Ukraine sacks army recruitment chiefs in anti-graft shakeup
www.reuters.com
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy broadened his battle against graft on Friday, firing all the heads of Ukraine's regional army recruitment centres as the war with Russia enters a critical stage.
    • tvbusy@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      902·
      1 year ago

      Making education so expensive that the only way for some to pursue education is to die for their country is a crime. If majority of your citizen view being part of army is only for poor people, your country does not deserve to be protected because obviously not enough people willing to fight for it. Turning your citizens into slaves and sending them into the meat grinder makes you a monster.

    • maporita@unilem.org
      444·
      1 year ago

      I have the opposite view. A country at war should have the draft, and there should be no exceptions, so that the politicians who send other people’s children off to fight also have to send their own.

      Most soldiers in a “professional” army are there because their families are poor and they have few other options to make a living.

      • Echinoderm@aussie.zoneEnglish
        162·
        1 year ago

        There will always be exceptions, for example for disabilities or medical conditions. Most of those exceptions will be more accessible to wealthy or influential families that can afford to pay off doctors than poorer families.

      • GodlessCommie@lemmy.world
        32·
        1 year ago

        Politicians didn’t send their own children when there was a draft in the US. Trump AND Biden are evidence of this

        • maporita@unilem.org
          2·
          1 year ago

          Trump and Biden both avoided the draft with “1-Y” (medical) exemption. Keep in mind that more than half the 27 million eligible males were exempted or disqualified for some reason, so it’s not as if this was something only politicians did.

      • Mic_Check_One_Two@reddthat.com
        811·
        1 year ago

        Make declaration of war a mandatory vote for every citizen. Anyone who votes “yes” (or illegally abstains) gets registered for the draft. Anyone who votes “no” is unregistered.

        I know it’s not really feasible because governments need to be able to react swiftly in times of war. But these days with computers and cell phones, there’s very little reason that the government couldn’t push a “go download our secure voting app/visit this link to cast your vote” notification via the emergency alert broadcasting system.

        • lukzak@lemmy.ml
          10·
          1 year ago

          How do you reckon it would work when it comes to age? Is the vote limited just to people of military age? Does this mean that whether or not to declare war effectively falls in the hands of ~18 - 30 year olds?

          Or is it open to everyone and even some old warhawk could be drafted? Are handicapped people not allowed to vote? Women that don’t meet combat standards?

          There is always the option to draft them into some sort of non-combat role. But if you knew you were only going for a non-combat role, it could be a lot easier to vote “yes”.

    • StalinForTime [comrade/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
      364·
      1 year ago

      I’m not sure there are no situations in which draft’s are permissible. If we were in a socialist society and a fascist government invades and I were Commissar of War you bet your ass the ex-bourgeois are getting drafted.

      • spectre [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
        311·
        1 year ago

        I see your point, but that’s a topic that should be up for discussion among your hypothetical Party/legislature. I don’t think it has a clear answer.

        • StalinForTime [comrade/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
          51·
          1 year ago

          100% agree. Me presenting it as a choice by a single Commissar for War is more tongue-in-cheek. The answer whether or we should do it is contextual but my point is that there are clear cases which I can imagine in which drafting would be clearly justified, even if of only certain groups.

          But responding to a question of whether or not we should do something by saying it would be decided democratically is evading the actual question of what you would put forward or support as appropriate policy in such a scenario. If everyone one responded that way then nothing would be decided.

      • Commiejones [comrade/them, he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
        121·
        1 year ago

        In this hypothetical wouldn’t the boogies and Kulacks would be in Gulags already? A bunch would be willing to sign on if it meant they might get an early release after the war. No draft necessary.

        • StalinForTime [comrade/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
          51·
          1 year ago

          I’m really not convinced that they would normally prefer to fight fascists on the front lines than to stay in a gulag, uncomfortable as the latter might be.

    • ThomasMuentzner [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
      254·
      1 year ago

      draft is precisly because of that necessary , its put a general price on “Imperial adventure” while proffessional army will recruit itself from the lower classes and can be spend easly (they choose soo ) , its a bad as its forces the underprivledge to die for an empire whos fruits the privledge eat , while avoiding the blood…

        • marx_mentat [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
          10·
          1 year ago

          Volunteer service means wars are waged outside of public consciousness now. The Afghanistan war went on for 20 years and was essentially invisible to most people in the US. The Fed openly trying to increase unemployment is at least partially motivated by the military recruitment issues going on right now. Volunteer wars are fueled by the lives of desperate poor people.

    • flipht@kbin.social
      16·
      1 year ago

      Lack of a draft is almost directly and solely responsible for the current quagmire of the US military - when we had a draft, normal people were pulled and had to serve with other normal people. They had real lives to go back to. They had family and friends who would listen to them and write their representatives to complain if the use of those human resources was inappropriate. Seeing body bags flying home and a televised razing of a foreign jungle turned a lot of people off from war. And they made their voices heard.

      Now, the only people being asked to pay attention are career military professionals. They often do not have a job or life outside of the military to tie them to normal life. They’ve also gotten smarter about where they fly corpses in, so the news can’t provide a solid day-by-day count of the wasted lives. These folks aren’t pushing back against the worst excesses of the military, because their college benefit or their pension require them to shut up and just do what they’re told.

      There’s a great documentary called Sir! No, Sir! about the vibrant protest movement from within the military, driven mostly by draftees during Vietnam.

      I don’t disagree with your initial reasoning, but there’s a different take that says that what we have allowed is for the worst of us to control the policy for all of us, with nearly no external oversight.

      • bouh@lemmy.world
        1·
        1 year ago

        This is a difficult problem to solve for a society though. The army is needed, because it’s what allows your country to exist. In time of peace, draft is really not optimal, because people are taken a year of their life for absolutely nothing. But the army need to keep its structure alive and functioning, or there’ll be nothing when it’s needed.

        The army of professionals is a good solution, and they do a hard job to keep an important piece of the state alive when no one cares about it.

        Ultimately I think it’s better if poor people make the core of the army because it means ultimately the safety of the nation is in their hands. Still, culture of the military men should be better taken care of, and elitism of the command structure should be fought.

    • bane_killgrind@kbin.social
      61·
      1 year ago

      Being in a country with a very high population means you have the privilege of enough volunteers to protect your borders.

    • Wanderer@lemm.ee
      115·
      1 year ago

      I would be more likely to go the other way starship troopers style only those with the character to defend their country should have the right to vote in that country. Those leeching off the system and letting others doing the difficult things shouldn’t be rewarded

            • Wanderer@lemm.ee
              13·
              1 year ago

              First thing was that no draft is stupid and even something like starship troopers needing to serve the country in some way to be worth of a vote isn’t the worst idea in the world so it’s better than that. You don’t think there is anything at all in having some means of people that are willing to do more for their country be it military or otherwise should have more of a vote than those that do nothing and would leave it the second it isn’t doing enough for them? Some people want to make their country and the world a better place, why should they get less than someone that does nothing.

              I’m not arguing that Turing should have been on the front line or that the Bevin Boys weren’t serving their country and willing to do everything possible to help their country and should have equality. Just those trying to escape when things go bad shouldn’t have the same rights when things go well off the backs of others.

      • wahming@lemmy.world
        11·
        1 year ago

        So essentially install a military dictatorship, because only the military gets any votes?

        • Wanderer@lemm.ee
          11·
          1 year ago

          I was on about the book.

          The film is great but philosophically it’s a shadow of the book.

      • AnarchoYeasty@beehaw.org
        4·
        1 year ago

        So only able bodied men and women. Big yikes. Also people who aren’t soldiers are leeches. Even bigger yikes.

        • Wanderer@lemm.ee
          13·
          1 year ago

          Obviously not read starship troopers thet make it very clear that anyone can serve and will be accommodated. And they make it very clear that being in the military isn’t the only way to serve.

          It’s just above providing for your country and earning the right to vote.

          • AnarchoYeasty@beehaw.org
            4·
            1 year ago

            Oh well if starship fucking troopers says it. You do realize that’s satire right. Jesus fuck you fascists are so fucking oblivious it isn’t funny.