In Praise of Exploiting the Army to Make Money

I’ve been reading complaints about the ads that are using Lebanon’s love of its army to sell products. Let it be known that I find nothing offensive in the idea of selling to people using symbols that they look up to. It’s how advertising has always worked. (I don’t see verbal pitchforks railing against actors pretending to be dentists on TV to sell toothpaste)

The critiques I agree with are the creative kind (some ads are too ugly or undignified) and the ones relating to using Israeli soldiers (some people are too stupid). I will even talk in favor of the insensitivity and hypocrisy argument (celebrating while some soldiers are missing or dead). But I find nothing remotely rational in this critique:

2016 will officially go down as the year when Lebanon commercialized its Army Day. It was probably a long time coming, but we’re officially there.

Why is that bad? Unless you are some kind of far-leftist who believes everything in this world should be free or that commerce is intrinsically evil and we are somehow as a species above it, I see no reason why we should be offended by this.

Sex sells, and so does the Army

What can possibly be wrong in doing something that both creates commercial activity and boost the army’s morale?

What those ads are telling us is that people really look up to the Lebanese Army and stand behind it, and that our emotions of love and admiration are sincere. There is nothing more honest than an emotion capitalists want to exploit.