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Sounds like a perfectly reasonable question to me... far more reasonable than simply assuming the people who perpetrated the US's colonialist mass-murder campaigns in the third world was simply "good men" (supposedly) "doing the right thing."
Good job making Trump sound more rational than you, hero.
This take just baffles me.. you can disapprove of a war, and still respect people willing to put their life on the line for something they believe is right. Even in war, opposing sides have a long history of showing their enemy a certain amount of personal respect, even though they clearly disagree about something to the point of killing each other over it.
Your take is just condescending and unempathetic. You can respect someone for sacrificing themselves without agreeing with them about what they're sacrificing themselves for. Regardless, it shouldn't be hard to see how someone fighting to depose an infamously brutal dictator (Iraq) or a fundamentalist regime that stones women for wanting a divorce (Afghanistan) can believe that they are doing something good.
Apply your bullshit logic to the Waffen-SS or the KKK, then. Go on... I'll be waiting for you right here.
Really, genius? I guess this must be the first time you've ever confronted the idea that not all people who experience warfare are mindless zombies willing to die for whatever cause the rich people (or you) told them they should die for? You and the rest of the shitlib hive mind on here are hysterically cramming onto the jingoism train simply to own Trump without realizing what a self-own that is turning out to be.
Are you talking about the "infamously brutal dictator" in Iraq that the US helped into power? That the US helped to deploy chemical weapons in his war with Iran? That one?
Are you talking about the "fundamentalist regime" that only exists thanks to the massive support the US provided to these very same fundamentalists back in the 80s together with their fundamentalist allies in Pakistan? That "fundamentalist regime?"
Good job, hero - you've highlighted why we should all be asking, "What was in it for them?"
Ok, I'll try to make this simple for you: I can hold respect for a combatant that puts their life on the line in an effort to do something they believe is making the world a better place, rather than for personal gain.
The KKK is immediately excluded, because there was/is little to no sacrifice being made by those lynching others. The same goes for SS soldiers running a concentration camp. I was quite clear in pointing out that what demands respect is the act of putting your life on the line to protect or help others.
As for who put those regimes in place: That is completely irrelevant as to whether you can have respect for an individual who sees the atrocities committed by the regime, and believes they are doing good by fighting it. I have a hard time thinking that a soldier in Afghanistan is thinking a lot about who put the Taliban in power, or what they personally stand to gain from the fight when they decide to go there.
You already have - you will happily endorse some of the world's most vilest people as long as they saluted a piece of colored fabric (preferably the one you worship) before doing so.
There is absolutely no further simplification required.
So you are perfectly ok with them as long as their their victims was free-range? I wonder what excuses you will come up with to glorify your vaunted drone operators who perpetrate terrorism while drinking Starbucks or your CIA operatives who pay proxies to do all the rape, murder and torture for them?
It fucking absolutely isn't - you want to wax lyrically about people dying (supposedly) to "defend their country" from the very same people said country created and helped into power. Asking questions like, "what's in it for them?" is a far more rational response to that than appealing to propagandistic Hollywood Heroism tropes... as you are doing at the moment.
Now you're just coming off as disingenuous. So that I won't need to repeat myself, just read my comments and try to figure out for yourself where you can find backing for what your accusing me of instead of putting words in my mouth and purposefully misinterpreting my comments or taking individual phrases out of context.
Take your time, I won't be waiting up.
You coming face to face with the true implications of your own beliefs does not equate to any disingenuity on my part.
War is not "honorable" combatants facing off against each other in a sterile environment as a lot of military historians try to purport - it's slaughter. The vast majority of it's victims aren't even combatants. When you pretend that your preferred group of war criminals "respecting" the "other side" actually matters, are you including all the dead people that couldn't fight back and therefore do not deserve any of this rarified "respect" of yours? Or are they just uninteresting externalities and "collateral damage" that doesn't fit into the militaristic tropes your head has obviously been filled with?
Nah, you're still just making up opinions you want me to have so that you can think I'm an ass. Then you're twisting my words in order to convince yourself I'm saying something I'm not.
It's honestly kind of impressive that you're able to go from "I respect people who are willing to risk their own well being in order to protect others, without care for personal gain." to what you just wrote. Like... that requires some pretty heavy handed misinterpretation.
I don't think you're an ass.
Nope. Not impressive at all. Merely the result of not putting people on a pedestal simply because the narratives you have spun in your own head about them conforms to the tenets of militarism and nationalism that you have been feeding yourself.
It requires a minimum of interrogation to come apart and it's implications laid bare.
You're making arguments to attack positions I'm not trying to defend, and you seem completely unaware that you're missing the mark.
I've repeatedly tried to clarify this for you, but the way you're blatantly ignoring my actual position, and instead making up proxy opinions that you ascribe to me and find it easier to argue against makes me think you're either a troll or a pigeon. Either way arguing with you is rather pointless when you'd rather make up what you think my opinion is, and argue against that, than try to assess a position I'm actually willing to defend.
Oh, I agree - you haven't attempted a credible defense of your position at all. The entitlement is pretty much inline with all the rest of the thinly-veiled "manifest destiny" bs floating around here.
Lol, this is actually top-level trolling, you really know what buttons to push to keep people going.