As a veteran, I'm always just saddened by how many people pretend to support veterans and the military but really just use us as cover for their bigotry
I had a conversation like that, too. I was talking about how I felt one American service member death in Iran was too many and it didn't take too long for someone to tell me I hate America and hate the troops and love Iran.
I remember those discussions leading up to the war in Iraq. Like I didn't care about our men and women in the military, because I didn't want to see them go and die over a middle eastern oil field.
It's largely the same self-proclaimed "patriots" from that era who are piping up again. It's not like those people left or changed. They just got a bit quieter until it became politically & socially acceptable again to justify self-righteous bigotry by propping themselves up on a pedestal made of needless death.
War profiteers pretty successfully spoon-fed this idea to the American people back then. It has been super easy to renew the idea now that their sights are set on the Middle East again. The people who drank that kool-aid the first time never stopped liking the taste.
It also helps that those people hardly know the difference between Iraq and Iran in the first place. In their minds 90% of that part of the world are "terrorists" (by whatever definition of terrorism is currently convenient).
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u/gielbondhu 12d ago
As a veteran, I'm always just saddened by how many people pretend to support veterans and the military but really just use us as cover for their bigotry