> "But we should expect, and demand, better of the people who are tasked with keeping us safe at night, who are supposed to be the best of us."
The vast, vast, vast majority of people who serve in the armed forces of the US do so honorably and with a level of commitment that belies the importance of their jobs. They're young kids, not even old enough to drink, and in large part they come from circumstances where they had little opportunity or were surrounded by an environment that didn't respect following the rules, doing good work, and working well with others.
SO when you talk about the cultural problem you believe exists within the military, I'd like to remind you that the military is largely composed of people who are not far removed from the civilian culture they grew up in. You get former gang-bangers in the Army, religious nuts in the Air Force, and so on.
So if there are problems in our military culture, it's because there are problems in our culture as a whole. The military doesn't change points of view, correct deep psychological problems or reverse trauma, eliminate racist leanings or homophobia. It does NONE of those things. What it does effectively is train people to work as a team and follow rules to get things done. It's VERY effective at that.
To take one of your examples: Guantanamo. When was the last time you heard the actual voting public railing to get that gulag closed? Did you hear about a write-in campaign to Congress? How about a media blast to educate the public about what it's really like there?
You didn't. That's because the public wants it to exist. Congress made it impossible to close Guantanamo based on the politics of giving people actual trials in the USA.
You seem to labor under the idea that the military goes off on its own and decides to do things that shock the conscience. It doesn't. It follows orders from the civilian leadership. The CIVILIAN leadership. And that leadership often sucks ass. From the President to the Congress, getting good leaders that care about how the military goes about doing its job and HOW it does it is so rare as to be an anomaly in my country's history.
The vast, vast, vast majority of people who serve in the armed forces of the US do so honorably and with a level of commitment that belies the importance of their jobs. They're young kids, not even old enough to drink, and in large part they come from circumstances where they had little opportunity or were surrounded by an environment that didn't respect following the rules, doing good work, and working well with others.
SO when you talk about the cultural problem you believe exists within the military, I'd like to remind you that the military is largely composed of people who are not far removed from the civilian culture they grew up in. You get former gang-bangers in the Army, religious nuts in the Air Force, and so on.
So if there are problems in our military culture, it's because there are problems in our culture as a whole. The military doesn't change points of view, correct deep psychological problems or reverse trauma, eliminate racist leanings or homophobia. It does NONE of those things. What it does effectively is train people to work as a team and follow rules to get things done. It's VERY effective at that.
To take one of your examples: Guantanamo. When was the last time you heard the actual voting public railing to get that gulag closed? Did you hear about a write-in campaign to Congress? How about a media blast to educate the public about what it's really like there?
You didn't. That's because the public wants it to exist. Congress made it impossible to close Guantanamo based on the politics of giving people actual trials in the USA.
You seem to labor under the idea that the military goes off on its own and decides to do things that shock the conscience. It doesn't. It follows orders from the civilian leadership. The CIVILIAN leadership. And that leadership often sucks ass. From the President to the Congress, getting good leaders that care about how the military goes about doing its job and HOW it does it is so rare as to be an anomaly in my country's history.
edit: spelling.