Hillier is just one giant puffed up buffoon with a humongous mouth. This should make him an excellent Conservative candidate because he is also praises the military every time he has a chance and to give him his due he does stand up for his troops.Perhaps the Conservatives might not be that happy if Hillier were to be in parliament because he could be a loose cannon who might not buckle under to Harper. Hillier's testimony should be contrasted with that of another military official involved Michel Gauthier:
Michel Gauthier
Position: Retired lieutenant-general who was the former commander of Canadian Expeditionary Force Command. Gauthier was responsible for all of the Canadian Forces' overseas missions. He ran Canada's military mission in Kandahar from his Ottawa headquarters. Colvin says he sent some of his memos to Gauthier.
Response to Colvin's testimony: In an email to CBC News, Gauthier said the following:
"First of all let me say I am deeply troubled by Mr. Colvin's testimony before the Special Committee. It's pretty clear, from what he said yesterday, that he has for some time had a deep-seated concern about Govt of Canada practices regarding detainees. I look forward to providing an absolutely frank view of some key aspects of Mr. Colvin's testimony when I appear before the committee next week.
"In the meantime, I simply want to assure you and all Canadians that, in my capacity as Commander of CEFCOM, I very clearly understood my responsibilities under international law with respect to the handling of detainees, and I would certainly not knowingly have done anything — ever — to expose our soldiers and commanders in the field, our government, or myself to complicity in war crimes or other wrongdoing as Mr. Colvin suggests. I can also say with complete confidence that personnel under my command were not in the habit, as a matter of either policy or practice, of ignoring important reports from the field, quite the opposite. In light of our potential liability as commanders under international law, one would have to ask why any of us would knowingly and deliberately ignore substantial evidence from the field that could ultimately implicate us in a war crime.
"I applaud Mr. Colvin's courage in coming forward, but there will evidently be more than one side to this story. "
Although Gauthier also no doubt disagrees with Colvin, he shows him some respect and recognises as well the virtues of whistleblowing.
Colvin testimony on torture 'ludicrous': Hillier
CBC News
Canada's former chief of defence staff Rick Hillier slammed a diplomat's testimony that all detainees transferred by Canadians to Afghan prisons were likely tortured by Afghan officials, saying it's "ludicrous."
Hillier also told the House of Commons committee investigating the issue that is it was "absolutely false" to say he saw Richard Colvin's 2006 reports alleging abuse during his time as Canada's top soldier.
But Hillier said that the reports, which he subsequently reviewed, contain no warnings of the suspected torture.
"He said the reports written in May and June of 2006," said nothing about abuse, nothing about torture or anything else that would have caught my attention or indeed the attention of others."
"There was no reason based on what was in those reports for anybody to bring it to my attention and after having read that, I'm absolutely confident that was indeed the case," Hillier said Wednesday.
The retired general appeared before the committee joined by Maj.-Gen. David Fraser, who led troops on the ground in Kandahar, and Gauthier, who was responsible for overseas deployments in 2006.
Hillier repeated what he said publicly last week, that he never heard suggestions that Canada may have been indirectly complicit in the torture of detainees in Afghanistan.
His testimony comes a week after the testimony of Richard Colvin, a former senior diplomat with Canada's mission in Afghanistan.
Colvin alleged that prisoners were turned over to Afghanistan's notorious intelligence service by the Canadian military in 2006-07 despite warnings that they would be tortured.
Colvin said that all detainees were likely tortured.
"How ludicrous a statement is that from any one single individual who really has no knowledge to be able to say something like that, and we didn't see any substantive evidence to indicate it was that way," Hillier said.
Colvin had said he began informing the Canadian Forces and Foreign Affairs officials about the detainee situation in 2006 with verbal and written reports.
Colvin also testified he sent a least one letter directly to Hillier and sent almost all his reports to senior military commanders, both in Afghanistan and Ottawa.
But Hillier said it was "absolutely false" for anyone to suggest that he had known about this or had read the report.
'Nothing could be further from the truth'
Hillier also slammed Colvin's claim that many of the detainees who had been arrested were innocent people, saying "nothing could be further from the truth.
"We detained, under violent actions, people trying to kill our sons and daughters, who had in some cases done that, been successful at it, and were continuing to do it."
Hillier said they may have detained the occasional farmer, but that they were "almost inevitably immediately let go."
The Conservatives have also claimed they never saw any of these reports and have questioned the credibility of Colvin's testimony.
Colvin now works as a senior intelligence official at the Canadian Embassy in Washington.
Gauthier also denied he had heard any allegation of torture in 2006.
"To be clear and precise about this, last week’s evidence states categorically that the very high risk of torture in Afghan prisons was first made known to senior members of the Canadian forces in May of 2006 and repeatedly thereafter," Gauthier said.
"In actual fact, I and others received such warnings in a substantial way for the first time more than a year later than that."
Gauthier also said that Colvin's 2006 reports from May to September never mentioned the risk of torture or suspected torture. He said the word torture does appear in a Dec. 4 report, december but could be "reasonably interpreted to be a warning of torture."
"I can very safely say there is nothing in any of these 2006 reports that caused any of the subject matter experts on my staff nor by extension me to be alerted to either the fact of torture or a very high risk of torture. Nothing," Gauthier said.
He said during his time in Afghanistan, no one, at any time, raised allegations concerning torture in Afghan jails.
Fraser also said he was never told about the alleged torture of prisoners: "If I had, I would have done something about it," he said.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper has promised the committee will get "all legally-available" documents, but Colvin's lawyer said the Justice Department has clamped down on his client and won't allow him to make public his reports.
With files from The Canadian Press
Showing posts with label Canadian mission in Afghanistan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Canadian mission in Afghanistan. Show all posts
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Friday, November 6, 2009
Do Canadians Embrace New Role for the Military>
An interesting article which shows the characteristics necessary to be a senior writer for the Globe and Mail. Start out with an interesting headline but then do not provide any evidence for your claim. This article in fact itself provides considerable evidence against what the headline claims. As the article mentions there is majority opposition for our role as a warrior nation especialy in Afghanistan. How can the Globe print such nonsense as this? In case anyone is interested since the article does not bother to quote any actual polls. Here is some 2009 actual polling on Afghanistan from Wikipedia.
October 2009 Innovative Research Group poll: The majority 76% of Canadians oppose keeping any Canadian military forces in Afghanistan beyond 2011: 53% want to end the military mission "and concentrate exclusively on humanitarian work and reconstruction", and 23% want Canada to "end to all of its activities, military and non-military" and "get out" completely in 2011. Only a minority 15% support having the military stay in some form past 2011. According to the online poll commissioned by the Canadian Defence and Foreign Affairs Institute, 50% of Canadians oppose having troops in Afghanistan, while support was at 45%.[8][9]
October 2009 Harris Decima poll: The majority 56% of Canadians oppose the government's commitment to having troops in Afghanistan, up from 54% in May. Only 9% "strongly support" it, while twice as many, 21% of Canadians "strongly oppose" having troops in Afghanistan. The majority 86% of Canadians want the troops to be out of Afghanistan before or by the current end date in 2011: The plurality 45% of Canadians believe Canada should stay until the current end date in 2011 but not extend past it, while 41% want Canada to bring the troops back early before 2011. Only a minority 10% of Canadians support keeping military troops in Afghanistan past 2011. The plurality 49% of Canadians support ending the military mission and replacing it with a civilian mission, while 40% oppose a civilian mission after 2011. In a dichotomy between voter groups, only among Conservative voters was there majority support for having troops in Afghanistan.[10]
October 2009 Angus Reid poll: The majority 56% of Canadians oppose Canada's military involvement in Afghanistan, an increase in opposition to the war from 52% in July. 37% support the military involvement, a drop in support from 43% in July. At the time of the poll, the number of Canadian soldiers killed by the war stood at 131.[11]
Not much evidence there for Canadians warming towards the idea of Canada being a warrior nation.
Canadians embrace new role for military
As the Forces have spent money and sacrificed lives in Afghanistan, Canadians have warmed up to the country's new role as a warrior nation. But what happens after 2011?
Erin Anderssen
From Saturday's Globe and Mail
Published on Friday, Nov. 06, 2009 10:34PM EST
.There's no doubt that Canadians have developed a full-blown, if heartbreaking, romance with their soldiers – and, it can be argued, a more robust sense of the country's place in the world. They have become modern-day action heroes, fighting the Taliban in lethal skirmishes, chasing pirates off the Somali coast, providing a worthy air escort for the Olympic torch across the ocean. But it's an awkward love affair.
And if Canadians have accepted – and even come to admire – a military that is more muscular, they are still more comfortable with Joe, the Canadian of that decade-old beer ad who declared: “I believe in peacekeeping, not policing.”
But after decades of keeping the peace, our soldiers have become police – immersed in a deadly combat mission which, according to several polls, a majority of Canadians oppose. While tending to accept that their soldiers should stay in Afghanistan to the 2011 deadline, a war-shy public will be hesitant to commit to a future of grieving over the Highway of Heroes, however renewed their patriotism. Afghanistan, some analysts say, may be the country's last war, at least for a while. So a hard conversation looms when the fighting side of the mission ends two summers from now: Welcome home, brave soldier. But where and how will you serve next?
“The question facing Canadians – and it's very important – is what do we want to do with a better armed, better equipped, better funded military,” says Janice Stein, director of the Munk Centre for International Studies at the University of Toronto. “Are we willing to use it? That's the debate that's coming.”
For a country shaped over the past 50 years by its peacekeeping identity, that means a truth-telling: “Classic peacekeeping of the kind where you interpose yourselves between two armies and play volleyball in the middle, that's gone.” Now wars are fought inside countries between armies and militants, and civilians are killed deliberately. In Afghanistan, Dr. Stein observes, “we can talk about it as a reconstruction mission or stabilization mission, but that actually involves fighting and dying. [That makes] many Canadians uncomfortable still.”
Canadians largely support a military presence in Canada's north, but that's a matter of “standing on guard” for sovereignty, not advancing into war. As Dr. Stein says, “Nobody is going to die in combat in the Arctic.”
The military – particularly under the outspoken command of Rick Hiller, now retired as chief of defence staff and promoting his autobiography across the country – has been quite deliberate in self-promotion, and successful, to a point. “If the key icons of the 80s were things like medicare and the CBC, the military became the new icon of the 21st century,” says pollster Frank Graves, president of the social research firm EKOS. Once the Afghanistan mission began, “the military became the most recognizable face of the federal government,” he said.
The lingering shame of atrocities by Canadian soldiers in Somalia has dissipated into history, the images of soldiers piling sandbags during the Red River flood or saving stranded citizens during the ice storm that struck Quebec and Eastern Ontario in 1998 sparked the return of affection. But it is the war in Afghanistan – and the steady, wrenching return of fresh-faced young men (and a few women) in coffins – that inspires the solemn crowds on those dozens of overpasses between CFB Trenton and the Coroner's office in Toronto, and the ribbons of support on car windows (or the more hostile bumper-sticker rebuke “If you don't stand behind our troops feel free to stand in front of them”). Annual Armed Forces appreciation nights have become de rigueur at professional sports events across the country. most recently at a Senators game in Ottawa, where 2,200 uniformed soldiers were given free tickets. “Ten years ago,” Mr. Hillier said during a phone interview this week, “that would have been incomprehensible.”
Standing in a line for a flight at the Ottawa airport, a couple months ago, anonymous in his civvies, he watched the mass of people in line approach the uniformed soldiers, shaking hands, even offering to buy them a Tim Hortons coffee. Less than five years ago, he observes, that would never have happened. “I don't think most Canadians would have known who they were, and even if they had known, very few of them – if any - would have gone out of their way to say ‘Thank you for what you do, our hopes and prayers are with you.' And I've seen that across the country.”
And after a long stretch of resistance to spending money on the military, support for defence expenditures has steadily risen over the past decade, rooted in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, in the need for a stronger military, and, at times, an even stronger desire to make work safe for the soldiers themselves.
“We have to be careful we don't romanticize the change too much,” counters Douglas Bland, chair in Defence Management Studies at Queen's University School of Policy Studies, who believes that dwindling political and public enthusiasm for combat missions makes a sequel to Afghanistan unlikely. “It's not very deep-seated.”
The public, he says, will not support big-money defence spending and hasn't responded to newly enthusiastic flag-waving by enlisting. (Every branch of the Armed Forces is struggling to replace retiring veterans with new recruits.) Bottom line, Dr. Bland said, Canadians are “not very keen on a mission that involves a lot of shooting.”
But for two more years, they will have to live with one. In the meantime, Canadians will wear their poppies and shake the soldier's hand on the bus, and sadly, inevitably, line up to honour more convoys carrying the casualties of a divisive war.
Last week, after a speech at the Chateau Laurier in Ottawa, Mr. Hillier played a video of pictures from the Highway of Heroes, with a Canadian version of the stirring U.S. country western anthem, God Bless the USA . (“I am proud to be in Canada,” chants the chorus.) A standing ovation followed in homage to the soldiers flashed on the screen. That's the easy part – waving the flag a little higher, caring much more for lives sacrificed in service to country. Now the tough talk begins about the future of the country's finer fighting force.
October 2009 Innovative Research Group poll: The majority 76% of Canadians oppose keeping any Canadian military forces in Afghanistan beyond 2011: 53% want to end the military mission "and concentrate exclusively on humanitarian work and reconstruction", and 23% want Canada to "end to all of its activities, military and non-military" and "get out" completely in 2011. Only a minority 15% support having the military stay in some form past 2011. According to the online poll commissioned by the Canadian Defence and Foreign Affairs Institute, 50% of Canadians oppose having troops in Afghanistan, while support was at 45%.[8][9]
October 2009 Harris Decima poll: The majority 56% of Canadians oppose the government's commitment to having troops in Afghanistan, up from 54% in May. Only 9% "strongly support" it, while twice as many, 21% of Canadians "strongly oppose" having troops in Afghanistan. The majority 86% of Canadians want the troops to be out of Afghanistan before or by the current end date in 2011: The plurality 45% of Canadians believe Canada should stay until the current end date in 2011 but not extend past it, while 41% want Canada to bring the troops back early before 2011. Only a minority 10% of Canadians support keeping military troops in Afghanistan past 2011. The plurality 49% of Canadians support ending the military mission and replacing it with a civilian mission, while 40% oppose a civilian mission after 2011. In a dichotomy between voter groups, only among Conservative voters was there majority support for having troops in Afghanistan.[10]
October 2009 Angus Reid poll: The majority 56% of Canadians oppose Canada's military involvement in Afghanistan, an increase in opposition to the war from 52% in July. 37% support the military involvement, a drop in support from 43% in July. At the time of the poll, the number of Canadian soldiers killed by the war stood at 131.[11]
Not much evidence there for Canadians warming towards the idea of Canada being a warrior nation.
Canadians embrace new role for military
As the Forces have spent money and sacrificed lives in Afghanistan, Canadians have warmed up to the country's new role as a warrior nation. But what happens after 2011?
Erin Anderssen
From Saturday's Globe and Mail
Published on Friday, Nov. 06, 2009 10:34PM EST
.There's no doubt that Canadians have developed a full-blown, if heartbreaking, romance with their soldiers – and, it can be argued, a more robust sense of the country's place in the world. They have become modern-day action heroes, fighting the Taliban in lethal skirmishes, chasing pirates off the Somali coast, providing a worthy air escort for the Olympic torch across the ocean. But it's an awkward love affair.
And if Canadians have accepted – and even come to admire – a military that is more muscular, they are still more comfortable with Joe, the Canadian of that decade-old beer ad who declared: “I believe in peacekeeping, not policing.”
But after decades of keeping the peace, our soldiers have become police – immersed in a deadly combat mission which, according to several polls, a majority of Canadians oppose. While tending to accept that their soldiers should stay in Afghanistan to the 2011 deadline, a war-shy public will be hesitant to commit to a future of grieving over the Highway of Heroes, however renewed their patriotism. Afghanistan, some analysts say, may be the country's last war, at least for a while. So a hard conversation looms when the fighting side of the mission ends two summers from now: Welcome home, brave soldier. But where and how will you serve next?
“The question facing Canadians – and it's very important – is what do we want to do with a better armed, better equipped, better funded military,” says Janice Stein, director of the Munk Centre for International Studies at the University of Toronto. “Are we willing to use it? That's the debate that's coming.”
For a country shaped over the past 50 years by its peacekeeping identity, that means a truth-telling: “Classic peacekeeping of the kind where you interpose yourselves between two armies and play volleyball in the middle, that's gone.” Now wars are fought inside countries between armies and militants, and civilians are killed deliberately. In Afghanistan, Dr. Stein observes, “we can talk about it as a reconstruction mission or stabilization mission, but that actually involves fighting and dying. [That makes] many Canadians uncomfortable still.”
Canadians largely support a military presence in Canada's north, but that's a matter of “standing on guard” for sovereignty, not advancing into war. As Dr. Stein says, “Nobody is going to die in combat in the Arctic.”
The military – particularly under the outspoken command of Rick Hiller, now retired as chief of defence staff and promoting his autobiography across the country – has been quite deliberate in self-promotion, and successful, to a point. “If the key icons of the 80s were things like medicare and the CBC, the military became the new icon of the 21st century,” says pollster Frank Graves, president of the social research firm EKOS. Once the Afghanistan mission began, “the military became the most recognizable face of the federal government,” he said.
The lingering shame of atrocities by Canadian soldiers in Somalia has dissipated into history, the images of soldiers piling sandbags during the Red River flood or saving stranded citizens during the ice storm that struck Quebec and Eastern Ontario in 1998 sparked the return of affection. But it is the war in Afghanistan – and the steady, wrenching return of fresh-faced young men (and a few women) in coffins – that inspires the solemn crowds on those dozens of overpasses between CFB Trenton and the Coroner's office in Toronto, and the ribbons of support on car windows (or the more hostile bumper-sticker rebuke “If you don't stand behind our troops feel free to stand in front of them”). Annual Armed Forces appreciation nights have become de rigueur at professional sports events across the country. most recently at a Senators game in Ottawa, where 2,200 uniformed soldiers were given free tickets. “Ten years ago,” Mr. Hillier said during a phone interview this week, “that would have been incomprehensible.”
Standing in a line for a flight at the Ottawa airport, a couple months ago, anonymous in his civvies, he watched the mass of people in line approach the uniformed soldiers, shaking hands, even offering to buy them a Tim Hortons coffee. Less than five years ago, he observes, that would never have happened. “I don't think most Canadians would have known who they were, and even if they had known, very few of them – if any - would have gone out of their way to say ‘Thank you for what you do, our hopes and prayers are with you.' And I've seen that across the country.”
And after a long stretch of resistance to spending money on the military, support for defence expenditures has steadily risen over the past decade, rooted in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, in the need for a stronger military, and, at times, an even stronger desire to make work safe for the soldiers themselves.
“We have to be careful we don't romanticize the change too much,” counters Douglas Bland, chair in Defence Management Studies at Queen's University School of Policy Studies, who believes that dwindling political and public enthusiasm for combat missions makes a sequel to Afghanistan unlikely. “It's not very deep-seated.”
The public, he says, will not support big-money defence spending and hasn't responded to newly enthusiastic flag-waving by enlisting. (Every branch of the Armed Forces is struggling to replace retiring veterans with new recruits.) Bottom line, Dr. Bland said, Canadians are “not very keen on a mission that involves a lot of shooting.”
But for two more years, they will have to live with one. In the meantime, Canadians will wear their poppies and shake the soldier's hand on the bus, and sadly, inevitably, line up to honour more convoys carrying the casualties of a divisive war.
Last week, after a speech at the Chateau Laurier in Ottawa, Mr. Hillier played a video of pictures from the Highway of Heroes, with a Canadian version of the stirring U.S. country western anthem, God Bless the USA . (“I am proud to be in Canada,” chants the chorus.) A standing ovation followed in homage to the soldiers flashed on the screen. That's the easy part – waving the flag a little higher, caring much more for lives sacrificed in service to country. Now the tough talk begins about the future of the country's finer fighting force.
Thursday, November 20, 2008
Army buys more specialized vehicles for use in Afghanistan.
It is comforting to know that in these tough economic times the Canadian army is buying 50 percent more specialized vehicles than planned from the US giving a boost to the South Carolina economy. I guess this means that the Canadian armed forces will continue in Afghanistan and elsewhere helping out in the war on terror. Or perhaps in 2011 we will donate the vehicles to the Obama surge people. Afghanistan may become one of the rescue packages for the military industrial complex.
Army buys more specialized vehicles for use in Afghanistan
Last Updated: Monday, November 17, 2008 10:56 PM ET CBC News
Canada's Defence Department has ordered more specialized vehicles that detect roadside bombs and mines for combat engineers in Afghanistan.
Force Protection Inc. of Ladson, South Carolina, said late Monday it has won a contract to deliver 14 of its Buffalo A2 route-clearance vehicles and 34 of its Cougar vehicles to the Canadian Army.
The contract is worth about $49.4 million US and includes vehicles, spare parts and field support.
The trucks, which troops use in tandem to detect mines in the gravel and soft-bed roadways of Kandahar, are scheduled for delivery in 2009.
In the spring of 2007, Force Protection sold 10 of the heavy-duty armoured vehicles — five Buffalo and five Cougars — to the Canadian Army.
In addition, five Husky vehicles — a menacing rig that resembles a souped-up road grader — were also purchased.
The Defence Department was silent Monday on the purchase of the new vehicles, despite demands earlier this year from the Manley commission for the Conservative government to be less secretive about the Afghan mission.
It was left to Force Protection's chairman to explain the importance of the vehicles known in the military by their acronym EROC, or the Expedient Route Opening Capability system.
"Our NATO allies continue to face threats from roadside bombs, land mines and many other types of improvised explosive devices," Michael Moody said in a statement.
"We are delighted that the Canadian military will be receiving this life-saving equipment for use in supporting their operations in the global war on terror. This order further solidifies our belief that the Cougar and Buffalo are proving to be the most survivable, sustainable vehicles on the battlefield."
It was not immediately clear how many of the vehicles would be shipped to Afghanistan and how many would remain in Canada for training.
The vast majority of the 97 Canadian soldiers killed in Afghanistan have died as a result of explosions caused by roadside bombs and improvised explosive devices, or IEDs.
Military planners went into an inventory frenzy last spring after Parliament extended the country's military mission until 2011.
Last spring, the Canadian Press quoted internal Defence Department sources who said the army's land staff was looking at buying only 30 vehicles. There was no explanation from the government of the change.
Some combat engineers were skeptical at first of the vehicles, which slowly roll along the bomb-laced roadways and use metal detectors and X-rays to find the often crudely assembled home-made weapons.
After an IED is detected and the location marked, the Buffalo moves into place with a digging arm to remove or detonate the threat while the Cougar acts as a command vehicle.
Defence sources have said the first group of vehicles in theatre have taken more than their share of abuse but have continued to prove their worth every day.
Army buys more specialized vehicles for use in Afghanistan
Last Updated: Monday, November 17, 2008 10:56 PM ET CBC News
Canada's Defence Department has ordered more specialized vehicles that detect roadside bombs and mines for combat engineers in Afghanistan.
Force Protection Inc. of Ladson, South Carolina, said late Monday it has won a contract to deliver 14 of its Buffalo A2 route-clearance vehicles and 34 of its Cougar vehicles to the Canadian Army.
The contract is worth about $49.4 million US and includes vehicles, spare parts and field support.
The trucks, which troops use in tandem to detect mines in the gravel and soft-bed roadways of Kandahar, are scheduled for delivery in 2009.
In the spring of 2007, Force Protection sold 10 of the heavy-duty armoured vehicles — five Buffalo and five Cougars — to the Canadian Army.
In addition, five Husky vehicles — a menacing rig that resembles a souped-up road grader — were also purchased.
The Defence Department was silent Monday on the purchase of the new vehicles, despite demands earlier this year from the Manley commission for the Conservative government to be less secretive about the Afghan mission.
It was left to Force Protection's chairman to explain the importance of the vehicles known in the military by their acronym EROC, or the Expedient Route Opening Capability system.
"Our NATO allies continue to face threats from roadside bombs, land mines and many other types of improvised explosive devices," Michael Moody said in a statement.
"We are delighted that the Canadian military will be receiving this life-saving equipment for use in supporting their operations in the global war on terror. This order further solidifies our belief that the Cougar and Buffalo are proving to be the most survivable, sustainable vehicles on the battlefield."
It was not immediately clear how many of the vehicles would be shipped to Afghanistan and how many would remain in Canada for training.
The vast majority of the 97 Canadian soldiers killed in Afghanistan have died as a result of explosions caused by roadside bombs and improvised explosive devices, or IEDs.
Military planners went into an inventory frenzy last spring after Parliament extended the country's military mission until 2011.
Last spring, the Canadian Press quoted internal Defence Department sources who said the army's land staff was looking at buying only 30 vehicles. There was no explanation from the government of the change.
Some combat engineers were skeptical at first of the vehicles, which slowly roll along the bomb-laced roadways and use metal detectors and X-rays to find the often crudely assembled home-made weapons.
After an IED is detected and the location marked, the Buffalo moves into place with a digging arm to remove or detonate the threat while the Cougar acts as a command vehicle.
Defence sources have said the first group of vehicles in theatre have taken more than their share of abuse but have continued to prove their worth every day.
Sunday, July 27, 2008
Emerson says 200 more Canadians may go to Afghanistan
This is from Canada.com.
"that troubled country"= that occupied country, occupied by us together with the other junior partners NATO and the UN all coming to the rescue of U.S. imperialism to advance the cause of the New American Century. Bush, Obama, Canadian Liberals and Conservatives all united in this noble cause of rescuing the so-called failed state. The Taliban failed state by the way was able to mostly solve the opium problem and was rewarded with a check for several million dollars by Colin Powell. Of course that was before the Taliban became the bad guys. It is difficult to keep these bad guys and good guys straight. The Taliban types were great guys when they were blowing up Soviet convoys and creating widows in the USSR but now they are creating widows in Canada, the UK, US, etc. they are terrorists. Sunday » July 27 » 2008
It sounds as if in return for the helicopters we agreed to send more cannon fodder as well. Don't expect the Liberals to say too much about this. Perhaps a few faint bleats.
How many reporters have linked the recent deficit with our increased military spending? There seems to be no consumer slowdown in demand for military equipment and spending.
Emerson says 200 more Canadians may go to Afghanistan
Graham Thomson
Canwest News Service
Saturday, July 26, 2008
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - About 200 additional Canadian troops could be headed for Afghanistan to accompany the helicopters that the Armed Forces plans to deploy to that troubled country, Foreign Affairs Minister David Emerson said Saturday at the end of a whirlwind visit.
"Canada has had 2,500 troops here in Afghanistan; that number could expand to 2,700 as we put more equipment here in theatre," he said, alluding to helicopters due to arrive by February.
Emerson said the pressure is also on Canada's NATO allies to send more troops. There has been talk of the U.S. sending more troops as early as this fall.
"We've been talking with our NATO allies and, in fact, we do now have commitments to increase the number of troops, particularly in the Kandahar region," the minister said. "And we're feeling more comfortable now that the troop support is being increased in an appropriate way and we see more troops on the way over the next year."
In his first comprehensive examination of Canada's activities in Afghanistan since being named to his portfolio, Emerson acknowledged "some disappointing aspects to the security situation." But he also promised to unveil benchmarks within weeks to allow Canadians to decide for themselves whether progress is being made in the war-torn country.
Emerson arrived at Kandahar Airfield on a Canadian military aircraft at 2 a.m. Friday and flew to Kabul the following morning, before leaving the country Saturday afternoon.
Packed into his 40-hour agenda was a visit with Afghan President Hamid Karzai in Kabul and a helicopter trip to the dilapidated 60-year-old Dhala Dam near Kandahar City. As one of its "signature" projects, Canada has promised to refurbish the dam to improve irrigation for local farmers at a cost of $50 million over three years.
"That was a very, very important eye-opener for me because I was able to see a dam that is repairable," said Emerson who toured the dam casually wearing his body armour draped over one shoulder. "I was able to see the Arghandab River valley where the lush vegetation indicates to me there's just tremendous potential to drive agriculture and to create a real economic base that will be of great benefit to the people of this region."
After a major combat operation with the Afghan National Army, supported by Canadian troops, the region is now relatively quiet. However, the neighbouring districts of Zhari and Panjwaii continue to be the site of daily attacks by insurgents against civilians and the military. Two Canadian soldiers have died in the Panjwaii district this month alone.
"We've seen some disappointing aspects to the security situation," said Emerson. "On the other hand, all the briefings that I'm getting, both from our civilian people and our military people, are that we're not going backwards."
Progress forward, though, is slow in a country that is plagued by violence, corruption and grinding poverty where most people in rural areas have no electricity, potable water or access to health care.
"It's going to be a difficult situation for a long time to come," said Emerson who is chair of the federal cabinet committee on Afghanistan.
Due to the resilient nature of insurgents and a burgeoning opium trade, Canada recently lowered its expectations on what can be accomplished in the troubled country before the military mission ends in 2011. Instead of hoping to dramatically reduce the capabilities of the Taliban and cut the size of the drug trade, Canada is now focused on six moderate goals, including the delivery of humanitarian assistance, enhancing border security with Pakistan, and promoting law and order.
"What we hope is that we can ensure that Afghanistan becomes - or continues to be - a viable state," said Emerson, "(so) that developmental initiatives, that initiatives of a humanitarian nature, of an educational nature, can take root. And that the people of Afghanistan will be better off, will be healthier, and will have a more robust democracy over time."
To measure the effectiveness of Canadian efforts, the federal government will be unveiling its long-awaited mission benchmarks in August.
"We want numbers that tell us when we're doing things right. We want numbers and benchmarks that will tell us when we're doing things not so well," said Emerson. "We'll be rolling that out with some serious technical briefings over the next few weeks."
"The Taliban is not going to go away, in my opinion, not in the near term. And it will be something that will have to be managed with great care and vigour for a long time to come."gthomsonthejournal.canwest.com
Edmonton Journal
© Canwest News Service 2008
Copyright © 2008 CanWest Interactive, a division of CanWest MediaWorks Publications, Inc.. All rights reserved.
"that troubled country"= that occupied country, occupied by us together with the other junior partners NATO and the UN all coming to the rescue of U.S. imperialism to advance the cause of the New American Century. Bush, Obama, Canadian Liberals and Conservatives all united in this noble cause of rescuing the so-called failed state. The Taliban failed state by the way was able to mostly solve the opium problem and was rewarded with a check for several million dollars by Colin Powell. Of course that was before the Taliban became the bad guys. It is difficult to keep these bad guys and good guys straight. The Taliban types were great guys when they were blowing up Soviet convoys and creating widows in the USSR but now they are creating widows in Canada, the UK, US, etc. they are terrorists. Sunday » July 27 » 2008
It sounds as if in return for the helicopters we agreed to send more cannon fodder as well. Don't expect the Liberals to say too much about this. Perhaps a few faint bleats.
How many reporters have linked the recent deficit with our increased military spending? There seems to be no consumer slowdown in demand for military equipment and spending.
Emerson says 200 more Canadians may go to Afghanistan
Graham Thomson
Canwest News Service
Saturday, July 26, 2008
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - About 200 additional Canadian troops could be headed for Afghanistan to accompany the helicopters that the Armed Forces plans to deploy to that troubled country, Foreign Affairs Minister David Emerson said Saturday at the end of a whirlwind visit.
"Canada has had 2,500 troops here in Afghanistan; that number could expand to 2,700 as we put more equipment here in theatre," he said, alluding to helicopters due to arrive by February.
Emerson said the pressure is also on Canada's NATO allies to send more troops. There has been talk of the U.S. sending more troops as early as this fall.
"We've been talking with our NATO allies and, in fact, we do now have commitments to increase the number of troops, particularly in the Kandahar region," the minister said. "And we're feeling more comfortable now that the troop support is being increased in an appropriate way and we see more troops on the way over the next year."
In his first comprehensive examination of Canada's activities in Afghanistan since being named to his portfolio, Emerson acknowledged "some disappointing aspects to the security situation." But he also promised to unveil benchmarks within weeks to allow Canadians to decide for themselves whether progress is being made in the war-torn country.
Emerson arrived at Kandahar Airfield on a Canadian military aircraft at 2 a.m. Friday and flew to Kabul the following morning, before leaving the country Saturday afternoon.
Packed into his 40-hour agenda was a visit with Afghan President Hamid Karzai in Kabul and a helicopter trip to the dilapidated 60-year-old Dhala Dam near Kandahar City. As one of its "signature" projects, Canada has promised to refurbish the dam to improve irrigation for local farmers at a cost of $50 million over three years.
"That was a very, very important eye-opener for me because I was able to see a dam that is repairable," said Emerson who toured the dam casually wearing his body armour draped over one shoulder. "I was able to see the Arghandab River valley where the lush vegetation indicates to me there's just tremendous potential to drive agriculture and to create a real economic base that will be of great benefit to the people of this region."
After a major combat operation with the Afghan National Army, supported by Canadian troops, the region is now relatively quiet. However, the neighbouring districts of Zhari and Panjwaii continue to be the site of daily attacks by insurgents against civilians and the military. Two Canadian soldiers have died in the Panjwaii district this month alone.
"We've seen some disappointing aspects to the security situation," said Emerson. "On the other hand, all the briefings that I'm getting, both from our civilian people and our military people, are that we're not going backwards."
Progress forward, though, is slow in a country that is plagued by violence, corruption and grinding poverty where most people in rural areas have no electricity, potable water or access to health care.
"It's going to be a difficult situation for a long time to come," said Emerson who is chair of the federal cabinet committee on Afghanistan.
Due to the resilient nature of insurgents and a burgeoning opium trade, Canada recently lowered its expectations on what can be accomplished in the troubled country before the military mission ends in 2011. Instead of hoping to dramatically reduce the capabilities of the Taliban and cut the size of the drug trade, Canada is now focused on six moderate goals, including the delivery of humanitarian assistance, enhancing border security with Pakistan, and promoting law and order.
"What we hope is that we can ensure that Afghanistan becomes - or continues to be - a viable state," said Emerson, "(so) that developmental initiatives, that initiatives of a humanitarian nature, of an educational nature, can take root. And that the people of Afghanistan will be better off, will be healthier, and will have a more robust democracy over time."
To measure the effectiveness of Canadian efforts, the federal government will be unveiling its long-awaited mission benchmarks in August.
"We want numbers that tell us when we're doing things right. We want numbers and benchmarks that will tell us when we're doing things not so well," said Emerson. "We'll be rolling that out with some serious technical briefings over the next few weeks."
"The Taliban is not going to go away, in my opinion, not in the near term. And it will be something that will have to be managed with great care and vigour for a long time to come."gthomsonthejournal.canwest.com
Edmonton Journal
© Canwest News Service 2008
Copyright © 2008 CanWest Interactive, a division of CanWest MediaWorks Publications, Inc.. All rights reserved.
Sunday, July 13, 2008
Canada takes notes from failed Soviet war.
If Canada had taken notes from the Soviet war it would have never have joined as junior partner in U.S. imperialism in the first place. The mistake is to occupy Afghanistan and try to impose a government that will be a puppet or at least favorable to the occupier. The article does not mention that s0me of the same people who defeated the Soviets are now fighting against us.
The article does not mention that the situation was different then in that the U.S. and other supplied the insurgents with money and arms. Of course those are the bad guys now. Good guys and bad guys change over the years. It is hard to keep them straight. The jihadists haven''t changed it is just that they are good guys when they are fighting the likes of the Evil Empire and bad guys when they resist Enduring Freedom.
Canada takes notes from failed Soviet war
STEVEN CHASE
From Saturday's Globe and Mail
July 12, 2008 at 12:44 AM EDT
OTTAWA — The Canadian military has been studying the Soviet debacle in Afghanistan for clues on how to prevent similar mistakes as NATO tries to beat back a persistent insurgency and ready the country's weak but pro-Western government to assume greater control.
It began a research project in 2006, a year in which fighting intensified for Canada in the war against the Taliban.
“The project was undertaken … for the purpose of determining whether this history offered any lessons to be learned for the Canadian Forces,” an executive summary of some of the research said.
The Soviets invaded Afghanistan in 1979, and pulled out combat forces in 1989 after a costly decade of fighting mujahedeen. They left behind a weak, pro-Soviet government that collapsed in 1992.
Invaders of Afghanistan
Many foreign forces have attempted to conquer Afghanistan and its predecessor states. Few have succeeded. Here are some examples of those who tried.Darius the Great: In the late sixth century BC, much of the country was absorbed into the Persian empire of Darius the Great. However, plagued by constant uprisings, the Persians never established effective control.Alexander the Great: In the third century BC, Alexander the Great invaded. The harsh, mountainous terrain and brutal weather were only part of the challenge. The Afghans themselves were no less formidable. Constant revolts undermined whatever glory he could claim.Genghis Khan: In 1220, the Islamic lands of Central Asia were overrun by the armies of this Mongol invader. But even Genghis Khan failed to destroy the strength of Islam there. By the end of the 13th century, his descendants were themselves Muslims.Britain: There were three major interventions by the British Army between 1838 and 1919. Each one ultimately failed.Soviet Union: In 1979, the Soviets rolled in about 115,000 troops. The Afghans responded with an extended guerrilla war, and in 1989 the Soviets withdrew.Sources: The Claremont Institute, encyclopedia.com, CNN, espritdecorps.ca, channel4.com, BBC, NYT
By the time the Department of National Defence began its research project, Canadian soldiers had been fighting Taliban insurgents for nearly half a decade without subduing them, a 2007 Forces paper notes.
“Despite many successes … the insurgency against the government of Afghanistan, the U.S. troops and [North Atlantic Treaty Organization forces] persisted.”
Many of the research findings are lessons that, by 2008, the Canadian Forces, NATO soldiers and Western governments had already gleaned through experience in Afghanistan and other foreign missions.
Researchers said the Afghanistan-Pakistan border is a major hindrance. The mujahedeen used the porous frontier to smuggle arms and resources into Afghanistan in the 1980s and are offering Taliban supporters the same supply route for insurgents and weapons today.
“The movement of insurgents and materiel across the Afghan-Pakistan border is a paramount strategic problem,” says a 2007 memorandum by Anton Minkov and Gregory Smolynec titled 3-D Soviet Style: A Presentation on Lessons Learned from the Soviet Experience in Afghanistan.
The article does not mention that the situation was different then in that the U.S. and other supplied the insurgents with money and arms. Of course those are the bad guys now. Good guys and bad guys change over the years. It is hard to keep them straight. The jihadists haven''t changed it is just that they are good guys when they are fighting the likes of the Evil Empire and bad guys when they resist Enduring Freedom.
Canada takes notes from failed Soviet war
STEVEN CHASE
From Saturday's Globe and Mail
July 12, 2008 at 12:44 AM EDT
OTTAWA — The Canadian military has been studying the Soviet debacle in Afghanistan for clues on how to prevent similar mistakes as NATO tries to beat back a persistent insurgency and ready the country's weak but pro-Western government to assume greater control.
It began a research project in 2006, a year in which fighting intensified for Canada in the war against the Taliban.
“The project was undertaken … for the purpose of determining whether this history offered any lessons to be learned for the Canadian Forces,” an executive summary of some of the research said.
The Soviets invaded Afghanistan in 1979, and pulled out combat forces in 1989 after a costly decade of fighting mujahedeen. They left behind a weak, pro-Soviet government that collapsed in 1992.
Invaders of Afghanistan
Many foreign forces have attempted to conquer Afghanistan and its predecessor states. Few have succeeded. Here are some examples of those who tried.Darius the Great: In the late sixth century BC, much of the country was absorbed into the Persian empire of Darius the Great. However, plagued by constant uprisings, the Persians never established effective control.Alexander the Great: In the third century BC, Alexander the Great invaded. The harsh, mountainous terrain and brutal weather were only part of the challenge. The Afghans themselves were no less formidable. Constant revolts undermined whatever glory he could claim.Genghis Khan: In 1220, the Islamic lands of Central Asia were overrun by the armies of this Mongol invader. But even Genghis Khan failed to destroy the strength of Islam there. By the end of the 13th century, his descendants were themselves Muslims.Britain: There were three major interventions by the British Army between 1838 and 1919. Each one ultimately failed.Soviet Union: In 1979, the Soviets rolled in about 115,000 troops. The Afghans responded with an extended guerrilla war, and in 1989 the Soviets withdrew.Sources: The Claremont Institute, encyclopedia.com, CNN, espritdecorps.ca, channel4.com, BBC, NYT
By the time the Department of National Defence began its research project, Canadian soldiers had been fighting Taliban insurgents for nearly half a decade without subduing them, a 2007 Forces paper notes.
“Despite many successes … the insurgency against the government of Afghanistan, the U.S. troops and [North Atlantic Treaty Organization forces] persisted.”
Many of the research findings are lessons that, by 2008, the Canadian Forces, NATO soldiers and Western governments had already gleaned through experience in Afghanistan and other foreign missions.
Researchers said the Afghanistan-Pakistan border is a major hindrance. The mujahedeen used the porous frontier to smuggle arms and resources into Afghanistan in the 1980s and are offering Taliban supporters the same supply route for insurgents and weapons today.
“The movement of insurgents and materiel across the Afghan-Pakistan border is a paramount strategic problem,” says a 2007 memorandum by Anton Minkov and Gregory Smolynec titled 3-D Soviet Style: A Presentation on Lessons Learned from the Soviet Experience in Afghanistan.
Thursday, March 13, 2008
Canada demands 'one partner' in Kandahar
It is hard to see who the one partner would be unless the United States. If no other partner can be found the U.S. would step up to ensure that Canada stays in Kandahar. Besides the U.S. may need practice at avoiding friendly fire incidents!
Many NATO countries may just tell the U.S. Canada et al. to go fly a kite, now permitted in Afghanistan.
THE AFGHAN MISSION: REINFORCEMENTS FOR THE SOUTH
Canada demands 'one partner' in Kandahar
CAMPBELL CLARK
March 13, 2008
OTTAWA -- Canada wants one country to provide the entire 1,000-soldier contingent it needs as reinforcements in Afghanistan, Foreign Affairs Minister Maxime Bernier says, but it has not yet had a definitive answer from the three nations that could supply them: the United States, France and Britain.
Mr. Bernier's comments made clear that Canada will not accept a patchwork of smaller contingents from various countries - the sort of aid that the Netherlands was forced to accept when it set its own demand for help before it extended its mission in Afghanistan.
He also indicated none of the three countries that could come to Canada's aid has yet promised to do so.
"Concerning the position of the U.S. government or the French government or the U.K. government, I cannot tell you what will be their position," he said. "But what I can tell you is that we need one partner, and a partner that's going to be able to work with us in the south [of Afghanistan]."
He said it is very important that Canada find a single partner for its mission in Kandahar that will not be limited by "caveats" - the term used for restrictions that prevent a country's forces from engaging in serious fighting.
Few countries would be able to provide 1,000 well-equipped soldiers, and many of those that could have placed caveats on their troops in Afghanistan.
Mr. Bernier said he has had good talks with French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, British Foreign Secretary David Miliband and U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who have all agreed that Canada's call for reinforcements is crucial to NATO.
"Who's going to be our partner? I don't know that," he said.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper's government had focused its early hopes for a partner in Kandahar on France, which had indicated some willingness to help. But some Canadian officials say those hopes have been fading, and it is now more likely that President Nicolas Sarkozy will send troops to Afghanistan's east.
British officials have said they are unlikely to send troops to Kandahar, and Prime Minister Gordon Brown has indicated his country will likely keep the same number of troops - just under 8,000 - in Afghanistan. The British military carries the heaviest load in Helmand province, just west of Kandahar province.
Canadian officials have always believed that the United States would probably send the additional 1,000 troops if no other country did. And some believe that if France sent troops to eastern Afghanistan, that would allow 1,000 Americans to be redeployed to Kandahar.
But the U.S. has not made commitments to do so, and has instead used the Canadian demand as an opportunity to press its NATO allies to carry a greater share of the burden in Afghanistan.
About 20,000 of the 42,000 international troops in Afghanistan are American.
Many NATO countries may just tell the U.S. Canada et al. to go fly a kite, now permitted in Afghanistan.
THE AFGHAN MISSION: REINFORCEMENTS FOR THE SOUTH
Canada demands 'one partner' in Kandahar
CAMPBELL CLARK
March 13, 2008
OTTAWA -- Canada wants one country to provide the entire 1,000-soldier contingent it needs as reinforcements in Afghanistan, Foreign Affairs Minister Maxime Bernier says, but it has not yet had a definitive answer from the three nations that could supply them: the United States, France and Britain.
Mr. Bernier's comments made clear that Canada will not accept a patchwork of smaller contingents from various countries - the sort of aid that the Netherlands was forced to accept when it set its own demand for help before it extended its mission in Afghanistan.
He also indicated none of the three countries that could come to Canada's aid has yet promised to do so.
"Concerning the position of the U.S. government or the French government or the U.K. government, I cannot tell you what will be their position," he said. "But what I can tell you is that we need one partner, and a partner that's going to be able to work with us in the south [of Afghanistan]."
He said it is very important that Canada find a single partner for its mission in Kandahar that will not be limited by "caveats" - the term used for restrictions that prevent a country's forces from engaging in serious fighting.
Few countries would be able to provide 1,000 well-equipped soldiers, and many of those that could have placed caveats on their troops in Afghanistan.
Mr. Bernier said he has had good talks with French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, British Foreign Secretary David Miliband and U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who have all agreed that Canada's call for reinforcements is crucial to NATO.
"Who's going to be our partner? I don't know that," he said.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper's government had focused its early hopes for a partner in Kandahar on France, which had indicated some willingness to help. But some Canadian officials say those hopes have been fading, and it is now more likely that President Nicolas Sarkozy will send troops to Afghanistan's east.
British officials have said they are unlikely to send troops to Kandahar, and Prime Minister Gordon Brown has indicated his country will likely keep the same number of troops - just under 8,000 - in Afghanistan. The British military carries the heaviest load in Helmand province, just west of Kandahar province.
Canadian officials have always believed that the United States would probably send the additional 1,000 troops if no other country did. And some believe that if France sent troops to eastern Afghanistan, that would allow 1,000 Americans to be redeployed to Kandahar.
But the U.S. has not made commitments to do so, and has instead used the Canadian demand as an opportunity to press its NATO allies to carry a greater share of the burden in Afghanistan.
About 20,000 of the 42,000 international troops in Afghanistan are American.
Monday, March 10, 2008
Why the Major died
This issue just disappeared like a stone into the depths of mainstream media archives and out of the memories of the public. Support our troops except when they work for UN peacekeeping in Lebanon. Imagine Harper did not even know why he was where he was. Apparently peace-keeping as contrasted with battling is not worth knowing about. The macho crap about Afghanistan by Granatstein et al makes me puke.
Maybe he is, or should be, a paid advisor for the recruiting ads described by Swift.
Why the Major died
Harperites waging a war against peacekeeping.
Dateline: Monday, March 03, 2008
by Jamie Swift for the Kingston Whig-Standard
Cynthia Hess-von Kruedener wants some answers. Why did the Israeli military kill her husband in 2006 while he was on United Nations peacekeeping duty in Lebanon? The Kingston widow is upset that Prime Minister Stephen Harper claims he did not know why Major Paeta Hess-von Kruedener was even there in the first place.
Immediately after an Israeli air assault killed the Major as he remained at his post under withering fire, Harper said he doubted the bombing was a deliberate attack. His concern, rather, was about why peacekeepers were in a war zone:
A dose of war-on-terror Viagara has stiffened the resolve of those who want Canada to spend more treasure and lives in places like Afghanistan.
"We want to find out why this United Nations post was attacked and also why it remained manned, during what is, more or less, a war, during obvious danger to these particular individuals."
Coming from a man who never hesitates to wax patriotic whenever someone questions the wisdom of the war in Afghanistan, this amounts to thin gruel. So does General Rick Hillier's description of the Major's death a "tragic accident."
This is the line that Harper and Hillier share with the Israeli Defence Forces, who refused to co-operate with the Canadian military probe that last week blamed the IDF for the unwarranted attack on what was so clearly a peacekeeping outpost.
The fact is that war enthusiasts have little use for the notion of peacekeeping. Sending Canadians to fight ("Fight!" scream the expensive recruiting ads aimed at young men watching TV hockey) in Afghanistan has, they hope, helped to put a naive era of peacekeeping to rest and allowed us to get on with the traditional military job — killing bad guys.
Except it's hard to tell who the good guys are when Canada's allies routinely torture prisoners. When the Governor of Kandahar — praised by Hillier for his "phenomenal work" — is accused of personally torturing prisoners, the good Governor's name gets blacked out of our government's reports for reasons of "national security."
Canada's militarists and their political allies are on a roll these days. Military budgets, threatened by the end of the Cold War and lack of credible enemies, are on the rise against the background of the Bush regime's "war on terror." Remember, that's what got us into Afghanistan in the first place. Hillier enjoys fawning media treatment with tough talk about how the real purpose of the military is "to be able to kill people."
Those who point out that the international scene is a bit more complex than this Good Guys/Bad Guys world view and that Canada still should concentrate on peacekeeping get dismissed as naive at best, deluded at worst.
The macho talk is best exemplified by the Freudian musings of perennial war pundit and historian Jack Granatstein, who has described the terrible effects that peacekeeping has had on Canada's military. Having too many United Nations blue helmets like that worn by Major Hess-von Kruedener, wrote Granatstein, risked turning Canada's armed forces into "a flaccid military."
But a dose of war-on-terror Viagara has stiffened the resolve of those who think that spending more treasure and lives in places like Afghanistan is exactly the right thing to do. Anyone who objects risks being smeared as a traitor who doesn't Support Our Troops.
We're now headed for a Parliamentary debate on the war that's sold as a "mission." The last such debate unfolded when the Harperites rammed through a quickie motion to extend Canada's Afghan war until 2009. Then Defence Minister Gordon O'Connor — since cashiered from that job for chronic fumbling — is a former general who quit his job pushing weapons systems for General Dynamics and other firms that profit handsomely from war. He had a predictably facile response when questioned by the Opposition.
"I don't want to go back to World War II, but they don't want the military to be involved in anything," said O'Connor in response to NDP leader Jack Layton. "Does this party support our mission in Afghanistan or not?"
General Dynamics probably does.
The Harperite approach is clear. Those asking hard questions about just why more Canadians are being killed and wounded get tarred with the Support Our Troops brush. The reference to the war against Hitler's Nazis is an attempt to portray the Afghan conflict as a remake of The Battle of the Bulge.
It isn't. Afghanistan is a country that has been invaded and occupied by foreign armies as far back as anyone living there can recall. It's run by warlords, drug dealers, and regional power barons who care little or nothing about women's rights and rule their territories with or without the consent of a central government whose power doesn't extend far beyond the capital. Afghanistan's drug dependent economy supplies most of the world's opium.
Afghanistan is an American client state bordered by Iran and Pakistan. These countries have their own regional geopolitical goals. So does Russia to the north. Pakistan's corrupt military regime does not control its territory adjoining Kandahar. This makes for a complex political stew.
Most Canadians would support a "mission" aimed at assisting Afghan civilians and getting girls to go to school. However, Ottawa's current tactics are not going to achieve that. Instead, by blindly mimicking US counter-insurgency tactics we are not only alienating Afghan populations. We are also playing into a US geopolitical strategy that has nothing to do with assisting Afghans. Moreover, the real naïveté out there is on the part of those who believe that if the US obtains what it wants from the Afghan war (or the Iraq war) then it will quietly return home and leave the locals to get on with things.
Canadians are heading into a wrenching debate — maybe even an election — over the war in Afghanistan. Canadians are alarmed at the number of our soldiers getting killed. Lots of locals are dying as well. This does little to win Afghan "hearts and minds."
Peggy Mason, Canada's former ambassador to the UN for disarmament, writes that "Last year saw more civilians killed by Afghan army and allied forces than by insurgents (due to NATO and heavy US aerial bombing)."
Let's hopes that the upcoming Parliamentary debate — literally vital — does not again degenerate into simplistic, Support Our Troops talk. But things don't look good.
Right after Canada's report on the death of Major Hess-von Kruedener came out, Stephen Harper's House Leader responded to opposition questions about his government's inept cover-up of the torture of Afghan detainees handed over to Canada's local allies. Peter Van Loan slurred those questioning the apparent violations of international law as "agents of the Taliban intelligence agency."
Tragically, Major Hess-von Kruedener's widow Cynthia said last week that she felt her husband "died in vain." She was scathing about the Harper government's weak response to the explanation of her husband's death.
"I'm shocked that Harper doesn't know why Paeta was there," she told the Globe and Mail.
This government is clearly keen on supporting our troops. Except when they are working as peacekeepers.
Jamie Swift is a Kingston author of 10 books including, most recently, with Keith Stewart, Hydro: The Decline and Fall of Ontario's Electric Empire.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Maybe he is, or should be, a paid advisor for the recruiting ads described by Swift.
Why the Major died
Harperites waging a war against peacekeeping.
Dateline: Monday, March 03, 2008
by Jamie Swift for the Kingston Whig-Standard
Cynthia Hess-von Kruedener wants some answers. Why did the Israeli military kill her husband in 2006 while he was on United Nations peacekeeping duty in Lebanon? The Kingston widow is upset that Prime Minister Stephen Harper claims he did not know why Major Paeta Hess-von Kruedener was even there in the first place.
Immediately after an Israeli air assault killed the Major as he remained at his post under withering fire, Harper said he doubted the bombing was a deliberate attack. His concern, rather, was about why peacekeepers were in a war zone:
A dose of war-on-terror Viagara has stiffened the resolve of those who want Canada to spend more treasure and lives in places like Afghanistan.
"We want to find out why this United Nations post was attacked and also why it remained manned, during what is, more or less, a war, during obvious danger to these particular individuals."
Coming from a man who never hesitates to wax patriotic whenever someone questions the wisdom of the war in Afghanistan, this amounts to thin gruel. So does General Rick Hillier's description of the Major's death a "tragic accident."
This is the line that Harper and Hillier share with the Israeli Defence Forces, who refused to co-operate with the Canadian military probe that last week blamed the IDF for the unwarranted attack on what was so clearly a peacekeeping outpost.
The fact is that war enthusiasts have little use for the notion of peacekeeping. Sending Canadians to fight ("Fight!" scream the expensive recruiting ads aimed at young men watching TV hockey) in Afghanistan has, they hope, helped to put a naive era of peacekeeping to rest and allowed us to get on with the traditional military job — killing bad guys.
Except it's hard to tell who the good guys are when Canada's allies routinely torture prisoners. When the Governor of Kandahar — praised by Hillier for his "phenomenal work" — is accused of personally torturing prisoners, the good Governor's name gets blacked out of our government's reports for reasons of "national security."
Canada's militarists and their political allies are on a roll these days. Military budgets, threatened by the end of the Cold War and lack of credible enemies, are on the rise against the background of the Bush regime's "war on terror." Remember, that's what got us into Afghanistan in the first place. Hillier enjoys fawning media treatment with tough talk about how the real purpose of the military is "to be able to kill people."
Those who point out that the international scene is a bit more complex than this Good Guys/Bad Guys world view and that Canada still should concentrate on peacekeeping get dismissed as naive at best, deluded at worst.
The macho talk is best exemplified by the Freudian musings of perennial war pundit and historian Jack Granatstein, who has described the terrible effects that peacekeeping has had on Canada's military. Having too many United Nations blue helmets like that worn by Major Hess-von Kruedener, wrote Granatstein, risked turning Canada's armed forces into "a flaccid military."
But a dose of war-on-terror Viagara has stiffened the resolve of those who think that spending more treasure and lives in places like Afghanistan is exactly the right thing to do. Anyone who objects risks being smeared as a traitor who doesn't Support Our Troops.
We're now headed for a Parliamentary debate on the war that's sold as a "mission." The last such debate unfolded when the Harperites rammed through a quickie motion to extend Canada's Afghan war until 2009. Then Defence Minister Gordon O'Connor — since cashiered from that job for chronic fumbling — is a former general who quit his job pushing weapons systems for General Dynamics and other firms that profit handsomely from war. He had a predictably facile response when questioned by the Opposition.
"I don't want to go back to World War II, but they don't want the military to be involved in anything," said O'Connor in response to NDP leader Jack Layton. "Does this party support our mission in Afghanistan or not?"
General Dynamics probably does.
The Harperite approach is clear. Those asking hard questions about just why more Canadians are being killed and wounded get tarred with the Support Our Troops brush. The reference to the war against Hitler's Nazis is an attempt to portray the Afghan conflict as a remake of The Battle of the Bulge.
It isn't. Afghanistan is a country that has been invaded and occupied by foreign armies as far back as anyone living there can recall. It's run by warlords, drug dealers, and regional power barons who care little or nothing about women's rights and rule their territories with or without the consent of a central government whose power doesn't extend far beyond the capital. Afghanistan's drug dependent economy supplies most of the world's opium.
Afghanistan is an American client state bordered by Iran and Pakistan. These countries have their own regional geopolitical goals. So does Russia to the north. Pakistan's corrupt military regime does not control its territory adjoining Kandahar. This makes for a complex political stew.
Most Canadians would support a "mission" aimed at assisting Afghan civilians and getting girls to go to school. However, Ottawa's current tactics are not going to achieve that. Instead, by blindly mimicking US counter-insurgency tactics we are not only alienating Afghan populations. We are also playing into a US geopolitical strategy that has nothing to do with assisting Afghans. Moreover, the real naïveté out there is on the part of those who believe that if the US obtains what it wants from the Afghan war (or the Iraq war) then it will quietly return home and leave the locals to get on with things.
Canadians are heading into a wrenching debate — maybe even an election — over the war in Afghanistan. Canadians are alarmed at the number of our soldiers getting killed. Lots of locals are dying as well. This does little to win Afghan "hearts and minds."
Peggy Mason, Canada's former ambassador to the UN for disarmament, writes that "Last year saw more civilians killed by Afghan army and allied forces than by insurgents (due to NATO and heavy US aerial bombing)."
Let's hopes that the upcoming Parliamentary debate — literally vital — does not again degenerate into simplistic, Support Our Troops talk. But things don't look good.
Right after Canada's report on the death of Major Hess-von Kruedener came out, Stephen Harper's House Leader responded to opposition questions about his government's inept cover-up of the torture of Afghan detainees handed over to Canada's local allies. Peter Van Loan slurred those questioning the apparent violations of international law as "agents of the Taliban intelligence agency."
Tragically, Major Hess-von Kruedener's widow Cynthia said last week that she felt her husband "died in vain." She was scathing about the Harper government's weak response to the explanation of her husband's death.
"I'm shocked that Harper doesn't know why Paeta was there," she told the Globe and Mail.
This government is clearly keen on supporting our troops. Except when they are working as peacekeepers.
Jamie Swift is a Kingston author of 10 books including, most recently, with Keith Stewart, Hydro: The Decline and Fall of Ontario's Electric Empire.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sunday, March 2, 2008
Framing the Afghan conflict: Mission versus War
This is from the Harper Index. Actually the Kandahar deployment was made by the Liberals and one theory is that it was a quid pro quo for Canada's not joining in the Iraq invasion. The whole affair is "sold" to Canadians as part of its NATO obligations subsequent to our joyful joining of Operation Enduring Freedom and the blessing of the UN on the ISAF mission. As I understand it the French may very well send troops to the south and certainly the Brits are in combat areas.
As for its being a mission as Wiseman points out this is actually a correct phrase. However, it is also correct to call it an occupation. This is the term that would better frame the war from the perspective of convincing people we should get out. The noble cause frame can also be attacked by pointing out that the Karzai govt. was in effect a guided creation by select Afghans supported by the occupiers and wholly dependent upon the occupiers military might to survive. It could also be pointed out that this democracy sentenced a citizen to death for converting from Islam to Christianity and that it also wanted to sentence another person for distributing material on human rights. It also kicked out a female legislator for criticising her colleagues. The regime also is the number one global opium producer. One could go on and on but you get the idea. The overthrow of the Taliban was a violation of international law and not supported by a UN resolution until after the fact same as in Iraq.
Mission vs. war – How Afghanistan conflict is framed
Canada's military involvement has been marketed as a noble cause, with help from Hillier, Horton's and hockey.
OTTAWA, February 28, 2008: With the exception of the United States, Canada is isolated in its active involvement in the war against Taliban insurgents in southern Afghanistan. Despite this isolation, and 78 Canadian deaths to date, the war enjoys enough public support that Canada's two biggest political parties are on the verge of a compromise motion supporting it. Canada will be committed to stay in Afghanistan longer than the Soviets did, with little evidence that six years of NATO involvement has advanced its cause more than the Soviets managed for themselves earlier.
Why do Canadians support this war enough for such a compromise while Dutch, French, Italians, and others opt to stay out? The answer lies in the way this war was sold to Canadians by the Harper government and its allies and by what it is called.
In part it may be the government has succeeded in framing the war against insurgents in Afghanistan as a "mission", which is how it is almost always now described. "George W. Bush proclaimed a War on Terror to confuse the legal authorities," military historian and author Desmond Morton told HarperIndex.ca in an email interview from his McGill University office. "There was no identifiable enemy. There were no treaty-binding rules for such a conflict... The word mission is even more frightening to me since it speaks to a kind of colonial arrogance deeply imbedded in our Afghan presence. Are we on a mission to convert the Afghans to our values? What if the Afghan National Army took up residence in Canada to teach us the proper way to handle gay marriage or the rights of women. We would want them out - quite desperately but not necessarily unanimously. Canadians have been sold on the notion that it is our mission to reform Afghanistan - chase the National Police out of corruption, eliminate the drug trade, require higher ethical standards from Afghan officials."
Political scientist Nelson Wiseman, interviewed by phone from his University of Toronto office, agreed that calling the war a mission "...paints the picture that it's much more than a war. But I think that's a legitimate claim," he said, in view of Canada's development efforts there.
Wiseman says, however, "It is dangerous for Harper to ally himself too closely to Bush in Afghanistan. That's why he's not using the same kind of phrases as Bush. He's not using 'cut-and-run', for instance. He's trying to immunize himself on it by co-opting the Liberals." The main danger for Harper, Wiseman says, "is if an election occurs during 'a bad downward spiral' in the conflict 'with large numbers of Canadian troops injured in high-profile incidents'."
Morton believes Canada's top solider, Rick Hillier, is largely responsible for Canadians becoming "sold" on the Afghanistan conflict and says Hillier "is a product of my own advice to the Canadian military at my annual Staff College briefing. If you want to win resource battles in Ottawa, treat it as Battle Space Ottawa and learn the same rules as other winners. Publicity is power. Learn the rules of engagement and find the guts to fight."
"Hillier's predecessors were driven by ambition and acute nervousness," Morton says. "Canadians prefer his frankness and his no-nonsense wisdom to that of politicians. He appeals to the kind of political reporters who appeal to sports page readers. That includes a lot of NDP voters. The Left has to handle the guilt which rises in anyone accused of not 'Backing Our Boys'..."
War or mission, public opinion polls indicate Canadians are split in their support for what Canada is doing in Afghanistan, but Morton feels it would be a difficult issue to campaign against. He says the Liberals' compromised this week because they feel the same. "I suspect that Harper has a fairly popular issue in Afghanistan, particularly with people who reflect his conservative values and so long as Canadians feel indifferent to the costs - 78 lives and who knows how much specific aid money."
Wiseman says, "people become inured to the casualties" over time, explaining why soldiers' deaths get less media coverage as time passes.
As the debate shifts, in the wake of the Manley report, to troop contributions from other countries rather than the appropriateness of the war, support for the war hardens. "Canadians I talk to are aggressively hostile to NATO members who have opted for safer service in Afghanistan," says Morton. "Frankly, I think that Harper succeeds because he has a more coherent message on Afghanistan."
That message is driven home repeatedly through the "Support our Troops" campaign, the efforts of companies like Tim Horton's, which prominently promote it, and promotion related to hockey. From Don Cherry endorsements, to politicians at hockey games, to Canadian Forces recruiting ads running at saturation level on hockey broadcasts, the war is heavily promoted to a broad target group of middle Canadians - hockey fans.
Those who oppose the war might begin by framing it as a war, rather than a mission. Most Canadians probably support development assistance for Afghanistan, which the government increased in the budget this week. Opponents are safer to talk about the idea of building democracy and peace through diplomacy rather than the American-style notion of doing it through a war, which despite six years of effort, has shown decidedly mixed results. Canadians will feel less supportive of a "mission" to which local resistance may well be growing due to the warlord governments, corruption and ongoing severe human rights violations it appears to support. Referring to a "hockey goon" approach, however, will only invoke Harper's frame of hockey as a metaphor.
As for its being a mission as Wiseman points out this is actually a correct phrase. However, it is also correct to call it an occupation. This is the term that would better frame the war from the perspective of convincing people we should get out. The noble cause frame can also be attacked by pointing out that the Karzai govt. was in effect a guided creation by select Afghans supported by the occupiers and wholly dependent upon the occupiers military might to survive. It could also be pointed out that this democracy sentenced a citizen to death for converting from Islam to Christianity and that it also wanted to sentence another person for distributing material on human rights. It also kicked out a female legislator for criticising her colleagues. The regime also is the number one global opium producer. One could go on and on but you get the idea. The overthrow of the Taliban was a violation of international law and not supported by a UN resolution until after the fact same as in Iraq.
Mission vs. war – How Afghanistan conflict is framed
Canada's military involvement has been marketed as a noble cause, with help from Hillier, Horton's and hockey.
OTTAWA, February 28, 2008: With the exception of the United States, Canada is isolated in its active involvement in the war against Taliban insurgents in southern Afghanistan. Despite this isolation, and 78 Canadian deaths to date, the war enjoys enough public support that Canada's two biggest political parties are on the verge of a compromise motion supporting it. Canada will be committed to stay in Afghanistan longer than the Soviets did, with little evidence that six years of NATO involvement has advanced its cause more than the Soviets managed for themselves earlier.
Why do Canadians support this war enough for such a compromise while Dutch, French, Italians, and others opt to stay out? The answer lies in the way this war was sold to Canadians by the Harper government and its allies and by what it is called.
In part it may be the government has succeeded in framing the war against insurgents in Afghanistan as a "mission", which is how it is almost always now described. "George W. Bush proclaimed a War on Terror to confuse the legal authorities," military historian and author Desmond Morton told HarperIndex.ca in an email interview from his McGill University office. "There was no identifiable enemy. There were no treaty-binding rules for such a conflict... The word mission is even more frightening to me since it speaks to a kind of colonial arrogance deeply imbedded in our Afghan presence. Are we on a mission to convert the Afghans to our values? What if the Afghan National Army took up residence in Canada to teach us the proper way to handle gay marriage or the rights of women. We would want them out - quite desperately but not necessarily unanimously. Canadians have been sold on the notion that it is our mission to reform Afghanistan - chase the National Police out of corruption, eliminate the drug trade, require higher ethical standards from Afghan officials."
Political scientist Nelson Wiseman, interviewed by phone from his University of Toronto office, agreed that calling the war a mission "...paints the picture that it's much more than a war. But I think that's a legitimate claim," he said, in view of Canada's development efforts there.
Wiseman says, however, "It is dangerous for Harper to ally himself too closely to Bush in Afghanistan. That's why he's not using the same kind of phrases as Bush. He's not using 'cut-and-run', for instance. He's trying to immunize himself on it by co-opting the Liberals." The main danger for Harper, Wiseman says, "is if an election occurs during 'a bad downward spiral' in the conflict 'with large numbers of Canadian troops injured in high-profile incidents'."
Morton believes Canada's top solider, Rick Hillier, is largely responsible for Canadians becoming "sold" on the Afghanistan conflict and says Hillier "is a product of my own advice to the Canadian military at my annual Staff College briefing. If you want to win resource battles in Ottawa, treat it as Battle Space Ottawa and learn the same rules as other winners. Publicity is power. Learn the rules of engagement and find the guts to fight."
"Hillier's predecessors were driven by ambition and acute nervousness," Morton says. "Canadians prefer his frankness and his no-nonsense wisdom to that of politicians. He appeals to the kind of political reporters who appeal to sports page readers. That includes a lot of NDP voters. The Left has to handle the guilt which rises in anyone accused of not 'Backing Our Boys'..."
War or mission, public opinion polls indicate Canadians are split in their support for what Canada is doing in Afghanistan, but Morton feels it would be a difficult issue to campaign against. He says the Liberals' compromised this week because they feel the same. "I suspect that Harper has a fairly popular issue in Afghanistan, particularly with people who reflect his conservative values and so long as Canadians feel indifferent to the costs - 78 lives and who knows how much specific aid money."
Wiseman says, "people become inured to the casualties" over time, explaining why soldiers' deaths get less media coverage as time passes.
As the debate shifts, in the wake of the Manley report, to troop contributions from other countries rather than the appropriateness of the war, support for the war hardens. "Canadians I talk to are aggressively hostile to NATO members who have opted for safer service in Afghanistan," says Morton. "Frankly, I think that Harper succeeds because he has a more coherent message on Afghanistan."
That message is driven home repeatedly through the "Support our Troops" campaign, the efforts of companies like Tim Horton's, which prominently promote it, and promotion related to hockey. From Don Cherry endorsements, to politicians at hockey games, to Canadian Forces recruiting ads running at saturation level on hockey broadcasts, the war is heavily promoted to a broad target group of middle Canadians - hockey fans.
Those who oppose the war might begin by framing it as a war, rather than a mission. Most Canadians probably support development assistance for Afghanistan, which the government increased in the budget this week. Opponents are safer to talk about the idea of building democracy and peace through diplomacy rather than the American-style notion of doing it through a war, which despite six years of effort, has shown decidedly mixed results. Canadians will feel less supportive of a "mission" to which local resistance may well be growing due to the warlord governments, corruption and ongoing severe human rights violations it appears to support. Referring to a "hockey goon" approach, however, will only invoke Harper's frame of hockey as a metaphor.
Thursday, January 17, 2008
Canada eyes leaner role in Afghanistan
This is from the Toronto Star. I agree with MacKenzie that doing the right thing should trump domestic politics. However, that would involve distancing ourselves from our role as a junior partner of US imperialism. We should get out immediately. That is not of course what MacKenzie has in mind. Whatever Manley recommends one can be sure that it will not involve withdrawing from Afghanistan but some changing of roles but retaining our involvement. The US is stepping up its own military involvement so although the US may hope to keep spreading the military involvement around it will not be crucial. Given Gates' critique of NATO training maybe the US even wants to take even more of a lead on the combat front.
Canada eyes leaner role in Afghanistan
TheStar.com - Canada - Canada eyes leaner role in Afghanistan
Manley expected to call for partial pullout and transformed mission in ’09
January 16, 2008
Bruce Campion-Smith
Ottawa bureau chief
OTTAWA – Canada should reduce its contingent of combat troops in Kandahar and focus on training Afghan police and army officers to eventually take over security duties in southern Afghanistan.
That's likely to be among the chief recommendations when a federal panel created to study the future of Canada's Afghan mission after February 2009 releases its long-awaited report early next week.
The federal panel, led by former Liberal deputy prime minister John Manley, is likely to endorse the transformation of the mission from combat to training that is already underway.
"I hear the recommendations will support the mission in Kandahar with a transformation of the approach to the mission which is already happening," said Alain Pellerin, of the Conference of Defence Associations, a lobby group active on defence issues.
A poll released last night suggests strong public unease with the current combat mission.
Forty-seven per cent of Canadians want our troops brought back from Afghanistan as soon as possible, according to a Strategic Counsel poll done for CTV News and The Globe and Mail. In Quebec, 57 per cent want the mission to end right away.
The poll showed that only 17 per cent of Canadians want troops to continue in their combat role and 31 per cent said Canadians should remain in Kandahar but turn over the combat role to another NATO country.
Last summer, the Canadian Forces boosted its mentoring teams to train the Afghan army and launched new efforts to help train the Afghan police.
"We're into phase two now of ... recalibrating the mission so you put more emphasis on training the Afghan army, training the security forces and I think that's what is happening now on the ground," said Pellerin, a retired colonel with close ties to the military who has visited the troops in Afghanistan.
The news comes as yet another Canadian soldier was killed in Afghanistan yesterday. Trooper Richard Renaud, 26, was killed and a fellow soldier injured when their vehicle hit a roadside bomb during a patrol north of Kandahar city.
With yesterday's attack, 77 Canadian soldiers and one diplomat – Glyn Berry – have been killed in Afghanistan since 2002.
Those deaths – along with the reluctance of NATO allies to dispatch troops to dangerous southern regions of Afghanistan – have fuelled public and political misgivings in Canada about the Kandahar mission.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper established the panel last October in a bid to develop a compromise for the future of the mission, once the current military commitment runs out in a year.
In addition to Manley, the Afghan panel includes: former Conservative federal cabinet minister Jake Epp; Paul Tellier, former clerk of the Privy Council; Derek Burney, a former Canadian ambassador to the United States; and Pamela Wallin, former Canadian consul general in New York City.
After listening to hundreds of individual Canadians and organizations, visiting NATO headquarters in Brussels and seeing military and development efforts firsthand in Afghanistan, the Manley panel is due to release its own vision for the future of Canadian aid workers, diplomats and soldiers, either Monday or Tuesday.
Pellerin envisages a scenario that puts Canada on course for a gradual withdrawal from Afghanistan, reducing its force initially to about 1,500 – down from more than 2,000 now – to focus on training.
But in addition to the trainers, combat support elements would also be left behind. That includes artillery and even the tanks that serve as vital backup to allied and Afghan troops in the field, as well as field engineers, who have built roads and bridges in the region, he said.
"I think more and more that is probably what the (Canadian Forces) leadership would want to see and reducing the number of troops in Kandahar," Pellerin said.
Gen. Rick Hillier, the chief of defence staff, has warned that preparing Afghan security forces to take over is a job that will go past February 2009. Even the Conservatives' throne speech noted the training won't be done by then, suggesting the objective should be achievable by 2011.
But Manley may suggest putting off decisions on Canada's mission until after the NATO leaders' summit in April in Bucharest, Romania, where Afghanistan and troop commitments are expected to dominate the agenda.
Harper is expected to be at the high-level conference to wring commitments of money and military assistance for Afghanistan, along with United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, Afghan President Hamid Karzai and European Union representatives.
Harper has pledged that Parliament will vote on any proposals to extend or change the current mission.
However, retired major-general Lewis MacKenzie worries that efforts to find a political compromise in Canada may distort the mission in Afghanistan.
"I've got a funny feeling that the priority is to find some sort of compromise that's acceptable and all sides can say they won a little bit, which is unfortunate because it's the one issue ... where doing the right thing should trump domestic politics," MacKenzie said.
While the Liberals have called for a move out of Kandahar, MacKenzie said it makes sense for troops to stay put where they've built up a network of bases and now know the local Afghan leaders.
"I hope they won't suggest moving out of Kandahar," MacKenzie said.
Meanwhile, the Pentagon yesterday announced that 2,200 U.S. troops will be sent to serve under the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force in southern Afghanistan.
Another 1,000 Marines will expand the training of Afghan national security forces.
But Pellerin cautioned the Americans are not meant as a replacement for the Canadian troops.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
With files from the Star's wire services
Canada eyes leaner role in Afghanistan
TheStar.com - Canada - Canada eyes leaner role in Afghanistan
Manley expected to call for partial pullout and transformed mission in ’09
January 16, 2008
Bruce Campion-Smith
Ottawa bureau chief
OTTAWA – Canada should reduce its contingent of combat troops in Kandahar and focus on training Afghan police and army officers to eventually take over security duties in southern Afghanistan.
That's likely to be among the chief recommendations when a federal panel created to study the future of Canada's Afghan mission after February 2009 releases its long-awaited report early next week.
The federal panel, led by former Liberal deputy prime minister John Manley, is likely to endorse the transformation of the mission from combat to training that is already underway.
"I hear the recommendations will support the mission in Kandahar with a transformation of the approach to the mission which is already happening," said Alain Pellerin, of the Conference of Defence Associations, a lobby group active on defence issues.
A poll released last night suggests strong public unease with the current combat mission.
Forty-seven per cent of Canadians want our troops brought back from Afghanistan as soon as possible, according to a Strategic Counsel poll done for CTV News and The Globe and Mail. In Quebec, 57 per cent want the mission to end right away.
The poll showed that only 17 per cent of Canadians want troops to continue in their combat role and 31 per cent said Canadians should remain in Kandahar but turn over the combat role to another NATO country.
Last summer, the Canadian Forces boosted its mentoring teams to train the Afghan army and launched new efforts to help train the Afghan police.
"We're into phase two now of ... recalibrating the mission so you put more emphasis on training the Afghan army, training the security forces and I think that's what is happening now on the ground," said Pellerin, a retired colonel with close ties to the military who has visited the troops in Afghanistan.
The news comes as yet another Canadian soldier was killed in Afghanistan yesterday. Trooper Richard Renaud, 26, was killed and a fellow soldier injured when their vehicle hit a roadside bomb during a patrol north of Kandahar city.
With yesterday's attack, 77 Canadian soldiers and one diplomat – Glyn Berry – have been killed in Afghanistan since 2002.
Those deaths – along with the reluctance of NATO allies to dispatch troops to dangerous southern regions of Afghanistan – have fuelled public and political misgivings in Canada about the Kandahar mission.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper established the panel last October in a bid to develop a compromise for the future of the mission, once the current military commitment runs out in a year.
In addition to Manley, the Afghan panel includes: former Conservative federal cabinet minister Jake Epp; Paul Tellier, former clerk of the Privy Council; Derek Burney, a former Canadian ambassador to the United States; and Pamela Wallin, former Canadian consul general in New York City.
After listening to hundreds of individual Canadians and organizations, visiting NATO headquarters in Brussels and seeing military and development efforts firsthand in Afghanistan, the Manley panel is due to release its own vision for the future of Canadian aid workers, diplomats and soldiers, either Monday or Tuesday.
Pellerin envisages a scenario that puts Canada on course for a gradual withdrawal from Afghanistan, reducing its force initially to about 1,500 – down from more than 2,000 now – to focus on training.
But in addition to the trainers, combat support elements would also be left behind. That includes artillery and even the tanks that serve as vital backup to allied and Afghan troops in the field, as well as field engineers, who have built roads and bridges in the region, he said.
"I think more and more that is probably what the (Canadian Forces) leadership would want to see and reducing the number of troops in Kandahar," Pellerin said.
Gen. Rick Hillier, the chief of defence staff, has warned that preparing Afghan security forces to take over is a job that will go past February 2009. Even the Conservatives' throne speech noted the training won't be done by then, suggesting the objective should be achievable by 2011.
But Manley may suggest putting off decisions on Canada's mission until after the NATO leaders' summit in April in Bucharest, Romania, where Afghanistan and troop commitments are expected to dominate the agenda.
Harper is expected to be at the high-level conference to wring commitments of money and military assistance for Afghanistan, along with United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, Afghan President Hamid Karzai and European Union representatives.
Harper has pledged that Parliament will vote on any proposals to extend or change the current mission.
However, retired major-general Lewis MacKenzie worries that efforts to find a political compromise in Canada may distort the mission in Afghanistan.
"I've got a funny feeling that the priority is to find some sort of compromise that's acceptable and all sides can say they won a little bit, which is unfortunate because it's the one issue ... where doing the right thing should trump domestic politics," MacKenzie said.
While the Liberals have called for a move out of Kandahar, MacKenzie said it makes sense for troops to stay put where they've built up a network of bases and now know the local Afghan leaders.
"I hope they won't suggest moving out of Kandahar," MacKenzie said.
Meanwhile, the Pentagon yesterday announced that 2,200 U.S. troops will be sent to serve under the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force in southern Afghanistan.
Another 1,000 Marines will expand the training of Afghan national security forces.
But Pellerin cautioned the Americans are not meant as a replacement for the Canadian troops.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
With files from the Star's wire services
Saturday, January 12, 2008
Junior partner in Global War.
This is originally from the Toronto Star but I took it from Rabble. Insofar as the war in Afghanistan is a clash of cultures or represented as a war against Muslims this is surely just a convenient ploy to get support from the populace many of whom can be sold this bill of goods. As Pilger's article shows the reasons are elsewhere. Not only was the US a great support of jihadists when they were useful to fight the Evil Empire's client regime in Afghanistan but the US is still a big supporter of Arab countries such as Saudi Arabia which is nothing if not Muslim.
Junior partner in global war
>by Linda McQuaig
January 9, 2008
For Canadians, watching a televised debate of Republican presidential candidates, like the one last Saturday night, can be a bit like observing an inscrutable species.
Baffling as it is to us, all the candidates reject public health care and celebrate the excellence of the U.S. health-care system, apparently regarding the fact that millions of Americans lack basic coverage as a minor flaw in the system.
Even more disturbing, the Republican presidential hopefuls seem to see the West as engaged in an all-out war against radical Islam in what sounds awfully like a crusades-style “clash of civilizations.”
This is instructive for Canadians. Much as Canadian political leaders and commentators emphasize the notion that we're in Afghanistan to help with “reconstruction” and to improve the lot of women — goals Canadians readily support — we can perhaps get a better sense of the real nature of what we've signed on for by listening to these leading Republicans, who come from the same political pool as the war's architect, George W. Bush.
And while Canadians like to think of Afghanistan as a very different war than the one in Iraq, the Republicans clearly see the two wars as simply twin parts in America's battle with radical Islam.
The view of the Republican candidates is strikingly similar, for that matter, to the view expressed by a U.S. general, Thomas Metz, who gave the keynote address at a conference (which I attended) at the Canadian Forces College in Toronto in January 2006.
Metz gave the high-level conference of Canadian soldiers and military think-tank experts what amounted to a pep talk for fighting the Muslim enemy. The audience included one of Canada's top generals, Andrew Leslie.
“The Islamic faith is not evil,” Metz told the gathering. “But it's been hijacked by thugs ... Most of the Islamic world believes the suicide bombers of the World Trade Center are now in the land of milk and honey.”
Metz noted that there are almost 1 billion Muslims in the world. Then, engaging in some freewheeling speculation, he added that if only 1 per cent of Muslims are radical “that's 10 million radicals.”
The general's message seemed to be that Canadians are engaged in a war, not against a small group of extremists, but ultimately against millions of Muslims.
Will this mentality change if the Republicans lose the White House next year?
In the Democratic debate that followed the Republican one on Saturday, there was plenty of criticism of the disaster in Iraq. But the candidates shied away from seriously critiquing the ideas behind Bush's “war on terror” or his doctrine of pre-emptive war.
Ironically, the strongest critique came in the Republican debate, from candidate Ron Paul, who challenged the notion that terrorists hate Americans “because we're free and prosperous.”
Paul suggested instead that it was “because we invade their countries and occupy their countries, have bases in their (countries). And we haven't done it just since 9/11 ... we have done that for a long time.”
Paul's argument that terrorism was a response to American foreign policy was quickly dismissed by the other Republican candidates with a resounding chorus: terrorism is purely the product of irrational, freedom-hating Muslims.
“Our foreign policy is irrelevant,” harrumphed Rudy Giuliani, “totally irrelevant.”
Canadians watching the debate probably suspected that U.S. foreign policy isn't totally irrelevant to the rise of terrorism. But then, we don't make these wars, we just fight in them.
Linda McQuaig's column is originally published by The Toronto Star.
Junior partner in global war
>by Linda McQuaig
January 9, 2008
For Canadians, watching a televised debate of Republican presidential candidates, like the one last Saturday night, can be a bit like observing an inscrutable species.
Baffling as it is to us, all the candidates reject public health care and celebrate the excellence of the U.S. health-care system, apparently regarding the fact that millions of Americans lack basic coverage as a minor flaw in the system.
Even more disturbing, the Republican presidential hopefuls seem to see the West as engaged in an all-out war against radical Islam in what sounds awfully like a crusades-style “clash of civilizations.”
This is instructive for Canadians. Much as Canadian political leaders and commentators emphasize the notion that we're in Afghanistan to help with “reconstruction” and to improve the lot of women — goals Canadians readily support — we can perhaps get a better sense of the real nature of what we've signed on for by listening to these leading Republicans, who come from the same political pool as the war's architect, George W. Bush.
And while Canadians like to think of Afghanistan as a very different war than the one in Iraq, the Republicans clearly see the two wars as simply twin parts in America's battle with radical Islam.
The view of the Republican candidates is strikingly similar, for that matter, to the view expressed by a U.S. general, Thomas Metz, who gave the keynote address at a conference (which I attended) at the Canadian Forces College in Toronto in January 2006.
Metz gave the high-level conference of Canadian soldiers and military think-tank experts what amounted to a pep talk for fighting the Muslim enemy. The audience included one of Canada's top generals, Andrew Leslie.
“The Islamic faith is not evil,” Metz told the gathering. “But it's been hijacked by thugs ... Most of the Islamic world believes the suicide bombers of the World Trade Center are now in the land of milk and honey.”
Metz noted that there are almost 1 billion Muslims in the world. Then, engaging in some freewheeling speculation, he added that if only 1 per cent of Muslims are radical “that's 10 million radicals.”
The general's message seemed to be that Canadians are engaged in a war, not against a small group of extremists, but ultimately against millions of Muslims.
Will this mentality change if the Republicans lose the White House next year?
In the Democratic debate that followed the Republican one on Saturday, there was plenty of criticism of the disaster in Iraq. But the candidates shied away from seriously critiquing the ideas behind Bush's “war on terror” or his doctrine of pre-emptive war.
Ironically, the strongest critique came in the Republican debate, from candidate Ron Paul, who challenged the notion that terrorists hate Americans “because we're free and prosperous.”
Paul suggested instead that it was “because we invade their countries and occupy their countries, have bases in their (countries). And we haven't done it just since 9/11 ... we have done that for a long time.”
Paul's argument that terrorism was a response to American foreign policy was quickly dismissed by the other Republican candidates with a resounding chorus: terrorism is purely the product of irrational, freedom-hating Muslims.
“Our foreign policy is irrelevant,” harrumphed Rudy Giuliani, “totally irrelevant.”
Canadians watching the debate probably suspected that U.S. foreign policy isn't totally irrelevant to the rise of terrorism. But then, we don't make these wars, we just fight in them.
Linda McQuaig's column is originally published by The Toronto Star.
Saturday, December 29, 2007
Bhutto's death could echo on Afghan mission: former diplomat
Bob Rae and Michael Ignatieff seem to speak much of the time for Dion. Dion is notably quiet. Rae is hopeless in my opinion. The Liberals are actually fortunate they did not get Rae or Ignatieff as leader even though Dion is weak and not very effective. The best hope for the Liberals is that Harper is so bad that the public chooses the Liberals just to keep Harper out of power. Of course what we could get is another minority government.
Rae left the NDP for the Liberals. With this speech on Afghanistan he shows he could just as easily migrate to the Conservatives. Of course with people such as Manley already working for the Conservatives in effect I guess this should not be surprising. Even Bush is not as stupid as Rae. Bush will continue to support Musharraf. He understands that Musharraf cannot just crush the territories just like that. To even try this might be to plunge into civil war and/or be overthrown. Musharraf was bang on when he was irritated by Canadian claims he was not being tough enough on terrorism. THe Pakistan armed forces have suffered many casualties in battles with extremists in the territories and suffered many terrorist incidents. Compared to the Pakistanis. Canadians in Afghanistan have suffered only a few casualties.
What Canada and the US mean by stability is a regime able to control any forces opposed to US hegemony in the region. Iran is reasonably stable but that is not what they want!
The US is still calling for elections. This only makes sense in terms of US foreign policy but is ludicrous democratic terms. The main opposition parties are all
going to boycott the elections so if they were to go ahead Musharraf is guaranteed to win. Even Musharraf will probably realise that the lack of legitimacy would be so great it would be better to postpone the elections until later. Actually I may be wrong about this since I just heard that Bhutto's party has not made up its mind. Her party would probably get a huge sympathy vote and could come out very well.
Bhutto's death could echo on Afghan mission: former diplomat
Last Updated: Friday, December 28, 2007 | 11:36 AM ET
CBC News
The instability gripping Pakistan following the assassination of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto could spill over to neighbouring Afghanistan, where Canadian soldiers are fighting Taliban insurgents, a former Canadian diplomat said.
Bhutto, twice Pakistan's prime minister, was killed Thursday in a suicide attack at a campaign rally in the northern city of Rawalpindi, about 18 kilometres south of the capital Islamabad.
At least 20 other people also died in the attack, which Pakistan's interior minister has blamed on the Taliban and al-Qaeda.
Louis Delvoie, a former Canadian high commissioner to Pakistan, said Thursday's violent attack will surely make the job of NATO soldiers on the ground in Afghanistan harder.
Western nations, including Canada, have called on Pakistan to take a more active role in preventing Taliban fighters from entering Afghanistan from its territory.
But Delvoie said Pakistan's embattled president, Pervez Musharraf, will now be focused on retaining power and internal stability instead of helping stop the flow of Taliban fighters, money and arms across the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.
"There will be greater freedom of movement for the Taliban across the border, and it will mean in many ways that the NATO forces, including Canadian forces, will have to rely on their own military ability to beat the Taliban in Afghanistan," Delvoie told CBC News.
'Nightmare scenario'
Delvoie, a senior fellow at Queen's University in Kingston, Ont., who met Bhutto several times in the early 1990s, put forth several bleak scenarios for Pakistan in the wake of Bhutto's assassination.
One included a potential coup by Islamist sympathizers within the officer core of the armed forces, supported by Islamist political parties.
"At that point, you would have the nightmare scenario of an Islamist military government with nuclear weapons," he said.
Delvoie said any such development would likely lead to direct conflict with Pakistan's nuclear-armed rival India, which placed its forces on a "high state of vigil" after Bhutto's assassination.
The two sides have fought each other in two wars in the last four decades and came perilously close to military conflict in 2002.
But Pakistan's military is cohesive and has been able to rule the country for more than half its existence amid numerous political crises, said Tariq Amin-Khan, a politics professor at Ryerson University.
"The situation is still very, very unstable," Amin-Khan told CBC News on Friday in a telephone interview from Karachi. "But I wouldn't be too worried about the nuclear arsenal falling into the hands of Islamists."
The U.S. Defence Department still listed Pakistan's nuclear arsenal as "under control," a spokesman for the Pentagon said Friday.
Musharraf 'ineffective' in curbing extremism: Rae
Federal Liberal foreign affairs critic Bob Rae said it's hardly a secret that the Taliban's military strength, education, funding and ideological lifeblood all come from northwestern Pakistan.
He said the international community must wake up and appreciate the implications of Bhutto's killing and the instability it has sparked in the region.
"This issue becomes even more acute and important for the world when we consider that Pakistan is a nuclear power," Rae told reporters Thursday.
"We now clearly have a government which, as well as being highly repressive, has also proved to been singularly ineffective in its own efforts to deal with extremism."
Rae said Canada must look beyond its military role in Afghanistan and join diplomatic efforts to make the region stable.
After Thursday's violence, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said he is also concerned about the stability of the region and what it will mean to Canadian soldiers.
He said Canada is offering its support and co-operation to the Pakistani government in finding those who carried out the assassination and bringing them to justice.
Rae left the NDP for the Liberals. With this speech on Afghanistan he shows he could just as easily migrate to the Conservatives. Of course with people such as Manley already working for the Conservatives in effect I guess this should not be surprising. Even Bush is not as stupid as Rae. Bush will continue to support Musharraf. He understands that Musharraf cannot just crush the territories just like that. To even try this might be to plunge into civil war and/or be overthrown. Musharraf was bang on when he was irritated by Canadian claims he was not being tough enough on terrorism. THe Pakistan armed forces have suffered many casualties in battles with extremists in the territories and suffered many terrorist incidents. Compared to the Pakistanis. Canadians in Afghanistan have suffered only a few casualties.
What Canada and the US mean by stability is a regime able to control any forces opposed to US hegemony in the region. Iran is reasonably stable but that is not what they want!
The US is still calling for elections. This only makes sense in terms of US foreign policy but is ludicrous democratic terms. The main opposition parties are all
going to boycott the elections so if they were to go ahead Musharraf is guaranteed to win. Even Musharraf will probably realise that the lack of legitimacy would be so great it would be better to postpone the elections until later. Actually I may be wrong about this since I just heard that Bhutto's party has not made up its mind. Her party would probably get a huge sympathy vote and could come out very well.
Bhutto's death could echo on Afghan mission: former diplomat
Last Updated: Friday, December 28, 2007 | 11:36 AM ET
CBC News
The instability gripping Pakistan following the assassination of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto could spill over to neighbouring Afghanistan, where Canadian soldiers are fighting Taliban insurgents, a former Canadian diplomat said.
Bhutto, twice Pakistan's prime minister, was killed Thursday in a suicide attack at a campaign rally in the northern city of Rawalpindi, about 18 kilometres south of the capital Islamabad.
At least 20 other people also died in the attack, which Pakistan's interior minister has blamed on the Taliban and al-Qaeda.
Louis Delvoie, a former Canadian high commissioner to Pakistan, said Thursday's violent attack will surely make the job of NATO soldiers on the ground in Afghanistan harder.
Western nations, including Canada, have called on Pakistan to take a more active role in preventing Taliban fighters from entering Afghanistan from its territory.
But Delvoie said Pakistan's embattled president, Pervez Musharraf, will now be focused on retaining power and internal stability instead of helping stop the flow of Taliban fighters, money and arms across the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.
"There will be greater freedom of movement for the Taliban across the border, and it will mean in many ways that the NATO forces, including Canadian forces, will have to rely on their own military ability to beat the Taliban in Afghanistan," Delvoie told CBC News.
'Nightmare scenario'
Delvoie, a senior fellow at Queen's University in Kingston, Ont., who met Bhutto several times in the early 1990s, put forth several bleak scenarios for Pakistan in the wake of Bhutto's assassination.
One included a potential coup by Islamist sympathizers within the officer core of the armed forces, supported by Islamist political parties.
"At that point, you would have the nightmare scenario of an Islamist military government with nuclear weapons," he said.
Delvoie said any such development would likely lead to direct conflict with Pakistan's nuclear-armed rival India, which placed its forces on a "high state of vigil" after Bhutto's assassination.
The two sides have fought each other in two wars in the last four decades and came perilously close to military conflict in 2002.
But Pakistan's military is cohesive and has been able to rule the country for more than half its existence amid numerous political crises, said Tariq Amin-Khan, a politics professor at Ryerson University.
"The situation is still very, very unstable," Amin-Khan told CBC News on Friday in a telephone interview from Karachi. "But I wouldn't be too worried about the nuclear arsenal falling into the hands of Islamists."
The U.S. Defence Department still listed Pakistan's nuclear arsenal as "under control," a spokesman for the Pentagon said Friday.
Musharraf 'ineffective' in curbing extremism: Rae
Federal Liberal foreign affairs critic Bob Rae said it's hardly a secret that the Taliban's military strength, education, funding and ideological lifeblood all come from northwestern Pakistan.
He said the international community must wake up and appreciate the implications of Bhutto's killing and the instability it has sparked in the region.
"This issue becomes even more acute and important for the world when we consider that Pakistan is a nuclear power," Rae told reporters Thursday.
"We now clearly have a government which, as well as being highly repressive, has also proved to been singularly ineffective in its own efforts to deal with extremism."
Rae said Canada must look beyond its military role in Afghanistan and join diplomatic efforts to make the region stable.
After Thursday's violence, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said he is also concerned about the stability of the region and what it will mean to Canadian soldiers.
He said Canada is offering its support and co-operation to the Pakistani government in finding those who carried out the assassination and bringing them to justice.
Wednesday, December 26, 2007
Mackay repeats Bush line on Iran..
Interesting that Karzai does not repeat this refrain. It is no doubt meant to curry favor with the US and to no doubt soften Canadians should Israel or the US attack Iran..This is just one more bit of evidence that Canada is quickly becoming a prime conduit of US propaganda and one of the most reliable junior partner in helping out US foreign policy and hegemonic aims.
McKay is perhaps famous for his double-cross of David Orchard after promising not to sell-out the Progressive Conservative Party:
" In 2003, Peter MacKay memorably signed a scrawled deal with maverick rival candidate David Orchard, gaining Orchard's support while promising to preserve the Progressive Conservative party in the face of pressure to merge with the Canadian Alliance.
MacKay promptly double-crossed Orchard, ending the PC era and creating the new Conservative party currently in power."
The new Regressive Conservative Party has rewarded MacKay now minister of defence in charge of pandering to the US.
MacKay says Iran giving weapons to Taliban
Defence Minister makes comments during Christmas visit to Afghanistan
Last Updated: Tuesday, December 25, 2007 | 2:08 PM ET
CBC News
Canada's defence minister has accused Iran of providing weapons to the Taliban and fuelling the conflict in Afghanistan, where thousands of Canadian troops are involved in military operations.
Peter MacKay made the comments at Kandahar Airfield, where he is spending Christmas Day serving a Yuletide meal to hundreds of soldiers.
Defence Minister Peter MacKay serves up Christmas dinner to Canadian troops at the airfield in Kandahar, Afghanistan, on Tuesday.
(Tobi Cohen/Canadian Press) Speaking to reporters after the festivities, MacKay accused Afghanistan's neighbour, Iran, of propelling the conflict by providing improvised explosive devices (IEDs), or roadside bombs, to insurgents there.
"We're very concerned that weapons are coming in from Iran. We're very concerned that these weapons are going to the insurgents."
Although Iran has been accused of interfering in Afghanistan in the past, MacKay's comments mark the first time a Canadian government official has made the accusation publicly. MacKay said the Iranian government is aware of his concerns.
It is also the first time the government has admitted that Iranian weapons are being used to target Canadian soldiers.
Continue Article
Canada has about 2,500 soldiers deployed in Afghanistan, as part of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force. It has lost 73 troops and one diplomat since beginning the mission in early 2002, in the wake of the U.S.-led invasion that ousted the Taliban government.
Most of Canada's deaths have been the result of IEDs.
MacKay was joined in Afghanistan by Chief of Defence Staff Gen. Rick Hillier, who said his soldiers believe in the mission and are committed to helping build the Afghan army and the police force so they can eventually look after their own affairs.
MacKay spent most of the Christmas Day meal running plates of food to some 900-odd soldiers seated at decorated tables.
"Everyone in Canada is cheering for you," he told the crowd. "You're Canada's team."
MacKay made special mention of the Van Doos, the Royal 22nd Regiment, which is based at CFB Valcartier north of Quebec City, calling them the pride of both Quebec and Canada. He said Canadians across the country are appreciative of the work they're doing.
In the summer, the Van Doos were deployed for the first time to dangerous southern Afghanistan, amid controversy in Quebec over the Afghan mission.
McKay is perhaps famous for his double-cross of David Orchard after promising not to sell-out the Progressive Conservative Party:
" In 2003, Peter MacKay memorably signed a scrawled deal with maverick rival candidate David Orchard, gaining Orchard's support while promising to preserve the Progressive Conservative party in the face of pressure to merge with the Canadian Alliance.
MacKay promptly double-crossed Orchard, ending the PC era and creating the new Conservative party currently in power."
The new Regressive Conservative Party has rewarded MacKay now minister of defence in charge of pandering to the US.
MacKay says Iran giving weapons to Taliban
Defence Minister makes comments during Christmas visit to Afghanistan
Last Updated: Tuesday, December 25, 2007 | 2:08 PM ET
CBC News
Canada's defence minister has accused Iran of providing weapons to the Taliban and fuelling the conflict in Afghanistan, where thousands of Canadian troops are involved in military operations.
Peter MacKay made the comments at Kandahar Airfield, where he is spending Christmas Day serving a Yuletide meal to hundreds of soldiers.
Defence Minister Peter MacKay serves up Christmas dinner to Canadian troops at the airfield in Kandahar, Afghanistan, on Tuesday.
(Tobi Cohen/Canadian Press) Speaking to reporters after the festivities, MacKay accused Afghanistan's neighbour, Iran, of propelling the conflict by providing improvised explosive devices (IEDs), or roadside bombs, to insurgents there.
"We're very concerned that weapons are coming in from Iran. We're very concerned that these weapons are going to the insurgents."
Although Iran has been accused of interfering in Afghanistan in the past, MacKay's comments mark the first time a Canadian government official has made the accusation publicly. MacKay said the Iranian government is aware of his concerns.
It is also the first time the government has admitted that Iranian weapons are being used to target Canadian soldiers.
Continue Article
Canada has about 2,500 soldiers deployed in Afghanistan, as part of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force. It has lost 73 troops and one diplomat since beginning the mission in early 2002, in the wake of the U.S.-led invasion that ousted the Taliban government.
Most of Canada's deaths have been the result of IEDs.
MacKay was joined in Afghanistan by Chief of Defence Staff Gen. Rick Hillier, who said his soldiers believe in the mission and are committed to helping build the Afghan army and the police force so they can eventually look after their own affairs.
MacKay spent most of the Christmas Day meal running plates of food to some 900-odd soldiers seated at decorated tables.
"Everyone in Canada is cheering for you," he told the crowd. "You're Canada's team."
MacKay made special mention of the Van Doos, the Royal 22nd Regiment, which is based at CFB Valcartier north of Quebec City, calling them the pride of both Quebec and Canada. He said Canadians across the country are appreciative of the work they're doing.
In the summer, the Van Doos were deployed for the first time to dangerous southern Afghanistan, amid controversy in Quebec over the Afghan mission.
Thursday, December 20, 2007
Why I said no to Manley
This confirms and gives plenty of evidence for my earlier post on the Manley panel. These people are mostly prominent cheerleaders in making Canada top helpmate of the US in advancing its foreign policy aims--always cloaked under the rubric of the war on terror. In Afghanistan there are even more colorful cloaks: Operation Enduring Freedom--originally Operation Infinite Justice! The original war itself was illegal as shown by articles such as those by Mandel.
Why I said no to Manley
>by Michael Byers
December 19, 2007
Earlier this month, I received an invitation to appear before the "Independent Panel on Canada's Future Role in Afghanistan," headed by John Manley.
My initial reaction was positive. For several years, I've worked hard to sound the alarm about flaws in Canada's counterinsurgency mission and our policies on detainees. Speaking to a panel set up by the government would, I thought, provide a useful opportunity for repeating my concerns.
But then I decided to do some research on the panel.
It quickly became apparent that the word "independent" was a misnomer. It would be difficult to find five people more likely to recommend an extension of the mission than Mr. Manley, Derek Burney, Jake Epp, Paul Tellier and Pamela Wallin.
Canada's mission is as much about Canada-U.S. relations as it is about Afghanistan. So it is probably not a coincidence that all the panel members are avowed supporters of close economic and political ties with the United States.
Mr. Manley, as foreign affairs minister, led the post-9/11 effort to convince Washington that Ottawa was serious about border security. More recently, he co-authored a report that advocates a full customs union between the two countries as well as a common security perimeter – supported by much tighter integration between the Canadian and U.S. militaries.
Ms. Wallin, who served as consul general in New York, played a central role in persuading American opinion-makers that Canada was fully supportive of the "war on terror." She now works as a senior adviser to the Council of the Americas, a free trade-promoting organization that counts some of the largest U.S. corporations among its members.
All five of the panel members have been captured by Big Business. Between them, they sit on 19 corporate boards including Nortel and CIBC (Mr. Manley), CTVglobemedia (Ms. Wallin), CanWest Global and TransCanada Pipelines (Mr. Burney).
The panellists seem to share the view that a strong relationship with our southern neighbour is the sine qua non of economic prosperity and therefore Canadian foreign policy, whatever the decisions of the U.S. administration of the day.
Two of the five panel members have close ties to the Canadian defence industry. Mr. Burney served as president of CAE Inc., the largest Canadian-owned military contractor. Mr. Tellier headed up Bombardier when it was heavily involved in training pilots for the Canadian Forces and other NATO countries.
Three of the five are linked to the Conservative party. Mr. Epp was a cabinet minister in Brian Mulroney's government. Mr. Tellier served as clerk of the Privy Council in the same government. Mr. Burney led the transition team after Stephen Harper's January 2006 election victory.
Most worrying, some of the panel members have already expressed clear views on the very issues they have been asked to examine. Just two months ago, in the journal Policy Options, Mr. Manley wrote: "We often seek to define Canada's role in the world. Well, for whatever reason, we have one in Afghanistan. Let's not abandon it too easily."
It cannot be denied that a clear-eyed assessment of Canada's future role in Afghanistan is needed. Seventy-three Canadian soldiers have died, hundreds more have been seriously wounded, and many billions of dollars spent.
But if Mr. Harper really wanted objective advice, he'd have modelled the Manley panel on the Iraq Study Group in the United States.
The ISG was created, and its two co-chairs selected, by a bipartisan group of U.S. congressmen. George W. Bush endorsed the group but did not choose its members.
The members of the Manley panel have been hand-picked by the prime minister.
Logistical and research support for the ISG was provided by an independent think tank, the U.S. Institute for Peace.
The Institute for Peace set up four working groups composed of non-governmental experts from across the political spectrum. It established a "military senior adviser panel" composed of retired rather than serving officers.
The Manley panel is inordinately dependent on the government. Its six-person secretariat is made up of some of the same officials who have been overseeing the Afghanistan mission. Prominent among these are David Mulroney, the current director of the government's Afghanistan Task Force, Sanjeev Chowdhury, the former director of the Afghanistan Task Force, and Col. Mike Cessford, the former deputy commander of the Canadian mission.
The ISG was charged with conducting "a forward-looking, independent assessment of the current and prospective situation on the ground in Iraq, its impact on the surrounding region, and consequences for U.S. interests." In other words, its mandate was drawn in such a way as to encompass all issues and options, including diplomatic ones.
The mandate of the Manley panel has been focused on recommending one of four set options, all of them featuring continuing roles for the military.
Alternative policies, such as negotiating with the Taliban, have been effectively excluded from consideration. So too have the opportunities for non-military responses to the crisis levels of opium production and the lawlessness in northern Pakistan. And little room has been allowed for serious consideration of whether NATO troops should be replaced with UN peacekeepers.
The ISG operated on its own timetable, and chose to delay its report until after the 2006 congressional elections.
In contrast, the Manley panel has been given a deadline of Jan. 31, 2008. This ensures the report will be released before the next election, when it can be used by the Conservatives to buttress their position of extending the counterinsurgency mission for another two years.
So why would Mr. Manley – a Liberal – play into Mr. Harper's hands?
My guess is that he'd feel duty-bound to answer any prime minister's call. Like the many well-intentioned individuals who have agreed to speak to the panel, or submitted written briefs, Mr. Manley wants to make government work.
I suspect it is this intrinsic loyalty to a democratic ideal that Mr. Harper seeks to exploit. He wants the legitimacy that Mr. Manley and other non-Conservatives can provide.
Well, he's not getting any legitimacy from me. Although it pains me to say it, the Manley panel is a sham.
This article originally appeared in the Ottawa Citizen and is reprinted here with the author's permission. Michael Byers holds the Canada Research Chair in Global Politics and International Law at the University of British Columbia.
Why I said no to Manley
>by Michael Byers
December 19, 2007
Earlier this month, I received an invitation to appear before the "Independent Panel on Canada's Future Role in Afghanistan," headed by John Manley.
My initial reaction was positive. For several years, I've worked hard to sound the alarm about flaws in Canada's counterinsurgency mission and our policies on detainees. Speaking to a panel set up by the government would, I thought, provide a useful opportunity for repeating my concerns.
But then I decided to do some research on the panel.
It quickly became apparent that the word "independent" was a misnomer. It would be difficult to find five people more likely to recommend an extension of the mission than Mr. Manley, Derek Burney, Jake Epp, Paul Tellier and Pamela Wallin.
Canada's mission is as much about Canada-U.S. relations as it is about Afghanistan. So it is probably not a coincidence that all the panel members are avowed supporters of close economic and political ties with the United States.
Mr. Manley, as foreign affairs minister, led the post-9/11 effort to convince Washington that Ottawa was serious about border security. More recently, he co-authored a report that advocates a full customs union between the two countries as well as a common security perimeter – supported by much tighter integration between the Canadian and U.S. militaries.
Ms. Wallin, who served as consul general in New York, played a central role in persuading American opinion-makers that Canada was fully supportive of the "war on terror." She now works as a senior adviser to the Council of the Americas, a free trade-promoting organization that counts some of the largest U.S. corporations among its members.
All five of the panel members have been captured by Big Business. Between them, they sit on 19 corporate boards including Nortel and CIBC (Mr. Manley), CTVglobemedia (Ms. Wallin), CanWest Global and TransCanada Pipelines (Mr. Burney).
The panellists seem to share the view that a strong relationship with our southern neighbour is the sine qua non of economic prosperity and therefore Canadian foreign policy, whatever the decisions of the U.S. administration of the day.
Two of the five panel members have close ties to the Canadian defence industry. Mr. Burney served as president of CAE Inc., the largest Canadian-owned military contractor. Mr. Tellier headed up Bombardier when it was heavily involved in training pilots for the Canadian Forces and other NATO countries.
Three of the five are linked to the Conservative party. Mr. Epp was a cabinet minister in Brian Mulroney's government. Mr. Tellier served as clerk of the Privy Council in the same government. Mr. Burney led the transition team after Stephen Harper's January 2006 election victory.
Most worrying, some of the panel members have already expressed clear views on the very issues they have been asked to examine. Just two months ago, in the journal Policy Options, Mr. Manley wrote: "We often seek to define Canada's role in the world. Well, for whatever reason, we have one in Afghanistan. Let's not abandon it too easily."
It cannot be denied that a clear-eyed assessment of Canada's future role in Afghanistan is needed. Seventy-three Canadian soldiers have died, hundreds more have been seriously wounded, and many billions of dollars spent.
But if Mr. Harper really wanted objective advice, he'd have modelled the Manley panel on the Iraq Study Group in the United States.
The ISG was created, and its two co-chairs selected, by a bipartisan group of U.S. congressmen. George W. Bush endorsed the group but did not choose its members.
The members of the Manley panel have been hand-picked by the prime minister.
Logistical and research support for the ISG was provided by an independent think tank, the U.S. Institute for Peace.
The Institute for Peace set up four working groups composed of non-governmental experts from across the political spectrum. It established a "military senior adviser panel" composed of retired rather than serving officers.
The Manley panel is inordinately dependent on the government. Its six-person secretariat is made up of some of the same officials who have been overseeing the Afghanistan mission. Prominent among these are David Mulroney, the current director of the government's Afghanistan Task Force, Sanjeev Chowdhury, the former director of the Afghanistan Task Force, and Col. Mike Cessford, the former deputy commander of the Canadian mission.
The ISG was charged with conducting "a forward-looking, independent assessment of the current and prospective situation on the ground in Iraq, its impact on the surrounding region, and consequences for U.S. interests." In other words, its mandate was drawn in such a way as to encompass all issues and options, including diplomatic ones.
The mandate of the Manley panel has been focused on recommending one of four set options, all of them featuring continuing roles for the military.
Alternative policies, such as negotiating with the Taliban, have been effectively excluded from consideration. So too have the opportunities for non-military responses to the crisis levels of opium production and the lawlessness in northern Pakistan. And little room has been allowed for serious consideration of whether NATO troops should be replaced with UN peacekeepers.
The ISG operated on its own timetable, and chose to delay its report until after the 2006 congressional elections.
In contrast, the Manley panel has been given a deadline of Jan. 31, 2008. This ensures the report will be released before the next election, when it can be used by the Conservatives to buttress their position of extending the counterinsurgency mission for another two years.
So why would Mr. Manley – a Liberal – play into Mr. Harper's hands?
My guess is that he'd feel duty-bound to answer any prime minister's call. Like the many well-intentioned individuals who have agreed to speak to the panel, or submitted written briefs, Mr. Manley wants to make government work.
I suspect it is this intrinsic loyalty to a democratic ideal that Mr. Harper seeks to exploit. He wants the legitimacy that Mr. Manley and other non-Conservatives can provide.
Well, he's not getting any legitimacy from me. Although it pains me to say it, the Manley panel is a sham.
This article originally appeared in the Ottawa Citizen and is reprinted here with the author's permission. Michael Byers holds the Canada Research Chair in Global Politics and International Law at the University of British Columbia.
Friday, September 28, 2007
Canada defends policy on Afghan clans
This article makes clear that aid projects are not based upon local needs so much as the need to bribe people to support the Karzai government. The aid is a carrot and the special forces operations of Enduring Freedom are the stick.
The commentators here do not even comment on the killing of two mullahs or who might have done it. One person does mention that confidence that is built up in 100 days can be lost in an afternoon. He might have said in one raid and killings but he didnt. One wonders if the Canadians know what the special forces are doing and accept their roles. The Canadians are the good cops and the US special forces the bad cops.
In the light of this article it should hardly be surprising to anyone that the
Taliban will target aid workers since in these cases at least they are simply another form of battle against them. In the present situation it seems that aid is so integrated into the war against the Taliban and other opponents of Karzai that Canada should stay out period. We are simply being used as junior partners in US imperialism.
Canada defends policy on Afghan clans
GRAEME SMITH
From Friday's Globe and Mail
September 28, 2007 at 12:38 AM EDT
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — Canada will not immediately try to douse the anger that flared up this week in a village near Kandahar city after two religious teachers were killed in their homes, a military officer says, in a case that reveals the way Canadian forces are handling rebellious tribes.
The raid by foreign soldiers that left two mullahs dead on Wednesday was only the latest reason for upset in the village of Senjaray, a suburb of Kandahar city. Almost all of the people who protested in the hours afterward were members of the Alizai tribe, a group that often feels disenfranchised by the new government. They claim they're denied reconstruction projects and shut out of positions of influence in the local administration.
A Canadian official confirmed yesterday that some of the Alizais' complaints have a factual basis. Villages considered hostile to the government are shut out of assistance programs in the hope they will become more compliant, and that policy won't change just because the Alizais are shouting “death to Canada” in the streets, said Lieutenant Derrick Farnham, a civilian-military liaison officer at Canadian headquarters in Kandahar.
“We try very hard not to be reactionary, to go and quell anger and solve it immediately,” Lt. Farnham said. “That's something that has been done in the past, and it's been termed the ‘great game' in Afghanistan, where locals play one side off the other in terms of getting treats and gifts, and that's something we want to avoid.”
year'
The Canadian civilian-military co-operation unit, known as Cimic, is responsible for handing out valuable reconstruction contracts, and the bundles of cash often represent the first benefits of government control that villagers experience after the Taliban have been driven away.
The Cimic team has mapped the districts west of Kandahar according to their alignment with the government and concentrated on helping villages that seem most eager to co-operate, Lt. Farnham said, on the theory that disgruntled villages will envy the money dished out to their pro-government neighbours and try to emulate them.
This strategy of reinforcing good behaviour runs against the historical methods that foreign powers have used to subdue the restive tribes of Afghanistan, the lieutenant said. The British and the Soviets both tried to buy off their enemies, he said, but the benefits didn't last and both empires eventually failed to secure the country.
“We don't want to be in a situation where we're just seen as bribing people who have a grudge against us,” he said.
“When we make progress, it's sometimes described as glacial. It can't be fast, and it probably wouldn't be best to be fast. It has to be small steps that are steadily forward.” He acknowledged that the Canadian strategy might aggravate anti-government sentiment among some tribesmen, but added that it's impractical to launch projects in areas where they're not welcome.
“It may harden attitudes,” he said. “But we are not invited into many areas. We have tried to go into some areas, we have tried to do development there, but we're not wanted.” Besides projects, the Canadians can also help by listening to villagers' concerns, he added.
“Just giving them a forum can really count,” Lt. Farnham said, although he said he isn't aware of any plans to hold meetings with the people who protested this week.
The protests have set back Canadian attempts to build trust among the people who live near a strategic stretch of highway outside Kandahar city, another military official said.
“You can build it [confidence] for 100 days and in one afternoon you can lose it all,” he said.
New Feature: Recommend this article to other
The commentators here do not even comment on the killing of two mullahs or who might have done it. One person does mention that confidence that is built up in 100 days can be lost in an afternoon. He might have said in one raid and killings but he didnt. One wonders if the Canadians know what the special forces are doing and accept their roles. The Canadians are the good cops and the US special forces the bad cops.
In the light of this article it should hardly be surprising to anyone that the
Taliban will target aid workers since in these cases at least they are simply another form of battle against them. In the present situation it seems that aid is so integrated into the war against the Taliban and other opponents of Karzai that Canada should stay out period. We are simply being used as junior partners in US imperialism.
Canada defends policy on Afghan clans
GRAEME SMITH
From Friday's Globe and Mail
September 28, 2007 at 12:38 AM EDT
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — Canada will not immediately try to douse the anger that flared up this week in a village near Kandahar city after two religious teachers were killed in their homes, a military officer says, in a case that reveals the way Canadian forces are handling rebellious tribes.
The raid by foreign soldiers that left two mullahs dead on Wednesday was only the latest reason for upset in the village of Senjaray, a suburb of Kandahar city. Almost all of the people who protested in the hours afterward were members of the Alizai tribe, a group that often feels disenfranchised by the new government. They claim they're denied reconstruction projects and shut out of positions of influence in the local administration.
A Canadian official confirmed yesterday that some of the Alizais' complaints have a factual basis. Villages considered hostile to the government are shut out of assistance programs in the hope they will become more compliant, and that policy won't change just because the Alizais are shouting “death to Canada” in the streets, said Lieutenant Derrick Farnham, a civilian-military liaison officer at Canadian headquarters in Kandahar.
“We try very hard not to be reactionary, to go and quell anger and solve it immediately,” Lt. Farnham said. “That's something that has been done in the past, and it's been termed the ‘great game' in Afghanistan, where locals play one side off the other in terms of getting treats and gifts, and that's something we want to avoid.”
year'
The Canadian civilian-military co-operation unit, known as Cimic, is responsible for handing out valuable reconstruction contracts, and the bundles of cash often represent the first benefits of government control that villagers experience after the Taliban have been driven away.
The Cimic team has mapped the districts west of Kandahar according to their alignment with the government and concentrated on helping villages that seem most eager to co-operate, Lt. Farnham said, on the theory that disgruntled villages will envy the money dished out to their pro-government neighbours and try to emulate them.
This strategy of reinforcing good behaviour runs against the historical methods that foreign powers have used to subdue the restive tribes of Afghanistan, the lieutenant said. The British and the Soviets both tried to buy off their enemies, he said, but the benefits didn't last and both empires eventually failed to secure the country.
“We don't want to be in a situation where we're just seen as bribing people who have a grudge against us,” he said.
“When we make progress, it's sometimes described as glacial. It can't be fast, and it probably wouldn't be best to be fast. It has to be small steps that are steadily forward.” He acknowledged that the Canadian strategy might aggravate anti-government sentiment among some tribesmen, but added that it's impractical to launch projects in areas where they're not welcome.
“It may harden attitudes,” he said. “But we are not invited into many areas. We have tried to go into some areas, we have tried to do development there, but we're not wanted.” Besides projects, the Canadians can also help by listening to villagers' concerns, he added.
“Just giving them a forum can really count,” Lt. Farnham said, although he said he isn't aware of any plans to hold meetings with the people who protested this week.
The protests have set back Canadian attempts to build trust among the people who live near a strategic stretch of highway outside Kandahar city, another military official said.
“You can build it [confidence] for 100 days and in one afternoon you can lose it all,” he said.
New Feature: Recommend this article to other
Friday, September 7, 2007
Stay the Course, NATO urges Canada
Nice that Canadian taxpayers fund a Canadian Forces Airbus to ferry NATO bigwigs about in style. The visitors also get a demonstration from the Snowbirds! Apparently no one worries about military fuel use or pollution by excessive use of fuel on behalf of the military.
Although NATO does not enter the debate they make sure they inform us of their point of view. I think the term: Stay The Course was patented by Bush on Iraq but no doubt it lapsed from disuse. Notice that Henault did not use the phrase!
Stay the course, NATO urges Canada
Top military officer hopeful Ottawa will extend commitment beyond February, 2009
ALAN FREEMAN
From Friday's Globe and Mail
September 7, 2007 at 5:02 AM EDT
OTTAWA — NATO's top military officer says that it's up to Canada to decide whether it wishes to maintain combat troops in Afghanistan, but he added that he hopes the Canadian government will continue its involvement in NATO's Afghan mission beyond February, 2009.
General Ray Hénault, the Canadian who chairs NATO's military committee, said it is important to "stay the course" in Afghanistan, calling it "a long-term mission" with no way to predict its length.
The general was speaking at the start of a four-day visit to Canada by the top soldiers from the 26 members of the alliance who make up the NATO Military Committee.
"We're very conscious of the fact that several members of the alliance are discussing their participation in the Afghanistan mission," Gen. Hénault said at a news conference after arriving aboard a Canadian Forces Airbus from Brussels, accompanied by the defence chiefs. "We try to adapt as well as possible to the changing circumstances of different nations."
Asked about the scheduled end of Canada's combat role in Kandahar in February, 2009, Gen. Hénault said it was still 1½ years way and "a lot of things can happen in 18 months."
The general, formerly Canada's chief of the defence staff, said that NATO would not get involved in the debate in Canada or other NATO countries over the future of their commitments. But he added, "We're certainly hopeful that Canada will find a way to continue to co-operate in Afghanistan because of what Canada represents in the international community."
The general and his colleagues - who were greeted at Ottawa International Airport by General Rick Hillier, Canada's Chief of the Defence Staff, a military band and a demonstration by the Snowbirds acrobatic airplane team - are meeting in Canada for the first time in a decade. This week's session is one of a series of three such gatherings that take place annually.
After a state dinner with Governor-General Michaëlle Jean in Ottawa, they move to Victoria for formal meetings, where they are due to discuss issues including training, resources and operational planning as well as NATO missions in Afghanistan, Kosovo and Darfur.
Gen. Hénault was peppered with questions about how NATO will react to the withdrawal of Canada's 2,500 combat troops from the volatile Kandahar region. The government has said repeatedly that this particular mission will end unless Parliament approves an extension, which seems unlikely, although a mission to a safer part of the country would be more palatable politically to the opposition Liberals.
The general was careful to say that the decision on troop deployment belongs to Canada alone, and he wouldn't be drawn into a discussion of who would replace the Canadians. The NATO force has 33,000 troops from 26 NATO countries and 11 partner nations operating in Afghanistan.
Asked about the Dutch government's review of its participation in the Afghan force, the general responded that "we're hopeful that they too will find ways of continuing to operate in Afghanistan."
He said that NATO was constantly assessing "force generation" issues, which involve matching available troops with needs in the field, but he would not say how much formal notice NATO needs before replacing the Canadians in Kandahar.
Although NATO does not enter the debate they make sure they inform us of their point of view. I think the term: Stay The Course was patented by Bush on Iraq but no doubt it lapsed from disuse. Notice that Henault did not use the phrase!
Stay the course, NATO urges Canada
Top military officer hopeful Ottawa will extend commitment beyond February, 2009
ALAN FREEMAN
From Friday's Globe and Mail
September 7, 2007 at 5:02 AM EDT
OTTAWA — NATO's top military officer says that it's up to Canada to decide whether it wishes to maintain combat troops in Afghanistan, but he added that he hopes the Canadian government will continue its involvement in NATO's Afghan mission beyond February, 2009.
General Ray Hénault, the Canadian who chairs NATO's military committee, said it is important to "stay the course" in Afghanistan, calling it "a long-term mission" with no way to predict its length.
The general was speaking at the start of a four-day visit to Canada by the top soldiers from the 26 members of the alliance who make up the NATO Military Committee.
"We're very conscious of the fact that several members of the alliance are discussing their participation in the Afghanistan mission," Gen. Hénault said at a news conference after arriving aboard a Canadian Forces Airbus from Brussels, accompanied by the defence chiefs. "We try to adapt as well as possible to the changing circumstances of different nations."
Asked about the scheduled end of Canada's combat role in Kandahar in February, 2009, Gen. Hénault said it was still 1½ years way and "a lot of things can happen in 18 months."
The general, formerly Canada's chief of the defence staff, said that NATO would not get involved in the debate in Canada or other NATO countries over the future of their commitments. But he added, "We're certainly hopeful that Canada will find a way to continue to co-operate in Afghanistan because of what Canada represents in the international community."
The general and his colleagues - who were greeted at Ottawa International Airport by General Rick Hillier, Canada's Chief of the Defence Staff, a military band and a demonstration by the Snowbirds acrobatic airplane team - are meeting in Canada for the first time in a decade. This week's session is one of a series of three such gatherings that take place annually.
After a state dinner with Governor-General Michaëlle Jean in Ottawa, they move to Victoria for formal meetings, where they are due to discuss issues including training, resources and operational planning as well as NATO missions in Afghanistan, Kosovo and Darfur.
Gen. Hénault was peppered with questions about how NATO will react to the withdrawal of Canada's 2,500 combat troops from the volatile Kandahar region. The government has said repeatedly that this particular mission will end unless Parliament approves an extension, which seems unlikely, although a mission to a safer part of the country would be more palatable politically to the opposition Liberals.
The general was careful to say that the decision on troop deployment belongs to Canada alone, and he wouldn't be drawn into a discussion of who would replace the Canadians. The NATO force has 33,000 troops from 26 NATO countries and 11 partner nations operating in Afghanistan.
Asked about the Dutch government's review of its participation in the Afghan force, the general responded that "we're hopeful that they too will find ways of continuing to operate in Afghanistan."
He said that NATO was constantly assessing "force generation" issues, which involve matching available troops with needs in the field, but he would not say how much formal notice NATO needs before replacing the Canadians in Kandahar.
Friday, August 31, 2007
The "other" war at home.
I don't know why Riley thinks it is obvious that Canadian troops will be withdrawn in 2009. Harper probably wants to extend the period and no doubt some people in the military as well. The drug trade depends on the co-operation of many people besides the Taliban and many of those who profit have connections with or are even part of the government. Partial destruction of the crops is worse than useless. It hurts the farmer's concerned who will then turn to the Taliban but the dealers remain unscathed as drug prices go up because of the relative scarcity and so their income may not decline at all. For some reason the news media never mentions that under the Taliban production was severely curtailed.
Susan Riley . The "other" war at home
Susan Riley
The Ottawa Citizen
Friday, August 31, 2007
It is amazing the way politicians can make simple things so complicated. It seems obvious, for instance, that Canada's troops will be withdrawn from Kandahar in February, 2009, as originally planned.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper has said the final decision will be made by the Commons, where a majority of MPs support withdrawal - in the case of the New Democratic Party, immediate withdrawal. Even if New Democrats insist, as they have before, on their own timetable and no other, it would be suicidal for them to support the government if it risks extending the mission, even if it risks prolonging the ambiguity.
On the other side, there isn't much political downside in voting for withdrawal. If anything, support for the war is likely to wane, rather than rise, with mounting casualties and increasing evidence of the mission's futility. Nor can Canada be accused of cutting and running, given the costs born by our much-admired military and the conspicuous reluctance of other countries to join the battle.
But instead of accepting reality and beginning the crucial debate on what role, if any, Canada should play in Afghanistan after Kandahar, the parties are consumed with domestic positioning. Gilles Duceppe has declared that he will not vote for the Throne Speech, expected in October, unless it confirms plans to leave Kandahar by 2009. Duceppe has little choice: with Quebec opinion massively against the war and hardening with every death, it is his best wedge against a resurgent Conservative party.
Yesterday, Liberal Leader Stphane Dion was more circumspect: he appears not to want a sudden election, but he keeps pushing Harper to make Canada's position clear to our allies. He has a point: why prolong the uncertainty, when everyone knows we are headed for the door? On the other hand, Harper - accused by Dion of wanting to extend the mission, not end it - has no reason to hurry. Anything could happen in the next 17 months (including, of course, increasing pressure for a speedier withdrawal). Whatever, even a delayed decision by Canada to pull out will hardly surprise our NATO allies; they read newspapers, too.
While this petty skirmishing continues, only glancing attention was paid to a report from the Senlis Council this week, an international research agency headed by Canadian lawyer Norine MacDonald. The council found scant evidence that Canada's aid money is finding its way to Kandahar. Although CIDA (Canadian International Development Agency) has earmarked $5.3 million for Kandahar's main Mirwais hospital, for instance, MacDonald's team found starving children on the wards and over-taxed doctors dealing with acute shortages of drugs, beds and cleaning staff. As for $350,000 allocated by CIDA for a maternity facility at the hospital, MacDonald's video team found only an empty tent that was removed after it finished filming.
Newly appointed CIDA minister Bev Oda said MacDonald didn't have "all the information" and insists Canadian aid money is finding its way to Kandahar - even though CIDA only has three officers in the country and a small local staff to track it.
But whom to believe? A minister, two minutes into her job (and not a notable success at her last), confined, as are all Harper's ministers, to reading approved lines from the PMO? Or MacDonald, who has lived and worked in Kandahar for more than two years and travelled widely in the region, sometimes disguised as a boy? Nor does Senlis have a notably anti-Tory agenda: it supports the mission in Afghanistan and believes premature withdrawal would mean disaster for the people it is trying to help.
However, it is also urging western governments to divert some of Afghanistan's flourishing poppy crop to the production of legal medicines, much needed in poorer countries. This seemingly sensible suggestion has been met mostly with silence from our government. Meanwhile, U.S. forces continue destroying poppy fields, while some NATO countries quietly disagree, others take a hands-off position - and Afghanistan produces a record heroin crop destined for the world's most squalid neighbourhoods.
There are, in fact, two wars in Afghanistan: the real one that MacDonald, and other eye-witnesses describe, the one the Taliban and the drug lords appear to be winning. There is also the largely notional war being waged by western ideologues and politicians.
The fact that the Taliban is now killing our soldiers with roadside bombs, instead of bullets, for instance, is offered as evidence that we have beaten them on the battlefield. (Talk about Pyrrhic victories). The $1 billion earmarked by CIDA for reconstruction is advanced as proof of our humanitarian concern, although there is little to show for the money on the ground.
Never mind. This is the war we are winning.
Susan Riley's column runs Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
E-mail: sriley@thecitizen.canwest.com
© The Ottawa Citizen 2007
Susan Riley . The "other" war at home
Susan Riley
The Ottawa Citizen
Friday, August 31, 2007
It is amazing the way politicians can make simple things so complicated. It seems obvious, for instance, that Canada's troops will be withdrawn from Kandahar in February, 2009, as originally planned.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper has said the final decision will be made by the Commons, where a majority of MPs support withdrawal - in the case of the New Democratic Party, immediate withdrawal. Even if New Democrats insist, as they have before, on their own timetable and no other, it would be suicidal for them to support the government if it risks extending the mission, even if it risks prolonging the ambiguity.
On the other side, there isn't much political downside in voting for withdrawal. If anything, support for the war is likely to wane, rather than rise, with mounting casualties and increasing evidence of the mission's futility. Nor can Canada be accused of cutting and running, given the costs born by our much-admired military and the conspicuous reluctance of other countries to join the battle.
But instead of accepting reality and beginning the crucial debate on what role, if any, Canada should play in Afghanistan after Kandahar, the parties are consumed with domestic positioning. Gilles Duceppe has declared that he will not vote for the Throne Speech, expected in October, unless it confirms plans to leave Kandahar by 2009. Duceppe has little choice: with Quebec opinion massively against the war and hardening with every death, it is his best wedge against a resurgent Conservative party.
Yesterday, Liberal Leader Stphane Dion was more circumspect: he appears not to want a sudden election, but he keeps pushing Harper to make Canada's position clear to our allies. He has a point: why prolong the uncertainty, when everyone knows we are headed for the door? On the other hand, Harper - accused by Dion of wanting to extend the mission, not end it - has no reason to hurry. Anything could happen in the next 17 months (including, of course, increasing pressure for a speedier withdrawal). Whatever, even a delayed decision by Canada to pull out will hardly surprise our NATO allies; they read newspapers, too.
While this petty skirmishing continues, only glancing attention was paid to a report from the Senlis Council this week, an international research agency headed by Canadian lawyer Norine MacDonald. The council found scant evidence that Canada's aid money is finding its way to Kandahar. Although CIDA (Canadian International Development Agency) has earmarked $5.3 million for Kandahar's main Mirwais hospital, for instance, MacDonald's team found starving children on the wards and over-taxed doctors dealing with acute shortages of drugs, beds and cleaning staff. As for $350,000 allocated by CIDA for a maternity facility at the hospital, MacDonald's video team found only an empty tent that was removed after it finished filming.
Newly appointed CIDA minister Bev Oda said MacDonald didn't have "all the information" and insists Canadian aid money is finding its way to Kandahar - even though CIDA only has three officers in the country and a small local staff to track it.
But whom to believe? A minister, two minutes into her job (and not a notable success at her last), confined, as are all Harper's ministers, to reading approved lines from the PMO? Or MacDonald, who has lived and worked in Kandahar for more than two years and travelled widely in the region, sometimes disguised as a boy? Nor does Senlis have a notably anti-Tory agenda: it supports the mission in Afghanistan and believes premature withdrawal would mean disaster for the people it is trying to help.
However, it is also urging western governments to divert some of Afghanistan's flourishing poppy crop to the production of legal medicines, much needed in poorer countries. This seemingly sensible suggestion has been met mostly with silence from our government. Meanwhile, U.S. forces continue destroying poppy fields, while some NATO countries quietly disagree, others take a hands-off position - and Afghanistan produces a record heroin crop destined for the world's most squalid neighbourhoods.
There are, in fact, two wars in Afghanistan: the real one that MacDonald, and other eye-witnesses describe, the one the Taliban and the drug lords appear to be winning. There is also the largely notional war being waged by western ideologues and politicians.
The fact that the Taliban is now killing our soldiers with roadside bombs, instead of bullets, for instance, is offered as evidence that we have beaten them on the battlefield. (Talk about Pyrrhic victories). The $1 billion earmarked by CIDA for reconstruction is advanced as proof of our humanitarian concern, although there is little to show for the money on the ground.
Never mind. This is the war we are winning.
Susan Riley's column runs Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
E-mail: sriley@thecitizen.canwest.com
© The Ottawa Citizen 2007
Monday, July 2, 2007
Canada in Afghanistan as retribution for 9/11 : Defence Minister
This is from an article in the Edmonton Journal in January of this year. Note that O'Connor claims that when the Taliban or Al Qaeda came out of Afghanistan they attacked the Twin Towers. But the Taliban were not directly involved at all! There were Al Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan but there were no Afghans directly involved. The level of ignorance displayed by O'Connor is astounding but I suppose not surprising.The justification of the mission is often even worse, a series of pious platitudes. Even the Queen joins in. At least it is possible to criticise O'Connor but most of the justification is such that attacking it would be like attacking Motherhood-- perhaps Canadian Values would be a less sexist way of expressing the matter!
Canadian troops in Afghanistan as 9/11 'retribution
' O'Connor: Attack on New York killed 25 Canadians
Andrea Sands
The Edmonton Journal
Sunday, January 21, 2007
EDMONTON - Canada is fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan in "retribution" for the 9/11 attacks that killed at least 3,000 people, including 25 Canadians, Defence Minister Gordon O'Connor said yesterday.
The hard-hitting comments, which prompted a round of applause from Mr. O'Connor's Edmonton audience, came in addition to the government's usual reasoning about Canada's duty to help the Afghanistan people.
Speaking at a symposium about Afghanistan, Mr. O'Connor said Canadian soldiers are in the country because Afghanistan's democratically elected government wants them there, because Canada has a responsibility to help as one of the world's richest countries and because the war is in Canada's own interest.
"When the Taliban or al-Qaeda came out of Afghanistan, they attacked the Twin Towers and in those twin towers, 25 Canadians were killed. The previous government and this government will not allow Canadians to be killed without retribution," Mr. O'Connor told his audience of roughly 200 people, many of them military personnel.
In an interview after his speech, Mr. O'Connor said the word retribution doesn't necessarily mean punishment.
"What it means is, if our country is attacked, we are not going to stand blandly by and not do anything about it," he said.
"I don't believe the (former) Liberal government would have committed us to Afghanistan had there not been Canadians killed."
Mr. O'Connor's comments come as a fresh contingent of soldiers -- 2,200 troops from bases in Atlantic Canada, Ontario and Alberta -- prepare to depart for the war-torn country.
There are about 2,500 Canadian troops stationed in Afghanistan, mostly in the south of the country, where the Taliban is the strongest.
Since Canada sent troops there in 2002, 44 soldiers and one diplomat have been killed.
Canada does not want a Taliban government to regain control of Afghanistan because it would provide fertile ground for terrorism, Mr. O'Connor warned.
"If they returned and took the government, they then would allow terrorist organizations to operate in the country, international terrorist organizations. We believe that."
But Saleem Qureshi, a professor of Middle East politics at the University of Alberta, said the federal government should pull Canadian soldiers out of the country.
The soldiers are doing heroic work, but war carried out by the world's most powerful states will always prompt less powerful opponents to use terrorism, Mr. Qureshi argued.
"Political issues can only be resolved by political negotiations."
The Afghan mission continues to be a controversial topic politically, with the NDP calling for a withdrawal of troops and the Bloc Quebecois demanding the mission focus on reconstruction.
After an emotional debate in the House of Commons, Prime Minster Stephen Harper won a vote last year to extend the mission in Afghanistan until at least 2009.
In a recent online poll by Innovative Research Group -- conducted this month and provided exclusively to CanWest News Service -- support for the Afghanistan mission stood at 58 per cent among Canadians, versus 38 per cent opposed. The numbers were up from a previous poll by the same group that showed 54 per cent in favour of the mission and 42 per cent opposed. The poll surveyed 2,206 Canadians and is accurate within 2.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.
Spectator Capt. Craig Paterson of 15 Service Battalion in Edmonton said he agreed with the minister's reasoning.
By keeping al-Qaeda members "busy on their own land," it is harder for them to launch attacks here, Capt. Paterson said.
"If we leave them alone and allow them to build up their support and their equipment and their planning, it's just a matter of time, I think, before they will come over here," he said.
© The Ottawa Citizen 2007
Copyright © 2007 CanWest Interactive, a division of CanWest MediaWorks Publications, Inc.. All rights reserved.
Canadian troops in Afghanistan as 9/11 'retribution
' O'Connor: Attack on New York killed 25 Canadians
Andrea Sands
The Edmonton Journal
Sunday, January 21, 2007
EDMONTON - Canada is fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan in "retribution" for the 9/11 attacks that killed at least 3,000 people, including 25 Canadians, Defence Minister Gordon O'Connor said yesterday.
The hard-hitting comments, which prompted a round of applause from Mr. O'Connor's Edmonton audience, came in addition to the government's usual reasoning about Canada's duty to help the Afghanistan people.
Speaking at a symposium about Afghanistan, Mr. O'Connor said Canadian soldiers are in the country because Afghanistan's democratically elected government wants them there, because Canada has a responsibility to help as one of the world's richest countries and because the war is in Canada's own interest.
"When the Taliban or al-Qaeda came out of Afghanistan, they attacked the Twin Towers and in those twin towers, 25 Canadians were killed. The previous government and this government will not allow Canadians to be killed without retribution," Mr. O'Connor told his audience of roughly 200 people, many of them military personnel.
In an interview after his speech, Mr. O'Connor said the word retribution doesn't necessarily mean punishment.
"What it means is, if our country is attacked, we are not going to stand blandly by and not do anything about it," he said.
"I don't believe the (former) Liberal government would have committed us to Afghanistan had there not been Canadians killed."
Mr. O'Connor's comments come as a fresh contingent of soldiers -- 2,200 troops from bases in Atlantic Canada, Ontario and Alberta -- prepare to depart for the war-torn country.
There are about 2,500 Canadian troops stationed in Afghanistan, mostly in the south of the country, where the Taliban is the strongest.
Since Canada sent troops there in 2002, 44 soldiers and one diplomat have been killed.
Canada does not want a Taliban government to regain control of Afghanistan because it would provide fertile ground for terrorism, Mr. O'Connor warned.
"If they returned and took the government, they then would allow terrorist organizations to operate in the country, international terrorist organizations. We believe that."
But Saleem Qureshi, a professor of Middle East politics at the University of Alberta, said the federal government should pull Canadian soldiers out of the country.
The soldiers are doing heroic work, but war carried out by the world's most powerful states will always prompt less powerful opponents to use terrorism, Mr. Qureshi argued.
"Political issues can only be resolved by political negotiations."
The Afghan mission continues to be a controversial topic politically, with the NDP calling for a withdrawal of troops and the Bloc Quebecois demanding the mission focus on reconstruction.
After an emotional debate in the House of Commons, Prime Minster Stephen Harper won a vote last year to extend the mission in Afghanistan until at least 2009.
In a recent online poll by Innovative Research Group -- conducted this month and provided exclusively to CanWest News Service -- support for the Afghanistan mission stood at 58 per cent among Canadians, versus 38 per cent opposed. The numbers were up from a previous poll by the same group that showed 54 per cent in favour of the mission and 42 per cent opposed. The poll surveyed 2,206 Canadians and is accurate within 2.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.
Spectator Capt. Craig Paterson of 15 Service Battalion in Edmonton said he agreed with the minister's reasoning.
By keeping al-Qaeda members "busy on their own land," it is harder for them to launch attacks here, Capt. Paterson said.
"If we leave them alone and allow them to build up their support and their equipment and their planning, it's just a matter of time, I think, before they will come over here," he said.
© The Ottawa Citizen 2007
Copyright © 2007 CanWest Interactive, a division of CanWest MediaWorks Publications, Inc.. All rights reserved.
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