Damon Agretto wrote:
>Dan M. wrote:
>>I'm sure they bought from the French too, they would sell to anyone.
>
>They most certainly did! A major component of the S.African airforce is
>made up of French aircraft. Other equipment is either indigenous or British
>in origin (IIRC).
I'll also bet that sales from Britain were down soon after Britain gave up
their African colonies in the early '60s.
>That and every soldier takes an oath to defend the *Constitution*, >not
>some individual. You may think this is but a small matter, but >many don't
>take it lightly. I don't.
>
I need to be careful in expressing this, be cause I don't want to question
the importance you place on keeping that oath. I would like to suggest
though that saying of the oath is not the key.
My understanding is that there are many countries where soldiers do not take
an oath to uphold the present government and constitution seriously. I would
suspect that the leaders of most coups have violated one oath or another
when they staged that coup. To me the question is why people like you take
the oath seriously and would probably be willing to die violating orders
that are in conflict with that oath.
It can't be just that Americans generally take oaths and vows more seriously
than people in other countries. Most divorced people took vows "to have and
to hold till death do us part." (I think that the legal and technical
differences between an oath and a vow are not important here...the real
question to me is violating one's sworn word.) Indeed, there are many people
in the military that are divorced. I think it is more the importance that
people in our country places in having a constitutional government. It is
probably the one belief system that is held in common by virtually all of
the people. Thus, when the oath is taken, it is a formal affirmation of a
very fundamental belief.
Dan'm Traeki Ring of Crystallized Knowledge.
Known for calculating, but not known for shutting up
Re
_________________________________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com.
Share information about yourself, create your own public profile at
http://profiles.msn.com.
