Current Events > Why do people think rushing into war is respecting the troops?

(+) Yeah! (+)

Like here's the thing, it's an unfortunate reality that war is inevitable sometimes. Look at Ukraine, people want to get involved because Ukraine is being besieged by a Russian war machine for the reasons that it used to be a Russian territory and that taking Ukraine would close a gap in Russia's defences. It's war for the purpose of sating nationalistic pride and strengthening their own position in the face of future war. That's what Ukranian citizens are being slaughtered for, and the world has justifiably said "no, that's fucked up".

But "war is occasionally necessary" is different from "war is not only good, but it honors the military". One demonizes war. War is only necessary because the world isn't perfect and people desire power and wealth over the rights of other people. The other glorifies war and puts it on a pedestal.

If we wanted to honor veterans, we would work towards a world where war doesn't exist. It's a pipe dream, sure. Kim Jong-un is a warmongering shithead. So is Putin. We have a rabid, global right wing who want to plant the flag of their country into another country's ass in the name of profit and glory. It's an unfortunate reality that war will always exist, but we could be doing more to prevent it.

"Never forget" doesn't mean "vindicate your fallen comrades by destroying the nation that killed them". It means "look at the folly that these hapless participants were sent into, and prevent their sacrifice from taking place with future generations of soldiers".

If we wanted to respect the troops, we would create a world without war. A world where they wouldn't be soldiers, where they could do something constructive and positive with their lives. To reduce them to single-minded killing machines, cannon fodder for the next pointless conflict over resources or ideology, is to disrespect them and the lives they should have had. In doing that, we pervert the course of their lives. We should emphatically be trying to prevent that from happening.

But war is inevitable. And it is an unfortunate reality that we need soldiers. So we need to keep disgracing perfectly ordinary people to do the dirty work of taking life and land.

All I ask is that we stop viewing that as a good thing. That we try to lessen the amount of conflict in the world, that we stop conflating the waging of war with respect to the soldiers who fight them.

When Vietnam happened, veterans were spat on when they came home. Nixon should have been spat on. Kissinger should have been spat on. Every fuckface who conspired to sabotage the SALT II talks and other peace talks should have been spat on. Those veterans weren't wholly innocent young men who were drafted into a war against their will - I'm sure there was a nationalistic and racist degree that made some people want to sign up, draft or not. But they were, as a whole, dragged into a load of shit that they would never recover from based on the machinations of warmongers.

Respecting them isn't woobifying the Vietnam war, or justifying America's intervention. It's understanding what they went through, having sympathy for them and the results of their warfare, and building a better world that will prevent their children from suffering their same hardship.

To boil their worth and their honor down to the lives they took as soldiers is to strip them of their humanity. And to use them to justify the next war is the biggest slap in the face you could do to them.

I remember thinking recently that CE had more vets than I thought. I'd welcome a veteran's view on what I said here.