Post B1xe0wNotzf1K88bGC by timberwraith@mastodon.social
(DIR) More posts by timberwraith@mastodon.social
(DIR) Post #B1xdvU0kxeNVsikPNw by khm@hj.9fs.net
2026-01-05T02:28:50Z
1 likes, 0 repeats
yeah I was also lower enlisted in 2003 and "don't do war crimes" was part of the training. another part of the training was "what constitutes a war crime" (which does not, for the record, include "going to war for a reason you don't like" but does include "firing on lifeboats" as an example)also having a hard time understanding the concept that a private would not be totally over the moon at the opportunity to have legal standing to tell some officer to fuck off. having legal standing to tell an officer to fuck off is among the foremost dreams of lower enlisted soldiersCC: @timberwraith@mastodon.social
(DIR) Post #B1xe0NbmC71nTHOkee by timberwraith@mastodon.social
2026-01-05T01:12:49Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
I was 17 when I figured out that the u.s. military was an intrinsically evil institution. As someone assigned male and born in the Cold War years, I fully understood that I'd possibly have to prepare for being incarcerated rather than face conscription for one of the united states' many overseas military slaughters. I would have rotted in prison first.But yeah, I know that most people just blunder along doing whatever their fascist society tells them to.And that's a major fucking problem.
(DIR) Post #B1xe0OAs5d6JE7omMC by timberwraith@mastodon.social
2026-01-05T01:18:13Z
1 likes, 0 repeats
"I was just following orders." are the well known reflexive words of the people in foxholes, clerks' offices, and various other jobs and positions that made innumerable atrocities possible in well documented moments of history.It wasn't an acceptable excuse then.It's not an acceptable excuse now.
(DIR) Post #B1xe0WDeBC4gB3B6nJ by timberwraith@mastodon.social
2026-01-05T01:36:13Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
But I'll also repeat something that I've heard other people say:The military likes to recruit/conscript people while they're younger because it is easier for the institution to manipulate and brainwash people into becoming instruments of mass murder while they are younger.And I'll add, that's even easier to accomplish if society has primed a major part of the military's target populace with the ideology of toxic masculinity to soften them up for exploitation as cannon fodder.
(DIR) Post #B1xe0bML4Izw7SHcXI by timberwraith@mastodon.social
2026-01-05T01:39:54Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
Pouring racism and xenophobia into the target populace for recruitment and conscription is also quite helpful.Teach them violence and aggression as a personal ethic from the earliest years and teach them hatred against the people they will be used as weapons against and you'll be able to feed the engines of war with human bodies more reliably.
(DIR) Post #B1xe0gIGiriHQHPwO0 by timberwraith@mastodon.social
2026-01-05T02:12:12Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
Postscript:I will also say this. I was raised in a fairly conservative community. In another life, I might have been willing cannon fodder for the u.s. military, like several of my working class peers.What made the realization I had in the post below more likely to happen? I was a trans girl.It was being transfeminine that ultimately short circuited and crashed the toxic masculine narrative that society fed me, and years of abuse and being an outsider.https://mastodon.social/@timberwraith/115839832526805010
(DIR) Post #B1xe0lsFyUTGjLIFfs by timberwraith@mastodon.social
2026-01-05T02:13:36Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
A cis male version of me might have gone along with the gendered bullshit and "Yay america!" propaganda and marched off to war with copious amounts of bravado and naivete.
(DIR) Post #B1xe0qsRNEaaFMPy9g by timberwraith@mastodon.social
2026-01-05T02:17:47Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
And then? I would have engaged in behaviors that were absolutely criminal acts. Criminal acts sanctioned by the u.s. government.A good little boy-grunt doing a racist, colonialist government's criminal dirty work.
(DIR) Post #B1xe0wNotzf1K88bGC by timberwraith@mastodon.social
2026-01-05T02:21:20Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
But if you've read my blathering here for a while, you'll know that I come from a family full of really crummy, broken human beings. That's exactly what the local culture was geared to create.That's still no excuse for slaughtering people for the u.s. government.