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Troops and marines deeply troubled by LA deployment: ‘Morale is not great’
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 12 Jun 2025
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Would you be willing to risk ten years in prison that a military judge will agree that an order to go stand somewhere is illegal?
Or to put it another way, do you expect our enlisted men and women to uphold the high moral virtues of honor, self sacrifice, and protection of innocents?
After seeing what horrors American soldiers are capable of, I'm not holding my breath.
Again, it's one thing to expect them to reject orders they know are illegal, such as firing on civilians. It's another thing entirely to expect them to reject orders the legality of which may be a supreme court case next week.
Yeah, nobody here knows what they are talking about. "I won't go, I refuse to go." Cool, here come the MPs, you go straight to jail. This shit happened quick. It wasn't like these units had time to talk and maybe try to form a unified front. They got mobilized quick, and so any choice you make, you're doing it on your own.
And so is it right to disobey? Maybe. Is it easy? Absolutely not, and to suggest that is foolish, but easy to do from behind a desk.
And so I think they'll do what they must. They'll show up, they'll stand in a line, and they'll hope they don't need to do any more than that. And it goes unsaid that there's some morons who want to beat on people, but they're the 10%. The rest of them don't want to be there.
I was just following orders.
Also even if there are 10% who just want to beat people, are the other "good guys" stopping them? One of these cowardly cunts shot a reporter point blank and the ones areund him were more like: good job than: wtf, you can't do that. Go lick their boots and thank them for their great service.
It seems we are in agreement then, the troops are self-interested rational actors; all of the supposed virtues are propaganda.
But I think there is a moral imperative that says "do not obey immoral orders", and that imperative does not come with a clause that says "unless there is a pending court case".
Is it immoral to get on a plane, and go sleep on the floor somewhere?
No, plane rides and sleepy time are not immoral in my opinion :)
There's probably a good argument about plane emissions and climate change tho
Curious to know what horrors you've seen?
There was the whole thing in Guantanamo Bay. And the awful treatment of civilians in Afghanistan. And in Iraq. And we can't forget the Vietnam war.
I think the guy you're talking to is a duck, but he's not all wrong.
Yeah, those are good examples. I wasn't trying to challenge him, but was genuinely curious to know if he'd personally seen shit.
There's far too many to name, but the first things that come to mind are Collateral Murder, Haditha Massacre, and literally anytime the US military has been involved in the Gazan genocide of the past year.
In theory, the next administration would pardon them. In theory.