• BeamBrain [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    6 months ago

    Weren’t a bunch of them Iraq vets who thought this war was going to be another one where they’d sit on a base, eating XBox and playing Burger King while remote bombing people who had no artillery or aircraft

    EDIT: I switched “playing” and “eating” but I’m not going to fix it

    EDIT 2: Of fucking course lmao

    The new Bolivar Battalion, for example, was formed by fighters from Venezuela, Ecuador, Argentina, and Colombia and was is led by a Venezuelan anti-government fighter.

  • Leon_Frotsky [she/her]@hexbear.net
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    6 months ago

    After 2 bruising years, many US volunteers are disillusioned or dead.

    officer-down

    Like boo fucking hoo, the vast majority of these guys were war criminals who thought this would just be like when they got to gun down Iraqis in the 2000s again, and the rest were wannabe sexpats and war tourists (and the article even says as much). The only ones I feel sympathy for are the dumb redditors who got caught up in all the propaganda about how they were saving democracy or something and volunteered only to get used up as cannon fodder in their first two weeks.

    • Omniraptor [they/them]@hexbear.net
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      6 months ago

      I mean isn’t that how all militaries work, unless they rely on a draft? Even on the Russian side a very large portion of the expeditionary force is contract troops and PMCs (at least before the Wagner kerfuffle), not conscripts .

      • Dolores [love/loves]@hexbear.net
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        6 months ago

        professional regulars aren’t usually paid very well, its better and more stable than the prospect of un/underemployment, but they have to rely on benefits & patriotic claptrap as well.

    • 7bicycles [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      6 months ago

      I can imagine other people doing it if you have the skillset, I mean pay can be pretty good but then I’m kind of wondering why go to an actual dangerous War instead of shooting at somali fisherman or just random people in the middle east somewhere

      • Tunnelvision [they/them]@hexbear.net
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        6 months ago

        This is why contracting after service is so popular among these kinds of guys. You do the same imperialism like in the military but make way more money.

  • asg101 [none/use name, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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    6 months ago

    As always, Phil Ochs called it back in 1968, from “Is There Anybody Here?”

    Is there anybody here who thinks that following

    The orders takes away the blame

    Is there anybody here who wouldn’t

    Mind a murder by another name

      • asg101 [none/use name, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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        6 months ago

        My pleasure, there is not a day goes by that I am not reminded of one of Phil’s songs. It is just so damned bad he is not still around to crank out new ones. But the old ones still work fine too. Kinda sad to see that not much has really changed.

  • RyanGosling [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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    6 months ago

    I posted a picture of brace-watching on reddit with an AK and saying that I’ve landed in Ukraine and ready to fight the ruzzians. I got like 3 DMs from benefactors saying that if I need money for supplies, just hit them up. I should’ve done it but didn’t know how to keep it anonymous lol

  • AOCapitulator [they/them, she/her]@hexbear.net
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    6 months ago

    I said at the beginning of this war that I was afraid the conflict would be like a Unite the Right but for the whole of europe, an opportunity for fascist elements to rally together, and in this case be armed and trained alongside each other and gain combat experience, and then return to their countries ready to form fascist cells locally

    Did it end up that they just mostly died or were maimed or defeated? Guess it depends how many fled

    • Tunnelvision [they/them]@hexbear.net
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      6 months ago

      I was also afraid of this, but honestly it probably produced a lot less than you might suspect. A lot of these guys are dead and many of them left after the initial bombing of the Reddit brigade pretty early in the war. The ones that have stuck it out are guys who already had military experience. I’m sure there are guys who really cut their teeth in Ukraine, but it’s probably not as many as one would think imho. Ukraine in a way is probably the death of the over abundance of special operations guys in the west.