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So why is that in polite company, even those that are opposed to our various wars are obliged to toe the line, "we support our troops"? Even in 21st century Am

So why is that in polite company, even those that are opposed to our various wars are obliged to toe the line, "we support our troops"? Even in 21st century America, we continue to fool ourselves, thinking that somehow soldiers can be noble, heroes even, all the while being engaged something that is immoral.

nitrogen 13y ago
Perhaps because many of them are friends and family of said polite company who may have been persuaded to join with incomplete information, or lacked the economic resources to refuse to join when recruiters came calling.
swalkergibson 13y ago
I have wondered the same thing privately numerous times. I believe it is a reflexive reaction because they can easily be killed doing their jobs, which they signed up for. It is some kind of bizarre "patriotic" requirement, likely borne of the significant derision heaped upon returning Vietnam veterans. Perhaps it is a generation of people who never want to see that happen again that have created this sacred cow?
- Crito 13y ago
  Heaping derision on people who were victims themselves, drafted into a war they did not believe in, is one thing. I totally understand why people might recoil from that. With an all-volunteer army though? No way, it is on them as much as it is on anybody. I don't care if they joined for the GI Bill (doing it for the [college] money is a pretty fucking flimsy ethical justification), I don't care if they joined the reserves before war broke out for the GI Bill (agreeing to the possibility of a war, before you know the circumstances of that war, for the [college] money, is still a flimsy argument). The "support the troops [bring them home]" stuff seems like it is likely backlash against the derision that we gave Vietnam veterans, but it should be re-evaluated because the situations are not equivalent.
  - jurjenh 13y ago
    There is the issue though that as young people, they may well not have the maturity or information to fully understand and comprehend the decision they are making. I was going to detail this as a possible excuse - but considering this reasoning and the consequences has made me reconsider: You've made a bad choice [morally / ethically]. Now you have to live with the consequences. Can be seen as a tough stance, but then again, so's life. Didn't really mean to fall of that cliff? Oh, here's your life back again.
    - Crito 13y ago
      There is also the "smoothtalking recruiter managed to talk a teenager into doing something dumb" angle, but that only goes so far with me. Still, I don't hate people who join or anything... call it a very strong disapprove. However I do find it hard to associate with people who try to assure me that they're one of the good ones because "Oh, I'm not really the patriotic type, I just joined so I could go to college" line. That impresses me far less than "I joined [for my country|it was the right thing to do|for the innocent civilians over there|war is a necessary evil|I was young and naive when the recruiter came to my school|911 HUURAH!]". I don't believe people when they say the former, but if I did, I don't think I could consider them anything but mercenaries.
  - swalkergibson 13y ago
    I agree completely. Here is a combat veteran discussing what it is actually like. This sentiment is basically echoed among the friends that I have who have served in the military. http://www.mediumdifficulty.com/2012/03/01/call-of-apathy-violent-young-men-and-our-place-in-war/ http://www.mediumdifficulty.com/2012/03/01/call-of-apathy-vi...
PavlovsCat 13y ago
http://warprayer.org http://warprayer.org "No, I have told the whole truth in that, and only dead men can tell the truth in this world. It can be published after I am dead." -- Mark Twain
penrod 13y ago
What immoral acts do you consider US troops to currently be engaged in?
- CWuestefeld 13y ago
  My opinion isn't the question here. I'm observing first that there are many people who profess that one or more of our multiple wars are immoral; and second, that they simultaneously profess that the soldiers fighting deserve our support rather than scorn for supporting the putatively unjust war. If you believe that the war is unjust, and you believe that it's the duty of a soldier (or any person) to refuse to perform immoral acts, then consistency dictates that you should condemn the soldiers fighting in those wars, not revere them.
  - nate_meurer 13y ago
    That's a pretty black-and-white world you're trying to impose on folks. I've spoken with a lot of Iraq war veterans. Every one of them has qualms with how the war was conducted, and many have doubts about the reasons for invading. But the things they have in common are an underlying desire to to "protect" their country in some sense, and the willingness to die for that cause. There's plenty of room there for both disagreement and respect.
    - CWuestefeld 13y ago
      I think you're still misunderstanding. This doesn't have anything to do with the motivations of the soldiers. I have friends who are absolutist peacenik liberals, who thing that GWB should burn in hell for all eternity for inveigling us in Iraq, because of "war for oil", "Halliburton will destroy the country", etc. From the point of view of one of these people, there is no moral authority to wage the war; to them, it IS black and white. Yet these very same people utter the "support our heroic troops" mantra. Given that someone is such an extremist in their opposition to the war, it's impossible to square that person's professed beliefs with their support of the soldiers waging that war. That is, unless we're willing to discard the idea that all people are morally bound to refuse to execute immoral commands.
dredmorbius 13y ago
It's a lie of diversion / distraction. Noam Chomsky: Anything that's totally vacuous and diverts, after all what does it mean to be in favor of .. suppose somebody asks, do you support the people in Iowa, can you say I support them or no I don't support them. It's not even a question it doesn't even mean anything. And that's the point of public relations slogans like support our troops is that they don't mean anything, they mean as much as whether you support the people in Iowa. Of course there was an Issue -- the issue was do you support our policy but you don't want people to think about the issue that's the whole point of good propaganda, you want to create a slogan that nobody is gonna be against and I suppose everybody will be for because nobody knows what it means because it doesn't mean anything, but it's crucial value is it diverts your attention from a question that does mean something. Do you support our policy and that's the one you're not allowed to talk about. http://www.chomsky.info/interviews/199201--.htm http://www.chomsky.info/interviews/199201--.htm http://fixyt.com/watch?v=G7DdWmWUa_8 http://fixyt.com/watch?v=G7DdWmWUa_8 Incidentally, this passage is within a larger context of public relations. A while back I was looking at terms and phrases on Google's Ngram viewer and noted something really odd: "democracy" wasn't a term in broad use until World War I, with a second major uptick during WWII. https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=democracy&year_start=1800&year_end=2013&corpus=15&smoothing=3 https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=democracy&year... I noted that and didn't think much more of it for a few months until I ran across a reference to Edward Louis Berneys, father of modern public relations. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Bernays http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Bernays Really interesting coot. Double nephew of Sigmund Freud (oh yeah: Berneys popularized Freud too -- and married advertising to psychology while he was at it), convinced women to smoke ("Torches of Freedom"), and though it's hard to believe it had to be sold, promoted bacon. One of his first campaigns? A WWI "support the troops" message commissioned by the US government. To popularize democracy. That's right: the principle American Value was brought to you as a marketing campaign. (Ngram viewer is fascinating for studying the emergence / rise / fall in the popularity of words and phrases). More on lies of diversion: https://plus.google.com/104092656004159577193/posts/5zrCkbzRqrB https://plus.google.com/104092656004159577193/posts/5zrCkbzR...
- CWuestefeld 13y ago
  Thanks, that's really interesting. The nonsense message of American democracy is another one that's always bothered me, so it's enlightening to see how these are connected. FWIW, despite all the propaganda and even our school history books, democracy never was a core value of America. There is virtually nothing democratic about the design of the federal government, and even those aspects that are democratic were nothing new at the time the Constitution was written. America was not a bold experiment in democracy. That was old hat: the Dutch were already doing it, and heck, the Greeks did it a couple thousand years earlier. What was a bold experiment, seemingly entirely forgotten in today's discourse on Capitol Hill, was a limited government that wielded only a small set of powers that were explicitly ceded to it by the people.

nitrogen 13y ago

Perhaps because many of them are friends and family of said polite company who may have been persuaded to join with incomplete information, or lacked the economic resources to refuse to join when recruiters came calling.

swalkergibson 13y ago

I have wondered the same thing privately numerous times. I believe it is a reflexive reaction because they can easily be killed doing their jobs, which they signed up for. It is some kind of bizarre "patriotic" requirement, likely borne of the significant derision heaped upon returning Vietnam veterans. Perhaps it is a generation of people who never want to see that happen again that have created this sacred cow?

Crito 13y ago
Heaping derision on people who were victims themselves, drafted into a war they did not believe in, is one thing. I totally understand why people might recoil from that. With an all-volunteer army though? No way, it is on them as much as it is on anybody. I don't care if they joined for the GI Bill (doing it for the [college] money is a pretty fucking flimsy ethical justification), I don't care if they joined the reserves before war broke out for the GI Bill (agreeing to the possibility of a war, before you know the circumstances of that war, for the [college] money, is still a flimsy argument). The "support the troops [bring them home]" stuff seems like it is likely backlash against the derision that we gave Vietnam veterans, but it should be re-evaluated because the situations are not equivalent.
- jurjenh 13y ago
  There is the issue though that as young people, they may well not have the maturity or information to fully understand and comprehend the decision they are making. I was going to detail this as a possible excuse - but considering this reasoning and the consequences has made me reconsider: You've made a bad choice [morally / ethically]. Now you have to live with the consequences. Can be seen as a tough stance, but then again, so's life. Didn't really mean to fall of that cliff? Oh, here's your life back again.
  - Crito 13y ago
    There is also the "smoothtalking recruiter managed to talk a teenager into doing something dumb" angle, but that only goes so far with me. Still, I don't hate people who join or anything... call it a very strong disapprove. However I do find it hard to associate with people who try to assure me that they're one of the good ones because "Oh, I'm not really the patriotic type, I just joined so I could go to college" line. That impresses me far less than "I joined [for my country|it was the right thing to do|for the innocent civilians over there|war is a necessary evil|I was young and naive when the recruiter came to my school|911 HUURAH!]". I don't believe people when they say the former, but if I did, I don't think I could consider them anything but mercenaries.
- swalkergibson 13y ago
  I agree completely. Here is a combat veteran discussing what it is actually like. This sentiment is basically echoed among the friends that I have who have served in the military. http://www.mediumdifficulty.com/2012/03/01/call-of-apathy-violent-young-men-and-our-place-in-war/ http://www.mediumdifficulty.com/2012/03/01/call-of-apathy-vi...

PavlovsCat 13y ago

http://warprayer.org http://warprayer.org "No, I have told the whole truth in that, and only dead men can tell the truth in this world. It can be published after I am dead." -- Mark Twain

penrod 13y ago

What immoral acts do you consider US troops to currently be engaged in?

CWuestefeld 13y ago
My opinion isn't the question here. I'm observing first that there are many people who profess that one or more of our multiple wars are immoral; and second, that they simultaneously profess that the soldiers fighting deserve our support rather than scorn for supporting the putatively unjust war. If you believe that the war is unjust, and you believe that it's the duty of a soldier (or any person) to refuse to perform immoral acts, then consistency dictates that you should condemn the soldiers fighting in those wars, not revere them.
- nate_meurer 13y ago
  That's a pretty black-and-white world you're trying to impose on folks. I've spoken with a lot of Iraq war veterans. Every one of them has qualms with how the war was conducted, and many have doubts about the reasons for invading. But the things they have in common are an underlying desire to to "protect" their country in some sense, and the willingness to die for that cause. There's plenty of room there for both disagreement and respect.
  - CWuestefeld 13y ago
    I think you're still misunderstanding. This doesn't have anything to do with the motivations of the soldiers. I have friends who are absolutist peacenik liberals, who thing that GWB should burn in hell for all eternity for inveigling us in Iraq, because of "war for oil", "Halliburton will destroy the country", etc. From the point of view of one of these people, there is no moral authority to wage the war; to them, it IS black and white. Yet these very same people utter the "support our heroic troops" mantra. Given that someone is such an extremist in their opposition to the war, it's impossible to square that person's professed beliefs with their support of the soldiers waging that war. That is, unless we're willing to discard the idea that all people are morally bound to refuse to execute immoral commands.

dredmorbius 13y ago

It's a lie of diversion / distraction. Noam Chomsky: Anything that's totally vacuous and diverts, after all what does it mean to be in favor of .. suppose somebody asks, do you support the people in Iowa, can you say I support them or no I don't support them. It's not even a question it doesn't even mean anything. And that's the point of public relations slogans like support our troops is that they don't mean anything, they mean as much as whether you support the people in Iowa. Of course there was an Issue -- the issue was do you support our policy but you don't want people to think about the issue that's the whole point of good propaganda, you want to create a slogan that nobody is gonna be against and I suppose everybody will be for because nobody knows what it means because it doesn't mean anything, but it's crucial value is it diverts your attention from a question that does mean something. Do you support our policy and that's the one you're not allowed to talk about. http://www.chomsky.info/interviews/199201--.htm http://www.chomsky.info/interviews/199201--.htm http://fixyt.com/watch?v=G7DdWmWUa_8 http://fixyt.com/watch?v=G7DdWmWUa_8 Incidentally, this passage is within a larger context of public relations. A while back I was looking at terms and phrases on Google's Ngram viewer and noted something really odd: "democracy" wasn't a term in broad use until World War I, with a second major uptick during WWII. https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=democracy&year_start=1800&year_end=2013&corpus=15&smoothing=3 https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=democracy&year... I noted that and didn't think much more of it for a few months until I ran across a reference to Edward Louis Berneys, father of modern public relations. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Bernays http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Bernays Really interesting coot. Double nephew of Sigmund Freud (oh yeah: Berneys popularized Freud too -- and married advertising to psychology while he was at it), convinced women to smoke ("Torches of Freedom"), and though it's hard to believe it had to be sold, promoted bacon. One of his first campaigns? A WWI "support the troops" message commissioned by the US government. To popularize democracy. That's right: the principle American Value was brought to you as a marketing campaign. (Ngram viewer is fascinating for studying the emergence / rise / fall in the popularity of words and phrases). More on lies of diversion: https://plus.google.com/104092656004159577193/posts/5zrCkbzRqrB https://plus.google.com/104092656004159577193/posts/5zrCkbzR...

CWuestefeld 13y ago
Thanks, that's really interesting. The nonsense message of American democracy is another one that's always bothered me, so it's enlightening to see how these are connected. FWIW, despite all the propaganda and even our school history books, democracy never was a core value of America. There is virtually nothing democratic about the design of the federal government, and even those aspects that are democratic were nothing new at the time the Constitution was written. America was not a bold experiment in democracy. That was old hat: the Dutch were already doing it, and heck, the Greeks did it a couple thousand years earlier. What was a bold experiment, seemingly entirely forgotten in today's discourse on Capitol Hill, was a limited government that wielded only a small set of powers that were explicitly ceded to it by the people.