What a shock: Hollywood pushing back at "The Sniper"

They can choose not to go, though.

Plus, this isn't Vietnam. They signed up for this, or at least the possibility of this.

It seems somewhat infantilizing to me, as well, to completely absolve the troops from the conflict.

 

I see it as just doing their jobs. Most of these guys sign up because they aren't cut out for college. Sure, some WANT to fight or be a hero, but if they sign up, what are they supposed to do? If they are deployed to Afghanistan, and they disagree with the conflict, they should just decline and be be subjected to court martial?

 

That's an option, yes.

 

Of course it's an option. But I don't see how one can be expected to do that. So you think just because they sign up for the military, they WANT to go fight? My guess would be that 95 percent would prefer not to see combat. Maybe that's a little high given the reasons people have been enlisting more recently, but most of these men/women enlist because it seems like their best option. Or they simply see it as serving their country.

 

No, I don't think that. But no one forced them to join, either, and they knew that fighting was a possibility. Certainly your point is well-taken that many of them enlist because, in their circumstances, it's the best or possibly only option. Their culpability is open to mitigation. But it's not per se none.

 

That's a silly argument. Follow that line of thought to its end and it can be concluded that even the most strident opponent of a particular military action is nevertheless morally culpable for that action. Indeed, by that line of thought merely standing by and allowing nation X to have a military means that nation Y, which knew something like this could happen, is on the hook, too.

Everyone's guilty ... which means no one's guilty.

 

Or everyone's guilty, just in different degrees, from negligible (me staying in the United States and paying taxes that support the action) to not-so-negligible (Dick Cheney).

 

And the Swiss ... Don't forget them.

 

I have no problem holding Switzerland morally culpable for Nazi atrocities.

 

No, no, no ... The Swiss are culpable for our atrocities. They've allowed us to have that military. They had to have known we might do something foolish with it.

And don't get me started on the French!

 

They're so rude. They don't even have the common decency to speak English. I mean, it's like they have a different word for EVERYTHING!

 

If the soldiers are just "doing a job," and have no further skin in this game, then what makes them more heroic than the guy who made my tacos 10 minutes ago? Why am I peer-pressured to stand and cheer for the "hero" who gets announced at every sporting event I attend? Why not for the guy who carries the hose around the infield and does a banging job at it?