Do soldiers deserve any special kind of respect?

Not as much as soldiers in WW2 and 1 etc. deserve.. but they're still laying down their life for the country so they do deserve some respect.

Not as much as soldiers in WW2 and 1 etc. deserve.. but they're still laying down their life for the country so they do deserve some respect.

The thing with soldiers today is that they don't sign up to protect our country, they sign up to obey the government. When WW1/2 took place millions of people signed up to the army because they wanted to protect their country from invasion, if there was another world war and Britain was again under threat of invasion then I'd imagine the same thing would happen, many would sign up to defend the nation from invasion. When there isn't such a threat (as in the case for the past 75 years) you're simply signing up to obey government orders, no matter what the government tell you to do you do it. If the government wanted to randomly invade Denmark because they hate Danish people, they'd do it and soldiers would kill lots of Danish families and people would say "they were just doing their job" and "it's not their fault", well hitmen still get jailed don't they and they're "just doing their job", the people who gassed Jews were "just doing their job", and people who work for the Taliban are "just doing their job".

The rest of your post hurts too much to read, but I wouldn't expect much more from you. All I will say is that it is illegal to kill civilians during war. Yes, it happens, but if you think it's deliberate then you deserve a special kind of hell.

To the negger:

I'm sorry but simply acknowledging this fact does not make it go away. Hundreds of thousands of civilians have been killed during these Iraq/Afghanistan wars - naturally most of them are accidental yes, but that simply does not make an excuse. If all these civilians are really going to die, then rather than saying "oh well, it happens", why don't we just not go into war? Seems a much safer option to me.

So being a doctor, safety inspector or aid worker is as dangerous as being a soldier?
Frankly your post is filled with ignorance and naivity, I shan't bother picking thought the rest.
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That's because you live in a world and at a time when such thoughts are completely impossible to comprehend.

Sometimes it takes the death of 1 or 2 people to make the lives of 1 or 2 thousand better. They don't need to die, but the action that needs to be taken that may inadvertantly result in their death is for the benefit of more people.

To a certain extent, you have to remove yourself from the humanity of it, while at the same time doing it for humanity's sake, if you see what I mean.

That's all very nice and sweet but is Iraq a better country than it was before? Is Afganistan? People dieing there on a daily, so cut that humanity crap.

In Afg women and children are able to leave their houses, get an education and work, I consider that a step up.

People die everywhere everyday - it's a side effect of life, oddly enough - but if we can alleviate some of the suffering they or their compatriots endure along the way isn't that just a tiny bit noble?

Yes, the Holocaust involved mass extermination of people by German soldiers. This thread topic is about whether soldiers deserve any special kind of respect for the job they're doing, WW2 wasn't about saving people from being killed it was about protecting countries in Europe from being invaded and making sure the power balance was restored. The only reason Britain went to war was because Germany invaded Poland, if they simply killed 15m of their own people without trying to take over the whole of Europe WW2 wouldn't have happened. It's the same reason why no-one's invaded DR Congo even after 10m have died due to civil war.

Is it really necessary to use that kind of language?

''People die everywhere everyday'' - yet the world goes crazy when a British soldier dies, but when an orphanage gets bombed in Iraq by 'accident' its just mentioned for about 12 seconds on the BBC, if at all.

If you're going to act noble, do it properly. What's the point of doing good if you **** up people's lives aswell? Atleast before the war people were eating and drinking.

PS: I respect all those who died in the war, be it British or afgans/iraqi's. Just stating my opinion though.

As for that plank who was comparing Afghanistan to USA, I think you need to get real. Afghanistan is a country which has suppressed women and ethnic groups and other religions; had regimes which have killed thousands etc etc. The USA may have its flaws, but to compare it to Afghanistan is to do a great dissrespect to the people who have suffered under Taleban rule.
The majority of soldiers deserve great respect for what they do. They may not 'protect our country' in a traditional sense (1939-45), but they do by eliminating terrorists who seek to end our democracy (which allows you to spout such idiotic views on soldiers) and instill a terrible extremist ideology.

No. British News mentions it when a British citizen dies, as their relatives and people in this country are deemed more likely to know/care about someone who died in their name. The loss of one child or more in Afg or Iraq is no less tragic, but - according to our media providers - of less relevance to the British public.

Why is that the soldier's fault?

If you object to that, tell the BBC, tell ITN.
Either way, it has completely no bearing on the debate of this thread, as moronic as it is.

As for the 'do it properly' remark, it's just typical of today's population who have no understanding of war or conflicts. Sure, you might think you know what's going on because of watching the news, reading blogs and god knows what other biased sources from all sides, but you don't know of the nature of battle, of the decisions people have to make in a split second and then live with those decisions, of seeing friends die in your arms or, at worst, causing death yourself.