The capitalist version of the Nuremberg excuse… “We all have a mortgage to pay”
Just following orders
Bam!
“Just doing my job.”
Nuremberg o’clock yet?
This is a pretty conservative take. Does OP understand why someone living in desperate circumstances would join their local gang, or why they would choose a much larger and much more powerful gang like the military? Does OP understand the difference between explaining why a bad thing happens versus excusing that thing?
I don’t think adults should give heroin to vulnerable children and traffic them into sexual slavery either, but the reason that’s happening isn’t because a bunch of heroin selling hobbyists decided to be as evil as possible for fun, it happens because of economic context producing survival-orientated people who behave ruthlessly for their own self interests. People making anti-social livings probably wouldn’t have chosen the road they’re on if they had the opportunity to have a comfortable life doing something safe. A lot of the time they were conned into it in the first place and can’t get out. Nothing justifies murder, but to stop the murders you have to understand the context of why they’re happening.
Joining the military is not ok. Trying to understand why a kid would be think it’s ok to kill people overseas and then willingly do it is ok.
How exactly does it help if I, or you, understand the why? I would argue that a lot of people are aware of the whys, nonetheless there are still gangs and militaries.
Because understanding that the cause is poverty encourages everyone who understands it to focus on solving poverty. Poverty should not be allowed. If there was no poverty in the US there would be less of an incentive to do desperate things such as join a gang of any size.
Holy fuck, how did this shitshow slip through the cracks?
How is this “westoid” logic? As if no other country does this kind of bullshit.
We only have a chance at peace when ALL soldiers refuse to invade foreign lands.
As if no other country does this kind of bullshit.
Most countries can’t conceive of operating at the scale of the US. And a great deal of that military surplus is derived from wealth and labor looted overseas.
You’re stacking up Jeffrey Dalmar against the Enola Gay.
So how is the original picture “westoid logic” if it only applies to the USA?
It applies to the entire Western block. You can toss in everyone from the French to the Philippines.
The US just happens to be the folks operating on a global scale. You’ll find American military goons engaged in this kind of wreckless, pointless bloodshed from the coast of Venezuela to the highlands of Yemen.
not every other country is the usa, and not every other country is meddling in every world situation and creating world situations.
sit the fuck down redwhiteandblue underwear, this comment wont hurt you.
I am not American
Ahem take a look at Russia right now ahem. Or Israel, or China…
Yeah? I’m looking at China, and I’m not seeing anything.
Has China been bombing people recently?
2 questions bombing only specifically, and what do you consider recent? Do the Uyghurs count? Tibet? All the shit they pull in the South China sea? Korea? Vietnam? Shit they might be bombing Taiwan soon.
Shit they might be bombing Taiwan soon.
Western chauvinists have so little to hold against China that they have to resort to things that China isn’t doing, but “might” do in the future.
I support their intervention in Korea. America was the aggressor in that conflict and the Chinese defended Korean sovereignty from imperialism. Did they bomb Uyghurs without my knowledge? Even if you believe everything western media says about Chinese treatment of Uyghurs their conditions are remarkably better than Palestinians. When Tibetan peasants were freed from serfdom and the culture of the Tibetan ruling class that justified their oppression was suppressed was that equivalent to American imperialism? To the Palestinian genocide? The shit China does in the South China sea is military postering at worst. Nothing they have done has left a place as ruined as Iraq, Libya, and Afghanistan. Nothing has come close the the shear destruction we see at the hands of western imperialism. They are not comparable. You can exaggerate their actions and lie about them to an extreme and they still do not compare to what our countries have done to the world.
Vietnam was fucked up though and I will die mad about it
It’s telling that they have to go all the way back to Vietnam or Korea to try (and fail) to find things equivalent to what the West is going currently.
Ok explain the South China sea bull shit and stealing international waters and being the aggressor to the Philippines an neighbors? Genocide of the Uyghurs? You just jumped right over that part and used only a select part of the statement to make a weak ass strawman argument.
Whataboutism
The rest of the world would like to sincerely apologize for making up 0.8% of all unprovoked invasions and war crimes in the last 100 years. We really should do better.
0.8%? At that point I have to ask wtf you consider the west to include as it sounds like you must be ignoring anything done by everyone else.
And maybe not only foreign lands, but also their own ones.
The problem there is that it allows a foreign invader to invade everyone that is peaceful. I think the first step needs to be to refuse to march across the border.
I always make it a point to NEVER utter the words “thank you for your service” to these so called “heroes”. However, I do say this to people who have actually earned this phrase, such as teachers, nurses, etc.
Those words and honours are reserved for actual service workers.
Although they better unionize the fuck up already
The point of the Latuff cartoon is valid, I just really dislike the smell of the word “westoid”.
smell
tbf, the word smells better than the people (“peoploid”) it refers to.
He, language changes, new informalisms drop constantly. it is better to accept it and move on, otherwise growing old will get really annoying, and you do not want to spend any portion of your life complaining about those damn kids
We used to critique whig historiography, maybe we need to critique whig linguistics too. “Westoid” reeks of campism, that’s not something to just accept and move on.
yhea, but judging language is something I don’t want to waste energy doing. as long as I’m confident I understood the meaning I don’t care.
And often people adopt those terms ironically. or spread naturally by kids grabbing new words.
it might be a slight red flag, but too many false positives to care.
Call me old fashioned, but language matters. And if you scroll through this thread you will see that OP is pretty much using it as a campist slur, not ironically.
I gotta respect my leftists elders, keep an eye on campists🫡
We don’t need an age/authority framework to have a discussion.
was trying to jokingly do an ok boomer.
The term smacks of eating just as much propaganda as the people that they’re complaining about.
Damn, a lot of “don’t you mean all lives matter?” energy in these comments.
It will really be a joy to see Americans decide more and more countries are imperialist, as their sanctions work on fewer of them. Five years ago, a glorified gas station. Now, a great power. You guys are great at playing the victim.
“Our Glorious Eastern Soldiers”
“Their heathen rapist genocidal evil brutish westoids”
The message is good, the title is needlessly inflammatory, as if ANY major country has clean hands.
Three diverging things can be all correct at the same time.
Russia is leveling cities in self defense I swear.
because god forbid we point out the crimes of the west without going “but these orientals are still bad tho!!!”
Lol, claiming that Russia is oriental is pretty wild. That is just about as accurate as saying America is Indian.
Russia is a western nation that brutally colonized its eastern territory. This doesnt make them Asian, just like European colonization of America doesnt make it native American.
There’s actually a long history of Russia being orientalized due to orthodox christianity. Their culture is othered and generalized through this lense. Do look into it, it is an interesting subject if you like that sort of thing.
orientalized due to orthodox christianity.
Russian orthodox christianity is separate from oriental orthodoxy practiced in places like Syria or Armenia, who follow nicene Christian traditions. They may be othered by their western European counterparts, but eastern orthodoxy is fairly normal in places like Greece. I don’t think it would be appropriate to label them as oriental, especially in the modern understanding of the word.
In the modern context the orientalization of eastern europe is less severe for sure and Russia orthodoxy is more understood but I think its arguable that everything east of germany has experience with being orientalized
Ehhh… I’d have to disagree with that. The meaning of “the orient” has changed drastically over time, but even in the early days the furthest west it would encompass would be the caucuses, and even that’s pretty rare.
Oh boy, you’re gonna be pissed when you find out the continent Russia is located in…
It’s both, so what’s your point?
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Russia,[b] or the Russian Federation,[c] is a country in Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the largest country in the world, spanning eleven time zones and sharing land borders with fourteen countries.[d] With a population of over 140 million, Russia is the most populous country in Europe and the ninth-most populous country in the world.
How can you be so confident, and yet so wrong about everything?
Ahh… So when a white person lives in Asia they are oriental?
Yes. Oriental has nothing to do with race, and you would know that if you had spent 3 seconds googling before you made this snarky statement.
The term oriental is often used to describe objects and (in a derogative manner) people coming from the Orient/eastern Asia.
The term Oriental may sound dated or even be seen as a pejorative, particularly when used as a noun.[20] John Kuo Wei Tchen, director of the Asian/Pacific/American Studies Program and Institute at New York University, said the basic criticism of the term began in the U.S. during a cultural shift in the 1970s. He has said: “With the U.S.A. anti-war movement in the '60s and early '70s, many Asian Americans identified the term ‘Oriental’ with a Western process of racializing Asians as forever opposite ‘others’”,[21] by making a distinction between “Western” and “Eastern” ancestral origins.
Saying something is from the orient means its from Asia… Calling a person or a group of people like an army oriental is saying they are Asian.
Read your own source… Or just use common sense?
When have you ever heard of a European living in Europe being referred to as oriental?
Russia is in Asia…
Americans really not beating the illiteracy allegations 🤣
Lol, the irony is neither of you even read the source…
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Oriental = Asian to you I guess.
Americans really not beating those illiteracy allegations.
Lol…I would have deleted that too…
Don’t be chiding other people when you literally just used the word oriental without bothering to check what it actually meant.
Yes, but whenever someone hints that an “eastern” country might not be the best, whataboutisms fly out everyone’s collective asses.
If it’s okay to criticize one way, it should be okay to criticize (when appropriately applicable) the opposing way.
You, and most of the comments here, are literally whatabouting out of your collective asses because you heard a hint of critism of western countries.
You do see the fucking irony here, right?
I do, but apparently pointing it out gets me down votes.
You didn’t point it out though
“Our Glorious Eastern Soldiers”
“Their heathen rapist genocidal evil brutish westoids”
The message is good, the title is needlessly inflammatory, as if ANY major country has clean hands.
Reading comprehension is clearly low in this thread.
That is, indeed, you completely missing the irony. The exact opposite of “pointing it out”
“I was just following orders” is what all the Nazis said.
I yearn for the day that American soldiers are put on trial and hanged for their crimes against humanity.
The US has given itself permission to invade the Hague before allowing that to happen.
Ooh, ooh, can we start with the Commander in Chief? Why did the assassins have to miss 😥
All Americans are welcome to (re)try. They even have an Amendment for that.
I believe that should not be a valid defense, ever.
If you’re not OK with what you’re ordered to do, you should not do it (and we should have a system of justice and social support which honors that).
If you actually do something you’re responsible for that deed, ie possibly culpable.
If you’re being pressured/manipulated/… the person doing so is responsible for that, so culpable as well - but not in place - if applicable.
German law actually contains an apologetic first step in this direction, called ‘Remonstration’. I think we can all guess how it wound up in that particular legal system.
Besides being able to point at the article and say “see, we fixed it”, I’m not aware of a single (let alone significant) case where it was actually/successfully used.
In somewhat interesting contrast, German law does not codify protection of whistle blowers, for example.
In somewhat interesting contrast, German law does not codify protection of whistle blowers, for example.
No, there is the Hinweisgeberschutzgesetz from 2023, which does codify whistleblowing. I have no idea how good it is and it is new enough that it has to prove itself in the real world, but then again codify is a low bar.
Had someone from the IDF explain to me why they are the most moral army in the world.
He told me that they are ordered to disobey illegal order (wow,really? like every army in the world technically does?)
He then explained that they have absolute trust in orders because it is the most moral army in the world, and defying an order is a crime, because the order cannot be immoral or illegal because the IDF is the most moral army in the world.
I think I stopped the conversation around there, because I doubt they can understand basic logic that goes beyond propaganda.
Last I heard of him he was sad because he got alcoholism from doing minor war crimes in gaza, just casually talking about the things he looted, which he considers “rescuing” from the rubble.
Disagree. One of the main purposes of military training (in most, maybe all, cases) is to strip everyone of their individual autonomy.
If you’re not OK with what you’re ordered to do, you should not do it
The problem with this that soldiers are explicitly trained to not even consider their own judgement of their orders. They don’t stop, judge, then pull the trigger. They just pull the trigger. If they disobey an order, they’re court martialed. It’s the military’s justice system that then gets to decide if the order was unlawful. The system is designed to strip soldiers of their power.
If a 28yo enlists, they share some responsibility simply by knowingly joining an immoral organization. But most new recruits are in high school. They don’t know what the hell is going on.
All this to say: the leaders who have stripped young boys of their autonomy in order to have them commit horrific acts that will scar them for life in order to protect their own regime, they’re the real villains. I see the individual soldiers as victims.
German law does not codify protection for whistle blowers
gross. Although in the US the law is pretty much useless, so I guess at least Germany is honest? 🤷♀️
the real problem is when those murderers come home and feel sad. Will somebody think of the poor state sanctioned murderers!!
This is actually a propaganda tactic called shooting and crying.
Of course it is a hebrew expression from the IDF
I’m glad they have PTSD 🤷♂️
The only thing that seems to curb their baser impulses is the haunting memory of the horror they committed.
It’s not the soldier with PTSD who should scare you. It’s the sociopath who came back seemingly normal.
It’s not the soldier with PTSD who should scare you. It’s the sociopath who came back seemingly normal
Chris Kyle
Taking your cold-as-ice schizophrenic friend to the gun range, then treating him like shit.
What could go wrong?
Agree. If the system is codified to allow them to get off absolutely free, in terms of legal culpability, at least they get to pay in some other form. Compared to their victims being, ya know, dead, a somewhat-modicum of eternal torment seems reasonable.
Tbh, that’s the best argument.
The closest thing to their victims haunting them.
If someone has PTSD for something that happened to them, like being victims of abuse or being invaded by westerners who killed your family, then PTSD is valid. but I think PTSD is not valid if that person is the one committing those atrocities, that should be diagnosable as guilt and something they have to live with. Therefore, I think war criminals crying about PTSD and have flashbacks of driving over children on a tractor, then fuck you, that is not PTSD and it distracts from actual PTSD victims.
people downvoting you can fuck off.
In a just world they would face consequences for their actions. instead the closest thing they get is to “feel sad about it” then the whole state bends over backwards to coddle them and make them feel good.
Fuck off, I hope the guilt of their actions haunts them till their dying breath. They choose to enlist when they were legal adults. if an 18 year old gets drunk and runs over some children no one would care about them. but if an 18 year old signs up to kill children in the other side of the world it’s ok? they are then called heroes and given discounts?
yhea, we can vent on how the states encourages it, but by the end they willingly signed up to murder people. what did they expect?
For many it is their only hope of escaping poverty or owning property. “Convenient” for the state that this is the case.
Desperate people are willing to do horrible things. To what extent are they to blame for being exploited? The state’s policies allow and encourage poverty, destitution, and desperation, then exploit it.
I don’t think one is just or even absolved by their exploitation, but I can have empathy.
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The state doesn’t treat veterans much better than dogs. Some get to leave with work experience, savings, and education, others get to crawl in the streets until they starve.
For many it is their only hope of escaping poverty or owning property
Fuck that shit ass-political whitewashing lie; the US is not and has not ever been in that bad of a situation that the options are “engage in mass murdering or die”. They literally invade entire other countries of the world.
Don’t want to engage in mass murder? There’s at least 380 options! You can be a nurse, a fireman, a municipal councilor, a packager, a uber driver, or if you’re THAT desperate, a drug leader for your local drug dealership branch.
there is no soldiertariat. the person who joins the USian military is typically white, welloff and ideologically aligned with imperialism. they joined because they could and they wanted to. the military is the vanguard party of fascism.
I don’t have any sympathy for those who joined from a position of privilege. I acknowledge that is likely the majority of service members.
There’s also the many, many poor rural children that join for nationalistic reasons, already far down the path to fascism.
We can talk all about that. but the moment they agree to play the government game and make their lives better by destroying lives somewhere else they are now part of that system and not it’s victims. Same with all those ICE agents.
Have empathy with them until they decide to be a class traitor. If it was up to me they would be in jail to mellow with their PTSD. not in the general public.
Same as joining a gang. Participate in violence and you get a roof over your head and maybe a couple meals. Wether or not it makes them “bad people” or “class traitors” doesn’t change the pressures and incentives at play. There are few alternatives and fewer viable ones.
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Oh man, how dare we be mean to the people who signed up to murder brown people! Won’t someone be civil to the murderers?!
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Gladly, point me to one so I can mock them for killing innocents.
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then the whole state bends over backwards to coddle them and make them feel good.
You should do stand-up. That’s pretty funny.
How often it calls them heroes? or gives them healthcare (still shitty because it’s America, but more healthcare than the general population)? or makes it socially unacceptable to criticise them, like I’m doing now and bootlickers are downvoting men and complaining.
fuck em all, you know how easy it is not to get PTSD from murdering people in poor countries? it’s super easy, just don’t sign up to kill people in poor countries.
Keep going. You’ve almost got a tight 5 there.
Oh no, I’ve upset the bootlickers, woe is me
Oof. You aren’t the brightest, are you?
The PTSD is part of why they have the join the military mentality.
Yes, because the way to cope with cycles of abuse is to perpetuate it.
Do you recommend that people should beat their kids if they got beaten up as kids?
That’s not the point. The point is that fully funded, comprehensive health care rather than over-funded death and destruction would give people emotional survival skills beyond perpetration of aggression.
Still their fault the moment they decided to become the abusers and inflict more horrors on the world. that is a choice they made.
But yhea, healthcare and education should be universal and not tied to being a mercenary for the empire
How people are socialized (brainwashed) from birth is a thing. I didn’t do it, and I taught my kid not to do it, and that’s hard in a society that has kids pledge allegiance to a flag from preschool onward. I was heavily pressured by my whole family but one grandparent who shared with me the horrors of shell shocked brothers returning after mandatory conscription. I also read a lot, still mostly propaganda. I consider myself fortunate. Not everyone has the mental fortitude to withstand the pressure and accusations of not being patriotic. Do I think they bear personal responsibility? Yes; and the blame goes back to the very foundation of the United States.
https://storychanges.com/what-is-the-child-development-hypothesis-of-ivan-pavlov.html
Yhea, but my rule of thumb, the moment someone chooses to stop being a victim of those cycles and becomes the cause of that cycle all empathy and and understanding get flushed away. and instead I rather focus on their victims.
Doesn’t this same also fit for example Russian troops too
Yhea, but I think it is more important to criticise “your” side for doing that. I hate when russians do that, but I am not going to call or write my Kremlin representative? I am in Michigan and so I call and write to my representatives and hope they are primaried the fuck out.
Like the BS of “do you condemn Hammas”? yhea, i did, I called my Hamas representative and gave them a mouthful? you see? condemning the other side, especially if you only condemn the other side is just BS propaganda. Condemn your side for the crimes your representatives are supporting and your taxes pay for.
I mean sure but also way less people disagree with that and I don’t see how it’s relevant to this meme.
It just targets “Westoids” meanwhile that’s what Russia is doing right now, that’s why I wanted clarification
that’s what Russia is doing right now
Russia has been part of the West since Yeltsin shelled the Moscow Parliament into submission.
The Cold War ended 30 years ago. Capitalism won. What we’re experiencing today is post-Soviet imperial powers in a turf war.
When people talk of Western world Russia is pretty often not counted in that
When George Bush Jr was meeting with Vladimir Putin to coordinate the War on Terror across Central Asia, “people” did.
It’s really all nation states. But yeah it doesn’t take away from criticising the west who loves to paint themselves as guaranteer of human rights or whatever.
Could have easily criticised the wealthy and those in power instead.
Not enough raping.
NAFO types really hate it when you mention how much JSOC or the Canadian Mounties or Royal Marines have made sexual assault a cornerstone of their organizations.
Don’t ask anyone in Okinawa why the island’s rate of unprosecuted teenage sexual assault is through the roof
And here comes the whataboutism.
But we need imperialist war mongers for our “true working class” movement they are obviously more important than basic international solidarity.
Without the imperial dogs, who will protect us from all the scary foreigners who threaten our livelihoods every waking hour?
The Red Dawn! The Yellow Peril! The Antifa Supersoldiers! Save me from them, fascist daddy!
