* During a lecture at the Faculty of Mass Communication, a young student asked a question that had not occurred to me all these years. The topic was about the role of the military in the Middle East. Suddenly this young man intervened and asked: Why were most of the putschists of one rank, a colonel?
I said, unfortunately, I didn’t notice that before. But I think that the coincidence is one and the circumstances are many. Perhaps the more general reason I thought was ‘the necessities of rank. The general or the general is usually old, and the lieutenant-colonel is young, and has not yet built enough respect among his comrades, so the fortunes of the colonel, colonel, or al-Bakbashi have increased. And that is before we discover that any rank is low on our military, so Sayyid Abdullah Al-Sallal was given the status of Field Marshal, which is the rank that Ali Abdullah Saleh later took, who did not pass the rank of lieutenant, for lack of reasons.
*These are formalities that do not have to stop. So, so many times that the president, who is the commander-in-chief of the armed forces, is lower in rank than his officers, it doesn’t matter.
* What is the difference between civilian and military? The man, the soldier may be a lieutenant like Napoleon, and does not accept to become less than an emperor. He may be a general like de Gaulle, who refuses to transcend the law, the constitution, or the mores for a single moment. He may be a lieutenant like Gaddafi, and appoint himself a colonel, then king of African kings, and savior of all continents.
* Sudan gave the world two examples in two referrals: Siwar Al-Dhahab, which was a miserable behavior, and Omar Al-Bashir. The issue is not in the suit, but in the owner. We in Lebanon knew four generals in the presidency, the first of whom was Fouad Chehab. He was the most important man in civil reforms, their origins and pillars. Like a gold bracelet, there is not a day left after retirement. General Emile Lahoud stayed three years. General Michel Suleiman did not extend a moment. General Michel Aoun appointed himself prime minister and only came out by bombing the Syrian planes, and he returned to protecting it. During half a century, he occupied many portfolios and positions that were not occupied by a civilian or a military person.
* General Aoun was also a colonel when he was promoted ahead of time to hand over command of the army. The phenomenon of colonels manifested itself in its worst farces in Greece when three of them seized power in 1967, then turned on each other, and then their funny phase ended after ten years.
* The worst and last dictator in Portugal, Antonio Salazar, was not a military man, but a professor of economics. He left his country as poor as his neighbor in Spain, General Franco. Military, civilian and one model.
The largest military parade of rulers was in Latin America. The worst was in Chile, the most beautiful and the most prestigious of its countries, where Augusto Pinochet transcended all the fantasies of fascism and human sterility. The civil Joseph Stalin, who came from the monastic school, was no better, nor was the civil Benito Mussolini, the intellectual and the comer of the press. O Mawlana, since Nero until today, the issue is in the man, not in the uniform.
Quoted from the Middle East
