this post was submitted on 10 Jun 2025
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Most of the US military have zero qualms about obeying illegal orders.
Reference: Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam, and most other U.S. instigated wars for their entire history.
This is what has been most depressing/distressing about watching all of this unfold. People online (and I'm not immune to this either) have this impulse to think "Surely not right? Surely these people will come to their senses and not just blindly follow transparently evil orders right? We've been told these people are heroes who stand up for freedom and democracy and our safety right? Surely at least some of them will do the right thing right?" It's so ingrained into us through support our troops propaganda and various TV/Movies showing them and cops as principled heroes saving the day. We've also seen this with corporations. "Wow I can't believe this company turned away from DEI so quickly. I can't believe this company is going to keep selling surveillance tech to the government. Surely someone will see how wrong that is."
And then I snap back to my senses and remember history. We've seen what horrors these people are willing to commit, whether they want to or are "just following orders." Maybe you at least believe that they won't do it to US, as cynical as that is... and then you remember Kent State, segregation, the violent crackdown on unions, the police rallying around protecting cops who execute people in the streets, etc.
Nobody is going to come to their senses. None of them are coming to save us from themselves. If we don't stand up for ourselves this is just going to happen and be another chapter in a long history of cruelty.
The Milgram experiment. The Zimbardo prison experiment. The bystander effect. At the end of the day, humans are just monkeys with smart watches. As social primates, it's really hard to be the one to stand up against the crowd. Our brains decide how to act based largely on the reactions of other humans around us.
It's disheartening.
Military operative have been trained to obey like dogs, their sentience has been mercilessly beaten out if them. Just look at the mindless obedience of your coworkers, sheeps to the slaughter the lot of them. The few that awaken gets co-opted by the system as sheep dogs of the system are rewarded with meaty, juicy bones. Questionning authority is not an option, it's a sin. They know their masters would never punish their obedience, it would never happen, it NEVER happens.
The military is a corrupt and vile institution, it is irrelevant who they are killing for, they are not on "your" side, they are trying to survive and will kill what they are told. All who participate in organized premeditated militarism as a job, while not under immediate attack of another organized and premeditated military, are simply lost to humanity, they have become the enemy, tools, no matter what flag they jack into at night. In hyperwar militaries are obsolete because they become incoherent, there is no enemy if cannot point to it. The enemy is you.