3 ms·

I don't really understand you. I want to know why Americans on both political wings aggressively support their soldiers. I can understand if it's a country bein

I don't really understand you. I want to know why Americans on both political wings aggressively support their soldiers. I can understand if it's a country being attacked and their own soldiers defend it. But nobody is attacking America. What good did its soldiers do by fighting wars instead of just waiting to defend?

meowface 9y ago
In the US, support for soldiers is often completely orthogonal to support for the government or war plans. Soldiers are effectively considered brave men and women selflessly serving their country, even if they're fighting an unjust war. The rationalization is usually that politicians and other elites are to blame for the wars, while the soldiers are mere pawns who bear no culpability (or at least that's the perception for the ones who aren't torturing people or committing Abu Ghraib-like atrocities; those individuals are seen as a tiny minority of soldiers). They're "just following orders". As for the actual justification behind that, it's highly up for debate. But regardless, you'll generally find the vast majority of the US left in the somewhat paradoxical position of unilateral praise for soldiers with simultaneous hatred towards the government's military decisions and actions.
indymike 9y ago
Two reasons: they chose to take the job (which can result in your own death and being ordered to do very difficult things in service to your country) and they are our children, brothers and sisters. Once they chose to serve, they are subject to the orders of our civilian government and so we separate the decision to go to war made by politicians from the decision to potentially die in service to our country made by soldiers, sailors, marines and airmen. Finally, most wars the US gets involved with are sold to the people as defense. We we sold that Iraq was behind the attack on the World Trade center and the removal of Sadam Hussein would make our country safe.
- lopmotr 9y ago
  But didn't people learn from the Vietnam and Korean wars that they might be unnecessary for defense even if the government says so? Is it that a new generation forgets the lessons from the previous one? In that case, why not blame the soldiers - if there was little popular support for them and it was seen as a shameful or failure of a job then maybe fewer would be sucked into it. I heard that in WWI, soldiers were naive and didn't understand what they were getting into. Now though, there's no excuse. Everyone learns history at school and can use Google. So the decision to join should be fairly obviously likely to lead to doing bad things. The US has been nearly continuously at war since WWII, it's not going to suddenly stop when your son joins the army. Also, how do Americans reconcile that "my family" attitude with the fact that the people they're fighting are also somebody's sons and brothers? It's not seen as equally noble to be an Isis soldier as a US one. What makes the US special other than "my country"?

meowface 9y ago

In the US, support for soldiers is often completely orthogonal to support for the government or war plans. Soldiers are effectively considered brave men and women selflessly serving their country, even if they're fighting an unjust war. The rationalization is usually that politicians and other elites are to blame for the wars, while the soldiers are mere pawns who bear no culpability (or at least that's the perception for the ones who aren't torturing people or committing Abu Ghraib-like atrocities; those individuals are seen as a tiny minority of soldiers). They're "just following orders". As for the actual justification behind that, it's highly up for debate. But regardless, you'll generally find the vast majority of the US left in the somewhat paradoxical position of unilateral praise for soldiers with simultaneous hatred towards the government's military decisions and actions.

indymike 9y ago

Two reasons: they chose to take the job (which can result in your own death and being ordered to do very difficult things in service to your country) and they are our children, brothers and sisters. Once they chose to serve, they are subject to the orders of our civilian government and so we separate the decision to go to war made by politicians from the decision to potentially die in service to our country made by soldiers, sailors, marines and airmen. Finally, most wars the US gets involved with are sold to the people as defense. We we sold that Iraq was behind the attack on the World Trade center and the removal of Sadam Hussein would make our country safe.

lopmotr 9y ago
But didn't people learn from the Vietnam and Korean wars that they might be unnecessary for defense even if the government says so? Is it that a new generation forgets the lessons from the previous one? In that case, why not blame the soldiers - if there was little popular support for them and it was seen as a shameful or failure of a job then maybe fewer would be sucked into it. I heard that in WWI, soldiers were naive and didn't understand what they were getting into. Now though, there's no excuse. Everyone learns history at school and can use Google. So the decision to join should be fairly obviously likely to lead to doing bad things. The US has been nearly continuously at war since WWII, it's not going to suddenly stop when your son joins the army. Also, how do Americans reconcile that "my family" attitude with the fact that the people they're fighting are also somebody's sons and brothers? It's not seen as equally noble to be an Isis soldier as a US one. What makes the US special other than "my country"?