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This can hardly be confined to Americans in Vietnam, and that doesn’t justify it, but rather provides an opportunity for pause and reflection.
I’m left wondering if we’re just a bunch of dumb animals. Being capable of having that thought gives me some hope. But, what can we be when we’re surrounded by our own savagery?
What is worrying though how much propaganda there is these days, which says that this is all made up, staged, people are doing it to themselves, and how many people seemingly take this shit seriously. How much effort there is to justify such attrocities. That's seriously deranged, and I still don't know what to think of it.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You bring up a possible reason - negligent killing (drone mistakes) vs bloodlust (My Lai). Maybe that's the key? They didn't intend to destroy Iraq and Syria and spawn Isis, so they're not really to blame even though they did it?
Of course they are to blame. People often times go to prison if they kill someone on the road even if they didn't intend to. The people you're talking about are more to blame, given how much they were war profiteers themselves and were intertwined with war profiteering firms. Also it can't seriously be called negligent killing if there's no serious effort to reduce or let alone count the dead and find what the "mista…
Wow had no idea the Vietnam was this bad (bad as in how bad the Americans were). Almost makes the invasion of Iraq look noble. I went through the US educational system and while we know about the Vietnam war, the protesters, this is definitely not the picture of the war that we were given. It's basically propaganda and history rewriting what they are doing here, even though the US didn't even technically win the war.…
How do people manage to condemn this type of thing but not the 100,000s murdered in Iraq because of the US invasion? I can't work out how Americans think being proud of their soldiers - both left and right wing people are. Is there something I don't know?
Wait a moment - did US soldiers really murder hundreds of thousands? You can't just throw around statements like that. Iraq is an unstable conglomeration of religious and ethnic groups. The blame for this goes back to 1916: https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/how-the-curse-of-sy... The US invasion jostled that mix, and the resulting friction directly caused those deaths. So, to be more accurate (but possibly ove…
Wow had no idea the Vietnam was this bad (bad as in how bad the Americans were). Almost makes the invasion of Iraq look noble. I went through the US educational system and while we know about the Vietnam war, the protesters, this is definitely not the picture of the war that we were given. It's basically propaganda and history rewriting what they are doing here, even though the US didn't even technically win the war.…
The textbooks and the mainstream media in all places tend to play the "nationalism" card; that's self-serving in all sorts of ways, after all. And no one articulated the 'nationalism' caricature better than George Orwell: "The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, but he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them."
Your point about the influence of textbooks is rather important though. Putting aside the fact that many people just don't pay attention in history class, the default narrative that is being taught is quite varying. If I owned a house rather than just renting one, I would be starting a collection of High School history textbooks for this reason.
[1] https://robertjprince.files.wordpress.com/2015/05/ut-vietnam...
I was surprised by how much war footage and gut-wrenching videos I could find online. More people should be exposed to those documents as a form of shock therapy. It gives weight and meaning to words so effortlessly spoken by our leaders. It might also help young people have a little more empathy for actual individuals, as opposed to abstract demographics. The article reminds me of War against War! . It's a 1924 anti…
Most of the big wars were/are ultimately started (or allowed to start) by politicians. The word 'politician' can be thought of as a portmanteau: political technician . So the responsibility is on us to enforce this distinction: who among our political technicians is actually qualified to lead ? Heinlein's Starship Troopers had the right idea. I wish just one nation in the world would implement it. Maybe it would lead…
As CGP Grey says, Take the throne to act, and the throne acts upon you. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs
I was surprised by how much war footage and gut-wrenching videos I could find online. More people should be exposed to those documents as a form of shock therapy. It gives weight and meaning to words so effortlessly spoken by our leaders. It might also help young people have a little more empathy for actual individuals, as opposed to abstract demographics. The article reminds me of War against War! . It's a 1924 anti…
Most of the big wars were/are ultimately started (or allowed to start) by politicians. The word 'politician' can be thought of as a portmanteau: political technician . So the responsibility is on us to enforce this distinction: who among our political technicians is actually qualified to lead ? Heinlein's Starship Troopers had the right idea. I wish just one nation in the world would implement it. Maybe it would lead…
I'm pretty unconvinced that limiting voters to volunteer military veterans would prevent war. I think it would instead lead to a government which is more able to successfully pander to those with a value-system that leads them to volunteer for the military.
How do people manage to condemn this type of thing but not the 100,000s murdered in Iraq because of the US invasion? I can't work out how Americans think being proud of their soldiers - both left and right wing people are. Is there something I don't know?
But that was largely a result of the decisions made by the civilian leaders in the Bush administration. What does that have to do with the quality or respectability of the soldiers?
