Are troops

As you may be aware I have spent a lot of time yelling about the police, my views have evolved, as Joe Biden would say, from "Some cops are terrible" to "All cops are complicit". I feel like that is pretty justified going from the news and reactions to the assorted shootings over the last couple of years.

Why then do I never talk about soldiers? I mean they too shoot brown people for baffling reasons, kill civilians, steal stuff. But I never talk about the armed forces being morally bankrupt organizations. Why is that?

Well short answer is that I don't think it really is morally bankrupt, or rather that the organizational tendency to be awful happens at a level far removed from the average soldier. They don't get to pick their orders, that is sort of the point really. That isn't really an excuse though, just following orders leads to things like the Holocaust, but it is an explanation. In many cases a soldier will see serious consequences for breaking orders, and it is understandable, if not perhaps morally correct, that they would carry them out to avoid those consequences.

I think motivation has something to do with it, unlike with the police forces, lots of people join the military because it is the only choice they have to try to improve their life and that of their family. I find it hard to condemn people for the decisions they make to take care of their loved ones or to improve their lot in life.

Also many people do join because they feel the best thing they can do with their life is protect their country by fighting for it, to put yourself in harms way for those who can't defend themselves is entirely a noble goal, and it is not their fault that most of the major actions of the US military over the last forty plus years have had nothing to do with actually defending the country.

I guess what I am saying is it's complicated, there isn't a lot of excuse for committing evil acts for good ends, but I can understand what brings people to the job. And let's face it, it isn't a job most of us want to do, and at least some of it really does need doing, I can respect that too.

I guess it's easier to respect the people rather than the organization when the people they are killing aren't the same ones they are supposed to be defending, that always helps.

The point is the armed forces aren't actively antithetical to the interests of the people of this country, while it is pretty clear by now that the police forces are, they are increasingly trained and indoctrinated to see civilians as the enemy, and more and more they are equipped like military forces as well. Remember that criminals are still civilians and the job of the police isn't to murder criminals, it is to arrest them or prevent crime altogether, that they are acting otherwise is a betrayal of their putative mission.

Meanwhile those who order the military to commit morally reprehensible acts are the ones betraying the country, much more so than the ones tasked with carrying out those acts. So I reserve my ire for them most of the time.

That said man there are some(lots) of military guys who need to shut the hell up, your willingness to carry a gun and shoot brown people doesn't actually make you more qualified than, say, me to judge what is best for the country, all it means is you have different skills and backgrounds, you still have a brain, use it for more than gung-ho bullshit.