Error

The mods at non credible defence aren't going to like this.

What even is the purpose of that sub?

It's just shitposting but defense themed

Defense, in the same way the pictures in OP were defense.

Of course from a russian POV it musst look like that to a .ml enjoyer.

Russians are the only ones who don't like it when we drop bombs on kids. Idk why they wanna spoil everyone else's fun! The kids are fine with it, it's just those mean ol' Russians going on about "human rights" or whatever. The million dollar bombs that we build instead of paying for healthcare, education, or functional bridges are so damn cool that the only reason anyone would possibly have a problem with them is if they just hate America.

This is what y'all actually believe, but the even crazier part is that you've somehow managed to convince yourselves you're leftists!

Oof, more .ml talk, I'm not gonna read that shit lmao

Par for the course.

ja wear a black armband when they shot the man who said peace could last forever?

The first picture is an apartment block getting leveled.

The second one is a man at Abu Gharib being electrocuted with mains power, where thousands of prisoners, mostly picked up for petty crimes or detained without trial met worse fates, including worse torture, rape, and murder.

The third is a child who managed to tear her clothes off after the US dropped napalm on them as they fled their village, but was burnt badly enough she had to spend 14 months in the hospital. She was one of the lucky ones.

The fourth is the second atomic bomb the US dropped on a civilian population.

From what perspective is murdering hundreds (hundreds of thousands in the case of Nagasaki) of civilians just trying to live their lives on the other side of the planet acts of self-defense?

Nice spin. The point is that NCD is defense themed and Nato themed, not that the pictures aren't of atrocities.

NATO “defence” 🍆 ✊

Fuck. That is wild. The Nazis just changed uniforms.

NCD is not about "defence" it's about war and the glorification of weapons used to murder children. At best it's ironic and incredibly tasteless, more realistically, they're just a bunch of bloodthirsty fascists hiding behind irony for plausible deniability.

In OP are images of what NATO, an organization that has never fought a defensive war in its entire existence, calls defense.

The US is not NATO. Especially now with Trump in daddy Putins pocket.

The US is not NATO

It kinda is tho. It was set up by the US to counter the Warsaw pact and prey upon neutral countries, as Blinken put it "If you're not at the table, you're on the menu". This is evidenced by every single NATO action being in the US's interest.

Especially now with Trump in daddy Putins pocket.

As funny as it would be for Trump to dismantle NATO, his only issue with it is that it doesn't do enough imperialism.

NATO is the largest Imperialist millitary coalition in the world, NCD being NATO focused directly means that it's focused on celebrating Imperialist atrocities.

Like bear arms?

Literally what the founders wanted.

Fetishizing NATO, basically.

Spreading war propaganda

The same as NAFO: shilling for the MIC

They might still cum from the top left one

Being an outsider I thought non credible defence was just memes about military things, are they specifically pro US imperialism?

A lot of excusing going on on that last panel

This was also said in a context that included a military draft

“Just following orders” etc etc.

I’m not defending that defence.

Knew exactly what scene this was before I'd even taken a good look, let alone read the text. One of my favourites, along with "I will not carry a gun, Frank".

I wish I could post this here in Australia without getting rocks from every white Australian. You can search my post history to see their reaction to questioning this.

Australia was involved in every one of those crimes. And the celebration for those meaningless murders are everywhere. Questioning this is questioning the sacrifice of Jesus.

Though by order of our north american overlords the US should not be alone in that title.

We really need to separate the trauma that formed the ANZAC legend from the fuckos of any warfare since.

My great-grandfather was an ANZAC - actual, WWI, 23rd Battalion, 16 year old. I knew him extremely well, I was sixteen when he passed. I had a front row seat to what happened to those kids for the rest of their lives.

I don't fucking venerate servicemen.

Seeing the public reaction to some of the military adjacent cases over the past few years has been incredibly disheartening (e.g. McBride)

❌Lest we forget

✅Best we forget

Text Publishing — Best We Forget: The War for White Australia, - https://www.textpublishing.com.au/books/best-we-forget-the-war-for-white-australia-1914-18

Thanks for the link. And this should be the new motto.

Or I came up with a different one. Lest we forget how some struggled to kill many for the profit of few.

And that includes the sacrosanct anzac. But that opinion can get me killed here.

I am a US veteran

Nothing makes me cringe harder than someone thanking me for my service

Even though I personally didn't do anything horrible, it's still making me remember one of the worst experiences of my life

It only seems to be a US only thing. I assume it's because the military is such a big thing for the US where other countries just see having a military almost as a chore.

gotta thank something, can't just let a stranger go about their day in peace

Thank you.

The amount of cope in this thread is astonishing. I never thought I'd see an actual person justifying killing hundreds of thousands of civilians with a straight face. But here we are

Iirc, FBI or some USA government entity convinced? coerced? Hollywood into being the propaganda department of our government sometime during WW2.

While I understand the frustration toward those critiquing military personnel, I believe we should consider the broader context of responsibility in our society. Emergency responders who assist during natural disasters deserve our appreciation, even as we examine complex institutional issues.

If we're discussing responsibility, those in technology fields must also reflect on their contributions. Many STEM professionals work for profit-driven companies developing technologies with significant societal impacts—from military applications to automation that displaces workers.

Throughout history, scientific advancement has brought both progress and devastation. The development of nuclear weapons, chemical agents, and military technology has often proceeded without adequate ethical consideration. When we examine figures like Oppenheimer or Einstein, we must acknowledge both their brilliance and the consequences of their work.

The irony isn't lost on me that many who quickly assign blame may themselves contribute to systems that concentrate power and wealth. Rather than dividing ourselves through targeted blame, perhaps we should recognize our collective responsibility for the current state of our nation.

I believe that fostering division only benefits those who already hold power. Perhaps approaching these issues with understanding rather than hate might offer a more productive path forward—even if that perspective seems idealistic in today's polarized climate.

It's almost like people, places, things, ideas and acts have good and bad consequences, foreseen and unforseen, isn't it?

Amerikkka!

ACAB includes the troops. Going to foreign countries to shoot brown kids doesn't make you any less of a bastard than doing it at home.

I don't think any cops have been drafted into police service. They also don't go to jail if they quit their job. And I haven't heard of police recruiters using predatory tactics and targeting disadvantaged groups. The military does, or has done, all of those things to recruit troops.

I don’t think any cops have been drafted into police service.

The US (which is what this meme is focusing on) has an all-volunteer force.

They also don’t go to jail if they quit their job. And I haven’t heard of police recruiters using predatory tactics and targeting disadvantaged groups. The military does, or has done, all of those things to recruit troops.

There's plenty of pro-cop propaganda and plenty of people who join the police thinking they're going to do good. I'm sorry but at some point people have to be held accountable for their actions. Any troop that's not a bastard and who's actively trying to leave should understand why I call troops bastards. It was bastards who recruited them, after all, and it's bastards keeping them there.

In any case, people make way too many excuses for these people, and all it does is reinforce the idea that it's ok, which leads to more people falling for that propaganda and those predatory tactics.

Leave it to a .ml user to ignore all context...

The US currently employs "volunteer" troops, but also requires all male citizens to register for a future draft. Many living veterans were drafted. And many others were in vulnerable situations that recruiters recognized and preyed upon. Once you join the US military, it's a crime to quit.

There is clearly some nuance needed when taking about US war veterans.

I have a question for you. If they made it a crime to leave the police until you finished a set term, would that make you object to anyone saying "ACAB?"

Casting sweeping judgments about an entire group you've never personally engaged with demonstrates remarkable presumption. There's a specific term for making such broad generalizations without firsthand knowledge, isn't there?

I'm curious—what profession grants you the authority to condemn others for circumstances largely outside their control? What position of moral superiority do you occupy that allows you to evaluate the character and choices of people whose lives and constraints you've never experienced?

Perhaps before passing judgment so confidently, it would be worth considering the complex realities and limited options many face within larger systems not of their making.

what profession grants you the authority to condemn others for circumstances largely outside their control?

You keep bringing up this point and it's entirely ad hominem and also makes bizarre, unfounded assumptions about what everyone else does.

I'm an unemployed warehouse worker with a BS in physics, I could've joined the military as an officer and made several times what I've made instead, but I didn't. But no doubt, no matter what my story was, you'd find a way to dismiss my perspective. Perhaps the fact that I had enough support from my family to afford college in the first place, even though my degree was never useful and I left burdened with loans.

But it doesn't fucking matter because regardless of my experiences, how about the experiences of people living in the countries we've invaded and bombed? You don't hear shit from those people, do you? Isn't their perspective just as valid? Have you sought out their perspectives, or even tried to consider what they might be? It's so fucking stupid to dismiss critiques of the troops just because the person saying it doesn't meet your standards of moral purity, it is, again, literally a textbook example of ad hominem. The truth is still the truth regardless of who says it. And the truth is that the troops suck.

The audacity of this argument is infuriating. It deliberately dumps the entire weight of America's foreign policy disasters onto those with the least say in the matter. This perspective serves no purpose except to create convenient scapegoats so privileged individuals can feel morally superior without doing anything to change the system.

Dividing the working class against itself is exactly what the ruling elite want. We're all trapped under the control of the same oppressors, yet somehow soldiers—many who enlisted because of economic necessity—are supposed to shoulder the blame for decisions made by politicians WE elected? It's shortsighted, cruel, and completely ignores how power actually works.

What entitled nonsense expects people who often joined the military because of limited economic options to just disobey orders and risk court martial? Easy to make these moral judgments from behind a keyboard when you're not the one facing those consequences.

The stench of moral superiority in this argument is overwhelming. If you want to criticize something, direct that energy toward the people actually calling the shots instead of those with the least amount of control. The politicians, defense contractors, and corporate interests profiting from war don't care about your philosophical arguments—they just want us fighting each other instead of them.

This whole "blame the troops" mentality accomplishes nothing except further dividing those who should be united in demanding better from our leaders and our system. It's not just wrong—it's counterproductive.

Do you apply the same perspective to people who escape poverty by selling crack or scamming the elderly? Do I need to refrain from criticizing such people because otherwise I'm "dividing the working class?" Absurd. The only difference between those people and the troops are the proximity of their victims. Defending drug dealers and scammers is what divides the working class by alienating their victims. And in the same way, defending the child murdering troops divides the working class by alienating their victims.

You lecture me on "privilege" while completely writing off all the people who are vastly less privileged than either of us, the people who are orders of magnitude poorer and less privileged, who face terror and brutality beyond what either of us, or any US troop, can expect to face. Every troop had the option to spend their days as I have, working at places like Amazon, with a roof over their head, three square meals a day, and no worry about bombs falling on their house. Relatively speaking, that is a privilege, compared to the conditions that Iraqis and Afghans have experienced.

Working class solidarity means international solidarity, and international solidarity means not only considering the needs of the global poor, but prioritizing them. If you claim to be a leftist, if you claim to care about privilge, and if you condemn Americans who screw over other Americans to get ahead, then you should even more vehmantly condemn Americans who screw over people from poorer countries to get ahead. You are just a chauvanist, the reason you defend the troops is because you view their victims as subhuman, unworthy of consideration.

This "working class solidarity" that somehow includes troops that murder working class people in other countries, does it also include cops who murder working class people in their own country? Or are they not included because you can actually recognize their victims as human beings? Surely "working class solidarity" cannot include working class people who actively oppress and harm other working class people, like cops, troops, con artists, etc.

This critique shows a profound disconnection from reality. Comparing military service to working at Amazon reveals someone who's never faced the economic deserts that exist in many rural and impoverished communities. In countless American towns, there is no Amazon warehouse, no stable employment options, and limited educational pathways. The military often represents the only viable escape route from generational poverty.

It's remarkably privileged to assume everyone has access to the same opportunities. Many join the military precisely because companies like Amazon haven't reached their communities, or because they need immediate access to healthcare, housing, and education that other paths don't provide. These aren't abstract philosophical considerations—they're immediate survival decisions made under severe constraints.

The argument completely misses how military recruitment deliberately targets economically vulnerable communities. It's not coincidence that recruitment centers cluster in impoverished areas while being noticeably absent from wealthy neighborhoods.

Painting complex issues in such black-and-white terms might satisfy someone's moral superiority, but it does nothing to address the systems that create these impossible choices in the first place. Real solidarity means addressing the conditions that make military service one of the few viable options for so many working-class Americans, not condemning those trapped in these systems with few alternatives.

Replace every instance of "joining the military" with "becoming a police officer," or "selling crack," or "scamming the elderly," or "scabbing on striking workers." Do the same arguments apply? Yes or no.

Hunger and survival instinct are strong. I know very few who could overcome them willingly. I'm not saying it can't be done, just that it takes a very trained mind and will to do so that very few have.

Not a yes or a no.

There is no "solidarity" to be had with people who kill or severely harm members of the working class. If you pull others down to get ahead, you are not my comrade.

Every time a person chooses that path, they create even more desperate situations for other working class people. The people who join the military to "escape poverty" force others into poverty in the process, and they force them into situations worse than poverty. How many people became mujahideen because all they had to put food on the table was a gun? And how many people are growing up not only in poverty, but also as orphans, because of the troops' actions?

This is complete insanity. If we can excuse the actions of the troops, then we can excuse the actions of anyone. Maybe Jeffery Epstein just did the things he did because of how he was raised, or because of his brain chemistry, or because of this or because of that. Regardless, he still needs to be condemned and failure to condemn him is a disservice to his victims, and alienates people who could actually be valuable allies.

Everyone understands this when it comes to other "professions" like the ones I mentioned, that pull others down to get ahead. But when it comes to troops, troop worship is so ingrained, the propaganda so deep, that even when people consciously reject it, they still want to justify and make excuses for them. Rationally speaking, if you accept that we should condemn those other professions, and you accept that troops are just as bad if not worse, then you should condemn them in just as strong terms.

Apologies. I could have explained my reasoning. Many would look upon my living conditions as not good, but not abject. I've been extremely privileged in that I've turned down not great-paying jobs because while trained in them, I found them morally objectionable. I'm close to old age than not. I've been fortunate to have had some help. And if I didn't? Would I spend my last twenty on a few meals or a bit of crack to rerock to sell for profit, buy a little more, rinse and repeat? I'd love to say I'd take the moral high road. I still have extra weight, you know?

I trust the universe and I trust myself. Plus it's highly likely that at this late hour, any addict would likely be highly suspicious if I suddenly started trying to sell dope. I'm acknowledging there are things we see and are unable to see at various vantage points. Your post just prompted questions to which it's easy to say I'd this things and not the other, from this vantage point. Perhaps later in life I'll have attained a point with more or less ability to see clearly. We hope and trust, potentialities are infinite -- in every imaginable direction.

This makes accountability neither more nor less important. Just an observation.

Is that the best argument you can come up with? No wonder we lost the election.

Military and police are the two arms of the state that enforce the will of the ruling class. Police do it internally, and military externally.

When we discuss responsibility, we should consider it comprehensively. Scientists and engineers who developed chemical weapons and nuclear bombs made conscious choices about their work, yet they rarely face the same scrutiny as soldiers who carry out orders. Is this because educational privilege somehow absolves responsibility? Why do we focus our criticism on those with fewer options rather than those who designed the systems?

The hypocrisy evident in some IT professionals' comments deserves acknowledgment. Many work for profit-driven corporations that extract wealth, exploit resources, or develop technologies with questionable impacts. Before casting judgment on others, perhaps we should examine our own contributions to systems we criticize.

Every professional should consider their role in larger structures of power. The soldier following orders and the programmer writing code for a corporation that avoids taxes or exploits workers both operate within systems larger than themselves. The difference often lies in who society chooses to blame, not in who bears actual responsibility.

Rather than directing our frustration toward individuals with limited choices, perhaps we should focus on the institutions and power structures that create these ethical dilemmas in the first place.

Someone else mentioned in this thread that after WWII, Carl Jaspers wrote Die Schuldfrage (The Question of German Guilt) which discussed and categorized guilt broadly into 4 types. In terms of the people carrying out these orders, moral guilt applies: to act on clearly morally wrong orders does not absolve you of guilt.

I think your comments are obfuscating the role of each of these professions in their proximity to power.

Above all the jobs you mention, soldiers are the closest to power mainly because they hold a device designed for only 1 purpose: to end life. They may be performing this role out of financial necessity, but many still have the ability to avoid killing. In Vietnam, if one couldn’t dodge the draft, there were still many ways to avoid killing. Sure, they may be in a difficult position, but that doesn’t mean they don’t have agency every day to find ways to not kill.

Regarding critique, we can do 2 things at once. We can both be critical of the systems that perpetuate violence and also critical of people who choose to make a career out of taking people’s lives. Sustained pressure (including negative social pressure) applied to both areas can be important. I’d argue that stigmatizing a profession is a necessary step in critiquing and eventually dismantling power.

The classification of guilt into rigid categories overlooks the complexity of human experience in war. While Jaspers' framework offers conceptual clarity, it fails to account for the layered psychological, socioeconomic, and institutional factors that shape individual choice.

Regarding proximity to power, soldiers are often the furthest from decision-making authority, not the closest. They execute policies determined by civilian leadership and high-ranking officials who rarely face the same moral hazards. The weapon a soldier carries represents their vulnerability to those power structures rather than their proximity to power itself.

The assertion that soldiers "make a career out of taking lives" fundamentally mischaracterizes military service. Most service members never fire their weapons in combat, instead performing logistics, medical care, engineering, and humanitarian functions. This reductive view erases the complex motivations that lead people to service, including family tradition, educational opportunity, and genuine belief in protecting others.

The argument about agency overlooks how military indoctrination, threat of court martial, and combat stress systematically work to eliminate meaningful choice. The social psychology of unit cohesion and institutional pressure create conditions where theoretical agency bears little resemblance to practical freedom of action.

Rather than stigmatizing individuals who often come from marginalized communities with limited economic options, meaningful critique should focus on the systems that create conditions for war and the civilian leadership that authorizes it. Targeting those with the least power in the system perpetuates class divisions while protecting those truly responsible for military action.

True systemic change requires recognizing that moral responsibility increases with power and freedom of choice, not decreasing it as one moves down the chain of command.

Your labyrinthine prose coils around the heart of the matter like ivy choking a statue—ornate, suffocating, yet failing to obscure the inscription beneath. Let us parse this carefully. You speak of soldiers as vessels of vulnerability, mere marionettes twitching to the whims of distant civilian oligarchs. But does the rifle in their hands not pulse with a kind of power? A power distilled, singular, terminal? To claim they are ‘furthest from decision-making’ is to conflate authority with action. The janitor who sweeps the floor of a death camp does not design the gas chambers, but his broom still enables the machinery. The soldier, even the one stitching wounds or calibrating drones, is a node in the network of violence. Their labor, however benign in isolation, sustains the engine. To absolve them by citing ‘marginalized origins’ is to infantilize them—to deny their capacity for moral reckoning amid the storm.

You invoke complexity as a shield, as if the interplay of socioeconomic forces renders individuals ethereal, weightless. But history is littered with those who, amid greater oppression, clawed at their agency. The Vietnam draft dodger who feigned madness, the conscientious objector who chose prison over complicity—were these not choices carved from the same granite of systemic cruelty you describe? To say ‘they had no meaningful freedom’ is to erase their humanity, to reduce them to thermodynamic particles in a fatalistic universe.

And your deflection—‘most never fire a weapon’—is a syllogistic sleight-of-hand. The medic who stabilizes a soldier for redeployment, the engineer who fortifies a base, the clerk who files the orders: all are cogs in the same Leviathan. The institution’s purpose is domination, and to don its uniform is to be baptized into its logic. You speak of ‘family tradition’ and ‘educational opportunity’ as motivations, but when does a reason become an excuse? The banker laundering cartel money might cite his child’s tuition—does that nullify his guilt?

Ah, but you retreat to abstraction: ‘Moral responsibility increases with power!’ A tidy formula, yet it crumbles under the weight of its own idealism. The CEO’s order is lethal, yes, but only insofar as the warehouse worker packs the drone, the marketer brands it ‘defensive,’ and the soldier pulls the trigger. Responsibility is not a finite resource to be hoarded by the elite; it is a fractal, repeating at every scale. To focus solely on the architects is to ignore the bricklayers who, brick by brick, erect the edifice.

You accuse me of ‘stigmatizing the powerless,’ but power is not a binary. It is a gradient, a spectrum of complicity. The draftee trembling in a trench has more agency than the general, perhaps, but less than the senator—yet all are agents. To critique the soldier is not to exonerate the senator. It is to say that moral gravity bends around every choice, however constrained. To dismiss this is to surrender to nihilism—to say no one is culpable because everyone is a victim.

And let us be clear: stigmatizing the profession is not vilifying the person. It is a refusal to sanctify the mantle they wear. When we strip the uniform of its honor, we do not attack the soul beneath—we attack the lie that the uniform is honorable. This is how systems fracture: when their myths are unmasked, when their foot soldiers begin to question the hymns they’ve been taught to sing.

So no, I will not lobotomize my critique to soothe the conscience of those who fear nuance. The drone pilot in Nevada, the programmer optimizing surveillance algorithms, the corporal raising his rifle—they all dance on the same precipice. Some leap; some hesitate; some shut their eyes. But to pretend they aren’t standing on the edge? That is the true obfuscation.

Your argument collapses under the weight of its own philosophical pretensions. You construct an elegant theoretical framework of distributed responsibility that, while intellectually satisfying, fails to engage with the lived reality of power dynamics in modern military structures.

The comparison between a soldier and "the janitor who sweeps the floor of a death camp" reveals the fundamental flaw in your reasoning. This false equivalence ignores crucial distinctions of contextual awareness, historical understanding, and institutional transparency. Today's military personnel operate within systems far more ambiguous than your stark metaphor suggests. The moral clarity you demand exists primarily in retrospect, not in the moment of decision.

Your invocation of Vietnam draft dodgers and conscientious objectors as exemplars of moral agency betrays a privileged perspective. These exceptional cases required specific social, economic, and cultural capital that many service members simply do not possess. To elevate these outliers as the standard against which all others should be measured is to fundamentally misunderstand how structural forces constrain genuine choice.

The "fractal" theory of responsibility you propose sounds profound but ultimately atomizes blame to the point of meaninglessness. If everyone bears equal moral weight regardless of their position, then responsibility becomes so diffuse that it loses practical significance. This approach doesn't enhance accountability—it undermines it by refusing to acknowledge the exponential difference between ordering an airstrike and maintaining the equipment that enables it.

Most problematically, your framework offers no path forward beyond condemnation. What actionable change does your philosophy propose? How does stigmatizing individual service members advance structural reform? Your position satisfies intellectual critique but offers nothing toward practical transformation of the systems you criticize.

The moral purity you demand requires perfect information and perfect agency—neither of which exists in reality. Your argument creates a false binary between complete absolution and total condemnation, leaving no room for the complex terrain where most moral decisions actually occur. This absolutist approach doesn't elevate discourse; it paralyzes it.

In your zealous pursuit of distributed blame, you've constructed a theory that, ironically, serves the very power structures you claim to oppose. By focusing moral scrutiny on those with relatively limited influence rather than concentrating pressure on decision-makers with genuine authority, you effectively diffuse accountability upward while intensifying judgment downward.

Your rebuttal confuses moral ambiguity for moral absolution, mistaking the fog of institutional complexity for a blank check of compliance. Let me illuminate the distinction. The janitor analogy was never about equating modern service members with Holocaust perpetrators—it was about demonstrating how proximity to harm obligates moral reckoning, regardless of institutional remove. A drone pilot operating under today’s bureaucratic veneer may lack the visceral awareness of a death camp worker, but they still choose to participate in systems they know produce civilian casualties. To claim otherwise insults their intelligence. They understand the mission statements, the after-action reports, the veterans’ stories. Ignorance in an age of information is cultivated, not inevitable.

You dismiss draft resistance as a privilege of the few, yet this only underscores how systems weaponize precarity to ensure compliance. That some lacked the means to resist does not render their service morally neutral—it indicts the structures that make dissent a luxury. Shall we absolve all participants in exploitative systems because escape wasn’t universally possible? Then no colonial foot soldier could ever be condemned, no sweatshop overseer held accountable. Your logic collapses into a nihilistic void where only the supremely privileged bear moral burdens—a perverse inversion of justice.

As for your derision of “fractal responsibility”: you fear it dilutes accountability, but in truth, it demands more rigor. The CEO who orders a drone strike and the mechanic who maintains it are both guilty, but not equally. Guilt scales with power, yes—but it does not vanish at the base of the hierarchy. The Nuremberg Trials judged not just politicians but industrialists, physicians, bureaucrats. To focus solely on architects is to ignore that oppression requires laborers—willing or coerced—to function. Your framework would let the architect hide behind the bricklayers, the general behind the privates.

You demand “actionable solutions” as if critique must birth policy bulletins to be valid. But stigma is action. Dismantling the cultural mythos of military heroism reduces recruitment. Refusing to sanctify uniforms forces societies to confront what those uniforms actually do. Engineers abandoning defense contracts, journalists exposing procurement corruption, soldiers leaking atrocity footage—these ripple from the cultural soil tilled by critique.

And spare me the theatrics about “paralyzing discourse.” Moral clarity is not the enemy of nuance—it is its foundation. You frame my position as a demand for moral purity, but I argue for proportionality. The draftee who surrenders to a broken system bears less blame than the career officer who thrives within it, yet both bear some. To pretend otherwise is to endorse a world where slaughter is licensed so long as enough hands touch the knife.

Finally, your accusation that I “serve power structures” by scrutinizing low-level actors is a breathtaking feat of projection. It is your worldview that protects the powerful by insisting blame pools exclusively at the top. The senator who votes for war appropriations sleeps soundly when society fixates solely on their role. No—pressure must ascend and descend the chain. Guilt is not a finite resource. We can condemn the contractor who builds border wall concrete while also damning the president who ordered it.

Your fear of moral expansiveness is really a fear of true accountability—one that unsettles all strata of complicity. You call it paralysis. I call it coherence.

Your rebuttal constructs an elegant philosophical framework that, while intellectually stimulating, fundamentally misaligns with the practical realities of power, agency, and responsibility in modern military structures.

The janitor analogy fails not because it compares soldiers to Holocaust perpetrators, but because it falsely equates awareness levels across vastly different contexts. Today's military personnel operate within deliberately opaque systems designed to fragment responsibility and obscure consequences. Many serve without direct exposure to the outcomes of their collective actions—not through willful ignorance, but through institutional compartmentalization that purposefully distances them from the full implications of their roles.

When you dismiss economic necessity as merely "weaponized precarity," you reveal a profound disconnect from the lived experience of the working class. For many, military service represents not a moral choice but survival—access to healthcare, education, housing stability, and escape from environments with few alternatives. These aren't abstract considerations; they're immediate material realities that shape decision-making more powerfully than philosophical ideals ever could.

Your "fractal responsibility" concept sounds profound but ultimately atomizes blame to the point of practical meaninglessness. By insisting everyone bears some measure of guilt, you create a system where accountability becomes so diffuse it loses any practical force. This approach doesn't enhance justice—it undermines it by refusing to acknowledge the exponential difference between authorizing an intervention and maintaining equipment that enables it.

Most troublingly, your framework offers no path forward beyond condemnation. What concrete change does your philosophy propose? How does stigmatizing service members advance structural reform? You claim "stigma is action," but history shows otherwise. Cultural rejection of Vietnam veterans didn't end American militarism—it merely isolated those who served while leaving power structures intact. Real change comes through political organization, policy reform, and coalition-building—not moral gatekeeping.

The moral clarity you champion requires perfect information and perfect agency—neither of which exists in reality. Your position creates a false binary between complete absolution and comprehensive guilt, leaving no room for the complex terrain where most moral decisions actually occur. This absolutist approach doesn't elevate discourse; it forecloses it.

In your zeal to distribute responsibility downward, you've constructed a philosophy that, paradoxically, serves the very power structures you claim to oppose. By disproportionately focusing moral scrutiny on those with relatively limited influence rather than concentrating pressure on decision-makers with genuine authority, you effectively diffuse accountability while intensifying judgment on those least positioned to resist systemic imperatives.

Your fixation on "practical realities" is itself a surrender to those realities—a capitulation to the notion that systems are too vast, too opaque, to demand individual accountability. Let us dissect this. You claim soldiers lack awareness of consequences due to institutional compartmentalization, but this assumes moral negligence is excusable if engineered efficiently. The drone operator who never sees their victims still knows their joystick commands a Reaper, not a toy. The technician troubleshooting missile guidance systems understands their work enables precision strikes, not crop dusting. Obfuscation is a feature of the machine, yes, but complicity requires active participation in maintaining that machine. To confuse structural opacity with individual innocence is to confuse fog for absolution.

Ah, but the economic argument—always the last refuge. You frame enlistment as "survival," reducing moral agency to a calculus of desperation. Yet this ignores that survival itself is a spectrum. The 18-year-old enlisting to escape poverty makes a different calculation than the contractor renewing their clearance for a third deployment bonus. Both choose to perpetuate the system, but only one faces true precarity. To flatten all service members into victims of circumstance is to erase the hierarchy of choice within the very structures you defend. The working class deserves more than your paternalism—they deserve recognition as moral actors, capable of questioning the systems that exploit them.

Your dismissal of fractal responsibility as "atomized blame" again reveals your discomfort with nuance. No one claims the mechanic bears equal guilt to the general—only that both bear some. Proportionality is key. The janitor who sweeps the death camp floor is less culpable than the architect, but still complicit. To deny this is to argue that oppression requires only a single guilty mind to function, rather than a constellation of choices. The Vietnam War did not persist solely through LBJ’s orders but through the collective acquiescence of manufacturers, recruiters, and yes, soldiers. Scrutinizing one layer does not preclude scrutinizing others—it demands it.

You ask, sneering, how stigmatization aids reform. Let me educate you. Stigma is not cruelty—it is the withdrawal of social license. When society stops valorizing military service as noble by default, recruitment declines. When engineers face scorn for designing surveillance tech, talent flees the sector. When the VA hospital nurse is asked, "How many civilians did you 'save' by stabilizing bomb-makers?" the mythology of heroism cracks. This is not about shaming individuals but dismantling the cultural infrastructure that makes perpetual war palatable. Your beloved "political solutions" are inert without cultural shift—the Civil Rights Act didn’t spring from legislative goodwill but from decades of stigma levied against segregationists.

Your Vietnam analogy is telling. You claim stigmatizing veterans failed, but you misdiagnose the failure. The error wasn’t critique—it was directing that critique at traumatized conscripts rather than the war machine itself. We must stigmatize the institution, not the broken individuals it discards. The anti-war movement’s flaw was compassion misplaced, not principle misapplied.

As for your "false binary" accusation—projection, as ever. You are the one insisting we must either condemn the architect or the laborer, as if moral gravity cannot hold both. I reject this scarcity mindset. The drone pilot’s choices matter because the general’s do. Guilt is multiplicative, not competitive. The ICC indicts warlords and child soldiers because both, in their measure, fuel conflict. Your worldview—that accountability is a zero-sum game—is what truly protects power. It whispers to the CEO: "Fear not; they’ll only come for the low-level engineers."

Finally, your concern for the "working class" rings hollow. True solidarity isn’t absolving the poor of moral scrutiny—it’s demanding they not be used as cannon fodder in wars serving oligarchs. To say they "have no choice" is to doom them to perpetual serfdom in the empire’s engine room. I propose something radical: that even the desperate retain shards of agency, and that treating them as moral infants—incapable of resistance, unfit for critique—is the true elitism. The Black GI who fragged his racist commander in Vietnam, the Chelsea Manning who leaked atrocity footage, the Edward Snowden who exposed mass surveillance: these were not Ivy idealists. They were cogs who chose to jam the gears.

Your plea for "practicality" is just fear of friction. All revolution begins as philosophy—as stigma, as refusal, as inconvenient questions. You want tidy solutions? Start here: stop sanctifying killers, and you’ll get fewer of them.

Your argument displays a remarkable detachment from the material conditions that shape human choice. It's easy to preach moral absolutism from a position where those choices remain theoretical rather than survival imperatives.

This fixation on individual moral purity—as if people exist in vacuums untethered from systems—reveals a fundamentally privileged perspective. You speak of drone operators and technicians with such certainty about their moral obligations while conveniently ignoring how economic conscription functions as the military's primary recruitment strategy. The working-class teenager from a town with 40% unemployment and no prospects isn't making the same "choice" as your philosophical thought experiment suggests.

Your "spectrum of survival" acknowledges different levels of choice but then immediately dismisses them as irrelevant to moral judgment. This reveals the contradiction at your argument's core: you recognize systemic constraints only to discard them when they complicate your narrative. The career soldier who reenlists after experiencing combat makes a different choice than the contractor seeking deployment bonuses, who makes a different choice than the recruit fleeing poverty. These distinctions matter precisely because moral responsibility cannot be divorced from genuine agency.

The most revealing aspect of your argument is the historical amnesia it requires. You invoke Vietnam's anti-war movement as evidence that stigma works, yet ignore that much of that movement's power came from conscripted soldiers themselves—working-class youth who returned to organize against the war. Their credibility came from having been inside the system, not from being morally pure outsiders casting judgment. By demonizing all participation, you alienate the very people whose rebellion could most effectively challenge military institutions.

Your fractal responsibility concept sounds sophisticated but proves practically useless. If everyone bears some guilt, then guilt becomes meaningless as an organizing principle. The janitor who swept the death camp floor isn't morally equivalent to the guard who pushed people into gas chambers, and pretending otherwise trivializes true atrocity. Moral judgment requires proportionality and context, not absolutism that treats all complicity as essentially the same.

Most tellingly, you repeatedly use examples of privileged resistance—Manning, Snowden—as evidence that all service members could make similar choices. Yet you conveniently ignore that these individuals had exceptional access to information, technical skills, and in some cases, supportive networks that made their resistance possible. They are exceptions that prove the rule: meaningful resistance requires resources and opportunities that most service members simply don't possess.

Your critique ultimately serves no one—not the civilians harmed by military action, not the working-class people trapped in systems of violence, not even the cause of peace. It satisfies only the speaker's need for moral superiority while offering no viable path toward structural change.

The insistence that systemic opacity erases moral awareness is itself a weapon of that system—a seductive lie that confuses compartmentalization for innocence. The drone pilot may not see the toddler incinerated by their Hellfire, but they know the missile’s purpose isn’t philanthropy. Institutional fog does not absolve; it presupposes complicity, relying on participants to accept fragmentation as exoneration. To claim soldiers “lack exposure to consequences” is to ignore the voluminous after-action reports, the veteran testimonies, the very public debates about civilian casualties. Ignorance in the information age is a cultivated posture, not an inevitability.

You romanticize enlistment as purely economic desperation, reducing complex moral agents to survival automatons. But this infantilizes the working class you claim to defend. Yes, poverty funnels people into uniform—but so do recruitment ads selling glory, family legacies of service, even the thrill of weaponized masculinity. To flatten enlistment into mere survival is to deny the interplay of coercion and choice. The 19-year-old joining for college funds makes a different calculation than the contractor re-upping for a reenlistment bonus. Both perpetuate the machine, but only one faces true precarity. Moral scrutiny isn’t cruelty—it’s respect, a demand that we recognize their capacity to question the system that exploits them.

Fractal responsibility doesn’t “atomize” blame—it calibrates it. The mechanic servicing a bomber isn’t as guilty as the general who orders its deployment, but neither is they innocent. Nuremberg condemned industrialists alongside officers because systems require collusion at multiple tiers. Your framework, which quarantines guilt to the top, is a gift to power: it tells the CEO, “Only your underlings will face scrutiny,” and whispers to the soldier, “You’re a pawn, unworthy of moral consideration.” True justice scales accountability to agency—it does not vanish it.

You demand “concrete change” while dismissing stigma’s catalytic role. Cultural condemnation isn’t an end—it’s a means. When society stops valorizing military service, recruitment stalls. When engineers face scorn for optimizing kill-chains, talent fleeds the sector. When the VA nurse is asked, “How many insurgents did you stabilize today?” the mythology of heroism crumbles. Your fetish for “practical” policy ignores that laws follow cultural shifts, not precede them. The Civil Rights Act didn’t spring from legislative goodwill but from decades of stigmatizing segregationists.

Vietnam proves nothing but your own misreading. The error wasn’t critiquing service—it was directing that critique at conscripts instead of the war machine itself. Stigmatizing the uniform, not the wearer, is the goal. When we shame the institution, not its conscripts, we drain its moral capital.

Your “false binary” charge is projection. You—not I—insist we must choose between condemning architects or laborers. I reject this. The drone pilot’s choices matter because the senator’s do. Guilt isn’t zero-sum; it accretes. The ICC prosecutes warlords and child soldiers because both sustain conflict. To absolve one is to empower the other.

Finally, your concern for the “working class” is paternalism masquerading as solidarity. True allyship isn’t absolving the poor of moral reckoning—it’s refusing to let them be cannon fodder. To say they “lack agency” is to doom them to perpetual serfdom. The GI who leaks war crimes, the Snowden who exposes surveillance—these aren’t philosophers. They’re proof that even the desperate retain shards of choice. Your worldview—that only the privileged can afford ethics—is the true elitism.

You call my stance impractical. I call yours complicit. Revolutions begin when the exploited stop rationalizing their exploitation—when stigma becomes the spark, not the suffocation.

Your argument builds an elaborate philosophical castle on foundations of privileged abstraction. You speak with such certainty about moral obligations while showing profound disconnection from the material realities that shape actual human choices.

This preoccupation with individual moral purity—as if people exist outside systems—betrays an essentially privileged worldview. You characterize military recruitment as a simple moral choice rather than acknowledging it as the end result of deliberate policy decisions that create economic deserts in rural and low-income communities. When the military represents the only viable path to healthcare, education, and stable housing in countless American towns, framing enlistment as a purely moral decision rather than economic survival reveals remarkable detachment from reality.

Your accusation that I "infantilize" the working class is particularly telling. I recognize their agency within constraints; you demand they shoulder moral burdens without acknowledging those constraints. Which perspective truly respects their humanity? The teenager from a town with 40% unemployment and no community college isn't making the same "choice" as your philosophical thought experiment assumes. True respect isn't demanding moral purity from those with fewest options—it's acknowledging the systems designed to limit their choices while fighting to expand them.

The fractal responsibility concept you champion sounds sophisticated but proves practically unhelpful. If everyone bears some guilt, then guilt becomes meaningless as an organizing principle. The mechanic servicing aircraft isn't making policy decisions about their deployment. Recognizing this distinction isn't "quarantining guilt"—it's acknowledging reality. True accountability must be proportional to both knowledge and power; otherwise, we're simply reassigning blame downward to protect those truly responsible for policy decisions.

Most revealing is your romanticization of resistance. You cite whistleblowers as evidence that "even the desperate retain shards of choice" while ignoring the exceptional circumstances that made their actions possible. Manning and Snowden had rare access to information, technical knowledge, and positions that enabled their resistance. To suggest their examples prove all service members could make similar choices is to fundamentally misunderstand how structural power operates.

Your insistence that "stigma is a catalyst" ignores the distinction between stigmatizing institutions and demonizing individuals. Effective movements for military reform have always embraced veterans as crucial allies precisely because they understand the system from within. By demanding moral purity from all participants, you alienate the very people whose experience and credibility could most effectively challenge military institutions.

The irony is that your approach, which claims moral superiority, ultimately serves the status quo. By focusing moral scrutiny downward rather than upward, you divert attention from those with genuine power to create change—policymakers, defense contractors, and the voting public that enables them—and instead target those with the least decision-making authority. True solidarity means addressing the conditions that make military service one of the only viable paths for so many Americans, not condemning those trapped within systems they didn't create.

Your rebuttal is a masterclass in conflating material constraint with moral exemption, blending pathos with logical slippage. Let’s dissect:

  1. The Privilege Paradox
    You frame my insistence on moral agency as “privileged abstraction” while positioning yourself as the arbiter of working-class reality. This is paternalism disguised as solidarity. To claim poverty negates moral capacity is to reduce the oppressed to instinct-driven animals, not complex humans capable of ethical reflection. Yes, systemic coercion funnels people into the military—but to say they lack all choice is to deny the countless working-class resistors throughout history. The Black Panthers, the GI coffeehouse organizers, the Appalachian draft counselors—these weren’t Ivy elites. They were poor people who chose defiance. Your narrative erases them to sustain your fatalism.

  2. Fractal Responsibility ≠ Equal Guilt
    You misrepresent fractal accountability as “meaningless guilt,” a classic strawman. No one claims the mechanic shares equal blame with the general. We assert they share complicity in differing degrees. Nuremberg’s prosecutors didn’t equate IG Farben chemists with Hitler—they tried both, sentencing accordingly. To dismiss all layered culpability is to endorse the myth that oppression requires only villains, not collaborators.

  3. The Whistleblower Dodge
    You dismiss Manning and Snowden as “exceptions” to absolve the majority. But exceptions disprove your determinism. They prove that even under duress, moral choice persists. Were their actions rare? Yes. Difficult? Profoundly. But their existence refutes your claim that systemic coercion annihilates agency. Your logic suggests we shouldn’t praise any act of courage because most people conform—a surrender to moral mediocrity.

  4. The False Binary of Stigma
    You pit “stigmatizing institutions” against “demonizing individuals,” another strawman. The two are inextricable. To stigmatize the military as an institution requires condemning its function—which necessitates critiquing those who perpetuate it, however reluctantly. This isn’t about “purity”; it’s about refusing to valorize participation in imperialism. Your plea to “embrace veterans as allies” presumes they cannot be both victims and complicit—a nuance my framework allows. Veterans can critique the machine they served while acknowledging their role in it. See Rory Fanning, who left the Army Rangers and became an anti-war activist.

  5. The Futility Gambit
    Your “status quo” accusation inverts reality. By quarantining blame to policymakers, you protect the system’s foundation: the myth of passive foot soldiers. Power doesn’t reside solely in the Oval Office—it’s reproduced daily by millions of acquiescent actions. The Vietnam War ended not just because Nixon faced protests, but because draft resistance, GI mutinies, and desertions crippled the war effort. Change requires pressure at all levels.

  6. The Myth of “Either/Or” Reform
    You present policy change and cultural critique as opposites—a false dilemma. They’re symbiotic. The draft wasn’t abolished by congressional benevolence but by mass resistance that made conscription politically untenable. Similarly, defunding the military-industrial complex requires both legislative action and a culture that rejects militarism. Stigma isn’t the end—it’s the spark.

  7. The Poverty of “No Alternatives”
    You fixate on enlistment as the “only viable path” for the poor, but this fatalism ensures no alternatives emerge. Why not ask why the U.S. offers more funding for bombers than for rural schools? My critique doesn’t attack the enlistee—it attacks the system that makes enlistment a “choice” at all. Demanding better options requires first rejecting the legitimacy of the current ones.

  8. The Coercion Canard
    You conflate coercion with compulsion. Poverty limits choices; it doesn’t erase them. The 18-year-old who enlists to feed their family still chooses to prioritize their survival over others’. This doesn’t make them a monster—it makes them a moral agent whose decision warrants sober scrutiny, not blanket absolution. To say otherwise is to reduce ethics to a vending machine: insert desperation, receive exoneration.

Conclusion: The Luxury of Low Expectations

Your entire argument rests on a patronizing premise: that the working class is too besieged to bear ethical consideration. This isn’t solidarity—it’s condescension. True allyship means holding people capable of moral courage, even (especially) when systems seek to crush it. To lower the bar for the oppressed is to deny them full humanity. Revolutions aren’t won by those who see only constraints—they’re won by those who, even in chains, find ways to rattle them.

Your argument presents an elegant theoretical framework that fails to engage with actual lived reality. You've constructed an elaborate philosophical position that works perfectly in the abstract but crumbles when confronted with how power and choice actually function in people's lives.

When you accuse me of "conflating material constraint with moral exemption," you're setting up a false dichotomy. Acknowledging how systems limit choice isn't denying moral agency—it's recognizing its realistic boundaries. The working class isn't a monolith, and resistance movements throughout history represent exceptional circumstances, not the norm. For every GI coffeehouse organizer or draft counselor you mention, thousands more faced no meaningful alternative to service. Their existence doesn't invalidate systemic analysis; it highlights how rare successful resistance is within oppressive structures.

Your fractal accountability concept remains problematic not because it acknowledges varying degrees of complicity, but because it offers no practical framework for determining where responsibility meaningfully begins and ends. The Nuremberg comparison actually undermines your position—those trials focused primarily on leadership and those who enacted atrocities, not on every person who participated in the German war machine. They recognized that meaningful accountability requires proportionality and focus.

The whistleblower examples continue to miss the point. Manning and Snowden don't simply represent "rare courage"—they had specific access, technical knowledge, and supportive networks that made their actions possible. Their existence doesn't prove universal moral agency; it demonstrates how exceptional circumstances sometimes create openings for resistance. Most service members lack comparable opportunities for meaningful dissent.

Your rejection of the distinction between stigmatizing institutions and individuals reveals the fundamental flaw in your approach. Effective movements for military reform have always distinguished between systems and those caught within them. Veterans who become anti-war activists don't typically start by condemning their former comrades—they focus on the policies and leadership that created unjust wars. This isn't about "valorizing participation"; it's about strategic effectiveness in creating change.

What you frame as "fatalism" is actually pragmatism. Recognizing the severe constraints on working-class choices doesn't mean accepting those constraints—it means understanding what we're actually fighting against. Rather than demanding individual moral perfection from those with the fewest options, we should focus on dismantling the systems that limit those options in the first place.

Your position ultimately demands moral heroism from those with the least power while offering little concrete vision for how to create the alternatives you claim to want. The question isn't whether people retain some theoretical sliver of moral agency despite overwhelming constraints—it's how we build movements that actually create more just systems rather than merely condemning those trapped within existing ones.

Your rebuttal rests on several conflations that demand clarification.

You claim systemic analysis and individual accountability are incompatible, but this is a false divide. To recognize how poverty funnels people into militarism does not require absolving their participation in it. Acknowledging coercion is not exoneration—it’s contextualization. The working-class recruit and the defense contractor both perpetuate the machine, but through differing degrees of agency. Moral scrutiny need not be all-or-nothing; it can—and must—scale with power and choice.

The dismissal of historical resistors as “exceptions” misunderstands their purpose. Exceptions disprove inevitability. They reveal cracks in the system, not its invincibility. To say we shouldn’t celebrate Underground Railroad conductors because most enslaved people couldn’t escape would be absurd. Their rarity doesn’t negate their moral significance—it underscores the brutality of the structures that made rebellion so perilous.

Your Nuremberg analogy falters upon closer inspection. While leadership was prioritized, the trials explicitly rejected the “just following orders” defense, convicting bureaucrats, doctors, and industrialists who enabled atrocities. The lesson was clear: systems of oppression require collusion at multiple levels. To focus solely on policymakers is to ignore the ecosystem of complicity that sustains them.

Regarding whistleblowers: Manning and Snowden were not elites. They were low-level operatives whose choices, while exceptional, disprove the notion that dissent requires privilege. Most service members encounter ethical red flags; few act. This isn’t to condemn all who stay silent, but to reject the claim that silence is inevitable. Moral courage is always a choice, however costly.

You argue that effective movements focus on institutions, not individuals, yet history contradicts this. The civil rights movement didn’t just target Jim Crow laws—it shamed segregationists, boycotted businesses, and made racism socially toxic. Cultural stigma and policy change are symbiotic. To exempt individuals is to sanitize activism into a bloodless abstraction.

Your “pragmatism” conflates strategy with fatalism. Yes, we must dismantle systems that weaponize poverty. But refusing to critique those systems’ participants isn’t pragmatism—it’s resignation. The anti-war movement didn’t end the draft by politely petitioning Congress. It normalized resistance: burning draft cards, sheltering deserters, stigmatizing recruitment centers. Cultural shifts are strategy.

Finally, your concern for “alienating allies” presumes veterans cannot handle nuanced critique. Many already do. Organizations like Veterans for Peace or About Face openly reckon with their past roles while condemning militarism. True solidarity trusts people to grapple with complexity—it doesn’t condescend by shielding them from tough questions.

In the end, your framework mistakes compassion for evasion. Believing in systemic change doesn’t require absolving individuals—it demands we hold both the cage and its keepers to account. Revolutions aren’t built on pity for the exploited, but on faith in their capacity to resist, even within constraints. To lower that bar isn’t kindness. It’s despair.

Your argument constructs a philosophical framework that appears coherent in theory but fails to translate into practical reality. Let me address several key misconceptions:

First, you consistently mischaracterize my position as complete moral absolution rather than proportional accountability. I've never claimed that systemic analysis requires exempting participants from moral consideration—only that responsibility must scale realistically with power, knowledge, and genuine choice. The difference between us isn't whether individuals bear responsibility, but how we calibrate that responsibility within systems deliberately designed to constrain choice.

Your invocation of historical resistors proves my point rather than refutes it. Yes, exceptions disprove inevitability—but they also demonstrate the extraordinary circumstances and consequences involved in resistance. Underground Railroad conductors risked execution to smuggle people to freedom. Draft resisters faced imprisonment. Manning served seven years in confinement. These examples don't show that moral heroism is a reasonable expectation; they illustrate its profound cost within oppressive systems.

The Nuremberg comparison actually strengthens my argument. While the trials rejected the "just following orders" defense, they primarily focused on those who created and implemented policies, not every participant in the German war machine. This demonstrates precisely the kind of proportional accountability I advocate. The trials recognized that systems of oppression require complicity at multiple levels while still distinguishing between architects and participants.

Your claims about whistleblowers continue to conflate theoretical and practical agency. Yes, Manning and Snowden were "low-level" in organizational hierarchies but had extraordinary access to information and technical capabilities most service members lack. Their actions required specific circumstances that aren't universally available. Most importantly, both paid severe prices for their choices—consequences that make such dissent practically impossible for many.

The civil rights movement example actually demonstrates strategic targeting rather than blanket condemnation. Boycotts and direct actions focused on specific businesses and visible perpetrators, not every participant in segregation. The movement understood that changing systems required pressure at strategic points, not diffuse moral judgment of everyone involved.

Your reduction of my position to "politely petitioning Congress" is a strawman. Effective movements have always balanced institutional pressure with cultural change while recognizing that meaningful transformation requires more than moral condemnation. The anti-war movement didn't end the draft through individual stigma alone but through coordinated political pressure that made the policy untenable.

Your framework ultimately mistakes moral absolutism for moral clarity. True solidarity doesn't require lowering the bar; it demands recognizing both the reality of constraints and the possibility of resistance within them. It focuses energy on dismantling systems that limit choice rather than expecting heroic moral purity from those with the fewest options. This isn't "despair"—it's strategic focus on where change actually happens.

Let’s take a different tack, because it seems like you’re not fully comprehending how much your arguments have not only shifted drastically since the beginning of this exchange, but are crumbling under their own contradictions.

Let’s hold your words side by side, while maintaining context:

You initially claimed: "Acknowledging how systems limit choice isn’t denying moral agency—it’s recognizing its realistic boundaries." Yet later, you dismissed whistleblowers as exceptions: "Manning and Snowden don’t simply represent 'rare courage'—they had specific access… that made their actions possible."

So which is it? If systemic constraints merely 'bound' agency, why frame resistance as requiring "extraordinary circumstances"? You can’t simultaneously argue that choice exists within constraints and that dissent is so exceptional it proves nothing.

You insisted: "Responsibility must scale realistically with power, knowledge, and genuine choice." But when pressed, you narrowed this to: "Nuremberg focused primarily on leadership… distinguishing between architects and participants."

Except Nuremberg did prosecute mid-tier actors—a fact you ignore to protect your hierarchy of guilt. You demand "proportionality" but define it to absolve all but elites.

You accused me of "mistaking moral absolutism for moral clarity" while arguing: "Effective movements… focus on policies, not individuals." Yet earlier, you praised the civil rights movement for "strategic targeting"—which included boycotts that shamed individual businesses and exposed specific perpetrators.

You vacillate between "systems matter, not people" and "sometimes people matter" to dodge scrutiny.

You framed enlistment as survival: "The teenager… isn’t making the same 'choice' as your philosophical thought experiment assumes." But when I noted enlistment often involves cultural factors (glory, legacy), you pivoted: "The working class deserves… recognition as moral actors."

So which is it? Are enlistees helpless victims of circumstance or moral agents capable of questioning systems? You toggle between these to avoid conceding that poverty limits—but doesn’t obliterate—choice.

You cited Nuremberg to argue "accountability requires focus"—yet ignored that the trials explicitly rejected "just following orders" even for low-ranking SS. You cherry-pick history to sanitize complicity.

You claimed: "Real change comes through political organization… not moral gatekeeping." But later admitted: "The anti-war movement… normalized draft-card burning." So suddenly, cultural stigma is part of "pragmatism"? Your definition of "practical" shifts to exclude critique when inconvenient.

Conclusion: Your argument isn’t a coherent stance—it’s a series of tactical retreats. When pressed on agency, you cite constraints. When shown resistance, you dismiss it as exceptional. When confronted with history, you cherry-pick. This isn’t systemic analysis—it’s intellectual arbitrage, exploiting ambiguity to evade hard truths. It seems that consistency is the first casualty of your philosophy.

Let’s take a different tack, because it seems like you’re not fully comprehending how much your arguments have not only shifted drastically since the beginning of this exchange, but are crumbling under their own contradictions.

Let’s hold your words side by side, while maintaining context:

You initially claimed: “Acknowledging how systems limit choice isn’t denying moral agency—it’s recognizing its realistic boundaries.” Yet later, you dismissed whistleblowers as exceptions: “Manning and Snowden don’t simply represent ‘rare courage’—they had specific access… that made their actions possible.”

So which is it? If systemic constraints merely ‘bound’ agency, why frame resistance as requiring “extraordinary circumstances”? You can’t simultaneously argue that choice exists within constraints and that dissent is so exceptional it proves nothing.

You insisted: “Responsibility must scale realistically with power, knowledge, and genuine choice.” But when pressed, you narrowed this to: “Nuremberg focused primarily on leadership… distinguishing between architects and participants.”

Except Nuremberg did prosecute mid-tier actors—a fact you ignore to protect your hierarchy of guilt. You demand “proportionality” but define it to absolve all but elites.

You accused me of “mistaking moral absolutism for moral clarity” while arguing: “Effective movements… focus on policies, not individuals.” Yet earlier, you praised the civil rights movement for “strategic targeting”—which included boycotts that shamed individual businesses and exposed specific perpetrators.

You vacillate between “systems matter, not people” and “sometimes people matter” to dodge scrutiny.

You framed enlistment as survival: “The teenager… isn’t making the same ‘choice’ as your philosophical thought experiment assumes.” But when I noted enlistment often involves cultural factors (glory, legacy), you pivoted: “The working class deserves… recognition as moral actors.”

So which is it? Are enlistees helpless victims of circumstance or moral agents capable of questioning systems? You toggle between these to avoid conceding that poverty limits—but doesn’t obliterate—choice.

You cited Nuremberg to argue “accountability requires focus”—yet ignored that the trials explicitly rejected “just following orders” even for low-ranking SS. You cherry-pick history to sanitize complicity.

You claimed: “Real change comes through political organization… not moral gatekeeping.” But later admitted: “The anti-war movement… normalized draft-card burning.” So suddenly, cultural stigma is part of “pragmatism”? Your definition of “practical” shifts to exclude critique when inconvenient.

Conclusion: Your argument isn’t a coherent stance—it’s a series of tactical retreats. When pressed on agency, you cite constraints. When shown resistance, you dismiss it as exceptional. When confronted with history, you cherry-pick. This isn’t systemic analysis—it’s intellectual arbitrage, exploiting ambiguity to evade hard truths. It seems that consistency is the first casualty of your philosophy.

Your argument has shifted dramatically throughout this exchange, revealing inconsistencies that suggest this isn't about philosophical clarity but about justifying judgment from a safe distance.

You've alternately portrayed soldiers as both helpless victims of circumstance and fully accountable moral agents whenever it suits your argument. You dismiss resistance as "exceptional" when it contradicts your determinism, yet cite those same exceptions as proof that everyone should be held to that standard. You cherry-pick historical examples while ignoring their full context.

But let's set aside the logical contradictions for a moment and address what's really happening here.

The extreme language about soldiers "enjoying murdering civilians" and "joining up to shoot people" reveals this isn't about ethical philosophy - it's about dehumanizing people you've never met. Posting these views in spaces where actual veterans are unlikely to respond doesn't demonstrate philosophical courage - it suggests you're more interested in judgment than understanding.

Real moral courage would involve speaking directly with veterans about their experiences rather than constructing elaborate theories about their motivations from a distance. It would mean acknowledging the complexity of human choice without surrendering to absolutism or total relativism.

The working-class teenager who enlists because their town offers no economic opportunities deserves neither complete absolution nor blanket condemnation. They deserve the dignity of being seen as a full human navigating impossible choices within systems designed to limit those choices.

Your position offers nothing constructive - no path forward, no vision for change, just judgment without understanding. It creates no space for redemption, growth, or transformation. It simply categorizes people as either morally pure or irredeemably complicit.

True justice requires holding power accountable while creating pathways for healing and change. It demands we recognize both individual responsibility and structural constraints without using either to negate the other.

Instead of crafting elaborate philosophical frameworks to justify hate from a distance, perhaps consider engaging directly with those whose experiences differ from yours. Veterans' organizations, peace activists who served in combat, community organizers in military towns - these voices might complicate your narrative in ways that lead to greater understanding rather than simplistic judgment.

The path beyond hate isn't found in philosophical abstraction or moral absolutism. It's found in the difficult, messy work of seeing others' humanity, even when their choices differ from what you would make in their position.

Your latest missive pivots rather dramatically from the pretense of philosophical debate to a flurry of ad hominem attacks and mischaracterizations. It seems when the foundations of your argument grew shaky, you opted to critique the architect rather than the architecture. Let us dismantle this new edifice of deflection, brick by rhetorical brick.

  • The Mirage of Inconsistency: You accuse me of shifting sands, yet it is you who seems unable to grasp nuance. To state that agency exists within profound systemic constraints is not a contradiction; it is the very definition of navigating oppressive structures. Resistance being difficult or rare due to these constraints does not magically erase the possibility or the moral weight of choice – it merely highlights the cost, a cost whistleblowers like Manning and Snowden demonstrably paid. To hold both truths – constraint and agency – is complexity, not inconsistency. Similarly, acknowledging proportionality in guilt (Nuremberg) while insisting responsibility extends beyond the absolute apex is not contradictory; it’s precisely how sophisticated legal and ethical systems function, something you conveniently ignore by focusing solely on the very top tier of defendants. Your demand for simplistic binaries forces you to see contradiction where there is only layered reality.

  • The Phantom Quote & The Ad Hominem Shuffle: You attribute phrases to me – "enjoying murdering civilians," "joining up to shoot people" – enclosed in quotation marks, implying direct citation. Let the record show: this is a fabrication, a straw man sculpted from bad faith. My critique targets the function and outcomes of military institutions and the roles within them – the deployment of lethal force, the upholding of imperial interests, the predictable generation of civilian casualties. To conflate this structural critique with accusations of individual bloodlust is a deliberate, and frankly desperate, misrepresentation. Your subsequent pivot to my supposed motivations ("judging from a safe distance," lacking "courage" to speak to veterans) is a textbook ad hominem fallacy. The validity of a critique of systemic violence does not hinge on the speaker's personal proximity to its agents. One need not personally interview every CEO profiting from exploitation to critique capitalism, nor every soldier to critique militarism. The system, its logic, and its effects are the subject, not the individual psyche of every participant – though the system certainly shapes that psyche.

  • The Patronizing Plea for "Humanity": You position yourself as the champion of the working-class enlistee, painting them as purely reactive victims navigating "impossible choices." While acknowledging the brutal reality of economic conscription is crucial (a point I’ve consistently integrated), your framework uses this reality as a shield against any ethical scrutiny. You offer a vision of "dignity" that amounts to infantilization – treating individuals as incapable of moral reasoning under pressure. True dignity lies in recognizing their capacity for choice, however constrained, and demanding systems that don't weaponize poverty against them and others. Your call to "see their humanity" rings hollow when it serves primarily to silence critique of the violent systems they are compelled (or choose) to serve. Empathy should not require ethical blindness.

  • The Illusion of "No Path Forward": You lament that my position offers only "judgment." This willfully ignores the tangible effects of cultural shifts driven by critique and stigma. Reducing the social license of militarism, questioning the automatic valorization of service, challenging the normalization of state violence – these are paths forward. They erode the foundations upon which recruitment, funding, and political support for perpetual war are built. Policy change rarely happens in a vacuum; it often follows a profound shift in public consciousness, a shift fueled by the very "moral gatekeeping" you disdain. To demand neat policy proposals while dismissing the cultural work that makes them possible is, again, a strategic evasion. Accountability itself is a constructive step.

In conclusion, your argument has devolved from debating principles to impugning motives and constructing straw men. You oscillate between portraying soldiers as helpless pawns and moral agents depending on which framing best deflects criticism. You demand empathy as a substitute for accountability and mistake pragmatic analysis of constraints for a denial of all agency. This isn't a robust defense; it's a tactical retreat into sentimentalism and misdirection.

The path beyond the horrors of imperialism and state violence isn't paved with comforting evasions or the blanket absolution of all who participate under duress. It requires rigorous critique of the systems and a clear-eyed understanding of the choices made within them – scaled by power, yes, but never entirely erased. It demands we hold faith in the capacity of all people, even the oppressed, to engage in moral reasoning and, sometimes, courageous resistance. Your framework, which offers paternalistic pity instead of demanding accountability and radical change, ultimately serves only the systems we both claim to oppose.--

Your rebuttal rests on a series of selective interpretations that obscure the interdependence of systemic and individual accountability. Let’s clarify:

You argue for “proportional accountability” but define it so narrowly that it functionally absolves anyone outside leadership roles. Nuremberg, however, explicitly rejected this hierarchy of guilt. While prioritizing architects, the trials also prosecuted industrialists, bureaucrats, and doctors—not because they held equal power, but because systems of oppression require collaboration at multiple levels. Proportionality isn’t about exempting participants—it’s about calibrating scrutiny to their role. Your framework risks reducing accountability to a binary: architects bear guilt, while participants bear circumstance. This isn’t nuance—it’s evasion.

Resistance is costly, yes—but so is complacency. The Underground Railroad conductor risked death, but we don’t retroactively excuse those who didn’t resist; we honor those who did. Their courage doesn’t demand heroism from everyone—it exposes the moral stakes of participation. To say “most couldn’t” doesn’t negate the imperative to act; it indicts the system that made resistance lethal. Dismissing dissent as “exceptional” rationalizes passivity.

Your claim that whistleblowers like Manning and Snowden had “extraordinary access” distorts reality. Manning was a low-ranking analyst; Snowden, a contractor. Their roles weren’t unique—their choices were. The My Lai massacre was halted not by a general but by Hugh Thompson, a helicopter pilot who intervened. Moral courage isn’t about hierarchy—it’s about recognizing ethical breaches and acting, however imperfectly. To frame their actions as outliers is to ignore that systems crumble when enough cogs refuse to turn.

The civil rights movement did target institutions, but it also stigmatized individuals—Bull Connor, George Wallace, and the white citizens who upheld segregation. Rosa Parks wasn’t a passive victim of buses; she was a trained activist making deliberate choices. The movement understood that systemic change requires both policy shifts and cultural condemnation of those who enforce oppression. Boycotts didn’t just bankrupt businesses—they made racism socially untenable.

You frame systemic reform and cultural critique as opposing strategies, but they’re symbiotic. The draft wasn’t abolished through congressional debate alone—it collapsed under the weight of draft-card burnings, desertions, and a generation rejecting militarism. Stigma isn’t a substitute for policy—it’s the cultural groundwork that makes policy possible.

Your “realistic expectations” argument conflates constraints with absolution. The teenager enlisting to escape poverty still chooses to join an institution they know causes harm. To say they have “no choice” denies their moral agency. Solidarity isn’t excusing participation—it’s fighting for a world where survival doesn’t require complicity in empire.

Finally, your “pragmatism” mistakes resignation for strategy. True change requires uncomfortable truths: systems and individuals must both be challenged, complicity persists even under constraint, and moral clarity isn’t about purity—it’s about refusing to normalize oppression.

Scientists and engineers who developed chemical weapons and nuclear bombs made conscious choices about their work, yet they rarely face the same scrutiny as soldiers who carry out orders.

They should face the same scrutiny. As a matter of fact, it played a part in me personally giving up on my persuit of physics, even if it meant doing menial labor instead. I used to think that developing new technology would uplift everyone and advance all humanity together, but the more I looked at the world, the more I saw ways in which technology was used irresponsibly, or for the benefit one group at the expense of another. Specifically with climate change, it became apparent to me that we already have the technological means to confront it, the problem is the way our society is structured, and as long as it's structured that way, no new technology is going to fix anything, and the idea that it might only serves to make people hesitant to confront power and change structures in the ways that are desperately needed. Technological development without social development only creates more advanced forms of oppression.

Heinz Guderian was the developer of Blitzkrieg doctrine and maintained in trials and works afterwards that he had no interest in the Nazis' "politics," and that he was "just doing his job." There's a good chance he was lying to cover his own ass, but for the sake of argument, let's assume he was telling the truth. Is developing military theory for Hitler fundamentally different from developing theories of physics for Hitler, which would allow him to construct new weapons and bombs? I say no. There may have been people in Nazi Germany who ignored what was going on in the world and simply focused their attention, as many scientifically minded people do, on the interesting problems of their field, just solving problems without regard for whose problems they are or what they're going to do with the solutions. If such people existed, they are undeniably culpable - just because you find it more "stimulating" to work on the technical mechanics of a gas chamber than to think about whether the gas chamber should exist does not give you license to design it.

I cannot fully fault everyone involved in the nuclear program in the US, because the US was on the right side of the war and potentially the bomb might have been needed. Nevertheless, a weapon of mass destruction was handed over to the politicians, to use however they see fit. Many of the scientists involved petitioned Truman not to use it (though others, like Oppenheimer, said the opposite), and many high ranking military officials considered it unnecessary. The fact is that there were multiple ways that Truman could've ended the war without the bomb, either through better cooperation with the Soviets at Potsdam (but then he'd have to share the spotlight), or by accepting surrender with the sole condition of sparing the emperor (which he planned to do anyway, but he wanted the newspapers to say, "UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER!"). Once in the hands of politicians, the decisions on whether and how to use it came down to political concerns, things like, "we need to use it to justify all the money we spent on it," not ethical or even strategic ones.

Anyone involved in weapons development in the US today is certainly culpable in how the US decides to use them. And the US is an aggressive rogue state that has declared jurisdiction over the entire world, that it can and will drone strike wherever it pleases, regardless of soverignty, it routinely invades and oppresses soverign countries, and of all the many, many conflicts it's been involved in, the last time it was really justified in a conflict was 80 years ago. Anyone involved in weapons development in the US is a monster, and the only reason these sorts of people have been spared of blame historically is that the winning side found their expertise too useful to punish them.

The arguments that you make in no way wash soldiers hands clean of the atrocities they directly commit, it only shows that other people have blood on their hands as well.

You know, you could just make a different phrase for troops.

I support the real troops

"Fuck the troops"

ATAB works too. But troops are essentially just cops we unleash on foreign countries.

Cops are cops, whether they be foreign or domestic. Why split hairs?

Why would we celebrate LOSERS and SUCKERS?

The only accurate thing Trump ever said

When's the next war on bud light rainbow cans? 🤡🫡🤡

On Thursday.

Thursday is no good for me, planning on having my bros over for a no homo circle fuck and foot rub party. Can't do that without Bud light, obviously

There is absolutely no reason to blindly respect someone just because they’ve “served their country.” We don’t know what they’ve done. We have so many examples of soldiers doing horrible things to civilians around the world that blind respect is simply not warranted.

Agreed. A friend of mine is a veteran, and did something that he regrets every day of his life. Guilt's been eating the guy. He told some people, and they cut off contact with him. Which he understands and agrees with. He told me too, and yet I can't blame him for doing something objectively wrong.

Particularly the people we were indoctrinated to trust. Cops, military, politicians, businessmen (read as American Dream reachers), preachers...

In my opinion the individual isn't respected but they're a stand in to show respect for the people who sacrificed their lives.

Yea, but neither is blind DISrespect. There's a lot of examples of bad and there's a lot of examples of good. Kinda fucked up to lump an entire group into one side or the other... Don't ya think?

Bet I get blasted for this take.

You spend your whole life doing exercises and hauling supplies, but you massacre one village and suddenly everyone hates you.

So you're going to disrespect and blame the individual that had nothing to do with it because of the actions of others?

I'm not saying that you should let the organization as a whole off the hook, but should we really be putting the individual in the cross hairs without knowing what their story is?

Are you going to put the medic that helped the injured innocent in front of the firing line because other people bombed the area?

The big issue I have with your statements, and those of the OP are that they are extremist. It's possible to have a nuanced conversation about it without resorting to the extremes. No wonder the pot keeps calling the kettle black

The big issue I have with your statements, and those of the OP are that they are extremist.

Of course they're "extremist." Putting the lives of Afghans and Iraqis on the same level as Americans is an extreme position. That's just the world we live in. But just because it's "extreme" relative to generally accepted discourse in the West doesn't make it any less correct.

Not every cop has shot an innocent person. But people still have no problem saying All Cops Are Bastards. Because even those who aren't directly involved support and cover for those who do. Likewise, not a single troop at Abu Ghraib blew the whistle on what was happening there. If you're fine with ACAB, you should also be fine with ATAB, and the only reason I can see why someone wouldn't is that they value the cops' victims more than those of the troops.

No I absolutely do have a problem with the 'All' part. Don't presume that everyone agrees with that rhetoric.

but should we really be putting the individual in the cross hairs without knowing what their story is

Hey so this serial killer who boiled his victims alive had a really sad upbringing. We should just call it a wash and let him back out on the streets right?

Learning what their story is might be good to do for a common thief, and maybe you'll choose to be sympathetic as opposed to angry at the loss of your material possessions, but at a certain level of depravity, I don't care what their story is. The victims of their atrocities don't care what their story is. They can tell their story to the devil before getting thrown in the lake of fire.

While I agree with your sentiment, I disagree with the overreaching arc of it.

I'd also like to note that you're taking about the person who actually committed the crime rather than someone who is only connected to the crime by the uniform they wear, regrdless of their hand in the action.

A cook or nurse or on the other side of the planet from the atrocity can hardly be blamed for what the infantryman did on the individual level, or what the military has done on an organizational level. Furthermore, you don't even know if they oppose those actions or are fighting against it in their own way until you talk to them. That's the point I'm trying to make that others

If you fail to see and acknowledge this, then we have nothing more to discuss.

That said, extremism should be fought, no matter who it's coming from. I have plenty of right wing friends I've cut contact with due to their extremism. And if I had friends from the left that were as crazy as some of the people I've seen here, I'd do the same.

Extremism only leads to more extremism and more fighting and more death. I'd prefer to avoid that if possible.

Hey man, I just fill deliver fuel for the orphan-crushing machine company. Don't hold me responsible for the monsters who actually crush the orphans!

This might get a lot of down votes but I want to say I don't think it's fair to blame the soldiers in the field for the choices of the decision makers in the office. Those horrible events were unwanted 'byproducts' of the goal of men with evil plans, they were not veterans going off-book. In other words, these veterans did what was asked of them. I'm not saying they didn't do some very bad things, but they aren't the people that should be 'thanked'.

In German penal law there were discussions on how to treat those that act under orders. Many Germans did act under orders and even in accordance to law in WW2 but also in regard to the Mauerschützen (the soldiers that shot dissidents at the inner German border)- meaning that there were difficulties persecuting them as it was technically legal. There were way too few persecutions, however something called the Radebrechtsche formula was developed. Paraphrasing it says, something that is morally wrong to every morally thinking being cannot be legalized or excused. It is simply illegal to act on orders that are naturally wrong.

Sure, but how many 18 year old boys were convicted for being conscripted into the Wehrmacht?

The US uses economic coercion to force poor kids into joining. They give veterans a massive priority bump for public sector jobs and the GI Bill is often the only way poor kids can afford college.

Also, the US military uses far more obfuscation than the Nazis used. When I was in the Air Force, I worked in geo-spatial intelligence which was mostly extracting heat signatures from satellite collected data. They kept us in the dark on what our intel was being used for. All I knew was that our intel was helping to save the lives of our fellow soldiers somehow and that the government would pay for my college when I was done.

It's a tricky fucking game they play. More communication amongst ourselves is the only way that could ever be undone.

I believe the word you want is "prosecute/prosecution" rather than "persecute", but thanks for this.

I fully agree.

You are literally arguing the same as all Nazis did. "I was just following orders". US military decided to join an organisation that constantly attacks other countries.

This was exactly the take I was looking for. "I was just following orders" is, and has always been, a bad take. Grow a pair and accept the consequences of your poor decision making.

Ah, the Nuremberg defense. 😶

No that would be saying they didn't do anything bad because doing what is asked of you is always good.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superior_orders

Superior orders, also known as just following orders or the Nuremberg defense, is a plea in a court of law that a person, whether civilian, military or police, should not be considered guilty of committing crimes ordered by a superior officer or official.[1][2] It is regarded as a complement to command responsibility.[3]

I'm saying we shouldn't blame the soldiers on the choices of their leaders, I'm not saying we shouldn't blame the soldiers for their own choice. I totally agree they could've chosen to not to follow orders. I'm not saying they are innocent. But their role is not comparable to the role of the people giving orders.

Nuance matters. You think a 18 year old boy that was brainwashed into nationalisl his entire life should be executed for being forced to serve as a cook in the military? The Nazis used conscription while the US uses economic coercion (gate keeping jobs, healthcare, and college for vets)

should be executed for being forced to serve as a cook in the military?

Sorry, which user was it exactly who said, "Kill every troop?"

I didn't get the feeling this is what the meme is about, maybe it is. I think your discomfort is good, in that it has you questioning what you may have not questioned, before. On one level, we can't decide what's okay for you, internally. The bigger question is, if external forces would compel suffering and death for your beliefs and convictions, are you prepared to accept that? Many of us who think we are may not be, when put into that position, just as many of us who think we aren't may end up being more certain than we knew. And at that end neither really matters, at all. I think deep introspection will have to be both journey and destination, multiple times in our lifetimes. The questioning is the reward.

In the aftermath of World War II, Carl Jaspers formulated in Die Schuldfrage that there are four types of guilt (/responsibility). Criminal guilt, political guilt, moral guilt, and metaphysical guilt. It is a great distinction in general. Yes, political leaders bear a different kind of guilt for the actions than the soldiers, but acting on clearly morally wrong commands do not obliterate guilt from the soldiers. Just like everyone who basically didn't give their life in pursuit of the good and the right bears some metaphysical guilt for what is happening in the world.

Edit: I realized that, since I am neither an English native, nor very articulate in philosophy or politics, I would rather ask perplexity for a summary. So here it is: Karl Jaspers, in his work The Question of German Guilt, distinguishes four categories of guilt and assigns specific instances to each:

  1. Criminal Guilt:

    Definition: Violations of objectively provable laws that are legally considered crimes.

    Instance: The court, which determines the facts and applies the laws in formal proceedings.

  2. Political Guilt:

    Definition: Arises from the actions of statesmen and the shared responsibility of every citizen for the government of their state.

    Instance: The power and will of the victor, especially after a lost war, as in the case of Germany after World War II.

  3. Moral Guilt:

    Definition: Refers to individual actions for which every person is morally responsible, even if carried out under orders.

    Instance: One’s own conscience and dialogue with others.

  4. Metaphysical Guilt:

    Definition: A shared responsibility for all injustice in the world, based on human solidarity. It arises when one does not do everything possible to prevent injustice.

    Instance: God or transcendence.

Jaspers emphasizes that this differentiation is meant to avoid simplistic or generalized accusations of guilt. He rejects the idea of collective criminal or moral guilt for an entire people, arguing that guilt is always individual.

Yes. I wonder what the outcomes of centering the soldiers gult is?

Do we want the solution to be that soldiers have to consider every order given within the historical context of the time to decide the morally correct actions and do them even if it means court martial or death?

Don't get me wrong. I'm okay for soldiers to do this in extreme examples. But I don't think this should be the norm.

I think we should shift the focus to the leaders instead of the soldiers. They are better positioned to make these decisions and have the time to do so.

And it's their job.

Thank you. 18 year old kids who were never given a sufficient education in history, civics, political science, and basic morality can't be blamed for working as a cook, secretary, nurse, electrician, intel analyst, etc in the military so that they can afford college.

Again - there is and must be a distinction between the blame, responsibility and guilt of an 18 year old uneducated soldier, nurse etc and a political leader. But this does not automatically absolve the former from all responsibility and guilt. You should and hopefully do focus on the latter's guilt and responsibility, as it is much larger than the others'. Focussing on the people who follow orders is not what I would advertise for and this isn't the intent, it is actually the exact opposite. By differentiating different aspects and kinds of guilt you have tools and language at hand to talk about it without putting everyone in the same boat.

It is not a black and white issue. Everyone got blood on their hands - you and me included - just in different amounts, in different ways.

Very honestly - I've still not read the book entirely and I have started because I felt some feeling of guilt myself for being a Russian living outside Russia. I think that's actually exactly what Jaspers, along with his students (the book is basically a dialectic lecture written down with results of work of his class from one semester), was trying to figure out. So I am not the best person to lecture you about that.

From as far as I have read these distinctions are exactly what allow people to talk about guilt, responsibility, trauma, the past, etc, without judging everyone by the same standards. Like, a criminal is judged by the court who defines for a crime they committed. A politician who took part in ordering crimes will be judged by the victor of a war. A soldier (just like a secretary) will be judged in dialogue with others and by his conscience for their individual actions, even if they were following orders. And a normal person who looked away or didn't actively do their best to stop the atrocities that happen in the world, well, this person's metaphysical guilt can basically only be judged by a metaphysical instance itself, be it God or another undefined transcendence. Basically all of us bear the latter.

They are very distinct and do not have the same repercussions. It is without doubt that political leaders have a much different, much more facetted responsibility for crimes committed. And we should focus on that. But this does not clean the people who followed their orders from all guilt, and their responsibility and crimes (against humanity) will be judged, just in a different way.

Edit: I've added a better phrased summary in my original comment above, since I have realized that translating German political philosophy isn't my strength exactly.

Thanks, for your summary. I think he's right about different kinds of guilt being judged in different ways. If someone commits a crime and gets away with it, that doesn't mean that person will never feel the guilt. It sounds like a good read.

It's basically impossible not to be a PoS. Wish I was just not born now.

The idea is to consistently work toward being better than yesterday and making restitution, where possible, not where comfortable. It's not always going to be easy. It's called character development. If we've worked hard for a number of years being of bad character, it's generally going to take an equal or greater number of years of hard work and restitution to be of great character; but with diligence, I would say perhaps the number of exceptions would be greater than the general rule. It doesn't mean there will actually be external validation of it, though.

That's the thing. I will always owe something, and I'm always guilty of something just because I am alive.

I actually was so bothered by this, that I spent years trying to develop a system to get around it.

Lol. I feel that to the core. We all do and all are. And I certainly did try to escape too. I think the main thing is doing our best to minimize any harm and maximize any service to our fellow living beings, understanding that everything is a living being.

Never heard of this, thanks

Ahh, yes, the mindless drone argument.

I’m not going to go refind the examples, but there have been stories about things soldiers do that are definitely not ordered by anyone else. There can be a level of cruelty at times that is completely on the individual and they cannot always hide behind “I was told to”.

O i totally agree, this is exactly why i started with 'this is might get a lot of downvotes'. But the crimes on the pictures where not crimes by individual soldiers. These things were done by individuals who were told to. I'm not saying that makes them innocent, I'm saying they weren't the most guilty. The most guilty in my opinion are the men who scheme and think up of plans like this, and then order others to execute it.

Abu Ghraib was done by individual soldiers. At least as far as we know, they were not explicitly ordered to do all the things that they did, and when it came to light, several were charged with crimes over it. Furthermore, not a single person at the base blew the whistle on it, it was only because of independent journalists that it came to light.

If we cite war crimes carried out on the initiative of ordinary soldiers, then of course you could claim that it was just those individual soldiers who were responsible. If we cite things that were carried out on a systematic level, then you'll say it was the leaders who were responsible, not the soldiers. So I have to ask, is there anything that could, theoretically happen that would make it ok to say, "fuck the troops?" What would that have to look like?

If someone did a horrific thing and then told me they weren’t as guilty as their boss I’d be fairly confident saying that if their first priority was to justify their actions then they can also get absolutely fucked.

But not every soldiers' first priority are justifying their actions. Please note that the title of this post is insinuating that all veterans are to blame, not some or even the majority of them. Also note the title omits the bosses, the people who gave the orders.That is why I replied. We would only disagree if you'd believe the boss isn't guilty because he didn't do the execution of his plans.

In other words, these veterans did what was asked of them.

They could just have not.

People got mad at this one streamer for saying American soldiers deserve PTSD. When you consider that most interventions by the US are not justified or just imperial power plays, and that many soldiers commit war crimes, you realize she has a point.

Every US soldier signed up for killing, they deserve whatever they get.

There are definitely some like that. The American system has a number of tricks to try to force people to do what they like as well though. Poverty, over policing of minorities, lack of social safety nets etc can cause people who grew up barely avoiding prison choosing military thinking the only choices they have are death or military, shoved at them when they're too young to really know the world. Add education that specifically avoids or lies about what US actually does overseas, plus a bunch of jingoistic propaganda making being a soldier appear to be a respectable profession.

I grew up in a cult that avoided military so I never had those feelings myself, so I got to watch it from the outside, and even the pledge of allegiance every morning was weird jingoistic programming from early ages. It can be difficult to see past that at 17. I'm not saying they don't deserve any punishment, but I do disagree with the idea that every single one wanted to kill people.

Exactly. When I signed up for the military, it was because I wanted to kill people, and not because I had no other good choices

12 year US Army vet, deployed to Iraq 2007-2008.

Number of people I killed: 0

Why? I was a surgical tech. I helped save lives, including local nationals.

But sure. I deserve “whatever I get” for literally signing up to help people.

Cool, you can be a civil doctor too. Glad you fixed up the people who killed for a living.

Ooh poow widdwe Jimmy ... you know who didn't have a choice? the kids whose heads he blew off. I don't care if he had a choice in going there or not, Jimmy doesn't deserve a blink of sleep for the rest of his miserable cunting life if he didn't knowingly miss every single shot.

Uhg. Gross

what

"though your path may be set, you can gain as much speed down that path as you would like"

means, even if they had to go to war, they could have missed shots on purpose.

Nobody was "forced" to go to Iraq.

For some reason, people think it's ok to pull others down to get ahead but only in the context of the military. There are other ways to escape poverty, like selling crack or scamming the elderly. I wonder if you condone those approaches as well because "they didn't have another choice if they wanted to escape poverty." I doubt it. But if the victims aren't people in our own neighborhoods who you can actually see, if it's dead children on another continent who the news doesn't talk about, then somehow it's perfectly fine.

Everyone in that position who chooses to work at McDonald's or Walmart or Amazon instead of signing up to murder foreigners is a better person than every troop, they are braver, more ethical, more heroic, and more enlightened. The cowards who pull others down to get ahead deserve no respect and no sympathy.

Nobody forced them to sign up.

The same is true of selling crack but I'll criticize that too.

If the choice is "be an acomplice to the destruction of an entier country and it's people" and "don't get a discount code for college", like, surely we can see that's not really a good excuse.

Yeah, you are not getting it nor are you trying to. You are ignoring the poverty and indoctrination of children aspects of this in order to jerk off.

Trading brown people overseas' lives for your own comfort and livelihood is still- believe it or not- wrong.

There are many truths. All those pictures are true so are fighting Nazis, imperialism, and famine. See the whole picture not just the part that supports your bias and political position.

The US fights for Imperialism and famine, though. It doesn't engage in war for moral reasons, but for profit, and as the world Hegemon, that directly incentivizes US Imperialism.

The US is founded on settler-colonialism and genocide, and is currently the world's largest Empire.

You dont know much about the military. Maybe look up some information on the topic first.

Do you have... any supporting evidence? Or is this just based off the warm fuzzy feeling you got from doing the pledge of allegiance in school?

My evidence is history. Read a book sometimes.

So is there any particular military history in the last 50 years you want to talk about? The invasion of Panama? Granada? Bombing Yugoslavia? Targeting Iraq's infrastructure during the gulf war, then imposing sanctions estimated to have caused a million excess deaths, mostly of children? Bombing a pharmaceutical plant in Sudan? Iraq II? Arming the groups that would become ISIS and Al Nusra?

Sure, how about Ukraine. If we didnt give them 200 billion in money, weapons, and training they would just be Russian territory by now.

Lets examine the evidence of history:

Do you think the people of Palestine are better off because of the US's actions? Do you think the people of Syria are better off because of the US's actions? Do you think the people of Libya are better off because of the US's actions? Do you think the people of Yemen are better off because of the US's actions? Do you think the people of Somalia are better off because of the US's actions? Do you think the people of Afghanistan are better off because of the US's actions? Do you think the people of Iraq are better off because of the US's actions?

And that's just in the last decade, and I know I missed a few. Do you really think Lucy is going to let Charlie Brown kick the football this time?

America is not acting to help the people of Ukraine, we supported the right-wing throughout the coup so we could have a hostile state on Russia's border so the vultures can eat their fill as both countries are bled dry. Hence why Ukraine was required to sell off state assets to foreigners for pennies on the dollar, accept massive loans, give up mineral rights, lower the draft age, etc. Russia aren't the good guys, but the US's actions have resulted in a scenario infinitely worse for the Ukrainian people.

Things dont have immediate results. Do I think it is better for a nation or a people to be freed from being ruled by a dictator? Yes. Can it take generations before another stable government, more suitable to serve the needs of the people, can be constructed and ascend to power? Yes. It varies from place to place, culture to culture, and people to people. Yes I think their future peoples will be better off.

Do I think it is better for a nation or a people to be freed from being ruled by a dictator

Except the US has no interest in freeing the people, hence why we give most dictators the weapons they use to keep their people down. We have interest in their resources and labor being cheap, which dictates our foreign policy.

The US doesn't want a Ukraine that serves the needs of the people, we want a Ukraine with low wages, no social programs, whose assets and resources are owned by western billionaires, and whose people can be sacrificed to further imperialist goals.

You can look at any other country we've "freed" in the last 50 years for comparison.

We gave Ukraine 200 billion dollars in weapons, money, and military training. That isnt a gift. That is how that works and always has throughout history. Now I'm not saying they owe us everything but there is a debt there that should be repaid.

Do you think average Ukrainians wanted to be drafted to fight America's war?

Do you think the average citizen of any country wants to fight any war?

Yes, when they're actually fighting for their own future instead of which bourgeoisie faction will exploit them. Revolutionary and anti-colonial wars tend to be extremely popular with the populace.

The war is popular and well supported by the Ukrainians, as far as I am aware.

as far as I am aware.

The reason you aren't aware of dissent is that Zelenskyy banned rival parties, took control of media outlets, and passed a law that makes opposing the war or supporting any territorial concessions imprisonable offense, which has been used against political activists.

To be clear, Russia does the same things. The point isn't to support the Russian or Ukrainian government, only that the US's actions are opposed to the interests of the Ukrainian people.

So, no then. Cool, thanks.

I have, actually. Want to elaboroate at all?

You dont know much about the military. Maybe look up some information on the topic first.

they were always a dictatorship for the rest of the world.
They can all go to hell

No u lib

Remember that good thing we did once? That means we can now ransack other 3rd world countries for profit, and fight in every country we can make a profit.

Not really.

They are just getting rid of any and every liberty that any reasonable society would provide.

Not the rights though. We never had such rights. We just didn't realise those were needed to be written down because others didn't violate those expectations.

Even in an anarchy, without any written rights, we would have those liberties, given a reasonable society. Just not here.

Ok what rights have they stripped away?

The right for abortion, healthcare (by the DOGE bullshit), among other rights.

free speech for green card holders

This, too.

There is no such thing as a right to an abortion and that has nothing to do with doge. That was decided by the supreme court years ago. Elon Musk has already said he will step down at the end of May. You say he is taking peoples rights away. What rights is he taking away?

Keep in mind my response may have things added, as I verify and look into what you said, but here it is:

1: The Supreme Court is dominated by Republican Justices, which, if you take Trump's stance about judges being corrupt and bla bla bla, that also applies for his judges - and Trump never accepted the election loss, so the abortion right removal technically happened in his presidency.

2: I never did imply that abortion has anything to do with DOGE, I separated those two things with something called a comma (which you haven't used at all - oh, that explains it!). Medicare and Medicaid are, however, likely going to be cut off to save those juicy $1T to then give more money to the wealthy.

3: The rights being removed are not all by DOGE, but all are tied to the Trump administration, which does include DOGE.

This is officially rambling territory, but did you that if 99.99% of Elon Musk's money (assuming he has between 300 and 400 billion dollars) was evenly split between every US citizen, everyone in the US would get 1000+ dollars, and Elon Musk would still have 30-40 million?

Even if he just lost 99.8% of his money, he'd have an enormous amount of wealth ($800M), and the US citizens would still get a lot of money? Do that but 6 times (to count for every billionaire, making each keep $800M), and uni-statians would get $5K each!

P.S. Poverty only happens because the wealthy want to subjugate the working class, and make rebels not make it through.

The ONLY reason they temporarily (and royally late) fought nazis was to stop the Soviets from liberating the whole of western Europe.
European competition nicely destroyed after which these vultures made us their vasals.
If anything they helped plenty nazis escape or rehabilitated them.
And I'm sure they caused more famines than solved them.

Yes absolutely. And many soldiers have paid the ultimate sacrifice for those things. Plus decisions regarding war are often made by politicians not soldiers.

What? It's just enhanced interrogation!

Praise your "heroes". It’s enlightening to watch a civilization confuse slaughter with honor.

If we're assigning blame so broadly, let's be thorough about it. What about the factory workers assembling weapons? They recognize a gun when they help manufacture it. They understand what tank treads are used for when they connect them. Engineers fully comprehend the lethal applications of their drone designs and technical specifications.

If we're truly committed to distributing responsibility appropriately, shouldn't everyone in these production chains bear their share of moral accountability? Or is our outrage selectively applied to those with the least decision-making power in these systems?

Perhaps we should question why our society finds it easier to condemn those with fewer choices rather than examining the entire structure that creates these weapons of war in the first place.

reminds me of how they always try to justify the nuking of japan cities that had hundreds of thousands of civillians (twice even)

Yup, the mental gymnastics they use to justify war crimes. No other country has nuked a civilian population. They’ve nuked 2

Objectively they were used to prevent the Soviets from gaining influence, and forcing Japan into an unconditional surrender, instead of conditional. They didn't save anyone but US Imperialism.

This is the lie we’re indoctrinated to believe, yes

Re bottom left photo, Phan Thi Kim Phuc was burned by napalm dropped by the Republic of Vietnam Air Force.

No no no. None of this should be acknowledged, because Whataboutism.

If you think the Things the US did as a democracy we're Bad Just wait and See what autocracy will bring.

Gonna be interesting who's gonna suffer more. It's own population or the others.

usa: summons cthulhu to bring destruction of the universe
people: what if it was a republican, things would be worse

There's just good and bad. No one's really "good" good. So there's just bad. So fuck it all. Putin, Obama, Stalin, Trump, Hitler, Merkel. At least some of them don't even try to hide it so they're at least honest. That makes it easy.

Well, you've already killed one innocent person, so you can go ahead and kill a million more since you're already a bad person anyway. Much logic.

Those muslim, fascist and communist authoritarians were really just freedom fighters fighting for their people. America bad.

Unironically yes to all of that except the fascists.

Did fighting Nazis go out of fashion again?

The US was never really that against them. Their motivation in WW2 was not nearly as morally perfect as they like to pretend.

Before the war, Hitler was inspired by Jim Crow laws when creating the infamous Nuremberg Laws.

After the war - once the US secured unipolar hegemony - they absorbed more than 1500 former SS scientists into the US government.

Birds of a feather

Imo the problem wasn't in trying to rehabilitate, it was that it was insufficient.

It’s sad how little you personally know about history and the circle jerk of fellow know nothings.

I keep seeing people making this argument in this thread but it's never backed up by anything, just insults and repeating propaganda. Can you imperialists at least engage with the historical discussions in this thread that you're pretending not to see?

I seem to remember the creator of Wolfenstein asking that question shortly before the release of one of their games, in the late 2000s I think. We should have seen the writing on the wall.

FYI: top right is prisoner abuse in Abu Ghraib

done by American genociders and murderers.

The prisoner appears to be hooked up to mains power in the high res version of that photo.

The military? Excuse me, AREN'T THEY ALL FUCKING HIRED KILLERS!? SHUT UP! They are thugs and when we need to go blow the fuck out of a nation of little brown people, we'll let them know!

War is hell.

"No, war is war, and hell is hell. Og the two war is a lot worse" -Dr. Pierce, M.A.S.H.

Edit: I see now that someone else already posted the whole exchange from MASH in another comment.

That must be the reason they call America Big Satan.

War… war never changes…

I don't look at it as thanking them for these things, but rather the fact that we're all doing those things with our tax dollars and they're the ones getting shot at because of it in my place. To a large extent if you live in the US and reap the benefits of American dominance you're just as guilty. Obviously the problem is - where else do you go? It makes infinitely more sense to stay and vote for a better world. Not blame the working class people the bad voters have abused.

It's not fair to blame the soldiers and act as if the people who gave the leaders their power are innocent.

Not even where, if one wanted. Without means, it's a trap.

Reading through the comments I think maybe countries with free healthcare and education dont have a lot of room to weigh in on this.

I am not saying respect the troops or anything. But goddamn.

Edit: if you are down voting then at least give a reason to entirely alienate all the people who are actually trained to fight.

I work with a lot of veterans and the thing that breaks my heart is how many of them really bought into the lie. They really think they sacrificed years of their lives, some of them went through hell, all for the people of their country. And when or if they realize that they were used, it can break them.

Many, not all obviously, but many of them are victims of this self-same system of oppression. Taking it out on them is exactly what the people who pull their strings want from us.

No war but class war.

I think maybe countries with free healthcare and education dont have a lot of room to weigh in on this

Why not?

You were the only country to invoke NATO Article 5. Twice. Both times you were the invading aggressor fighting countries half a world away while spinning it as "defense". Where you forced soldiers in countries with free healthcare and education (like Canada) to fight and die in wars you started. And then refused to pay us after the fact.

And what does free healthcare and education have to do with anything? Are you going to claim that America "subsidises" us?

I didn't do shit. I was in high school when that happened. Fuck off. You don't understand how people get pressured in joining and how recruiters con a bunch of kids to sign up using the lack if health care and education as leverage.

I don't understand why solders from other countries even join up.

Me me me me me

You argue like a conservative.

I wanted to post this video, the words and images are compelling. And yes, I know about issues with Kennedy, etc. It's not the point.

Tw: images and sounds of war

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngo_6TPgldg

Well the bomb was retaliation for the Bataan Death March.

Either way, no side is innocent.

Yeah, I'm so glad the civilians in Hiroshima got punished for participating in war crimes

Gotta blow em up make a point y'know

I feel like it’s how my gut flora aren’t responsible for my actions or anything but will suffer my choices and others’ choices involving me.

The bomb is one of the many crime against humanity US have commited and have not been punished for. Hiroshima museum is a testimony of this crime.

Promptly swept under the rug and censored so the country doesn't get a bad rep

.. oh wait

The predicted Allied casualties for a mainland invasion of Japan were so high, especially with regard to the civilian fanaticism witnessed throughout the Island-hopping Campaign, the right choice was using the Atomic Bomb. After use of the first atomic bomb, when Japan failed to yield and refused to surrender, the return to consideration to a homeland invasion, along with running the numbers of anticipated Allied casualties, made using the second Atomic Bomb the correct choice. The best choice was made, with regard to the information on hand at the time.

The predicted Allied casualties for a mainland invasion of Japan were so high

Those estimates were made after the fact, in response to criticism. In reality, a mainland invasion was never in the cards at all. It's a myth. There's nothing about it in any of the letters or journals of the people making the decisions. There were two actual alternatives to the bomb:

  1. Cooperating more with the Soviets. The Japanese refused to surrender in part because they were holding out a desperate hope that the USSR would intercede as a neutral third party in peace negotiations, when in fact they were just stalling for time while they redeployed their troops from Europe to Asia. The US and USSR had planned to issue a joint declaration calling for Japan to surrender at Potsdam, but Truman pulled out at the last minute when he heard that the bomb had been tested successfully. The soviet declaration of war was only days apart from the dropping of the bombs and the Japanese surrender.

  2. Accepting conditional, rather than unconditional surrender. The Japanese had already offered to surrender on the sole condition that the emperor not be tried for war crimes. The US had every intention of doing that, and it's what they actually did after the war. However, Truman had promised "unconditional surrender" and he wanted the newspapers to call it that.

The decision was all about prestige and politics and not sharing the spotlight. It wasn't necessary.

This is a very long video about it but it's very informative and well sourced.

I'm not interested in your American propaganda protecting American innocence.

wrong

You think killing anywhere from 150,000 to 246,000 civilians to kill 10,000 military personnel is good?

The atomic bomb is the last image is the reason we haven’t had a world war in 70 years. It has saved more lives that it took. It’s the reason you sleep safe in your bed at nights. It was essential in ending the war against the Axis. You guys need to be grateful.

Napalming kids though, harder to defend….

The US only dropped the A-Bombs on Japan because they didn't want the Soviets to gain even more post-war leverage, they killed civilians in the many tens of thousands just for political leverage.

... and to avoid a boots-on-ground invasion of the main landmass of Japan, which would have cost probably a million soldiers lives, and who knows how many Japanese civilians.

Not quite. That's the line they gave for justifying murdering a hundred thousand civilians, the reason was to stop the Soviets from gaining further influence, as they had just declared war on Japan and stood to gain even more post-war cred after defeating the Nazis.

Japan had been holding out for a positive response from Soviet Union. The delusional high command thought they could craft aj alliance against the US. After the USSR invaded, the leadership went into a tail spin. It would have been a matter of days before they would have surrendered.

The US did not want the USSR to push deeper into Manchuria and Korea, so they dropped the a-bombs.

An invasion wasnt necessary. A blockade and a week of fighting on the continent by the USSR would have sufficed.

Ok, I assumed it was in retaliation for Pearl harbour?

No. The firebombings of Tokyo more than made up for that.

You mean the military target? As opposed to the civilian targets of Hiroshima and Nagasaki?

👊🇺🇸🔥

I'm genuinely wondering if the cold war was any better than a third world war, because it still wrecked various countries in Asia, Africa and South-America

Yes, only American military veterans did bad things.

Didn't check the instance I was on. My bad. I'll let y'all get back to it.

Anyone who seriously looks at history would agree that yes, every wartime military has a war crimes problem. No exceptions.

But anyone who seriously looks at history must also admit that American veterans have committed the vast majority of war crimes since the end of WWII. We have invaded over 70 countries and killed millions of innocents. No other country even comes close.

This is offtopic, but is there any reason for using a word derived from USA instead of saying veterans from the USA? Usian sounds wrong

American is obviously a way worse name. I was suggesting using "someone from the USA", but usian also makes sense considering the context

Interesting. In Canada we just refer to the country as US, but to its denizens as Americans.

Listen, not all nazi soldiers were particularly bad. I'm sure a chef in the rear guard probably did not do a single war crime. But when the SS existed we know that the chef isn't what most people refer to when discussing war crimes of the era.

Its the same in this era. Sure, there are bad guys all over the place, but compare to the US there's really only a handful of entities in the post WWII era that could be equals, and none more evil.