The families of US soldiers who have died in the US-Israeli war against Iran are battling to ensure they receive appropriate pay and benefits for their loved ones.
Libby Klinner, a widow, wrote on social media that the US air force had deemed her ineligible for additional benefits following the death of Major Alex Klinner, her 33-year-old husband, because Congress had not officially declared war.
He was one of six crew members of a KC-135 refuelling aircraft that crashed in western Iraq in March while supporting US strikes against Iran.
I am not a fan of the military, but man, Hegseth and Trump are driving people away in droves with this kind of crap.
Oh well.
Yeah, this is NOT how you plan for a military coup
He doesn’t have to pretend he cares anymore after you can’t do anything for him.
They’ll keep glazing on this fool
Maybe he put all the personal into a not war to be not in America?
When Vance was asked about this at a press conference, he asked the reporter for the widow’s contact information (because the Pentagon doesn’t have it?), and assured that she would get everything she’s entitled to.
What do you want to bet that she’ll receive a visit from some military goons, who will tell her that she will get ALL that she is entitled to, which is NOTHING, because he didn’t die in an official war, and if she doesn’t shut the fuck up about it, she’ll be arrested and deported to Africa for being an undocumented alien?
The USA has become a sort of Simpsons/Black Mirror crossover episode.
It’s an answer a junior customer service rep would give when they have no idea how the organization or any processes actually work.
That’s wild.
Although Donald Trump, the US president, has repeatedly called US military operations against Iran a war, he backed Mr Vanceon Friday, saying US strikes were “intermittent”.
He said “A lot of people don’t call it a war. I call it a military conflict, because it’s small potatoes for us.”
I can’t wait for this guy to shut the fuck up.
What a disgusting blowhard bullshitter.
I’ve said it forever: Screwing over veterans is more American than apple pie. We’ve been doing it since the American Revolution.
I can’t imagine President Pedophile being the one to change that. He doesn’t even care enough to pretend.
He actively distains troops and veterans.
He’s a draft dodger himself. They’re only pawns in his scheme to enrich himself and the capital class. It’s been the same with every president since WWII.
This is what happens when you prop your economy up on war and petroleum. You have to fight constant wars to maintain it. You have to keep heating up the planet until it’s unliveable.
The Great Depression proved that capitalism is a bubble that can’t sustain itself without constant exploitation of fossil fuels and the military-industrial complex. The second hit took place with the oil shortages and stagflation of the 1970s.
I’m not sure pissing off the (still alive) people you trained to be killers is the best idea.
He has done so for years and they follow all orders to this day. So obviously no reason to stop treating them like shit.
Why? Not like they’re gonna coup this douchebag
Somehow, we can afford to pay Mitch McConnell to take 3 months off, and hundreds of millions of dollars for Trump to play golf (with 50 secret service), but widow of dead soldier? That’s where we draw the line
This should not surprise anyone. We’ve known Trump has nothing but contempt for our service members for years. It wasn’t even limited to his comments about John McCain’s five years as a POW either…
Trump: Americans Who Died in War Are ‘Losers’ and ‘Suckers’ published by The Atlantic on Sept 3rd 2020.
Pentagon & GOP: Fuck you for your service.
Military proceeds to vote GOP
At some point you have to lose compassion for idiots voting for the leopards party
40% of those in the military vote Democrat, do you have compassion for them?
Please recall that most voters voted for Trump, so anyone in any other nation could use your logic to not have compassion for you, the minority.
(if military are idiots because majority voted R, then you are an idiot because US majority voted R).
Military recruits predominantly lower income, under educated people and then proceeds to fall for Republican propaganda - it’s like you sectioned off a control group and said “damn, why are they so control?”
Some of you may die, but it’s a sacrifice I am willing to make
An ex-convict gave horrific insight into serving in the Russian army, saying his officers refused to collect the dead bodies of soldiers from the battlefield so that the Russian military wouldn’t have to pay their families, according to The New York Times.
In an interview, the soldier who served in one of the Russian Ministry of Defense’s convict units — who was identified as “Aleksandr” — told the Times he was ordered not to collect the bodies of his fellow troops.
He told the Times that officers could register the men as “missing in action,” meaning their families couldn’t collect compensation for them being killed in battle.
One shitty dictator starting a completely unwarranted war doing the same thing as another shitty dictator running a completely unwarranted war.
Give Putin some credit. He’s doing this much more intelligently. He maintains a plausible pretense to not pay out death benefits while Trump just goes “No”.
Putin’s Ukraine adventure has been an abject failure.
Which is why he needs to weasel out of paying death benefits.
Because he knows Americans will roll over and accept “no” without a fight
And if anyone tries to fight it the MAGAts will fight on his behalf.
There’s a reason Trump loves stupid people.
So?
Put MAGA down.
Might not be a coincidence.
No no!
Russia bad, Murica good! You some kind of islamic or something?Russia isn’t “good” because you dislike the US. It’s not and either/or thing.
You don’t say?
If it’s not officially a war, what happens if a combatant chooses not to engage?
I suspect they’d be court martialled as if it were refusing a wartime order.
They probably won’t get paid which is the main reason they are there to begin with.
rules for thee and not for me…
Duh!
Imagine joining the US military.
Think about the bright side: If all countries stop using the term “war”, then we’ve achieved world peace!! /s
You jest, but this is exactly what trump would do.
Stop testing for Covid and BAM, active cases drop significantly. Science.
Would? Doesn’t the “Board of Peace” exist?
Well they’ve already tried making it a crime to say the US is losing in Iran. That’s the old state trick to solving the homelessness problem…by making it illegal
I don’t know … they followed the obviously illegal orders to go to war without congressional approval. They betrayed their oath to the constitution and favored Trump instead. Getting stiffed by Trump, as everyone expects of Trump, seems hardly something we should care about. Trump called them suckers, they chose to turn their backs on USA and follow Trump. It is of course sad when anyone gets hurt, but being willing participants in an unlawful and unjust war that is only about moving the stock market to make Trump rich … when Trump has betrayed the constitution practically every day …
You mean they were deployed when there was no war and then got bombed because a specific fighter jet followed orders. Most enlisted before trump.
please stop joining the military
I 100% agree. But also, some folks have little choice as it’s the only path they have out of poverty. Could be their only chance for a decent education too.
Edit: I understand the backlash I’m getting. But I also realize that poverty produces desperation, and desperation can push people to extreme decisions. Easy for me to say “don’t ever join under any circumstances” when I’m not the one suffering in extreme poverty.
the “have little choice” is just being able to shift guilt. we 100% know this is a genocidal fascist regime, and i have more support for someone who chooses to be gifted “life’s plan” of hardship over joining this mil.
fyi: this is the plan. the capitalists who profit from war know they can only profit if there is a cohort of poor, hungry, stupid kids they can use for the human parts.
they can use for the human parts.
If you want people to take you seriously, you could make less childish arguments.
explain how this is childish. machines like weapons require people to operate. it’s always been the working class and poor who are scooped up to operate them. “ain’t no war but class war” is not just a bumper sticker.
so: try your reply again.
Are you upset that you can’t refute the 100% accurate point?
The troops are pretty much there to go kill or die for some billionaire’s profits, and Smedley Butler said as much decades ago and it’s only gotten worse since. Once they get the killer robots working, they’ll cut out the troops and not have to worry about people complaining about pay.
I’d rather be poor than murder people 🤷♂️
Are you poor?
I was when I was enlistment age, and I told the recruiter to go fuck himself when they came asking, and then to go find a squadmate to assist if he couldnt follow the directions himself when he didn’t like the first answer.
I had enough combat vets in my life to know what was up. No glory seekers, only people who saw the brutality first hand.
I was when I was enlistment age
So you had other means to escape poverty.
I’d rather be poor than feed my body to the war machine. I’m not well off by any means, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have principles.
I too have always been poor, and had family members who were in vietnam. They told me truths.
I have always carried the idea, I can be poor, this is not a moral issue, but I refuse to carry myself without dignity. I can be poor, doesnt mean I have to be dirty, doesnt mean I have to sign my soul away for a dollar.
Good for you.
yes.
Are most people who join the US military? Answer: no, the contemporary US military is overwhelmingly middle class. The “backdoor draft” isn’t nearly as popular as advertised.
If the only path out of poverty is killing poor people abroad then I’d rather stay poor.
You’re probably not poor then
Maybe you’d just enjoy killing people even of you had money.
Ignoring my point to use an ad hominem - how typical of Lemmy.
I don’t care how poor you are, if killing people for corporate profits is your way out of it you’re a shitty person.
If you want to find ways to justify killing people for corporate profits then you deserve to be singled out and told that you’re a mass murder apologist.
How typical of Lemmy having to face consequences for you pro-murder takes.
‘No true Scotsman’ but for poor people choosing not to kill strangers for corporate profits.
The US really pulled off a propaganda masterpiece with this military fetish
Easy for you to judge, huh?
Your crappy fallacy? Yeah, I’ll judge garbage fallacies all day.
Honestly, if it’s this bad, why is this put up with?
For a country that has spent so much time telling others how free it is, its citizens take a lot of shit
If it’s that bad, no point waiting around any longer, shut the thing down.
All you gotta do is tell people they’re free.
Then you place them in freedom shackles, and give them freedom bucks to trade around inside their freedom cage. Why do you hate freedom so much, don’t you like your freedom slop?
The most cutting scene in Easy Rider. I reference this often, but for a reason.
Becoming a disposable weapon of the state is still a choice, they still have blood on their hands, whether or not the game is rigged to coerce desperate people into becoming murderers or cannon fodder
Bro. If your only way out of poverty is to murder children, then stay poor.
Also, Americans don’t know what poverty means. You’re murdering people who are actually poor.
Sorry i have to kill brown people. Some rape is expected, but i really didn’t have a choice.
I don’t understand the backlash you’re getting. It’s not very surprising that a poor 18 year old sees the military as a way out of their hardship. I’m not saying it is, there’s a very good chance it is not. But that a struggling teenager can see it that way, and getting drawn in by recruiters isn’t odd.
100% agree with your edit. You’ll see people used as drug mules, not because they’re hardened criminals, but because they’re desperate enough to do something they know is wrong.
I think a lot of the people taking a hard stance against you here haven’t seen hardship up close and dont realise how tempting it would be to do something to get out of it
Id rather see them in poverty than more dead girls abroad. We should start spitting on their faces again.
You may not believe it, but dead nieces sisters and daughters also foments desperation and inspires violence. The sniper who develops ptsd because he killed three generations of men in because he had to do that or be a wage slave is a product of what republicans want. If that guy had a UBI and more socialism in general, guess what? He isn’t ending three generations of men because he has literally no reason to do it now.
Sadly, there is no historical evidence that anyone ever spat in the faces of returning veterans, that’s just a scene from Rambo that conservatives decided was reality.
The Israeli-US Alliance essentially murdered Iranian schoolgirls.
Essentially?
Its not worth it.
Sorry I had to serve in the SS cuz it was the only path I had out of poverty, for a chance at a decent education too, I 100% hate those Nazis please don’t put us on trial 🥺
The US military isn’t the SS.
You’re right, it’s worse, the SS “only” massacred and tortured Europe, the US Military does it to the entire world, biggest stain on the planet since the Nazis.
Not for the lack of trying.
The military is never anyone’s only choice out of poverty. The military is a career you choose. Just because you were in poverty when you made that choice does not mean you didn’t have other choices.
Officer grades…sure.
Rank and file… Nah. Not if you want OUT of poverty.
TBH mostly middle class people join the military, and a lot of them end up homeless afterwards. Your conception of this situation is basically backwards.
Lots of people here probably don’t deal with poor people on the regular so they don’t understand. Once I talked to a 40 year old homeless man on a train ride home and he was talking about enlisting. His options were very bleak.
I grew up in an area where that was absolutely the case. A whole lot of people on things like food stamps and so on.
I don’t have exact numbers, but I’d say at least one in four males (and not a few females) went into some branch of the military. They are promised a lot and most of it is not delivered.
My parents were pacifists and extremely suspicious of the industrial military complex, and did everything possible to keep the recruiters at bay, while they scrimped and saved and got loans for my siblings and I to get a secondary education or vocational training. They were not rich, but given they were both gainfully employed and very frugal, we were in a more stable home than most in my area.
Many kids did not even graduate, there was a fair bit of teen pregnancy, too. I have the same suspicion of the military my parents had, but I also understand that many of my school mates did not have a lot of options.
