One thing we can honestly respect the military in america for, is the ability to do some of the most insane things a president or someone with military control in the administration. They might not want to do it, they might feel there are better things to fight for, they may have heavy regret signing and volunteering for the military knowing who the president is. But they do it anyways.
You may not agree with what the military does, but you have to respect them for that reason alone, above all else. The unfortunate fact is that it is wasting tons of their time and in some cases, wasting their lives.
Which makes me ask, after many attempts for Trump to sick the military onto the American people who fund them and are to be protected by. How will they be after it is all said and done? Because I cannot see a solid reason as to why anyone would volunteer for the military, after the amount of power-tripping we’ve seen demonstrated so far of them.
Yes, the introduction of an individual, ethical “veto” came after the formation of national militaries like we know them today. There is built in tension to introduce a right to disobey into a system that otherwise demands obedience to function. It’s also hard to grasp as a concept even for the better educated. It’s fucked up. These days I’m thinking more and more about the adage that morale is something you need to be able to afford. And I understand every sergeant who feels like they don’t have any morale money to spend when ordered, say, to fire on shipwrecked drug smugglers. You piss off your boss and before you know it you’re dishonorably discharged back to the poverty stricken area you tried to get away from. Also, left-leaning liberals are a minority in a profession that practices how to kill people. There is so much gray there.
I say I understand the hypothetical sergeant in their moral life dilemma. As far as my respect is concerned, I can be totally black and white about this though.
The pessimistic take is none of this will matter because the US is moving further away from its constitutional order into a 21st century version of fascism. The military will be ridden of the morale “veto” and sworn to obey the leader no matter what. The optimistic take sees the current cult/fascistoid leadership edged out in 3-7 years and we will mostly see the homeopathic punishment I mentioned before. If we’re lucky, a tightening of the rules under which circumstances and with whose authority military units of any kind can be mobilized in peacetime within the US.