new army new soldiers!

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Reply to Msg 109

there are many reasons for the exclusion of the former soldiers in the new army:

age: assuming that the median age of the haitian soldier in 1996 was 25, it is clear that a new small army should not rely on thirty-five-year-olds for the completion of its ranks.

experience: contrary to your favorable claims, the defunct army has no experience of collective service to the nation; therefore its members cannot be favored over younger potential candidates with no participatory experience in bloody coups-d'etats.

mentality: for the new army to work, it must institute a new mentality among its members, that of collective service, and subordination to the civilian executive authority.

these psychological changes are easier done with new recruits than with recruits with a long history of insubordination, and corruption as represented by the defunct army.

relocation: the tactical barracks must be built outside the administrative capital as a preventive strategic measure.

in fact, i even propoze that the so-called"primature" and the headquaters of the ministry of defense be relocated to a relatively small island off the coast of port-au-prince.

since the former soldiers were so used being posted in urban areas, it will be harder for them to adjust than the newly recruited younger men and women.

clear recognition of chain of command:
it must be overempahasized during military trainings that the three civilians, namaly, the president, the prime minister and the minister of defense are all superior to the commanding general of the army.

clear distinction of illegal military orders: your officers cannot order you to arrest your president, your prime minster or your minister of defense.

such actions are considered treason and are punishable by death.

professional vs mandatory service: about 2/3 of the military personel must be mandatory servicemen of a two-year-contract with no eligibility to military pensions.

all personel from cooks to painters must be soldiers.

these measures are intended to make the maintaning of an army cost-effective.

soldiers are to be trained on national soil to prevent indoctrination in the political philosophy of foereign nations that may be detrimental to our national interests.

you know what i am talking about, just think of general avril.

note: i myself am a former soldier in the united states army; so i am not anti-army, but rather i am anti-repression.

ps:fanfan, i was not wrong in my earlier arguments.

i modified my arguments due my recognition of new relevant factors.

my intellectual honesty requires that i do so; for i am not a dogmatic thinker too certain of his arguments.

what makes me change my mind is an insightful declaration by a dominican general by the name of yessin y yessin.

the latter claims that a military conflict with haiti is inevitable if dominican republic wants to erase the haitian stain from its history.

furthermore, in watching the independence celebrations of the dominican republic, it has occurred to me that in the collective dominican psyche, a military occupation of haiti is most desired in order to get even historically.

in the presence of these new conjunctures, an immediate partial reformation of a people's army becomes necessary.

it is important that we exclude the former rebels from the army. in giving in to their demands of uncompromised reintegration, we will reward militaristic arrogance, that individuals can take arms against a constitutionally established government as a means of attaining political goals.

our former soldiers were not soldiering, and the risk is too high for us to give them a second chance.

forgiveness does not mean that i must allow the same repeated criminals back in power.

i forgive the former soldiers, but it would be naive to allow them back in our barracks.

new army, new soldiers!

Observer Keen, April 12 2006, 2:15 PM

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