Don't Support The Troops!

Some years ago I gave my expression to my own feeling – anti-patriotic feeling, it will doubtless be called – in a somewhat startling way. It was at the time of the second Afghan war, when, in pursuance of what were thought to be “our interests,” we were invading Afghanistan. News had come that some of our troops were in danger. At the Athenæum Club a well-known military man – then a captain but now a general – drew my attention to a telegram containing this news, and read it to me in a manner implying the belief that I should share his anxiety. I astounded him by replying – “When men hire themselves out to shoot other men to order, asking nothing about the justice of their cause, I don’t care if they are shot themselves."
- Herbert Spencer

We get the usual "support the troops" nonsense, even from the antiwar types and especially on Veterans Day:

As a life-long pacifist, I hate war. Detest violence of any sort.

Still, it is not the soldiers who decide to go to war, they do what they are told, whether volunteer or conscripted.
DemConWatch

Hey, pacifist jackass, go fuck yourself! I'm tired of all the crap that pours out of the mouths of leftist idiots like diarrhea coming out of a sick dogs butthole. Got that, fool? Anybody who calls himself a pacifist (by the most common definition of that word) has already proven a lack of sense so profound as to render anything else they say completely worthless and devoid of logic. Let me make one thing perfectly clear, I AM IN FAVOR OF DEFENSE. If someone attacks me I will NOT lay down the sword ( I will run away to avoid harm to myself or to avoid harming another, always if it's possible) I will fight back and defend myself. If my land is invaded by any, soldiers or otherwise, who seek to subjugate me, my loved ones and neighbors and enslave us, I will take up arms and shoot back at the bastards. What I will not do is have sympathy for those who willingly (WE DO NOT HAVE A DRAFT, DUMBASS!) join the military knowing full well of the history of US intervention abroad and the fact that we have goddamned troops in countries all over the fucking planet. This world empire has NOTHING to do with defending our freedom, as you well know, being anti-war and all. But your dumbass comment is that the troops don't decide to go to war. Question, Dumbass: did the soldiers not DECIDE to join and then go through training to learn how to kill "the enemy"? Did the poor innocent soldiers never think they might be sent to war sometime in the future, after they joined? And what about all those recruited AFTER the war in Iraq started??? Did they have no clue they might be sent there? They joined knowing they were involving themselves with an evil criminal organization (the US military) and therefore they are without any excuse, and excuse me if I have no sympathy for them.

This country has not had a truly defensive war since the War of 1812. The so-called Civil War (more properly referred to as the War Between the States) was also a war of aggression, by the North against the South, so maybe we can include the Confederacy as fighting a defensive war as well, but that still only takes us to 1865. The "Good War", WWII? Read Buchanan's Churchill, Hitler, and "The Unnecessary War": How Britain Lost Its Empire and the West Lost the World.

Read the asinine comments to the above linked post of our pacifist. Inane, illogical bullshit! Like this: our war time veterans should have our lifelong gratitude and we should demonstrate it with post-service support. They deserve no such thing, and will never receive it from me or any compassionate person. No mercy for those who cause evil! No tax dollars (socialism) for war whores! No "benefits", no free health care, no nothing! Not with my money, buddy! Give to them out of your paycheck if you want, but don't steal my hard earned income to redistribute to some government employee leech (by the way, funny how "conservatives" so dislike Federal workers and their benefits, except when they wear a military uniform).

Another question: If these jerks you love so much had not signed up for "service" would this war we currently find our nation in have been possible? If they hadn't willingly signed on the dotted line, there would be no pawns for the generals to order around, no brainwashed hired killers for the decider-in-chief to send to kill and bomb and maim and destroy thousands of innocent children and their homes and families. I'll save my empathy for the victims of our aggression, thank you very much.

There is one thing you can do for those who join and then repent of their bad decision. Lobby to make military "service" like any other job, with the right to quit whenever you want. Pushing for such a change really would be supporting the troops, and would leave no room to excuse those who kill in our country's name.