Conversation with a U.S. soldier

[lithium]

Not sure if this should go in this forum, but anyway, just thought I'd mention this.

One of the guys I live with has a friend from America who was in the US Army. He spent a year on the North-South border of Korea before coming here to continue his education. He seemed like a pretty sound guy - we enjoyed a few games of poker! - but some of his ideas seemed a little misguided to me (of course I've never fought in Korea):

He said that he thought the US war in Korea was justified because they "fought against the spread of Communism, so I suppose it was a good thing". Clearly, anything he "knows" about Communism was fed to him by the American educational system. He was in disbelief when I said that North Korea wasn't Communist.

Another thing he mentioned was that "the US made the world a better place because they gave so many countries the idea of free trade". Needless to say, I and one of the other lads were up in arms, stating that free trade is not a good thing; yes, it benefits the nations controlling the trade, but the only trade I/we accepted at the moment was fair trade.

Just thought I'd share this with you, even though I'm sure most of you know all this already :)

[MrDoom]

"fought against the spread of Communism, so I suppose it was a good thing"
If those are his exact words, he doesn't sound convinced himself.

[The Bitter Hippy]

i think the not-sure bit is from wondering whether killing evil commies is worth the cost of american lives, not an opposition to communism.

He sounds like a pretty average product of the western-capitalist education system: accepts ideas as "good" or "bad" without truly understanding them, concurs with the mainstream political thinking on most issues, and doesn't really question it.

Having said that he doesn't sound like a rabid serial-killing eager, informed enforcer of the system. He probably went into the army as just something to do, without really thinking about exactly what the army stood for. This guy is the kind of person we need to convince on a wide scale.

[Whitten]

Maybe if you tell him more about what communism really is, why it isnt an evil to be fought against, and why North Korea isnt communist, and why spreading "free-trade" by the bomb may not be so selflessly great of the US army, he will feel betrayed. You'd have to do it just right though.