the assertion of their humanity as somehow a defense - which is really more of a reflection on your values than on those of anyone else here. You're doing the same thing you assert (rightly) that the US attempts to do with the people they are in opposition to: you're framing them as inherently inferior, as monsters, as something other than human, and that's why you've decided to interpret what's being said here as somehow an attack on your values.
They are human. They are people. You've already admitted you pray for their deaths, because the perception you have is that those deaths would then be justified. You just don't want to admit to yourself that you're doing to yourself the exact same thing they've done - that they may feel the same way about their victims as you do about them, and as a result you're lashing out with appeals to emotion that are wasted on your audience because they're aimed to batter against an argument nobody else is making.
I am sorry dude but i think we have no way forward. You are going to see your little soldiers as poor victims because they are yours. And like i said before, American propaganda tends to make it's people over reactive of their affairs and dismissive of the rest of the world. Your culture needs this element of the hero worship of your troops, and the dehumanization of the external enemy other. You won't make me change my mind not because of my values. But because history has thought us that good intentioned traumatized soldiers are just as deadly at war as bad intentioned evil military men. This Manichean distinction i feel it's useless at war. And it is even more useless at the wars America is pushing right now that feel more like invasions and extermination campaigns. in short: Nazi shit. I am sorry if i don't love or respect or care for your soldiers.
But if you can't swallow the pill that the exterminator has more power and agency than the exterminated even at the individual level, that is your problem, not mine.
Good grief, no if you can't understand that the only person here making these claims is you then there truly isn't a way forward.
Let me highlight the problems in communication:
We agree. (edit: and you're the only one claiming it exists)
We agree.
We agree.
Nobody is asking you to do that.
Nobody is doing that.
When has that ever been a topic of discussion except to tell you that it's not relevant to the point being made?
Then i don't understand what is your problem. All of the points i made arrive to the conclusion that American soldiers are killers. Because in all American wars as of late the balance of power has tilted severely towards the American army to the point where the army and it's soldiers have all the agency in the killing. If someone does nazi shit, they might be a nazi. And there is research that points towards the possibility that military induction creates sociopathic responses in the individual, hence psycho killers.
My stupid comment in the beginning of this thread was informed by those two fundamental ideas i have.
And considering the soldiers of an invading force as an enemy is part of the nature of war. And it seems that your current Government is not content with doing extermination wars far away, they also want to threaten all it's allies and neighboring countries with war. So these military men can be safely be seen not only as enemies by a lot of neighboring countries. they are potential dangerous killers. willingly or not. And these are the rules America uses to refer to interventions and killing in other countries. they call other people things i would not to repeat in this distinguished thread to mark them as an enemy. So why are you so surprised when that language is directed not towards you, but a vague representation of american military men?
Was i trolling? yeah. Do i really feel this way? Yes.
Even though the image is very compressed, the uniforms worn are almost certainly Desert Tan 500 comprised, most likely MARPAT desert configuration. These are US marines.
Sorry, I give genuine answers to even troll questions. I like to think that those I'm messaging with are arguing in good faith and I try to give the best information and explanation from my point of view (as a civilian citizen of the US, and as an Electrical Engineer for relevant topics outside of here).