I don’t respect soldiers either.
Simply because I and many others are very anti-militant does not mean we support militant, imperialistic fascist regimes, a prominent internet example of course being Hitler which you have brought up. Irregardless, there should not be “pride” in murdering thousands of Germans as we fought back the Nazi advance. There is also no pride in the bombings of Dresden, Tokyo (which happened prior to the two bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and killed more people at that instant than the two nuclear bombs combined, but we never hear about it), Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and various other cities. Humans who had nothing to do with the war, did not choose to have their nation fight in the war, were killed as a result of their emperors and dictators deciding to wage war on us.
On point.
You are constructing a straw-man–that since because we do not believe soldiers are honorable, we inherently support inhumanitarian dictators and terrorist groups. ISIS, and Al Qaeda are extremist products to the high level of intervention the western world has had in the Middle East for the last two centuries. They are a response to the high level of US, British, French, and other countries’ imperialism in the region. They are fighting fire with fire. When I say this, I do not support these terrorist groups by any means. I am simply saying that the reason they exist is because they are a radical, violent response to the economic and territorial occupation by the western world. Conservative America would say it is because Islam makes them as evil and militant as they are. I say, and it is demonstrated by their self-proclaimed fear of “western culture”, the economic subjugation to the US (esp. like Saudi Arabia) has created these anti-reactionary movements that seek to cleanse all traces of the foreigners invading the land.
The issue I see with many soldiers is that they don’t do what they do for personal honor, but rather for “their country”–national chauvinism is a tool utilized by states that sucks in thousands of young men to “willingly” die for their nation-state.
I don’t want to move to Cuba. I wouldn’t care to fight for Cuba’s military either, or any country’s military for that matter. I’m not fighting for anything that isn’t for me and my people, but rather for the overall economic well-being of the oppressors. I also do not see how Reed is not a real school. It is in fact, very real.
My views are often criticized because this nationalist ideal is so ingrained in the nation-state culture that permeates the world, that it is completely fine and normal for people to die for their country. I have been an outspoken critique on the American Sniper movie, and many times I have had people said to me “Men like Chris Kyle go fight for you so you can say things like that”. Which is a bit odd, because as a citizen of the United States of America, my “democratic rights” have been in no way threatened, since there has not been a serious territorial threat to the USA since the War of 1812.