ON TARGET: A Very Dark Day For U.S. Democracy

By Scott Taylor

Watching the events of Jan. 6 in the U.S. capital play out in real time was an almost sickening experience. I watched in horror as President Donald Trump addressed a massive throng of his devoted loyalists.

Instead of deflating the crowd, Trump fired them up with fury. He vowed to never concede he had lost the election, called anyone who disagreed with his baseless claims of voter fraud “weak” and claimed he would march with them to deliver a collective message of defiance to Capitol Hill.

Following Trump’s speech, his lawyer Rudy Giuliani took to the stage to tell the ‘Make America Great Again’ horde, that a just result could only be attained through “trial by combat.”

There was absolutely no ambiguity in what message Trump and Giuliani were sending to their mob as they urged them to ‘fight’ to “stop the steal.” Therefore, there may have been some shock that the rioters actually overpowered the police and occupied the Capitol building, but there  was no surprise that the Trump loyalists would attempt to fulfill their Dear Leader’s wishes.

In this era of phone cameras and live streaming personal videos, this mass breach of the Capitol building was visible from hundreds of perspectives as the events unfolded.

In addition to a sea of Trump flags and red MAGA baseball caps there were numerous Confederate flags on display.

While symbolizing a white supremacist ideology the Confederate flags were in no way the most offensive items brazenly flaunted by the Trumpist mob.

One group of the alt-right Proud Boys had emblazoned their black T-shirts and body armour with the slogan “6MNE.”

For those of you who might be blissfully unaware of the significance of this seemingly innocuous combination of letters and a number, allow me to enlighten you. Amongst anti-Semitic circles ‘6MNE’ stands for ‘6 million is not enough’ meaning that they believe not enough Jews had been killed in Hitler’s Holocaust.

There was also one prominent rioter who was wearing a hoodie which sported the slogan “Camp Auschwitz” above the image of a skull. At the bottom of the crest was the slogan “Work brings freedom.” This is a rough translation of the German motto “Arbeit macht frei” which adorned the gateway at Auschwitz, the notorious Nazi death camp from World War 2.

Another leading figure in the riot was some shirtless nut job wearing patriotic face paint, a faux fur Visigoth hat complete with buffalo horns, no shirt and brandishing a spear. He was seen posing at the dais in the Congressional chamber.

He turned out to be a self-proclaimed Shaman who espouses the Q’Anon Conspiracy theory. You know, those individuals who believe that Donald Trump is the Messiah sent by god to save the world from a ruling elite cadre of cannibalistic pedophiles. Those guys.

What continues to puzzle me is the fact that people remain devoted Trump supporters even when they can see just who his most ardent loyalists really are.

If these fanatical white supremacists, anti-Semites and nut jobs see something in Trump that they absolutely adore, shouldn’t sane people question their own association with that same leader?

Keep in mind it was this cabal of racist extremists which were at the forefront of the charge that broke through the barricades and roamed about the interior of the Capitol building for nearly three hours.

Although Trump subsequently denounced the violence and destruction in a terse video statement, as the events were actually unfolding the President told the rioters they were “loved” and they were “special.” 

For the record, Trump never did march with his foot soldiers. His armoured SUV drove him back to the White House where he watched the destruction which he unleashed unfold on his TV set in the Oval Office.

ON TARGET: Ukrainian International Airlines Flight 752: Remembering the Victims

By Scott Taylor

Last week the Iranian government announced that it has established a fund to compensate those families who lost a loved one in the Ukrainian International Airline’s Flight 752 tragedy.

It was on January 8, 2020 that Flight 752 was blown out of the sky shortly after it had taken off from the Tehran airport. All 167 passengers and 9 crew members aboard the Boeing 737 were killed and that grisly total included 57 Canadians. In the initial aftermath, the Iranian regime attempted to deny responsibility for the tragedy. 

At that juncture tensions between Washington and Tehran were at the boiling point. Five days earlier President Donald Trump had ordered the assassination of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani through a drone missile strike outside the airport in Baghdad, Iraq. In response to this killing, Iranian backed militia fired over two dozen rockets into bases in Iraq that contained US military personnel. Regional tensions were at the breaking point.

However, before the Iranians could conjure up enough fog-of-war to create some plausible doubt, amateur video footage was released depicting what clearly seemed to indicate that the Ukrainian airliner was hit by a ground-to-air missile. With this new evidence in the public domain, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) shamefacedly admitted that they had inadvertently downed the aircraft. It was in their words a terrible tragedy based on “human error”.

Now, just prior to the one year anniversary of the incident the Iranians have tabled their final report in the inquiry into this tragic incident. Apparently there was actually two acts of human error that night as Flight 752 was actually struck twice.  Following the first missile strike the aircraft engines were still functioning and the pilots retained control of the plane. However when a second missile hit 25 seconds later, the airliner was destroyed in mid-air.

The Canadian connection to this incident is both deep and challenging at the same time. In addition to the 57 Canadian citizens, there were also 29 Iranian-Canadian permanent residents on board that doomed flight. Over three quarters of the passengers on Flight 752 were booked through Kiev on a connecting flight to Toronto. 

One of the biggest stumbling blocks out of the gate was the fact that Iran does not recognize the status of dual citizenship. Iranians are allowed to hold foreign passports, but inside Iran they are only deemed to be Iranians. Thus the initial media reports from Tehran only acknowledged that a handful of Canadians had been killed and that nearly all the victims were in fact Iranians.

Added to this equation is the fact that Canada severed all diplomatic ties with Iran back in 2012 and the fact that Canada has been one of the staunchest allies of the United States' ‘maximum pressure’ policy of trade sanctions against the Tehran regime.

However, in announcing the compensation payments wherein Iran will offer $150,000 (US) to each of the victims’ families, the Tehran regime made it clear that the citizenship status of the individuals will not be a factor. In an official statement from the Iranian President’s office, it was acknowledged that paying this compensation “will not eliminate all of the pain and suffering caused by this incident, [but] we hope it will remind [people] of [Iran’s] commitment to safeguarding the rights of all people and respecting humans.”

Canada’s Foreign Minister, Francois-Phillipe Champagne is not seemingly accepting of Iran’s attempts at contrition and appeasement. In a statement last December Champagne said he was not buying into the ‘human error’ excuse and, without offering any alternative theories, simply told the media “we’ll let the process unfold.” 

Almost immediately the Iranians denounced Champagne’s comments as being “unacceptable…completely political and anti-judicial.”

For the record, I have yet to hear of any other plausible theory wherein Iranian troops blast a Ukrainian airliner, full of Iranian citizens, over their own capital, other than it was a massive blunder. So I must admit that I am not exactly sure where Champagne is going with his veiled claim that this was an intentional act of mass murder. 

At the time of the incident, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau offered all of the Canadian victims’ families a $25,000 payment to help offset funeral costs. Whether or not Iran recognizes dual-citizenship, the important thing is that Canada does. This was very much a Canadian tragedy and must be commemorated as such.

Hunting Down Racists in the Ranks of the CAF

By Scott Taylor

“We will find you and we will get rid of you.” One might assume that sentence was a tough guy quip from a Hollywood action film, but that was the exact threat levelled by Harjit Sajjan, Canada’s Minister of National Defence at racists who serve in the Canadian Armed Forces. 

The occasion was a December 17th press briefing wherein Sajjan announced the creation of a new panel to root out hate mongers and bigots within the ranks. The official mandate for this new watchdog committee will be open-ended and the scope of their investigations will include probing allegations of systemic discrimination, unconscious bias and white supremacist affiliations.

Admittedly this panel was stood up by the DND in response to a recent series of incidents involving CAF members with links to various hate groups. However, from the composition and experience of the individuals selected, it would appear that Sajjan intends to prove that his tough talk is not just a hollow threat.

Those four panel members include: retired U.S. Marine Corps sergeant Derek Montour, a Mohawk who originally served in the Canadian military but left after the divisive 1990 Oka Crisis in Quebec; retired major-general Ed Fitch, who holds the distinction of being only the second Jewish member of the Canadian Armed Forces to achieve the rank of major-general; retired major Sandra Perron, who struggled through abuse and discrimination to become one of Canada’s first female infantry officers in the 1990’s and retired captain D.L. "Door" Gibson, of Victoria, B.C.

Of that group the only individual upon whom I feel I can personally assess would be Sandra Perron. From my experience I would say that Perron is a dedicated dynamo who, despite many of her own adverse experiences in breaking into the hitherto male-only bastion of the Combat Arms trade, still has a genuine love for those who wear the uniform and the institution itself.

In response to Sajjan’s announcement Canadian human rights groups welcomed the creation of the panel but were withholding any actual applause until they start seeing results. The Canadian Anti-Hate Network was very specific in stating the new panel’s first move should be to start booting already outed extremists from the ranks of the CAF. One individual which they cited was Calgary based Leading Sailor Boris Mihajlovic who was allowed to rejoin the RCN after CBC reported his past association with the far right hate group Atom-Waffen. To this day Mihajlovic continues to wear the uniform.

“They need to kick out at least a single member of a hate group in a high profile way to send a message” stated Evan Balgord of the Anti-Hate Network to the CBC. “Second, they need to bring in outside experts to create tool kits and training modules to help officers identify the telltale signs of hate ideologies.”

While it is understandable that human rights groups would want to see immediate results it needs to be pointed out that Sajjan’s new approach is diametrically opposite to what the CAF public affairs branch had originally proposed.

Just a few months ago media reports in the Ottawa Citizen revealed how public affairs officers intended to ‘manage’ the issue of potential white supremacists within the ranks of the CAF. Their plan included the creation of dossiers on select journalist who would be most likely to report on such incidents. 

That list included Lee Berthiaume of the Canadian Press, Gloria Galloway of the Globe and Mail and Murray Brewster of the CBC.

Of those three, it was Brewster’s dossier that received the majority of the military’s attention. “He’s familiar with the defence system, and his reporting, while factual, often emphasizes the mistakes and shortcomings of DND and the CAF.”  Given that these dossiers were specific to the subject of white supremacists in the ranks of the CAF, how could Brewster possibly not portray this in a negative fashion? The very existence of people with racist beliefs serving in uniform cannot in any way reflect well upon the military.

The main strategy that the CAF public affairs branch intended to use was that of friendly academics and retired military officers who would be mobilized to denounce any allegations of white supremacists in the ranks as being an ‘extreme rarity’ or merely a ‘fraction of a fraction’. However the steady stream of hate related incidents involving uniformed personnel over the past several months, many first reported by CBC’s Brewster, have thwarted the CAF’s planned PR offensive.

At his press conference announcing the new panel, Sajjan told reporters, “The incidents we have seen inside the Canadian Armed Forces are disturbing. It’s easy to say, to try to defend it, [that] it’s a small percentage, point-something of a per cent. I always look at it as one is too many.”

Amen. May I wish Godspeed and happy hunting to this new panel.

ON TARGET: Tragedy At Sea For RCN

By Scott Taylor

Last week a terrible tragedy unfolded as the Royal Canadian Navy first reported that a sailor had gone missing at sea. Master Sailor Duane Earle, 47, was believed to have fallen overboard from the frigate HMCS Winnipeg in the early hours of Monday 14 December.

At the time HMCS Winnipeg was approximately 500 nautical miles west of San Francisco, homeward bound to CFB Esquimalt, BC after a two-month deployment in the Asia-Pacific region.

It was announced that immediately upon realizing Earle was absent from his duties and presumed overboard, an extensive search and rescue mission was conducted. High seas at an estimated four to five meter swells made the search a challenge in the vast expanse of the Pacific Ocean.

By 17:30 Tuesday 15 December, the RCN announced that the search was concluded and Earle presumed to be deceased. Counseling and support were available to the next of kin.

It was a tragic loss and on military social media networks there was a widespread outpouring of grief and condolences to family, friends and to Earle’s fellow shipmates.

The actual circumstances of Earle going overboard remain something of a mystery. “The ship is surrounded by guardrails and the upper decks are kept out of bounds at night” said Commodore Angus Topshee, Commander of the RCN Pacific fleet at a media briefing at CFB Esquimalt on Wednesday 16 December.

Topshee further noted that because the only way to exit the ship at sea is via the upper decks, the Earle incident remains inexplicable. “The honest truth is, we can’t explain how he came to be in the water, and we are continuing to search for any evidence to support any conclusion,” Topshee told reporters.

As a result of the Canadian Armed Forces coming forward with the news of this accidental death in a timely and forthright manner, it precluded any wild speculation or false narratives getting a foothold in the media reports.

There was an accident, a search was conducted, that search was concluded with the presumption of Earle’s passing and the military community grieved as an extended family.

To give credit where credit is due, the DND/CAF gets full marks for the manner in which they handled this tragedy.

Which makes one question what went so horribly wrong with this same Canadian Armed Forces’ handling of the information flow regarding the April 2020 Cyclone helicopter crash in the Mediterranean Sea.

For those who may have forgotten some of the finer details of this Public Relations fiasco, allow me to recap. On Wednesday 29 April a RCAF Cyclone helicopter crashed while returning to HMCS Fredericton.

Greek media reported it immediately but mistakenly referred to the helicopter as a Sikorsky Sea King, which caused Canadian media outlets to flag the story as potential ‘fake news’.

A full 24 hours passed before the CAF issued a statement that indeed a Cyclone had crashed with one servicemember dead while five others remained “missing.”

Canadian media were told officially that the Fredericton had “lost contact with the helicopter” prior to the crash. It was also stated that HMCS Fredericton and NATO allies continue to search for the remaining five members of the helicopter’s crew.”

It was not until late in the afternoon on Friday, May 1 that DND stated the search and rescue mission was concluded and that the effort was now a search and recover mission with all 6 servicemembers presumed deceased.

For two days, the military community on social media has been fuelling family and friends with false hope and prayers. Media pundits went so far as to speculate as to the vast scope of the potential search area and the survivability endurance of the crew.

Only later was it learned that the Cyclone had been conducting a low level fly past beside the Fredericton as part of a photo shoot when the helicopter suddenly plunged into the sea.

Some of the Fredericton’s crew were as a result, eyewitnesses to the crash.

To this day no one has been able to explain to Canadians why, or to what purpose, the CAF would have to initially portray the Cyclone incident as a lengthy search and rescue operation, or why they claimed to have ‘lost contact’ with the aircraft.

I offer my sincere condolences to the family, friends and comrades of Master Sailor Duane Earle.

ON TARGET: Reservist’s Seditious Stunt Damages the CAF’s Public Trust

By Scott Taylor

Canadian military officials are constantly warning civilians to be on their guard against the ongoing disinformation campaign being waged by meddlesome foreign state actors. There is no specific objective sought by these sowers of ‘fake news’ we are told, but rather their intent is to cause Canadians to lose their trust in official organizations – such as the Canadian military.

Which brings us to a rather bizarre incident, which occurred at an anti-lockdown rally in Toronto on December 5th.

The organizers introduced speaker Leslie Kenderesi as a serving member of the Canadian Armed Forces. To drive home this association with the CAF, Kenderesi wore his combat uniform complete with webbing. He wore a beret as he spoke, but carried a combat helmet in his hand and he had affixed a hunting knife to his web strap.

Why Kenderesi was dressed for imminent combat while speaking at a rally in Toronto defies logic, but even more illogical was the statement made by this would-be Rambo.

“I’m asking military, right now serving, truck drivers, medical, engineers, whatever you are, do not take this unlawful order [for] the distribution of this vaccine” Kenderesi said to an appreciative crowd. “I might get in a lot of shit for doing this but I don’t care anymore.”

No mainstream media broadcast Kenderesi’s speech, but organizers of the rally posted it on YouTube.

It soon went viral on social media with most comments from the military community dismissing Kenderesi as an imposter and the whole speech to be a ‘fake news’ hoax.

Unfortunately for the CAF, a brief internal investigation resulted in DND having to confirm to reporters that Kenderesi is indeed a serving member.

“We were made aware on the evening of December 5th that a member of the Cadet Instructors Cadre – which is a subcomponent of the Canadian Armed Forces Reserve – participated in a public demonstration in Toronto in his CAF uniform” stated DND spokesman Dan Le Bouthillier. “The individual made comments regarding the CAF participation in Operation Vector. These comments are not reflective of views of the Government of Canada nor Canadian Armed Forces policy.”

In attempting to convince fellow serving members of CAF to disobey orders, Kenderesi is at the very least guilty of attempted sedition. While I have no doubt that Kenderesi’s ramblings will garner not a single serving servicemember to heed his advice, damage to the public trust will be more difficult to repair.

Members of my own extended family mistakenly thought the man in the combat gear raging against this vaccine was retired General Rick Hillier.

One can easily understand their angst at seeing what they thought to be the military officer tasked with distributing the vaccine throughout Ontario, calling on soldiers not to deliver it.

Personally I do not see much of a physical resemblance between Hillier and Kenderesi and I was somewhat amused to learn that my relatives would think a retired General still wears a combat uniform complete with a knife-strapped to his chest. But I digress.

At time of writing the DND was continuing to investigate the incident.

While no one discussed criminal charges such as attempted sedition the DND did advise the media that punitive actions including Kenderesi’s release from the CAF are an option.

The anti-lockdown rally organizers described Kenderesi as “the original Canadian patriot.” I would disagree with that assessment and consider him instead to be a dangerous disinformer.

He is not however a complete idiot as he publicly acknowledged that his actions might land him in a “lot of shit.”

Let’s hope that DND makes that prophecy a reality.

ON TARGET: The Canadian Military is Not a Delivery Service

By Scott Taylor

Last week it was announced that the Canadian military has received formal orders to participate in planning the nationwide distribution of the COVID-19 vaccinations.

In an interview with the Canadian Press, Chief of Defence Staff, General Jonathan Vance admitted that long before the order was delivered the Canadian Armed Forces had been preparing for such an eventuality.

It was also announced that Major-General Dany Fortin will be commanding the Canadian military response team at National Defence Headquarters. Fortin’s most recent posting was in Iraq where he headed up the NATO mission to train Iraqi soldiers.

By all accounts, Fortin is a charismatic and extremely capable officer and at his initial press briefings he has proven to be very telegenic.

From a government public relations perspective this has been a very successful formula. The CAF has earned the trust and respect of the Canadian public to the point that simply handing over responsibility to the military and having an officer in uniform command the operation appeases our pandemic-fearing population.

The problem with this equation is that the military solution to vaccine distribution provides little in the way of actual resources. The challenge of rolling out vaccines across Canada is both logistical and medical.

The military does have an entire Logistics Branch and a truck fleet. However they have no where near the distribution capacity of existing private sector companies like Purolator, FedEx, UPS & DHL just to name a few.

The military also does not possess the specialized refrigeration equipment necessary to store and transport some of the vaccines.

It was reported that one asset the CAF could use would be its fleet of cargo aircraft – either the C-17 Globemasters or the C-130 Hercules – to rapidly deliver vaccines to Canada from either the U.S. or Europe.

One would think it would be far more efficient and cost effective to ship these vaccines using private sector airfreight companies. The aviation industry has been economically hard hit by the pandemic and using air force planes to deliver freight would only further exacerbate their lost revenue.

In terms of a medical challenge, one of the biggest concerns will be in determining who receives the vaccines first, and who in turn is to wait in line the longest.

Despite his sterling career and many martial accomplishments MGen Fortin does not have a doctorate of medical ethics on his resume. He is an artillery officer who commanded troops in Iraq.

Of course Fortin can add a civilian medical ethicist to his team but this is not currently a military profession. If Fortin is not a logistician nor a public health expert, other than disciplined leadership what exactly is he contributing to the vaccine distribution task force?

This observation should in no way be interpreted as slight to the capabilities of the men and women of the CAF and certainly not to Fortin personally. I have repeatedly said that in my opinion the CAF is not among the best militaries in the world – it is the best in the world.

What they are not is a delivery company with a nationwide distribution network.

I do believe the military will be able to assist in bringing the vaccination teams into remote regions and for this they are uniquely qualified and equipped. However we have to remember that such aid to the civil power, which has also included flood relief and fighting forest fires, is not the primary role of the CAF.

The CAF personnel are just as susceptible to the COVID-19 virus as the civilian population and their close proximity workspaces (ships, aircraft, barracks etc) means that any outbreak could spread through their ranks like a wildfire.

The raison d’etre of the CAF is to provide a combat force capable of defending Canada’s interests at home and abroad.

As much as it seems to reassure us to have a uniformed soldier handing out vaccines, it would make more sense if that same delivery were made by a guy in a Purolator jacket.

ON TARGET: General Hillier’s New Challenge

By Scott Taylor

Last week Ontario Premiere Doug Ford announced the appointment of retired General Rick Hillier to head the provincial task force that will oversee the distribution of COVID-19 vaccines. Ford told reporters that this challenge ‘needed a general’ and he went on at length as to why Hillier was the right man for the job.

The media were quick to join in singing the praises of the former general with most pundits commenting on Hillier’s stellar character.

In the interest of full disclosure, I must admit that I have known Hillier since he first entered the national spotlight in 1998. At that juncture Hillier was the public face of those Canadian Armed Forces personnel tasked with providing aid-to-the-civil-power during the ice storm. The gruff straight-talking Newfoundlander was an instant hit with the storm-weary civilians and Hillier became known as the general who defeated Mother Nature.

Later in his military career Hillier became the primary figurehead for Canada’s military intervention in Afghanistan, first as the Army Commander and then as the Chief of Defence Staff.

While I strongly objected to Canada’s deployment of troops to what has since proven to be an unwinnable war in Afghanistan, I always respected the fact that Hillier was a first class combat officer and a charismatic leader of the troops.

That said, I have to question how his skill sets and professional experience are suited to overseeing the widespread distribution of a vaccine across Ontario.

Perhaps it is reassuring to some civilians to think that a veteran military man will bring leadership to this distribution team. While outwardly flattering as it would illustrate a high level of public confidence in our armed forces, it also would reveal a lack of understanding of the military profession.

Hillier was an armoured corps officer and when he enlisted he trained to fight against Soviet tank armies during the Cold War. Leaving aside his brief encounter with Mother Nature, Hillier spent his senior military years overseeing Canadian troops fighting a desperate counter-insurgency battle in Afghanistan.

At no point did Hillier manage the distribution of supplies, let alone medical vaccines.

That sort of professional expertise – and supply chain management is indeed a challenging profession- is the purview of military logistics officers.

In fact, the importance of having the right amount of supplies delivered at the right time is so crucial to the function of the CAF that they have their own logistics branch, complete with their own distinctive cap badge.

The military would not expect a logistics officer to command tanks on the battlefield and nor would they task an armoured corps officer to arrange the delivery of supplies.

In outlining what Hillier’s task force will be responsible for, the Ford government said it will; advise on the delivery and storage of vaccines, provide clinical guidance of the administration of the vaccine as well as information and technology for civilians handling vaccine administration.

It is also expected that the Hillier task force will engage in educating the public so as to encourage vaccination.

One has to wonder how those provincial health care professionals who are already engaged in dispensing vaccines such as the flu shot and shingles vaccination will feel having an ex-combat soldier now supervising their efforts.

It is also puzzling to think that the citizens of Ontario will be more comfortable having a soldier in charge of vaccine distribution rather than a medical professional or someone skilled in supply chain management.

You wouldn’t hire a dentist to fix your plumbing or a plumber to fix your teeth, so why a soldier to hand out medicine?

If this is simply an attempt by Ford to add a charismatic, leader to a figurehead role then shame on Ford. At a monthly salary of $20,000 plus expenses, Hillier is not a cheap figurehead.

Hillier was a great soldier, he remains a charismatic leader, but his resume does not qualify him for this particular job.

To be fair to Doug Ford, he is not the only politician to tap military commanders for vaccine distribution. Last Friday Justin Trudeau announced Major-General Dany Fortin, an artillery officer, would head Canada’s federal task force. Earlier this year U.S. President Donald Trump appointed retired four star U.S. General Gustave Perna to oversee the ridiculously named OPERATION WARP SPEED vaccine distribution effort.

For the record, Gustave was a career Logistics Officer.

ON TARGET: A Wounded Trump Ego Could Still Be A Dangerous Thing

By Scott Taylor

These days it is almost impossible for Canadians to ignore the political circus that is being played out south of our border. Were the potential consequences not so dire, the desperate deeds of President Donald Trump and his loyal base would be outright comical.

Given Trump’s ubiquitous presence in the media throughout his presidency, I don’t think that anyone is truly surprised that he now refuses to concede the election.

However I am dismayed to see just how deeply divided the U.S. electorate has become and the depth of loyalty expressed by Trump’s supporters.

Far beyond a rationale conservative-versus-liberal political discourse, Trump’s hold over his followers is almost cult like.

Here in Canada both Pierre Trudeau and subsequently Justin both enjoyed a brief prime ministerial honeymoon of public adulation which was dubbed ‘Trudeaumania’.

However, it would be difficult to envision any Canadian politician generating the almost maniacal fervor which Trump has been able to create among his base.

Worse yet is the fact that in order to challenge the results of the election the Trump administration has chosen to denounce America’s democratic process. Without proof, Trump has claimed that the Democrats employed widespread voter fraud in order to steal the election.

Millions of Trump’s loyal followers will go to their graves still holding that belief. Unfortunately this will also lead to a great many Americans simply losing faith in their own democracy.

While some will argue that such a chaotic scenario will benefit China, Russia and Iran, it would be one hell of a stretch to try and blame this on outside interference: The Twitter account of Donald J. Trump has spread more disinformation on the American public than any foreign intelligence agency could dream possible.

Undisputedly Trump will still be president for another two months, which means he still has access to those levers of power which could shift global political fault lines for generations to come.

It was reported last week in the New York Times that Trump asked Pentagon officials at an intelligence briefing for options on bombing Iran’s Natanz nuclear reactor.

According to White House insiders it took the combined persuasive force of Vice President Mike Pence, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Mark Milley and recently appointed acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller to talk Trump out of this course of action for now.

What Trump did instead was order a reduction of U.S. troops in both Iraq and Afghanistan. There are presently 4,500 American soldiers in Afghanistan and roughly 3,000, mostly special forces, still in Iraq. These contingents will both be reduced to just 2,500 each by Jan. 15, 2021.

Essentially these troop levels will enable the U.S. to protect their own bases, the embassy and diplomatic personnel.

For those Canadians who keep a keen eye on our military it will be recalled that we still have personnel assigned to the Iraq mission which has parliamentary authorization until 2022. However, it is unclear how these latest Trump troop reductions will impact Canadian operations in that country.

The NATO training mission which Canada commands has been largely suspended due to concerns about security as well as because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Canada’s special forces contingent assigned to the Iraq mission operates in such secrecy that little is known about what those personnel are doing or whether they are meeting actual objectives.

As for Afghanistan, the U.S. withdrawal is more sentimental. It symbolizes the fact that after 19 years and more than $1 U.S. trillion spent, the world’s greatest military superpower is conceding it was defeated by the Taliban.

Canada cut its losses in that failed war back in 2014, but not before expending a national treasure of blood and gold; 158 dead, 2000 wounded or injured, plus countless thousands suffering from the invisible wounds of PTSD, with a dollar figure cost of $22 billion once you factor in long term care costs of the veterans.

Trump’s pullout removes any last glimmer of hope that somehow Canada’s sacrifice was not in vain.

Now we wait to see what the Trump administration will do next. Whatever moves they make will be sure to affect all of us.

ON TARGET: DND Propaganda Project Shut Down

By Scott Taylor

Late last week it was reported in the media that the Department of National Defence had ordered a halt to its controversial program of ‘weaponizing’ their Public Affairs branch.

This move comes in the wake of a series of news stories by Ottawa Citizen defence reporter David Pugliese, which outlined how the DND intended to use propaganda to change the attitude and behavior of Canadian citizens.

It was revealed in Pugliese’s reports that the Canadian Forces planned to create “Joint Targeting and Information Operations” capability along with a Defence Strategic Communications team for the purpose of using “defence activities as a means of communication to influence the attitudes, beliefs and behaviors of the audiences.”

Now the last time I checked the role of the Canadian military was to protect Canada and Canadian values, not to alter the mental state of Canadian citizens.

What was most shocking about these damaging media revelations was the fact that this program had moved beyond the theoretical and was already being employed here in Canada.

To date the Canadian Armed Forces have spent more than $1 million to train Public Affairs officers on behavior modification techniques.

At the beginning of the pandemic, when the Canadian military was poised to deploy personnel to assist in civilian long term care facilities, the CAF established what it called a Precision Information Team (PIT). This PIT used military personnel to collect and analyze information gleaned from civilian social media accounts.

This information was subsequently passed along to Ontario Premier Doug Ford to inform him that his electorate was not happy with his failure to protect the elderly during the COVID-19 crisis.

It was also reported that the Canadian Forces had a plan to counter potential pandemic-related civil disobedience by using various information warfare techniques, including broadcasting propaganda from vehicle mounted loudspeakers.

The architect behind the “enhancement” plan for the public affairs branch was Brigadier-General Jay Janzen, who is quoted in one of the Canadian Forces strategy documents as stating, “The motto ‘who dares, wins’ is as applicable to strategic communication as it is to warfare.”

Those familiar with military affairs will note that ‘who dares wins’ is the operational motto of the British Special Air Service (SAS) which is one of the most elite commando units in the world.

It is one hell of a stretch to compare elite special forces combat soldiers to a handful of public affair officers monitoring civilian Facebook posts, but hey, you’ve gotta give Janzen credit for his imagination.

Perhaps one of the most disturbing revelations was that of a planned campaign to counter allegations of white supremacists in the ranks of the CAF. In advance of this P.R initiative, DND had compiled dossiers on several Canadian journalists and planned to assemble a gaggle of military-friendly academics and historians to push the narrative that no such problem exists.

However before that plan could be initiated, there was a series of much publicized incidents involving CAF members with alleged ties to white supremacy. The propaganda plan was shelved and now it has been exposed.

Once the activities were made public in the press, the senior military leadership realized that these attempts to ‘weaponize’ the public affairs branch had in fact backfired. Instead of protecting the CAF’s image with Canadians, Janzen’s public affairs enhancement strategy, as well as the other missteps related to the pandemic propaganda schemes, actually damaged the military’s reputation and credibility.

In shutting down this initiative Laurie-Anne Kempton, the Assistant Deputy Minister of Public Affairs – and Janzen’s immediate superior-wrote an email to her staff. “Canadian’s must have absolute confidence in knowing that we completely understand our role in informing the public space of our initiatives and activities” she said, adding. “They must know they are not targets.”

Amen to that.

ON TARGET: The 'Uniting' States of America?

By Scott Taylor

In the months leading up to the U.S. presidential election, the campaign itself and the post election-day chaos, the one point upon which media pundits could agree was the fact that the ‘United States’ of America are in fact deeply divided.

President Donald Trump took every opportunity to pour gasoline on these glowing embers of long-standing divisiveness.

Prior to the vote-casting the Trump camp warned that because of the volume of mail-in ballots which were cast in advance, there would be no possibility of obtaining a final result before midnight on election day.

This was presented by Trump as some sort of anomaly that was sinister by nature and a break from traditional norms.

This claim led the media to fact-check and provide some historical context regarding previous U.S. presidential elections.

The examples given were simply common sense in that in a pre-telegraph  (let alone telephone or television) horse and buggy era, the ballot counting took weeks and months to tally. That was why the original inauguration date was in March rather than the current January 20th.

In pointing out the logistical advancement in conducting a democratic vote process over the past two centuries these commentators missed an opportunity to remind the public as to just how far U.S. democracy itself has evolved in that same timeframe.

When the founding fathers wrote the U.S. Constitution, voting was restricted to all but a select few individuals. Eligibility to cast a vote was restricted to white Christian males who owned property. In some states voters had to first pass a test on their Christian religious knowledge. Gender exceptions allowed wealthy female land owners to cast a ballot in several states.

Following the U.S. Civil War, in 1870 the Fifteenth Amendment extended voting rights to former male slaves and freemen of colour. Females did not officially get to vote in American politics until 1920.

As for the racial divide which exists currently in the United States this has been highlighted by months of Black Lives Matter demonstrations across the U.S.

The tearing down of statues of Confederate generals who fought to keep Blacks as slaves, reminds us that for hundreds of years Black Americans were shackled and sold as chattel.

The U.S. Civil War freed the slaves but it did not miraculously elevate Blacks to equal members of U.S. society. In fact laws were passed to entrench the segregation of Blacks in the southern states in what became known as the “Jim Crow” era.

Officially these laws requiring separate facilities for Blacks and whites ranged from schools to railway cars and even public drinking fountains. Those laws were not repealed until after the civil rights marches in 1964.

While segregation was never formally adopted in the northern states, it was very much enforced in the U.S. military until 1948.

Prior to that date Black units - usually with white officers - served in largely support roles in the various branches of the American forces. In fact it was not until the Vietnam War that Black and white Americans would fight and die in large numbers at each other’s side in combat.

Now in the wake of the BLM movement we have various professional sports franchises finally realizing that their team names could be offensive to minority groups. Which makes me wonder how we could have been so blind to the fact that, for instance, the name ‘Redskins’ might be considered derogatory by Indigenous peoples.

These horrific historical truths need to be taught to Americans. But Canadians cannot simply sit smug and gloat over our neighbour’s foibles as we have many unpleasant chapters in our own history.

Those who bemoan the loss of a truly ‘united states’ wish to make America great again need to know that the reality was far different than the historical myths some would have us believe.

As my Dad used to say, “It ain’t like the good old days: and it never was”.

ON TARGET: Combatting Sexual Misconduct In The Ranks

By Scott Taylor

Last week the Canadian military launched a new initiative to confront what the senior brass call a ‘wicked problem’ in the form of sexual misconduct within its ranks. This most recent plan is called The Path Towards Dignity and Respect and unlike previous campaigns this one does not promise any short-term success.

“There are no quick fixes for achieving culture change. It requires sustained effort and continual assessment to ensure that we remain on track,” wrote General Jonathan Vance in the foreword to this new plan.

Keen eyed readers will recall that it was this same General Vance who launched Operation Honour to stamp out sexual misconduct in the CAF over five years ago when he was first appointed Chief of Defence Staff.

Over a half-decade later it appears that Vance now realizes this is not a problem that can simply be ordered to disappear.

The genesis for these latest efforts to eradicate sexual misconduct from the CAF began with a damning series of news media reports back in 2013. The stunning public revelations led to the commissioning of an independent inquiry by former Supreme Court Justice Marie Deschamps.

After a thorough investigation, Deschamps tabled her report which depicted the CAF to be steeped in a highly masculine sexualized culture, wherein military leaders turned a blind eye to misconduct.

It was in response to Deschamps’ findings that Vance launched Op Honour.

The two-fold objective of Op Honour was to clamp down on any alleged perpetrators while simultaneously establishing a support network for the victims.

This Vance-led initiative was initially praised for bringing forward many more reports of sexual misconduct. The official positive ‘spin’ on this phenom was that it indicated a renewed faith in the system to arbitrate justice and properly support the victims.

However, the reported incidents just kept coming, so five years later Op Honour is now the Path Towards Dignity and Respect.

Most tellingly, the new directive states outright that this latest campaign “will have no end date and will remain as an enduring mission for the CAF.”

The target will no longer be to react to incidents of sexual misconduct after they occur, but to instead aim to change the very ‘culture’ of the CAF in which members feel such behaviour to be acceptable.

Architects of this new pathway to change believe that the key to success will be through education.

I believe that one of the first things they should teach on these courses is just how far the military ‘culture’ has already changed in just a few short decades.

Between 1950-1971 women were allowed to enlist in the military but the number was capped at a maximum of 1500. The reason for this was the CAF did not want to overly ‘feminize’ the institution.

That cap was lifted after 1971 but women were mainly employed in non-combat roles such as medical, communications and administration.

Admission of women into combat arms trades began in 1987 and by 2001 the last male-only bastion was breached and females were allowed to serve aboard submarines.

What this means is that there are practically no service-members still in uniform that will be able to recall those ‘male only’ days of old. Virtually every serving soldier and senior officer has spent their entire career working within a mixed gender environment.

Those who served in Afghanistan witnessed male and female soldiers fighting and dying alongside each other.

One has to hope that the forging of such trusts and bonds will soon replace what remains of the former highly masculine, sexualized culture that Justice Deschamps revealed in her report.

I, for one, want to believe that the CAF is already further down their projected new path than the numbers would indicate.

ON TARGET: Military’s ‘Weaponized’ Public Affairs Plan Backfires

The CAF Public Affairs plan for the COVID-19 Crisis included vehicles mounted with loudspeakers to patrol Canadian streets.

By Scott Taylor

These days it would seem that the Public Affairs Branch of the Canadian Armed Forces are their own worst enemy. First it was the revelation in the media that as part of their new policy of ‘weaponizing’ public affairs, DND has spent over $1 million on behavioural modification training. This may sound harmless but this “dynamics methodology” promises to help military clients to analyze and profile groups in order to find the best strategy to effectively influence a target audiences behaviour.

People questioning just how and why the Canadian military would attempt to manipulate the public did not have to wait long. Almost coincidental with the story about DND’s behaviour modification training program came the bizarre news story about the military’s attempted wolf scare in Nova Scotia.

Apparently some keen reservists with the Halifax Rifles wanted to put their propaganda skills to the test, with the unlucky targets being members of the Canadian public. The reservists carefully forged letters complete with the letterhead of the Nova Scotia provincial wildlife division, warning residents of the Annapolis Valley that wolves had recently been released back into the wild.

To torque the local’s fear even higher, these military schemers planned to broadcast wolf noises from a loudspeaker.

When news of the letters was made public, DND had no choice but to shamefacedly admit to the plot. To date no one has been able to explain just what the hell these jokers were thinking.

In a similar vein it was also recently reported that as part of the CAF’s COVID-19 response, the public affairs branch planned to use vehicle mounted loudspeakers to control and advise the public.

One has to suspect that this particular plan was drafted back during the Second World War before people had cell phones and computers.

Perhaps more ominous was the fact that the military also established a Precision Information Team (PIT) to collect data from the social media accounts of Canadian civilians. The findings of the PIT allowed the Canadian Armed Forces to report to Ontario Premier Doug Ford that the public did not think he had done a good enough job in protecting senior residences from COVID-19.

One would have thought the staggering death toll from those facilities would have made that abundantly clear to Ford without having a military team sift through Facebook postings of ordinary citizens.

Then came word that in their effort to manage the issue of white supremacists within the ranks of the CAF, the good old public affairs branch created dossiers on those journalists who would be likely to report on such incidents. That list included Lee Berthiaume of Canadian Press, Gloria Galloway of the Globe and Mail and Murray Brewster of the CBC.

Of those three it was Brewster’s dossier that got the majority of DND’s attention. “He’s familiar with the defence system, and his reporting, while factual, often emphasizes the mistakes and shortcomings of DND and the CAF.” Since these dossiers were specifically regarding the issue of racism and white supremacists in the military, and they admit Brewster’s stories are factual, how in the hell could such revelations not be seen as negative. There is no good side to neo-Nazi’s in uniform.

In the end the plan to use friendly academics and retired military commanders to try to spin future media coverage of white supremacists in the ranks was overtaken by events. Namely a constant stream of news stories revealing - you guessed it - white supremacists in the ranks. That is however a separate issue and it is not a problem with communications.

What is an equally troubling issue is a military public affairs branch that has weaponized itself into self-destruction.

The Canadian public does not want their military to; modify their behaviour, fabricate phony ‘wolf’ threats, spy on the public’s social media or keep files on individual journalists. By doing so the public affairs branch has only undermined the trust that the public has in the Canadian Armed Forces.

ON TARGET: Military Cries “Wolf” in Nova Scotia

By Scott Taylor

Last week there was a bizarre little story in the Ottawa Citizen that at first glance appeared to be so ridiculous that it had to be satire.

Reporter David Pugliese revealed that a letter from the Nova Scotia government sent out to residents in Annapolis Valley to warn about a pack of wolves on the loose in the province was forged by Canadian military personnel as part of a propaganda training mission that went off the rails.

Information warfare specialists with the Halifax Rifles – a reserve unit - had craftily drafted the letter, which informed recipients that wolves had recently been re-introduced to the region by the provincial government.

To make the letters more convincing the military schemers forged the letterhead of the Nova Scotia Wildlife Division. Lest someone still doubted the authenticity of these wolf warnings the plotters included an information phone number that connected to an Environment Canada employee who also appeared to be linked to the Canadian military.

To really scare the bejeezus out of everybody, the diabolical plot also included the planned use of a loud speaker to generate wolf sounds.

After receiving phone calls and emails from concerned residents, the Nova Scotia government quickly responded on social media that someone was sending out fake news. Once the media began probing the issue, the Canadian military had no choice but to sheepishly confess their role in this affair.

To date, no one from the Canadian Armed Forces has been able to offer any credible explanation about what happened. An investigation is now underway.

It would be easy to laugh this incident off by comparing it to a bad plotline in a Scooby Doo cartoon, but this has raised allegations about the Canadian military attempting to manipulate Canadian citizens on Canadian soil. That’s no joke.

It is also not an isolated incident but rather part of a much broader strategy of the CAF “weaponizing” Public Affairs as well as significantly increasing its propaganda warfare skills.

The concept of weaponizing the military’s public affairs branch was first proposed in 2015 by General Jonathan Vance shortly after he was promoted to Chief of the Defence Staff. However the real driving force behind the “weaponization” program is Brigadier-General Jay Janzen, the Director General of military strategic communications.

It was recently revealed that Janzen authorized the expenditure of over $1 million on behaviour modification training for several dozen of his Public Affairs Officers.

The training provided was similar to the behaviour modification training that had been offered by the parent company of Cambridge Analytica. Keen eyed readers may recall that Cambridge Analytica was embroiled in a scandal involving the harvesting of personal Facebook data for use by U.S. President Donald Trump’s election campaign.

In response to the revelation that DND was investing in behaviour modification training, the official line is that this will help the military to plan strategic communication campaigns.

The question begs, when did it become the military’s responsibility to monitor and manipulate the Canadian public?

This past summer, at the height of the pandemic, the military created a thing called the Precision Information Team (PIT). This five person unit scoured social media accounts of private citizens in order to provide an in depth report to the Ontario government.

According to the PIT analysis the public were not very satisfied with the Doug Ford government’s care for the elderly during COVID-19.

Does one think Premier Ford really needed an official military report to tell him that?

There was also another plan for the CAF to ward off any pandemic driven civil disobedience with a propaganda campaign that called for “shaping” and “exploiting” information and using vehicle mounted loudspeakers patrolling Canadian streets. One has to wonder if they intended to scare would-be rioters off the streets with wolf noises?

The bottom line in all of this is that the Canadian military has no business targeting Canadian civilians with propaganda. That is what our political parties are for.

ON TARGET: Education Needed to Prevent Politicization of Pandemic

By Scott Tayor

In last week’s vice presidential debate in Salt Lake City, Utah Mike Pence made a rather outlandish reference to the Swine Flu epidemic of 2009.

In defence of President Trump’s current handling of the COVID-19 crisis Pence claimed that the Democrats had done a worse job of handling the Swine Flu. “When Joe Biden was Vice-President of the United States, 60 million Americans contracted the swine flu. If the swine flu had been as lethal as the Coronavirus … we would have lost 2 million American lives.” claimed Pence.

While that might be an alarming statistic, the swine flu was never considered to be anywhere near as lethal as COVID-19. During 12 months of the 2009 outbreak there were only 12,500 deaths despite the fact that 61 million tested positive for the swine flu virus.

To date COVID-19 has killed over 210,000 Americans of the 7.5 million who have tested positive, with U.S. epidemiologists predicting that death toll will double by Christmas.

Back in August it was Trump himself who made an even more unhinged comparison between COVID-19 and the Spanish Flu of 1918. “Nobody’s ever seen anything like this [COVID-19 pandemic].” Trump said at a press briefing. “The closest thing was in 1917 they say right? The Great Pandemic – and it certainly was a terrible thing where they lost anywhere from 50-100 million people. It probably ended the Second World War. All the soldiers were sick. It was a terrible situation.”

Despite the fact that Trump has repeatedly claimed himself to be “the most militaristic person ever” his displayed knowledge of martial history is way off the mark on this one.

The Spanish Flu pandemic ran from 1918-19 and it did not end World War I, let alone WWII, which did not start until two decades later. For the record, no war in history ended when all the soldiers called in sick.

However, Trump was correct in stating this pandemic was devastating. His figures are correct on a death toll of between 50-100 million people dying worldwide. In fact over 500 million were infected with the virus which at the time represented one third of the entire population on earth. To apply those percentage rates to the population of 2020 would mean 2.6 billion people infected with up to 550 million deaths.

Which brings us to the question of why is so little taught about this viral pandemic that wiped out more people than both World Wars combined?

For my generation it was mentioned in history class as a brief footnote between weeks of studying the First World War followed by weeks of in class study learning about the Second World War.

In Canada it is believed that the deadly Spanish Flu came home with those veterans returning from the battlefields in Europe. As such the disease was soon spread to every nook and cranny of the country.

It claimed the lives of 50,000 Canadians and one can presume that of that number many were soldiers who had survived the horrors of the trenches only to fall victim to a deadly virus upon return to Canada.

Even though this pandemic affected every corner of our nation and killed more people than were lost in the Second World War, to my knowledge there is not a single monument to acknowledge Canada’s collective suffering.

Almost every city and town in Canada has some form of war memorial complete with a list of battle honours earned by our troops on foreign battlefields. Yet there is no markers and no annual day of mourning for the 50,000 who perished here on Canadian soil.

While some will argue that the war monuments salute those who voluntarily made the ultimate sacrifice in the service of Canada, we also erect such tributes to the victims of tragedies such as the sinking of the Titanic or the downing of Swiss Air Flight 111.

I have to believe that if we were better informed on pervious pandemics we would be better equipped to prepare ourselves for future ones. It would also prevent gaslighting politicians from trying to bamboozle the electorate with apple to orange comparisons.

ON TARGET: Trump's Proud Boys: The Canadian Connection

By Scott Taylor

At the Sept. 29 U.S. Presidential election debate, Donald Trump propelled the hate group the Proud Boys into the international spotlight. When asked by the moderator to denounce white supremacists, Trump balked and asked for the name of a specific group. Vice President Joe Biden suggested the Proud Boys to which Trump stated, “Proud Boys … stand back and stand by.”

Within minutes, members of the Proud Boys took to those social media platforms, which they can still access, to assure Trump they are indeed ‘standing by’ for the President.

By the following morning the alt-right hate group had begun merchandising clothing adorned with the Proud Boys logo and Trump’s phrase “stand back, stand by” which is now their adopted slogan.

In the days following the debate Trump tried to assert that he did not know anything about the Proud Boys and their beliefs prior to his public shout out to the hate group on all national TV networks. This claim of ignorance – like many things Trump has said to date – seems unlikely to be true.

The previous week the Proud Boys staged a protest rally in Portland forcing the Oregon governor to declare a State of emergency. Several hundred Proud Boys, decked out in body armour and helmets with many brandishing assault rifles, assembled to counter the ongoing Black Lives Matter protests that have gripped Portland’s streets for weeks on end.

Almost as prominent as U.S. flags among the Proud Boys were Trump election banners.

While the Proud Boys’ leadership denies they are white supremacists the F.B.I considers them to be an “extremist group” that has “ties to white nationalism.” They are a male only organization of self-proclaimed chauvinists who are preserving what they call ‘western culture’ and they refuse to accept any guilt for the current state of the modern world.

While they do allow non-white membership, their basic mantra is to hate Muslims, Jews and Trans-people. On the flip side, they love Donald Trump and they love to fight.

One of the initiation rituals for the Proud Boys is to have several members punch the candidate while he recites the names of five breakfast cereals. I could not make this stuff up. The reasoning behind this cereal-pummelling stunt is that a Proud Boy must be able to keep a clear head in a fistfight.

Which brings us to the next level of initiation rite, which is to actually fight with members of the ‘radical left.’ The Proud Boys have therefore figured prominently in the heated clashes that have occurred this past summer across numerous U.S. cities.

Last year two Proud Boys were convicted of assaulting left wing protestors and sentenced to four years in jail in the U.S.

The Proud Boys were founded in 2016 by Gavin McInnes, a self-styled provocateur with dual British and Canadian citizenship. McInnes has subsequently distanced himself from his creation, but the Proud Boys movement now has chapters across the U.S, U.K, Australia and Canada.

In 2017, the Proud Boys maritime chapter confronted a Canada Day Mi’kmaw ceremony in downtown Halifax. There was no violence but once it was discovered that the five participants in Proud Boys black and yellow polo shirts were members of the Canadian Armed Forces it became national headline news.

After a brief suspension and some counselling four of the five service-members returned to active duty while the fifth had already been in the process of obtaining his release at the time of the incident.

When it was announced that the CAF was fully re-instating these personnel, Proud Boys Canada chapters celebrated on social media. “We win, our brothers the Halifax 5 are returning to active military duty with no charges, let the [social justice warriors] tears pour. Proud of our boys.”

One has to wonder if the Proud Boys membership has increased throughout the CAF since the 2017 incident. If so, are they too ‘standing by’ for whatever it is that Trump intends to use the Proud Boys?”

ON TARGET: Putting War Crimes in Perspective

By Scott Taylor

Last week British parliament was in a flap over the fact that during a heated debate, Defence Secretary Ben Wallace stated the UK had previously been involved in “Illegal wars’. Wallace was obviously referring to the war in Iraq, and his Labour Party counterparts took offence. Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s office had to later issue a statement that Wallace’s views were his personal opinion.

However a 2017 survey revealed that nearly one third of British citizens also believe that the Iraq war was indeed ‘illegal' and that former Prime Minister Tony Blair should stand trial for war crimes.

The survey was taken after a former Chief of the Iraqi Army brought a private prosecution against Blair for his role in supporting the U.S. led 2003 invasion of Iraq. 

The British High Court subsequently blocked the Iraqi officer’s bid to bring Blair to justice.

It is refreshing to know that one third of the survey respondents believed “Mr. Blair knowingly misled parliament and the public and should be tried as a war criminal.”

What is disappointing and perhaps revealing of an inherent sense of first world privilege is the fact that two thirds of those surveyed did not think Blair’s actions were punishable as a war crime.

Iraqi General Abdulwaheed al-Rabat, the plaintiff in this case was not acting on some sort of a whim. 

All the evidence of Blair’s manipulative actions were already revealed and detailed through a thorough British parliamentary investigation known as the Chilcot Inquiry. 

When the Chilcot inquiry results were made public in 2016 they painted a chilling picture of not only Blair’s actions but also those of his former foreign Secretary Jack Straw.

The inquiry concluded; “Saddam Hussein did not pose an urgent threat to the UK, intelligence reporting about [Iraqi] weapons of mass destruction was presented with unwarranted certainty, that the war was unnecessary and that the UK undermined the authority of the U.N Security Council.”

Had the Iraq invasion gone smoothly and the U.S. – UK coalition had established a post-Saddam democratic Utopia, one could argue that Blair’s lies were for the greater good. But that is not the case, given that to this day - more than seventeen years later - the bloodletting and violent anarchy still grips war-ravaged Iraq. 

In fact, the magnitude of the crime which Blair co-committed – we cannot exclude former U.S. President George W. Bush’s regime from this equation – is that the human cost to Iraqis remains incalculable as it remains ongoing.

In other words Blair and Bush are indeed war criminals but until the killing which they unleashed is stopped in Iraq, we cannot assess the full magnitude of their crimes.

However, before my fellow Canadians puff out their chests and take pride in the fact that Prime Minister Jean Chretien opted out of joining in on Blair and Bush’s war crimes in Iraq, let me just state one word – Libya.

Back in the spring of 2011 it was Canada, under the leadership of Prime Minister Stephen Harper, that took the lead international role in helping Libyan rebels to oust President Moammar Gadhaffi. 

After some initial success the Libyan rebels had suffered setbacks at the hands of Gadhaffi security forces. When it was alleged that Gadhaffi was about to use his air force to bomb his own citizens in retribution, the U.N authorized NATO to impose a no-fly zone over Libyan soil. 

The U.N never authorized NATO to drop bombs and engage in combat yet that is exactly what they began doing immediately. The NATO allied task force was commanded by Canadian Lieutenant-General Charles Bouchard. On the diplomatic front the international effort to oust Gadhaffi was spearheaded by Canada’s foreign minister John Baird.

Despite deploying the most sophisticated aerial arsenal ever seen, NATO’s Libyan rebel allies still took nearly 10 months to defeat the Gadhaffi loyalists. It was NATO airstrikes that allowed the Libyan rebels to capture Gadhaffi and brutally murder him on the streets of Sirte on October 20, 2011.

Canada celebrated this war ‘triumph’ with a victory parade on Parliament Hill, the only NATO ally to do so.

Reality was quick to unravel into violent anarchy across the post-Gadhaffi Libyan landscape, resulting in thousands of deaths, lawlessness and terror for the Libyan people, which nearly a decade later persists unabated.

We were so focused on removing an autocrat that no one groomed Gadhaffi’s successor. As a result the Libyan people were plunged from the proverbial frying pan straight into the fire of anarchy. 

The U.K at least had the courage to examine their moral failings in Iraq with the commission of the Chilcot Inquiry. Perhaps it is time for Canada to do the same with our role in the Libyan intervention of 2011. 

It was unnecessary and undermined the U.N authority. It too has an incalculable magnitude in terms of criminal liability as the killing and chaos continues to this day.

ON TARGET: There Is No Place For Right Wing Extremists In CAF

By Scott Taylor

Last week Army Commander, Lieutenant General Wayne Eyre presided over the annual Army council meeting. Although the sessions were held in Ottawa the majority of the attendees participated virtually due to the COVID-19 travel restrictions.

Reaching out directly to 450 top to mid-level army officers, Eyre outlined to his chain-of-command a new set of explicit directions that will expedite the removal from the ranks of right-wing extremists or racists.

Eyre’s message was clear “If you have those types of beliefs – get out. We don’t want you.”

Most Canadians would find it startling that our Army would have any such alt-right fascists in the ranks, let alone enough to warrant such strong a statement from the commander.

However, in recent months there have been a number of separate high profile cases reported in the media wherein members of the Canadian Armed Forces were not only affiliated with right-wing extremists, but also involved in committing alleged illegal activities.

Former Combat Engineer Patrik Mathews generated headlines when it was revealed that he was recruiting for a white Supremacist group while still serving in the Canadian Armed Forces.

When the story broke Mathews bolted across the border and now faces weapons and other charges in the U.S.

On July 2, Corey Hurren made international news when he drove his pickup truck onto the grounds at Rideau Hall in Ottawa. Hurren was armed at the time and he had threatened to harm Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

What was even more startling was the fact that Hurren is still a serving member of 4 Ranger group in the CAF. Hurren also promoted right-wing ideology on his social media platforms. He now faces multiple criminal charges.

Hurren’s incident prompted a CBC investigation into 4 Ranger group wherein reporter Murray Brewster was quick to uncover another right-wing sympathizer.

Erik Myggland had been flagged by Canadian military counter-intelligence and interviewed about his membership in two separate right-wing organizations back in 2016. Despite his affiliation with these groups, Myggland was allowed to continue serving.

When that story broke Eyre had stated that Myggland was allowed to remain in uniform because he was a reservist and he had only pursued his right-wing interests during his own time. According to Eyre, when he was in civilian mode Myggland was not subject to military discipline.

It was also pointed out that the legal administrative process to remove undesirable members from the payroll is a lengthy one.

This latest “explicit direction” issued by Eyre is to be commended and I hope that it is echoed across all the other service branches.

However one still has to wonder what would compel individuals with right-wing extremist views to enlist in a military that prides itself in having defeated Hitler’s Nazi regime?

Perhaps the answer to that question lies in the results of a recent poll out of the U.S. that revealed nearly two-thirds of young adults had no idea that six million Jews perished in the Holocaust. Nearly a quarter of the survey respondents thought that the Holocaust was a myth while nearly one-in-ten actually believed that the Jews perpetrated the Holocaust.

While one would like to presume that Canadian schools do a better job of teaching about this horrific chapter in mankind’s history, the reality is that we need to do better ourselves.

Such widespread ignorance of the Holocaust creates the vacuum into which the right-wing anti-Semites are able to re-write history. One would think that Canadian military units would be best situated to teach their members about the Holocaust, because it was those units’ forefathers that helped destroy Hitler’s murderous regime.

Knowing what the Nazi’s did should help soldiers to drive out any of their comrades who share such right-wing ideology: With or without ‘explicit direction’ from the Army commander.

ON TARGET: Social Injustice Still a Challenge for CAF

By Scott Taylor

On 2 July there was a bizarre incident at Rideau Hall when an armed intruder drove a pickup truck onto the premises and subsequently stalked the grounds on foot. Police were able to defuse the situation peacefully. After this arrest it was discovered that the alleged perpetrator – Corey Hurren, 46 – was in fact a member of the Canadian Armed Forces.

Hurren has since been charged with multiple crimes, not the least of which stems from him threatening the life of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

Neither the Trudeau family nor Governor General Julie Payette were at Rideau Hall at the time of Hurren’s intrusion, but the disgruntled service-member had detailed his intentions to his Ranger detachment commander prior to driving to Ottawa from his home in Bowsman, Manitoba.

While this incident is now awaiting trial, it did serve to launch a CBC investigation into Hurren’s military unit, the 4th Ranger Group. It did not take reporter Murray Brewster long to discover a rather disturbing story involving another member of this same Ranger group.

It turns out that Erik Myggland – a serving member of the reserves – had openly supported two far-right groups on social media, and had called Trudeau a “treasonous bastard” on his Facebook account.

What was most disturbing about Brewster’s findings was that the military counter-intelligence unit had already flagged the fact that Myggland promoted the far right Three-Percenter ideology and was a member of the notorious Sons of Odin. Three-Percenters promote themselves as embodying the values of the supposed 3% of colonists who took up arms against Britain during the Revolution, while Son’s of Odin began in Finland as an anti-immigrant movement.

However, after interviewing Myggland, the counter-intelligence gumshoes (aka detectives) allowed him to continue serving in uniform.

After this story broke, the Canadian Army has launched a summary investigation into why Myggland was not disciplined or discharged earlier.

Last week, Army Commander Lieutenant-General Wayne Eyre admitted to CBC that Myggland could not be disciplined because his transgressions had taken place during his own time – not while he was on duty. “A reservist is only subject to the code of service discipline while undertaking duty” explained Eyre, adding “But to be very clear on this, we expect our individuals, whether they be full timers or part timers to embrace the values of our organization.” Eyre also said he expects Myggland will be formally discharged from the ranks within a matter of weeks.

While that is a step in the right direction one has to wonder whether none of this would have come to light had Hurren not driven his pickup truck through the gates of Rideau Hall and set the media investigation in motion.

I do not believe that the CAF is rife with white supremacists and far-right sympathizers but as evidenced by the Myggland case such individuals do wear the uniform. For counter-intelligence to spot such activity and to allow the member to keep serving totally sends the wrong message.

As much as we Canadians like to think that we are removed from the Black Lives Matter movement for social justice south of our border, the truth is that Canada – and in particular our Armed Forces have a tarnished history of institutional racism.

During the First World War the enlistment of black recruits was vehemently opposed by Canada’s top soldier.  In April 1916 at the height of the Great War recruiting crisis, General W.G. Gwatkin, Chief of the General Staff issued a memo which stated, “The civilized negro is vain and imitative; in Canada he is not impelled to enlist by a high sense of duty; in the trenches he is not likely to make a good fighter.”

Just over a century later such a racist statement by a senior general is unthinkable.

While this contrast in attitudes shows how far the CAF has come in terms of improving social justice, things like allowing Myggland to continue serving despite knowledge of his abhorrent beliefs, only illustrates how far we still have to go.

ON TARGET: Most Militaristic Person Ever?

By Scott Taylor

During his 2015 campaign for the Republican Party leadership, Donald J. Trump claimed that he was “the most militaristic person ever.” No sooner had Trump made that boastful claim than the press pilloried him for his demonstrable absence of any actual military service. The New York Post dubbed him “G.I. Joke” and commentators pointed out that Trump had obtained five separate medical deferments for bone spurs to keep from being drafted during the Vietnam War.

Doubling down on his claims of martial prowess Trump pilloried the war record of Republican rival John McCain. “He’s not a war hero,” Trump told reporters. “I like people who weren’t captured.”

At the time it all seemed to be an amusing distraction for Canadians because no one thought for a minute that Trump would actually win the Republican leadership, let alone the Presidency.

That all changed in November 2016 when Trump became the Commander-In-Chief of the world’s greatest military superpower.

During his presidency Trump has often reminded Americans of the importance of understanding their history and culture and then proceeded to promptly illustrate his own glaring ignorance of the same subjects.

In one memorable off script aside Trump praised George Washington and his revolutionary fighters for “seizing the airports” more than 125 years before the airplane was invented.

More recently and perhaps more alarmingly was Trump’s historical reference regarding the current COVID-19 pandemic. Explaining the U.S. government’s initial lack of preparedness, Trump said that was because this viral disease was unprecedented. “The closest was in 1917 … the great pandemic [which] cost 50 to 100 million lives,” said Trump. “It probably ended the Second World War … All the soldiers were sick.”

If you are going to reference historical events when addressing the impact of an ongoing pandemic - that has now claimed more U.S. lives than the first World War, Vietnam War, Iraq and Afghanistan - combined - then you would think the ‘most militaristic person ever’ might have his facts in the ballpark at least. But no.

The Spanish flu of 1918 did not end the First World War, let alone the Second World War which concluded in 1945 with Germany’s surrender and Japan’s capitulation following the dropping of two atomic bombs. No war in history ever ended when “all the soldiers got sick.”

Again, for us in Canada Trump’s comical distortions of history could be viewed as harmlessly amusing. However as Trump is now in full campaign mode he is portraying himself as the “Law and Order!” President. In fact he tweets out that exact phrase every few hours complete with exclamation point just in case you weren’t sure.

What is frightening for all of us who share the North American land mass is that for Trump to portray himself as America’s firefighter there needs to be a fire. During the wave of chaos that has engulfed U.S. cities centered on the Black Lives Matter movement, Trump has been quick to offer state governors the use of federal law enforcement to control the civilian crowds.

In early June Trump brought in federal law enforcement officers and military police to clear protestors from Lafayette Square adjacent to the White House. At the time this use of force drew a stern rebuke from James ‘Mad Dog’ Mattis, the retired Marine general and former Secretary of Defence. In an opinion piece for the Atlantic, Mattis wrote: “When I joined the military, some 50 years ago, I swore an oath to support and defend the constitution. Never did I dream that troops taking the same oath would be ordered under any circumstance to violate the constitutional rights of their fellow citizens – much less provide a bizarre photo op for the elected commander-in-chief, with military leadership standing alongside.”

My fear is that what Mattis could not have dreamed of will soon become a full on nightmare in the run up to the U.S. presidential election on Nov. 3.

ON TARGET: U.S. Crapping on Canada’s Afghan War Contribution Nothing New

By Scott Taylor

Last week there was a brief but intense media feeding frenzy over Canada’s long since discontinued contribution to the war in Afghanistan. The genesis for this controversy was previously taped comments from U.S. President Donald Trump’s trade adviser Peter Navarro. The recordings were made to White House press reporter Jim Sciutto as part of the research for his new book The Madman Theory: Trump Takes on the world.

The context of Navarro’s comments were related to trade negotiations and whether or not Canada had been able to curry favour at the bargaining table by sending our troops to fight in Afghanistan. 

Navarro said “Were they doing us a favour or were they brought into the idea they needed to do that as part of the global effort against terrorists?”

Answering his own question, Navarro continued “I mean, if they were just doing us a favour, maybe their government should have been thrown out of office. I mean every time a Canadian shows up in uniform, it’s doing us a favour? How’s that work?”

The knee jerk reaction to Navarro’s callous dismissal of Canada’s sacrifice in that war was bitter anger. Former Chief of Defence Staff General (ret’d) Rick Hillier was beside himself with rage. Hillier had been one of the leading architects in shaping Canada’s combat role in Kandahar back in 2005, and he seemed to take the slight from Navarro personally. In numerous subsequent media interviews Hillier referred to Navarro as an “idiot” and questioned why a trade advisor was discussing military affairs in the first place.

While it was good to see Hillier's blunt and emotional defence of Canada’s “son’s and daughter’s” on the airwaves and while Navarro may have been misguided in telling a reporter those thoughts, he was simply telling the truth. 

If anyone in high political office in Canada thought that our soldiers’ sacrifice in a U.S.-led unwinnable war would earn us a bargaining chip at trade talks then they do deserve to be turfed from power.

That is not how capitalism works under a protectionist U.S. administration. 

In 2001, when the Twin Towers were attacked in New York and the so-called Global War on Terrorism began, Canada enjoyed a total annual trade volume with the U.S. of $380 billion, of which $52 billion was a trade surplus in Canada’s favour. 

Over the subsequent two decades Canada has sent tens of thousands of soldiers to both Afghanistan. (2001 - 2014) and Iraq (2014-present). Of that total 159 soldiers were killed and at least another two thousand were wounded, injured or continue to suffer from the invisible scars of PTSD. The Afghanistan mission alone is estimated to cost Canada in excess of $22 billion once long term care costs for veterans is factored into the equation.

Despite this ‘investment’ of blood and gold, the 2019 figures show that our total annual trade value with the U.S. has risen to $600 billion but of that increased number our surplus dropped to $26 billion. 

By comparison, Mexico sent not a single soldier to Iraq or Afghanistan and saw a huge increase in trade with the U.S. In 2001 their total trade value was $232 billion of which $30 billion was surplus in Mexico’s favour. Last year Mexico's total trade value with America had grown over those two decades to eclipse Canada at $613 billion, of which $100 billion was a Mexican surplus.

While Navarro’s remarks are insensitive they are accurate. While we were allegedly trying to curry favour by participating in US-led foreign military misadventures, the Mexicans have been quietly eating our lunch at the trade table!

What I found far more insulting to Canadian martial pride dates back to a January 2008 article published in the New York Times. It quoted then U.S. Secretary of Defence Robert Gates claiming “NATO forces in southern Afghanistan do not know how to combat a guerrilla insurgency and that could be contributing to rising violence in that country.”

That’s right folks, even as our sons and daughters were fighting and dying in Kandahar, the top U.S. defence official was publicly blaming us (and our NATO partners) for losing the war.

Now that is ingratitude.

Note to editors: Dollar figures used are in US Dollars and are from the US Federal Census Bureau.