> 1) With an all-volunteer army, how responsible are
> the soldiers for
> what they do? Is it different from a conscript army?
Certainly they are more culpable than conscripts. But they have constraints as well, as you've pointed out in the case of reluctant Kerry voters.
Kelley described it well: I don't think you can overemphasize the lure of the promises of training, money and gettin' out of dodge esp. if your propects are drab. Ah, and don't forget the whole service-to-your-citizens aspect. Think of it like the Peace Corps for the high school diploma set. Wrap a bit of goodwill up with a job at Dairy Queen and the promise of little more and how hard is it to spin some 17 year old's head? Christ, ROTC was lure enough for me to pay for school, and I had brighter prospects and was probably more aware of the consequences of the military for the outer world than most.
Wojtek mentioned about killing people to get your life together. How many think in those terms beforehand, figuring why the hell would somebody expect a well-trained electronics tech to given a rifle?
And once they got you suckered in, what are you going to do? Esp. when you don't know WTF a Quaker is? I understand part of the discipline is they get people dependent on you to do your job, and you know that.
Frankly, I admire the fortitude of the few who've split. I bet many burnt a lot of personal bridges for that.
> A large percentage - I don't know the exact number,
> but it's
> significantly different from 0 - of U.S. soldiers
> are proud of what
> they're doing in Iraq. Doesn't that invalidate some
> of the slogans
> you hear at antiwar rallies, or did back in the day
> when there were
> antiwar rallies?
Which slogans? "Don't make them do this"? I don't see why you need 100% non-sociopathy to demand that.
> 2) In some semblance of a democracy, like the one we
> have, how
> responsible are people for the actions of their
> government?
> Did a large percentage of Bush voters vote for him
> because they like
> what he's doing in Iraq and elsewhere? How can we
> just blame W, and
> ignore the fact that the guy got scores of millions
> of votes?
I think there's more responsibility here, but not because they like what W's doing in Iraq. They don't seem to even see what W's doing in Iraq. Those PIPA polls comparing the knowledge of current events between Bush and Kerry voters are striking. We know how most thought "WMD" had been found ("unconventional weapons" just didn't have the right frisson, no?). One of them as I recall was "Would you support an invasion if WMD had not been found in Iraq?" and 60+% of Bush voters said no. Many thought he supports Kyoto and a bunch of other worthy stands on issues.
As sucky as US news reporting is, it just doesn't cover delusion of that depth. You didn't have to read friggin' Z Magazine to find this stuff out. Newsweek would suffice. Even CNN didn't turn away from the basics. It seems like there's a great deal of self-deception. Comfy lies. Gosh, we wouldn't mean to hurt anybody, we're just here to help. Why would anybody want to get in our way? You don't really think the president would do *that*? He's just plain folks, not like that Kerry.
And I've heard this from people with less excuse than most for not knowing better.
Andy
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