Quote from pnyxtr

Quote from APOKOLYPES

woa! woa! 😲 - hold on here, first of all incidents like this should in no way characterize service members of the US armed forces as a whole
[...]
don't single out the USA military when incidents like this happen with NATO forces, we're not perfect, and you really don't want to even know what the armies of some S.A. nations, China and the far east communist block do to their own people, (who aren't enemies of the state) - just look at what's happening in the Middle East right now (do you honestly believe Liberia's armies are a better alternative to U.S. and Coalition forces?)

Personally, I would absolutely not single out the military as a collective. Instead, I would like to point out that it's a completely fucking insane political decision to send volunteer boys who have little experience of life whatsoever to first fight a war almost halfway around the globe (when few of them have ever even been out of their state before, let alone the country) and then expect them to keep the peace there afterwards. It's a small wonder that not more of them snap.

But APOKOLYPES, you seriously don't do yourself any favours when you compare the US armed services to those of some rather nasty totalitarian states. Saying that you're better than the very worst doesn't really work, you should be among the best instead. (I'm not saying the situation in the US military is one way or the other, I'm just saying that particular comparison is bad, don't fall in that trap.)

You guys do know that the same logic applied to those US soldiers you could say for many other countries' military.

For instance, most of the Chinese grunt soldiers are very young peasants. Fairly ignorant; not exactly sociology/political science majors. The US military is actually well-disciplined in comparison. They're not going to worry about foreign media sensibilities.

People here STILL talk about Tiananmen Square when referring to Chinese gov't oppression (because most are too ignorant to recount more recent events), after well over two decades, without knowing that what was going on was tantamount to a Civil War. Many of the people who died were soldiers who mutinied (38th army), and were killed off more bloodthirsty divisions from other provinces (like the 27th). Whoever heard of an entire American battalion (along with their commanding officer) mutinying in recent memory?

I think we're disciplined enough, relative to most of the world.

I'm not trying to further demonize the American military. I highly respect it. I am just suggesting that the same lenience and wisdom people apply to defending them... can pretty much be applied to any military. We say that the American military only has a few bad apples in the bunch? So do most passive foreign militaries at the moment. There's got to be a limit, or at least a point in time in which we recognize our own biases. (Not going into what we should do about those acknowledged biases, or whether we should do anything at all or not.)

Also note, it's not always "volunteer boys" who make mistakes. Soon after Tiananmen, I'm sure many of you will remember the Waco incident in Texas, where fully grown adult goons gunned/burned down a complex full of women and children with little evidence/provocation to do so. (Granted, we in the US clearly differentiate law enforcement from military unlike many other countries, but the comparison is apt.) In this war on terror, fully grown men were complicit in the schemes of some of these volunteer boys... eg. "Drop weapons".

Quote from APOLOLYPES

but most of us both abroad and locally are trying to work for the greater good

"Greater good" is a worrying concept to mention. You might want to consider conveying your thoughts differently next time. 😛

nothing new at all. wasn't US always like that?

Quote from Hespia Klarerin

nothing new at all. wasn't US always like that?

No. The globalist narrative only took off in full force after US became an indisputable dominant world power.

Before then the American narrative towards other countries was more defensive. It was only expansionist and aggressive vs weaker, regional rivals (Native Americans, Mexicans, and Canadians).

Back then, global powers like Germany and the UK (which, at the time, were the ones singing the neoliberal & neoconservative globalist narratives), the US was markedly defensive and protectionist.

EDIT: On second reading, I confused what you were responding to to something another person was responding to. My bad. This happens when I'm in too many discussions at once. 😳

Quote from N0x_

Quote from Hespia Klarerin

nothing new at all. wasn't US always like that?

No. The globalist narrative only took off in full force after US became an indisputable dominant world power.

Before then the American narrative towards other countries was more defensive. It was only expansionist and aggressive vs weaker, regional rivals (Native Americans, Mexicans, and Canadians).

Back then, global powers like Germany and the UK (which, at the time, were the ones singing the neoliberal & neoconservative globalist narratives), the US was markedly defensive and protectionist.

EDIT: On second reading, I confused what you were responding to to something another person was responding to. My bad. This happens when I'm in too many discussions at once. 😳

you're confusing me, "you were responding to to something another person was responding to." WHA 😕

anyway i'm just saying that just because back in the days i remember my mom telling me not to go close to the US base in korea, there were series of case rape by US soldiers and a murder back in the days. not the most disciplined bunch of soldiers i suppose. so i always thought US soldiers were like that.

Ah yes, the US military has committed many crimes, sadly. 🤢
It just got worse when they began the battle against W²MD.
If the US wants to be moral, they should really readopt W²MD.
Then, the planet would be a better place~

The military is full of people and some people commit crimes, therefore some people in the military will do horrible things. Things like this should not happen and anyone that commits acts like these should be punished, but these things will happen no matter what anyone does. The world is not perfect, bad shit happens, we can even see example of crimes similar to this in the US by Americans to other Americans, crime is a reality of life all we can do is try our best to stop people like this and take measures to try and prevent similar acts from happening in the future. In short, we should not generalize the entire military by the acts of certain individuals, because people will be people and evil people exist in every country, race, religion, job or position, ect. and evil people do evil things.

" 9 years and 163 days later, 2% of my body cells are still in love with her"

Quote from Hespia Klarerin

you're confusing me, "you were responding to to something another person was responding to." WHA 😕

I'm saying, I was confusing you for someone else, and lost track of the discussion. 😐

anyway i'm just saying that just because back in the days i remember my mom telling me not to go close to the US base in korea, there were series of case rape by US soldiers and a murder back in the days. not the most disciplined bunch of soldiers i suppose. so i always thought US soldiers were like that.

I actually agree with that. US soldiers have always been like that. Post-WW2, one Japanese village was pushed to the point that they ganged up and exacted justice against 3 American soldiers and dumped their bodies in a cave. I can only imagine what went on that led to that point.

The majority do well, but there will always be miscreants. While stuff like this goes on, we're more likely to plug our ears "lalala", and repeat the same platitudes, "Not all soldiers are like that! The majority do well!" like I just did a couple sentences ago, but this is obvious.

We'd rather ignore uncomfortable truths that whenever there's a war or subjugation going on, this kind of crap will happen. People are acting like this is out of the ordinary, that Americans are exceptional. Granted, I do think our military is more disciplined than most... but not to the unrealistic level some of my compatriots expect.

It's like what happened with Imperial Japan. The majority at home plugged their ears and repeated the rhetoric about the Greater Asian Co-prosperity Sphere, and how Japanese were the saviours of East Asia, pushing out the evil imperialist white supremacists. It was really about rebuilding Asian pride! Sure, a significant minority of Japanese raped and murdered many Asians, but the majority of the Japanese soldiers surely did well, and believed in the principles. Good intentions, really. To reuse a quote:

Quote from APOKOLYPES

most of us both abroad and locally are trying to work for the greater good

Certainly, we don't want to tarnish the efforts of the good soldiers by focusing too much on the few bad ones. That would be offensive.

I'm a bit tired of that kind of rhetoric. It's become mundane to keep being so defensive of the US military. I have nothing against individual soldiers, but it's become so difficult to criticize the military-industrial complex without your words being twisted and your character being defamed... branded as a traitor. Too few people dare call for cutbacks in military spending, because we're so afraid of offending those "brave soldiers" as if all of our spending is going directly towards them.