• index@sh.itjust.works
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    14 days ago

    Those are realistic military duties in war time. Every military practises them. Where do you find a fault?

    Where do i find a fault in conducting vehicle inspections and riot control at peace time, from an organization with a shady past involving false flag operations, psychological warfare and assassinations aimed at delegitimize left-wing parties.

    Dunno buddy let me keep thinking

    An example from real life: the Ukrainian military has checkpoints on roads near the frontline. Moving with a vehicle, you’d expect to show papers, say a few words and maybe even show transported goods. The purpose? Finding reconnaisance / sabotage groups, which every competent enemy is expected to send. If an opponent doesn’t send recon or saboteurs, they are fools. If a military doesn’t learn how to deter those, they’re fools.

    The ukrainian military also have checkpoints in the west border to make sure any male between 18 and 60 doesn’t leave the country so that they can be forced into war.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobilization_in_Ukraine

    How does one learn? After dry reading in a classroom: one holds an excercise. There’s a home team and an opposing team. The home team checks, the opposing team infiltrates. Both teams report what they achieved, results get compared. If the blue team found the “saboteurs”, good. If the red team “blew up” all bridges and pipelines in the area, people think hard about what they did wrong. If they don’t practise, they don’t get to think hard.

    To me this sound like military rhetoric coming from a military man. You self defined yourself as being a moderately honest anarchist, i suggest you to keep doing your anarchist readings and re-read the works of Emma Goldman and Errico Malatesta.

    https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/emma-goldman-preparedness-the-road-to-universal-slaughter

    https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/errico-malatesta-the-european-war-and-the-international-workers-organization

    • perestroika@lemm.ee
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      14 days ago

      The ukrainian military also have checkpoints in the west border to make sure any male between 18 and 60 doesn’t leave the country so that they can be forced into war.

      In the west, you should expect to find the border guard. They are capable of checking databases and patrolling in nature, but aren’t heavily armed. And tens of thousands of guys have taken leave on their own, despite anything the border guard can do. If one doesn’t like the draft, one hikes out via the Carpathian mountains.

      As for the draft, yes, it’s a real thing. Of course it’s unjust, people should be able to live in peace - hence no agressor should invade any land. Having to take up weapons sucks. But when a war on this scale gets started, states will draft soldiers into their armies. Many will dodge it. Since hundreds of thousands of soldiers are needed, lots of mistakes will be made, and will be sorted out later (units don’t actually want soldiers who aren’t capable of fighting).

      Ultimately, who was called up but absolutely doesn’t want to fight, must choose among these roles:

      • emigree
      • medical personnel
      • defense industry
      • logistics
      • dodger
      • jailed dodger

      Obviously, everyone is not competent to become a medic. The remaining positions are attainable. So, in the end, it’s mostly people willing to fight at least somewhat, who end up fighting. Some of them get disillusioned and desert, however. That’s normal too, in a large war that lasts long. I don’t hold it against them.

      I’m not from Ukraine, and not a military person, but I cooperate with military people, supplying drones and stuff that helps bring hostile drones down (profit is not involved). So inevitably I do know the approximate situation.

      I’ve read some things by Malatesta before (not much from Goldman), so thanks for the reading tips. There is a nuance, though. Once some country has started a conquest attempt, any disarmament will only give them victory. Disarmament is only possible when it’s mutual, and then I fully support it. The article by Goldman that you suggested seems to originate from 1915, when World War I was being fought in Europe. I remind that World War I had no clear agressor, and indeed, anarchists of all countries tried to overthrow the ruling regimes (which were mostly undemocratic, frequently dictatorial and imperial).

      The current situation somewhat differs. There is a clear agressor, which happens to be a dictatorship and an empire, supported by other dictatorships and a messed up theocracy. There happens to be a clearly defined victim of agression, which happens to be mostly democratic, supported by places that are reasonably democratic. I believe that if Malatesta lived today, I could convince him to start a charity that supplies Ukrainians. :)

      I hope for revolutionary conditions to arise in Russia, but that will be a long wait. My comrades there tried and lost, they’ve mostly emigrated by now. Some are imprisoned, some still keep trying (I can’t estimate what the percentages are, people don’t talk openly of such things), but there are approximately 4 times as much cops per capita in Russia compared to a normal country, so their chances are miserable.

      • index@sh.itjust.works
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        14 days ago

        In the west, you should expect to find the border guard. They are capable of checking databases and patrolling in nature, but aren’t heavily armed.

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANxo0gBM6GM

        In this video you can see soldiers patrolling the borders with rifles and dogs and using drones to scan the area, what’s your definition of heavily armed? They look heavily armed enough to me.

        And tens of thousands of guys have taken leave on their own, despite anything the border guard can do. If one doesn’t like the draft, one hikes out via the Carpathian mountains.

        I hope that’s true, according to wikipedia half of the people trying to escape are getting caught

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobilization_in_Ukraine

        “Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, around 650,000 military-aged men have left the country. According to Ukrainian authorities, as of November 2023, around 20,000 people had been caught while trying to cross the border illegally since February 2022, and another 20,000 successful crossings were recorded between February 2022 and 31 August 2023 according to a BBC Eye Investigation.”

        Malatesta wrote multiple times on the subject.

        https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/errico-malatesta-anarchists-have-forgotten-their-principles

        https://www.marxists.org/archive/malatesta/1916/pro-government-anarchists.html

        • perestroika@lemm.ee
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          13 days ago

          In this video you can see soldiers patrolling the borders with rifles and dogs and using drones to scan the area, what’s your definition of heavily armed?

          The clue here is that soldiers typically don’t have dogs - their job is not tracking anyone. The folks you see are probably border guards. (Another clue is that soldiers would be expected to carry at least one proper machine gun per squad, items like grenades and grenade launchers, etc.)