Thursday, April 7, 2011

A NATIONAL ARMY VERSUS A BODYGUARD



A training and a mission went wrong!

A case to learn from: How could the army of a country treats citizens as outsider enemy combatants for asking a political freedom from their political leaders through peaceful demonstrations and eventually create civil wars with in their own society? To see such things on television is the most damning social phenomena that no man could even imagine in the near past in advanced societies of the western world.

Can you imagine a common member of a family changed self to a super nanny as an outsider to treat and discipline the house as a collection of children and enforce self-will by any means and start killing family members for speaking out ? The analogy is that the country is the family; family members are citizens; the common family member that transformed self to super nanny is the illegitimate leader who does such things; the inanimate killing partners are family members who were assigned responsibility from the family to protect the family from external attacks and to keep the safety and peace of every family member, but took the order of the self-appointed supper nanny to kill family members for asking matters that are vital to the house.

Some unseen or trivially taken things by the society but sources of such troubles :

If political leaders gather themselves based on an ethnic group, then they establish deliberately an army that is dominantly lead by that ethnic group but filled by others as foot soldiers who do not have access to the upper leadership echelon of the army. In such cases the army leaders take political matters as family affairs, not as affairs of the country and completely concur with illegitimate political leaders and both function as hands and globes for their luxury living and ethnic dominance for all time as long as the society quietly sits. Some world class dictators who are not familiar with modern society, choose this way as a means to stay in power for long, but later disappear with all their family members without any trace from their society for all time and be treated as bandits run amuck to collect wealth and fortune and worst members of their society, captured political power by an accident not by being rational and having a desire of good will to bring good governance to the prosperity of their society.

Few cases where the world is watching on live television with shock and surprise as to how such governments exist in this 21st century in which leaders of civilized societies of the western world resign without any hustle for even simple failures of responsibilities.

Yemen: Leaders of the Yemen army are immediate and distant family members of the president so that politics and luxury is a family affairs.

Libya: Sons of the president lead armies themselves that is supposed to work for the country who later changed to private body guards and not army of the country—a disgrace to their honor.

Bahrain, Syria and Jordan: The same thing is happening

Ethiopia: The army leadership is dominated by one ethnic group that is deliberately designed by political illegitimate leaders in order to take political demands of freedom and peaceful expression of descent of the Ethiopian society as a treat to their family affairs and dominance and therefore take orders from their family members of political leaders to silence and kill citizens. Civilized political demands shall be considered as alien concepts from western societies, irritants to their luxury lives and should not be seen anywhere, anytime in front of their eyes.

The troubling thing in the case of Ethiopia is that the leaders came as a surprise to un suspected Ethiopians and force the Ethiopian society to behave as a new human society from scratch with strange axioms of nations and nationalities of medieval times and enforcing them with weaponry and punitive measures. They redesigned and restructured Ethiopia and forcefully apply their will until now. It is not surprising therefore that such a group with such a colossal political plunder allows others to be members of their clubs of power.

But to give a chance for the benefit of a doubt, it is necessary to say what is right and what shall be done.

Political Leaders:

Legitimate political leaders provide a political leadership so that all structures of the society function properly in order citizens enjoy equal access to opportunities and resources of their country with minimal obstacles, freedom, a vibrant democracy to exercise their rights and responsibilities in choosing their leaders periodically.

The army: Bodyguard versus National Army.

The national army which includes the police force and the military took oath and a solemn duty to honor the flag, the constitution and keep the territorial integrity of the country from foreign aggressions and protect the rights, safety and security of citizens, included peaceful expressions of descent to political leaders who make decisions on their behalf. They are not employee of any person or group from the political leadership echelon so that when an individual from the leadership group needs to kill citizens, take that order and kill their own brothers and sisters. Members of the army are not body guards of any group or persons to simply take orders and behave as inanimate partners of individuals in power that reside in political offices and perform a command on their society including killing. The army engages itself in such kinds of actions only during wars between the country and another country. Even in that case there is an international law which prohibits not to kill a combatant enemy if he/she puts down a weapon and show some sign of surrender, or not to kill a wounded enemy combatant that you may have gotten on the way, instead they will be taken as prisoners of wars.

Therefore for army leaders, it is a dishonor now and in history, to their ranks bestowed by Ethiopia and its people and the place they occupy in their society, when they act like body guards of individuals and take and perform a direct command to silence their own civil society with imprisonment, torture, killing with firearms and heavy weaponry, simply because they ask peacefully a better political pathways of governance that guarantee socio-political and economic developments to them to their children, grandchildren and to the country at large. It is here that training and mission of an army went wrong. It is therefore imperative in times of political upheavals and peaceful expression of descent, the military and police force should indeed see rationally whom they have to serve and what their mandates and purposes are. Which actions make them partners of their society and receive honor from their society now and in history and which actions make them mere body guards of individuals and lose their HONOR now and in history.

One of the most important social qualities, historical assets and personal demands of great individuals who happened to be in leadership positions is HONOR. Honor is both a personal and social asset that stays forever in history and gives pride for that society. No wealth, fortune and material possessions and personal friend ship equalizes HONOR for legitimate leaders. It is in that end that the Ethiopian army and police force should function and perform all the time and during times of social upheavals of peaceful expressions of decent.

Wars:

Wars among countries and wars inside a country –civil wars , are destructive activities of humans resulted from failures of people from the political leadership to reason and win the other in argument and peaceful way on issues that create misunderstanding between the warring groups. But in modern times civil wars are only prevalent in under developed countries usually called third world countries where civilization and modern democratic political activities are yet alien and distant future or even unnecessary concepts, while in developed societies they are socio-political phenomena of the distant past.

Question: When do these under developed societies or collectively called third world countries start using reason to win or lose arguments and abide by the results so that they do not use force to make false true, or vise versa? To accept a thing that is true is a sign of being reasonable and civilized, while trying to produce side conditions to falsify it or look like false and enforce that by weapons and punitive measures is a sign of being irrational, falsehood and uncivilized.

Remark: In order political tricks and deceptions to disappear and the country not be changed to a family real estate of business of illegitimate leaders, societies should put an article in their constitution that forces a tenure time limit (not more than two terms) for political leaders. It is to the benefit of all, leaders and the society.

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