A.T.S and the Military what is the deal?

Originally posted by TheBlackHat

Originally posted by crazyewok
reply to post by TheBlackHat

 

Vietnams a intresting one. I actaully see sense in that war after you strip down the idelogical BS.

Fact is the US had a alliance with south vietanm. A unimportant country and a minor allie. I think the thinking was that if the USA had refused to back them up in the face of North vietnamese incursion it would ruin there diplomatic crediablity. If they broke a treaty they would be considerd unreliabea and untrustworthy to there allies and weak and spineless to there enemys. It would have set a dangrous present. It could have resulted in the USSR and China makeing the assumption that if they did not back up there alliance with South vietnam then they wont with Tawian or South Korea or Japan or Worse Australia. And in the west might have resulted in the USSR seizing countrys too. Instead of a "small" insignicant war the west could of ended up fighting a bigger war.

Not saying thats a good reason to fight a war but its better than "If there red shoot them dead" mentality.

edit on 14-5-2013 by crazyewok because: (no reason given)

Yeah but the part where you say "especially Australia" leads me to suspect your an Aussie, funny enough. The point is your army were allied to the USA in Vietnam, so your country aka media, education system will have also put a certain spin on the reasons you got involved. No country is immune to propaganda. its just more obvious when you look from the outside at places like North Korea or the USA, number 1, number 1...but often being inside a situation your just as blind to the amount of BS your fed.

Lets look at the facts that dont support your take on events in Vietnam. If the war in Vietnam is to be seen as the USA not willing to back down or be seen to be weak in the eyes of Russia/China etc. Remember this, Russia and China did not expend their troops in the Vietnam war. Yet the states and its allie Australia threw men at it. Russia may have provided military assistance perhaps, but not personnel, certainly not on the scale America deployed. So what was actually happening was a civil war between North and South Vietnam...just like North and South Korea.

If loads of Russian troops were in Vietnam, then you could legitimately say it has invaded so the USA mounted a counter invasion...but that's not what happened...so the states call it a proxy state and proxy war, under the influence of the USSR..I call BS yet again...because if the USSR ran a proxy war through the North Vietnamese, then the states could and should have done likewise through the South Vietnamese...but no the states literally got involved...Once you literally deploy your own troops in a foreign conflict, its your mess.

Saying that China/Russia may have then invaded Australia etc...when there was no history of them empire building. you have to have evidence to back up the idea that the communist superpowers invaded other countries, they didn't..The accusation was that they spread their communist influence and ideology to other countries..That was always the accusation from the USA against communism, that it was a hated ideology that easily infected other states...not through military force...Pretty impressive if you can infect countries with your way of thinking without invading them and forcing it down their thoraths.

Look at Cuba...the other throw of the capitalist dictatoship by Castro was castors and his many supporters idea...Russia did not supply any man power or somehow brainwash Cubans to uproot their corrupt dictator. people chose Communism/ socialism in the countries where it took off...the people chose it and the nationals of those countries were the ones to do the fighting...not the USSR.

Actaully Im British Well 50% Brit 50% Welch.

No I have been doing alot of Historical Research into this and the reason above the only way I can make sense of it really. It seems the only logical reason.

No the USSR and China did not involve troops and they were not into empire building in the traditional sense. Thing is China has had its eye on Taiwain, a united Korea thats a puppet and a number of islands belonging to Japan. And no they didnt send troops into Vietnam but they were watching and if the USA had come of weak it may have emboldend them.

Originally posted by Reaper2137

First I would like to thank you all for taking the time out of your busy days to read my thread. Mod's feel free to move this, I just guessed about the forum, hoping it would fit here.

I've been a member of ATS for a few years now, and Read A.T.S much longer than I was a member. I've noticed over the years, an anti-military sentiment growing.
'

You dont think its because there are more an more conflicts the US and its allies are taken part in against the will of the people? Nobody has a problem with people putting on a uniform to defend their country. But thats the key word, DEFEND. Not ATTACK. Not BULLY.

Plus, aren't you sick of the in your face promotion of the military during sport games, tv shows, on the streets of your town, etc?

The US is looking more and more like its own version of Nazi Germany.

Originally posted by FoosM

Plus, aren't you sick of the in your face promotion of the military during sport games, tv shows, on the streets of your town, etc?

The US is looking more and more like its own version of Nazi Germany.

That one thing that got me when I visted the USA the way the Military is over promoted.

I have said it once and I will say it again of the many countrys I have visted the USA seemed the most tyranical.

Originally posted by crazyewok

Originally posted by FoosM

Plus, aren't you sick of the in your face promotion of the military during sport games, tv shows, on the streets of your town, etc?

The US is looking more and more like its own version of Nazi Germany.

That one thing that got me when I visted the USA the way the Military is over promoted.

I have said it once and I will say it again of the many countrys I have visted the USA seemed the most tyranical.

Never went to London did you?

Originally posted by Reaper2137

Originally posted by crazyewok

Originally posted by FoosM

Plus, aren't you sick of the in your face promotion of the military during sport games, tv shows, on the streets of your town, etc?

The US is looking more and more like its own version of Nazi Germany.

That one thing that got me when I visted the USA the way the Military is over promoted.

I have said it once and I will say it again of the many countrys I have visted the USA seemed the most tyranical.

Never went to London did you?

Yeah its pretty bad but not as bad as new york and all the ott security iis just centered there the rest of the uk is prety chilled. Thing is in usa i went to a couple of places and the hyper security seems to be everywere.

reply to post by crazyewok

That because New York is Yankee,PC, occupied territory.Let's hope we can help some escape to free American territory.

reply to post by TheBlackHat


Your right, I'm loath to give you the last word. After all, you are sooo logical and I'm an ignorant boob.

You make long posts then expect no response to Laughable points.

I will take your first and leave it alone from here on out.

Bush calls old Europe "Old Europe". Horrors! Impeach him!! Hopw dare he.

On that you somehow are selling that Bush created fear and intimidated all the European leaders into complying with him lest he call them "Old" ?? Your actually selling that???

Your right! We are done....

P.S. no war between us...an opponent is required and there isn't one....

reply to post by nwtrucker


I think what we all find most laughable is the fact you said that capitlism is run by "honrable men"

Pauses for breath....

reply to post by crazyewok


Try buying some reading glasses or perhaps a dictionary, the actual statement was when run by honorable men, not that it was.

As usual, you have it wrong...sigh

Originally posted by nwtrucker
reply to post by crazyewok

 

Try buying some reading glasses or perhaps a dictionary, the actual statement was when run by honorable men, not that it was.

As usual, you have it wrong...sigh

And when has is ever been run by honrable men?

Is there such thing?

Communism not much good either as it has the same problem as capitilism......it only works if run by honrable men.....

reply to post by crazyewok


Finally a point of some agreement. No "system" works for long if not run by "Honorable men".

Yet, IMO, one allows more latitude for the average guy and is somewhat less subject to abuse than the other.

Originally posted by Reaper2137

I am not a war monger, Second, most of the top part of your respond, is true, but you ignore a-lot as well. The only reason, you have such readily available information on the currant wars due to expanding Tech. You are forgetting the past and choosing to focus on the present.

This is wrong of you or at least you don't know your history very well. Every country, every people, on this planet when they have gathered and formed countries or Tribes. Have gone to war, they have all committed War crimes. They have all made mistakes. What separates them from us is the rapid response of information, starting in Vietnam.

I don't see you bringing up, the war crimes, committed by The Americans, or British in world war two. The War crimes committed by most countries in World war one, and dating back to the dawn of man. Yet you ignore that and instead choose to attack, with your ignorant slander and ad hominem attacks using your own words back at you.

Currant soldiers do a lot to protect you, weather you choose whether or not to support this country's last few wars is irreverent. The fact of the matter is, they still protect you, and without a standing army any country with force projection would steam rolls this place.

I like what you referenced it’s a good read thank you for that, but once again you’re missing the point, and instead focusing on one group. Since man has dawned he started to war, and there where those who would profit from that, that’s a few thousand years of profit.
Lastly, while my thread focused on the military it was a call out on all subjects not just this one. So feel free to respond and have a great week buddy I enjoyed serving and protecting you.

@Reaper, thanks for your reply. And I'm glad military service agreed with you. Some of the military's duties are necessary and need to be done. I was painting with a broad brushm when I addressed everybody on the pro-military side as warmongers, I admit. However, when discussing the pro-military/anti-military groups here at ATS, there seem to be a lot of pro-military types that get into a lot of onanistic discussion of possible military actions -- such as hypothesizing what the US plan of attack on Iran is. People like this are war mongers. And ther are also a lot of pro-US-military folks here who are very much nationalists, who think the US has the right to kill people wherever in the world for very litte justification, including getting oil to feed their cars.

As to my examples, you seem to criticize me because I used too many recent ones. Don't see how that is a fault on my part, particularly because this thread is about the current view of the military by people here at ATS. I also cited a number of very low-level actions, which were clearly acts of individual soldiers or groups of soldiers, and not necessarily the policy of the military leadership or the civilian leaders. I did this to point out some of the travesties committed at low levels my members of the US military.

Clearly there is also the issue of military personnel just carrying out the policies of civilian leaders as best they can, e.g. drone attacks. Obviously, criticizing of the military and the civilian policy makers often goes hand in hand as well.

My point about not having much thanks for US armed forces since the end of WWII is that the US actually faced an existential threat then. I fully realize that even during WWII the Allies committed war crimes, in particular the strategic terror bombing of cities, culminating in the two atomic bomb attacks. Also know that both sides in WWI used chemical weapons; however, doing so then was not a war crime. But yeah, militaries have been committing atrocities since the dawn of time. So even more so: why be surprised that there are a lot of people on ATS who aren't too enamored with the military in general. Yes, they are a necessary evil to some degree. But when one has a militarized superpower, the US of A, inflicting massive violence and destruction for well over a decade now, and still going strong -- and a lot of low-level atrocities are involved in this -- is it any surprise that there is the animus against the military, in particular the US military?

Support our troops well need them to over throw the gov't!

Originally posted by iwontrun
Support our troops well need them to over throw the gov't!

Sorry, that's not how it works. The troops will be shooting the citizens, as will the police. If the citizens actually wrote the pay checks for these state-employed thugs, then they would be good to the citizens, but the politicians and bureaucrats do the actual check cutting.

Just look at what happened to the Bonus Army in Washington D.C. during the Depression. Douglas MacArthur ordered the army to fire with machine guns on WWI veterans who were demanding the bonuses promised to them when they signed up to go die in the trenches of western Europe in order to bail out J P Morgan and other bankers who had loaned hundreds of millions to England and France. Wouldn't you think current army personnel wouldn't fire on lied-to WWI veterans? Well you'd be wrong if you did. The US military are basically just brainwashed mercenaries for The Establishment. Anyone who claims otherwise does not know US history and has a deluded notion of what the US military is.

reply to post by MrInquisitive

No we aren't ,I know I was a soldier.I know the culture and the people better than than you. They function as Americans not mercenaries. Those guys get hired by Halliburton and Monsanto. We fight for the country and that won't do in it.
My opinion is that of a trained combatant who can do it again,if a bit impaired.
What is YOUR training?

reply to post by TheBlackHat

"The military is used in the same way, as an unthinking tool, by who ever happens to be giving the orders. the problem is, the military is made up of thinking men and women, who have beliefs and moral standards, but the minute you join the military you voluntarily give up your "free will". you knowingly give your free will over to a chain of command, and unbreakable orders."

I served during the Gulf War and I refused an order, believing it was unlawful. I will not give any details as it is highly classified, however, once I refused, the man next in line to my watch said I should do it or "someone else will" and I would be "in trouble and it would get done anyways." He was half right, after my watch was over, he took over and followed the order, because, he believed an order's an order and it didn't matter to him if it was a criminal act which, as per our orders, would mean our activities would be disavowed and we would be called rogue if we got caught, though, he was wrong, in that, I did not get into any trouble, because, I was right that it was an unlawful order. I realize my refusal seemed to make no difference as the order was followed anyways, but, it mattered to me and I can only wonder which of us two the others learned from.

I just want you to know that you are partially right, many do give up "free will" and sometimes it is their "will" to obey orders blindly, thinking that those giving the orders know best or whatever reason which justifies their actions and helps them sleep at night, but, you are not entirely correct, some of us do not mindlessly follow where others may lead.