this post was submitted on 14 Apr 2024
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They do get a choice. They willingly joined an organization with a terrible track record.
After growing up in a soup of propaganda? Where many of them have no other means to escape poverty?
And it would have a better track record if we didn't use it so badly.
Still a choice, I choose to live in poverty over joining the military. Tens of millions of Americans living in poverty make that choice.
Yeah I'm talking about the track record. I'm not disputing that joining in the first place is a choice. It's also only got that track record because of the people we elect.
I highly doubt that there is no career option or field for them to go into other than mass murder. It doesn't even pay that well! It's just mid pay with good benefits.
Would you excuse someone becoming a hitman for the money? A mass murderer is far worse.
Nope, not really. Not unless you get lucky. The US is really bad about the whole socioeconomic mobility thing. And the idea that everyone in the military is a murderer is debatable at best. You also haven't really thought about the information environment in which a poor, badly educated, 18 year old reaches the recruiters office. They see the military as both a way out and a noble calling. And why wouldn't they? People around them have put soldiers on pedestals their entire life.
It's not until later they get a look at what being in really means and by that point they're trapped until the end of their enlistment. Which is why it's on us to elect representatives that will stop abusing the military.
If recruiters for hitmen and assassins were everywhere and reached everyone easily, I still wouldn't sympathize with those who thought its a good idea. Even if the recruits were spreading propaganda, I will judge anyone who falls for it.
Do you apply the same logic to those who join islamist terror organizations? Most of these organizations use even more propaganda tactics. They prey on troubled young people and convince them that they are embarking on a righteous mission. Their propaganda is even more powerful as it relates to religion, which is closer to one's heart than patriotism typically.
At least in the military, you will immediately see that whatever they promised you is wrong. You'll immediately see you're attacking other countries that aren't a threat to your people. Terror organizations will still see people they were convinced to be sinners, standing in their way of establishing the kingdom of God.
I don't sympathize with either
That's the thing. The vast majority of the military doesn't attack anyone unless we're in a war. They just train. And yeah there's a bit of a difference between religious terrorists and soldiers.
The military has been in some war of another almost my entire lifetime. That's not even counting when they're doing messy proxy shit like advising opposition militias.