5 ms·

More significantly, "we're" all cool with US soldiers and anything they do to other countries. I don't understand the disconnect in "soldier good, army bad".

ScipioAfricanus 9y ago
How about you ask the people that US soldiers protect, like the people liberated from living under the dictatorship of Saddam, whether they're cool with US soldiers? It's so funny to see people ignore all the tremendous amount of good that US soldiers and the military have done in the modern era for different peoples and nations and obsessively focus on the relatively few individual bad actors and examples of clear military wrongdoing. It's naive.
- glibgil 9y ago
  How long have you held these jingoistic opinions? The death toll from the American war in Iraq is somewhere between 150,000 to 460,000. Your views are very extreme. You might be radicalized and in need of an intervention
  - feralmoan 9y ago
    what!?
    - glibgil 9y ago
      I'll explain. OP has a problem where they see the members of the US military as virtuous because they "help" some people. But, militaries kill people which is the worst thing you can do to a person. OP has been radicalized by an ideology that the US military was a good influence in Iraq, but the opposite is true. The US military was very bad for Iraq. They directly and indirectly killed hundreds of thousands of people. This is a big fuck up. When people fuck up, they should apologize or be very quiet. OP is doing the opposite. OP is proud of the US military fucking up Iraq. OP is even claiming that Iraq did not get fucked up, but that it was helped. This is obviously impossible because being killed is not good for you.
  - dang 9y ago
    Whatever valid point you have is neutralized by your crossing into personal attack and snark. Those things violate the site guidelines, so please read https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and don't do those things here.
- EngineerBetter 9y ago
  I used to teach jiu-jitsu to an Iraqi Kurd asylum seeker in London. Despite his own people being gassed, he preferred Saddam. If you kept on the right side of the powers-that-be, you could run businesses and have a life. This is in contrast to the anarchy that ensued after the West's invasion.
  - oh_sigh 9y ago
    Iraqi Kurdistan hasn't had many of the security issues that southern Iraq has had. I assume he was a Kurdistan not living in the north? Every Kurd from the north that I know prefers their current situation to when sadaam was gassing them
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    - EngineerBetter 9y ago
      Nope, he was living in the north. Sadly I forget exactly where.
- tomcooks 9y ago
  Thanks USA for keeping bases on my country's sea and soil, meddling with internal politics and also thank you very much for the random civilian accidents when your kind soldiers are too drunk to, at least, be kind to the land you are raping for your own good. Some more wine, kind sir? Blah.
- andrepd 9y ago
  Ah yes, the freedom army, "liberating" peoples from their oil.
jgalt212 9y ago
Since we live in a democracy, you really should take it one step further and deeply examine yourself, the voter, as well.
roenxi 9y ago
The US has a great many resources; natural, produced and human capital. There are absolutely organised groups (some are nation states, some less powerful) that would come over and take those resources away if there was an opportunity. In theory, soldiers of the US army will going to stop that thievery by any means up to and including giving away their lives for their country. This is a critically important role, and as a society you can't really afford to send mixed messages about how important soldiers are. This is doubly true because of the potential risks they face, they need to feel appreciated. They are filling a valuable role. What the leadership does with those soldiers in times of relative peace, however, is highly questionable and open to the usual rough and tumble of political debate.
- tomcooks 9y ago
  Since i was born, US seems to be the only country actively and openly stealing other countries' resources (apart from Friendly Green Men in Crimea ofc)
  - simonh 9y ago
    Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. Serbian encroachment in Bosnia. Argentinian invasion of the Falklands. Chinese annexation of islands in the South China Sea. Soviet invasion of Afghanistan (though I don’t know how old you are, likewise for Falklands). Russian occupation of territory from Georgia. ...I’m sure I’ve missed a few.
    - jcranmer 9y ago
      First and Second Congo Wars, a large part of which is battling for control of the mines in that region. It's one of the conflicts which gave rise to the concept of blood diamonds, which is to say, it's one of the few conflicts that's actually about control of natural resources. (I'm assuming, of course, that the GP is largely talking about "wars I disagree with" when referring to "actively and openly stealing other countries' resources," because the number of recent conflicts that are openly about resource control is very small and the US is involved with none of them. The Iraq War is often claimed to be about oil grab, but that doesn't really make any sense when you dig into the history of the buildup to the war, and in any case, it certainly wasn't "openly" about it.)

ScipioAfricanus 9y ago

How about you ask the people that US soldiers protect, like the people liberated from living under the dictatorship of Saddam, whether they're cool with US soldiers? It's so funny to see people ignore all the tremendous amount of good that US soldiers and the military have done in the modern era for different peoples and nations and obsessively focus on the relatively few individual bad actors and examples of clear military wrongdoing. It's naive.

glibgil 9y ago
How long have you held these jingoistic opinions? The death toll from the American war in Iraq is somewhere between 150,000 to 460,000. Your views are very extreme. You might be radicalized and in need of an intervention
- feralmoan 9y ago
  what!?
  - glibgil 9y ago
    I'll explain. OP has a problem where they see the members of the US military as virtuous because they "help" some people. But, militaries kill people which is the worst thing you can do to a person. OP has been radicalized by an ideology that the US military was a good influence in Iraq, but the opposite is true. The US military was very bad for Iraq. They directly and indirectly killed hundreds of thousands of people. This is a big fuck up. When people fuck up, they should apologize or be very quiet. OP is doing the opposite. OP is proud of the US military fucking up Iraq. OP is even claiming that Iraq did not get fucked up, but that it was helped. This is obviously impossible because being killed is not good for you.
- dang 9y ago
  Whatever valid point you have is neutralized by your crossing into personal attack and snark. Those things violate the site guidelines, so please read https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and don't do those things here.
EngineerBetter 9y ago
I used to teach jiu-jitsu to an Iraqi Kurd asylum seeker in London. Despite his own people being gassed, he preferred Saddam. If you kept on the right side of the powers-that-be, you could run businesses and have a life. This is in contrast to the anarchy that ensued after the West's invasion.
- oh_sigh 9y ago
  Iraqi Kurdistan hasn't had many of the security issues that southern Iraq has had. I assume he was a Kurdistan not living in the north? Every Kurd from the north that I know prefers their current situation to when sadaam was gassing them
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - EngineerBetter 9y ago
    Nope, he was living in the north. Sadly I forget exactly where.
tomcooks 9y ago
Thanks USA for keeping bases on my country's sea and soil, meddling with internal politics and also thank you very much for the random civilian accidents when your kind soldiers are too drunk to, at least, be kind to the land you are raping for your own good. Some more wine, kind sir? Blah.
andrepd 9y ago
Ah yes, the freedom army, "liberating" peoples from their oil.

jgalt212 9y ago

Since we live in a democracy, you really should take it one step further and deeply examine yourself, the voter, as well.

roenxi 9y ago

The US has a great many resources; natural, produced and human capital. There are absolutely organised groups (some are nation states, some less powerful) that would come over and take those resources away if there was an opportunity. In theory, soldiers of the US army will going to stop that thievery by any means up to and including giving away their lives for their country. This is a critically important role, and as a society you can't really afford to send mixed messages about how important soldiers are. This is doubly true because of the potential risks they face, they need to feel appreciated. They are filling a valuable role. What the leadership does with those soldiers in times of relative peace, however, is highly questionable and open to the usual rough and tumble of political debate.

tomcooks 9y ago
Since i was born, US seems to be the only country actively and openly stealing other countries' resources (apart from Friendly Green Men in Crimea ofc)
- simonh 9y ago
  Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. Serbian encroachment in Bosnia. Argentinian invasion of the Falklands. Chinese annexation of islands in the South China Sea. Soviet invasion of Afghanistan (though I don’t know how old you are, likewise for Falklands). Russian occupation of territory from Georgia. ...I’m sure I’ve missed a few.
  - jcranmer 9y ago
    First and Second Congo Wars, a large part of which is battling for control of the mines in that region. It's one of the conflicts which gave rise to the concept of blood diamonds, which is to say, it's one of the few conflicts that's actually about control of natural resources. (I'm assuming, of course, that the GP is largely talking about "wars I disagree with" when referring to "actively and openly stealing other countries' resources," because the number of recent conflicts that are openly about resource control is very small and the US is involved with none of them. The Iraq War is often claimed to be about oil grab, but that doesn't really make any sense when you dig into the history of the buildup to the war, and in any case, it certainly wasn't "openly" about it.)