I stumbled upon
this facebook group the other day when some of my more right-wing friends (coincidentally the same ones in the infamous 'I was born in the UK...' group, but that's not really relevant) joined it. A rather astonishing six thousand people want this group removed, with venom usually reserved for the BNP or being Ian Huntley.
Just why is criticising the military seen as such a big no-no?
The group in question isn't particularly abusive, and while it's not 100% accurate isn't doing much harm. It's worth noting that the membership is one tenth of the protest group.
I don't agree with everything on there, and I understand the purpose of having a military. Germany in WW2 was clearly a threat to the country, and action was needed. But the main purpose of the group seems to be questioning why unconditional praise is lavished on the military, when let's be honest it's done very little to deserve it? A soldier coming home dead is a hero, when for all we know he could have just been a bit of a sh*t soldier and standing in the wrong place.
Lets be honest, much of the criticism derives from Iraq. Quite in contrast to the 'fighting for our country' line that is often trotted out, the Iraq war has very little relevance to the UK, now we know the '45 minute weapons' claim was a lie. And I believe there are newspaper polls that suggest the majority of people want the troops to come home. While they are performing a peacekeeping function (which would be better suited to UN troops) it seems that their main purpose over the last four years or so is to perform numerous human rights abuses.
Then you have the free speech argument. As Tony Blair and George Bush were so keen to remind us repeatedly, our civilisations were founded on free speech and democracy, hence going into Iraq in the first place to enforce democracy. Yet it seems the people supporting this action are also the people who are arguing to crack down on this right.
This isn't particularly patriotic (the other common insult thrown at people who share this viewpoint), but so what? What does that word even mean in this day and age? Why should we accept everything the country does unquestionably?