I have no problem condemning soldiers for the bad things they have done. I dont really care if they are american, british, german, iraqi. And no its not as cut, dry and simple as I wish it was. Yes there are cases where it is very simple to see who is guilty of a crime and who is not. Other times guilt or innocence is cloudy and obscure.
I just beleive we need to be very careful with the expressions of moral superiority (this is not directed at you specificly). To clarify my point lets look at everyday average people outside the military. We all use government provided services. We believe that these are provided by stealing and violence. So are we doing something wrong by simply going along with the system? im sure some of us can exonerate ourselves by rationalizing the benefits we recieve from government violence and extortion. But I have a little more trouble casting stones.
The forces we are talking about are powerful, they drag us all along for the ride. So powerful that even those of us who know better are forced to play along. We may resist more than most but we are still guilty of trasgressions.
I agree. But do you want to string them up? Is what they do no different from a mugger who kills his victim in an alley? Or is it more similar to a parent who has been convinced by people he trusts that his victim was the one who killed his child? Both unjust murders that is a fact. But are they the same? Are the ones who manipulated the parent into killing guilty of anything? After all they didnt kill a soul. Very unclear to me.
We just need sufficient evidence that a person participated in, administered, or gave material support to a war of aggression. It is impossible to have 100% surety of what exactly is sufficient evidence in any case, military related or not.
The average person, subjected to taxes and state economic manipulation, participates self-defensively. If this is mere “rationalizing” to you, you can’t approach this problem correctly. Anyhow, I’m for forgiving a large percentage of the military but I am not a victim either.
I did not say there aren’t mitigating circumstances. Obviously there are. But mitigating circumstances can only diminish their blame, they can not take it away completely.
Many soldiers, historicly, would be participating in war self defensively as well. And that was my point.
Im not sure the victims of an unjust war could ever know who agressed against them. Except in unusual and specific cases. So im not sure how blame should be allowcated.
There isn’t even much of a case that could be made for American soldiers who were drafted because of conscientious objection. This isn’t a case of plantation inheritance, so soldiers who were slaves of the Romans is irrelevant. The “balance of power” certainly isn’t in favor of punishing soldiers and criminals usually try to hide evidence. I bet there are records right now of where many targeted missile strikes hit. The difficulty in handling issues like war is more practical than theoretical.
Ask yourself, “Is this a legitimate action in a free society?” Things like mail delivery or health care are. Others, such as theft and murder, which states also monopolize, are not. I’ve posted this paper numerous times here and it is a good step towards answering this question.
Insofar as it is the thought that counts, I find the thoughts of soldiers disturbing. It’s “support the troops”, not “support the apologetic troops”. I’m not sure which is worse, the troops or the supporters.
See people who “support the troops” do so because they have an emotional connection to soldiers from their country, some of whom came from their own families or those of their close friends. I have relatives in the military, and so do most other people. So, it’s much, much easier NOT to say outrageous things like “American soldiers are war criminals,” etc.
So, when wars do break out, people get killed, and public support wanes, people will either blame the politicians entirely while still believing the best of their darlings in the military ("Those greedy sell-out good-for-nothing politicians are killing our young, our best and brightest) or chalk it up to a disagreement with government policy without laying blame on anybody (“I wish Bush wouldn’t have invaded Iraq, but I guess he made the best decision he could at the time”).
So when people says they “support the troops”, I guess it means they’re not the type to spit on crippled veterans. Neither am I. I think it looks really bad coming from people who say they want world peace, and understanding and forgiveness and all that jazz.
Well, I beg to differ. I not only pray for the survival of American troops, but their enemies as well. If somebody attempts to blow themselves up in the name of Allah, I want him to be stopped, disarmed, and locked up so he can’t harm himself or anybody else. I don’t want him killed; he is my brother for whom Christ died.
It is interesting though that you do not this sort of “support the troops” business in all countries. In plenty of places there is no conflation of not supporting the war effort and “spitting on crippled veterans”.
Many of the other places (i assume) you are talking about, western europe, japan, ect. have allowed US soldiers to do their dirty work. So there are many fewer in these countries with family members in the military engaged in war.
Don’t support the troops, pity them. They think they are fighting for a greater world, when in fact they are causing more harm. To support the troops the libertarian style would be to get them to see the error in their ways.
Just to say ,about my OP I was just throwing ideas out there.I’m not sure where I stand on this issue yet I believe it’s important.
Support the troops can mean(as far as I can tell from various political views of those those say it):-
support the state,it’s foreign policy of empire or it’s war/s.
I want the troops to come home and stop dying needlessly in unjust wars.This seems entirely reasonable to hold just it’s not said so militantly as the other kinds.
I don’t want an end to the war but I hope that x or all of ‘our’ troops don’t die or are safe.
3 plus I hope they succeed.
still the interesting question remains ,
are those who kill anyone -even enemy combatants- in unlibertarian unjust wars, murderers?
I didnt mean to misrepresent your statement. But I do think this may have something to do with it. I have always felt like the US hired out its soldiers as mercenaries. Has always upset me.
Are they guilty of taking life… of course. Are they murders in the same sense that a mugger who kills someone in an alley… of course not.
Time and energy are a limited resource. Many here use thiers to study logic, politics, economics, and history. The average person uses thier to do other things. They do the best they can with limited knowledge and trust their leaders (aka the president, senators, ect.) to acquire the knowledge neccessary to make decisions such as what is a just war and what is not. They believe they are fighting in just wars based on the very limited knowledge they possess.
Blame the media, politicians, etc. for they are the ones with the knowledge and use their position in society to manipulate and use good people.