Not the first time I've seen anything of the like, but last night I saw some yank asshole tell someone to "stop victim blaming" because the other person, who was from Brazil (a country which has been a victim of US military interventionism several times in relatively recent history) said they didn't have any sympathy for US army veterans, even the disabled ones.

And again, it's not like any of this is particularly novel to me, I've seen similar arguments a hundred times, but it will never cease to amaze me the way how, in the imperial core citizen's mind, the people who suffered collateral damage as a result of carrying out the US military's imperialist violence will always get to be considered THE victims of the US military before any of the people on the receiving end of said violence.

Every single time someone expresses any justified anger at the shit their people have suffered at the hands of the US military some yank has to come and be like "but; it's ,imoprtant t..to remmee;ber that al, ot of US ssoldiers ahve no,o ther options anda lso tthey get recruitde,, with lies; and ppropaganad; and. .they get ptsd and whne they come bak,c home o,u rgovernmenct doesn't helpt hem" like it's some underdiscussed, neglected viewpoint and not literally the thing every conversation on this website about the actions of the US military eventually ends up revolving around. Any time someone is like "what the US military did to my people is bad and I have no sympathy for the people who did it" yanks have to come make the conversation about the poor homeless veterans and underprivileged kids with no opportunities who are just in to get money for college, and demand everyone walk on eggshells about saying anything negative about them.

Like okay, you've reminded us, we've considered, when does the conversation get to be about the actual victims, how long do you have to keep sucking the air out of the room with this shit?

If you're able to unironically type "I'd argue veterans have been hurt the worst by the american government" I think you straight up just don't see people in the global south as real human beings. You might think you do but you clearly don't.

Like every day the US military is blowing people to bits and backing actual dictatorships that people are forced to live under, but the people who have been hurt the most by them are the guys who got ptsd and hearing loss blowing them to bits and helping put those dictatorships in power?

[Image: text reading: Veterans, yeah because my grandpa who served and came back with severe ptsd, loss of hearing, and literally no home (was fucking repoed while on duty) and got nothing in return, I'd argue veterans have been hurt the worst by the American government. End description.]

all the replies to that one post about imperial core soldiers being responsible for their actions is reminding me that people would rather believe the current system is run by nebulous evil spirits like its an entity in of itself than accept that people still retain free will in coercive circumstances. The cognitive dissonance running in the back of your brain to comfort you by letting you think that every harmful thing is done by good people hypnotized into it is bullshit. Where does it stop? Do you become responsible for your actions once you hit Lt. Colonel? Are you possessed by the void until you're the head of the police station? The myth of a Few Bad People is false and until you accept that the empire is upheld by those who choose to do so for their own benefit you're living in a fantasy you've designed to coddle yourself. Consider that it might be easier to pin death on "The Horrors" when you aren't watching that soldier pull the trigger.

it's important to mock and belittle military and law enforcement to signal to others that these are not respectable professions, both to dissuade entry and to devalorize the institutions in the public eye

I think part of the problem with even supposed "progressives" in the US who want to consider themselves anti-imperialist but still defend their soldiers, is that they seem to be under the impression that all their troops do in the global south is land there, kill the local combatants, maybe sometimes killing some civilians By Accident, get traumatized, then go back home.

That's not what American soldiers do in our parts of the world.

Again, Richard Ramírez, the infamous Nightstalker serial killer, was inspired by a relative of his who was a Vietnam veteran to commit his horrendous acts of violence, and honestly from what I recall, the individual murders he committed paled in comparison to the crimes against humanity his Vietnam vet role model told him about and showed him pictures of.

American soldiers come to our countries to rape, torture, maim, and commit genocide. They rape children. They rape mothers in front of their children and husbands, then kill them all after toying with those civilians like a cat playing with its prey. They do that to entire rural towns.

They take pictures with the agonizing prisoners they're torturing winking, thumbs up, and cackling.

They annihilate entire bloodlines.

They arm fascist factions within our countries, train them, and leave them in power, so that those factions can pick up with the work of terror they started once they're gone back to the US.

They trample children with their tanks. Intentionally. As a joke between them.

They dangle their American dollars, which are much heavier than any of our devalued currencies, on the faces of hungry orphans to solicit them for child sex work. Children who were orphaned by the comrades of these very same predators to begin with.

They intentionally destroy our lands, making sure nothing else will grow again, or at least nothing healthy and thriving will grow again.

Yes, even if when they come back home to the US these vets are "nice" and polite. Even if they would never do that to a fellow (white) American. That's because they see other (white) Americans as actual human beings, while those of us in the global south are at best NPCs, and at worst detestable vermin to be exterminated in whichever way is most entertaining to the genocider in question.

And honestly? You guys' own thought process isn't too different from theirs.

If you're happy to brush off what's done to our peoples, all in the name of maybe getting a minimum wage raise or whatever the fuck it is that Biden is falsely promising AGAIN; then you, too, see us as either NPCs or vile vermin. You're just too lazy to actually come and maim us like your troops do.

Not only do Americans find every possible reason to justify enlisting in the army, but they are brazen enough to think it’s appreciate to say it to your face that they contributed to US imperialism. For me and other Iraqis in particular, that manifests in ex soldiers saying things like “oh I’ve been to Iraq!” when they learn you’re Iraqi, as if somehow you’re supposed to be impressed that they’ve directly contributed to the colonization of your country. Anyone is selling a blatant lie by saying that military recruitment is viewed as a “necessary evil” for those who “have no other choice.” US soldiers are proud to be US soldiers—and they have no problem saying that to the face of the people whose countries they’ve wrecked. There is no shame involved in having worked for the US war machine

I’ve also yet to see this whole caricature of the regretful US soldier who simply had to genocide my people. With Iraq in particular, I have firsthand accounts from friends of family who’ve had to deal with US soldiers raiding their houses, stolen their things, sexually assaulted them, incarcerated them and tortured them… but it’s easy to buy into the whole saintly soldier narrative when you don’t even take into account what someone does once they’ve actually enlisted. Americans’ thought process starts at someone “having to enlist” and ends there too. My people’s suffering is not just an afterthought—it’s literally not a thought at all. What comes next does not matter to them.

Liberals in general are sheeple (read this in a communist tone of voice, not a right-wing fascist conservative tone of voice), but US liberals are on a whole other level completely brainless AND EVIL sheep I stg.

The only fucking times you all use anything resembling class analysis it's to justify why supposedly Poor Americans (the US military is composed mostly of people who're from white and well-off backgrounds but ok lol) are fine to join the Maiming, Killing, Torturing And Raping Babies Worldwide Machine.

Liberal anxieties, especially the more privileged the liberal in question is, are never about the actual outcome of evil and harm, they're about How Can We Justify Doing Absolute Evil? We Must Do Absolute Evil Otherwise I Might Have To Sacrifice My -GASPS!- Personal Comfort... And The Lives Of NPCs--I mean, Foreign Civilians, Are Worth Less Than My Immediate Comfort.

We don't care if you need to join the Maiming, Killing, Torturing And Raping Babies Worldwide Machine in order to be able to afford a college degree btw.

There's imprisoned Americans working themselves literal slavery wages to donate just a few dollars to people suffering a genocide and you cunts can't get student loans or work minimum wage jobs? Fuck off. It's you all who should be dying instead. I hope everything you're justifying doing to innocent human beings in the global south is done to you in hell for eternity once your time comes.

If you don't know this already, please try and internalize it: the idea that people join the US military primarily because they are young people at a disadvantage in life coerced into believing it is the most accessible path to upward mobility is not true.

if you're parroting this talking point, you are doing propaganda for the US military and you just need to stop saying it. here's an article from the Military Times that breaks the finding of various studies like this one from 2020 and this one from 2018 that analyze motivations for joining the military and popular conceptions of motivations for joining the military. Here's a pretty important excerpt:

Here's from the army times:

Also mentioned in other sources but here from the NY times in 2020 as well, army enlistment is becoming increasingly skewed towards being the children of people who have previously served.

'Joining the army to lift yourself out of poverty' is not the reality for military service, it is the narrative used by the military in it's marketing and recruitment. if you go around repeating it i hope for your sake you're at least on their payroll! if you're going to bootlick don't do it for free!

Advice to young activists: be very suspicious of any "leftists" who worked for imperialist militaries, especially if they won't divulge what they did, people will call you paranoid for this but if you want to harden your operations against infilitration it is a necessary step

And even more important, do not date these people. There have been so so many instances of orgs being broken up or surveilled because a government agent was "dating" a member, and the government has literally admitted to this behavior

Or if they only tell you in the vaguest and most non-threatening terms.

"oh I mostly programmed civilian drones!"

"I was a paper pusher haha"

These mfers are lying to you.

It's honestly so hilarious to me how the American War machine treats the troops it relies on soooo fucking badly. Like unless you're a very high ranking officer you mean nothing to the pentagon people, you're trash, you're disposable. You're not fucking samurai, America doesn't have a privileged warrior class, just useful idiots who sacrifice themselves for The American Way. I just saw a commercial on TV advertising a law firm for settlements because there was toxic drinking water at an army base. There's alot of asbestos ones too iirc. Like we really hate the troops lol but we slap a "support our troops!" Bumper sticker on the Chevy Silverado and call it a day

you cant even make a joke like “guy who hates the police but loves soldiers” because thats just the default position of users of this website

Just let that sink in.

thats why the vietnam war was the last war ever televised

Chelsea Manning went to jail trying to show people the extend of the atrocities American commits overseas. I watched some of the leaked footage. I think some of the worst of it was a drone bombing of a wedding in Yemen, then a day later America bombed the funeral of those killed at the wedding. Ambulances and first response units (which are protected under international law), were being bombed. People trying to take shelter were being bombed. 

And that’s just drones, which is to say nothing for the numerous illegal black sites America operates around the world. Or the effects of using white phosphorus, which will continue to burn as long as oxygen is present and melts human tissues. That was used in Fallujah, which was a blood-bath from start to finish. 

Which is why I have zero trust in the military, both American and British, because this is just some of the stuff we know about. 

People in the countries y'all invade have been telling you what Yank soldiers do while overseas, you don’t need to imagine if you take the time to listen to them.

every us military base has a prison. that is at least 800 prisons around the world. before you even get into cia blacksites.

Taken from The Mess They Made: The Middle East After Iraq, Gwynne Dyer.

This information, about the history of this pillage and the information of all other pillages like this at the hands of the U.S and other Western countries, are freely available to anyone who seeks them out. This is just one command of the Marines. Imagine all the others. We tell you but you don’t listen, and that’s on you.

cant stop thinking about how i wrote on here years ago that many people joined the military because they wanted to kill and fight wars, that was the entire allure to joining for them and i was met with so many hostile comments claiming i was exaggerating and no one really joined to kill

but now all these active duty soldiers are on tiktok bragging about how they love war and killing and shooting their guns and violence

stop trying to wubbify these people they literally know why they joined and say so with enjoyment.

this is literally how all the people i know that are either part of the military or who wanted to join the military act/acted

like theres this shift in leftist and liberal circles to be like “oh they just join because theyre poor and want better lives” which like, these people have to first be romanced by war and nationalism to join up.

WHICH IF YOU ACTUALLY TALK TO A LOT OF THESE PEOPLE or listen to them they fully admit it.

everyone keeps saying the military preys on people in poverty, but the reality is they do a very poor job at it.

the us military is mostly compromised of white men from middle and upper class families in suburban areas

https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/demographics-us-military https://www.military.com/join-armed-forces/whos-joining-military-myth-vs-fact.html

so will the military defenders shut up and stop asking us to think about the poor people in the military (not an excuse btw) and treat the military the same way they treat cops? with the intent of abolishing both.

individuals will go into a system like I'm stronger than this system and will change it but no It's literally always the opposite

"I'm gonna join the the military and reform it from the inside" no you aren't. there aren't enough words in the english language to explain just how much you won't be able to do that

the us military is a right wing death squad that terrorizes the global south. there isn’t enough college or medical bills in the world that will ever justify enlisting

…dare I say veterans being the public image of PTSD in america is deliberate propaganda to make us sympathize with soldiers who kill people overseas ? way more women have PTSD than men, and a lot have it from sexual and domestic violence, not combat.

Hollywood needs to drop this “deployed soldier comes home to a cheating wife :(“ sob shit because as someone who has lived on numerous bases and grew up in these communities I’m telling you right now soldiers will fuck the entire neighborhood before their wife even considers looking at another man