War is meaning less.

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I've made a topic similar to this in the past but considering for U.S. today is memorial day and my older sister is in a "lets thank army men" mood today. I thought I'd bring this topic up again. Now I understand if it was like the older days your husband/dad etc. (with NO experience) was drafted and he fought in the war fine (YA! for him) My main issue I refer too is MOSTLY that's not the case (especially today the Iraq War and past wars) alot were YOU enlisted into the army so IMO YOU CHOSE to take that chance that you'd be sent over there! Sure you get a free education out of the deal etc. Great! but I think most wars are meaningless. Not many have been fought on OUR soil! So IMO don't give me that protecting freedom/fight for our country BS! Yes I understand example (We are trying to fight to keep X country from say shooting off nukes or the WMD issue) So they are technically "fighting for our freedom" NOT TO GET BLOWN UP! but the way it's said "fight for our freedom/country" (the way that is said IMO is wrong) It's more fighting so they don't shoot off nukes etc. Hopefully some of you guys understand my point and where I'm coming from. Sorry if I upset anyone.

no quibbles from moi. war is bad. warmongers are worse.

WWII was also having no immediate effect upon the United States prior to Pearl Harbor, and in November 4th 1939 even a law was passed called the U.S. Neutrality Act which basically meant that we were intending not to join in WWII at that point. Oh, and guess what happened in Warsaw on the same day?

That's cause the US industrial machine was making WAY too much money supplying both sides of the war with the machines of war.

War should be illegal... Nuke any country that declares war!

I agree in large part with you. Many years ago, there was a draft (men compelled into service as a means to meet manpower needs). Many veteran's benefits were conceived as a way to compensate the many who were compelled to do at least 2 years because the government ordered them to.

We now have an all volunteer military. Nobody is forced to go in. Everyone who goes in knows the risks. There is still a system in place to conduct a draft, but that is "just in case" it becomes necessary to reinstate it.

However, I know that those who volunteer to serve really don't get anything close to the full story of what they are getting into. More so, we have done disgraceful things to those who serve (inadequate protective equipment, experimental vaccines w/o the right to refuse, experimentation on solders with chemical, biological and nuclear agents [often discovered decades later], and substandard equipment that increases the chance of getting seriously hurt or killed). This doesn't even touch on the issue of how the politicians sends people to fight a "war" but won't let the military do its job without trying to micromanage each choice being made.

In that case, people who serve do deserve some honor for what they got into.

Still, I can't be all warm and fuzzy about that. I have an idea of what is out there to help veterans. They get preferable insurance, banking, lending, job assistance, medical benefits (quality depends on their local VA hospital) and several programs to help them start a business or get hired over other candidates in key industries. This doesn't even touch how the private sector "rewards" those who have served in preferential treatment and "respect" not accorded those who have not served but have worked just as hard to prove themselves in their career pursuits.

Maybe all this would be fine if people were being compelled into service. That's not so. People in uniform freely choose to join. The military is free to reject those they don't want for whatever reason, so if you want to serve but they don't want you, you have no right to serve your nation. Hence, a preferred class of citizen gets the opportunity for state of the art job training which can lead to profitable post-military careers while everyone else is forced to do things on their own.

Now, as to the "defending freedom" angle...you are 1,000% correct. Arguably, WWII was the last "honorable" war America ever participated in. This is subject to debate, but if you believe the official story of how WWII began, it was a war we had no choice but to become involved in lest fascism take over the world. Since then, we had the "Cold War" where ideologies fought through intermediaries and Americans were sent to fight and die in conflicts where politicians were more interested in accomplishing an agenda as compared to defeating an identifiable enemy. We send people to fight and die against boogieman enemies created by politicians and intelligence agencies while the real threats against our freedoms are walking freely up and down the halls of power in D.C. unchallenged.

Agreed. The US has not been seriously threatened for a very long time, so the "fighting for our freedom" line is a crock of crap.

I dunno, I would think the Korean War and the Gulf War were both "honorable" in the sense that we were defending an ally from a totalitarian invader. We still were not defending American freedom, but there was definitely justification there.

And WWII is more morally ambiguous than is usually recognized, given that we sided with Stalin.

Our siding with Stalin was due to the notion of "the enemy of our enemy is our friend" line of thinking. The Soviets knew how to kick Nazi butt at least, although the barbarism done by Stalin to his own people is certainly inexcusable.

More precisely, the Soviets knew that Hitler would run out of bullets before they ran out of warm bodies.

Our war in the Pacific was totally righteous. Siding with Stalin in Europe was a pragmatic decision.

ruveyn

In the early stages of warfare between them, yes. Also, the Soviet main battle tank, although not very specialized like the various German tanks, was fairly sturdy with its sloped armor and it was easy to mass produce (in that sense it would be that the Soviets could keep mass producing TANKS while Hitler runs out of Panzerschreck.)

The Soviets were clever enough to "borrow" the Christy Suspension. The sloped armor was their original idea. It was brilliant. On top of that the T-34 was easy to manufacture and maintain. The German machines were chronically over engineered and broke down a lot. The Soviets hit the jackpot with the T-34 which was without a doubt the best tank of WW2.

ruveyn

We committed many massacres in the Pacific Front, but of course we did not initiate that conflict. I fail to see how you can so easily dismiss an alliance with the greatest mass murderer of human history as a "pragmatic" decision.

Fight one genocidal maniac with the help of the other and defeat one, or fight both and lose? WWI already showed what having to fight on multiple fronts did for the Germans then, which the Germans were repeating... but why allow Hitler to operate longer? It may have been possible for the Allies to have won without Stalin, but the War might have continued on a few more years and start looking something like Command & Conquer Red Alert.

The enemy of my enemy is temporarily my friend. Pragmatics at work. From an ethical viewpoint this is ugly thinking, but the world is in ugly place. So it goes......

As to massacres of Japanese we treated them as well as they treated others. In addition to fighting dirty they were insanely stubborn.

ruveyn

Keet and ruveyn: what if we had allied with Nazi Germany against the Soviet Union? I doubt either of you would think that would have been a good idea.

Anyways, iamnotaparakeet, I don't understand what you mean about whether the Allies could have won without Stalin. The Soviets were fighting Hitler before we got involved.

Yes, for the reason why we wouldn't prefer that, Stalin was the lesser of two evils.



The Polish were also fighting Hitler before us, and so were the French. The Soviets didn't need rescuing like the other nations did. As it is, if we fought against both Hitler and Stalin, those two might have reformed their previous alliance to conquer the rest before attacking each other again.