Do we want a strong army ? at The Ouwet Front: A Lebanese Forces Blog

Do we want a strong army ?

Posted by N10452

The Lebanese have a terribly short memory and rely on their emotions rather brains in taking important decisions or supporting this party or that ..

The much unpopular Lebanese army during the Syrian hegemony years suddenly became supported by more than 80% of the Lebanese people after the Nahr el Bared battle.
I know we all chanted for the Lebanese army during our Anti-Syrian demonstrations, and we all asked for it to replace the Syrian invadors, but we always ended up getting beaten by that same army and its intelligence, yet we keep supporting it since it is our national army after all.

Let me add here that the main reason of our youth’s immigration in the past years was the Army and the 1 obligatory year we had to serve.

The question raised here : Do we really want to strenghen this army ?? Is it really wise to give the army that much power and support it blindly ??

Rationally speaking, it is a must to have a strong army and strenghen it to face any invadors or terrorist groups like the ones we are fighting today, but i totally refuse to strenghen a sick and infected entity and the army is one of them, maybe the least sick but still.

15 years of Syrian fatal infection, endless list of corrupted army leaders and responsibles, of divisions and betrayals etc etc …

We cannot just ignore all those facts and say lets arm this army to the bones and give it our blind trust .. and Nahr el Bared is one big example of why we should not do that .. yes believe it or not ..

What we see on TV is not what was going on on the ground, and the decisions that were taken inside the army were not that easily made or uniformly agreed on, and on the battle ground, the stories of courageous soldiers we hear are accompanied by some frustrating stories about soldiers working against their own men, stories not shown to the public ..

What is needed first and foremost is a restudy of the Army Doctrine, and how to implement any new or modified doctrine in an effective way .. then we can talk about re-arming and getting planes and giving more powers.

Why do we need a new doctrine ?

The army is till today threatened to be divided at any time, and the somewhat 35 to 40% of Shiites in the army are the first threat to its division, mainly cause of their ( most of them) allegiance to Hezbollah and Amal.

We need a secular doctrine for this army, one that will make the soldier forget his religion once he is in that institution, one that is similar to Turkey’s army, one that punishes anyone acting based on his political or religious affiliation.

Until then, let us keep supporting our army men’s efforts in destroying the Fat7 el Islam terrorists, but let us use our minds when asking for blind support to the institution as a whole or support Gen.Sleiman for president !!

Filed under: Editorials, Lebanon, Political
Posted by N10452 on 07.08.07 @ 12:18 pm | 13 Comments

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13 Comments. Add your own...

1. Rodge | July 8th, 2007 at 12:56 pm

N.

I mainly agree with you, especially with the Doctrine issue and the risk of divisions with the untrusted Shiites soldiers loyalty. Also, eventhough i totally support the Army nowadays, but we’ve seen a lot of abnormal behaviors previously, last one during the 23rd of January events. Also i don’t agree on Gen. Sleiman running for president, we already tried two bad examples in Baabda, and we don’t need a third one. Maybe he’s good, but why taking the risk.
Last, i support, not only the Army. but everyone who defends Lebanon, in return i’m agaianst anyone attacking this country or working against its interests, even if it is our Army, or some of his elements.
2. paul | July 8th, 2007 at 1:51 pm

100%

therefor nobody commented …bil alb ya watan…I have mixed feeling betwwen proud and fear.
The tasks of the army must stay limited on protection the border,and fighting extraordinary forces,and this must be guaranteed by the law…iza sar 3inna chi marra law…
3. Joe | July 8th, 2007 at 3:22 pm

the main reason why the youth prefered immigrating and not serve in this army a couple of years ago, was because our country was occupied by syria!! we refused to serve in an army commanded by the syrians!!!
as for now, i think that a lot of us would gladly serve in this army!!

i think that there is going to be a huge number of lebanese from around the world that will be glad to serve in this army now!!
4. Cromwell | July 8th, 2007 at 6:22 pm

Very interesting the article you wrote on the Lebanese Army. Last year I wrote on my blog a short text about the current situation of the Lebanese Armed Forces. Here you have the link to my article:

http://etimologias2004.blogspot.com/2006/08/datos-sobre-el-ejrcito-del-lbano.html

Obviously, it is written in Spanish but if you have problems to get its translation I will help you. As a summary, I can tell you that my article said that the Lebanese Army was weak, not only because of the ethnic groups that constitute it, but also because of the material Lebanese military personnel have at their disposal. For instance, the Lebanes Army has T-55 tanks, M-48 tanks and M-113 armored vehicles.

Would you be so kind of telling me whether this information is right?

Greetings from Spain.
5. @li 1559 | July 8th, 2007 at 8:57 pm

What has happened to ethics in our society ? This is disgraceful. Is no reason to attack the lebanese army at this moment . A person can make a mistake and still be a valuable person but N10452 always forget that this is lebanon not Turkey or france . At last , ya we do need a strong army otherwise lets go back in the days where the strong only survive !!
6. mikel | July 8th, 2007 at 9:06 pm

Cromwell, you’re right, the Lebanese army does have outdated equipment, and that’s the only reason it’s weak.
7. bachir-7ay-fina | July 8th, 2007 at 10:16 pm

u r right 100% N
8. paul | July 8th, 2007 at 10:27 pm

Even because we are not france and turkey
they don`t have 35% chiites in the army.
9. N10452 | July 8th, 2007 at 10:44 pm

@li 1559,
What do ethics have to do with my post here ???
I said clearly we should support the army at this moment but asked for restudying the whole basis of that instution who failed to do its job for years ..

This is not Turkey and that should make our job easier, since we dont have a whole Muslim army to deal with, but rather a heterogeneous one where secularism can be a common interest for all to serve better their institution ..

I dont think u read my thread properly ..
10. N10452 | July 8th, 2007 at 10:52 pm

Cromwell, i only learned a bit of Italian @ school but no spanish .. so cant really understand ur whole post maybe a few words ..

Now to answer ur question, our army is very poorly equipped and just so you have an idea, the Americans sent us mostly amunitions for our canons .. and we only had one helicopter capable of launching missiles, all others u had soldiers firing low missiles from them …
11. ghassan K | July 9th, 2007 at 4:40 am

To have a strong army, it needs loyal soldiers!! So, encourage people whose loyalty is to Lebanon first to join the Army! Don’t just wait on the sideline. If you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem!
12. Johnny.B | July 9th, 2007 at 10:28 am

mmmm ….

The first thing the army teaches you is “syria the sister, israel the enemy” … that’s one point …

second lebanon’s politics puts the army in a difficult situation… take for example if michel sleiman was frinds with 8march, he would have listened to hassan nassrallah and never entered the camp …

third the army must have a way to protect itself from a leader that might take advantage of it for personal issues, take for example michel aoun.

but on the other hand i agree with @li 1559 when he said that this might not be the right time … enno mich ghalat … bass haram that’s all.

cheers
13. Leb voice | July 14th, 2007 at 2:49 pm

I can not agree more than 100& on the Lebanese having a veryyyy short memory… I was watching the cheikh Pierre episodes yesterday and was intrigued by 1 thing: A lot of the things that triggered the crisis of 1975, the war and the demise of this nation happened again throughout the last years… the sit-in, the asking for a national unity government, the tire burning on the streets and finally the crisis for the Presidential position which will lead to the support of the Christians for an army official (always a general) due to their insecurities (and his symbolic action in some war or battle; ta7rir/nahr el barid) which usually leads to their undoing since that same officer was put in charge by/with the blessing of Syria…