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This may piss some people off because it's a pretty damn unpopular opinion because whenever I try to share it or I see others share it they just get buried with insults and downvotes everywhere on the internet, but I'll just shut up and say it.

I don't really have too much respect for the US military. Well, not completely. It mostly depends on the individual soldier and what they're doing. Overall though, not much respect. Whenever I or others even attempt to criticize the military or soldiers we usually get the same responses. A few of them are, "Soldiers are out there fighting for your freedom so you can be allowed to say shit like that." No, modern soldiers don't fight for freedom in my opinion. They don't fight for American freedom at all and not often the freedom of people in other nations. Certainly not American freedom though. At first, most American wars were for American freedom up to the Civil War. In WWI our intervention wasn't really necessary and in my opinion that whole war was unnecessary. In WW2 however, I think it was fine we fought in it since it helped to free many countries from fascist rule and helped end the Holocaust (even though we were mostly in it because of a vendetta against Japan, we still helped). Even though this wasn't for American freedom, it was for freedom of others and human rights, so I thought that made sense. All wars after that were completely pointless though from our standpoint. We didn't need to bother Korea, we didn't need to bother Vietnam, we didn't need to bother the Middle East. All of that just hurts America more than help it.

Another response I get for criticizing the military is "You don't know what it's like to serve so you can't judge!" I may not have personal experience but that's no reason to cancel out my criticisms. I am still allowed to do this. If I have points, I can present them.

Overall, what I'm trying to say is they're not fighting for freedom. They're fighting to line the pockets of corrupt politicians. You could argue that the US is the superhero of the world and we're fighting to free others from evils like ISIS but that's not our business. Usually we end up killing just as many innocents over there as the terrorists do. Our economy sucks enough, we don't need this huge military budget. In my opinion it could be sliced nearly in half and we would still be safe and the data shows it. All we need at the moment is a national guard to defend from possible trouble, we don't need to create trouble. In my eyes soldiers aren't really helping anything. When they enlist they're just advancing the problems of the world. I don't think that deserves respect. Sure, they're brave, braver than I'll ever be and it would be noble for them to put their lives on the line like they do. That is, if it was for a noble cause. Doing dangerous things for a stupid cause doesn't make it any less stupid. You shouldn't have to be doing these dangerous things in the first place.

So, anyone else agree? Any criticisms on what I have written? I'd love to hear it if it's well thought out and polite. I want to admire soldiers, but I often just can't for these reasons. Also, not to generalize, but soldiers are often assholes. Like I said before, they usually just swear me out for even daring to say these things. I've met plenty of polite soldiers, but so many of them are this stereotypical asshole like in the Navy Seal Copypasta. (Well, that copypasta is more there to make fun of tryhard posers who lie about being a soldier, but you get what kind of person I'm talking about). They talk down to you like you're a baby and act like they're the coolest people on the planet. So, have anything to say?

The american armed forces are fighting for the interests of Americans, and through that they are fighting for our very existence as a people and as a nation and it's core aspect of freedom. We can't enjoy our freedoms if every nation surrounding us seeks our destruction and the total disbandment of our ways of life, culture, and at times our very faith.

Soldiers have to be tough, and are tough and hardened because of the skill and training they have go through. Had a Principle whom yelled a lot, but he was not a complete asshole, he just had a extremely different way of running things then being soft spoken.

I don't find it stupid to join the armed forces. Its a very enriching experience and also a very hardening one, and the prestige alone is something to be proud of. My Grandfather served in the Korean War along with another close family member, and my oldest cousin was marine in the Iraq War, all three had proud lives despite the horrors, and even now I am proud to know they served their cause diligently, defending our interests through and through.

I still don't know fucking why people thing war is bloodless to civilians. WW2 was a bloodbath for civilian populations, cities were leveled trying to get a stab at factories and urban homes. War changes radically with almost every 100 years or so, or more recently almost every 30 years, but the civilian populations are the most likely to suffer universally. You know why Vietnam was such a bloodbath? Guerrilla Warfare, children with grenades placing said grenades at the feat of distracted soldiers is not something that makes one sleep well at night.

People keep going on about how bloated our military budget is.
http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/total_spending_2000USbn

Much of our history, or more specifically back in the 2000s, we spend more on 'Misc' and Healthcare and Pensions separately then we do on our vast and technologically advanced Air Force, Naval, Nasa (I assume they still work under Military budget?), and Army.

I don't know how you can come to the conclusion by just enlisting we are causing problems in the world, considering we are the world's 'police force' at the moment. All we do is basically make sure the other major powers don't fuck shit up, our resource buddies don't die, our trade partners don't get conquered by angry asians, and make sure the lovely states of South Korea, Israel, Japan, and Taiwan don't get #rekt by their not so loving neighbors. How is having a effective military force which allows nations like those to exist without them being butchered by [Insert various enemies here] from coming in and butchering their people and impale them with their flags? I am certain Kin-Jung Fuck would love to come into South Korea's capital and plant a big ol' death camp in the dab middle of it all. (Tl;dr we gotta have tanks so people without as many tanks don't get their shit #rekt)

Well, I can't really argue with that. Not because I changes my mind, I still stand by pretty much everything I've said, it's just that our fundamental opinions on this are so drastically different on this that there is no debating it. Doing that would be pointless. You think the US should be a supercop, I don't, you think we're fighting for our best intentions and our reasons for what we do overseas are valid, I don't. To make this clear though, I don't hate this opinion of yours nor do I hate you for it. It's a perfectly reasonable opinion to stand by even though I don't agree with it myself.

As for why I don't think we should interfere, I don't think it's our business or our duty to do this. It may sound selfish to have the opinion of "just let them deal with it", but that's exactly how I feel. It may be harsh, but real life is harsh. This is the real world, in the real world there isn't a perfect superhero to save all the people out there. Superheroes don't get tired, but the US does. In lots of our often vain attempts to secure these overseas areas, we just drag our economy down further and further. Uncle Sam needs a break. He can't be waging continuous warfare non-stop. Usually when people talk about a "war economy" they're usually a conspiracy theorist or talking about Metal Gear, but the US has a war economy in a way. All those lobbyists working for the arms dealing companies keep filling the politicians pockets so they can keep fighting and the arms dealers can keep making money. Ever since WW2 it seems like America has been at war non-stop. There hasn't been peace in my lifetime and not even my parents' lifetime.

Well, that's just my stance. Again, it's hard to argue against someone with fundamentally different values.

It seems that your problem is more with the US government policy of intervention in unnecessary wars than with the military itself. And as for the soldiers being assholes thing, I haven't met one that was. My grandfather served in the air corps in WWII and was a POW, and he suffers from PTSD but he's not mean. And are you actually telling vets about this opinion bluntly? because then you might run into someone who would get angered/offended after risking their life and seeing their friends and innocent civilians die only to come home to be told that what they did was for nothing.

That's actually pretty much what I'm trying to say. It's mostly not the soldiers' faults. My main issue is with how the government just uses all of these people as tools for their own gain. About the soldiers are assholes thing, most of the ones I meet are actually friendly, I'm just saying that out of most of the professions out there the military has a bigger proportion of jerks, similar to the police force. I have friends and family who are soldiers and officers and most of them are very pleasant, it's just that the job itself tends to attract testosterone-fueled morons who sign up to vent their uncontrollable bloodlust. There are people who sign up because they truly believe they are doing good for their country and people who have no choice because it's the only way they can make money. I still respect these people despite what they're being used for. I just think what they're hired to do isn't all that great. Also, I'm not here to pull back punches or make people feel better. I'm not trying to be politically correct, despite what they had to go through, it is a stupid cause in my opinion. No amount of sad, broken veterans can change that.

"The american armed forces are fighting for the interests of Americans,"

Oil isn't a valid reason to kill millions.

"and through that they are fighting for our very existence as a people and as a nation and it’s core aspect of freedom. We can’t enjoy our freedoms if every nation surrounding us seeks our destruction and the total disbandment of our ways of life, culture, and at times our very faith."

If we were fighting a defensive war I would agree with you but every nation surrounding us doesn't seek our destruction and the total disbandment of our ways of life, culture, and at times our very faith. Many of the wars we have fought ie; Korea, Vietnam, have been purely based on ideological opposition to the boogeyman of communism. So what if other countries decide to have a different system of government than us? We shouldn't have committed the atrocities we did or even gotten involved in the first place.

To be fair though, going into Korea was a good call

How so?

If we hadn't, North Korea wouldn't just be the north.

True. To be honest, I think out of all the things the US could interfere with out there, North Korea would probably be the best option morality-wise in my opinion. Sure ISIS and other Islamic extremist groups are bad, but they're running a miniature Holocaust up in North Korea. The human rights violations up there are atrocious. However, if we tried to take North Korea down, since North Korea is practically right on top of China's hypothetical ass, China gets pissed when people are fighting right under it and rubbing its ass. That's why we pulled out last time. Many UN nations could easily take down North Korea if they tried. We just can't because of China though, so I'd rather us not interfere anywhere for now.

Not gonna touch today's politics but.

If Korea united under North Korea during the 50s, Its possible to say the Korean peninsula would be North Korea x2 with the Kim dynasty running a totalitarian state. It was the US aid that helped SK back in 50s and 60s (when North's economy was actually stronger than South's)

Though its also possible to say that it would be South Korea x2 with even larger economy than what South Korea alone has, since it would have more natural resources (northern half has more resources than the southern half). Politics isn't really driven my morals or "what is the right thing to do". Its driven on how it benefits the said country or the person in power. In Korea's case, you're 100% right that it was due to fear of communism that the US decided to commit troops.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Iraq_War

Millions, huh?

Now of course, my fellow shitlord americans should have known Oil wasn't in Iraq. If we were truly after oil and were controlled by a occult of Big Oil CEOs, then we would have invaded Saudi Arabia. . . .or drilled in our own country. It's not like we recently fought a war with Iraq whom could have used a army to betray our positions and make shit unreasonably complex.

Now there is something I would like to bring your attention to, and that is the political shit fest that was the Cold War. The Cold war consisted of two powers as you and everyone here knows, between the USA and the USSR whom wanted to #rekt each other's nations over, but were stopped by the fact we both didn't want to unleash each other's impressive nuclear arsenals. So of course, being stupid fucks as we are, we allied every nation on the fucking planet that wasn't a communist shit hole.

The problem with a ally is that it is typically one-sided. In politics, you don't want a rival raping your allied nations, because of trade or they can provide a important strategic point. The USA did some dang nasty things in South America (which is why it continues to be a complex shit hole that hates us now. . .sort of. . .maybe one nation likes us?), but the USSR did far worse when it came to the Asian Theater.

You have two countries, Korea and Vietnam. Both didn't want communism, but both were invaded by a bunch of angry communist piss ants whom cared little (by action) for the lives of their people, and both were cruel and unreasonable tyrants in their own right. In Korea, we fought off a communist invasion and won. In Vietnam, we fought off a communist invasion and were removed by political action by angry hippies (Because war kills people, and killing is bad). So why then did we defend these two little countries from communists?

Because of the same reason why we went to defend them in the first place. Do you really think these people stop as half a country? They want to invade, conquer, butcher, and enslave anything that comes within 30 feet of them, and that is exactly what they did. Vietnam? Burned down a city and purged it's population (Plus a little purging at the beginning of the war). North Korea? Essentially the world's largest slave camp. The USSR got it's allies, but in a platter made of the guts and skin of hundreds of thousands.

Korea didn't want to be communist, they want to a united republic but some piss ant wanted a communist dictatorship and had the guns to back it up. What makes you think they want the same thing for Mexico or Canada or essentially any other nation not their own? It is by luck the Vietnamese sort of moved on (but having a debt which makes ours look minuscule), and North Korea is still North Korea.

I feel as though you're generalizing the military for the actions of a few. And honestly the situation is to complicated for anything to be black and white.

While I by no means will say the military is perfect I think the idea that we should stay completely neutral is an outdated sentiment. In this day and age of communication the US depends on other countries to prosper and vice versa. In order to keep alliances strong military is needed. Despite political corruption I still respect the hell out of the military. I think it really is one of those things where you don't understand what they go through until you go through it yourself. I also don't think it's teeming with assholes. There are a good chunk of military people that will just use their job to inflate their ego, but to say that attitudes like that are common in the military is quite the blanket statement.

Ok millions was an exaggeration but the Iraq war was not an isolated incident.

"Both didn’t want communism, but both were invaded by a bunch of angry communist piss ants whom cared little (by action) for the lives of their people, and both were cruel and unreasonable tyrants in their own right."
When the democratic election was going to be held roughly 80% of the people were projected to vote for a communist leader. That is until a "capitalist" leader we set up in the south rigged a referendum and seceded from the country. Some members of the newly seceded country rebelled against this and later received help from the communist north who wanted to reunite the union. Because of our intervention when we set up Diệm, no democratic elections ever took place to either accept or reject communism however 75% of those in the villages in the South supported the communist insurrection. Saying that Ho Chi Minh was a tyrant and therefore our actions were justified completely ignores that Diệm, our puppet leader, was just as much of a tyrant. The north burned down a city? Have you heard the atrocities we committed in that war? And don't tell me we were fighting for their freedom. We initially helped try to keep them under French rule rather than let them be an independent country.

Well, after all, he did say "Also, not to generalize, but soldiers are often assholes." then he wonders why soldiers get angry at him.

The bullshit liberal description of the military as "totes evil, just killing minorities and getting oil for the fat cats" and that of the 'Muricans as "*spreadin' ur freedums to da wurld*" are both wrong and naïve. It's not perfect by any means, but the simple portrayal that gets it the most right really is as the "world police". Now, is that a good or bad thing? My answer is this: doesn't really matter what you think, because there's no way in hell that a nation with this kind of power is going to have a policy that's even in the same time zone as isolationism.

I guess I straddle the fence on the issue. I have a great respect for military personnel in general, (and not to mention, a fascination with their equipment) given that one of my grandfathers was a colonel who flew B-29's in the Pacific, my other grandfather was also a colonel who at one point was a submarine commander, my dad is a retired major who flew F-4E Phantoms, and my brother-in-law is currently a captain and a B-52H navigator. So there's kind of a military pride and interest that runs in the family. However, just like in any profession, there are good and bad people. Modern day, my problem is with the government and its orders to troops.

My idea of supporting the troops is to bring them home so they aren't wasting their lives for a lost cause. We've been in the Middle East for way too long, and we need to let them handle their own problems. We can't keep propping up flimsy governments that are going to get overthrown in a matter of months and use that as an excuse to keep sending troops over. Now with ISIS, I do feel we should be playing our part in destroying those fuckers, because they are a threat to us and everyone for that matter. However, that aside, we have so much to worry about here at home, yet we're always looking for a new pile of shit to stick our nose in. And, once we do get in other peoples' messes, we're all talk and no walk, reference all the saber-rattling we've been doing with Russia.

And as to soldiers' personalities, war changes people. I had a good friend who was a former marine, and he was nice once you go to know him but was rather gruff before. I can guarantee you he's seen and experienced all sorts of shit that you, I, and most people have never dealt with and couldn't handle. Being shot at, possibly losing comrades, and seeing the human debris after a battle would make me a very different person.

Apologies for any typos that made it through, because I'm tired.

Sam said:

In WWI our intervention wasn’t really necessary…

To be fair, you can blame the Germans for that. Sinking a cruise ship filled with Americans (whether or not it had contraband on board) and then asking Mexico if they wanted to team up and invade the southwest wasn't the smartest of ideas--but then again, WW1 was all about stupid ideas.

…we don’t need this huge military budget…

While I do agree that the military can be slashed significantly (there's no reason there days to have a standing army of 600,000 when most conflicts are very narrow and limited in scope), the budget's actually not nearly as insane as it used to be.

Cold War spending during the 60s was routinely at 10% of GDP. We're at half that now. It be better if we could get it down to about 2 or 3 percent, but it's still a lot better than it was.

The biggest budgetary concern isn't the military, but social security and medicare, which--by 2039--will eat away at 16% of GDP, 3 times the military budget (which hasn't really moved higher than 5% for over a decade).

Sam said:

All those lobbyists working for the arms dealing companies keep filling the politicians pockets…

The military industrial complex actually pales in comparison to other lobbying organizations. The US Chamber of Commerce has spent three times as much as General Electric, and it's debatable as to how of that is defense related or related to GE's other, non-military interests.

There hasn’t been peace in my lifetime and not even my parents’ lifetime.

I don't think there's been peace in any American's lifetime. The Revolution (1775-1783), then the Quasi War (1798-1800), then the Barbary War (1801-1805) (that's where the "shores of Tripoli" in the Marine anthem comes from), then the War of 1812 (1812-1815), then the various Indian Wars (Blackhawk War of 1832, Creek War of 1836, Second Seminole War [1835-1842]), then the Mexican-American War (1846-1848), then the Civil War (1860-1865), then more Indian Wars (Snake War [1864-1868], Great Sioux War of 1876 [that's the one with Custer], Nez Perce War of 1877, Bannock War of 1878, Sheepeater Indian War of 1879), then the Spanish-American War (1898), then our intervention in the Boxer Rebellion (1898-1900), then the Philippine–American War and it's associated Moro Rebellion (1898-1913), then the Border War (1910-1919), then WW1 (1917-1918), then the Russian Expeditionary Force to aid the White Movement (1917-1922), then WW2 (1941-1945), then the Korean War (1950-1953 [although it's technically still ongoing since a treaty was never signed], then the Vietnam "Conflict" (1953-1975), then the Invasion of Grenada (1983), then the Invasion of Panama (1989-1990), then Desert Storm (1990-1991), then the Somali Clusterfuck (1992–1994), then Yugoslavian Clusterfuck (1993-95, 98-99), then our current "War on Terror" (2001-pres.).

Tchefuncte Bonaparte said:

Oil isn’t a valid reason to kill millions.

The oil meme and it's related "they were getting off of the petrol dollar" is pretty bunk. Neoconservative foreign policy advocates intervention in foreign countries to "promote" and establish democracy. It wasn't about oil, it was about MUH FREEDOM. We did a similar thing in Libya that had a very similar effect.

Tchefuncte Bonaparte said:

When the democratic election was going to be held roughly 80% of the people were projected to vote for a communist leader. That is until a “capitalist” leader we set up in the south rigged a referendum and seceded from the country.

I don't know which history book you read, but Korea was already divided once Japan surrendered, like how Germany was. The Soviets took "administrative" control over the north, the US took the south. Elections, as per the Cairo Conference, were scheduled. The Soviets backed out, installed the communist regime in the north and the US set up it's government in the south. The US tried to resolve the growing divide with UN General Assembly Resolution 112, which established a committee to oversee united elections. The Soviet Union and the North boycotted, so the UN oversaw the South's election (which had no vote rigging).

I believe you're merging the division of Korea with the later installment of Park Chung-hee in a military coup in 1961.

I was reffering to Vietnam not Korea.

Anyway, as far as the oil part goes, many of our millitary leaders have openly admitted it was about oil.

"Of course it's about oil; we can't really deny that," said Gen. John Abizaid, former head of U.S. Central Command and Military Operations in Iraq, in 2007. Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan agreed, writing in his memoir, "I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil." Then-Sen. and now Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said the same in 2007: "People say we're not fighting for oil. Of course we are."

A source coming from a CNN Article from a woman whom wrote two books named 'The Bush Agenda' and 'The Tyranny of Oil'. She has a history activism which is still ever so ongoing (She crashed a boardroom meeting to chant 'Exxon Lies' in 2010), so I incredibly doubt her works. I don't exactly see one general being the majority in this case, can you provide more then just two people whom clarify the war was specifically about oil?

As for Vietnam. . .

Diem. Interesting character. A minority catholic whom was a. . .erm. . .kind-of elected leader of the Republic of Vietnam. His tyranny was mostly this;

Mega fail attempts to convert the mostly Buddhist people of Vietnam to Catholism, or more specifically, the hated French faith (tl;dr Vietnam has plenty of big ass reasons to hate the French, because the French are idiots when it came to colonizing and maintaining colonies). To say the least, his attempts to make Vietnam Catholic was shit and just pissed everyone off. So of course, being the shitlords we were, we assassinated Diem.

Now, I don't know where the fuck you are getting those stats from, but do you know how hard it is to get 80% majority to of mostly feudal traditional villagers to give a shit? Its like trying to herd cats. . . .on fire. Now of course, Diem was a shitty leader, but he didn't go around purging and burning cities or killing people whom had some cash in their back pockets out of shear spite, unlike his so 'beloved' rival, Ho Chi Minh.

As for the claim I have never heard of atrocities during the war.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Đắk_Sơn_massacre
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massacre_at_Huế
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fall_of_Saigon#Turnover_of_Saigon
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/archive/news/mccains-account-of-viet-cong-torture/story-e6frf7lx-1111115686152?nk=96e1f99476b799af7b9a3f6113591f11

That independent country of Vietnam?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reeducation_camp
Thousands died. Hundreds of thousands died. Now luckily, the country decided to fuck all in 1986 and instituted reforms. I know full well we did pretty pissy stuff and committed some pretty large massacres (Which were oddly enough committed almost exclusively by angry south Koreans)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_massacres_in_Vietnam