link. Of course the reddit-logoors downvote bombed the people pointing this out.

  • YearOfTheCommieDesktop [they/them]@hexbear.net
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    8 months ago

    he’s further down in that thread saying how much better off now iraq and libya are than before they got attacked by the US. And talking down to an iraqi who chimed in to say he’s wrong

      • YearOfTheCommieDesktop [they/them]@hexbear.net
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        8 months ago

        there’s a “peace memorial” in my city that literally just has little plaques about all of america’s (official) wars and literally has a quote from a handwringing troop along the same lines like “I dont know if it was right or wrong but an iraqi child told me we were heroes saving the day” basicall

    • BelieveRevolt [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      8 months ago

      There’s a bazinga in that thread posting about how so-true Iraq’s economy is doing so well now and HDI is around the same as their neighbors! Problem is that obviously the economy was in the shitter during the 90s because of the brutal sanctions, and if you look at the HDI graph, it’s grown at around the rate as it did in the 90s during said sanctions (with a noticeable dip around 2003 🤔).

      • ZapataCadabra [he/him]@hexbear.net
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        8 months ago

        Also last year (or early this year?) the Iraqi dinar has been subject to financial war by the US as punishment for trading in USD to Iraq. The US has manipulated the exchange rate with the explicit purpose of causing harm to the Iraqi economy and therefore the people. Buying medicine is much harder and there’s a large black market for specialized goods and food not produced in Iraq. Wholesome chungus.

  • Mokey [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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    8 months ago

    I’m usually more reserved about the troops, I think there are a lot of potential allies but I met a former marine recently who told me about training the Israelis in a massive “cop city” type of town meant in his words “to invade Gaza.”

    All he really cared about was how hot the girls were.

    Its frustrating because I do think some people regret joining immediately, or they stay asleep for a little while under propaganda but then you run into guys like this.

  • ZapataCadabra [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    8 months ago

    rage-cry “Most soldiers don’t see combat, he was probably just a cook or a mechanic.”

    brace-watching “Ah yes so he made life livable for the people who did kill children. Very wholesome.”

  • niph [she/her]@hexbear.net
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    8 months ago

    It’s like that old Frankie Boyle joke…

    Not only will America go to your country and kill all your people. But they’ll come back 20 years later and make a movie about how killing your people made their soldiers feel sad.

  • Zodiark [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    8 months ago

    I don’t understand why you can’t just live in shame and shut the fuck up if you’re a veteran. Just live in shame and shut the fuck up about your experience.

    No one’s going to forgive you and rationalize for you, your victims will probably just let go of their anger instead of turning their grief into ghosts as they still need to live and move on. I think most people outside the US know that American troops are brainwashed brutes anyway, as if they’d let that excuse their crimes, but just choose to not obsess about individuals and instead lament and resist the institutions and power behind the American state.

    • Evilsandwichman [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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      8 months ago

      your victims will probably just let go of their anger instead of turning their grief into ghosts as they still need to live and move on

      That’s a thought I notice a lot of folks don’t usually have; a lot of people are quick to say the survivors will become ‘terrorists’ (freedom fighters more like), but actually most will try to scrape up what they can of what’s left of their lives. I’m reminded of someone I read about who had to literally pick up the unidentifiable pieces of his brother in a blanket after his brother, wife and kids were struck by a drone bomb, and the poor guy returned to his meager life but gained a stutter after the experience.

      (But sure, it’s the veteran we’re supposed to feel sorry for)

      • Zodiark [he/him]@hexbear.net
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        8 months ago

        I think the word “evil” implies a lot of cartoon and comic book bizarre identifiers and personality, even up to the Nazis and Hitler who were also bombastic and absurd in their embrace of murder and destruction.

        That soldier trying to normalize his brutality and aid in cruel occupation is evil. Evil is a person like Eichmann, who fled to Argentina, to lead a mediocre existence there. Evil is a bureaucrat for the Nazis just shuffling papers making sure munitions, food, materiel, and paychecks were being sent to the Wehrmacht.

        Arendt’s Banality of Evil’s thesis - that Evil can not flourish without these mundane, career-driven, simple-minded “go with the flow” moral cowards and cretins - has really come to light once more in the past month.