Snip:
More and more US troops deployed to West Asia are expressing doubts about fighting in the war against Iran, including having to “die for Israel,” the Huffington Post reported on 23 March.
A veteran and reservist who mentors younger officers told HuffPost that troops she speaks with are expressing a loss of faith after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu helped push US President Donald Trump to go to war against Iran.
[…]
Interviews further revealed that troops are worried about inadequate protection from Iranian ballistic missiles and drones targeting US bases in the Gulf region.
“Getting random indirect fire is not the same as watching the entire gym and coffee shop and some dorms get blown up from a door less than 50 meters away,” said one service member.
deleted by creator
Depends on what you mean by “vulnerable” and “impoverished”. If you mean actually in poverty, the US Federal poverty line in 2025 was an annual income of $15650 for individuals, $21150 if you’re in a household family with two children. However, if you look at the below infographic:
Source
The vast majority of US military recruits are well above the poverty line. Even if you could extrapolate most of the 19% of recruits who fall beneath the annual income of $41691 as being at or close to poverty line, that still puts the remaining 81% of recruits in a broadly middle/ upper-middle class income bracket.
Just for reference, the average median income (that’s the 50th percentile of all income earners, not the average which tends to be skewed by the upper class) in the US was only $43222 in 2023. That means the majority of US military recruits came from a household that was already earning more than 50% of the US population.
So by any of these metrics, you cannot consider most US military recruits to be impoverished.
Additionally, the racial and ethnic demographics of the military, especially in the higher ranks, is disproportionately White by a huge margin. I think it is reasonable to say that these majorly White recruits are nowhere near as vulnerable to discrimination or poverty as someone who has a non-White background, such as a black person whose family descended from slavery, or a Hispanic who migrated from a poor Hispanic country that could very well be deported by ICE any day now.
What can we ascertain from these facts then? That most people that join the US military are White, middle class individuals who are very likely joining not because they are desperate to leave poverty, but because they like the idea of being a stormtrooper of the empire whose propaganda they willingly ate up. There are far more Graham Platners than Mike Prysners in the US military.
On your other statements about purges and pragmatism, it is ironic that you say purges lead to counter-revolutionary outcomes when purges are what prevented the USSR from being completely destroyed from the inside during WW2 (see the number of Nazi collaborators in the occupied Baltic and Ukrainian territories), and is why the PRC and the DPRK still exist today.
As a non-American communist, I fail to see how it is pragmatic to try and defend the jackboots of the American Empire who are willingly carrying out war crimes and imperialist atrocities while completely ignoring all the actually impoverished, brown people they are currently murdering in the Middle East.
If empathy is ‘pragmatic’ as you claim, then I will say it is far more pragmatic to empathize the victims of the empire and materially support them to bring them to our cause, than the stormtroopers who carry out the orders of the Empire without question. It is like saying we should ‘pragmatically’ empathize IDF soldiers who are genociding Palestinians because they are all conscripts who came from all socioeconomic backgrounds and maybeeee 1% will defect if we just keep saying Free Palestine.
Removed by mod
Boris Yeltsin wasn’t purged. Gorbachev kept him around naively because he thought he was a loyal, valuable comrade that would carry out Glasnost effectively. Look how that turned out.
Deng Xiaoping purged liberals like Zhao Ziyang, the then General Secretary of the CPC that was expected to replace Deng as paramount leader, was one of the biggest supporters of Glasnost-style economic reforms and fully supported the colour revolutionaries of 1989.
By purging Zhao Ziyang, the PRC is still alive today. By not purging Boris Yeltsin, the USSR is not.
By not continually cleaning up shop in the party, you invite the exact corruption and implosion you warn of.
deleted by creator
You:
Also you:
Also you:
You are so all over the place and full of contradictory statements that you are incoherent. But so far as I can tell, what I’m getting is: “We need to have empathy for imperialist murderers and counterrevolutionary traitors but not for their victims.” Gotcha. You’re a reactionary.
deleted by creator
Empathy is pragmatic. Empathizing with victims is not pragmatic. No, those are not consistent, I’m sorry you are so blinded by this us vs them framing.
While saying that empathy for perpetrators is.
But rather than recognize that imperialist troops made a choice to literally become the enemy, willingly placing themselves on the opposite side of the class conflict from the working class and those of us who fight for it, we should give them a pass because free college is so tempting, and it’s cruel and not pragmatic or something to keep child murderers out of our orgs. Also purges are bad. Yeah, ok.
Everyone who responded to you about how ridiculous you were being fully understands that they are human and it is incredibly bad faith of you to pretend otherwise. As for the second part, let’s take out the double negative there so what you are saying can be parsed:
“they are not just acting as if they aren’t victims of the system that corrupted them” -> “they are just acting as if they are victims of the system that corrupted them” Ok, yes, I tend to agree, they often do just act as if they are victims of the system. If what you’re trying to say is that it is their material circumstances, the system they exist within, that led them to being imperialist troops, I would say that yes, material circumstances are ultimately responsible for the shaping of social factions. But that does not preclude anyone from having any responsibility for their individual choices and actions. Once again, the logical conclusion to that argument is that as communists we should not denigrate or hold anything against cops, presidents, capitalists, or any mass murderers since they are simply the product of their circumstances.
You’re really reaching to try to salvage something from this dumpster fire of a position, aren’t you?
It’s really not, which is why it’s so disconcerting (but also a little funny) to watch you flail about, trying to make any part of what you said earlier fit some sort of tortured material analysis.
I am not against empathizing with the enemy, and I never said otherwise. But no, it is not necessary to empathize with them to see any of the systemic issues that play a role in producing people like them, nor is it necessary to empathize with them to correct for it in the future.
I’m sorry you think that the very basic Marxist concept of class conflict is “us vs them framing.” lol
Removed by mod
Which you claimed was because vulnerable, impoverished Americans join the US military apparatus for desperation. Neither of which are true as I just proved in my previous comment. By continuing to use this false narrative which comes from liberals who defend Democrat military vet “progressives” like Graham Platner, you are not inacting any real change but just perpetuating the system.
Well I guess Marx, Engels, and Lenin were completely wrong in his theories then! The October Revolution was the first mistake they made by removing the provisional bourgeois government that just wanted to “educate” the peasants hey!
By your logic then, Americans who are born poor are not predestined to join the US military industrial complex and can actually just, you know, choose to not become an imperialist war criminal?
Empathizing imperialist war criminals also doesn’t help anyone except the war criminals. You still haven’t made any good case for how this benefits the international left at all.
deleted by creator
None of this relates to your premise that purging people in positions of power is somehow wrong and means “you’ve already lost” to put it your words. Re-education is not purging, it is a rehabilitative measure, which would definitely have not worked in the historical conditions of the early to mid-20th century USSR. They were literally fighting an existential war against Nazis and Tsarists ffs. You can’t “re-educate” someone who is actively trying to kill you. There are certainly criticisms to be made in the excesses of Stalin’s purges, but to completely ignore these historical conditions that necessitated the purges is pure idealism on your part.
I personally think many American government officials and all billionaires are also incapable of being re-educated because they have proven time and time again that they will stop at nothing to protect their class interests and countries like China and Vietnam punish billionaires the proper way, but you do you.
Again, this has nothing to do with defending the military apparatus of the imperialist state that is the USA, which you are doing by (falsely) claiming the stormtroopers are poor, oppressed workers who are just trying to get a decent income and education. I’m just curious if you would make the same argument for the IDF or the Wehrmacht which had many working-class individuals in it thinking they were doing no wrong.
If the average US soldier is actively involved in the current Iran War or any previous war/ invasion the US has engaged in, yes, they are war criminals.
You’re never gonna convince me that the people who killed hundreds of Iranian schoolchildren on the first day of the war are somehow innocent victims of the system. Please get some perspective.
deleted by creator
These are your exact words from earlier comments:
Stop with the revisionism please.
Removed by mod
That only became your point after your previous arguments were shown to have no bearing on reality, and it’s also a point no one here would argue with. We all agree that systemic roots need to be addressed. We don’t all agree that troops should be given a free pass for being child murderers just because they selfishly saw a way to get free college out of it. We don’t all agree that troops deserve more empathy than their victims. We don’t all agree that class traitors and counterrevolutionary wreckers should be coddled instead of purged. You can’t make all these absurd, reactionary statements and then just say your only points are “that systemic roots need to be addressed.” Wildly disingenuous.
Removed by mod
I was vulnerable, impoverished, and 18 at one time, and recruiters told me I could have free 3 squares and then college paid for, which I would have loved, but for some reason I still had the good sense to recognize immediately that it wasn’t worth killing other poor people in other parts of the world. In fact it was empathy that played a big part in my refusal to be a part of such an evil institution.
Yes, having empathy for the victims of the US military, like the poor working class families of brown people they murder, having more empathy for them than the ones who signed up to do the murdering is virtuous and pragmatic.
deleted by creator
Because I and millions of other people who are in situations just as if not more dire than the troops are able to not “fall to propaganda,” yes, I expect others to be able to do the same. You’re missing the point though, It doesn’t matter what I expect, it’s simple and undeniable proof that being 18, impoverished, and offered (mostly false) promises of alleviation from that poverty, is not reason enough for most people to be willing to join a murder cult.
Says the one simping for murderers.
Guess we had better stop hatin’ on capitalists then. It’s all just material conditions, not their fault. Cops? They just needed a job like anyone else!
Wtf are you even talking about? When did I say I had the ability to “get rid of them”? That would be nice, but I… Ohhhh, you’re talking about letting child murderers and their facilitators join socialist orgs, something which wasn’t even part of this thread, but apparently is a bug stuck in your craw from some previous discussion. Fine, I’ll bite. Yeah, that’s just purity politics, we should let cops join our orgs too. (Eyeroll). Personally, I actually might be willing to let a veteran join an org where I had control of who could become a member if and only if they fully recognized that they chose to become class traitors and joined the enemy, that they made a nearly irredeemably cruel and selfish choice that caused real material harm and have spent their lives since that recognition doing what they can to make amends to the peoples they wronged and being willing to sacrifice their own well being to improve the lives of the victims of the imperialism they were a willing part of. Most vets though think they deserve our “respect” for their cowardly choice and want special benefits above other poor people. Fuck anyone like that, they should be grateful they didn’t come home in a box. There were millions of other poor people who weren’t willing to facilitate or outright commit mass murder in exchange for college tuition. However I would not blame any org for refusing any and all US vets and I wouldn’t blame anyone for refusing to join an org who does allow US vets in. The same way I wouldn’t expect someone whose family had been murdered to let bygones be bygones and work hand in hand with the “rehabilitated” murderer of their family.
It’s the only thing you’re hearing? That’s really weird considering no one here has said anything even remotely like that.
Your position is neither more humane nor is it “smarter.”
deleted by creator
Ah, doing the accusation -> confession thing, I see.
Petty redditism. Typical.
Removed by mod
deleted by creator
Get that everybody? We have to help the bourgeoisie first before we can help the working class. We have to help the leaders of the imperialist hegemon first before we can help the people of the global south. We have to help the entity first before… fuck it, I don’t even want to finish saying that one.
Removed by mod
The poverty draft isn’t actually a thing. The nunber one motivator for US troops joining (statistically) is having a family member in the military. And even more damning is that the poor sections of american society are less likely to join the military than more. That’s despite the plague of recruiters sent into poor and black neighbourhoods and schools.
The American proletariat by and large hates the guts of the American state.
Like how ICE have good singing on bonus so it’s understandable.
deleted by creator
You’re not justifying it, you’re excusing it. Everyone here understand the underlying structural issues. The problem for me at least, it seems, that you don’t want these people to have to take responsibility and this is a sentiment I get from most of these people as well. They just got “tricked” or “just followed orders” or “the money was too good” or something. No need for self crit or doing any of the actual work. I bet you most of them still have their uniforms neatly folded and tucked away instead of burning that shit on the spot.
If you got “tricked” into joining baby crusher incorporated, honestly you’re a liability until you’ve proven otherwise. Trying to doge that responsibility is big yikes. And if taking that responsibility is a deal breaker for you, then even bigger yikes.
Just look at libs invasion logic, where they go “we got lied to about x” and 10 years later they’re doing it again, having learned nothing, or rather refused to learn anything.
deleted by creator
Youre right and no amount of poor people turned away from having criminal records, being too overweightor too uneducated will change their mind that more poor people would join if the US didnt already betray them to point so they cant even be part of the war machine. Because too overweight, did crimes and/or cant pass the ASVAB. You’re right but they’re holding onto a graphic that doesnt really prove anything either and ignores the amount of poors in the military.