Venezuela aims for biggest military reserve in Americas

[spindrifter]

Greg Morsbach in Caracas
Saturday March 4, 2006
The Guardian

Around 500,000 Venezuelans will start a four-month military training programme today to turn them into members of the country's territorial guard. They are the first group of a total of 2m Venezuelan civilians who have so far signed up to become armed reservists.
By the summer of 2007, Venezuela is likely to have the largest military reserve in the Americas, which is expected to be almost double the size of that in the United States.

<snip>

General Alberto Muller Rojas, one of the members of the army high command who helped to devise the new thinking in military strategy being adopted by Venezuela's leftwing government, said: "If for example the United States were to invade Venezuela one day, and that's what many people are expecting, the only way we could repel such an attack would be a full scale guerrilla war against the foreign aggressors.

<snip>

http://www.guardian.co.uk/venezuela/story/0,,1723274,00.html
+++++++++++++++++++

Maybe once they are trained we can contract with the Venezuelan army....

typo corrected

[rwheeler31]

1. We have too many people trained to violece.

I understand their motivation we have been so dismissive of their needs. It is so sad that we cannot work these things out peacefully.

[spindrifter]

2. I see this as a way for

Chavez to employ a lot of people--and possibly get some public works done. Obviously, he also likes the idea of having loyal soldiers--