[Nrsolis]

So you think your cherry picked examples prove your point?

The military is made up of PEOPLE. Those people place themselves at great risk for little pay in horrible circumstances. They do a job that very few people are willing to do and your only opinion is a holier than thou diatribe against the US military IN PARTICULAR.

Why not use examples of the atrocities committed by other governments, terrorist orgs, even whole nations? There is a lot of evil in the world, my friend. You'd do well to avoid painting the hundreds of thousands of people in the services with the same brush you use for those who violate every principle we stand for as a nation.

[PhasmaFelis]

Perhaps I should have qualified that more than I did. As I said elsewhere in these comments, my father served in the U.S. Army for 21 years, and he's one of the finest men I've known. Militaries, like all human institutions, are made up of good people and bad people and people just trying to get by, from the lowest ranks of the highest.

I do think the chain of command is inclined to respect the majority of soldiers who do their jobs competently and don't cause trouble--people like my father; it's not necessarily a bad thing. But the chain of command doesn't like it when people rock the boat, even if they have a good reason; and it doesn't like it when people make their superiors look bad, even if they did it while following orders.

Of course I'm generalizing. Certainly officers with real integrity exist at every level. But I do think my examples demonstrate that there's a real cultural problem there, and I don't think enough is done to address. The fact that even worse groups also exist doesn't excuse that.

And yes, I'm speaking of the US military in particular. I don't know enough to either praise or condemn any other. I'm not railing against terrorists and rogue states, because there's no reason to point out that water is wet. No one expects terrorists to be decent people. But we should expect, and demand, better of the people who are tasked with keeping us safe at night, who are supposed to be the best of us.

[Nrsolis]

> "But we should expect, and demand, better of the people who are tasked with keeping us safe at night, who are supposed to be the best of us."

The vast, vast, vast majority of people who serve in the armed forces of the US do so honorably and with a level of commitment that belies the importance of their jobs. They're young kids, not even old enough to drink, and in large part they come from circumstances where they had little opportunity or were surrounded by an environment that didn't respect following the rules, doing good work, and working well with others.

SO when you talk about the cultural problem you believe exists within the military, I'd like to remind you that the military is largely composed of people who are not far removed from the civilian culture they grew up in. You get former gang-bangers in the Army, religious nuts in the Air Force, and so on.

So if there are problems in our military culture, it's because there are problems in our culture as a whole. The military doesn't change points of view, correct deep psychological problems or reverse trauma, eliminate racist leanings or homophobia. It does NONE of those things. What it does effectively is train people to work as a team and follow rules to get things done. It's VERY effective at that.

To take one of your examples: Guantanamo. When was the last time you heard the actual voting public railing to get that gulag closed? Did you hear about a write-in campaign to Congress? How about a media blast to educate the public about what it's really like there?

You didn't. That's because the public wants it to exist. Congress made it impossible to close Guantanamo based on the politics of giving people actual trials in the USA.

You seem to labor under the idea that the military goes off on its own and decides to do things that shock the conscience. It doesn't. It follows orders from the civilian leadership. The CIVILIAN leadership. And that leadership often sucks ass. From the President to the Congress, getting good leaders that care about how the military goes about doing its job and HOW it does it is so rare as to be an anomaly in my country's history.

edit: spelling.