I have a brother who fought in Iraq and Afghanistan, and while he’s always been an absolute chud, it was a very radicalizing experience. He came back with PTSD and then started “self-medicating” with meth. He made our family’s lives a living hell, like we were 24/7 911 operators, always waiting for the day he was going to act on his paranoid delusions. He finally went out to some innocent family’s house with a gun and pulled on the cops who’d followed him and got shot in the arm. He’s recovered somewhat, but still has relapses.
These experiences are the most traumatic thing that has ever happened to me or any of my family. Still it pales in comparison to what he experienced, which in turn pales in comparison to what the people living in those countries experienced. My dumbass brother chose to go over there, but they didn’t choose to be born there, and the casualty rates were so much higher for them.
People look at casualty rates (if they bother to) and imagine that that’s the full price of war. But my brother isn’t on any of those casualty lists, because his wounds were “only” psychological. The true scale of harm is literally incomprehensible.
I remember one night that I had come to visit and I went out to eat with my parents, thinking, hoping, that for one night things could be peaceful. Then the texts started coming in. Another crisis, more schizophrenic accusations, veiled threats, reading into every little thing. I remember the tears streaming down my mother’s face as she tried not to make a scene at the restaurant.
Whenever I think about any of the people responsible for those wars, I take what I felt in that moment and multiply by a hundred, a thousand, a hundred thousand, by as much as I’m capable of, and it’s still not enough.
The government and media do such a good job sheltering the public from what war really means. So many people just treat it like a movie or a video game because they know that more than they know about reality. The media rarely covers the human cost, especially of the other side. And so when I come on to Lemmy and vent about how war is bad and we should build schools and hospitals instead of tanks and bombs, people call me a tankie and accuse me of having some secret agenda. Because real life action movies are so cool, who could possibly have a problem with them?
There’s no faster way to get called a tankie than opposing the construction of more tanks.
Opposing the construction of more tanks necessarily means arguing that those tanks are unnecessary. Arguing that tanks are unnecessary means arguing that the supposed threats our rulers want us to be afraid of are not as significant as they’d have us believe. And if you’re arguing that an “enemy” country is not as much of a threat as our rulers claim, then it’s trivial for someone to accuse you of minimizing the threat because you actually support the enemy.
This is how it’s always been. I opposed the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan from the start. Back then, instead of “tankie” they called you “terrorist sympathizer.” People who opposed the wars in Vietnam and Korea were called “reds” or “pinkos.” Those who opposed WWI were accused of being “Bolsheviks.” Some dude once criticized Rome’s violence and was accused of plotting violent insurrection and got executed for it. Same shit, different day.
I guess I’m a tankie then. Fuck the wars, fuck this administration, we need education and healthcare more than anything. We need a government that supports its own people rather than trying to obliterate all others.
I don’t want to go to war with any country. I am also willing to refute misinformation about any country. Those two things constitute 99% of what “defending” means in this context.
Why limit yourself to China? Just say, “In North Korea the government forces everyone to eat each other’s brains and we need to invade to get them to stop,” I’ll say that’s not true and we shouldn’t, and now you can attack me for “defending North Korea.” Surely there’s worse countries than China out there for you to pick from.
I picked China from skimming your comment history. Have you defended North Korea? jfc
Discredit the truth by burying it in lies. China did take Hong Kong and suppress protesters against their will. Same with Tibet. They want Taiwan but going after that right now could give Trump a just war and they’d rather see the US shoot itself in the foot in the international space. The more extreme stuff against China may just be propaganda that China itself created to discredit the more reasonable claims. The same way that the US government spread rumors about aliens at Area 51 to discredit the sighting of spyplane testing.
I picked China from skimming your comment history. Have you defended North Korea? jfc
Like I said, I’ll “defend” literally any country on earth. You have 195 to choose from! If I haven’t “defended” them yet, just spread misinformation and say we should start a war, and I will. I care about the truth, not some liberal purity test.
China did take Hong Kong
More like the UK returned Hong Kong to China after the lease agreement they had forced upon it through colonialism expired.
Same with Tibet.
You mean the slave-owning theocracy that was historically part of China, was never internationally recognized, which is also claimed by Taiwan?
Incredible that you have to go back 70 years and that’s the worst you can come up with.
They want Taiwan
What you personally speculate might happen in the future is not a mark against China.
They’ve “wanted Taiwan” for decades, just as Taiwan “wants” the mainland. And for decades, peace was maintained through the doctrine of strategic ambiguity, whereby Taiwan was not formally recognized as independent but was allowed to operate as such. US politicians, rather than maintain that peaceful compromise, have recklessly decided to start deviating from that status quo (because they’re psychotic warmongerers looking to manufacture threats).
If you actually care about Taiwanese independence, then what exactly is wrong with the status quo of de facto independence? Why are our politicians choosing to rock the boat?
But I highly doubt you even knew what strategic ambiguity was, much less that our politicians deviated from it. Because the media rarely really reports on that part or frames it as an escalation. They only report on China’s response to it. And that response is then used to frame China as being aggressive out of nowhere. They do the same thing with any country they don’t like. It’s kind of like how European countries will condemn Iran for retaliating but won’t condemn the US for starting the war.
The more extreme stuff against China may just be propaganda that China itself created to discredit the more reasonable claims
In that case, stop spreading Chinese propaganda, you tankie 😉
The truth is, China does pose a threat to the US. But that threat is economic and diplomatic. China has emerged as a reliable trading partner that stays out of conflicts, while the US burns itself out fighting in every corner of the world. Every year, neutral countries are becoming more aligned with China and formerly US-aligned countries become more neutral, and this trend did not start with Trump.
You want to counter China, you have to start playing the diplomatic game more seriously and stop trying to solve every problem through force. Whenever the US does something like attacking Iran, or invading Afghanistan, or even seizing Venezuela’s foreign reserves, there are countless little countries that see it happening and wonder if they’ll be next.
Trying to resolve the rivalry with China through military force would be absolutely insane. And yet, that seems to be the course of action our rulers are committed to. It’s terrifying to think that anyone would consider WWIII and nuclear armegeddon a viable solution.
If you don’t go to war, war will go to you. It’s a terrible thing you can’t escape or avoid. You can’t protest your way out of it, and someone must do it.
You will just be tortured and murdered without resistance, or find yourself in an even worse war.
“We have to fight them over there or we’ll be fighting them over here.” I remember that line. They said about the wars in the Middle East, they said it about Vietnam, they said it about Korea. “If we don’t win, there’ll be a 9/11 every day.” But we lost, and somehow there hasn’t been another 9/11. “Vietnam is a domino, if we don’t stop them here, they’ll spread communism to more and more countries.” But we didn’t stop them there and they focused on rebuilding and self-defense.
Every major conflict the US has been involved in since WWII, top officials have evoke WWII and the Nazis. Many of those conflicts were wars of aggression, often seeking to prop up fascists.
If the US military was actually about defense, it could easily be cut in half. We’d still be spending more on it than any other country in the world. The US spends more than the next 9 countries combined and it is the fascist threat that other countries have to defend against.
Yes, sometimes the only way to solve a problem is through force. But it’s also true that when you have this massive hammer, everything looks like a nail. We have this whole industry built off that profits from war and needs a constant state of war (or at least threats) to justify its existence, and if there aren’t any threats, they’ll create them.
Once all the people involved in the previous unjustified wars is in prison, then if the people who threw them in prison want me to believe that there’s a genuine threat, I’ll consider it. But I will never support US military involvement in any conflict until that time, regardless of circumstances.
Preach brother. I agree sometimes things need to happen by force, but it’s far and few between. This war was a joke to distract from Epstein child trafficking bullshit.
Forgot to mention I’m not form the US, so my opinion is war AGAINST the US. But starting with Embargo first, then retaliating with maximum force if the US were to try and break the Embargo or attack in any way.
I have a brother who fought in Iraq and Afghanistan, and while he’s always been an absolute chud, it was a very radicalizing experience. He came back with PTSD and then started “self-medicating” with meth. He made our family’s lives a living hell, like we were 24/7 911 operators, always waiting for the day he was going to act on his paranoid delusions. He finally went out to some innocent family’s house with a gun and pulled on the cops who’d followed him and got shot in the arm. He’s recovered somewhat, but still has relapses.
These experiences are the most traumatic thing that has ever happened to me or any of my family. Still it pales in comparison to what he experienced, which in turn pales in comparison to what the people living in those countries experienced. My dumbass brother chose to go over there, but they didn’t choose to be born there, and the casualty rates were so much higher for them.
People look at casualty rates (if they bother to) and imagine that that’s the full price of war. But my brother isn’t on any of those casualty lists, because his wounds were “only” psychological. The true scale of harm is literally incomprehensible.
I remember one night that I had come to visit and I went out to eat with my parents, thinking, hoping, that for one night things could be peaceful. Then the texts started coming in. Another crisis, more schizophrenic accusations, veiled threats, reading into every little thing. I remember the tears streaming down my mother’s face as she tried not to make a scene at the restaurant.
Whenever I think about any of the people responsible for those wars, I take what I felt in that moment and multiply by a hundred, a thousand, a hundred thousand, by as much as I’m capable of, and it’s still not enough.
The government and media do such a good job sheltering the public from what war really means. So many people just treat it like a movie or a video game because they know that more than they know about reality. The media rarely covers the human cost, especially of the other side. And so when I come on to Lemmy and vent about how war is bad and we should build schools and hospitals instead of tanks and bombs, people call me a tankie and accuse me of having some secret agenda. Because real life action movies are so cool, who could possibly have a problem with them?
Thank you for sharing this.
I’m sorry you, your family and specially your brother had to go throw this.
Your brother is a victim also.
For each casualty in war there is at least a dozen people’s lives that won’t be the same any more.
Calling for schools and healthcare instead of tanks and bombs is not tankie crap. Tankies want the other side to have tanks, instead of the US.
Eww.
There’s no faster way to get called a tankie than opposing the construction of more tanks.
Opposing the construction of more tanks necessarily means arguing that those tanks are unnecessary. Arguing that tanks are unnecessary means arguing that the supposed threats our rulers want us to be afraid of are not as significant as they’d have us believe. And if you’re arguing that an “enemy” country is not as much of a threat as our rulers claim, then it’s trivial for someone to accuse you of minimizing the threat because you actually support the enemy.
This is how it’s always been. I opposed the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan from the start. Back then, instead of “tankie” they called you “terrorist sympathizer.” People who opposed the wars in Vietnam and Korea were called “reds” or “pinkos.” Those who opposed WWI were accused of being “Bolsheviks.” Some dude once criticized Rome’s violence and was accused of plotting violent insurrection and got executed for it. Same shit, different day.
I guess I’m a tankie then. Fuck the wars, fuck this administration, we need education and healthcare more than anything. We need a government that supports its own people rather than trying to obliterate all others.
Regardless of political labels and what makes them accurate, you’re right about war being bad
I think it’s your defense of China that’s getting you called a tankie.
I don’t want to go to war with any country. I am also willing to refute misinformation about any country. Those two things constitute 99% of what “defending” means in this context.
Why limit yourself to China? Just say, “In North Korea the government forces everyone to eat each other’s brains and we need to invade to get them to stop,” I’ll say that’s not true and we shouldn’t, and now you can attack me for “defending North Korea.” Surely there’s worse countries than China out there for you to pick from.
I picked China from skimming your comment history. Have you defended North Korea? jfc
Discredit the truth by burying it in lies. China did take Hong Kong and suppress protesters against their will. Same with Tibet. They want Taiwan but going after that right now could give Trump a just war and they’d rather see the US shoot itself in the foot in the international space. The more extreme stuff against China may just be propaganda that China itself created to discredit the more reasonable claims. The same way that the US government spread rumors about aliens at Area 51 to discredit the sighting of spyplane testing.
Like I said, I’ll “defend” literally any country on earth. You have 195 to choose from! If I haven’t “defended” them yet, just spread misinformation and say we should start a war, and I will. I care about the truth, not some liberal purity test.
More like the UK returned Hong Kong to China after the lease agreement they had forced upon it through colonialism expired.
You mean the slave-owning theocracy that was historically part of China, was never internationally recognized, which is also claimed by Taiwan?
Incredible that you have to go back 70 years and that’s the worst you can come up with.
What you personally speculate might happen in the future is not a mark against China.
They’ve “wanted Taiwan” for decades, just as Taiwan “wants” the mainland. And for decades, peace was maintained through the doctrine of strategic ambiguity, whereby Taiwan was not formally recognized as independent but was allowed to operate as such. US politicians, rather than maintain that peaceful compromise, have recklessly decided to start deviating from that status quo (because they’re psychotic warmongerers looking to manufacture threats).
If you actually care about Taiwanese independence, then what exactly is wrong with the status quo of de facto independence? Why are our politicians choosing to rock the boat?
But I highly doubt you even knew what strategic ambiguity was, much less that our politicians deviated from it. Because the media rarely really reports on that part or frames it as an escalation. They only report on China’s response to it. And that response is then used to frame China as being aggressive out of nowhere. They do the same thing with any country they don’t like. It’s kind of like how European countries will condemn Iran for retaliating but won’t condemn the US for starting the war.
In that case, stop spreading Chinese propaganda, you tankie 😉
The truth is, China does pose a threat to the US. But that threat is economic and diplomatic. China has emerged as a reliable trading partner that stays out of conflicts, while the US burns itself out fighting in every corner of the world. Every year, neutral countries are becoming more aligned with China and formerly US-aligned countries become more neutral, and this trend did not start with Trump.
You want to counter China, you have to start playing the diplomatic game more seriously and stop trying to solve every problem through force. Whenever the US does something like attacking Iran, or invading Afghanistan, or even seizing Venezuela’s foreign reserves, there are countless little countries that see it happening and wonder if they’ll be next.
Trying to resolve the rivalry with China through military force would be absolutely insane. And yet, that seems to be the course of action our rulers are committed to. It’s terrifying to think that anyone would consider WWIII and nuclear armegeddon a viable solution.
If you don’t go to war, war will go to you. It’s a terrible thing you can’t escape or avoid. You can’t protest your way out of it, and someone must do it.
You will just be tortured and murdered without resistance, or find yourself in an even worse war.
Fascism must be stopped.
“We have to fight them over there or we’ll be fighting them over here.” I remember that line. They said about the wars in the Middle East, they said it about Vietnam, they said it about Korea. “If we don’t win, there’ll be a 9/11 every day.” But we lost, and somehow there hasn’t been another 9/11. “Vietnam is a domino, if we don’t stop them here, they’ll spread communism to more and more countries.” But we didn’t stop them there and they focused on rebuilding and self-defense.
Every major conflict the US has been involved in since WWII, top officials have evoke WWII and the Nazis. Many of those conflicts were wars of aggression, often seeking to prop up fascists.
If the US military was actually about defense, it could easily be cut in half. We’d still be spending more on it than any other country in the world. The US spends more than the next 9 countries combined and it is the fascist threat that other countries have to defend against.
Yes, sometimes the only way to solve a problem is through force. But it’s also true that when you have this massive hammer, everything looks like a nail. We have this whole industry built off that profits from war and needs a constant state of war (or at least threats) to justify its existence, and if there aren’t any threats, they’ll create them.
Once all the people involved in the previous unjustified wars is in prison, then if the people who threw them in prison want me to believe that there’s a genuine threat, I’ll consider it. But I will never support US military involvement in any conflict until that time, regardless of circumstances.
Preach brother. I agree sometimes things need to happen by force, but it’s far and few between. This war was a joke to distract from Epstein child trafficking bullshit.
also insider trading of the trump family about oil and arms companies
Forgot to mention I’m not form the US, so my opinion is war AGAINST the US. But starting with Embargo first, then retaliating with maximum force if the US were to try and break the Embargo or attack in any way.