Why Can't I Criticize Soldiers?

This week has seen the absolute pinnacle of nationalism and War Drum parades. All because of a movie, based on a soldiers life as he continued on an invasion of property and the killing of other human beings. My own view of it is to be critical of the act of War and the actions of those who were part of it, not everyone will share in this idea. Some will vehemently attack anyone who dares question the acts of soldiers. 

So I question: Why is it acceptable to criticize the act of war or the given reason for war, to criticize the politicians and Presidents who contrive the wars, but it is not acceptable to criticize the soldiers, who ultimately perform the actions in war? Why is it seen as unsavory or in the responses I usually get "unpatriotic" to criticize a person who has decided to cast off morals and principles, even religious doctrines, to do unspeakable things because they were ordered to do so?

I asked this question on my Facebook page and the responses varied from Emotional attachment, Mental Conditioning, Cognitive Dissidence and even it can be seen as a personal attack. I do agree with these answers but I add two more of my own; Nationalism and the Subjective View of Life and Foreign Ethnicity.

Personally I think the answers Emotional Attachment, Mental Conditioning and Cognitive Dissidence all go hand in hand. The mental conditioning that comes from what I wrote about last week; the War Culture. From the earliest of childhood all the way through the teenage years and into adulthood being inundated with images of war, compulsory deification of the war fighters and justification for their actions.It is almost mandatory to glorify the soldier and all that he does.
With slogans like "they are fighting for your freedom to say these things" and  " if it weren't for the troops we would all be speaking German/Arabic" (Whatever language the native speakers use in the particular region the military is engaged in at the time) Flag waving ceremonies, and recitation of the pledge of allegiance and the singing of the national anthem everyday for schoolchildren and even a host of other venues for those not in the schools. With that conditioning though comes the emotional attachment and in time the cognitive dissidence.
Of course we could include the point of Nationalism in this theory as well as it is the point of the conditioning and indoctrination to subvert any thought that the particular piece of ground you have been cosmically placed upon at birth is superior to all others and that all actions by the government or it’s military are somehow justified under the pretense of National Security or some other vague catchy slogan.

Cognitive Dissidence is a psychological term that refers mental stress or discomfort experienced by an individual who holds two or more contradictory beliefs, ideas, or values at the same time, or is confronted by new information that conflicts with existing beliefs, ideas, or values. It is in this area we see the backlash from speaking against or questioning the acts of soldiers, politicians and leaders who act in immoral ways or inhumane ways. Though it seems that more people have an issue with the criticism of soldiers rather than politicians or even the given reasons for war.

After all of these I think another aspect to be looked at is the subjective value of life and of different ethnic groups. Everything in life has a value attached to it by every individual, that value is subjective to each of us, and even the value of life cannot escape this process. The mental conditioning and Nationalism that is taught aims to place in the minds of individuals a value of one life over that of another based on where those certain people are located and the relationship between the governments they live under. We have, in the past, seen this subjective value lead to horrendous things as apartheid, slavery and genocide. We have seen it again and again lead to wars between people. It is this that I find the most dangerous aspect of nationalism and of the kinds of conditioning that is taught. Ethnic differences do exist in this world and will exist in this world until the day some men can justify to the rest that a reason exists to eliminate the differences. We have seen it in the past and I fear we will see it again in the future.

Images like this is why I believe there is room for criticism

The last reply was that of “some may see it as a personal attack”. It isn't a personal attack, it is criticism of the persons actions being moral or immoral, humane or inhumane, justifiable or unjustifiable, and it is exactly this criticism that needs to take place in order for the person and the public to see that no matter what uniform you may wear, no matter what orders you receive, you ultimately make a decision to do those actions and if those actions in any other setting are to be seen as immoral, illegal, wrong, inhumane, or atrocious, they should be seen the same way regardless of orders or uniform.  

This should not be taken as a general attack on soldiers. There are many who serve in the military that do not perform these acts, and there are some that refuse. Some countries military's actually give this instruction to their soldiers. "A soldier has the ability to refuse any act that can be seen as inhumane or immoral and report the officer who voiced the order to him." With that ability comes a choice, they can or cannot perform this or simply let it go and do as they are told.

It is a shame, I believe, that we cannot have a rational discussion on these matters without the name calling and shunning of the critic, without the threats of violence. It is a lack of logical thought that has led the world to wars, genocides, apartheid, slavery, segregation, holocausts, and the widespread demolition of native ways of life and indigenous peoples. We need to stop with the fear of criticism, and a stop needs to be made by those that justify atrocities with nationalism or government service and orders. The actions that take place that lead to barbarity and cruelty will never come to an end if we are silent about them. If we do not speak up and call out the inhumanity that is taking place it will forever continue.

Some further reading in the field of Psychology in relation to this issue.

The Milgram Experiment  sought an answer to the reason why people will perform functions or actions when ordered to do so by someone they see as authority, if authority has been placed in them, and when the responsibility for the results of their actions has been removed or placed into the hands of someone else. It is a fascinating psychological study.

Leon Festinger's theory of cognitive dissonance focuses on how humans strive for internal consistency. When inconsistency (dissonance) is experienced, individuals tend to become psychologically uncomfortable and they are motivated to attempt to reduce this dissonance, as well as actively avoiding situations and information which are likely to increase it.

In psychology, the Asch conformity experiments or the Asch Paradigm were a series of laboratory experiments directed by Solomon Asch in the 1950s that demonstrated the degree to which an individual's own opinions are influenced by those of a majority group.

Recently VeteransNewsNow.com released this story of the treatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib. Where US service members would engage in sodomizing Iraqi boys in front of their mothers and other women. It is this kind of treatment that causes such concern for what these soldiers mental states are that they would engage in this brutality. You cannot just sweep this behavior under the "for your freedom" rug.

9/11's Legacy of Lost Liberties

Originally from the Opinion page of The Chattanooga Times Free Press. Authors name was not present. This is not an original work of mine.

"Eleven years have passed since al-Qaida used a band of box cutter-wielding terrorists to the attack the United States. Many people will take a moment to reflect on what America lost that day in Lower Manhattan, at the Pentagon and in a field in southern Pennsylvania. Far too few, however, will consider what was taken from us as a result of that day, not by terrorists, but by our own government.

America's losses on 9/11 were staggering. Gone were 2,996 lives, $100 billion in property, the New York skyline as we knew it and the sense of security that Americans enjoyed. All of those loses were brought on directly by al-Qaida and its 19 hijackers.

But the losses didn't end there. Americans lost liberties. We lost privacy. We lost trillions of dollars. In many ways, we lost any reasonable claim of a limited, constitutional government. And all of those things were taken, not by a group of hijackers, but by our own government.

In the days following 9/11, Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., declared, "the era of a shrinking federal government is over."

Shortly after the attack, Schumer's prophesy became reality. A new era of big government was born in the wake of 9/11 that continues today, with no sign of shrinking.

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The new era of big government can be tracked back to a 14-month period between September 2001 and November 2002. During that time, government launched the War on Terror, ratified the Patriot Act, founded the Transportation Security Administration and created the Department of Homeland Security.

On Sept. 20, 2011, George W. Bush declared a War on Terror, sparking military operations that have, to date, sacrificed the lives of 6,594 Americans and will ultimately cost taxpayers approximately $4 trillion, according to a report by Brown University's Watson Institute for International Studies.

Later, in an 18-hour period on October 12, 2001, both houses of Congress rammed through the Patriot Act. The act imparted the federal government with a disturbing array of new powers, many of which fly in the face of the United States Constitution. For example, the Patriot Act allowed the government to:

• Force records custodians, such a libraries, schools, social work institutions and Internet service providers to turn over records to the federal government without explanation or justification.

• Seize assets from charities, even without probably cause.

• Require the release of records from telecommunications and financial services companies without any court order.

• Spy on citizens using a Cold War-era statute designed for tracking the covert activities of Soviet agents.

• Imprison American citizens without proper due process.

On Nov. 19, 2001, the Transportation Security Administration was born. The bureaucracy, best known for harassing and molesting travelers in airport terminals, not only cost Americans a total of $60 billion since 9/11, but a number of lawsuits are winding their way through federal court claiming that the TSA's screening tactics violate Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable searches and seizures.

If that weren't bad enough, the TSA is also bad at doing what it was designed to do. The TSA is responsible for allowing 25,000 security breaches, according to House subcommittee on National Security chairman Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah.

A year later, in November 2002, the Department of Homeland Security was formed. Since it's founding, Homeland Security has cost taxpayers nearly $700 billion. The cabinet department has spied on Americans, been engaged in inappropriate data mining on American citizens and illegally intercepting mail. In addition, a Homeland Security database meant to track people who are considered threats to national security has been filled with members of groups that comprise about one-third of the American population, including pro-gun, anti-death penalty, pro-abortion, anti-abortion, pro-Second Amendment, anti-war and Tea Party activists, according to information compiled by the Cato Institute.

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It was bizarre and disturbing when the government's response to 9/11, one of the biggest failures in the history of government, was to implement even more government.

Since 9/11, and largely as a product of the government's response to the terrorist attacks, the federal budget has doubled from $1.9 trillion in 2001 to $3.8 trillion today. To put it another way, in 2001, the federal government spent $6,752 per person in America. This year, the government will devour $12,090 for each American.

In fact, as hard as it may seem to believe today, the federal budget was balanced in 2001 with a $127 billion surplus left over. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the 2012 budget will finish $1.1 trillion in the red.

The price tag of the federal government's response to 9/11, including domestic spending and the War on Terror is now estimated at over $5 trillion, according to The Fiscal Times. This money came from the pockets of taxpayers -- and will continue to for years to come. It also came from lenders, such as China, and from the printing press, which led to a devalued, inflated dollar.

The sheer number of people constituting the federal government workforce has grown dramatically, as well. From 2000 to 2012, the population of the United States has risen 11.7 percent. Over that same time period, the number of federal workers (excluding U.S. Postal workers) has increased from 1.78 million in 2000 to 2.21 million in 2012, or 24.2 percent.

Perhaps the worst result of government's response to 9/11 was the total disregard for Constitutional rights resulting, not only from the aforementioned Patriot Act, Transportation Security Administration and Department of Homeland Security, but from the precedent that these bureaucracies set. Rights have been removed, rejiggered, ignored and trampled to the point that the Fourth Amendment has become a historical footnote, rather than an ironclad restraint on federal powers.

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In the weeks and months after 9/11, it was poplar to declare "the terrorists did not win" as Americans returned to daily life, as if the American lifestyle was the reason for the attack. But it wasn't.

America wasn't subjected to terrorist attacks because America had too much liberty or too many freedoms. It wasn't because America was too rich or too powerful. The attacks, according to Osama bin Laden and the al-Qaida masterminds behind the terrorist attacks, were due to the U.S. military and economic sanctions against Iraq, the presence of American troops in Saudi Arabia and America's support of Israel.

In that sense, the terrorist did not win. America has continued to trip over itself to defend Israel, even when Israel is the aggressor. The age of expansionist American foreign policy is still alive and well. In fact, the 9/11 attacks led to military action which cost a total of 300,000 lives in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to numbers compiled by OWNI, a French media website. In the terrorists' attempts to make U.S. to become more limited and less intrusive in its foreign policy approach, it's fair to say they lost convincingly.

But Americans have lost, too. That loss didn't come to terrorists or to radical Islam. That loss came to our own government.

The government has done what terrorists never could: take away freedoms, privacy and Constitutional rights that were fundamental to what it means -- or, more accurately, what it meant -- to be American. Government has multiplied in size and exploded in scope. It has taxed, borrowed and spent until it is forever impossible to restore federal spending to what it was before 9/11. While America was not defeated by 9/11, American principles have been beaten to death in the 11 years since.

While terrorists and American principles both lost badly in the wake of 9/11, there is one undisputed winner: big government."

The Real State of the Union

President Obama gave his 7th State of the Union speech  last night, January 21st 2015. After hearing these speeches year after year, president after president I have come to see them not as projections of what the actual state of the nation is, but rather an advertisement for things the president thinks he did well,

“ ...more of our people are insured than ever before...”

Well yeah, they kind of have to be, remember you made them criminals if they didn’t buy insurance.

Not mentioned in last nights remarks is the reality of the real state of the union.

What about the National Debt?

The Outstanding Public Debt as of 21 Jan 2015 at 06:03:20 PM GMT is:

The estimated population of the United States is 319,850,520

so each citizen's share of this debt is $56,565.23.

The National Debt has continued to increase an average of

$2.40 billion per day since September 30, 2012!

Or maybe the amount of new regulations?

A little over 75,000 pages of new burdensome and restrictive regulations were imposed on US businesses. Each one a hinderance to the growth and expansion of businesses.

No mention of the prison population.

More than 1.57 million inmates sat behind bars in federal, state, and county prisons and jails around the country as of December 31, 2013. Many from victimless crimes.

We could go on with the rising tax rates, poverty levels, inflation, wasteful spending, the drug war, real wars and their destructive nature, the rate of returning soldiers committing suicide, the rate of bankruptcy and homelessness, the NSA…. And so on and so on.

The State of the Union has become nothing more than promises of future action and commercialization of past actions, not to give a statistical breakdown of how the nation is functioning.