On Target: Canada’s Military Without Clear Direction

Dillon Hillier/Facebook

By Scott Taylor

From 2002 to 2014 the Canadian military had one primary mission and a singular focus and that was, of course, the mission in Afghanistan. The rotations of contingents into Kandahar became so routine that the Canadian Army constructed a full-scale replica of the southern Afghanistan region at Canadian Forces Base Wainwright for training purposes.

In preparing for their deployments, troops would spend upwards of six months conducting exercises in mock Afghan villages with civilian actors playing the part of Afghans, including pretend local journalists because, as we all know, perception can soon become confused with reality.

We did not win the war in Afghanistan but those days of purpose and clarity have been replaced with a perplexing set of new challenges for the Canadian military.

We currently have approximately 200 elite commandos deployed to train Kurds in northern Iraq. These Kurds are battling Daesh — aka ISIS evildoers — and this is a good thing. However, the Kurds fly the flag of Kurdistan, and proudly display that same symbol on their uniforms. As a show of soldierly camaraderie, the top-level decision was made to allow Canadian trainers to also wear the bright red, white and green flag of Kurdistan on their uniforms.

The problem with this practice is that Kurdistan is not a recognized state, and the Canadian government’s stated policy is to support a unified, post-Daesh Iraq (i.e., not an independent Kurdistan).

The Kurds have clearly stated they are fighting to establish their own country and will therefore not submit to the central Iraq authority that Canada purports to support.

The last Daesh stronghold in Mosul is under an allied siege that, although it may take months yet, will result in a Daesh defeat. At that juncture Canada will have to make some serious choices, as the most likely scenario will see the present allied, anti-Daesh coalition begin to battle each other for the spoils.

Since the summer of 2015, a contingent of approximately 200 Canadian trainers has been deployed to Ukraine on a mission that is due to expire at the end of this month. The rationale for our troops being there is to boost the capability of the Ukrainian military to resist pro-Russian Ukrainian rebels in the country’s eastern provinces. 

Russian President Vladimir Putin has been widely condemned for assisting the pro-Russian Ukrainian rebels with the provision of weapons and training.

But the question begs: If it is wrong for Putin to take sides in a simmering civil war in Ukraine, even when it is on his doorstep and involves ethnic Russians, how can it be a good thing for Canada to be facilitating a military build-up on the other side of the battle lines? Training and equipping young men to fight does not seem like the smartest path towards a peaceful resolution in any conflict.

Then there is the commitment to put 450 Canadian troops in Latvia on a non-permanent, rotational basis beginning this June. The Canadian contingent is part of a 4,000-strong multinational NATO force intended to deter Russian aggression against Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia. As full-fledged NATO member states, all three Baltic States have the alliance’s assurance of collective defence.

This virtual handful of NATO combat troops is being described by some as a tripwire, with defence analysts speculating that an actual Russian attack would capture the Baltic States within 60 hours — with or without these 4,000 allied soldiers. In other words, unless the NATO treaty is not worth the paper it is printed on, we are committed to protecting the liberty of these nations. Having our troops dangle as bait up on the Russian border therefore seems an unnecessary provocation.

Canada does not have an unlimited defence budget and therefore any money spent on building necessary infrastructure to house our contingent in Latvia means infrastructure dollars not spent on upgrading our bases here in Canada.

Then of course there is the long-delayed decision on where to send an additional 450 peacekeepers in Africa. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau remains adamant that Canada will send in this force of UN Blue Helmets — along with a mission budget of $500-million. He just still doesn’t know exactly where or why.

Almost makes one yearn for the good old days of the war in Afghanistan.

On Target: The Cycle Of Killing Continues In Mosul

Dead ISIS fighters in Mosul

By Scott Taylor

Last week there were media reports that the Canadian Special Forces troops in Iraq have taken on a new role. Up until recent days our soldiers had been directly involved in the allied push to drive Daesh – also known as ISIS – from the city of Mosul.

The Canadian trained Kurdish militia were very much a part of that major offensive which began last October. The mandate for our troops was that of a non-combat training mission, but videos soon appeared on the internet of our Special Forces operatives doing some very combat-like things. The military top brass bent over backwards attempting to explain how firing rocket launchers and sniper rifles at Daesh targets was not combat, because, for lack of any other logical argument, the generals said it wasn’t combat.

If the fear was that a public backlash would force the Liberal government to rein in our Commandos and put them back in the rear area training centers – they needn’t have worried. Despite the fact that our troops have no authority to engage in combat, the public sentiment seemed to be that if our soldiers were eradicating evil doers such as Daesh, then no harm, no foul.

Now however, as the big battle for Mosul moves into its third phase, it turns out that our Canadian trainers have a new job. Well away from the embattled streets of Iraq’s second largest city, our Special Forces personnel are engaged in surveillance operations on the Syrian-Iraq border.

It seems an odd juncture to move our soldiers away from the main fight, but from all accounts the battle for Mosul started ugly and has gotten progressively nastier. Despite outnumbering the Daesh defenders by an estimated 15:1, it has taken the allied force five months to recapture just the eastern half of Mosul. Even this snail’s pace was only maintained through the liberal use of airstrikes. Due to the dense population of this urban center, and the fact that Daesh fighters have no qualms about using innocent civilians as human shields, the result has been a shocking number of civilian casualties.

This is of course explained by allied commanders as a necessary tactic, and the resulting collateral damage is in fact the fault of Daesh, not the allied warplanes. One cannot help but note the hypocrisy of this rationalization when compared to how the Russians and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s loyalists were demonized for using similar airstrikes against the rebels in Aleppo. If Putin and Assad were to blame for the civilian deaths in Aleppo, then the U.S. led coalition are guilty for the loss of innocent lives in Mosul. You can’t have it both ways.

For the loose alliance of ground forces battling their way into the besieged city – including the Canadian trained Kurdish militia – the fight has been tough. The Daesh fanatics have used a combination of suicide attacks and booby traps to exact a staggering toll on their attackers.

In response the allied forces have turned Mosul’s recapture into an exercise in revenge. An account by Adnan R. Khan in a recent Maclean’s magazine noted “The grotesque signs of payback are rapidly emerging in east Mosul; mutilated bodies left to rot on the rubble heaps of the city, men with hands bound behind their backs, legs lashed together, faces half blown off.” Khan’s report also detailed how Iraqi soldiers had lashed a decomposed body to a utility pole “as a warning sign to any Daesh sympathizer.”

These actions are of course all in violation of the Geneva convention, and are in fact reminiscent of the atrocities committed by Daesh that made them so terrifying in the first place.

Some may claim that the Daesh evil-doers deserve only rough justice, but if the troops we trained mete out of the same level of barbarity, when will the cycle of revenge be stopped?

Our soldiers may in fact be well away from the Mosul battle, literally looking the other way, but it will be sheer folly if the international alliance fails to prevent another round of revenge bloodletting.

On Target: Two-Percent Trump

Gage Skidmore - Flickr

By Scott Taylor

Now that U.S. President Donald Trump has fully assumed the reins of office, it appears that he remains intent on implementing even the most outrageous of his election promises.

Within a week of his inauguration, he had issued an executive order in an attempt to block entry to the U.S. for all citizens of seven predominantly Muslim countries. Although this edict was subsequently overturned by what Trump labels “so-called judges” in both the Washington District Court and by the Ninth District Court of Appeals, the president has vowed to keep issuing similar executive orders to ban entry for Muslims.

No ground has been broken yet in its construction, but Trump is equally adamant that he will build a southern border wall and make the Mexicans pay for it.

For Canadians, it would seem that our place as a favoured trading partner will remain, even if Trump pushes forward with a renegotiated North American Free Trade Agreement. Where we do need to be concerned, however, is on the issue of our current defence spending.

The Trump administration — including Secretary of Defense (ret’d) General James “Mad Dog” Mattis — is sticking to its guns on NATO partners paying an equal share towards the alliance’s collective defence. That magical number is the already existing and agreed-to NATO objective that member states must spend two per cent of their GDP (gross domestic product) on defence.

This is a figure that the Canadian military booster clubs and cheerleaders have long pointed to when lobbying successive Liberal and Conservative governments to increase the defence budget. To put this in perspective, Canada currently spends around $20-billion on the military and that equates to less than one per cent of our GDP. To get to the Trump/NATO goal of two per cent, we would need to find an additional $21-billion per year from the federal coffers.

You do not need to be an economist to realize that this represents a heck of a lot of funds being drawn from potential health care, education and infrastructure budgets in exchange for more weapons and uniformed personnel.

Then there is the fact that the two per cent of GDP is simply an arbitrary number that in no way guarantees an increase in actual defence capability. While it may seem that Canada is a shirker in ponying up for defence, we are currently the 17th biggest spender in terms of total military budgets among the United Nations’ 193 member countries. Yes, we are in the top ten per cent folks.

In terms of military budget as a percentage of national GDP, Saudi Arabia allocates an astonishing 13.7 per cent to defence. Broken down in spending per capita, the Saudis actually spend the most in the world — nearly 3.5 times what the U.S. spends per person — and yet no one considers Saudi Arabia to be even a regional military powerhouse.

I maintain the opinion that the Canadian Armed Forces are not among the best in the world, they are the best in the world. There may be militaries that field more state-of-the-art weapons and technology, but when you factor in the training, discipline, experience and ethos of our professional soldiers, they stand second to no one.

Despite our natural isolation by virtue of geography, Canada has also been quick to deploy our military resources to far-flung conflicts and peacekeeping missions, often placing our troops in the most dangerous environments.

During our deployment to Afghanistan for instance, Canada spent six years based in the volatile Kandahar sector, and as a result suffered the highest ratio of casualties per capita of all the allies in theatre.

According to the Trump two per cent of GDP theory, we would have been a better NATO member if we had kept our soldiers at home, doubled their salaries and purchased an arsenal of high-tech weaponry that we will never employ.

If spending an arbitrary percentage of a nation’s GDP on defence simply for the sake of spending that percentage is the goal, then NATO should simply bring Saudi Arabia into the alliance to balance the books.

However, if it is demonstrable military efficiency and willingness to commit our forces that Trump / NATO really want in a partner, then we are already doing more than our share.

On Target: Another Bungle In The Jungle?

Peacekeepers from Benin attend the memorial ceremony held in honor of one peacekeeper from Burkina Faso

Photo Credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/minusma/

By Scott Taylor

Since last August, it has been known that the Liberal government is intent on sending a force of peacekeepers to a United Nations mission somewhere on the African continent.

Canadians have been told there will be approximately 600 soldiers deployed and the budget will be approximately $450-million. What we still don’t know is to which UN mission these Canadian Blue Helmets will be sent, and that means there is no way to gauge what measure of success we can hope to achieve.

The betting money is still on Mali being the mission Canada will most likely reinforce, but if that is the case, then the number of troops and dollars committed would mean that this is just another exercise in useless tokenism.

There will be no quick fix in the Mali quagmire.

The current crisis erupted in 2012 following the collapse of Moammar Gadhafi’s regime in neighboring Libya. Nomadic Tuaregs and al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) armed themselves from the abandoned Libyan arsenals and quickly overran the demoralized Malian government troops in the northern province.

To avert a complete collapse, France deployed a military expeditionary force — with the assistance of airlift support from the RCAF — to her former colony. The French were able to drive the AQIM from their self-proclaimed caliphate, but the spirit of Tuareg separatism still burns bright in the region.

In July 2017, the UN stood up the current peacekeeping mission, which presently has a combined military and police strength of close to 15,000 international personnel. Despite the scale of this UN deployment, the rebels continue to resist and with 101 peacekeepers killed in Mali to date, it remains the UN’s most deadly mission.

The final objective, or ‘victory’ in the case of this international intervention, is also not clearly defined.

Mali’s boundaries were drafted by the European colonial powers using straight lines on a map. As such, the Sahara-dwelling Tuaregs have almost nothing in common culturally or linguistically with their fellow Malians in the south. The current regime in Bamako is also considered one of the world’s most corrupt, and one can therefore somewhat empathize with the Tuaregs’ separatist sentiment.

Have we learned nothing from our 11-year commitment to the U.S.-led NATO mission in Afghanistan?

Canadian politicians, diplomats and military brass repeatedly told the public that the Canadian military was “punching above its weight” in Afghanistan. To prove that point they highlighted not only the size of our contingent, but also the fact that Canada suffered the highest ratio of combat casualties among all of her allies. Despite that contribution, Canada never had a seat at the big boy table. Any and all major strategic decisions were ultimately made by the U.S. State Department and the Pentagon.

Our Canadian soldiers, Canada’s sons and daughters, spent over a decade spilling their blood propping up a corrupt cabal of former warlords, who were ostensibly ‘elected’ under the farcical election processes staged by the West. Our troops in Kandahar were not hated because they were Canadian; they were hated because were seen as the enforcers of the hated Kabul regime.

One hundred and fifty-eight Canadian soldiers were killed in Afghanistan and over 2,000 more service members were injured or wounded. Added to this growing list of casualties are the countless number of Afghanistan veterans who are still suffering from the invisible wounds of PTSD.

We did not succeed in Afghanistan and, despite the U.S. military’s continued presence there, the country is fast devolving back into a failed state that is awash in lawless violence and abject poverty.

This failure to defeat the Taliban and stabilize Afghanistan only serves to highlight the senseless sacrifice made by our soldiers. They endured hell, witnessed comrades killed and maimed for life, all in the service of Canada, but with no actual tangible positive effect.

Now it seems we are about to deploy a fresh wave of keen young soldiers to a complex conflict, wherein no one seems to know how to clearly define what a ‘victory’ would look like. Let’s hope that saner heads prevail and that the Liberals push the ‘rethink’ button before committing our troops to Mali or any other no-hope missions in which we have no vested national interest.

On Target: Iraq: Is More Cannon Fodder Really The Answer?

 Photo: REUTERS/Mohammad Ismai

By Scott Taylor

For those closely following the battle to defeat Daesh (aka ISIS or ISIL), it has become evident that there is presently a lull in the allied offensive to recapture Mosul.

Although very little news is reported about specific Canadian military involvement in this battle, we do have a couple of hundred special forces operatives assisting Kurdish militia and, from photos that occasionally pop up on the internet, our Canadian commandos are right in the thick of the fight.

An estimated 100,000 allied ground troops have been besieging Mosul since October 16 and, to date, they have managed to capture only the eastern half of the city. Some 3,500 Daesh fanatics remain, bunkered down in the western side of Mosul, just across the Tigris River.

While the battle to retake Iraq’s second largest city from Daesh evildoers is taking longer than anyone had predicted, the overwhelming superiority of the allied force combined with the U.S.-led aerial armada flying overhead means that the eventual defeat of Daesh is not in doubt. It was never a case of will Daesh be defeated, but rather when.

With that being the case, I read with some surprise last week a media report that the U.S.-led coalition was starting to organize, recruit and train an Iraqi police force to secure the Mosul area after Daesh is eliminated.

The Associated Press story described the scene at a Spanish army training centre for Iraqi police recruits: “The young men, mostly in their twenties and thirties, have had no previous training or experience. Many carried dilapidated Kalashnikov-style rifles, slung over their shoulders with rope or rubber-coated wire.” A Spanish army trainer told the reporter, “We start our program at a very basic level. When [recruits] arrive, they don’t have any skills.”

The Spanish army program is designed to spit out these ragtag recruits into a professional police force in just a five-week training course. Angel Castilla, the brigadier-general in charge of the Spanish training mission, admitted that this amount of training was inadequate, but blamed the “condensed timetable” under which he was obliged to produce a police force.

So the U.S.-led coalition knows that a professional police force is essential for ensuring long-term security in Mosul once Daesh is defeated, and their own commanders know that five weeks is about two years short of the timeframe necessary to train a professional policeman … yet they proceed with the program.

Einstein’s definition of insanity is doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting a different result. Has nothing been learned from the mistakes made previously in Afghanistan and Iraq?

If we are only prepared to invest five weeks of training into an Iraqi policeman, we are going to produce a gaggle of armed thugs who are woefully ignorant of the laws they are entrusted to enforce.

This problem was magnified in Afghanistan, where the vast majority of police recruits were illiterate teenagers. They could fire a weapon, apply handcuffs and march somewhat in step. But as they could not read textbooks or blackboards, Afghan recruits only received two weeks of training before getting their badges. Most could not read an identity card let alone actually solve a real crime.

However, they did understand that they had authority provided by their badges, and also by their weapons. This hastily trained and negligibly supervised force soon became the most hated faction in Afghanistan. Police stations were often attacked — not by insurgents but by enraged citizens, tired of being abused at the hands of the police force that NATO trained and equipped.

We would never put a policeman on a North American or European street with just two to five weeks of training. We also do not use our soldiers to train our police. Those are two very separate and unique professions. Yet that is exactly what Canadian soldiers were tasked to do in Afghanistan for years.

If the U.S.-led coalition is serious about securing Mosul, or any other sector of Iraq, then it needs to invest the proper resources and time to build an actual police force. We don’t need another mob of untrained, demoralized cannon fodder in uniform.

On Target: "Why can't our Iraqis fight like their Iraqis"

Photo Credit: REUTERS/Ari Jalal

By Scott Taylor

Last Thursday the Canadian Armed Forces staged a news conference to update journalists on the activities of the Canadian soldiers deployed to battle Daesh (aka ISIS) in Iraq. The only problem is that no one from Canadian Special Operation Forces Command (CANSOFCOM) was present to explain the recent exploits of our elite commando trainers.

There are approximately 200 members of the Canadian Special Operations Regiment (CSOR) along with an undisclosed number of the secretive Joint Task Force 2 currently deployed in northern Iraq as trainers for local Kurdish militias.

The mandate for these Canadians specifies that they are not to be involved in combat.

However, when photographs appeared on the Internet last October clearly showing Canadian commandos firing rocket launchers and blowing up Daesh evildoers on the front lines, Canadian senior brass scrambled to explain to the Canadian public that this was not combat. Firing rockets and sniper rifles at Daesh was, according to the best spin they could put on it, self-defence.

At the time those photos were taken, the allied forces — including the Kurds under Canadian mentorship — were engaged in an all-out offensive against the Daesh-held city of Mosul. The question begged: How could Canadians be engaged in self-defence when they were part of an offensive? But I digress.

That major effort by the allied forces to recapture Iraq’s second-largest city began with a lot of fanfare last October 16. Assisted by the overwhelming air armada of the U.S.-led alliance, a massive horde of anti-Daesh fighters were mounting the ground offensive to drive the Islamic zealots from their last stronghold in Iraq. Allied commanders warned that this would be a lengthy campaign, one that could drag on for weeks or even months, despite the fact that the allied force was estimated to outnumber the holed up Daesh fighters by at least ten to one.

In the past three and a half months, Daesh has indeed put up a fanatical resistance. With superior numbers and the sophisticated weaponry supplied and operated by western elite soldiers such as Canada’s commandos, the allied forces have methodically advanced into the city.

At time of writing, the eastern half of Mosul is now considered to be liberated from Daesh. Unfortunately, this means that the fight from here on in will only get more intense.

Mosul is a pre-dominantly Sunni-Arab city, wherein most of the other minorities — Shiia-Arabs, Kurds, Turkmen, Chaldeans, etc. — lived in the now-liberated eastern part of Mosul. Daesh remains bunkered down in the Sunni Arab sector on the west bank of the Tigris River.

You can call Daesh evil incarnate, but you would be totally unwise to consider them in any way cowardly. They are obviously fanatical about their cause, and given their relatively small numbers, they must still have support among Mosul’s Sunni Arab population.

Contrast the plodding advance of the current allied push — and the extremely high casualties being inflicted by the Daesh defenders — to the whirlwind attack by Daesh in June 2014. A mere 800 lightly armed Daesh fighters rolled into Mosul, against a far superior Iraqi Army garrison, which promptly abandoned their U.S.-supplied weapons, vehicles and munitions, forgot their years of training by U.S. Special Forces, and simply ran away.

During the 2003 invasion of Iraq, American soldiers were able to capture all of Iraq in less than 25 days as most of Saddam’s soldiers simply surrendered or deserted rather than fight.

There were battles fought in some of Iraq’s urban centres including Baghdad, but the city of Mosul capitulated without a whimper.

It is evident from the resolve of the Daesh defenders that Iraqis can put up one hell of a fight when they are committed to their cause. The same cannot be said for the assortment of Kurdish militia, Shiite Arab militia and Iraqi government troops that comprise the anti-Daesh ground forces.

To paraphrase U.S. General Westmoreland of Vietnam war fame, “Why can’t our Iraqis fight like their Iraqis”.

On Target: Top Admiral Thrown Overboard

Photo Credit: http://www.navy-marine.forces.gc.ca/

By Scott Taylor

On Monday, January 16 at 8:00 am, the Office of Chief of Defence Staff issued a brief statement from General Jonathan Vance. The bilingual message stated that Vice-Admiral Mark Norman was being temporarily relieved of his duties as the Canadian Armed Forces’ vice chief of defence staff (VCDS). The notification further stated that Norman’s responsibilities as VCDS would be immediately assumed by the commander of the Royal Canadian Navy, Vice-Admiral Ron Lloyd.

The removal of Norman was a bombshell and the widespread dissemination of the notice throughout National Defence Headquarters ensured that the media were aware of it almost at once.

Phones and email in boxes lit up throughout the entire military community. Initially there was only confirmation of Norman’s removal, with absolutely zero explanation for such a drastic course of action.

With no clues to go on, everyone began speculating to fill the void.

By unfortunate coincidence, that same day The Toronto Star had published a story detailing how CDS General Jonathan Vance was going to start terminating the career of anyone in the military who was guilty of sexual misconduct. The Star story was based on an internal memo that Vance had issued back on December 16, but for many speculators the timing seemed too obvious — Vance will fire sex offenders, Norman gets fired, fill in the blank.

However, for all of us who know Norman — and in the interest of full disclosure, I do consider him to be a professional acquaintance — such an allegation made no sense.

Norman had a well-earned reputation as a straight shooter and has been a prominent promoter of recognizing the contributions of women in the defence field.

Within hours of the story breaking, additional information was leaked to the Globe and Mail — probably in an effort to spare Norman any additional public speculation about sexual misdeeds — that his firing was related to a security breach involving the disclosure of information. Again, no specific details were given.

Some began guessing that Norman was the culprit who had leaked details of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Christmas holiday destination on the Aga Khan’s private island in the Bahamas.

For his part, General Vance was travelling in Europe when the story broke on January 16, and he responded to media inquiries with an email.

“I understand there is a great deal of speculation surrounding the circumstances that led to my decision with regards to Vice-Admiral Norman,” Vance wrote. “For privacy considerations, I’m unable to provide further information,” he added.

This non-clarification from Vance, with the allusion that it was something of a personal nature, was akin to ladling chum in a swirling shark tank. The rumour mill kept churning at full tilt.

Additional details were drip fed to the media and, despite reporters trekking out to the front door of his suburban home, Norman maintained his silence.

Prime Minister Trudeau issued a statement that distanced himself from Norman’s firing while at the same time supporting it. “The Chief of Defence Staff took a decision and this government supports General Vance in the decision that he took,” Trudeau told reporters.

This sentiment was echoed by Minister of National Defence Harjit Sajjan, who repeated that the firing was the work of Vance.

Within 48 hours of Norman being removed from his post, the incident was drawing international attention. The BBC and the U.S. news outlets were reporting on the unprecedented removal of such a high-ranking official, in such a public fashion.

With such intense media scrutiny, more details found their way into the public domain — albeit not through official disclosure. Unnamed inside sources advised the media that Norman was being investigated by the RCMP for allegedly disclosing classified shipbuilding information to a private company. Reportedly, the timeframe for Norman’s alleged crime occurred while he was still the commander of the RCN – prior to assuming his most recent post as the VCDS in 2016.

Such a security breach, if proven to be true, will have significant repercussions for the Canadian military’s reputation, not only with the defence industry but also with allied nations.

However, because of Vance’s decision to relieve Norman without providing a clear explanation as to why, the country's second-highest military commander has endured unfounded public speculation that he was everything from a sexual deviant to a Russian spy.

Sometimes silence is not golden after all. 

On Target: Charlie Don't Surf

Photo Credit: Combat Camera

By Scott Taylor

On December 27, 2016 a dozen or so Canadian embassy staff, including Ambassador Kenneth Neufeld, were brought from Kabul to Kandahar for the purpose of playing a ball hockey game.

This was the final game played at the Kandahar Airfield ball hockey rink before the U.S. Army engineers began dismantling the boards and benches. Once disassembled, these iconic boards were transported back home to Canada where they will be put on display in the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa and the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto.

In addition to flying in the ambassador, the Canadian military also flew in reporters to ensure that the final minutes of the Kandahar rink would be recorded for posterity.

It has been two years since Canada concluded military participation in the Afghan intervention, and the media reports focused on the nostalgic aspects of this unique sports facility.

For the tens of thousands of Canadian soldiers who served tours of duty in Kandahar, there can be no question that the regulation-sized hockey surface served as a rare respite from an otherwise dangerous and frustrating mission.

The ball hockey rink was conveniently located right next to another equally iconic Canadian fixture: a Tim Hortons outlet, which the Department of National Defence operated in Kandahar.

To illustrate just how hockey-mad Canadians are to their bewildered NATO allies, then Chief of Defence Staff Rick Hillier brought the actual Stanley Cup to Kandahar in 2007. A selection of former NHL all-stars were brought in for the occasion, and they played a game against a brave handful of Canadian soldiers as the revered trophy was closely guarded on the sidelines.

With the positive media stories about the rink’s removal, one could be left with the false impression that Canada’s mission in Afghanistan was a glorious chapter in our military history. We came, we saw, we conquered and then we played hockey in the desert. Now we are bringing home that rink so that future generations can be reminded of how, for more than a decade, Canada brought our sport to Afghanistan.

None of the media stories about the final ball hockey game mentioned the current situation in Afghanistan.

Despite the fact that he flew all the way down from Kabul, no one asked Ambassador Neufeld about the state of affairs in this war-torn country that so many Canadians fought and died trying to bring about some stability.

The sad truth is that things are worse than ever. Last Wednesday, U.S. Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) John Sopko released an update on the challenges facing Afghanistan today. Some of the key points made by Sopko illustrated the absolute incompetence of the Afghan security forces. According to the inspector general, there are tens of thousands of “ghost soldiers” in the Afghan ranks whose commanders retain their paycheques because the individuals do not exist.

“The best spin the Afghan security forces can put on their activities is that they are able to re-take strategic areas after they temporarily fall,” wrote Sopko. “We may be defining success as the absence of failure,” he added.

The Taliban has begun simply purchasing their weapons and ammunition from the Afghan security forces because that is cheaper and easier than trying to capture them. Money is no object for the Taliban as they are harvesting bumper crops of poppies.

And the Taliban are not operating alone, as there are now an estimated 20 separate terrorist groups operating in east Afghanistan alone, including Daesh (aka ISIS).

A whopping 90 per cent of Afghans report corruption is a part of daily life, and it is estimated that more money was paid in bribes than was generated by the entire Afghan tax base in 2016.

Sopko’s conclusion was that despite the U.S. pumping in over $750-billion in military costs alone over the past 15 years, the Afghan government is still in no position to support itself, and “will require donor assistance for the foreseeable future if it is to survive.”

Against that backdrop, the repatriation of our hockey rink boards seems almost nonsensical.

I’m reminded of that famous line from the Vietnam war movie Apocalypse Now, wherein the American commander explains why it was necessary to capture an island: “Because Charlie don’t surf.” In this case our rationale for deploying troops to Kandahar would be the equally absurd “because Afghans don’t play hockey.”

On Target: Canadian killed by Daesh was naïve and foolish

Photo Credit: FACEBOOK/Bring Nazzareno Tasson Home Page

By Scott Taylor

Last week it was reported that 24-year-old Nazzareno Tassone of Edmonton was killed by Daesh (also known as ISIS) fighters near the Syrian city of Raqqa.

Tassone was a Canadian volunteer fighting with the Kurdish People’s Protection Unit (YPG) when he was killed in a firefight on December 21. News of Tassone’s death only broke after Daesh posted photos of his body on the Internet.

The Kurdish community in Canada have hailed Tassone as a hero and a martyr for their cause, and even Tassone’s distraught mother told the media, “He’s our hero, he really is. As much as it hurts, the pain. This is him, this is what he wanted.”

Tassone was also hailed as a hero by the usual military cheerleaders who deemed his actions to be akin to that of men bent on saving the Western world from Daesh evildoers.

The truth is that Tassone was a reckless adventure-seeker who was duped by the Kurds into accepting risks he was not qualified to undertake.

Although friends and family admit that Tassone had a lifetime obsession with all things military, the truth is that he never joined the Canadian Army. He had zero military training when he left Canada last June. Furthermore Tassone had no experience in the Middle East; even at the time of his death, colleagues admit that Tassone had only learned a handful of words in Kurdish.

The night he was killed, Tassone was with a fellow British volunteer, Ryan Lock, who also had zero previous military experience, spoke no Kurdish and had only arrived in Syria in September. He was also killed in the Daesh attack.

Let’s put this in perspective: A recruit joining the Canadian military does a three-month basic training course, then spends four to six months at an intensive battle school learning a particular combat trade. Recruits are then posted to a battalion as junior rookies to augment the more seasoned soldiers. Prior to sending a battle group to Afghanistan, the Canadian Army conducted a full twelve months of mission-specific training before these extremely professional soldiers were considered ready for front-line operations.

Tassone and Lock had but a few days of rudimentary training before they were sent into battle, and only weeks of experience before they were killed in an exposed forward position. Oh, did I mention that neither one of them spoke Kurdish?

There is no way in the world that if a foreign volunteer — let’s say a Korean — showed up in Afghanistan to fight the Taliban, with zero previous military experience and unable to speak English or French, that Canadian soldiers would let them join their patrol. It would be an irresponsible endangerment of the Korean’s life, and it would also put the Canadian soldiers at risk.

Just because someone has a burning desire to become a firefighter, they would not be allowed to simply start climbing up a ladder at a three-alarm blaze.

Tassone and Lock were not bringing any martial expertise to the conflict, and they were not in a position to instruct or advise their Kurdish comrades. They were novices who did not share the Kurds’ strict Islamic faith, nor did they speak their language.

Their quest for instant adventure was their downfall, and the Kurds selfishly took advantage of that weakness. Better that two foreign volunteers get killed by Daesh than two of their own Kurdish countrymen.

The Tassone family has been urging the Canadian government to do all it can be to recover their son’s body. This would of course mean somehow negotiating a deal with Daesh with whom our Canadian authorities have no direct contact. Instead, the best bet is that the Kurdish fighters on the ground will negotiate a deal with the local Daesh commander. In the past, the recovery of foreign volunteer fighters’ bodies has involved the payment of money or the reciprocal exchange of Daesh prisoners.

Either way, it will only serve to further illustrate Tassone’s misguided naivety. By getting himself killed he will have actually benefitted the Daesh evildoers he set out to eliminate.

My advice to any other would-be noble adventurer who wishes to fight for a gallant cause is to join the Canadian Armed Forces. They are the best in the world, bar none.

ON TARGET: RUSSIA SETS SIGHTS ON LIBYA

General Khalifa Haftar is the most powerful warlord in Libya - and Russia is looking to back his militia with the goal of securing peace in that war torn country. 

Photo Credit: Magharebi - Flickr

By Scott Taylor 

In recent days there has been considerable progress made towards paving a pathway to peace in war-ravaged Syria. This latest flicker of hope is pinned on a ceasefire agreement brokered between Russia, Turkey and Iran. What is significant about this particular cessation of hostilities is that it was negotiated without the inclusion of the U.S.A. For their part, the oft-maligned Russians are dealing from a position of power and with a clearly stated objective.

Since first committing combat troops to the Syrian civil war in September 2015, Russia announced its intention to support those forces loyal to embattled President Bashar al-Assad. Their motivation for assisting Assad was to protect Russia’s only military base on the Mediterranean Sea — the large naval facility at Tartus.

On the flip side of that equation, when the Syrian insurrection first erupted in March 2011, Canada was one of the loudest cheerleaders for the anti-Assad rebels. Canada’s Foreign Affairs minister of the day was the leather-lunged John Baird, and he took advantage of every photo opportunity to be seen encouraging Syrian rebels with the chant “Assad must go!”

Of course, the longer Assad and his loyalists clung to power, the more evident it became that many of those opposing his rule were some pretty nasty Islamic extremists. At first it was the al-Nusra Front, an al-Qaeda affiliate, and then we saw the emergence of Daesh (also know as ISIS or ISIL). As things in the Syrian conflict became that much murkier, Canada chose to simply go quiet and officially distance itself from a conflagration that our government’s bombastic rhetoric had helped to ignite.

In contrast, the Russians chose a side that was in their best personal interest, and then deployed sufficient combat force to ensure that Assad’s loyalists were victorious on the battlefield. The recent victory over the Syrian rebel stronghold in Aleppo has put Russia in the driver’s seat in terms of dictating the terms of the peace agreement.

With the ink still not dry on the Syrian ceasefire, and with multiple violations still occurring, the Russians are already setting their sights on the quagmire that has overtaken Libya.

In March 2011, Canada led the NATO intervention to oust Libyan President Moammar Gadhafi. Ostensibly, NATO was only to enforce a no-fly zone to prevent Gadhafi from using his air force to bomb Libyan rebels. However, from the outset, NATO aircraft mounted a bombing campaign of their own against Gadhafi and his loyalist forces. The NATO air armada was commanded by Canadian Lieutenant-General Charles Bouchard, and Foreign Minister Baird ensured that everyone knew Canada was leading the charge to depose Gadhafi.

Like Assad, Gadhafi had enough loyal fighters to stave off his immediate overthrow. As the Libyan civil war dragged on from days to weeks to months it became apparent that many of the anti-Gadhafi rebels were in fact Islamic extremists.

In fact, prior to heading into Syria to fight Assad, the al-Nusra Front was a major faction in the eventual rebel victory over Gadhafi in October 2011. Despite media revelations about the dubious composition of these Libyan rebels, nobody in the West cared, so long as they defeated Gadhafi.

Well, hindsight being 20/20, in the immediate aftermath of Gadhafi’s capture and brutal public execution, it became readily apparent that someone should have cared about who these rebels were.

The widely disparate militias refused to disarm, and following their collective victory they began fighting each other. Libya, a once prosperous, oil-producing, progressive, secular Muslim country, devolved rapidly into a failed state of total anarchy. Today, there are an estimated 2,000 independent militias active in Libya, all controlling their own personal fiefdoms, many of them enforcing strict Sharia law.

There are two self-declared parliaments: one is United Nations-backed and based in Tripoli, and the other is based in Tobruk with limited international backing. Add to this mix a powerful warlord by the name of Khalifa Haftar, whose militia controls the largest swath of Libyan territory. Despite the fact that Haftar is in conflict with the impotent UN-backed Libyan regime in Tripoli, Russia is betting that this 73-year-old warlord — a former general in Gadhafi’s army — is the only force with the capacity to reunify and secure Libya.

If Canada is truly seeking a meaningful military mission on the African continent, we should look at following Russia’s lead in the backing of Haftar in Libya. In our rush to rid the world of Gadhafi, we created a power vacuum that has proven to be far more deadly than the murdered Libyan despot ever was. Haftar may not be a perfect choice, but anything would beat the violent anarchy in which Canada and NATO have plunged the Libyan people for the past half decade.

ON TARGET: ANOTHER MISSION IMPOSSIBLE?

PHOTO CREDIT: (AFP Photo / Joel Saget)

By Scott Taylor

The Trudeau Liberals have been at the federal helm for over one year now, and the grace period afforded any new government is rapidly coming to an end. During the election campaign Trudeau had promised to end Canada’s combat role in Iraq. However, once in power the Liberals settled for the compromise solution of not renewing the combat air mission when it was scheduled to expire last February.

While the CF-18 fighter jets were in fact repatriated to Canada, the refueller and reconnaissance aircraft continue to support the U.S.-led air campaign in Iraq and Syria. As for boots on the ground, the Trudeau Liberals actually increased the number of special forces trainers deployed to assist the Kurds in the battle against the Daesh evildoers.

The training role originally assigned to these Canadian commandos was soon defrocked when it was reported these ‘trainers’ had been involved in numerous firefights. Afraid to be caught exceeding their political masters’ mandate, military brass went to great lengths trying to explain to Canadians how firing rifles and rockets in battle is not ‘combat,’ so long as you are doing so in self-defence … or in defence of others … or in order to eliminate a threat that might later endanger you … or anyone at anytime for that matter.

Soldiers on the ground know all too well that combat is combat, and unfortunately due to the official policy of denial, a lot of heroic deeds done on the battlefield by Canadian special forces soldiers will go unrecognized. That said, despite the campaign promise to pull Canada out of another violent quagmire, under the Liberals we are even more directly involved in the fight against Daesh.

The allied siege against Mosul – Daesh’s last stronghold in Iraq – has been underway for more than two months now. While it may take many more weeks to eliminate the last of the Daesh fanatics, allied planners have suggested that resistance will not end with Mosul’s recapture. What is feared is that Daesh will simply change tactics and launch a campaign of terrorist attacks throughout the entire country. Canadian military sources have indicated that if such scenario unfolds, our troops would still have a role to play in northern Iraq. In other words, we are slowly being dragged deeper into an unwinnable quagmire of a multi-factioned civil war, in which we have absolutely no influence over the eventual outcome.

Then of course there was the Liberal promise to get Canada back in the game of United Nations peacekeeping. After announcing in August that 600 Canadian soldiers would be deploying to Africa, it seems that the government will soon announce that the actual destination for these peacekeepers will be Mali.

The original UN mission there, known as MINUSMA, was established in April 2013 in response to the northern half of the country being overrun by separatist Tuaregs allied with Islamic extremists flying the flag of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). France had sent a military intervention force to assist the demoralized Malian military to regain the lost territory, but to this day the Tuaregs and AQIM fighters continue to wage a bloody insurgency.

The presence of 12,000 UN peacekeepers from 48 different countries has only led to a lengthening list of casualties among the blue helmets. With over 100 peacekeepers killed to date, Mali is the UN’s deadliest mission. It is also one that bodes little chance of ultimate success. The semi-nomadic Tuaregs in Mali’s northern Saharan territory want nothing to do with the corrupt regime in Bamako, the country’s capital in the southern sub-Saharan region.

If these Tuaregs have violently resisted their fellow countrymen, the French military, and now the amassed UN forces, why would they submit to a young Canadian soldier from Red Deer, Alberta or Baie-Comeau, Quebec?

Embarking on a dangerous UN peacekeeping mission — one which has no clearly stated objective or easily attainable goal, for the sake of getting Canada back in the good books of the UN — is pure folly. Our veterans of Afghanistan are still suffering the mental anguish associated with waging a counterinsurgency against a hostile local population in order to prop up the corrupt regime in Kabul. Do we really need a fresh crop of disillusioned soldiers returning from a failed mission in Mali? 

ON TARGET: WAR IS A CRIME

photo credit: Aleppo Media Center - Facebook

By Scott Taylor

Last week, the war in Syria garnered international headlines as Russian-backed government troops finally recaptured the last rebel-held territory in the city of Aleppo.

The civil war that has gripped Syria since March 2011 was particularly brutal in this sprawling city, the largest urban centre in the country.

In recent weeks, forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad were able to contain and surround rebel forces in just a few of Aleppo’s eastern suburbs. Under the terms of a ceasefire brokered by Russia and Turkey, the remaining rebels agreed to be withdrawn from the city and relocated within other Syrian territory that is still under rebel control.

Under seige

This final rebel collapse in Aleppo set off a wave of indignant condemnation by the western media, all of it aimed at Assad and his Russian ally, Vladimir Putin. One claim, levelled by none other than Human Rights Watch director Ken Roth, was that the siege of Aleppo constituted a war crime perpetrated by Putin and Assad. Roth’s rationale is that, by starving the besieged rebels, the Syrian government troops had denied humanitarian aid from being delivered to those unfortunate innocent civilians within those rebel-held areas.

By Roth’s logic, we need to revisit every siege staged throughout history and declare each and every one of them a war crime. There has never been a case where some benevolent commander allowed supplies through the siege lines in order to relieve the suffering and hunger of the civilians trapped inside.

One need only look at the news stream coming out of neighbouring Iraq to see the hypocrisy of Roth’s allegations. The U.S.-led coalition has boasted that they have completely surrounded the Daesh-held city of Mosul and that some Iraqi and Kurdish units have fought their way into the city’s eastern suburbs. There are an estimated one million residents left in Mosul and only some 5,000 of these are considered to be Daesh extremists. There is no way in hell that the U.S.-led besiegers are letting truckloads of food and fuel into Mosul to alleviate the suffering of the civilians.

When the Russians and Syrians do it, it’s a war crime. When the U.S.-led force — including Canadian special forces — employ a siege, it is a brilliant tactic.

The "moderate" rebels

There have been reports out of Aleppo that forces loyal to Assad have committed revenge killings as they entered rebel-held territory. The killing of what the Western media terms “moderate rebels” is then attributed directly to Putin and Assad as proof of their criminal policies.

I am not going to condone battlefield executions, but first off it must be pointed out that there is no such thing as a “moderate” rebel. The anti-Assad forces include some of the nastiest killers on the planet.

Not even counting the Daesh fighters, who were not present in Aleppo, the most effective fighting force in Syria is the al-Qaeda affiliate known as the al-Nusra Front. At the core of this unit are foreign jihadists, many of whom fought to oust Moammar Gadhafi from Libya in 2011.

Critics of Assad and Putin are quick to point out that many of those fighting for the embattled Syrian president are actually foreign Shiite Muslim volunteers waging a holy war against the majority Sunni Muslim Syrian rebels. These Iranian and Hezbollah fighters certainly helped Assad turn the tide in this war. However, if employing foreigners to fight your war is evil, then we must denounce all of those foreign fighters who chose to assist the Syrian rebels — aided and abetted by state sponsors such as Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.

If foreigners should not insert themselves into these Middle Eastern conflicts, then what the hell are 200 Canadian special forces soldiers doing training Kurdish fighters to battle Daesh in Iraq?

In one media interview concerning the fall of Aleppo, I heard some sage commentary from a Syrian refugee who is currently residing in Toronto. His concerns were for his relatives who remained in Aleppo and the reporter expected him to condemn Assad for the siege and subsequent revenge killings. Instead, the Syrian refugee said, “All of those who took up guns in this conflict are to blame for the suffering.”

Instead of sending in agencies to assign guilt for specific war crimes in isolated incidents, we should begin with the premise that war itself is a crime.

On Target: Bolstering Latvia’s economy with Canada’s defence budget

photo credit: www.mil.ee

By Scott Taylor

Back in July, when Canada announced it would be sending troops into Latvia, the tub-thumping Colonel Blimps popped their pacemakers. This was the stuff they have been longing for, a throwback to the good old Cold War days: A chance to square off once again with those nasty Russkies.

Since Canada withdrew from the international intervention in Afghanistan in the spring of 2014, the military has dropped out of the media spotlight. Many of the warmongers felt that the Canadian Armed Forces needed a high-profile mission to justify increased procurement budgets. The idea of deploying a contingent of Canadian soldiers along the Latvian–Russian border to contain the supposed naked aggression of President Vladimir Putin seemed like a godsend.

The rah-rah jingoistic pundits breathlessly wrote that Canadian soldiers were being deployed along NATO’s “northern flank” as if the alliance was already engaged in a full-scale war with Russia. It is true that when Ukraine devolved into a bloody civil war in 2014, Russian President Vladimir Putin sent Russian troops into the Crimea to reinforce those already stationed there under an existing lease agreement.

Fearful the new pro-Western regime in Kiev might revoke the lease and thus deny Russia its longstanding major naval base in the Black Sea, Putin held a referendum in the Crimea. The majority of the ethnic-Russian population voted to secede and Putin formally annexed the territory.

This tiny territorial grab then became the cornerstone of NATO’s accusations that Putin is bent on nothing less than world domination. One problem with that theory is the fact that two other pro-Russian breakaway provinces — Donetsk and Luhansk — had also staged referendums on secession and voted overwhelmingly to leave Ukraine and join the Russian Federation. Despite these results, Putin did not gobble up these provinces.

Instead, Russia is insisting that both warring Ukrainian factions adhere to the Minsk II ceasefire agreement, with an eventual course that Donetsk and Luhansk rejoin a Ukrainian federation. But, of course, that does not sound as frightening as depicting Putin in 2016 as the new Adolf Hitler in 1939, poised to conquer the free world.

The NATO plan will see a total of some 4,000 soldiers from four member states deployed into Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia on a rotational, non-permanent basis. Of that number, Canada is to commit a combat contingent of 450 soldiers to Latvia. These troops are to be rotated in and out of the Baltic on six-month or one-year tours, indefinitely. For those familiar with just how tiny Canada’s combat cupboard really is, this means that nearly one-third of our infantry capability will either be deployed, training for deployment, or just returned from Latvia at any given time.

If Canada does commit to a similar-sized mission in Mali, as they are expected to announce any day now, that will tie down two-thirds of Canada’s primary combat force, excluding the ongoing commitment to northern Iraq.

While the good news is that the Baltic region is not a “front” at all and there is no imminent danger of Russia starting a shooting war there anytime soon, the bad news is that after the initial two-day artificial euphoria of deploying face-to-face with the Russian juggernaut, our soldiers will become bored gormless.

You can only patrol the Russian border so many times and conduct rapid reaction drills to perfection before you realize that you are a hell of a long way from your home and family and, oh yeah, the Russians aren’t coming.

The good news for the Latvians is that this token contribution of a few hundred Canadian soldiers will create a mini-economic boom. The Canadian defence budget will absorb the cost of building or refurbishing all the necessary facilities to house a mini-battalion of soldiers. This will create construction and service jobs in the local economy, and I have it on good authority from a Latvian colleague that the women there are keen on the prospect of landing themselves a Canadian husband.

Regretfully for those Colonel Blimps who wish it were so, this just ain’t your father’s Cold War.