from a friend’s wall on FuVou: Myth busted: mandatory term

Because it’s a bit boring to fight with acquaintances and friends, some collected mythbusters about tenure:

1. “We cannot afford the cost of a professional army”: in fact Greece already has a mostly professional army with “85,798 permanent personnel” [1]total staff 106,000 [2]so about 20,000 conscripts. OK, the Greek professional army is a GTP (for the festivals, I don’t know what you were thinking), with EPOP-career-executives (lol), non-commissioned officers-officers, 58 one-star-generals [3] and generally 1002 problems, but these are small issues for the army to solve.

2. “We are not Luxembourg, we need people”: based on NATO statistics [2] we have about 10,000 military per one million population, Turkey is next at 5,500. Even if you count only the permanent ones, we have close to 8,000. In relation to Luxembourg, we have about six times as many. Israel trails us slightly with 21,900, but with the exception of obnoxious troopers most would probably agree that the threats we face are not comparable.

3. “Yes, but Norway, Finland, Austria, Switzerland still have a mandate”: in principle, they don’t have our crap anywhere. Norway e.g. it only has mandatory term in name only, it selects roughly 15% of only those liable. In Finland they pay you rent and electricity, and as a rule you go home in SK, they don’t keep you inside for no reason. In Austria anyone who wants to do an alternative term for +3 months only, not +5. In Switzerland if you are an employee the state pays you 80% of your salary, in practice most employers continue to pay you 100% [χωρίς παραπομπή τα παραπάνω, 1 minute to find them in wikipedia]. Secondly, referendums were held in Austria and Switzerland on the abolition of the mandate, the result was negative, but they do not consider it to be self-evident. And finally, the fact that in Africa they beat black people and in some places they still want to beat them (soon again in America if Trump passes) doesn’t mean anything in itself.

4. “Yes, but the geographical specificity of Greece”: the geographical specificity of Greece certainly does not impose camps outside of Serres, Messolonghi, Tripoli, Arta (praise Gerovasilis) and it does not gather. Any relevant discussion would only make sense if these were abolished, not before.

5. “Yes, but tenure cannot be abolished without a plan”: obviously. How much do we want for a design? 12 months? 24? Let’s say 30 which is roughly the horizon of the average government? Let’s say. Let a government come out and say “the term of office will be abolished in two years, finally, tomorrow all postponements will be cut”. That’s not the point.

6. “It’s not the way you say it, it’s not just that 10,000 troops / 1M is not enough, it needs to be 15,000 and we don’t have money”: hard to accept the argument anyone who has been in the army, but let’s accept it. This applies to teachers, doctors, nurses, teachers, municipal employees, etc. In fact, the need for everyone else is pressing and immediate, the country works lamely wrongly with the army it has, it has not granted land since 1922. Why doesn’t anyone say “graduates of medicine and pedagogy must do 12 months of agricultural work wherever the state sends them?”. We hire 20,000 substitutes every year, a waste of money.

7. “Yes, but if we had another 50,000 hoplites we would […]”: The army takes about 20,000 hoplites every year, maybe 30,000 and already it doesn’t know what to do with them, as a rule it makes them paint, make coffee in the command post so that the EPOP doesn’t get tired, walk to the unit canteen, do weapons drills (afternoon training in slang), gopping, shooting, don’t let a stray dog in, guardhouse because they’re lurking cats and mice, first-second office because it’s a shame for an entire second-in-command to operate a computer, the doctor or the engineer (military doctor-engineers are majors, slowly don’t go to the camp), the dyer, onia, cleaner and of course other 101 activities that make compulsory service necessary.

8. “Who Keeps the Watchmen”: argument of people with usually leftist and/or communist beliefs, on the one hand they are anti-militarists, on the other hand they are soured by the fully professional army, because professional means mercenaries, mercenaries means bad people who impose coups, “a mercenary army controlled only by them and their dogs and us unarmed and outside or an army with us in?” [5] One would expect that there would be some correlation at least between a professional army without conscripts and coups, but phew. Probably the other way around.

9. “You know society, in the army I met seven shepherds, two farmers and a PhD from Stanford”: in principle, anyone who wants to meet shepherds, farmers and the Greek countryside in general, the road is open and the dogs are leashed, no one keeps you in the city. Don’t bother the Stanford Ph.D. and me alone.

10. ** “In Israel for example, where conscription applies from the age of 18, the army is the reservoir from which high-tech companies fish talents, whose studies they finance and use professionally. We all know what Israel is in the high-tech industry, right?”:** the policeman is an instrument, the bouzouki is an instrument, so the policeman is a bouzouki. Most of us learn correlation is not causation at 13, but it doesn’t matter (counterexamples mostly).

11. “In case of war, everyone will be called to help. Then the small professional army will not be enough. So everyone must have basic training”: it seems like a serious argument, but it’s indulgently funny. It is expressed by people who believe that a possible war with Turkey will be something like 1897, 1922 or 1940. However, already in the 90s the special press (Strategiki et al.) considers that a possible war will probably be a lightning conflict with a duration of 2-6 days. Not that we are prepared for such a lightning-strike, the relevant articles identified many problems, but the numerical one was probably the least.

The title is slightly provocative. But we’ve had enough.

[1] http://e-amyna.com/%CE%BF-%CE%B1%CF%83%CF%84%CE%B9%CE%BA%CF%8C%CF%82-%CE%BC%CF%8D%CE%B8%CE%BF%CF%82-%CF%84%CF%89%CE%BD-%CF%85%CF%80%CE%AD%CF%81%CE%BF%CE%B3%CE%BA%CF%89%CE%BD-%CE%B5%CE%BB%CE%BB%CE%B7%CE%BD%CE%B9/

[2] http://www.nato.int/nato_static_fl2014/assets/pdf/pdf_2016_07/20160704_160704-pr2016-116.pdf

[3] http://www.pronews.gr/portal/item/%CE%BA%CF%81%CE%AF%CF%83%CE%B5%CE%B9%CF%82-58-%CE%BD%CE%AD%CE%BF%CE%B9-%CF%84%CE%B1%CE%BE%CE%AF%CE%B1%CF%81%CF%87%CE%BF%CE%B9-%CF%83%CF%84%CE%BF%CE%BD-%CF%83%CF%84%CF%81%CE%B1%CF%84%CF%8C

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norwegian_Armed_Forces#Conscription

[5] https://athens.indymedia.org/post/120461/