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Afghanistan debate (Hillier, new troops)

I don't respect CB for many reasons beyond his war strategies. I don't respect war. Nato appears to be craving one last kick at the can over in Afghanistan prior to their exit (unsolved problems left behind). War is sick.

I am sure there are smart bikers out there (our police agencies pay them large salaries for their intelligence) but it doesn't mean I want to read them in our national paper. I simply disagree that it's the just thing for any society to approve of convicted criminals writing public opinions as prison takes away some of a persons liberties for the duration of their sentence and opining in national news papers is on my list of crazy things convicts should not be allowed to do while serving their sentence. Conrad Black is not the only convict appealing their sentence and conviction. The law says that he is guilty and he has to prove his innocence now and not the other way around so I have every right to condemn him for his lack of remorse and his special treatment by the national post for publishing his blather.

Now to the new scoop, Russ Williams aka Sovka, commanding officer at Trendon by day and serial killer in his spare time. I would love to read about his war strategies, what he thinks about the Afghan mission......scary shit. Can these criminals separate their day jobs from their criminal behaviours?
 
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12 civilians killed today in a failed bombing attack by NATO in Afghanistan, they missed their target.
Collateral damage. This only makes more enemies. The vicious cycle of war continues.
 
I am looking forward to our troop withdrawal next year, in 2011. It had better happen too, without any fuzzy conditions or exceptions. Canada can still contribute aid and CIDA activity, but I want every Canadian combat soldier home by end of 2011 and every MBT, IFV/APC and helicopter returned to Canada, leased/sold to the other nations staying, or written off. We've now been in Afghanistan longer than Canada was in either the First or Second World Wars, and it's time to come home.

Once we're home, we need a deep think about what the role of Canada's armed forces should be in the 21st Century. We've got an aging fleet of warships designed around ASW ops in the North Atlantic, an equally aging force of CF-18 fighter aircraft defending Canada's airspace against a past Soviet foe, and a worn out army. Meanwhile we have little or no military presence in the north where the North West Passage and resource-rich areas are opening up with the warming climate. And what about protecting our fisheries?

What do we want the Canadian forces to be in the 21st Century?
 
^Snow birds. Seriously, Canada should turn the focus away from fighting battles and focus on creating advanced (peaceful) military gear. More jobs for Canadians would be the result, and less waste of taxpayer money. Take Israel's new Heron HP drone for example. Rather than focus on increasing size and weaponry, what about tiny Canada-Goose-sized drones that would monitor war zones for fairness? More technology, less lives lost.
 
urbandreamer said:
^Snow birds. Seriously, Canada should turn the focus away from fighting battles and focus on creating advanced (peaceful) military gear. More jobs for Canadians would be the result, and less waste of taxpayer money. Take Israel's new Heron HP drone for example. Rather than focus on increasing size and weaponry, what about tiny Canada-Goose-sized drones that would monitor war zones for fairness? More technology, less lives lost.
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Peaceful military gear? What the heck is that? The military is for deterring and/or killing your potential and real enemies. If all you want is SAR and disaster relief, then you don't need a military, you need the Coast Guard and a Canadian combo of the Peace Corp, DART and American Corps of Engineers. And what is "fairness" in a war zone?

And forget the myth that Canada is a leader in UN-led peacekeeping. We're not in Afghanistan keeping the peace. We were not in Korea, Bosnia, Iraq or Somalia keeping the peace for the UN. We were in Rwanda to keep the UN's peace...but didn't. We did not station tens of thousands of military personnel along with their tanks, artillery and aircraft in Europe to keep the peace for the UN, but to ensure that any Soviets would die trying to push the iron curtain westward. Yes, Canada has participated in some successful UN-led peacekeeping ops, such as in Cyprus, Syria and East Timor, but these are exceptions to our military history forged at Paardeberg (South Africa), Vimy Ridge, Juno Beach, Kapyong (Korea) and the Medak Pocket (Bosnia).
 
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Admiral Beez said:
I am looking forward to our troop withdrawal next year, in 2011. It had better happen too, without any fuzzy conditions or exceptions. Canada can still contribute aid and CIDA activity, but I want every Canadian combat soldier home by end of 2011 and every MBT, IFV/APC and helicopter returned to Canada, leased/sold to the other nations staying, or written off. We've now been in Afghanistan longer than Canada was in either the First or Second World Wars, and it's time to come home.
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I actually am really dreading the pull out. We committed to this country, and we'll have to make sure it works. This is the point that we have to work at a political victory instead of military, but we'll have to maintain pressure until that happens. That might mean staying for another 5 years, maybe even a decade, but it'd mean an actual change for the better. But the start will have to be reducing civilian casualties by a huge amount. We've come to the point that we barely talk about civilian casualties, at the most saying it like it's perfectly natural.

Admiral Beez said:
Once we're home, we need a deep think about what the role of Canada's armed forces should be in the 21st Century. We've got an aging fleet of warships designed around ASW ops in the North Atlantic, an equally aging force of CF-18 fighter aircraft defending Canada's airspace against a past Soviet foe, and a worn out army. Meanwhile we have little or no military presence in the north where the North West Passage and resource-rich areas are opening up with the warming climate. And what about protecting our fisheries?

What do we want the Canadian forces to be in the 21st Century?
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I'd actually want us to go back out. Nothing in the same sense as Afghanistan, but real peacekeeping. Relief, infrastructure building, policing, and the like. If a Haiti happens again, we should have the relief reeling in within a day, with police, doctors, and emergency services in hours. The same would happen with tropical storms in the Pacific and Carribean, earthquakes around the world, or terrorism or insurgency. I think Canada's perfect to play this role, if not just because there's nobody else to play it. They'd go through Sub-Saharan Africa building infrastructure, treating diseases, basically doing what the governments can't do. Probably the same in South America too, though to a lesser extent.

Build a new navy designed for peacekeeping everywhere. Aircraft carriers to deploy relief at a moment's notice, with squadrons upon squadrons of cargo helicopters and large seaplanes. Small warships to prevent against piracy and double as transports for cargo. Fleets of icebreakers to keep northern passages (specifically the Northwest one,) open year round and answer to distressed craft. Some ships, like carriers, would patrol around hotspots like the Carribean, Arabian Sea area, South Pacific, South East Asia, while some ships could have more specialized functions.

I'm guessing it'll take about half an hour for someone to shoot that down because of money and whatnot, but it's an important thing to do. There's just so much that still needs to be done, and Europe doesn't seem to be too keen, and the US is determined to take a more isolationist stance after they pull out of the Middle East. And along with economic and cultural activities, we could become a very important part of the world and make it all better too.
 
I won't shoot any of that down, as it sounds admirable. I will however say that of your list of functions below none are the ideal jobs for the military.

- Disaster Relief ( infrastructure building, policing, doctors, and emergency services)
- Building infrastructure, treating diseases, basically doing what the governments can't do
- Ships (not Aircraft carriers) to deploy relief at a moment's notice, with cargo helicopters and large seaplanes.
- Small warships to prevent against piracy and double as transports for cargo.
- Fleets of icebreakers to keep northern passages open year round and answer to distressed craft.

Ice breakers and Search and Rescue (SAR) are Canada Coast Guard functions, not naval (i.e. warship) functions. Policing overseas is best done by the RCMP, such as we're doing in Haiti. The military's DART Disaster relief teams can help, but CIDA and other governmental departments are better suited for medium and long term assistance.
 
Second_in_pie said:
I actually am really dreading the pull out. We committed to this country, and we'll have to make sure it works..
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To clarify, we didn't commit to the country. We committed to the US-led NATO mission of destroying the ability of Islamic terrorism to use Afghanistan as a base for terrorism strikes in the West (9/11, Madrid, London, Bali, etc...). Since the Taliban were supporting the Islamic terrorists, they had to be destroyed or defeated too. I guarantee you, had the Taliban turned over Bin Laden to the US after 9/11, all the troops would be home by now, and no one would give a hoot for Afghanistan.

However, now that we're there, I agree we should do what we can to help. As a father of daughters, I want girls everywhere to be able to go to school safely. That said, I do not want Canadians dying for that, as it should be Afghans protecting their own people. Hopefully by the time all of NATO pulls out in 2015 or so, this will be a reality.
 
Admiral Beez said:
I won't shoot any of that down, as it sounds admirable. I will however say that of your list of functions below none are the ideal jobs for the military.

- Disaster Relief ( infrastructure building, policing, doctors, and emergency services)
- Building infrastructure, treating diseases, basically doing what the governments can't do
- Ships (not Aircraft carriers) to deploy relief at a moment's notice, with cargo helicopters and large seaplanes.
- Small warships to prevent against piracy and double as transports for cargo.
- Fleets of icebreakers to keep northern passages open year round and answer to distressed craft.

Ice breakers and Search and Rescue (SAR) are Canada Coast Guard functions, not naval (i.e. warship) functions. Policing overseas is best done by the RCMP, such as we're doing in Haiti. The military's DART Disaster relief teams can help, but CIDA and other governmental departments are better suited for medium and long term assistance.
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Then either pool all military money into those programs/branches, or create a special branch of the military specifically for maintaining international peace and security, helping countries develop, providing relief, etc. I think that it should be it's own branch, and Canada should (and has the capacity to,) be the leader in that field.
 
Getting rid of the taliban in Afghanistan is about as foolish as attempting to get rid of the Queen--never gonna happen!

It's funny the Americans call them terrorists. Meanwhile, American troops are the ones creating the terror amongst local civilians.

Re: Canada's role--get out of fighting unwinnable wars--and focus on peace keeping.
 
urbandreamer said:
Getting rid of the taliban in Afghanistan is about as foolish as attempting to get rid of the Queen--never gonna happen!

It's funny the Americans call them terrorists. Meanwhile, American troops are the ones creating the terror amongst local civilians.
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The Americans have never called the Taliban terrorists. What they said was that the Taliban were harbouring and supporting Bin Laden and his terrorist network - and thus the Taliban had to go. Had the Taliban simply given over Bin Laden to the US in late 2001, they'd still be in power today.
 
"There is nothing more wicked, more disastrous, more widely destructive, more deeply tenacious, more loathsome." He said this was repugnant to nature: "Whoever heard of a hundred thousand animals rushing together to butcher each other, as men do everywhere? . . . once war has been declared, then all the affairs of the State are at the mercy of the appetites of a few."-- Erasmus

I wonder what Harper has in store for the military in the new budget.
 
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