National Defence Strategy as proposed by GMA

[Abou Samra]

Originally Posted by sanfour

i have to disagree with you. First, they don't give guns to everybody....
the recruits are given physical and psychological tests to check their
ability for service(either military,civilian protection or civil service).
boot camp is for 21 weeks, after the boot camp, recruits have to
serve in their area for 3 weeks every year until the age of 30.
those who get guns are those who are part of the military.
by the way,shooting practice for the recruits is obligatory until the age of 30.

on a side note, Switzerland is able to mobilize its population for
warfare ,in the case of attack, within 12 hours.

let me tell you a little story called Operation Tannenbaum :

During the Nazi invasion of France, the Luftwaffe violated Swiss
airspace over 200 times; the Swiss responded by shooting down
Luftwaffe aircraft. The Third Reich responded by sending in saboteurs
to destroy Swiss airfields but it was an unsuccessful endeavor.
Shortly thereafter, Hitler called the Swiss "the most despicable
and wretched people, mortal enemies of the new Germany" and
began immediate plans for the invasion of Switzerland,
known as Operation Tannenbaum.
Hitler abandoned Operation Tannenbaum after he realized that
an invasion of Switzerland was untenable, with 20% of the
civilian population mobilized to defend the country – including old men
and young boys, with Swiss women manning anti-aircraft
artillery (AAA) pieces and running the civil defense corps.
The example of the Winter War showed how a force
of trained riflemen could stop a much larger, better equipped army.
my friend, some of the best shooters in the world are Swiss.

In Switzerland every man who is doing his military service receives a gun (exept if he asks not receive one and then if this is accepted by the military establishement). The physical and psychological tests are ridicoulous and are just here to decide in which corpse they will put the person. The yearly shooting practice is just a small test with 20 bullets. You don't need a high score and usually when you are not good you just ask friends to do it for you or you don't do it at all and pay 100 swiss franks.

What is funny is that the swiss army just decided to forbid recruits to have loaded guns due to the ammount of accidents! Last year the Chief of the army resigned and today it's the defense minister!

Regarding the yearly three weeks you have to do every year, it's more or less just playing cards and driniking beers as nobody cares of these "cours de répétition". People in Switzerland don't really like playing the little soldier for three weeks when they have other things to do.
The officers are most of the time obliged to graduate and are very bad.

The swiss army can not mobilize in 12 hours! In theory it's 24 hours and first the majority of the people will not go and second sometimes you have to go very far from your place, what could be difficult in time of war.

The swiss army was maybe good 50 years ago but today it's just useless and hopeless.

[elador]

Originally Posted by Greg Davis

Isnt a carefully selected group of mouquawimeen an army. does the lebanese army have a shortage of personell, to have to resort to civillians?
The Lebanese army needs equipment, municians, and rockets, not personnel. The army in its current form is balanced and calibrated to accomodate the country's sectarian configuration.
How do we maintain this balance through civilian resistance, without compromising the balance.
Who controls decisions of war and peace?
When we break it all down, and begin to organise a resistance, all we end up with, is an army.
Many countries have army reservists. Citizens who perform military training, but remain civillians living normal lives. In the event of war, they are recalled, and repatriated to the army, to perform their resistance services, under the army's command.

We all know how much the Iranians care about Lebanons Welfare. If they amongst others really want to support Lebanon as a nation, why dont they donate some fighter jets to the Lebanese Army. They have plenty, including the ones they confiscated from the iraqis in the nineties. Amrna la allah the Americas won't, what is stopping them.

Without uniting our armed forces, Lebanon will always remain divided

GMA's strategy is based on this concept.

[lebanese1]

To the ones wondering who will have the decision of war/peace in GMA's strategy:

[Bejin]

The decision of war and peace must be controlled by the president of the republic with the participation in the decision of the government.

[sanfour]

Originally Posted by Bejin

The decision of war and peace must be controlled by the president of the republic with the participation in the decision of the government.

sorry to disappoint you. according to our constitution, 2/3 of the
government decide war and peace....the president ma khasso.

[Bejin]

Originally Posted by sanfour

sorry to disappoint you. according to our constitution, 2/3 of the
government decide war and peace....the president ma khasso.

that's why I am against Taef

[Soul_of_Pierre]

We lebanese, are dealing with a very big problem wich is the same going back to 1943: the lebanese government has never exerced its full executive power on the 10 452 km, in consequence we are dealing with a sovereignty issue:

1- ACCEPTING the fact that there is a "legal" civilian resistance is disastrous, this is obviously an un-soverein concept, we can't have a group, or a party,or an organisation, or any part of the Lebanses society having arms in their order.

2-this will lead to some unacceptable consequences:

-Any organisation having arms, will, pshycologicly ("besoin de protection"), never get rid of it in an easy way: this will surely lead us into a conflict, or a dislocation of the executive power.

-let's take an example of something which may happen very probabely:
A man, carrying one of the "legalised arms", made on offense (stealing, crime...etc) using this gun breaking the penal law. Do you think that he will give up to the lebanese justice easily? Do you think that he will surrender and give the weapon used by him this easily? (knowing that his weapon is un-reachable and un-touchable) Do you think that the lebansese government forces could enter his neighborhood and bring him to justice in the "amen el dakhli" jeeps?....this is Utopian, and this will improve the dislocation of the lebansese state, which won't be able to use it's executive power on its delimited territory.

-"civil resistance", by defintion: can't be limited to one part of the lebanese society, if one part has the right to resist and carry weapons, the other parts should have this right also, aren't we talking about an egalitarian society??? where all parts of the Lebanese society are equal???

-let's predict: If one part of the civilian society (societe civile) has the right to hold arms, the other parts will automaticly opt to armement (implicitly, or tacitly).knowing that our society is multicultural, each part will logicly opt to the reveice supplies from their regional ally, in the absence of one supreme armed organisation (the lebanese army).....civil war here we come!!


Why don't we try to renforce the lebanese army (which is deeply in need), instead of accepting a civilian resistance, in order to legitimize the existance of an armed organisation.

RIP Samer Hanna

Regards

[False Morel]

Thinking this latest "National Strategy" dispute over, I would rather leave it for HA alone!
I trust them more than any Lebanese Government, or any other government for that matter; specially those based on the so called democracy!

I'd also suggest to make an official national poll over the matter. Many dont trust governments in Lebanon as well! As far as I know.
To assign a special authorized body for that would be more credible than a governmental source, I might add.

[J.Hanna]

Originally Posted by Soul_of_Pierre

Why don't we try to renforce the lebanese army (which is deeply in need), instead of accepting a civilian resistance, in order to legitimize the existance of an armed organisation.

ha ha.....indeed, sometimes the simplist solution is the best solution.

Before the MOU, I believe GMA would have opted for this solution...however today we have Post-MOU_GMA, this GMA is a different one from the 1989-2005 one. This GMA will not relinquish the arms of Hizballa until Jeruselum is freed from the Zionists, till the Palestinians are back home in Palestine, till he becomes President (lol), till there is complete and utter peace across the Middle East, till Lebanon has an Army that is stronger than HA........and the list goes on....

[Learned]

Originally Posted by Soul_of_Pierre

We lebanese, are dealing with a very big problem wich is the same going back to 1943: the lebanese government has never exerced its full executive power on the 10 452 km, in consequence we are dealing with a sovereignty issue:

Both your diagnosis and prognosis are incorrect. The problem is not the lack of executive power exercised by government over every inch of land (this is merely a result of the problem), the problem is that the very system of government itself is dysfunctional because it is a deeply sectarian system. Every last problem in the country can be traced back to the flawed system of government that is in place, including the issue of sovereignty.

Originally Posted by Soul_of_Pierre

1- ACCEPTING the fact that there is a "legal" civilian resistance is disastrous, this is obviously an un-soverein concept, we can't have a group, or a party,or an organisation, or any part of the Lebanses society having arms in their order.

Obviously? You might as well have said "obviously, the world is flat".

Who ever said that sovereignty is to be equated with state-hegemony over the people? Does the state work for the people or do the people work for the state? Sovereignty lies with the people, not with the state -- this is the most basic ideal of democracy and freedom. When the state fails in its responsibility to protecting the people, it ceases to have any claim over the unalienable right of the people to defend themselves when needed. Sovereignty is a right of the people to be attained, and the failure of a state to attain it has no bearing on the options of the people to resort to that which necessity necessitates for their own interests and security.

Originally Posted by Soul_of_Pierre

2-this will lead to some unacceptable consequences:

-Any organisation having arms, will, pshycologicly ("besoin de protection"), never get rid of it in an easy way: this will surely lead us into a conflict, or a dislocation of the executive power.

Let's take a step back from an unscientific characterization of the issue from a "psychological" perspective, and step back into the realms of reality and rationality.

Organizations with arms fall into to categories relevant for the purposes of this discussion: those whose arms exits as a reaction to national security threats, and those whose play no role in national security.

A logical and rational argument here, is to say that because the existence of these arms constitutes a reaction to specific causes that threaten our country and people, what one must do is remedy the causes. Once this is done, the reaction itself (i.e. the arms) no longer serve a function, and they will be relinquished by overwhelming will of the people.

Originally Posted by Soul_of_Pierre

-let's take an example of something which may happen very probabely:
A man, carrying one of the "legalised arms", made on offense (stealing, crime...etc) using this gun breaking the penal law. Do you think that he will give up to the lebanese justice easily? Do you think that he will surrender and give the weapon used by him this easily? (knowing that his weapon is un-reachable and un-touchable) Do you think that the lebansese government forces could enter his neighborhood and bring him to justice in the "amen el dakhli" jeeps?....this is Utopian, and this will improve the dislocation of the lebansese state, which won't be able to use it's executive power on its delimited territory.

This is a very poor scenario. Small arms exist everywhere, and the vast majority of them have nothing to do with any type of civil resistance. The weapons of a civil resistance are its military infrastructure, its communications network, its rocket and missile forces, its command and control network, its tactical and strategic weapons, etc. These existence of this coherent military infrastructure (given its structure and status) very clearly is aimed at specific national security objectives, and cannot be exploited by any random individual in order to commit crimes. Getting rid of such a military infrastructure has absolutely nothing to do with the AK's, B7's, and pistols that any 3antar can get their hands on and use to commit crimes.

Originally Posted by Soul_of_Pierre

-"civil resistance", by defintion: can't be limited to one part of the lebanese society, if one part has the right to resist and carry weapons, the other parts should have this right also, aren't we talking about an egalitarian society??? where all parts of the Lebanese society are equal???

Citizens are equal in legal status, but not equal in initiative. The choice by some portions of society to refrain active and passive forms of civil resistance does not constitute a limitations of right on anyone. It is a form of relinquishing a right or choosing not to exercise it. Conversely, the choice by other portions of society to engage in active and passive forms of civil resistance does not constitute a monopoly of over anyone. It is a form of exercising a right.

Originally Posted by Soul_of_Pierre

-let's predict: If one part of the civilian society (societe civile) has the right to hold arms, the other parts will automaticly opt to armement (implicitly, or tacitly).knowing that our society is multicultural, each part will logicly opt to the reveice supplies from their regional ally, in the absence of one supreme armed organisation (the lebanese army).....civil war here we come!!

Historically, the armed status of the civil resistance succeeded the armed status of the vast majority of the other armed sectors of society. In any case, those who want to retain arms based on sectarian or political calculations (not cultural ones as you incorrectly asserted) instead of national security objectives, do not fall into the category of a civil resistance. It is far more feasible, and logical in light of the security threats we face, to contain and disarm those whose arms exist for sectarian purposes.

Originally Posted by Soul_of_Pierre

Why don't we try to renforce the lebanese army (which is deeply in need), instead of accepting a civilian resistance, in order to legitimize the existance of an armed organisation.

RIP Samer Hanna

Regards

Ironically, those who seem to be against enforcing (as opposed to "reinforcing") the Lebanese army, are those who reject the idea of a civilian resistance, seemingly in order to legitimize the existence of their own arms. Furthermore, the civilian resistance has been one of the most active and vocal proponents of enforcing the Lebanese army, and it does not see a disparity between this idea and some "psychological" tendency on their part not to want to relinquish their arms.

Yes, let us enforce the Lebanese army since we all agree this is part of the solution. But the solution is meant to remedy the real problem which is not the existence of a civil resistance, but the existence of national security threats. Therefore, the solution needs to take advantage and exploit every strength we have on the national level, and minimize every weakness on national level. The best way to do this is to take advantage of the the pro's and strengths of the resistance and army, reform the political system away from its sectarian basis, and unyieldingly crack down on those whose armed status is a consequence of narrow and backwards sectarian and extremist motivations.