to aj ane: opposing reactionary yearning!

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Reply to Msg 33

show me a destitute descendent of the brave men and women in the haitian revolutionary army that had earned us our independence; and i will be more than willing to pay my dues to get him or her feet back on his/her feet;but no money of mine will go the undisciplined, coup-obsessed disbanded haitian army. we the people owe nothing, absolutely nothing to the old repressive army: no so-called back-pays, and no pension.

the threats by the former soldiers are to be taken seriously for that has been their entire history, using violence on their own people while cowarding to invading forces.

the disbanded FAD'H is antithetical to the revotionary army of dessalines and petion.

why we the people owe nothing to the former soldiers?

in the united states, if a soldier is retired and has been granted a pension, but later proved to have been a spy for another country; then not only would he stop receiving his pension, but he would also face criminal actions and even death.

what does that suggest?

it suggests that getting a pension is pre-conditioned on honest service and thus revokable on substantiated violation of the here-preconditional clause of honest service rendered.

let's look at the case of the former haitian soldiers to see if they meet that pre-conditional clause.

the army is intended to protect the territory, and the human rights of citizens both from internal and external enemies:

did the haitian army protect the haitian people from external enemies?

the trujillo governement killed thousands of haitians, but no attempt on the part of the haitian army was made to stop the massacre.

on the contrary, our military officers were parading with dominican protitutes as trophies during their regular ball-room dancings at the academy club.

did the haitian army protect the haitian people from internal enemies?:
in 1987, in the presence of dessalines barracks soldiers, the macoutes massacred many awaiting voters at carrefour paillant, there was no interference from the soldiers and no pursuit of the well-recognized assassins involved.

in 1988, both colonel paul and casimir knew of the saint jean bosco church massacre, they both related that information to then-father aristid, but failed to intervene as required by their civic obligation.

rather than blaming themselves for dereliction of duty, they shifted the blame toward aristid as if the lattter had had a moral obligation to back down from criminal threats.

imagine the state of black america if dr *king were to back down from threats from white-supremacist groups such as the KKK?

now, we have proven that the soldiers have not been faithful to their bargains.

to really undersatand my point, let's look at two entities "A" and "B" that get into contract.

if A violates the abiding terms of its part of the contract, then such action invalidates the obligation of B. in other words, if the military pension is pre-conditioned on honest service rendered, then a failure to render honest service invalidates one's right to a pension as required by the logical law of biconditionality which is used in legal contracted-relationships.

as demontrated, the people owe nothing to the disbanded army for they did not get what they were promised which in turn give them complete freedom not to abide to their agreed-upon terms of the bargain.

if we were to reward an engineer for designig faulty bridges that keep on collapsing, then what incentive is there to encourage the construction of stronger and better bridges?

similarly, since the soldiers did not provide honest service, then the state owes them nothing except their basic human rights.

A REASONABLE COMPROMISE ON THE ARMY ISSUE:
a reasonable compromise:

to wait to when we have an economy that can sustain the expenses of an independent and professional army.

what is the point of having of an army that is paid and trained by foreign nations and that can potentially be infiltrated by spies to keep their interests safely?

what is the point of having a army whose uniforms come from secon-hand disgarded fatigues from american bootcamps?

what is the point of paying a security guard more than what it is guarding?

can't we wait to the time when we have highly educated young men, and responsible bureaucrats with a good economy to have an army?

the amendment can be conditioned upon the follwowing premises:

1) haiti shall have an army when it can train that army and arm it by itself, and sustain the expenses without straining basic services of its population.

2) haiti shall have an army when its illiteracy is bellow five percent, and civism has been made an integral part of haiti's systematic education.

3) As a sign of honest commitment to the compromise, the government shall put lands aside in remote areas as the official sites for the army barracks upon the completion of the pre-conditioned premises cited above.

After all, the dessalines barracks cannot be be next to the presidential palace.

that is more than reasonable, would not you agree?

in a country with many infrastructure problems, i do not believe that any human being with a rational frame of mind would even attempt to suggest that we shall immediately burden this country with such an expensive load_ 70% of our annual budget.

How to make a better case agaisnt immediate reformation:

what i have proposed is smarter politically, and it has the advantage of taking away the friction created by the reationary elements.

in fact, preval makes the first mistake of his new presidency by saying what is true but politically provocative: "had the the army been there during his first presidency, he would have been deposed".

the statement is quite true, but by saying that, he gives the appearance of revenge rather than an economic and structural reason as the primary cause for the abolition of the army.
let them think that the economic reality requires the suspension of the army as an institution, and that the coup=d'etat of 1991 has nothing to do with it.
that would have been politically smarter!!!
if you make a conditional amendment, you keep the symbol of the army without the physical army. the symbol does not make coups, the physical one does. by making these conditions clear as i have mentioned earlier along with the new sites of the barracks, you take all pressures off, and shift the reason of such a decision to the economic reality rather than to any political philosophy.

(lol) it is not really a compromise since by the time the conditions are met, these former soldiers would be ineligible to join. it is only an apparent compromise to get these bastards off our back. it is a political trick_ how long would it take to reduce illiteracy below five percent?

how long would it take to satisfy basic needs of the nation?

by the time these conditions are met, the army will be a true thing of the past.
with women in prominent positions and since they tend to prefer education, health and other social issues over national defense, even when we have a sustaining economy, these women would actively push against an army which would allow to have an army composed mostly of two-year-mandary servicemen, and a tiny percentage of longterm professional soldiers and officers.

note: we do not even need to worry, the haitian women have a very negative view of the army, and therefore they will be the first to resist agaisnt the immediate reformation of the army.

AJANE, HAVE YOU BEEN IN ARMY?

I KNOW WHAT IT IS TO BE A SOLDIER.

I KNOW THAT CERTAINS ORDERS, EVEN IF COME FROM MY SUPERIOR OFFICERS ARE ILLEGAL SUCH AS REMOVING AN ELECTED PRESIDENT, AND PARTICIPATING IN A MASSACRE OF INNOCENT INDIVIDUALS.

DURING THE ABU GREB PRISON SCANDAL, THE ACCUSED SOLDIERS CLAIMED TO HAVE RECEIVED ORDERS, BUT THEY WERE CONVICTED.

YOU KNOW WHY?

THE AMERICAN ARMY HAS A BOOK OF MILITARY UNIFORM CODE OF CONDUCT WHICH SPECIFY WHICH ORDERS ARE ILLEGAL.

THE EQUIVALENT OF THAT IN OUR CONSTITUTION IS THE ARTICLE 163.2.

Observer Keen, March 15 2006, 2:35 PM

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