What is a war? Remember that Korea was officially a “Police Action”. Kosovo/Bosnia/Somalia were all “Peace Keeping Operations” which were all done in concert with either the UN or NATO.
If your only standard for labeling US military involvement in foreign affairs as “Declared War” with official authorization from Congress the list is quite short. There have been only 5 formally declared wars in the entire history of the US. However, this conveniently ignores the bulk of conflicts and “undeclared” wars throughout history.
The US has quite a long track record of stirring up conflict thru its various agencies in order to specifically avoid the moniker of “war”.
On at least 125 occasions, the President has acted without prior express military authorization from Congress. These include instances in which the United States fought in the Philippine–American War from 1898–1903, in Nicaragua in 1927, as well as the NATO bombing campaign of Yugoslavia in 1999, and the 2017 missile strikes on Syria.
What exactly is virtuous about being a soldier? War and the business of killing people in foreign lands is barbaric and not to be praised.
Because it’s hugely profitable.
By being a person you have earned common courtesy. I can’t respect your decision to go help kill people in the name of my country.
We should keep in mind that when we praise those who have gone to “fight for our country” we are encouraging a cycle of violence. When someone dies in service we call them a hero and teach our children that going off to die for your country is something to aspire to. We need to be better than that.
Immediately after the election, seeing where Hillary had lost votes, I wondered if Bernie would have been the better candidate because of his bigger promises. Nowadays I think they were both doomed, because I think the anxiety is not economic but cultural, specifically depopulation. I didn’t hear Hillary or Bernie tout free college as a wealth transfer to rural areas that might help preserve their populations by allowing young adults to return home without college debt to pay off. Frankly, the idea didn’t even occur to me until I heard this story: Doctor Shortage In Rural Arizona Sparks Another Crisis In ‘Forgotten America’, though ever since I heard the term “Unnecessariat” before the election I started to feel uneasy.
I have to wonder if they feel the same sort of nihilism about their dying communities that I feel about the multiple global ecological disasters slowly and inexorably coming towards us.
PS I don’t think free college would save those dying towns anyway: If they’ve already lost the schools and hospitals, who would want to move back?
If we go by the “if we have american soldiers shooting at people there, it’s a war” definition then there’s a total of 20 years or so out of more than 240 where the US hasn’t been at war. Only time we had a solid stretch of peacetime was in the middle of the depression.
People who say such things tend to forget that people like Lynndie England or Klaus Barbie could make this same claim. Fighting for ones country isn’t laudable in itself. There are causes worth fighting for but countries generally fight for shitty reasons.
The US has quite a long track record of stirring up conflict thru its various agencies in order to specifically avoid the moniker of “war”.
Not to mention a similarly long track record of inappropriately throwing the word “war” around at abstract nouns when they are loving the connotations: War on Drugs. War on Terror. etc
Sorry if this comes across as rude or ungrateful but I cringe whenever I hear the expression “fought for our country” as this is simply not a true statement.
The reality is US soldiers fight for corporate interests and the projection of global military power. The US has not been under direct mainland threat since 1941. As volunteer soldiers, our military are essentially paid contractors (I would use the term mercenaries but that is a bit too inflammatory) paid to fight for multinational corporations and Geo-political interests.
I respect everyone in a military uniform in the same way I respect anyone who does a job in the service of someone else. But I stop short at worshiping soldiers as heroes. I don’t say “Thank you for your service” to my auto mechanic or Uber driver, so why should I say it to a soldier?
Fact is, joining the military is a choice: they signed up for it and are getting paid to do it. If their internal reasoning is based on “protecting freedoms” or some other sense of patriotic duty, then that’s entirely on them. I am under no obligation to subscribe to it.
I suspect this section was offensive to some. In my view, volunteering to be part of a killing machine is a bit more offensive but to each their own.
That’s not me doing that, it’s the military. The job of any military is that of a killing machine. It doesn’t matter if you made the water clean, peeled potatoes, or fired a gun. The work is done in service to a death machine. If you volunteer to be a cog in the death machine during a time of peace, I can’t get behind you.
Well put
To some extent I agree. However, I can’t seem to remember the last time we fought for a good cause. Can you?
Congratulations on having a politician wrap themselves up in glory and jingoistic fervour in order to pander their way to office. There really isn’t enough of that going around. And a real war hero, no less! That’s swell. I do wonder how many of the bombing runs she brags about involved slaughtering wedding parties. (or do they save that kind of thing for the drone pilots only?)
It seems jingoism is alive and well here at BoingBoing. My post was hidden for what I can only suppose was my view that volunteering for military service during peacetime should not be praised.
This argument seems to undercut itself with its own examples: H.W. Bush and Kerry DID get elected, right? Multiple times, actually - both of them as long-serving Senators, and Bush as President. So the notion that they then lost other elections, therefore war heroes don’t win elections, makes for a bit of a muddled argument - especially since the race in question here is a congressional one (exactly the kind that the war-heroes you’ve cited won repeatedly!), not the general of a Presidential election.
(OK, not exactly, this is the House, not the Senate. But still. I don’t know whether this lady stands a chance or not, but this post lacks logic.)
Much like prostitution for women, many of the people serving in the military in the US now have no other rational economic choice. Sacrificing very literally your body does connote some acknowledgment. I do respect veterans, because many of them did a shitty thankless job which puts their lives at risk. Many prostitutes do a shitty thankless job that puts their lives at risk. Both deserve respect. That the employers (corporations effectively, pimps) are disgusting doesn’t make the workers complicit; they are merely making rational choices given shitty options. So, yes, I respect veterans, and sex workers. I don’t respect the assholes profiting off them. Make sure you differentiate between the vitcims (the impoverished who have no better option) and the exploiters.
I’ll celebrrate veterans, and sex workers, for much the same reason.
At the same time, I despise the rentiers. They will be first against the wall, and it will never be too soon.
If you’re dropping bombs on people, it’s war. The fact that the US does this so casually and frequently that they usually don’t bother with a formal declaration is a compounding offence, not an excuse.
