The most memorable moment in #SecondPlacePresident Trump’s speech to Congress last week came when he spoke directly to the widow of slain Navy SEAL Ryan Owens.
Some saw Trump’s tribute to Owens as supremely presidential, others saw it as a “crassly manipulative” ploy to absolve himself from blame for the bungled raid that led to Owens’ death. Some thought he had truly honored the visibly grief-wracked Carryn Owens; others thought he had cynically exploited her for his own political self-aggrandizement.
The regulars in Reddit’s Men Going Their Own Way subreddit have a rather different take on the whole thing.
As they see it, the real issue is that Carryn Owens is an “attention seeking whore [who] most probably cheated on the poor guy like almost all military wives do.”
In a post with several dozen upvotes, the Reddit MGTOW who calls himself No-M3rcy tears into Carryn Owens for her imagined infidelity and alleged attention-seeking.
Ryan fought and died in Yemen while the woman comes on camera and gets all the attention. She becomes a “national hero” and this becomes one of the “best political moments in U.S. history” for doing nothing but crying on camera. Women sure do know how to put up an act. Give it some time and you’ll see her pop up like many military widows on interviews and other things. So much for private grief and respecting your husband.
Trump is the one who turned the whole thing into a political spectacle; Carryn committed no crime other than having feelings in public. How showing her obviously genuine grief is supposed to be disrespectful of her husband I have no idea.
After the Trump speech, everyone forgets about the poor guy and she gets all the media attention for days. The guy is disposable just like all of us and the woman is always the victim. He served his role and now no one gives a shit about him.
Really? Because when I do a Google News search of his name I get this:
This story is not going away, and until we get to the bottom of why the raid failed it shouldn’t.
But the saddest thing is that this attention seeking whore most probably cheated on the poor guy like almost all military wives do. And there he is fighting for her freedom and providing for her. It’s disgraceful how male vets get treated and cheated on.
There is of course zero evidence that she cheated on him; this is just straight up misogyny.
Sometimes they even get Booed when they come back home.
Yeah, that did happen sometimes — during the Vietnam war. Well, there was one case 5 years ago in which a gay soldier was booed at a Republican debate, though he was booed for being gay, not for being a soldier.
And worst of all, even though she is a post-wall hag (her husband was mid 30’s so she’s probably the same/younger), some Beta simp will probably step in to “save her” from her misery and marry her regardless of the fact that she is a rapidly aging single mother full of wrinkles.
Only a MGTOW could look at a conventionally attractive and not-actually-old-at-all woman insensate with grief and think “yeah, I bet she’s got wrinkles, what a hag, she should die alone!”
Given their bizarre fixation on the alleged “rapid aging” of women and the evils of showing any signs at all of age, I can only wonder what’s going to happen when all these MGTOWs start getting wrinkles themselves.
I hate to tell you this, MGTOW dudes, but men age too, and they don’t all age like fine wine.
She will forget all about her husband and latch onto the new Beta.
Most widows and widowers do move on, which may or may not involve dating or marrying someone else, but they never forget the partner they lost.
What a Gynocentric society we live in. Women will just use you as a resource. Even if you are dead, they will still use you for attention.
Trump is the person who turned everyone’s attention to her; he’s the only one using anyone here.
I think that if she really cared about him she would have stayed home and grieved in private and not use him for sympathy points.
Well, it’s good that no one but your fellow MGTOW losers gives a shit what you think.
@Troubelle
And that makes it better? That maybe he believed the national interest requires mass murder of semi-random foreigners? No, no it fucking doesn’t.
And I find it an insufficient one.
@Arbilester
I must have missed the part where anyone here knew this Ryan fellow from Adam’s off ox before he made headlines. And I have a lot more sympathy for the victims’ families and loved ones than the perpetrators’.
@PreuxFox
Given the circumstances in which his death occurred, I fail to see the problem here.
Why would you interpret it any other way?
So are Daesh. Are their deaths in combat automatically ‘honourable’ ones?
@BOINKBOINKBOINK
Point the first: Killing civilians is never a lawful order.
Point the second: I am altogether aware that joining the military means killing strangers when you’re told. This is why I have gone to some trouble not to do so. This is also why I am not currently employed at the post office, will never hold a Federal position of any sort, and am liable for five years in Federal prison if the government ever decides they want to send me there.
Yeah, I’m with WWTH in my conflicted feelings. I tend to break it down as plenty of people doing a job with significant cost of life and limb, but mostly in the service of empire and subjugation. It takes bravery to be a combat soldier, and for that I give them all the credit for valour. But the war they fight has some unsavoury context.
I watched Hacksaw Ridge last weekend. I gotta wonder what Mr. No-Mercy would have to say about Desmond Doss. After all, he wouldn’t touch a rifle, let alone kill with one. Still rescued 75 people under enemy fire.
As a side note, I ended up watching both Hacksaw Ridge and the director’s cut of Kingdom of Heaven on the same day, and I gotta say… both of them share some rather startling humanist anti-war elements. Kingdom of Heaven in particular was surprisingly poignant, well acted and gorgeous to watch. The Director’s Cut adds 45 crucial minutes to the film, bringing the running time to 3 hours, but if any Mammotheers haven’t seen it, I would recommend giving it a watch. Edward Norton gives a performance under an iron mask and pounds of makeup that I’ve never seen the like of in anything else he’s done.
@WWTH
A conservative that hates the poor, color me shocked. I bet he’s also a coward and won’t dare to have a town meeting. On the MRM, maybe if we antagonzie them with reverse psychology they’ll commit spite charity to aid the homeless. Or they’ll use this as an excuse to pick on a poor woman, whichever seems to take less effort.
You ever see someone who you think couldn’t sink lower but then you see them the next day and their two feet lower in the fetid swamp than before?
That’s the manosphere in a nutshell.
Missed this one earlier, hazards of multipart responses:
@WWTH
Why? Whether someone’s dead or not has no relevance to the merit, or lack thereof, of the actions they took before dying. The founder of gay conversion therapy just died, should I not talk about what a complete piece of shit he was now, cos he’s dead? Why?
Given the usual electoral maps of the areas you’re talking about, my sympathy runs very short indeed, because those fuckers are a big part of the reason they have those problems, and also the source of most of mine. So, frankly, fuck them.
@Dalilllama
It doesn’t excuse the actions by a mile, but as terrible as the results were, they did not run contrary to the potential results of human nature. Perhaps he began his work with those beliefs I mentioned, and soon had it proven otherwise. And on the same note, perhaps he did believe that completing his objective was both ideal and required the deaths of civilians; and I am under no illusions as to how efficiently the human brain can rationalize such actions. Cue the trite bit about the chosen material of the path to Hell, if you wish.
The point is that this never should have happened in the first place. Not the operation sanctioned by the all-fighty orange one, nor the notion that those simply going about their lives are acceptable collateral damage.
@Dalillama
Killing civilians can absolutely be a lawful order. Again, you are blithely trying to paint a broad brush over something highly nuanced that you aren’t even bothering to understand in depth.
And when you hate and disrespect and assume about people simply because they belong to an institution or demographic or group that you don’t like and don’t understand, you’re no better morally than any MGTOW or Red Piller who judges people by gender and sexuality instead of individual merit.
You can’t be self righteous and empathetic at the same time. You can’t be judgemental about entire groups of people and still claim the right not be judged based on your own. You can’t claim some one doesn’t deserve sympathy and then demand sympathy for yourself.
Dalillama, so would I be right in assuming that if your country were to be under attack from a foreign military – and with Trump in charge that’s not as far-fetched as it may sound – you would rather take your chances with an invading army than have ‘those fuckers’ put themselves between you and the enemy’s bullets and bombs?
Much of the debate here has completely forgotten the topic – this isn’t about honourable deaths or even about Trump’s terrible decision, but how a grieving widow is being attacked for nothing other than being a woman.
If a grieving brother his motives would not have been questioned, he would not have been accused of not really loving his brother, and just doing it for his own ego. They wouldn’t fucking DARE to insult a BROTHER in that way.
I can’t of course use the closest analogy of a gay male couple as I suspect MGTOW are largely virulently homophobic and would write something at least as disgusting.
@Nobody Special
Said hypothetical is pointless under the fact that the US has and is not in any position where any country can do the same to the US as the US did to other countries. Last time I checked, Vietnam, North Korea, Russia and all Middle Eastern countries haven’t done or is capable of invading US soil. That line of thinking is left to power fantasies of Homefront.
WE’RE the invading imperial force fueled by a military industrial complex and racist zealots. Don’t even attempt to paint virtue in this situation.
@Nobody Special
You do understand that this guy WAS the invading army, right? He was the enemy with bullets and bombs sent to mass murder the civilians because of racism. No part of what he was doing had any connection with defense.
Tahia said
Boomer vet here. I have to wonder if this is (at least in part) still a holdover reaction from the bad behavior toward the Viet Nam vets in the 70s.
Troubelle said
I can tell you that this is the motivation I was working under while I was serving my 8 years in the USAF. It was just luck that I was never called upon to kill anyone and, indeed, was very unlikely to be what with being a woman and all.
I was very naive back then and remained so for longer than I like to admit.
@Ellesar
Point taken–by me, at least. But once the spark of discussion meets its tinder, it’s hard to put the fire out.
Troubelle: yes of course, it has just been a bit frustrating to read.
@Hambeast
Nope. It goes back at least to the invasion of the Philippines at the turn of the 20th century, and probably before that. Sometime around the seizure of Hawaii was when we realized we’re an empire. The (occasional, limited) discourtesy to veterans in the 70s is very much an aberration in terms of imperial rhetoric about the military (actual treatment of current or former members by the people spouting said rhetoric, may of course vary. Usually lots of ‘honour’, but very little in the way of pensions or mental health care, frex)
Because it’s common courtesy. You don’t have to be right and display your rightness 24 hours a day. I’m not even saying I’m in complete disagreement with you here, just that it’s okay and even better to let it go sometimes. Especially when it’s bringing up something painful for another regular comment.
@Dalillama
I think it goes back further than that. I’m thinking of all the American Civil War monuments to fallen soldiers all over the the east coast. I have to walk by one just to get to the library.
@WWTH
Yep. Empathy, kindness, and consideration costs you nothing.
It says a lot about Dallilama that they refuse to use it.
Especially when viewed in the context of their judgement towards other people.
I am surprised by how the discussion seem to imply America is special in the glorification of his soldier. I never have seen veteran celebration in the States that would feel out of place in France.
(of course, because France tend to do less stupid wars, they tend to have less widows to celebrate)
As for the dead soldier, and his non-dead comrade, well, they are a bit responsible. But less so than the one that take decisions ; they share the same kind of responsabilities as the logistical guys who fuelled and resupplied them to me.
I also think the casualties is a victim of poor planning from his commander, just like a worker dying in a factory fire is a victim of poor planning and management from his boss. That don’t make him any less responsible for accepting a morally grey-to-black operation, but it’s not the fact it was such an operation who killed him.
@BOINKBOINKBOINK
In what way is empathy for people targeted for mass murder not valid empathy exactly? In what way is sympathy for the perpetrators of said oppression useful?
For the curious, we actually do know (for fairly certain, at least) why Trump ordered the suicide mission – he got a golf course out of it. “War crime” is putting it mildly.
This has nothing to do with my personal opinion on the military: Fuck you. I don’t even care to ask you’re a gotcha troll or honestly this big of an asshole, just fuck you. I’m emailing David.
@Scented Fucking Hard Chairs
You ask if I’m a troll so allow me to clarify: I absolutely oppose racists who choose to kill middle eastern people. I see no value in this oppression or the people who carry it out. Removing oppressors is a tactic towards removing oppression, so I stand by my statement.
@mywall
That line of thinking makes me reeeeeally uncomfortable; it feels incredibly dehumanizing. Aside from that, though, I feel like it also violates the spirit of the “Don’t wish that someone was dead” part of the comments policy, so maybe stop it.
I loathe Trump with a passion that is, quite frankly, startling, in one so normally mild-mannered. (I’m Clark Kent, all day, every day, the glasses never come off).
I thought his choice to exploit this military widow was crass and tasteless.
I never once thought badly of her for allowing her husband’s service to be publicly acknowledged in this way.
As someone who is still grieving for a spouse, fuck them. Fuck their misogyny. Who looks at a distraught woman who can barely contain her tears being manipulated as part of the Trump circus and hates on her?
@mywall : at the very least, remember that we talk of a human being, who may very well only be an enabler, a cog in the machine, and not somebody who actively want to oppress middle easterner. You assume he was racist, where nothing point to that.
That’s way before any discussion of whether that raid could have justifications other than oppression.