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Written by Scott Taylor
Last week when it was first announced that the UK, France and Italy were sending military ground troops to advise and mentor the Libyan rebels, I was asked by a radio show host if this indicated an escalation of the international intervention.
Once I realized that the question was not rhetorical, I pointed out the historical precedent of the US in 1950 initially sending just a handful of advisors to assist the South Vietnamese against the communists. That “toe in the water” approach quickly escalated to a full-scale military intervention which eventually resulted in an embarrassing defeat for the US and over 50,000 Americans killed.
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Written by Scott Taylor
To date in the federal election campaign, there has been virtually no debate and little discussion pertaining to the ongoing military mission in Afghanistan. The major combat commitment is due to end this July, but the Canadian Army will continue to deploy up to 1,000 personnel to serve as trainers for the Afghan security forces until 2014.
When this three-year extension was first announced in November, the Harper government billed it as being a “behind-the-wire” training mission, and the speculation was that the majority of the Canadian troops deployed would be based at some major complex in the vicinity of Kabul.
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Written by Scott Taylor
While the current international intervention in the Libyan civil war has failed to produce any tangible military victory, it has certainly served to illustrate the hypocrisy of US foreign policy.
One has to wonder what is so special about the Libyan armed rebels that they would be granted support in the form of UN resolutions and NATO-enforced no-fly zones almost immediately after taking up arms against President Moammar Gaddafi, while unarmed protestors are gunned down by security forces in Bahrain, Yemen and Syria with virtual impunity.
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Written by Scott Taylor
With the federal election in full swing, it is somewhat disappointing to see that Canada’s latest military intervention—the enforcement of a no-fly zone over Libya—is almost completely missing from the debate.
The UN Security Council passed a resolution authorizing a limited international military operation to prevent Libyan President Moammar Gaddafi from using his air force against the rebels. The rationale behind this was certainly sound as the resurgent Gaddafi had threatened to “unleash rivers of blood” in retaliation against the rebels who had come so close to toppling him from power during the early days of the rebellion.
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Written by Scott Taylor
Armed with a United Nations resolution to impose a no-fly zone over war-torn Libya, Canadian pilots have joined with allied air forces to begin pummelling Moammar Gadhafi’s feeble forces.
Disappointingly, the Canadian media almost immediately reverted to jingoistic wartime cheerleaders instead of providing the public with objective reporting. As such, they are describing the international military intervention as being a humanitarian effort aimed at preventing Gadhafi from massacring his own unarmed civilians.
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Page 6 of 51 |
On Target
