{"id":235288,"date":"2016-04-01T16:06:20","date_gmt":"2016-04-01T16:06:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/?p=235288"},"modified":"2016-04-01T16:06:40","modified_gmt":"2016-04-01T16:06:40","slug":"no-thank-service-fallacy-troop-worship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/no-thank-service-fallacy-troop-worship\/","title":{"rendered":"No Thank You for Your Service: The Fallacy of Troop Worship"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>There is a pervasive idea in today\u2019s American society that regardless of political<br \/>\nphilosophy or party affiliation, one must never criticize the members of the<br \/>\nUnited States military. Conventional wisdom holds that we must appreciate the<br \/>\nsacrifice soldiers have made to \u201cfight for our freedom,\u201d and even if one is<br \/>\nagainst the war, they must always \u201csupport the troops.\u201d This line of thinking<br \/>\nis not coming solely from the pro-war crowd; many of those who consider themselves<br \/>\nantiwar (or at least oppose a specific war or conflict) have the utmost regard<br \/>\nfor those who fight in them. But is this canonization of those who take up arms<br \/>\nin the name of the United States government truly just? Or is it a falsehood<br \/>\nbased on propaganda, emotion, and a lack of critical thinking?<\/p>\n<p>The first myth that must be debunked is the previously-mentioned<br \/>\nidea that the job of a soldier is to protect \u201cour freedom.\u201d This assertion is<br \/>\nunequivocally untrue. The role of U.S. soldiers, first and foremost, is to obey<br \/>\nthe orders of their government and commanders, whether these orders support<br \/>\nor infringe upon the freedoms of Americans and those in other countries. A soldier<br \/>\nis not beholden to the average American, but instead to a small group of people<br \/>\nin authority. His job is not to keep us free, but to do what he is told, even<br \/>\nif that includes participating in the deaths of innocent people. Propaganda<br \/>\nslogans aside (\u201ca government for the people, by the people\u201d), governments are<br \/>\nnot the people of a country. A soldier is not accountable to us, but to them.<\/p>\n<p>Many troop supporters would also point out that the job of a soldier includes<br \/>\ndisobeying illegal orders. In theory, this seems like an appropriate safeguard.<br \/>\nBut in practice, this rarely happens. Take the 2003 Iraq War, for instance,<br \/>\nwhich was viewed by many in the US as an unconstitutional war. The war was also<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2004\/sep\/16\/iraq.iraq\">viewed by United<br \/>\nNations Secretary-General Kofi Annan as a violation of international law<\/a>.<br \/>\nIn theory, one would have expected a sizable contingent of soldiers to disobey<br \/>\nthe orders of President George W. Bush and refuse to step foot on Iraqi soil.<br \/>\nInstead, a full-fledged invasion was launched. There are numerous other instances<br \/>\nof soldiers breaking the law to do what they are told, whether it be the torture<br \/>\nof detainees at Abu Ghraib or the My Lai Massacre during the Vietnam War. Even<br \/>\nfor soldiers who refuse to break the law, the legality of a war or order is<br \/>\nfairly irrelevant in practice; those who are in power are able to bend the law<br \/>\nto their liking, as the Bush administration did when it <a href=\"http:\/\/www.alternet.org\/story\/137840\/declassified_report%3A_bush_admin_solicited_torture_'wish_list,'_ordered_'communist'_tactics\">argued<br \/>\nthat \u201cenhanced interrogation\u201d (otherwise known as torture) was not in violation<br \/>\nof the Geneva Convention<\/a>. It is entirely possible that an individual soldier<br \/>\ncould at least attempt to opt out of performing illegal actions. But, there\u2019s<br \/>\na&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/original.antiwar.com\/john_hudak\/2016\/03\/31\/no-thank-you-for-your-service-the-fallacy-of-troop-worship\/\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There is a pervasive idea in today\u2019s American society that regardless of political philosophy or party affiliation, one must never criticize the members of the United States military. Conventional wisdom holds that we must appreciate the sacrifice soldiers have made to \u201cfight for our freedom,\u201d and even if one is against the war, they must [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-235288","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235288","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=235288"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235288\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=235288"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=235288"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=235288"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}