ON TARGET: Women Have Come a Long Way in the Canadian Armed Forces

By Scott Taylor

Those readers old enough to remember may recall an advertising campaign from the late sixties promoting Virginia Slim cigarettes. The theme behind this series of television commercials and magazine ads was to illustrate just how far feminism had advanced throughout North American society.

The plotline was consistent wherein we were reminded of how, not so long ago women had to covertly enjoy a cigarette, and if discovered would be punished by an irate husband. This was then offset by images of very stylish women in the latest fashion, smoking an elegant looking Virginia Slim cigarette. The catch phrase was “You’ve come a long way baby.” Because now women not only had the right to vote, they also had cigarettes designed specifically for females that were slimmer and therefore easier to “slip into a purse.

While this sort of message may seem ludicrous by today’s standards, it only helps to illustrate how much further feminism has indeed advanced over the past half century.

I point this out because at present the Canadian Armed Forces are struggling to achieve a self-imposed goal of having 25% female representation by the year 2026. The current composition of the military stands at just 14.8% women.

Much scratching of heads and commissioning of studies has yet to produce a clear strategy as to how to find the magic formula to suddenly encourage the necessary waves of women to enlist

There have been an abundance of media reports – often based on internal analysis – of widespread sexual misconduct within the ranks, something which would run counter to enticing young women to make the military a career choice.

Personally, I am opposed to any sort of quota based recruiting policy based on gender. First of all, this would lead female recruits to question their own capabilities – were they selected based of their competency or were they simply let into the club to meet the 25% quota. Similarly such a quota could lead to resentment among their male colleagues who could believe the same thing.

This brings us back to the Virginia Slim’s marketing angle and how it might be a more successful tactic than an imposed quota. No, I’m not suggesting that the military promote smoking or refer to women collectively as ‘baby’.

However, women in the Canadian Armed Forces have indeed come a long way in a remarkably short period of time. It was not until the late 1980’s that women were allowed to serve in combat arms units, serve on warships and to pilot fighter planes.

Since those first pioneers broke down the barricades and proved themselves in a formerly male-only domain, women have steadily risen in rank and responsibility. To date we have had women hold the rank of Lieutenant-General, we currently have a female brigadier commanding a NATO mission in Iraq, we had a female commodore command the NATO squadron in the Mediterranean, female pilots have flown in combat, female soldiers were killed and wounded in Afghanistan, women command infantry battalions and currently serve as Regimental Sergeant Majors.

There may still be a lot of advancement to be made, but in spirit of our ‘brothers and sisters in arms’, it is true now to say “we’ve come a long way sister.

Here’s hoping that one day that statement too will be as outdated as the old Virginia Slim adverts.

ON TARGET: Holocaust Remembrance And Nazi Glorification Don't Mix

By Scott Taylor

Last week, in honour of the 75th anniversary of the Liberation of the Nazi concentration camp in Auschwitz and the coincidental international Holocaust Memorial Day, I attended a concert in Ottawa, organized by the Jewish War Veterans association.

I did not expect it to be a joyous occasion yet I was still not prepared for how deeply disturbing the performance actually turned out to be.

The concert consisted of a series of mournful songs, many of them in Yiddish, some about life inside concentration camps, others about the loss of loved ones.

What made the 90-minute performance so gut wrenching was that for the entire duration actual footage and photo images played on the screen at the back of the stage. These visuals showed in graphic detail the individual identities of the victims offset by the dehumanized machine-like precision of Hitler’s extermination apparatus.

I have long studied World War II history, and as such I have a fairly good grasp of the scale of the genocide perpetrated by the Nazis. However I have never before spent over an hour-and-a-half straight, looking at a steady stream of photo evidence of the depths of evil to which Hitler’s followers could stoop.

Many in the audience openly wept as the enormity of this tragedy played out on the screen. Many of those in attendance were foreign diplomats and members of the Jewish community, so they were also presumably well aware of the horrors of the Holocaust. Yet still it moved them.

I can only imagine the impact such a concert would have on fellow Canadians – who according to recent surveys – the majority of whom could not name a single Nazi concentration Camp.

What is even more difficult to fathom, once reminded of just how terrible the Nazis were, is the fact that in many European countries revisionists are not only trying to deny the Holocaust – they are actually holding ceremonies to glorify Hitler’s executioners.

There was an honorary funeral held last week in the town of Ivano-Frankivsk, Ukraine for a former veteran of the SS Galician division. Mykhalo Mulko’s burial was attended by re-enactors wearing WWII SS Galician uniforms.

As a member of the Ukrainian SS, Mulko would have sworn an oath of allegiance to Adolf Hitler, and he would have been under the overall SS command of Heinrich Himmler.

In the town of Ivano-Frankivsk, some 40,000 Jews were executed by the Nazis in 1941. Unbelievably, the mayor now plans to name a street after Mllko.

Every March 16 there is a parade in Riga, Latvia to celebrate the exploits of the SS Latvian Legion. Last year the Canadian government officially condemned this blatant glorification of Nazis – yet the Latvians defiantly persist in staging those events.

Similarly it has become a tradition for thousands of Croatians to gather in Bleiburg, Austria every May to commemorate the memory of Croat Fascist Ustase soldiers.

Few people realize that Croatia committed its own extermination of Serbs and Jews during World War II. The notorious death camp at Jasenovac sprawled over 210 square kilometers and was the largest such camp outside of Nazi German control.

Recently independent nations such as Ukraine, Latvia and Croatia are striving to define their national identity. What I truly do not understand is why in this effort are they so intent on celebrating individuals who participated in the mass killing of Jews? Why are they not holding parades for their scholars, poets, musicians or artists instead of rallies and celebrations to honour Hitler’s eager collaborators?

What true democratic country would want to honour individuals who murdered defence-less men, women and children? 

Holocaust revisionism is akin to denial, and after sitting through that 90-minute concert, I assure you the horrors of Hitler’s Holocaust were all too real.

ON TARGET: Holocaust Remembrance is Vital to Counter Nazi Glorification in Ukraine

By Scott Taylor

Today is International Holocaust Remembrance Day and this year it commemorates the 75th Anniversary of the Liberation of the Auschwitz – Birkenau Nazi death camp.

It is estimated that more than 1.1 million Jews perished at Auschwitz and when you add in the death tolls of the other notorious concentration camps such as Treblinka, Bergen-Belsen and Dachau more than 6 million Jews were executed on Hitler’s orders for the simple reason that they were Jewish.

The Holocaust was a crime against humanity that has no historical equivalent.

The frightening fact is that as time marches on, the horrors of the Holocaust are being forgotten, diminished and more and more frequently out right denied.

A recent study in France conducted by Schoen Consulting revealed that some 25 per cent of French Millennial’s and Gen Z youth had never heard of the Holocaust – and France is home to the third largest Jewish population in the world.

Twenty percent of French youth responded that holding anti-Semitic views was ‘acceptable’, which was twice that of the percentage of the French general population.

Before we isolate this as a case of French ignorance its should be pointed out that a recent study by this same Schoen Consulting found a similar level of Holocaust unawareness among Canadian and American respondents to the survey.

In fact a disappointing 49 per cent of Canadians could not name a single Nazi concentration camp. Ignorance among our youth lies with our education system and therefore it can and must be corrected.

However, there are those who seek to manipulate this knowledge vacuum through the total revision of this very dark period in mankind’s history.

In early January both Israel and Poland issued a joint statement from their foreign ministries condemning Ukraine for its public glorification of Holocaust perpetrators and ‘anti-Semitic ideologues.’

The incident which sparked the Israeli and Polish rebuke was Ukraine’s public celebration of the 111th birthdate of Stepan Bandera. As the WWII leader of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) and its military arm, the UPA, Bandera collaborated with Hitler’s Nazis.

Holocaust historians hold Bandera responsible for the deaths of thousands of Jews and over 100,000 Poles.

In response to the joint Israeli and Polish condemnation, Ukrainian Ambassador Gennady Nadolenko warned Israel to stay out of “internal issues of Ukrainian politics.”

Undeterred, the Israeli Foreign Ministry shot back the statement that “individuals responsible for the murder of Jews in the Holocaust and in the pogroms, as well as the anti-Semitic ideologists of the Ukraine National movement have recently been subject of public glorifications in Ukraine.” The Israeli Foreign Ministry “condemns those phenomena.”

It may be recalled there was some controversy last August when uninformed Canadian soldiers were paraded at a monument dedication in the Ukrainian village of Sambir. What made this incident controversial was the fact that the monument was being dedicated to 17 members of Stepan Bandera’s OUN fighters, which Israel and Poland vehemently condemns as Holocaust collaborators.

It is one thing for Canadian citizens to have a collective ignorance of the extreme horrors of the Holocaust, it is another matter altogether when Canadians in uniform are paraded to honour the memory of those Ukrainian Nazi sympathizers who perpetrated this atrocity.

May we never forget, never revise and never deny the magnitude of the inhumanity of Hitler’s Holocaust.

ON TARGET: Ukraine Airlines Flight 752 Tragedy: Impossible to look at Missile Strike as an Isolated Incident

By Scott Taylor

Last week Canada hosted a five nation meeting at the High Commission in London UK to declare a united front in confronting Iran over that nation’s admitted complicity in the downing of Ukraine Air Flight 752.

The participating nations included host Canada, Ukraine, Sweden, UK and Afghanistan and collectively these five countries lost a total of 85 of their nationals aboard that ill-fated flight.

As 57 of those 85 were Canadian citizens it only seems correct that Canada is taking a lead role.

Thus far all of the demands are being made against Iran, with this collective group of five demanding inclusion in the investigation, punishment for the perpetrators and compensation for the victim’s families.

The problem with this particular course of action is that it is limiting the scope of the investigative probe into one singular incident – the downing of flight 752 – in what has been an interwoven series of related events involving another major player in this scenario – namely the U.S.A

How can one disassociate the American assassination of Iranian general Qassem Soleimani with the escalated tensions, Iranian reprisals against U.S. targets in Iraq and the subsequent Iranian blunder of shooting down a civilian airliner?

Already the U.S. claims of self-defence in the killing of General Soleimani are beginning to unravel, as President Donald Trump’s assertion of Soleimani plotting an imminent attack on American targets could not be substantiated to U.S. congress.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau took a lot of flak from U.S. lawmakers when he suggested that the murder of Soleimani, and resultant increase in regional tension may have contributed to the tragedy.

If Iran had a history of just randomly shooting civilian planes out of the sky over their own capital or if anyone could offer a plausible theory as to how downing flight 752 punished America, I might accept that this was indeed an act of terrorism.

However, this was the first time the Iranian military has made such a tragic error and not a single U.S. citizen was aboard that aircraft.

Following the killing of Soleimani and the mass public funeral mourning for this popular commander, the Tehran regime had vowed vengeance on America – the Great Satan.

On the night of Jan. 8, Iran military forces attempted to do just that when they launched a number of surface-to-surface missiles at American military bases inside Iraq.

Those strikes resulted in damage but the U.S. reported there were no causalities. Only hours later, the Iranians shot down an unarmed airliner filled with Iranian civilians.(Iran does not recognize dual citizenship, so according to Tehran media reports 145 of the 176 total victims were Iranians.) None were Americans.

Although Iran originally denied responsibility for this tragedy, they subsequently did admit to the blunder and have allegedly made arrests in this case.

Contrary to every pundit’s prediction, Iran has also agreed to allow outside oversight – including Canadian – into the investigation of the Ukrainian airline tragedy.

Whether or not justice is ever fully served, or if Iran agrees to properly compensate the families of the victims in this tragedy remains to be seen.

However, if we really want the full truth and accountability for the fate of flight 752 then this five nation collective should be also demanding access to the U.S. Intelligence files upon which Trump ordered the death of Soleimani which undeniably set this most recent tragic sequence in motion.

While we’re at it maybe we can look at holding accountable those individuals in the U.S. Intelligence Service that falsified the claim that Saddam Hussein possessed Weapons of Mass Destruction back in 2003.

I cannot even begin to imagine how the U.S. could possibly pay out proper compensate to the families of the victims caused by the invasion of Iraq based on that lie about Iraq’s non existent WMD’s.

ON TARGET: There is no logical reason that Iran shot down Flight 752 intentionally

By Scott Taylor

Last Thursday when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced that the downing of Ukrainian Airlines flight 752 was believed to have been caused by an Iranian missile, he was immediately denounced across social media platforms for "kowtowing" to the Tehran regime. What sparked this public derision was the fact that Trudeau stated that such a scenario of a missile strike was likely “unintentional.”

The most aggressive hawks among Trudeau’s critics view this cautionary tone to be a weasel-worded submission to the terrorist regime that rules Iran.

There were 57 Canadians killed on that airplane and a total of 138 passengers on that flight had a connecting flight via Kiev Ukraine to Toronto.

This makes this incident a Canadian tragedy, and an outraged public are demanding that Trudeau hold the Iranians feet to the proverbial fire.

At first the authorities in Tehran vehemently denied that their military air defence caused the crash and they demanded that the U.S. and Canadian Intelligence agencies reveal their evidence of such missile strike claims.

On Saturday, in a surprise about-face, the Iranians acknowledged that the Ukrainian airliner was indeed shot down by one of their missiles, albeit in a case of ‘human error’.

The Iranians have also stated they will allow independent transport authorities — including Canadians and representatives from Boeing the aircraft manufacturer — to participate in the crash inquiry.

Whatever the actual cause of the incident —  the Iranian Revolutionary Guard now being the admitted culprit — I can fathom no reason why the Iranians would have intentionally shot down this flight.

According to Iranian news sources there were only two Canadians on board that Ukrainian Airlines flight. The reason for the huge discrepancy is that Iran does not recognize dual citizenship.

According to the Iranians the death official toll included 147 Iranian citizens and 30 foreigners (which includes the nine Ukrainian Airlines crew members).

To quickly recap events; on Fri. Jan. 3, U.S. drones target and kill Iranian Major General Qassem Soleimani outside Baghdad airport in Iraq. While Soleimani was reviled in the west as a terrorist he was revered inside Iran for having successfully defeated the Daesh (aka ISIS) terrorists in Iraq.

His funeral processions drew millions of mourners into the Iranian streets and Tehran threatened to kill Americans in revenge. On the night of 7/8 January that revenge manifested itself in the form of rocket attacks against U.S. bases inside Iraq. The Iranian leadership describes these rocket strikes as a ‘slap in the face’ to the U.S.A.

Then the hawks here in Canada would have us believe that just hours later, at 6:10am local time, the Iranians deliberately targeted and destroyed a civilian airliner, filled with what they regard to be mostly Iranian citizens, in the skies above the Iranian capital. That simply makes no sense.

The attacks against the U.S. bases in Iraq were meant to be a show of martial defiance. Blowing up a defenceless plane, filled with your own people inside your own sovereign airspace sends no such message.

If the missile launch was indeed unintentional, as is the most likely scenario, it is understandable that Tehran did not initially want to admit to such a colossal military blunder.

Those of us old enough to remember will recall that the U.S. Navy obfuscated their own military blunder back on July 3, 1988. It was on that date that U.S.S Vincennes under the command of Captain Will Rogers engaged and destroyed Iran Air Flight 655. As a result of that missile strike 290 Iranian civilians, 66 of them children, perished above the Persian Gulf.

In the aftermath the U.S. Navy claimed that the Iranian aircraft had been mistaken for an Iranian Air Force F-14 fighter plane and it was diving towards the U.S.S Vincennes in what appeared to be an attack mode.

The U.S. Navy also claimed that the Iranian Airbus A300 was transponding on the military Mode II code.

A subsequent full board of inquiry which included the recordings of the Vincennes shipboard Aegis Combat System revealed that in fact Flight 655 was ascending at the time, flying in a designated commercial air lane, while transponding clearly on the civilian Mode III channel.
We all know the U.S. military would never deliberately kill foreign civilians. It was clearly an unintentional military blunder in a dangerous war zone.

Let’s afford the Iranians that same level of potential martial ineptitude rather than jumping to the assumption that they intentionally killed off 147 of their own people plus 30 foreigners.

Will Soleimani's execution drag Canada into a senseless war?

Originally published by NOW Magazine

By Scott Taylor

In the immediate aftermath of the U.S. assassination of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani, American pundits and politicos took to the airwaves to justify the state-sponsored extrajudicial execution.

These cheerleaders tell us that Soleimani was the terrorist of all terrorists and has been for the last two decades. Some trumpeting Soleimani’s death claim his assassination was a bigger blow to global terrorism than the capture and killings of Osama bin Laden, mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, and Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, the Iraqi-born leader of the Islamic State of Iraq (IS aka ISIS).

Some pundits went as far as to claim Soleimani was directly responsible for the death of more than 500 American servicemen and women in Iraq. Furthermore, it was claimed by President Donald Trump, who ordered the assassination, that U.S. intelligence services had evidence that Soleimani was plotting more attacks against the U.S., and therefore his murder was essentially a pre-emptive strike in the interests of national security.

If all these claims are true – and why would anyone ever question information from U.S. intelligence? – then why was the rest of the world not aware of what a top-notch scumbag Soleimani was until Trump and the Pentagon had him greased in an airstrike?

There is no question that Soleimani commanded Iran’s elite Quds force. This would be the same Quds force that entered Iraq at the request of the Baghdad regime in 2014 when ISIS overran Iraq’s Sunni Triangle, and the U.S.-trained and -equipped Iraqi army simply dissolved into thin air

Soleimani’s Quds fighters and their Iranian-backed, Iraqi Shiite militia not only stemmed the rising ISIS tide but helped eliminate its proclaimed caliphate in Iraq.

One of the reasons that Soleimani has such a high public profile in Iraq is because he was regarded as the commander of the allied ground forces that eliminated ISIS’s last major stronghold in the city of Mosul.

Those who closely follow events in the Middle East will recall that Canadian Special Forces acted as advisors to Iraq’s Kurdish militia who were directly involved in that same siege of Mosul. Does this mean Canadian soldiers were closely allied to a force commanded by the alleged terrorist Soleimani? Crazy stuff.

There are currently some 850 Canadian military troops in the Middle East as part of the ongoing Operation Impact. At least 300 or more are inside Iraq. These troops are divided into two separate missions – one to advise and assist, and the other is a command role in NATO’s military mission to train Iraqi security forces.

Most Canadians are unaware that Canada maintains such a large contingent in Iraq, and it's committed to remain there until at least November 2020. One reason for this is that, thankfully, we have not taken a single causality in Iraq since the March 6, 2015, friendly-fire incident that killed Sergeant Andrew Doiron and wounded three other Canadian Special Forces members.

Another reason for the public ignorance surrounding this mission is that there have been zero successes to report. In fact, since last September, Iraq has been embroiled in a series of violent protests resulting in bloody clashes between civilians and security forces.

Hundreds of Iraqi civilians have been killed and tens of thousands wounded in those riots by the very same security forces that the Canadians have the command role in training.

The Iraqi protestors are demanding an end to the corrupt regime in Baghdad while our Canadian soldiers are training Iraqi soldiers to prop up that same cabal. It sounds like Afghanistan all over again.

Some Canadian military pundits questioned whether or not, as America’s close ally, Canada was consulted before Trump ordered the assassination of Soleimani. As it seems that Trump did not even seek approval of the U.S. Congress before committing an act of war, you can bet he did not place a call to Justin Trudeau to ask Canada’s permission.

Canada has no dog in this fight, and at the end of the day we will have no seat at the table that will plot the future redrawing of the Middle East map. Now that the titans of Iran and the USA are rattling their sabres, it's time for Canada to admit that we are in way over our heads, and get our troops out of Iraq.

Trump’s illegal assassination of Soleimani is all the excuse we need to pull out of yet another unwinnable, senseless war.

ON TARGET: U.S. and Canada Lied About ‘Success’ in Afghanistan

By Scott Taylor

Almost lost in the media storm south of the border, which is focused on the President Donald Trump impeachment, was the startling revelation that the American government has been lying about the war in Afghanistan for nearly two decades.

According to a treasure trove of official documents uncovered by the Washington Post, everyone in the U.S. chain of command from the Presidential Commanders-in-Chief to junior field officers – has been deliberately misleading the public about the war’s progress since 2001.

These explosive and revealing documents - now dubbed ‘The Afghanistan Papers’  - detailed how top U.S. officials were reporting ‘progress’ when there was none in order to prop up popular support for a war that they themselves knew could not be won.

The Americans played the lead role in Afghanistan. They alone invaded that country and along with their dubious allies known as the Northern Alliance, toppled the Taliban.  

It was at that juncture that the U.N authorized what became known as the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) and NATO eagerly stepped up to command the alliance forces.

Canada contributed what was to be a single battalion for a single six-month tour of duty. The Taliban had been defeated, the U.S had appointed Hamid Karzai as the new President and now NATO and Canada were simply tagging along for the victory lap.

The original plan was to quickly build a self-sufficient Afghan security force, hold some democratic elections and have our boys and girls home by Christmas. Needless to say, things did not quite work out as planned.

In the end, Canada sent more than 30,000 troops into Afghanistan, before we finally cut our losses and withdrew from the mission in 2014.

During those 12 years Canada lost 158 soldiers killed, another 2000 wounded or injured and untold thousands who suffer from the invisible wounds of PTSD. The dollar figure spent is estimated to top $20 billion by the time all the long-term health care costs are factored in.

As for the current situation, the Afghan security forces remain no match for their insurgent counterparts and still rely heavily upon U.S. and NATO combat troops in support.

The opium trade, which the U.S. has spent $9 billion to eradicate, is at an all time high, and the long ago defeated Taliban are currently negotiating a peace deal with the U.S. in Doha, Qatar.

Given this reality it seems that the explosive ‘Afghanistan Papers’ are only confirming what even the most self-delusional war hawk already knew: We aren’t winning this war and we never were.

This is what makes the reaction to the ‘Afghanistan Papers’ by Canada’s Defence Minister seem a little bizarre. Harjit Sajjan served three tours of duty in Kandahar as an officer in the Canadian Armed Forces.

Instead of taking exception to the fact that the U.S. military leadership was “at war with the truth’ as concluded in the ‘Afghanistan Papers’, Sajjan seemed to double down on the false narrative. In a recent interview with the iPolitics news site, Sajjan claimed, “I would say the insights the Canadians provided were actually very useful. That’s the one point I’m trying to get across here.”

Sajjan went on to say, “Canadians were providing a very good perspective, and very early on, to have a much more, I would say, accurate account of what is happening.”

As one who covered the war in Afghanistan closely from the outset, I call ‘bullshit’ on Sajjan’s claim.

The senior Canadian officials painted just as rosy a picture of events as their American counterparts, and they were just as false.

In fact, it was considered to be unpatriotic for journalists to question any aspect of the war in Afghanistan. The slogan of the Canadian war hawks was “if you don’t support the mission, you don’t support the troops.” Turns out they were lying to us all along about the mission.

A full parliamentary inquiry into how Canada’s leadership alone stumbled into such a costly fiasco is long overdue. Our troops at least deserve the truth. They paid the price.

ON TARGET: SNC-Lavalin may have committed Corporate crimes against Libya….The West destroyed Libya as a Country

By Scott Taylor

On Wednesday Dec. 18, a division of SNC-Lavalin quietly plead guilty to having committed crimes while operating in Libya. In exchange for admitting guilt, the Montreal based engineering firm was placed on a three-year probation and ordered to pay a $280 million fine over the next five years.

The allegations of wrongdoing date back to the period between 2001 and 2011 when SNC-Lavalin secured approximately $1.7 billion worth of construction contracts from the Libyan government. They have now admitted to the court that $50 million was paid as a bribe – often in the form of prostitutes, parties and a yacht – to Saadi Ghadafi, the son of former dictator Moammar Gadhafi.

However it was the 2018 request by the SNC-Lavalin legal team for a deferred prosecution agreement (DPA) that generated a crapstorm for the Trudeau Liberals.

When Justice Minister Judy Wilson-Raybould refused to grant SNC-Lavalin the DPA, senior officials allegedly pressured her to reconsider. This eventually led to Wilson-Raybould’s resignation, and not coincidentally that of Trudeau’s senior advisor Gerald Butts.

At the time it was believed that without the DPA, a guilty verdict in the case would cost SNC-Lavalin the ability to bid on any future federal government infrastructure projects.

Such a circumstance would be crippling to SNC-Lavalin and company officials had advised Trudeau’s office that this would result in the loss of some 9,000 jobs in Canada and the relocation – out of Quebec – of their SNC-Lavalin corporate headquarters.

However, in last week’s court proceedings, SNC-Lavalin plead guilty to crimes against ‘various Libyan’ authorities’ rather than the ‘Crown.’ This little loophole will allow SNC-Lavalin to still bid on future Canadian government contracts, albeit under the conditions of the three year probation.

So in the end, the engineering company gets slapped with a stiff fine, SNC-Lavalin and the 9,000 jobs stay in Quebec and Canadian law makers can claim that our independent Judicial system withstood the test of attempted political interference.

Lost in all this discussion about Ottawa backroom skullduggery and political maneuvering is the magnitude of what was actually transpiring along the timeline of the original allegations of criminal behavior by SNC-Lavalin.

There is a reason that SNC-Lavalin’s Libyan contracts ended in 2011, and that would be the start of the Libyan uprising against Moammar Gadhafi.

The bribe money paid, and the profits realized by SNC-Lavalin in Libya amounts to almost exactly the $280 million fine, which the company has been ordered to pay. That money was taken from the citizens of Libya.

At the very least, the fine money paid by SNC-Lavalin over the next five years should be forwarded to the Libyan government in compensation. The only problem with that plan is that there is not one Libyan authority in control of the country. There are instead three separate, equally impotent self-proclaimed governments along with hundreds of disparate warlords and Islamic extremists.

Canada played a lead role in NATO’s 2011 intervention in Iraq with Canadian Lieutenant-General Charles Bouchard commanding the entire allied war effort.

We helped bomb the crap out of the Libyan infrastructure, we decimated the Libyan security forces and we ensured that Moammar Gadhafi was overthrown.

The once high flying Saadi Gadhaffi, recipient of the SNC Lavalin bribes spent seven years of brutal captivity at the hands of the Canadian backed Libyan rebels.

It was alleged that he was tortured in captivity before being acquitted on murder charges. His fate was better than his father Moammar who bled to death in the streets of Sirte after being sodomized with a tent spike.

Since Canada’s victory over Libya in 2011, (the occasion being marked with a full victory parade on Parliament Hill,) Libya descended into complete anarchy. It remains awash in violent anarchy.

What SNC-Lavalin did in Libya was wrong and the company deserves to be punished. What Canada and NATO did in abandoning the Libyan people after ousting Gadhafi is a far greater crime.

ON TARGET: Canada In Iraq: Yet Another Unwinnable War

By Scott Taylor

The western media reports of late have been quick to condemn authoritarian regimes for their excessive use of force against civilian protestors. For more than six months now Hong Kong riot police have battled the pro-democracy mobs of this former British colony.

The pro-democracy protestors have expressed their anger at encroaching control over Hong Kong by the Beijing China authorities, through a steady stream of violent riots.

Pro-democracy activists retorted to pelting riot police with petrol bombs and even engaged them with bows and arrows. The world condemned the Hong Kong police for aggressively arresting these pro-democracy types even when protestors shut down the Hong Kong airport for days and occupied a university campus.

Far more effective in making their case for democracy was the recent landslide victory for Hong Kong’s anti-Beijing majority electorate in the civil election. Despite this clear message being sent to the Hong Kong administration that reform is necessary, the protests continue.

While it is true that the Hong Kong police have employed clouds of tear gas and riot batons against these protestors, the fact is that to date, there has not been a single fatality in all of these clashes on either side of the battle lines.

While we are quick to condemn the Chinese for their ruthless response, I would hazard a guess that if U.S. rioters hurled petrol bombs at American police, there would be gunfire, and lots of it.

For weeks now, Iran has faced a widespread outbreak of civil unrest. Iranians are enraged at the suffering they must endure as a result of the USA’s embargo against the Tehran regime. That regime has not shown as much restraint in their security forces’ use of lethal force. It is estimated that hundreds of Iranian youth have been killed in the unrest with thousands more injured.

So a deserved condemnation is due to Iranian leadership for allowing their population to be so brutally oppressed in this manner.

This then brings us to the situation in Iraq where we have a total of 700 military personnel deployed – some 250 of them working as trainers to the Iraqi security forces. Almost unreported in the western media has been the fact that for the past two and a half months, Iraq too has been awash in violent unrest. The initial response from the Baghdad regime was to deploy the NATO trained security forces to restore order. Like Iran, the Iraqi force did not show the restraint of the Hong Kong police, and escalated almost immediately to shooting protestors with live ammunition.

The genesis for the current upheaval stems from an almost universal fatigue on the part of Iraqi youth to cope with the intrinsic corruption of the Baghdad regime. Yes folks, that would be the same corrupt Baghdad regime that Canadian troops are deployed to support.

Unlike many of Iraq’s previous violent clashes, which involved intersectarian violence between Sunni and Shiites – this time it is a unified front against corruption.

To date some estimates put the death toll at over one thousand with 10,000 injured.

In a rare move, Iraqi’s Chaldean Christian Cardinal Louis Raphael Sako last week declared they were cancelling Christmas in Iraq to stand in solidarity with the Sunni and Shiite protestors.

Further complicating the matter earlier this month, Iraq’s Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi stepped down to appease the protestors, but all this accomplished was to leave this embattled country leaderless.

In a bizarre understatement, Major-General Jennie Carignan, the current Canadian commander of the NATO mission in Iraq told the Globe and Mail “we can see there is some work to do on now [Iraqi officials] structure and organize themselves for crisis management.”

The security forces we trained are greasing protestors in the streets by the hundreds to prop up a vacant regime and Carignan’s observation is that there is room for improvement?

No crap Sherlock!

Canada should never have deployed to Iraq. Our mission there was never clear and now it has lost all meaning. If we wish to maintain the moral high ground to chastise brutal regimes like Beijing and Tehran, Canada needs to stop propping up one in Baghdad.

ON TARGET: Trump’s Misplaced Ire at NATO Summit

Photo: Nicholas Kamm / AFP

By Scott Taylor

The fact that Canadian pundits are still pondering the potential fallout from what was labeled Justin Trudeau’s “gaffe” at the NATO Summit speaks volume to the actual state of Canada – U.S. relations.

The incident in question arose from some candid comments by Trudeau at a Buckingham Palace reception. Trudeau was explaining his tardiness to fellow world leaders Emmanuel Macron and Boris Johnson as being due to Donald Trump extending his press conference to a full forty minutes. Trudeau also shared with Macron and Johnson the fact that Trump had made some unscripted comments, which had caused the President’s staffers to drop their jaws in surprised response.

Trudeau’s comments were caught by the press pool camera, along with our Prime Minister’s slightly theatrical imitation of those jaw dropping.

The footage soon went viral with commentators claiming these world leaders were mocking Trump behind his back.

British tabloids proclaimed Trudeau’s gaffe to be a “diplomatic disaster.” Analysts and pundits in Canada speculated wildly that this will come back to bite us. In other words, this careless comment would anger the gods and bring down hellfire upon us.

If, as Trudeau alleged, Trump had arbitrarily extended a joint press conference longer than scheduled, then the U.S. President was being his usual boorish self.  For Trudeau to mention this to peers at a reception seems a natural enough response.

There was nothing inherently insulting about the chatter and as for Trump shocking his staffers with surprising comments, it seems that this is something in which the U.S. President delights.

However, when asked about the Trudeau comment, Trump retorted “well, he’s two faced.” Although the U.S. President hastened to add that finds Trudeau “to be a nice guy” he was later caught on an open microphone bragging “that was funny when I said that guy was two faced.”

Trump also told reporters that he thought Trudeau’s comments may have been the result of him having publicly admonished Canada’s Prime Minister for failing to spend 2% of our Gross Domestic Product on defence.

This was after all a NATO summit, and back in 2014 the alliance had undertaken a collective agreement to target that magical 2% of GDP on defence. In Trump’s mind any NATO member not spending 2% is seen as delinquent and he conceded that Canada was only “slightly delinquent.” 

However, Trump has also threatened to start punishing those delinquent countries with trade tariffs until such time as they start paying their due.

The problem with this logic is that not all GDP’s are created equal, and there are no guidelines linked to a definitive combat capability generated as a result of those expenditures.

To meet the 2% threshold Canada would need to spend an additional $11 billion annually on defence. In theory we could simply double the salaries of our military personnel, not add a single gun or bullet to our inventory and we could thus meet that magic percentage.

Turkey spends about two-thirds of what Canada spends in terms of real dollars on defence, but they do meet the 2% marker due to their much smaller GDP. They also have a much larger armed forces as they rely upon conscription.

For approximately $14 billion, the Turks can field 355,000 regular forces personnel and 378,700 reservists. That is a lot of bang for the buck.

Bulgaria on the other hand has a tiny military and a minuscule GDP. As a result of them buying just 8 F-16 fighter jets, Bulgaria’s defence budget soared to a whopping 3.2% of GDP, second only in the NATO alliance to the USA itself.

It is also pointless if a NATO member spends the requisite 2% and maintains an effective military capability – but never deploys their forces into harm’s way.

As Trudeau pointed out to Trump during their discussion at the NATO summit, Canada has consistently been at the forefront of supporting the alliance. Canada currently has a lead role in the NATO Iraq training mission and the battle group deployed to Latvia.

If that makes us ‘slightly delinquent’ then so be it.

ON TARGET: Trump Is A Wannabe Warfighter

Gage Skidmore/Flickr

By Scott Taylor

In recent days U.S. President Donald Trump has embarked upon a bizarre rash of pardoning and protecting U.S. service members who were convicted or accused of war crimes.

In doing so, I’m not exactly sure to which demographic Trump is trying to appeal.

These soldiers were not tried and convicted by some malign foreign actors trying to smear the good reputation of the U.S. military, but rather they were accused, investigated, charged and convicted of these crimes by that very same U.S. military institution in which they serve.

Soldiers in western democracies know that there are rules in war – such as the Geneva Convention, and by abiding by those rules we set ourselves apart from the evildoers who do not.

One of Trump’s most prominent beneficiaries of this presidential protection has been U.S. Navy Seal Chief Eddie Gallagher. This decorated veteran was court martialled last June on a number of charges, including the stabbing death of young wounded Daesh fighter in U.S. captivity in Iraq.  

Those accusations were leveled at Gallagher by other decorated U.S. Navy Seals in his unit. While the murder charge was dropped when a prosecution witness, testifying with immunity confessed to the crime, Gallagher was convicted of having posed for photos with the deceased’s corpse. 

The ink was barely dry on that guilty verdict when Trump weighed in with a pardon and orders to restore Gallagher to his previous rank and pay grade.

The Navy subsequently undertook a review seeking to revoke Gallagher’s status as a member of the elite Special Forces community. In response to this Trump tweeted “The Navy will NOT be taking away warfighter and Navy Seal Eddie Gallagher’s Trident Pin. This case was handled very badly from the beginning. Get back to business.”

U.S. Navy Secretary Richard Spencer was forced to resign over how the Gallagher case was handled and the controversy continues to dominate headlines.

Obviously Trump as Commander-in-Chief can pull rank in this instance, but such actions actually do a disservice to the reputation of the U.S. military.

In singling out Gallagher for not only protection but praise, Trump had frequently criticized those fellow Navy Seals who testified against him. Trump went so far as to describe the top Seal commanders as ‘morons.’

While Trump was unfortunately exempted from military service in the Vietnam war due to bone spurs on his feet, he does profess to have a great sympathy for the brave men and women in uniform who do put themselves in harm’s way. The crazy thing is that Trump thinks the way to show his sincere support for the military is to pardon and protect the very individuals that the military has convicted and removed from its ranks for violating their institution’s own moral code of conduct.

On 15 November, Trump made good on a Memorial Day promise by issuing two more pardons; one to a convicted U.S. military war criminal; the second to a soldier awaiting court martial on murder charges.

The case of First Lieutenant Clint Lorance, like Gallagher, originated with allegations being leveled at him by his own comrades.

Lorance’s men had been ordered to fire on unarmed Afghan civilians, which left two civilians dead. Following an investigation Lorance was charged, court martialled and convicted of the crime. In his defence, Lorance claimed the Afghans had been revving their motorcycle engines in a threatening manner. Eye witnesses stated the unarmed Afghans were in fact hundreds of meters away. In 2013 the military judge sentenced Lorance to serve a nineteen-year sentence. Trump just set him free.

The case against Major Mathew Golsteyn will never get to trial, despite the fact that he is accused of murdering an Afghan, burying him and then reburying the corpse in an attempt to hide evidence.

In justifying his decision to issue these pardons Trump tweeted “Our great warfighters must be allowed to fight.” And he described major Golsteyn as a “U.S. military hero.”

Without realizing it, Trump is sending the wrong message to his own military; that they are beyond reproach even from their own Chain of Command. Soldiers know the difference between heroic acts and criminal acts. Trump apparently has the two confused.

ON TARGET: Soldier alleges he faced reprisals for helping female colleague

Cpl. Casey Brunelle/Facebook

By Scott Taylor

Almost lost in the swirling news storms surrounding the controversial firing of sportscaster Don Cherry, the naming of Justin Trudeau’s new cabinet and the daily revelations regarding U.S. President Donald Trump’s road to impeachment, there was a startling report about a Canadian soldier taking the military to Federal Court.

Corporal Casey Brunelle, an Ottawa based reservist in the Intelligence Branch, alleges that he faced reprisals and punishment from his chain of command. What is shocking about this case is that Brunelle claims his career took this bureaucratic nosedive after he had supported a fellow soldier with a sexual assault claim.

That assistance later resulted in Brunelle testifying at a court martial against the accused – which happened to also be a fellow soldier in 7 Intelligence Company.

The initial alleged assault took place during a training course at CFB Valcartier in 2013. The female soldier involved confided to Brunelle that the accused had among other things, removed her socks, sucked on her toes and then ejaculated on her feet.

Brunelle convinced her to report the incidents to the military police, and in late February 2014, charges were laid against the accused. Those charges included sexual assault, attempted sexual assault, two counts of behaving in a disgraceful manner and a single count of conduct to the prejudice of good order and discipline.

While Brunelle was not an eyewitness to either incident, he was called as a prosecution witness for the January 2015 court martial.

According to the accused’s defence, the female soldier involved had in fact put her feet on his crotch while he sat on a couch. She had rubbed his penis with her feet for approximately five minutes before he unzipped his pants and proceeded to ejaculate on the sofa. He was adamant that no semen went on her feet.

As for a second allegation that the accused had appeared at the end of the female soldier’s bed in the middle of the night and exposed her feet, this was explained away as simply a middle of the night error in navigation. The accused had gotten up to relieve himself and returned to not only the wrong bed but the wrong end of that bunk.

In the end the accused’s version was the one the trial Judge believed and as a result he was found not guilty on all charges.

In my view the admission of ejaculating on government property – in this case a barracks room sofa – should have at least warranted a guilty verdict on the charges of behaving in a disgraceful manner – and I’m pretty sure the poor cleaner of that barracks would agree.

But I digress.

Once the verdict was delivered, Brunelle soon found himself to be a pariah within his unit, facing an immediate administrative backlash from 7 Intelligence Company superiors.

When the charges were first laid and leading up to the court martial, the accused had been suspended from duty. Brunelle had warned his superiors that in the event of a not-guilty verdict, him having testified against the accused would make it difficult to work alongside this individual again.

Makes sense.

However, once the accused was cleared, Brunelle’s superiors gave him three options; he could get out of the military, he could transfer to another unit, or he could drop his so-called ‘ultimatum’ about not wishing to serve alongside the former defendant.

To further press home their point Brunelle was accused of having misused public funds during his travel to appear at the court martial, his Personnel Evaluation Reports were revised to reflect his alleged unreliability and he was threatened with a security review.

Brunelle fought back with the saga winding it way up the chain of command until it reached the Chief of Defence Staff Gen. Jon Vance and the Military External Review Committee (MERC) at about the same time.

Carolyn Maynard of the MERC concluded in her report by recommending “the [CDS] acknowledge that the unit should not have threatened [Brunelle] with a (security) review and express regret for the somewhat misguided actions of the unit at the time.”

On 15 May 2019, Vance issued his final verdict in which he ignored most of Maynard’s recommendations. There would be no apology to Brunelle, because according to Vance there were no reprisals.

This past June, Brunelle requested a federal court review on Vance’s decision. To date this corporal has incurred $45,000 in legal fees trying to defend himself from doing what he still believes was the right thing.

ON TARGET: Don Cherry saga Divides Canadian Military Community

By Scott Taylor

There is no question that hockey commentator Don Cherry’s controversial remarks and subsequent firing proved polemic well beyond the normal reach of the Hockey Night in Canada audience. But the Cherry saga was perhaps at its most divisive among the very veterans’ community, which the aging sportscaster was purporting to defend.

The reason for this is that for decades now Cherry has been seen as the country’s biggest booster of the Canadian Armed Forces. He would use his weekly pulpit on Coach’s Corner to heap praise on Canadian troops and during the Afghanistan conflict he made it a point to recognize and mourn every soldier killed on duty.

Cherry also made numerous trips to visit Canadian troops in the field, often giving up his Christmas holiday to serve soldiers their festive turkey.

The night that Cherry made his off-colour remarks he was wearing a Royal Canadian Legion blazer and the regimental tie of the Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry.

It is therefore no wonder that many Canadians – including a large majority of my own extended family – believed that Cherry is himself a veteran. The truth is Cherry never served in uniform, but his dedication and support for the military is clearly evident.

That said, his remarks were both racist and divisive. So that I cannot be accused of taking things out of context, lets review his bumbling statement in its entirety.

“You people love – they come here, whatever it is, you love our way of life, you love our milk and honey, at least you could pay a few bucks for a poppy or something like that. These guys pay for your way of life that you enjoy in Canada, these guys paid the biggest price,” said Cherry.

The Cherry apologists would have people believe that there was a single slip-up wherein Grapes used the term “you people” instead of what he now claims should have been ‘everybody.’

That is clearly not the case and it is undeniable that Cherry was singling out immigrants in his rant.

On the topic of Canadians wearing poppies to display repect for our men and women in uniform, I would whole-heartedly agree with Cherry that every Canadian should participate. However it would defeat the purpose if Canadians were forced to wear one – or as Cherry would have it – shamed into wearing one.

The very freedom that was earned by those soldiers who paid the ultimate sacrifice means Canadians have the option to wear a poppy.

That so many Canadians of all stripes are opting out of wearing these symbols of Remembrance means that we are failing to educate people as to what these poppies represent – and why we wear them every November.

During the decade long conflict in Afghanistan, the steady flow of flag draped coffins put a new look on Remembrance Ceremonies. People were engaged with out troops’ deployment in Kandahar to such a degree that the ‘Canadian Soldier’ was named Newsmaker of the year in 2006.

On 22 October, 2014, Corporal Nathan Cirillo was gunned down by a terrorist at the tomb of the unknown soldier in Ottawa, our soldiers’ sacrifice was brought all too close to home.

That year’s Remembrance Day ceremony at the National War Memorial attracted the biggest crowd in history.

However it is obvious that Canadians have short memories when it comes to our military. A poll conducted in 2018 showed that the majority of Canadians had no understanding of what role the Canadian Armed Forces preform.

If we do not know our present, let alone our history, then pinning a little red flower to our lapel for a few days each year is pointless. I agree with Cherry’s sentiment that everyone should wear a poppy, but only if they actually understand what it means.

As for Rogers firing Cherry over this latest outburst, it seems a little hypocritical to be upset by this given that the 85 year old should have been retired twenty years ago. Remember, this is the guy that once thought it was ‘sissy’ for Swedes to wear helmets in the NHL.

ON TARGET: Canadian Soldiers Play Hockey While Iraq Burns?

Photo: AFP / AHMAD AL-RUBAYE

CAF/Facebook

By Scott Taylor

Last Thursday there was news out of Iraq that security forces had killed four protestors and wounded 35 in violent clashes just outside the Green Zone in Baghdad. This incident barely made a ripple in the Canadian media as it was simply the latest in a steady stream of violent clashes in a country that has been awash in inter-sectarian violence since the U.S. invasion back in 2003.

This most recent wave of unrest began with public protests against government corruption, unemployment and the inability of the current regime to provide basic services and utilities.

The protestors were unarmed but that did not deter the Iraqi security forces from using lethal force against the demonstrators. To date more than 260 Iraqi civilians have been killed in the one-sided clashes, which have also resulted in thousands of these protestors being injured.

Canada currently has two separate military missions deployed to Iraq totaling a maximum of 850 personnel. One of these missions is a contingent of Special Forces trainers who have the vague mandate of aiding and assisting Iraqi forces in the aftermath of the defeat of Daesh (aka ISIS or ISIL).

The second much more clearly defined role is that of lead nation in the NATO training mission.

Based in Camp Taji just outside Baghdad, these 250 Canadian soldiers are directly involved in training the security forces of the Iraqi regime. That would be the same Iraqi military personnel that have been mowing down unarmed protestors in the streets of Baghdad and Basra.

Although the Canadian media has largely ignored the violence in Iraq, you would think that at least such incidents would be a major concern for the Canadian soldiers on the ground there. Not only is it happening in their own backyard, it is potentially being perpetrated by their very own recruits. Sadly these concerns don’t seem to have registered.

On Oct. 19 the Canadian Armed Forces Operations posted an update on Facebook that read “Ball Hockey Night in Iraq!” alongside a photo of Canadian soldiers in sports gear playing hockey in an air conditioned gym. The full text reads (and I quote verbatim lest I be accused by some Captain Canada wannabees of disseminating ‘fake news’) “CAF members on OP IMPACT host a weekly ‘Ball Hockey Night’ and face off with coalition partners at Camp Taji, Iraq. Included are players from Sweden, United States, Germany and Poland. Sports play a prominent role in promoting fitness and good health within the military community. It also contributes to improved leadership skills, teamwork, loyalty and commitment.”

All this talk of good health and camaraderie but not a single reference to either Iraqis or what the hell is raging outside the heavily protected walls of the NATO compound.

 It would seem that we have learned nothing from our twelve year fiasco in Afghanistan. For the first nine years of that commitment Canada sent soldiers to battle insurgents and to prop up the most corrupt regime on the planet.

For the final three years in Afghanistan we trained Afghan security forces to prop up that same corrupt cabal in Kabul.

For some reason the Canadian military convinced itself that they were ‘particularly good’ at training the Afghan recruits. The truth is that the Afghan security forces trained by Canadians were just as woefully inept and unmotivated as those trained by our NATO allies.

Now we find our soldiers training young Iraqi males to prop up a regime that is hated by the general public for its corruption. Like Camp Taji, Canadians also set up ball hockey tournaments at the airfield in Kandahar. Hockey is something Canadian soldiers do ‘particularly well’. Our track record at propping up hated regimes is not so stellar.

We should get the hell out of Iraq now, because Canada had no stake in this conflict in the first place.

ON TARGET: Trump way off the mark on the death of al Baghdadi

Gage Skidmore/Flickr

By Scott Taylor

There is a very funny video circulating throughout the world on social media, in which U.S. President Barack Obama’s composure is contrasted with Donald Trump’s bombast. The clip originally aired on the late night show Jimmy Kimmel Live and it is introduced as a mash-up – alternating sound bites of Obama announcing to the world that Osama bin laden had been killed by U.S. forces, and Trump making a similar pronouncement regarding the death of Daesh (aka ISIS) leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

While the Kimmel crew edited the mash-up to produce maximum hilarity, the fact is that the difference in these two Presidents’ demeanor is startling. Obama appears solemn and his direct delivery of the unembellished news of bin Laden’s execution at the hands of a U.S. Seal team carries a sense of gravitas.

Trump on the other hand comes across as a gloating buffoon.

Often using the collective ‘we’ Trump made it sound like he was actually involved in the raid. In attempting to give praise to the initiative shown by the U.S. special forces operatives, Trump comes across as both comical and childish, “Even not going through the front door” Trump described the details of the raid, adding “If you’re a normal person you say ‘knock knock’ may I come in?”

This is not exactly the sort of juvenile joke one would expect from the Commander-in-Chief of the world’s largest and most sophisticated military force.

Trump also revealed the fact that the U.S. commandos had used dogs to chase al-Baghdadi into a dead end tunnel, following which Trump gleefully reported “al-Baghdadi died like a dog”.

However, contrary to Trump’s attempts to portray Baghdadi’s final moments being the cowardly act of ‘whimpering in the dirt’ the Daesh leader apparently detonated a suicide vest which killed himself and two of his children.

Why Trump felt it was necessary to relay this detail to the American public only further serves to illustrate that the U.S. President has no understanding of the Islamic Jihadist mindset.

In life, al-Baghdadi encouraged his followers to seek martyrdom in order to defend his self-proclaimed caliphate. Detonating a suicide vest while engaged in a firefight with U.S. forces will be considered a death in battle by al-Baghdadi’s followers. He has now become a martyr in their eyes. He in the end practiced what he preached.

Although Trump also announced that the same raid had killed not only al-Baghdadi but also his second in command, it would seem that Daesh did not remain leaderless for long.

By November 1st, less than six days after al-Baghdadi’s death, the Daesh spokesperson had already announced their new leader to be a chap named Abu Ibrahim al Hashimi al-Qurashi.

During his Sunday October 27th, 48 minute press briefing on al-Baghdadi’s death, Trump repeatedly stressed just what a bad guy the Daesh leader had been.

The main theme of Trump’s victory rant was that al-Baghdadi was a bigger terrorist than bin Laden. To make his point that al-Baghdadi was “the worst ever” evildoer on the planet, Trump stated “Osama bin Laden was very big but Osama bin Laden became big with the World Trade Center. [al-Baghdadi] is a man who built a whole, as he would like to call it, “a country” a caliphate, and he was trying to do it again.”

Somehow in Trump’s mind, his administration’s execution of al-Baghdadi trumps (pun intended) the Obama administration’s capture and killing of bin Laden.

The truth is that neither of these highly publicized U.S. assassinations have done anything to eliminate the threat of Islamic Jihadists.

Neither bin Laden nor al-Baghdadi were leaders in the conventional sense that they actually commanded their fighters on a tactical level. Both men at the time of their executions were living as hunted fugitives.

They had long since lost direct operational contact with their followers. They were instead symbolic figureheads – both of whom have now been martyred by the U.S. military.

That does not make the world a safe place – no matter what the Donald would have you believe.

ON TARGET: Report: Russia did not divide Canadian Electorate

By Scott Taylor

On Oct. 23, with the dust still settling in the wake of the federal election results, it was quietly announced by the Privy Council Office that there had been no attempted foreign inference in Canada’s democratic process.

While it was reported by several national media outlets, if you blinked you likely missed this particular news item.

That no foreign malign actor even bothered to attempt to further divide Canadians during the 40-day election campaign flies in the face of all the fear mongering reports leading up this year’s exercising of our democratic rights.

Last January, the threat was supposedly so real that Canada set up extensive counter-measures in an effort to limit the potential fallout from a coordinated campaign from foreign malign actors abusing social media platforms to spread hate.

In addition to making public appeals for the monitors of popular social media platforms to tighten up their own regulatory processes, the Liberal government also established a tiger team of five senior bureaucrats called the Critical Election Indecent Public Protocol.

This panel was headed by none other than the Chief Clerk of the Privy Council and included the federal national security advisor, the deputy minister of Justice, the deputy minister of Public Safety and the deputy minister of Global Affairs Canada.

To support this collection of bureaucratic heavyweights, the government also established a special task force featuring the combined resources of Canadian Security Intelligence Services (CSIS), the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), Communications Security Establishment (CSE) and Global Affairs very own intelligence branch.

In other words ‘all the kings horses and all the kings men’ were mobilized to protect Canadians.

Despite this mighty defence system, being in place last April Global Affairs minister Chrystia Freeland told reporters that she was “very concerned that Russia is meddling” in Canada’s election. She claimed at that juncture that there had “already been efforts by malign actors to disrupt our democracy.”

That same month Facebook took the decision to ban a couple of malign actors from using their social media site. However both Faith Goldy and the Sons of Odin – the two users banned – are very much homegrown Canadian purveyors of divisive hate.

By September when the official writ was dropped, we had another warning of Russian meddling, this time from a report tabled by the U.S. based Jamestown Foundation think tank. They warned us that Russia would use the election process in Canada to advance Putin’s growing interest in the Artic.

Well, for whatever reason, we are now being told by our extensive security apparatus that the feared interference never materialized. The foreign malign actors did not disrupt, or attempt to disrupt our democracy.

Which means that all the division and hate, which emerged during the election, is on us as Canadians.

In the final days of the campaign, the Globe and Mail broke the story that the Conservative Part of Canada allegedly hired Warren Kinsella to smear Maxime Bernier’s People’s Party of Canada. This is the sort of dirty tricks political tactic we would have believed to be beneath Canada’s lofty democratic process. Turns out we’re apparently not above stooping that low.

Post election, we had the shocking incident wherein the campaign office of Liberal Cabinet Minister Catherine McKenna was vandalized. Red paint was used to convey a vulgarity that does not deserve repeating. That display of hate was not some malign foreign actor tooling about with a keyboard on the dark web. No, it was a real person with an unhinged view of what free speech entails. Trust me, hate speech is not free speech.

However, far more alarming than a bigot with a paint can, was the post election rhetoric uttered by none other than Jason Kenney the premier of Alberta. With Trudeau’s Liberal’s failing to win a seat in Alberta, Kenney has already issued the veiled threat that without some form of reconciliation there will be long term damage to Canada’s national unity. In other words he is threatening to literally divide our nation.

So while the government tiger team of security experts may have indeed saved Canadians from those malign foreign actors, the question now begs who will save us from ourselves?

ON TARGET: Foreign Policy a no-show in Election

Screenshot from the debate

By Scott Taylor

Right down to the wire in the 2019 federal election, no political leader offered up a vision on Canada’s role on the world stage. At no point in the campaign did any party issue specific statements regarding their position on defence or foreign affairs issues.

In his successful run in 2015, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had vowed not to purchase the controversial Lockheed Martin F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, while also promising to get the Canadian military back into the business of conducting U.N peacekeeping missions.

This time around, with the F-35 currently leading the pack of potential bidders to replace the RCAF’s aging fleet of CF-18 fighter jets and the Liberal’s one-and-done diminutive peacekeeping effort in Mali concluded, Trudeau barely even mentioned the military. Ditto for Conservative leader Andrew Scheer and the NDP’s Jagmeet Singh, neither of whom put forward any concrete discussion on the future of Canadian military.

Despite the virtual silence and utter lack of debate, the current instability and shifting circumstances on the world stage means that Canada will have no option but to make some serious alterations to our present course on the foreign affairs file.

The recent Turkey-U.S. deal that forced the Syrian Kurds back under the authority of President Bashar al-Assad demonstrated exactly who the big boys are at the Middle East decision-making table.

Canada is not even at the adjoining kids table, which is why we need to re-think the current commitment of military personnel to Iraq.

Although it has been almost ignored by the western media in recent weeks, the streets of Baghdad have been awash in violent demonstrations.

Unlike the Chinese police in Hong Kong who have been singularly restrained in their use of lethal force against demonstrators, the Iraqi security forces wasted little time before firing live ammunition into the rioters on the streets of Baghdad.

Over a 100 people have been killed and more than a thousand injured to date and there is no sign of the unrest in Iraq being resolved anytime soon.

Canada presently has a lead role in the NATO effort to train the Iraqi military.

That might have seemed a noble use of Canadian military personnel when the common threat was the Daesh (aka ISIS) evildoers. However, now that the Iraqi security force is being used to shoot and kill those protesting the corruption of the current regime, it becomes tougher to justify Canada’s continued participation.

Likewise Canada’s second, separate commitment of special forces advisors to Iraq is no longer serving a clear purpose. Canada does not have the necessary foreign intelligence capability to allow us to assess the complex and constantly shifting threats in this sector.

Our special forces are the best in the world, in my opinion, but without independent intelligence they are operating as highly trained professional mercenaries in the service of U.S. interests.

As we saw with the recent Trump abandonment of the Kurds in Syria U.S. interests in the region may not always reflect Canadian values.

In short, Canada should get out of Iraq militarily because we should never have been deployed there in the first place.

In 2011, Canada led the international chorus encouraging the Syrian uprising and chanting, “Assad must go!” Well, now it seems that Assad is back and he’s here to stay.

That same year Canada did more than shout encouragement to the Libyan rebels as the Canadian military led the international bombing campaign to oust President Moammar Gadhafi.

The problem with that little exercise was that in place of one big warlord, Libya was instead over-run with a thousand little violent warlords. That poor country remains awash in violent anarchy thanks in large part to Canada coordinating the NATO air campaign.

Closer to home, Canada also took a lead role in trying to effect regime change in Venezuela. Canada chaired the fourteen-nation Lima Group who not only denounced incumbent President Nicolas Maduro, but they also recognized a chap named Juan Guaido as the Lima choice as replacement President.

Back on 10 April, Guaido boldly proclaimed he had the support of Venezuela’s security force but subsequent events have proven that boast to have been premature.

Not only does Maduro remain in control, but also last week Venezuela was named as a member of the U.N committee on Human Rights.

Given Canada’s track record of late, it was probably a blessing that foreign policy never entered the current election debate.

ON TARGET: USA Has a History of Selling out the Kurds

Gage Skidmore/Flickr

By Scott Taylor

In the wake of Turkey’s recent military offensive against the Kurdish forces in northern Syria we have seen a very complex regional conflict dumbed down to the simple equation of – “Trump bad.” It was of course in the immediate aftermath of President Trump announcing the withdrawal of U.S. forces from the region, that Turkey’s President Recep Erdoğan launched his cross border attack.

The over simplistic and emotional response from U.S. politicians and pundits was that the Kurdish forces had assisted American troops in defeating Daesh (aka ISIS or ISIL) and now it seems that for strategic expediency, Trump is abandoning these loyal allies to the mercy of the evil Turks.

On the surface it appears to be an open and shut case of simple betrayal on the part of the Donald.

However let’s start adding some context and modern history to the equation in order to cloud the issue a little. First of all, there is no legal premise for U.S. forces to be in Syria in the first place. They were not invited into the fight against Daesh by embattled Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. The U.S. were invited back into Iraq by the Baghdad regime in 2014 to fight off the Daesh scourge and the Pentagon simply chose to ignore the border with Syria.

While the Americans may have aligned themselves with Kurdish fighters, the list of coalition partners fighting against Daesh also included the Russian military, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, Iraqi Shiite militia, Hezbollah and forces loyal to Assad. I don’t think anyone would shed crocodile tears for any of these erstwhile anti-Daesh allies should Trump turn his back on them.

For the record, while the Syrian Kurdish forces fought against Daesh they also were upfront and honest about the fact they were ultimately fighting to establish an independent Kurdish state.

It has been this dream of an independent Kurdistan that has allowed outside players such as the U.S. to exploit the Kurds to their own advantage for decades. Large Kurdish minorities exist in Syria, Iraq, Iran, Armenia & Turkey. Any creation of an independent Kurdistan would only inflame the existing separatist Kurdish movements in these neighboring countries.

Throughout all the discussions of long term regional solutions I have yet to hear anyone discuss a proposal to redraw the map of the middle east in order to carve out a Kurdistan.

It is the official position of Global Affairs Canada that we recognize the existing borders of Iraq and Syria under the centralized governments of Baghdad and Damascus respectively. This is what made it so bizarre when the Canadian military senior leadership in 2014 authorized Canadian Special Forces trainers to wear the flag of Kurdistan on their uniform while working with Kurdish fighters in Northern Iraq.

When this policy was questioned in the Canadian media, the military petulantly stuck to their guns and continued the practice of our soldiers wearing the flag of an unrecognized breakaway territory. The Pentagon had a quiet word with our brass and the flags were subsequently removed.

Now that Trump has abandoned the Syrian Kurds, such an example of Canada’s naiveté in affairs of the middle east seems even more embarrassing in retrospect.

For their part the Turks claim they are battling Kurdish terrorists in Syria in order to create a 30km safe zone. The plan is to then resettle a large portion of the 3 million Syrian refugees presently housed in camps on Turkish soil.

It is also true that not all Kurds can be considered equal. The Peoples Worker Party (PKK) has been waging a bloody insurgency in eastern Turkey for more than three decades. Over 40,000 people have been killed in those clashes, and more importantly the U.S., NATO, the E.U. and Canada all officially recognize the PKK to be a terrorist organization. Ditto for the notorious al-Qaeda Kurdish battalions in northern Iraq.

Western media almost never mentions the Turkish speaking Turkmen minority in northern Syria and Iraq as that would only further complicate an already confusing equation.

Turkey is also a NATO ally, and at the end of the day that fact alone would appear to trump any sentimental notion of a Kurdish state.

Former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger summed it up best back in 1975. He had just sold out the Iraq Kurds to Saddam Hussein with the signing of the Algiers agreement and Kissinger retorted “covert operations should not be confused with missionary work.”

That sounds like something Trump would tweet.

ON TARGET: No Real Election Divide between Liberals & Conservatives on Defence Issues

By Scott Taylor

We are now past the midway point of this year's 40 day federal election campaign. If the polls are to be trusted, Trudeau's Liberals are locked in a dead heat with the Andrew Scheer Conservatives. The public furor over Trudeau's Black face - Brown face shenanigans has seemly blown over without seriously tipping the voter balance in favour of the Conservatives. That could in part be explained by the fact that most of the electorate still recall that just four short years ago the Conservatives were proposing a snitch line for Canadians to report 'barbaric cultural practices' practiced by their immigrant neighbors.

That racist policy was admittedly one of the reasons that the Harper government was chased from power in 2015. Yet despite that election defeat, the snitch line legacy is far from history. One of the key architects and proponents of the snitch line, Chris Alexander, is running under the Scheer Conservative banner in an attempt to win back the seat he lost in the Ajax - Pickering riding last time around. This means the individual voter has to choose between Trudeau's youthful racist actions and a Conservative party that preaches racist and divisive policies..

Similarly, there is little difference between the two major parties when it comes to their policies in defence.

In his successful bid to get elected in 2015 Trudeau had made two promises regarding the military. The first was that as Prime Minister he would make Canadian Peacekeeping great again.

The sum total of action on promise was a single one year commitment of helicopter support and 250 personnel to the United Nations mission in Mali. That mission has since concluded and with only a handful of Canadian service members assigned to far flung U.N missions, it is safe to say that Canada is out of the peacekeeping game once again. There is presently no talk about peacekeeping on the election campaign trail as it would seem that politicians have realized that Canadians don't really care about our nations commitment to the U.N.

The second thing that the 2015 Liberal party promised to do if elected, was to not buy the controversial F-35 Joint Strike Fighter Jets to replace the RCAF's aging fleet of fighter aircraft.

During their four years in power, the Liberals first announced they would sole source purchase 17 new Super Hornets from Boeing to fill a short term capability gap. That deal was scrubbed when Boeing entered into a trade dispute with Bombardier, leading the Liberal party to denounce Boeing as an untrustworthy partner. Instead of Super Hornets Canada has purchased 18 legacy Hornets - of the same vintage as Canada's aging fighter fleet, to fill in the announced 'capability gap'.

The problem with this solution is that a recent Auditor General's report noted that the RCAF does not have enough pilots and ground crew to operate the planes now in service - yet the braintrust decided the answer to this dilemma was to buy more old used planes. But I digress. There is presently a competition to find a fighter jet replacement, and despite what Trudeau told voters in 2015, the F-35 is considered to be the front runner to win. In fact, Airbus withdrew from competing their Eurofighter citing the fact that the request for proposal was all but tailored to the F-35 option. 

If Conservatives are elected it is expected they will terminate the competition and simply purchase the F-35. You can also bet that Scheer will not be keen to boost our military commitment to the United Nations.

As for Canada's other current international deployments, these were all initiated under the Harper Conservatives and extended and expanded by the Liberals. Regardless of who gets into power on 21 October, expect that we will continue to support the forward deployment in Latvia, the training mission in Ukraine and the two separate contingents we have in Iraq.

As for how these two parties match up when it comes to policies on the care and welfare of our veterans, that is the grist for another column.

ON TARGET: Now that's foreign interference on steroids

By Scott Taylor

Now that we are in the midst of our federal election, Canadians are constantly reminded by our security agencies that foreign “malign actors” are hard at work interfering with our democratic process. It is repeated so often and so emphatically that it must be true.

I am not sure exactly what divisive issues the Chinese and the Russians are concocting on the dark web, but they certainly have not impacted the Canadian electorate’s sensibilities to the same degree as Justin Trudeau’s unexpected blackface scandal. No one has questioned the authenticity of old images depicting Canada’s prime minister sporting blackface; he has admitted to the offensive behaviour and apologized for his actions.

So, no claims of “fake news.” As for the origin of the initial images becoming public, they were first published in a foreign-owned magazine — but I don’t think anyone will accuse Time magazine of trying to interfere in Canada’s democratic process.

This brings us to President Donald Trump’s latest boondoggle south of the border. The Donald is now facing an impeachment inquiry following a whistleblower’s complaint alleging the president had attempted “to solicit interference” from Ukraine in advance of the 2020 elections in the U.S.

The background to this saga began with a July 25 phone call between Trump and the newly elected president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky.

In the normal course of events, this would have been nothing more than a courtesy congratulatory call, but Trump is not your normal politician.

As it was not supposed to be a sensitive or classified call between world leaders, White House staffers listened in and transcribed the conversation. Someone was troubled enough by Trump’s comments to file a whistleblower complaint to the inspector general.

Once that action was made public, the White House released a partial transcript of the phone call. Hence, we now have a fairly clear picture of what transpired.

Trump first pressured Zelensky into investigating potential 2020 election rival Joe Biden. At present, Biden is leading the pack of Democratic candidates seeking to run against Trump for the presidency next November.

Trump asserted that when Biden was serving as vice president, he had attempted to block a corruption probe by Ukrainian authorities into a company whose board of directors included his son, Hunter Biden. Trump urged Zelensky to pursue this investigation.

To put a little pressure on the Ukrainian president, Trump reminded Zelensky that the United States “has been very, very good for Ukraine. I wouldn’t say that it is reciprocal, necessarily, because things are happening that are not good. But the United States has been very, very good to Ukraine.”

There can be little doubt that at the time of that phone call, Zelensky was all too aware of the fact that Trump had used his presidential authority to put on hold hundreds of millions of dollars worth of military hardware earmarked for Ukraine.

So after reminding Zelensky just how “very, very good” the U.S. has been to Ukraine, Trump revisited this request that Zelensky investigate his Biden allegations. Imitative of the legendary Hollywood character Don Corleone, aka the Godfather, Trump tells Zelensky he would consider this probe into his rival to be a “favour.”

Unfortunately for Trump, after the story of the whistleblower complaint broke last week, the former Ukrainian prosecutor general who first investigated Hunter Biden’s company claimed there is no dirt to be dug. “From the perspective of Ukrainian legislation, (Hunter Biden) did not violate anything,” Yuri Lutsenko told the Washington Post.

So while Trump appears to have failed in his attempt to “solicit interference,” the transcript of that conversation has certainly revealed the true character of the U.S. president.

Reminding a head of state just how beholden the Ukraine is to the U.S., freezing vital military aid, and then advising Zelensky how to use his own legislative apparatus in order to benefit Trump personally? Now that’s foreign interference on steroids.