The United States is a global superpower, and its military trains for war in every domain. During my years as a military educator, I saw American officers wrestle with any number of scenarios designed to challenge their thinking and force them to adapt to surprises. One case we never considered, however, was how to betray and attack our own allies. We did not ask what to do if the president becomes a threatening megalomaniac who tells one of our oldest friends, Norway, that because the Nobel Committee in Oslo refuses to give him a trophy, he no longer feels “an obligation to think purely of Peace” and can instead turn his mind toward planning to wage war against NATO.
As my colleague Anne Applebaum wrote today, Donald Trump’s threatening message to the Norwegian prime minister should, in any responsible democracy, force the rest of the U.S. political system to act to control him. The president is talking about an invasion that would require “citizens of a treaty ally,” as she put it, “to become American against their will,” all because he “now genuinely lives in a different reality.” And yet neither Congress nor the sycophants in the White House seem willing to stop him.
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Dishonorable discharge and/or military prison is pretty impossible to come back from in a socioeconomic sense. These people have entire families relying in them. It’s either follow orders, or ruin their family. And if you can sit there and wave that off, you lived a charmed life in comparison.
Getting blown up by a missile fired for stupid reasons is pretty hard to come back from in a literal sense
You can say the same to the many, many people who say “Why don’t Americans do a Second Amendment?”
if you are dishonorably discharged for ignoring an illegal order, you are not actually dishonorably discharged.
also: the real solution here is to provide both exit support for those who realize joining was fucking stupid and to convince those who think about joining that they should absolutely not join.
anyone who stays in, or joins (VOLUNTEERS!) fully knowing what the US does these days, is a fucking piece of utter shit trash.
Please don’t be so ignorant. It’s never that black and white. And if you are dishonorably discharged, nothing they say will make that stigma go away.
High horses don’t matter when the bill collectors and repo men come knocking.
People joining today, maybe. But there are people who joined before this stupid shit went down. And they probably joined as a last resort because they felt they had no other choice. That happens. Not everyone is blessed with options.
ergo the support for those in and wanting to get out.
those in who want to stay in can go fuck themselves.
Please stop acting high and mighty for shit you know nothing about. The military is not some at-will job you can just up and quit. It doesn’t work that way.
anyone in currently joined as a volunteer. anyone who stays because they want to is a fucking piece of shit. anyone who is actively researching legal support to get out is doing the right thing.
the math is not that hard. do you not understand? those who want to be there are fucking pieces of shit.