There's a Facebook page entitled, appallingly, "Soldiers Deserve to Die - They're Murderers."
What follows is a revised and expanded version of a comment I posted on that putatively anti-militarist page:
I'm a pacifist, meaning I oppose all wars as crimes against humanity (see www.warresisters.org). I'm an advocate of nonviolence, so strongly oppose the title of this page. One of many aspects I find appalling about this title is that it buys into the military-encouraged mindset of wishing harm, in this case deadly harm, on human beings trapped in an institution one opposes, in this case a military.
A fundamental principle of nonviolence for me is to confront oppressive behavior, policies, and institutions that I oppose while reaching out to the humanity of all those caught in these institutions. Barbara Deming articulated this perspective beautifully (please see this summary of some of Deming's pacifist insights here, and here). Deming argued that those of us advocating peace with justice, and those of us outraged by oppression, can both be most ethical and effective when we make allies and unbalance opponents by 1) refusing to cooperate with injustice and oppression, 2) mobilizing resistance to unjust institutions, and 3) expressing care for all people we encounter.
I remember Helen Prejean, a Catholic campaigner against capital punishment, asking, "Who among us would want to be judged solely by our own worst acts?" Thus, I oppose labeling anyone, even someone who has murdered someone else, as a "murderer," as opposed to someone who has murdered. I've worked beside members of Veterans for Peace, for example, who struggle every day (and every night) with memories of having killed people, and who have dedicated their lives to promoting peace. They are an inspiration.
Often, members of the US military were lied to by military recruiters struggling to meet their quotas (or to use recruiter-speak, their missions) (please see this compilation I made of military recruiters caught telling lies on tape).
For almost two decades, I've worked with the GI Rights Hotline (www.girightshotline.org), providing free and confidential information to members of the US military who are being abused by the military system and/or have become opposed to particular wars or all wars.
Thus, my personal experiences with conscientious objectors in the military is proof to me that people can change, can go from gung-ho members of the military to people who believe that war is fundamentally immoral and/or against their religion. One caller to the hotline told me that on the firing range he had come to the realization that not all those people he confronted in a possible future battle would have accepted Jesus Christ into their lives as their personal lord and savior. Thus, by killing them, he would be depriving them of their chance to go to heaven and would be damning them to hell. Only his God had the right to do that, he believed. Since there was no possibility of a war in which he could be guaranteed to kill only those who, like him, were also born again Christians, he decided he could not participate in war.
But part of me didn't even want to tell this story about conscientious objectors, because I know that most members of militaries around the world are not conscientious objectors and are not likely to become conscientious objectors any time soon. Whether someone in a military supports or opposes a particular war, campaign, battle, or order, I fundamentally oppose, on personal, ethical, and political grounds, calling people caught in military institutions "murderers," let alone wishing harm to them.
I imagine the person who put up this page might possibly have lost a family member or other loved one to violence committed by soldiers, or might know someone in such a situation. The outrage against militaries for causing the death of loved ones is immense, all around the world. Through my involvement with Military Families Speak Out (military family members in the US who oppose the US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan), I know several family members who are enduring this kind of pain. I have been inspired by their commitment to end the cycle of violence by wanting to prevent any more families from enduring the suffering they experience.
I have another personal reason for being appalled at calling people in militaries murderers who deserve to die. My father was in the US Air Force. By calling him a murderer who deserves to die, you disrespect him and are calling for his (violent?) death. I could describe to you his wonderful qualities, and some of the reasons I love him, but again, that would also, though vital for me and my family, be ethically besides the point. This kind of rhetoric is wrong to apply towards anyone, whether obviously lovable or not.
The black lesbian feminist poet Audre Lorde once wrote, "The Master's Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master's House." We can not dismantle militarism by violently labeling people and wishing violence befalls individual human beings. We can not reduce the suffering militarism causes by militaristically excluding members of the military from the circle of our moral compass, concern, and compassion.
One of the few things that militaries on both sides in every war agree upon is that soldiers deserve to die. They just disagree about which ones. But no one deserves to die. No one has the right to proclaim that anyone else deserves to die. Militaries do that. Anti-militarists never should.
As Martin Luther King, Jr., said, in Where Do We Go From Here, Chaos or Community:
The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it. Through violence you may murder the liar, but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth. Through violence you may murder the hater, but you do not murder hate. In fact, violence merely increases hate. So it goes. ... Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.