Posted on 03/04/2006 6:22:06 PM PST by Esther Ruth
Venezuela aims for biggest military reserve in Americas
Greg Morsbach in Caracas Saturday March 4, 2006 The Guardian
Around 500,000 Venezuelans will start a four-month military training programme today to turn them into members of the country's territorial guard. They are the first group of a total of 2m Venezuelan civilians who have so far signed up to become armed reservists. By the summer of 2007, Venezuela is likely to have the largest military reserve in the Americas, which is expected to be almost double the size of that in the United States.
The huge recruitment drive is part of President Hugo Chávez's plan to create a people's army that would answer directly to him in the event of civil unrest or an armed conflict. General Alberto Muller Rojas, one of the members of the army high command who helped to devise the new thinking in military strategy being adopted by Venezuela's leftwing government, said: "If for example the United States were to invade Venezuela one day, and that's what many people are expecting, the only way we could repel such an attack would be a full scale guerrilla war against the foreign aggressors.
"Our professional army only numbers 80,000 soldiers, so we would need to use civilians like in Iraq to fight the Yankee forces."
Top military officials are confident that a reserve force of 2m, or one in five adults, would be sufficient to dissuade any country from invading Venezuela, the world's fifth biggest oil exporter and fifth biggest supplier of crude oil to the US.
(Excerpt) Read more at guardian.co.uk ...
It's good that Venzeula is a land of peace or I'd be concerned....
excerpt
So far service in the territorial guard is voluntary. But the Venezuelan parliament is studying proposals to make it obligatory for all Venezuelan adults to join the territorial guard.
Mr Chávez has sought to position himself at the vanguard of a bloc of Latin American leftist leaders acting as a counterpoint to US hegemony in the region.
Tensions between Caracas and Washington have simmered in recent weeks with an espionage row that has resulted in a US naval attache being expelled and disputes on a range of issues from the war on drugs to aviation safety restrictions.
When is the next coup already?
Dictators ride to and fro upon tigers which they dare not dismount. And the tigers are getting hungry.
And also a line from a familiar 60s tune...
Paranoia strikes deep
.
Hugo Chavez is tiring. He saddens me :-(
As long as our fingerprints are not on the job...
Is there something in the water down there or what?
Where the hell did that lunitic and the people down there get the notion that the US is going to invade them?
Has everyone gone nuts down there?
Now Hugo "Aldolf" Chaves is going to have the military and the "people's" army probably swear a loyalty oath to him ... not the "fatherland".
You know, maybe its time for the US to have a people's army. I thought somewhere in the US Constitution is said the Fed govt was to help support and supply the malitias.
we could overrun that country in 24 hours.
You are totally misinformed. We do NOT want to fight a battle in the Amazon jungle basin.
I hope he isn't planning something.
On a different note, it is amazing how neutron bombs can wipe out only people, leaving the buildings largely intact...
Those "reservists" may come back to bite him someday, and
I hope it's not long.
Of course the whole purpose of this is to register and indoctrinate the core cadres in Marxism and to consolidate
the command and control of every facet of the society.
It's what the democrats want to do here via "national health
care" etc.
I hear that people are generally opposed to the use of neutron bombs, whereas buildings are either in favor of their use or have no opinion.
Instead of earning the love of his people by spending the oil riches making them peaceful and prosperous he is pissing away money on crap like this and those idiots he has convinced the US is bad must have manure for brains.
It does show that propaganda works among the ignorant and obviously Venezuela has more than its fair share of ignorance.
Many leaders use the notion as a distraction from home grown problems, usually caused by the very same leaders. And raising a militia also can be used as a distraction, rather than, say, having the unemployed getting restless and starting to antagonize the government. Gotta keep those people busy.
And raising a militia also can be used as a distraction, rather than, say, having the unemployed getting restless and starting to antagonize the government.
How long before we see those massed brigades of shovel
wielding Landdienst, performing choreographed drill in
the soccer stadiums.
Well maybe US activities with:
Lebanon '50s
Lebanon '80s
Cuban Blockade
Viet Nam
Grenada
Panama
Iraq once
Iraq twice
Somalia
Afghanistan
Libya
Kosovo
could have him concerned since the United States Empire has replaced the British Empire as the world's invader government.
However, I'll hazard a guess that one of the chief reasons for this move is that Comrade Chavez doesn't trust the army and is hoping to coup-proof himself by developing a dependable legion like the Iranian Revolutionary Guards.
"we could overrun that country in 24 hours. "
I've heard that before. You can cripple infrastructure in 24 hours, the rest of the job would take years. Jungle warfare in an area almost 3 times the size of Vietnam, I think I'll pass.
You know, Chavez is an ex-Army officer isn't he? I suspect that he made enemies in the Army and has some fear of being deposed, hence the private army he's building.
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