ON TARGET: The Demise of Soldiering in Canada?

By Scott Taylor

Last week the Canadian Armed Forces made the official announcement that henceforth there will no longer be any gender restrictions on uniform clothing items. Service members can now order and wear whichever uniform they feel best suits their individual identity.

It was also announced that all restrictions on military haircuts are being lifted as of this September.

Making the announcement in a video on social media was the awkward looking pair comprised of Chief of Defence Staff, General Wayne Eyre and Canadian Forces Chief Warrant Officer Gilles Gregoire.

Watching two completely bald, Caucasian, career-military men talk about the importance of one’s hairstyle being an indicator of the CAF’s new policy of inclusivity was almost farcical.

Needless to say, in the wake of this announced policy change the Internet exploded with the outrage of veterans.

To follow their collective argument, this is the end of soldiering in Canada and yet another reason that they wish Prime Minister Justin Trudeau would – to gently paraphrase – “exit and make love to himself.”

My initial reaction was to question whether or not this latest development would in fact successfully address the CAF’s current problem with both retention and recruitment of personnel.

It is hard to envision someone in uniform thinking “if only they would let me grow my hair long and dye it blue, then I would happily continue serving.”

Likewise, not many long blue-haired folks are seen outside recruiting centres contemplating their martial-trade options.

However, while this is yet another significant milestone in the CAF’s evolution, I am pretty confident that with the passage of time it will become the accepted norm.

When I joined the CAF in 1982, the military was still fighting against accepting the newly adopted Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

My platoon was the last to graduate before the Charter was implemented and our instructors loudly bemoaned the fact that this would be the end of soldiering in Canada.

Prior to the protections of the Charter, NCO’s could verbally and physically abuse recruits, and it was felt this was the only way to properly forge a real soldier. Turns out those instructors were wrong.

Fast forward to 1987 when the decision was made to allow females to serve in combat trades and aboard warships.

Those serving in these heretofore male-only trades loudly protested that mixed gender units would be the death of soldiering in Canada. Turns out they too, were wrong.

Up until 1992 it was illegal to be homosexual and serve in the CAF.

As a result of these strictly enforced regulations the military was undoubtedly the most homophobic institution in Canada.

When it was announced that homosexuals could serve legally, the old guard once again hailed that this was the end of soldiering in Canada as we know it.

That was in the pre-Internet era, so these sentiments were circulated via tub-thumping in the messes, and vitriolic letters to the editor.

That was of course 30 years ago and contrary to the naysayers’ predictions, the Canadian military continued to soldier on in impressive style.

From 2001 until 2014 Canada deployed some 40,000 troops to Afghanistan.

That force included Canadians of diverse ethnic backgrounds, genders and sexual preferences and they fought side-by-side under a single identity – that of being a Canadian soldier.

Throughout history, the Canadian military has indeed reflected the values of society at large.

When viewed through the prism of 2022 hindsight, those values do not always stand the test of time.

During the First World War, Blacks wishing to serve in the military found it extremely challenging.

To accommodate these Black volunteers and to alleviate the manpower shortage at the frontlines in Europe, Canada established a segregated unit known as the Number 2 Construction Battalion.

These Black soldiers had white officers and were relegated to non-combat, labour tasks.

Until recently, the heritage of No. 2 Construction Battalion was trumpeted by the Department of National Defence during Black history month each year.

Finally someone realized that segregating these volunteers by race and having them perform menial tasks was not such a glorious martial history after all.

This past Saturday, the CAF made an official apology to the descendants of No. 2 Construction Battalion at a ceremony in Halifax.

One day in the not so distant future we may come to realize that someone with long hair, face paint and a skirt can still make a hell of a warrior.

Wait a minute, I just described Braveheart.

Freedom!

ON TARGET: Countering Disinformation with Disinformation

By Scott Taylor

Last Wednesday at the NATO Summit in Madrid, Melanie Joly, Minister of Global Affairs announced that Canada would be opening five new embassies in the Baltic, Central Europe and the Caucasus.

According to Joly “we need to have more ears and eyes on the ground” as a counter to the current onslaught of Russian disinformation.

The original spin made it sound like Canada would be adding a diplomatic presence in five new countries.

However upon a closer examination, Joly’s plan includes an increase to full embassy status for existing consulates in Estonia, Lithuania and Slovakia. In Riga, Latvia the current embassy will see only an increase in staff numbers. The only ‘new’ embassy to be opened will be in Yerevan, Armenia.

Now to be clear from the outset, I fully agree with Joly’s premise that Canada needs to expand its diplomatic footprint in the Caucasus.

This is an incredibly complex and strategically vital corner of the world that remains largely unknown to the majority of Canadians.

I also want to be clear that I applaud the Armenian-Canadian lobby for finally convincing Canada to commit to opening a reciprocal diplomatic mission in Yerevan.

Armenia has maintained a full embassy in Ottawa since shortly after attaining independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. However, the reason that Joly gave for expanding, and in the case of Yerevan opening a new embassy, makes one question the competence of her Global Affairs advisors.

According to Joly, the five countries involved in this expansion are on the ‘front lines’ and are ‘threatened’ by Russia.

In a tweet, Jolly proclaimed “since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine the world has experienced a geopolitical shift. Canada must act to promote its interests, protect democracy and push back on Russia’s influence.”

Given that the entire premise of Joly’s initiative is to help stop the spread of disinformation, perhaps we should counsel Global Affairs to stop spreading it themselves.

This may come as a shock to many Canadians, and I'm sure Joly is among that crowd, but Armenia is actually a military ally of Russia.

Like a mini-NATO, Russia created something called the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) in 1994 in the wake of the Soviet Union’s collapse. The members of this alliance are Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. 

Under it’s mandate the CSTO can deploy peacekeepers to member states without requiring a U.N resolution.

Keen news junkies may recall that this past January, during violent unrest in Kazakhstan, the CSTO deployed peacekeepers to restore order in that CSTO country. Most western media reported it as a strictly Russian intervention but the other member states did participate.

In the case of Armenia. Russia maintains a full brigade group on Armenian territory as a standing deterrent to any aggression from Turkiye.

Which brings us to the 2020 war in Nagorno-Karabakh. The roots of this conflict date back to the bloody inter-ethnic conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan that ravaged the Caucasus between 1988 and 1994.

The victorious Armenians secured Nagorno-Karabakh, known to Armenians as Artsakh, and they successfully captured an additional 20 per cent of Azeri sovereign territory. A ceasefire was signed in 1994 but without a peace agreement this remained a frozen conflict.

In September 2020, a giant Azeri offensive shattered the ceasefire. The conflict played out much like the early fighting to date in the Ukraine conflict.

Azerbaijan had received NATO standard training and weapons from their close ally Turkiye. Using sophisticated drones and superior tactics, Azerbaijan enjoyed battlefield dominance over the Armenian and the self-proclaimed Republic of Artsakh forces.

The Azeris were very careful not to attack any targets inside Armenia itself so as not to invoke Russia’s collective security obligations.

In fact the CSTO was criticized by Armenian politicians for their decision to call the 2020 war a ‘border conflict’ of a third state (Artsakh) and not an invasion of Armenian territory proper.

In the end, it was Putin that brokered the 2020 peace deal which is presently being enforced by some 2,000 Russian peacekeepers.

Contrary to Joly’s assertion, Armenia is not being ‘threatened’ by Russia, Armenia is instead almost wholly dependant on the presence of Russia’s military for their national security.

To date, Canada has remotely maintained diplomatic relations with Armenia via Moscow.

Given the complex divisions in the Caucasus, Canada monitors relations with the other two Caucasus nations, Georgia and Azerbaijan, from Ankara, Turkey.

A word to the wise would be for Canada’s future Ambassador to Armenia to drop the Russia-bashing when setting up shop in Yerevan.

ON TARGET: What The Heck Is Rick Hillier Thinking

By Scott Taylor

Last week, former Chief of Defence Staff, General (ret’d) Rick Hillier went on a one-man charm offensive to harness the Canadian publics’ support for Ukraine. 

The genesis of the mini-media storm was the official announcement that Hillier has been appointed to chair a new strategic council advising Ukraine’s territorial defence forces. 

This new council has been established by the Ukrainian World Congress (UWC), a non-profit consortium of organizations affiliated with the global Ukraine diaspora. 

Hillier will lead a team of other former military commanders to offer support, advice and advocacy for Ukraine’s 100,000 member homeland defence militia.

So far, so good.

Canada has been an ardent supporter of Ukraine’s defence forces since the establishment of Op Unifier in September 2015. Since that juncture, Canadian military trainers have mentored over 33,000 Ukrainian soldiers, providing them with advanced military skills.

The U.S. and other NATO allies trained an additional 60,000 Ukrainian combatants to a level of competence that shocked the Russian invaders. As this nucleus of highly proficient Ukraine defenders blunted the initial Russian offensives, Canada continued to support Ukraine with the provision of lethal aid including Carl Gustav anti-tank systems and rockets. 

As the conflict devolved into a stalemate in the eastern Donbass region, Canada committed to providing M777 howitzers from our own military arsenal. 

In the latest federal budget, finance minister Chrystia Freeland announced an additional $500 million in lethal aid to be shipped to Ukraine. 

Again, Canadians can take heart from the fact that on a per capita basis, no country has done, or is doing more to aid Ukraine in this war.

This is also reflected in the fact that among those foreign volunteers who flocked to Ukraine to fight the Russians, Canada contributed the second highest contingent. We were only edged out by neighbouring Poland, which has a large Ukrainian minority. 

Despite this overwhelming popular and logistic support for Ukraine, Hillier is telling Canadians that we should be doing more.

One of the objectives of Hillier’s new council is to raise money in order to purchase protective gear for the 100,000 strong Ukraine volunteer militia. “These are civilians called into service with a miniscule amount of training and almost no equipment,” said Hillier in an interview with National Post. “But they were called into service to defend their families, their villages, their towns and their country.”

Hillier pointed out that it costs about $2500 to properly equip a modern soldier with a helmet and body armour. Basic math puts that as a cost of $1.24 million for each 400 strong battalion, or $5 million to equip a four brigade group of 1600 soldiers. “We are not raising money for weapons. We are raising money for personal protection,” insisted Hillier.

I’m sure those dollar figures would give Canadian military procurement officials some concern given how if you do the math, they make no sense and it is a pittance compared to how much we budget to equip our own army brigades. But I digress.

It was what Hillier proposed next that was truly shocking. “Why don’t we in Canada step up and help? Take 250 of our LAV III’s, 50 Leopard tanks, recce (reconnaissance) vehicles and engineer vehicles, a spare parts package and ammunition,” said Hillier. “Move it to western Ukraine and bring in a team to train up a brigade of their defence force to be that counterattack reserve.”

For those familiar with the current fleet strength of Canada’s armoured vehicles, what Hillier is proposing would gut our Army for decades to come.

The total Light Armoured Vehicle fleet is less than 650 and we possess just 82 Leopard tanks – some of which are dedicated for training purposes. 

Even if the Canadian government had the will to purchase and replace these vehicles as soon as possible it would take years for them to be built. Without the ability to train at a brigade level with an all arms capability, the professionalism of our army would diminish. Not to mention the morale among our combat units. 

On the flip side of this is the crazy notion that Hillier’s volunteer militia of civilians “with miniscule training” could somehow acquire the capability to form an armoured brigade almost overnight.

As present, it takes the Canadian Army roughly 26 weeks to train a tank crew to simply operate the vehicle efficiently. 

When you throw in the training at a troop, squadron and then all arms brigade levels, you are looking at months of preparation.

During the Afghanistan conflict, Canadian rotations would undergo six months of intense mission specific training. That was in addition to the fact they were already fully trained soldiers serving in professional units with a high level of readiness.

God bless Rick Hillier, as this old soldier’s heart is in the right place. However, for the sake of our own army’s future, I hope nobody takes his plan seriously.

ON TARGET: The True Cost of the War in Ukraine

By Scott Taylor

In the dumbed down version of the war in Ukraine an awkward truth that is simply overlooked is that many of those fighting alongside the Russian invaders are themselves citizens of Ukraine.

The ethnic Russians and Russian-speaking separatists in the Donbas region still reside in what Canada recognizes as Ukraine’s sovereignty territory which means despite their ethnicity they are still Ukrainian citizens.

When the Maidan protesters overthrew the regime of Viktor Yanukovych in 2014, one of the first acts of the new Ukraine administration was to severely curtail Russian language rights. This in turn prompted the territories of Donetsk and Luhansk to break from the new Kiev regime and declare themselves independent republics.

Just prior to his Feb. 24 invasion, Russian President Vladimir Putin formally recognized these two Republics, but to date the rest of the world still considers these territories to be part of Ukraine.

To be clear, no one can justify Putin’s illegal invasion of Ukraine.

Given the disastrous results this far with Ukraine military forces clobbering a surprisingly inept and demoralized Russian war machine, even Putin must question his decision to start this conflict.

However, with all hopes of Russia winning a lightning victory shattered like the columns of destroyed Russian armoured vehicles on the road to Kiev, the war has devolved into a protracted battle of attrition.

It is no longer about tactical movement but it has become a stalemate dominated by the artillery. Sadly, this current situation heavily favours the Russians as they possess a massive arsenal of ammunition.

It has been widely reported by the Ukraine military that they are running out of artillery shells faster than the west can possibly resupply them.

This is a desperate admission to make while your troops are still heavily engaged in combat.

One would think it would only hearten the Russian attackers to know that their enemies are running out of shells. However, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has few options left as he begs the U.S. and European countries for additional ammunition.

Canada made the announcement last month that we will spend $98 million to purchase 20,000 155mm artillery shells from a U.S. manufacturer to ship directly to Ukraine.

While that sounds like a generous donation from Canadian taxpayers to the war effort, it should be realized that at present the Ukraine military are firing 5,000-6,000 artillery shells per day in the Donbas battles.

By contrast, the Russians are firing an estimated 60,000 artillery shells and rockets every day, with no sign of running short any time soon.

In the early stages of the fighting the Ukraine military used up the majority of its stockpiled Soviet era munitions. The NATO calibre artillery now being rushed to Ukraine are not yet on the ground in sufficient numbers to turn the tide.

There is also the issue of having to train the Ukraine gunners on how to operate the more modern and sophisticated NATO heavy artillery pieces.

The Pentagon admits they have “condensed sharply” the training time for these crews, but one fears that a partially trained gunner may prove to be a liability in terms of minimizing collateral damage on the battlefield.

It is also true that artillery shells are neither cheap nor quick to produce. As a result, many European countries who eagerly shipped up to 30 per cent of their own stockpile to Ukraine are now anxious about replacing their own arsenal should this war widen in scope in the near future.

There is no question that Putin failed to achieve his original objectives. It is also true that the once feared Russian war machine turned out to be an incompetent dud.

However, now that Putin has reduced his strategic goal to consolidating control over eastern and southern Ukraine, the courageous Ukraine defenders will be hard pressed to recapture lost ground. This will be extremely challenging if the current imbalance in heavy artillery continues unreversed.

Inside Russia, despite the enormous cost of the war in lives and money, Putin retains an approval rating of over 80 per cent - and climbing. Despite sanctions the Russian rouble remains strong and with elevated oil prices, Russia’s Gazprom is still raking in huge dough from Western European clients.

Even the McDonalds outlets across Russia, which closed in protest of the invasion, have re-opened under a new name. For our part, with the U.S. and NATO defence companies are producing and shipping munitions as fast as they can to Ukraine, the west is artificially stimulating their defence sectors.

The only ones losing in this extended conflict are the Ukrainians themselves. And sadly, there is no end in sight.

ON TARGET: All War Crimes Are Not Equal

By Scott Taylor

The western media coverage of one of the most recent developments in the war in Ukraine once again serves to illustrate a total lack of objectivity and balance in their reporting.

Two Britons and a Moroccan were captured by the Russian forces, tried as mercenaries, convicted and sentenced to death.

All three had been captured in the city of Mariupol while fighting in Ukrainian Marine uniforms.

Both the UK and Ukrainian government were quick to condemn the death sentences for violating international laws that protect prisoners of war.

The Russian’s cite the same international laws which do not extend prisoner of war status to foreign mercenaries.

The families of the two Britons claim their brethren are both Ukrainian citizens – not mercenaries.

The fact that both Britons had previously volunteered and fought against Daesh (aka ISIS or ISIL) in Syria would lend some credibility to Russia’s claim that they are indeed soldiers of fortune.

In the west, we justifiably regard Putin’s invasion of Ukraine as an illegal aggression against a sovereign state.

As such we empathize with those volunteers who heeded Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s appeal for foreign fighters to help repel the Russian invaders.

Scores of Canadians are among those now enlisted in the Ukraine Foreign Legion, and they have the Trudeau government’s assurance that they will not be prosecuted under Canadian law which prohibits citizens from fighting in foreign wars.

However illegal Russia’s invasion may be, you can bet that Putin’s loyal henchmen have a different perspective. To them, these foreigners coming to Ukraine to kill Russians would be viewed as a threat to their national security.

When the U.S. illegally invaded and occupied Afghanistan and Iraq, there were indeed waves of foreign fighters – Islamic fundamentalists who heeded the call for Jihadists to combat the American infidels.

For those foreign volunteers captured by the U.S. forces there was no question about offering them prisoner-of-war status. They were deemed to be “Illegal combatants.”

The same was true of local Iraqis and Afghans who resisted the U.S. occupiers.

Neither the Taliban nor Saddam ever signed a surrender agreement with the U.S. invaders so technically those Iraqis and Afghans who continued to resist were still fighting for their sovereign country.

For those thousands of Afghans held at Bagram airbase and Iraqis at Abu Ghraib, their only crime was to resist a foreign occupier.

None of these prisoners were afforded the prisoners of war rights as stipulated under the Geneva Convention.

As we now know, U.S. officials authorized state sanctioned torture of many of these inmates and they were held in conditions so inhumane that they would violate U.S. livestock laws.

If the Putin spin doctors were clever, they would simply copy-cat the U.S, by labelling captured foreign fighters “illegal combatants,” clothe them in orange jumpsuits and ship them to some island off the coast of Russia.

Of course while the western pundits were busy denouncing this latest Russian ‘show trial’ for politicizing prisoners of war, there was no such condemnation for Ukraine doing exactly the same thing just a few weeks earlier.

A tribunal in Kyiv found Russian Sergeant Vadim Shishimarin guilty of a war crime for the deliberate murder of 62 year old Oleksander Shelipov, a Ukrainian civilian.

After pleading guilty, the court sentenced Shishimarin to life in prison.

In his defence, Shishimarin claimed he was ordered to shoot the Ukrainian civilian by his superior as he suspected Shelipov was giving away the Russians position to the Ukraine military.

Given that members of the Russian unit, including Shishimarin, were subsequently captured shortly thereafter, it would seem to support the motion that they felt they were in imminent danger.

I would agree with the Ukrainian judges finding that deliberately killing a civilian “violates the rules and customs of war.”

However one does not have to look too far back in Canadian military history to realize that the fog of war often blows thick in the heat of battle.

In July 2008, Canadian soldiers manning a checkpoint in Kandahar, Afghanistan fired at an Afghan civilian vehicle when it failed to heed their signal to halt. The Canadians then resorted to firing a 25mm cannon shell into the vehicle, killing two children.

There was no weapons found and the vehicle driver was not an enemy combatant. He was the father of the two children.

At the time of the shooting Canadians were part of the U.S. led occupation of Afghanistan.

The reason that there were no charges laid against the Canadian soldiers involved was because a Canadian military investigation concluded that they had followed proper procedures.

When they felt they were in danger, they opened fire deliberately on a civilian vehicle containing children. This was not considered to be a war crime. Hell, it was not even deemed a military offence.

We need to remember, war is a crime.

ON TARGET: Western Europe is Bankrolling Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine

By Scott Taylor

In the seesaw wave of information and disinformation emanating from the conflict in Ukraine it has been extremely difficult to accurately assess what is actually happening on the ground – let along predict the eventual outcome.

The early expectations by western military analysts was that Vladimir Putin’s mighty war machine would crush the diminutive Ukrainian forces with ease and capture Kyiv within 72 hours.

The U.S. State Department had so little faith in the capabilities of the Ukraine military they initially offered safe passage to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. The defiant Zelenskyy then famously quipped “I need ammunition, not a lift” and vowed to remain in Kyiv.

Then the tide quickly turned as the Russian invasion force ground to a halt.

Once Putin’s armoured columns were blunted and stalled by the tenacious Ukrainian defence forces, the myth of Russian military invincibility was quickly and thoroughly shattered.

Through a wealth of aerial drone footage, western observers could watch in real time as Ukraine forces destroyed Russian armoured vehicles and killed demoralized Russian combat troops.

We were told by intelligence agencies that the Russian invaders had run out of food, trucks, tanks and missiles. Last month British intelligence estimated that Putin had lost nearly one third of his original invasion force of 190,000 troops. That casualty figure includes killed, wounded, captured and deserted.

According to U.S. military doctrine, combat units losing 10 per cent of their strength are no longer considered effective, so if the intelligence reports are accurate, the Russian invaders were essentially defeated.

With Ukrainian troops counter-attacking outside Kyiv and Kharkiv, it seemed that Putin’s gamble had failed and that it only remained to be seen how badly the Russians would be defeated. However, that was over a month ago and still somehow the food-less, truck-less, tank-less and missile-less depleted Russian forces continue to mount offensive operations in the eastern Ukraine region of Donbas.

The now omnipresent Zelenskyy continues to beg the West for additional sophisticated weaponry but in his latest address he admitted that Ukraine’s battlefield tenacity is not without an exorbitant human cost.

With the current battles raging in Donbas, Zelenskyy stated the Ukraine forces are losing an average of 60-100 soldiers killed daily, with another 500 suffering wounds. Both sides are being bled white in what has devolved into a higher tech version of first world war trench warfare.

In response to Zelenskyy’s appeal for more lethal aid, U.S. President Joe Biden has authorized a $40 billion lend-lease program to get more U.S. made weaponry and other aid into the hands of the Ukrainians.

American taxpayers can be mollified by the fact that this enormous sum of money is actually being spent to stimulate the U.S. arms industry and that the expenditure will benefit Americans.

The Ukrainian recipients are expected to use this ‘gift’ to fight and die while simultaneously fulfilling the U.S. objective of weakening Putin’s war machine.

On the flip side of this, the Russian war effort continues to be paid for by the very same European countries that publicly denounce the invasion and openly supply Ukraine with arms.

To put this in a nutshell, western Europe is wholly dependent on Russian oil and gas imports. When Putin launched his invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, all of these oil and gas dependant nations were quick to denounce Russia’s aggression and all of them announced sanctions against Russia.

However, the seizing of some Russian oligarch’s mega-yacht and the shuttering of McDonald’s outlets throughout Russia are meaningless gestures coming from the same nations that in turn purchase $900 million (USD) worth of Russian oil and gas every day.

Prior to the threat of war in Ukraine, oil was trading at just $70 (USD) per barrel.

At the time of writing that price had skyrocketed to $120 (USD) a barrel.

Not only has the price gone up, according to the latest reports, Russia’s oil production rose five per cent during the month of May.

The real kicker is that in response to the sanctions levelled against Russia by these western European nations, Putin demanded that future oil and gas purchases would need to be in Russian roubles.

In a public relations fantasy exercise, European gas companies claim they will refuse to comply with Putin’s demand, but instead buy his oil using Euros.

The reality is they pay Euros to Russian exporter Gazprom wherein Gazprom then promptly converts the currency to roubles prior to finalizing the sale.

In this way both sides claim they are keeping their promise, but the reality is that Putin’s regime is raking in the Euros and using them to bolster the Russian rouble.

I truly pity the Ukraine people upon whom this ongoing tragedy has been thrust. They are fighting and dying on their own soil, meanwhile the U.S. arms industry enjoys huge profits and western Europe pays hard currency to the Russian invader in order to avoid a potential recession in their own countries.

Given that equation, I do not foresee a quick conclusion to this bloody war.

ON TARGET: Something is Terribly Wrong with the Russian Army

By Scott Taylor

The big news last week was that Finland has requested membership into the NATO alliance, and that Sweden is leaning heavily towards taking the same measure.

These developments were heralded by the NATO Association of Canada with a lot of chest thumping and fist pumping.

Finally, NATO can add these two, long neutral Scandinavian nations to the 30-member alliance bonded by an agreement to collective defence.

We were informed that the reason Finland and Sweden are seeking sanctuary in a military alliance with NATO is Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

I could understand that logic if this was requested during the first few hours after Putin launched his military into Ukraine on Feb. 24.

In those early days, analysts predicted that the Russians would capture Kyiv and topple the regime of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in three days. The speculation was that at the end of one week Putin would be master of all Ukraine and his blood-thirsty troops would be poised to annex the rest of Europe.

The most logical second target was considered to be the Baltic countries of Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia. All three are NATO member states and since 2004, all three have had sizeable multi-national forward deployed battle groups stationed along their borders with Russia.

Canada commands the battle group in Latvia and maintains a rotating force of about 600 combat troops at camp Adzai.

As Russian tank convoys rolled towards Kyiv, these NATO troops in the Baltic were reinforced and put on enhanced alert.

It appeared that WW3 was an imminent reality.

However, within days, even obscured by the fog of war, it became apparent that there was something terribly wrong with the Russian military.

Putin’s intended rapid military advance stalled and more and more imagery emerged of destroyed Russian armoured vehicles and dead soldiers.

The armchair generals who predicted a swift Russian victory can be partially forgiven, because during the military build-up prior to the invasion, all the focus was on Russian martial strength.

We were told that Putin had assembled a force of 190,000 troops along with thousands of armoured vehicles and artillery.

It is true that this represents only a portion of the entire Russian Armed Forces but it also amounts to the majority of Putin’s actual combat capability in terms of ground forces.

On the flip side, the Ukrainian military at the time of invasion stood at a strength of 246,445 personnel with an additional 900,000 enrolled in the reserves.

These troops have been receiving top notch training from NATO instructors – including Canadian soldiers – since 2014.

During that eight-year period, Ukrainian combat units also had the opportunity to rotate in and out of the front lines in the contested breakaway eastern districts of Donesk and Luhansk.

This provided Ukraine’s military the opportunity to gain experience with NATO provided weaponry and to test their training under battle conditions in a low intensity conflict. Bullets are still bullets.

Thus Putin’s invaders soon found themselves outmatched by the Ukrainian defenders in terms of tactical skills, logistics, weaponry, discipline and morale.

In early media coverage of the invasion, reporters filmed Ukraine civilians bravely making Molotov cocktails from empty bottles.

These images captured the defiant spirit of the Ukrainian people but to date I have not heard of a single engagement wherein Ukraine civilians stopped a Russian tank with a homemade firebomb.

Instead, what we have seen over the first three months of this war, is Ukraine’s superiority in weaponry.

The U.S. and NATO countries - including Canada - have provided a modern arsenal that allows Ukrainian soldiers to explode $8 million Russian tanks with $200,000 Javelin anti-tank rockets.

The west has also provided Ukraine with shared intelligence in the form of drones and satellite imagery. The U.S. refers to this as the “unblinking eye” which makes it impossible for the Russian troops to hide from observation.

Last week the Ukraine army used a combination of pinpoint intelligence and massed long range firepower to obliterate an attempted Russian river crossing at Siverskyi Donets. It is estimated that during this battle the Russians suffered the loss of 1,500 soldiers, 56 armoured vehicles, pontoon bridge sections and even a tugboat.

British intelligence estimates that to date Russia has lost 15,000 soldiers killed with two to three times that number having suffered ‘life altering wounds.’

When you subtract that number from the original invasion force of 190,000, the Russians have suffered almost a complete loss of fighting capability.

Putin’s justification for invading Ukraine was to eliminate a threat on his border before it became militarily stronger and joined the NATO alliance as a full member.

Give the results so far, it would seem he waited too long, and Ukraine did not need to be a member of NATO to garner the alliances’ assistance.

Finland and Sweden should take note.

ON TARGET: NATO Countries Are Funding Putin's War

By Scott Taylor 

We are now well into the third month of Russia’s war in Ukraine and it appears that there is little hope of the conflict ending anytime soon.

The Ukrainian military has proven itself to be better trained, equipped and motivated than the surprisingly inept Russian armed forces.

On land, at sea and in the air, Ukraine has put to good use the NATO- supplied sophisticated weaponry and proven the effectiveness of the eight years of martial mentoring supplied by NATO trainers – including Canadian soldiers.

However, now that Putin’s ‘Special Military Operation’ in Ukraine has bogged down into a bloody stalemate, a new question has emerged - how can Russia extricate their forces and somehow still save face?

In Canada the initial mood of collective sympathy for what we thought was a doomed Ukrainian population has morphed into that of joyous celebration of their resolve, defiance and battlefield success.

Canadians with absolutely no Ukrainian heritage adorn their houses or vehicles with the now omnipresent yellow and blue national colours of Ukraine.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy would poll far higher in terms of approval among Canadians than any of our own political leaders.

Given the dire situation following Russia’s invasion, nobody in Canada blinked, let alone objected when it was announced we would be giving Ukraine an additional $500 million in military aid.

On the flip side, Canada has been one of the most vocal international voices calling for punitive sanctions against Putin and his regime. We gloat over other nations seizing the multi-million dollar yachts of Russian oligarchs with political ties to Putin.

In the early days of the conflict, we heard reports of how the Russian ruble was plummeting in value, and the speculation was that once the financial impact hit home, the Russian people would seek to end Putin’s foray into Ukraine.

While we all want to believe that is the case, the reality is that Russia is actually benefitting from the war financially.

The reason for this is Europe’s dependency on Russian oil and gas exports.

Prior to the threat of war in Ukraine, a barrel of oil was trading at roughly $70 (USD).When Putin massed his troops along the Ukraine border, that price per barrel rose to nearly $100 (USD). Since the actual invasion began on February 24th, the price of oil has steadily climbed to over $110 (USD) a barrel.

This will not come as news to anyone who owns a motor vehicle in Canada.

However, what might come as a bit of a shock to those observing all the international snubbing of Russia, is the fact that every day Europe is still paying Putin’s regime over $850 million (USD) for oil and gas.

What is even crazier is that some of those European countries, which so defiantly chastise Russia for its invasion of Ukraine, are paying for that oil and gas in Russian rubles which they purchase with Euros through Swiss banks.

As a result of this arrangement, the Russian ruble is now trading at levels higher than at any time prior to the COVID pandemic which began in March 2020.

While NATO countries are providing Ukraine with billions of dollars’ worth of high-tech weaponry to fight off Russia, many of those same NATO member states are among those giving Putin $850 million (USD) a day and bolstering his currency at the same time, thus allowing him the ability to afford his ongoing war in Ukraine.

There are plans for Europe to wean themselves off Russian oil and gas imports, but even the most optimistic timeline to secure alternate sources of supply would be at least six months from now.

A sudden shut down of Russian oil and gas would cause a recession throughout Western Europe.

If the west is serious about bringing Putin’s war machine to a halt, we need to bite the bullet and stop purchasing Russian oil and gas.

Governments could do this through introducing strict policies to drastically reduce consumption. During World War II gasoline was rationed as everyone understood the necessity of prioritizing the war effort.

The banning of all non-essential travel and work from home incentives should be easy enough to enforce in a world just starting to emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Canada did announce a ban on Russian oil at the beginning of the conflict, but such purchases were negligible, at best. However, by Canadians cutting back on consumption, we could increase exports to Europe to help lessen their shortfall.

If people understood that these measures were to deprive Putin of his war funding, they could feel real pride in their support for the brave Ukrainians.

Flying a blue and yellow flag won’t stop Russian tanks. Parking your car and cycling to work will be good for the environment and will hit Putin where it hurts. Win. Win.

ON TARGET: Russia’s Bizarre PR Ploy

By Scott Taylor

Last week, the press office of the Embassy of the Russian Federation in Ottawa distributed a collection of video links to Canadian media outlets.

In total there were 15 separate video clips, all of which contained alleged atrocities being committed by Ukrainian soldiers against Russian prisoners of war.

To the best of my knowledge, no Canadian media have broadcast these gruesome scenes for the simple reason that they are so graphic, that even a warning to viewers about the content would not be suffice to avert trauma.

One of the clips is a literal ‘snuff flick’ wherein a Ukrainian captor stabs a bound Russian prisoner repeatedly in the throat and chest. The Russian shrieks in fear and pain, then drops his head as he dies. The jubilant Ukrainian then brandishes his bloodied dagger towards the camera and shouts “Slava Ukraine!”

There are a number of these videos that depict petrified Russian soldiers being shot while bound in captivity.

Some clips show badly wounded Russians being executed rather than given medical treatment while others reveal bloodied and bruised Russian prisoners being physically tortured and tormented.

Another common theme of these videos is that of Ukrainians desecrating the corpses of dead Russian soldiers. One such scene has more than one Ukrainian soldier urinating on the snow-covered face of a dead Russian infantryman.

In a particularly disturbing clip, a Ukrainian soldier is filmed stabbing his dagger into the eye socket of a dead Russian trooper.

Also illustrated was the Ukrainian terror tactic wherein they take the cell phones from dead Russian soldiers and then use them to call the deceased’s family in order to taunt them with the news that their loved one has been killed.

I have to believe that the rationale behind the Russian Foreign Ministry’s decision to circulate these videos was to undermine the current overwhelming popularity of the Ukrainian defenders among the Canadian public.

By illustrating these atrocities committed by Ukrainian soldiers perhaps the Kremlin thinks it will invoke a measure of sympathy for those young men serving in the Russian military. If that was the case, they are forgetting the fact that Russia invaded Ukraine.

Sorry, Vladimir Putin instructed his Commanders to conduct a “Special Military Operation” in Ukraine.

Not that anyone can justify the execution of prisoners or the desecration of corpses by the Ukrainian military, but those Russians would not have been captured or killed if they were not deployed into Ukraine in the first place.

It is also a wildly divergent public relations course from the early days of the invasion when Russian media were proclaiming an almost bloodless liberation.

As the Russian offensives were halted and then driven back by the Ukrainian defenders, even Putin’s spokesman had to admit that their losses had been ‘significant.’

Now the Kremlin is sending out videos of their soldiers being humiliated and brutalized at the hands of victorious Ukrainians.

One would think that such images would be ruthlessly suppressed and vehemently denounced as a ‘hoax’ by Russian authorities.

It will be pretty hard for the Kremlin to question the authenticity of these video clips when it is their own embassies circulating them.

If it is true that Putin is mobilizing reservists and conscripts to bolster his badly battered forces still waging war in Ukraine, then these videos will not be good for recruiting volunteers.

I can only imagine the impact such images would have on your average Russian soldier.

As for the Russian public’s reaction to these videos, one would think it would be that of initial revulsion at what the Ukrainians have done to their soldiers, and then a sense of betrayal on the part of Putin.

Liberated people don’t execute their saviours and then urinate on their corpses.

One example of public outrage at seeing their soldier’s body desecrated by foreign fighters occurred during the U.S. led international intervention in war torn Somalia. In October 1993, Somali insurgents shot down a U.S. Black Hawk helicopter over Mogadishu.

Word soon spread that the body of an American soldier was being dragged through the streets by an angry mob. Toronto Star reporter Paul Watson was in Mogadishu covering the war and he was able to snap a photo of U.S. Army staff Sergeant William Dand Cleveland’s body being dragged and beaten by enraged Somali’s. That photo was first published in the Star and then re-printed in many American newspapers.

That image won Watson a Pulitzer price and the public outcry forced American politicians to end the intervention. Many analysts have opined that this single photo was what kept the U.S. from intervening to prevent the Rwandan genocide in 1994.

If one photo of a single soldier’s body being violated can cause the U.S. population to protest military interventions, I cannot wait to see what reaction the Russian public will have to those 15 videos.

In the meantime, it would be wise counsel for Canadians to convey to our Ukrainian friends that violations of the Geneva convention cannot be condoned under any circumstance.

ON TARGET: Putin’s Army is a Toothless Tiger

By Scott Taylor

When Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, the world was shocked and appalled. On paper it was such a one-sided affair that it could scarcely be described as a conflict.

The big mighty Russian war machine was simply going to victimize a defenceless Ukraine in a matter of hours or days.

During the opening salvos, the U.S. administration was so convinced of a quick Ukrainian defeat that they reportedly offered then little known President Volodymyr Zelenskyy safe passage out of Kyiv. He famously retorted “I don’t need a lift, I need ammunition.”

This defiant statement proved to be the sparkplug that ignited Zelenskyy’s meteoric ascension to international super star status.

In the weeks to follow, the freshly bearded countenance of Zelenskyy, replete in his now trademark green t-shirt, has become omnipresent on western media news broadcasts.

While Zelenskyy may be the face of Ukrainian resistance, the Ukraine Army surprised all of those armchair generals who predicted a speedy Russian victory.

Armed with the latest in NATO heavy weaponry training, the Ukrainian military has proven to be a highly capable battlefield force.

Almost from the outset, the Russian military has proven itself to be the opposite. Strategically, the initial Russian thrusts into Ukraine seemed to be predicated on the virtually unopposed, swift capture of Kyiv.

Captured Russian vehicles reportedly contained dress uniforms that the Russian soldiers were to wear during their victory parade in Kyiv.

However, almost as soon as the Russian juggernaut rolled across the Belarus border, the wheels began falling off. Literally.

When Ukrainian resistance blunted, then halted the Russian advance, it suddenly became apparent that the mighty Russian military was lacking in logistics, was poorly trained and completely unmotivated to wage a war of aggression against the Ukrainians.

It was quite a shock to discover that the mighty boogieman that has caused the 30-member NATO military alliance to tremble in fear all these years, is nothing but a paper tiger.

It was probably also quite a shock for Putin to discover that his generals were lying to him about the effectiveness of his fighting forces.

For the first few days of the ‘Special Military Operation’ in Ukraine, the Kremlin maintained that it was essentially a bloodless walk in the park.

Unfortunately as time marched on, and the Russian military columns did not, the fiasco that was unfolding in Ukraine became impossible to contain. There was simply too many images of knocked out Russian armour, dead soldiers and prisoners of war to keep the bitter truth from leaking out.

In early April, six weeks into the fighting, as Russian forces retreated from northern Ukraine, Putin’s spokesman had to grudgingly admit that the losses suffered to that point had been ‘significant.’

With peace talks stalled, Putin seems to resigned to saving face by reducing his stated objectives.

Russia would no longer attempt to occupy all of Ukraine, but instead their military would look to expand the pro-Russian separatist territories of Luhansk and Donetsk.

However, at this point in the fighting it would appear that even such a limited ‘success’ may be too far-reaching for a badly mauled Russian army.

The current self-imposed deadline for Putin to achieve his victory is May 9 to coincide with the anniversary of the Soviet Union’s defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945.

However, given the virtual flood of heavy weaponry pouring into Ukraine from supportive NATO states, including Canada, and the emboldened morale of Ukraine’s victorious defenders, I foresee this conflict devolving into a bloody months-long stalemate.

The pro-Russian Ukrainians of Luhansk and Donetsk are far more motivated than the regular Russian army, because they are fighting for their homes.

These separatist forces first declared independence from the Kyiv regime in 2014, and have ferociously resisted all attempts by the Ukrainian military to reclaim the territory.

Given the widespread violence and bloodshed of this current conflict, a peaceful reconciliation may not be possible.  

If a negotiated settlement ends up resulting in the separation of these territories, only in his own mind could Putin believe himself to have won a victory.

Instead by invading Ukraine, and losing the war, he has shown the world that his army was a sham this whole time.

When the Russian people realize the extent of Putin’s martial impotence, it seems unlikely he will be able to remain in power.

One can hide the truth – just not forever.

ON TARGET: The Fog of War Thickens

By Scott Taylor

Last week there was yet another warning from the Communications Security Establishment (CSE) that the Kremlin is deliberately targeting Canadians with disinformation about the ongoing war in Ukraine.

The most recent allegation was that the Russians have circulated doctored photos purporting to reveal that Canadian troops are actually on the ground fighting against Russians in the Donbass region.

Wow, if the Russian brain-trust thinks that Canadians would react negatively to such images, then it becomes easier to understand how these same Kremlin strategists convinced Putin it would be a good idea to invade Ukraine.

From every media source that I monitor, the mood in Canada would be that of enhanced national pride to discover our Canadian military was actually battling alongside the valiant Ukrainian defenders.

The truth is, that short of actually engaging in battle, Canada has contributed a considerable amount of combat capability to Ukraine.

Since 2014, the Canadian Armed Forces have supplied a force of 200 top-level military trainers to modernize the Ukrainian army. Just prior to Putin’s ill-fated invasion, Canada provided significant amounts of lethal aid to Ukraine in the form of anti-tank rocket launchers, small arms, mortars and munitions.

Since the conflict began, Canadian politicians of all stripes have tried to outdo each other with pledges of additional military support.

In her latest budget, Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland allocated nearly $600 million towards purchasing new weaponry for Ukraine.

One rather novel suggestion came from Bloc Quebecois defence critic Christine Normandin. She proposed that the Liberal government fast-track a proposed buy back of registered AR-15 semi-automatic rifles that are currently in the possession of some 60,000 Canadian gun owners.

Normandin believes we could then turn over this cache of rifles to the Ukrainian military. Logistically this would be problematic for a number of reasons, not the least of which being that Ukraine predominantly fields the Soviet era Kalashnikov family of assault rifles and their ammunitions stocks are not compatible with the AR-15.

Equally bizarre is the ongoing attempt by Conservative defence critic James Bezan to have the Canadian Army furnish Ukraine with some old armoured vehicles.

The current plan is to scrap the 30-year-old fleet of Coyote reconnaissance and Bison personnel carriers, yet Bezan thinks these surplus wheeled vehicles would somehow benefit the Ukrainians.

Hopefully cooler heads will prevail, and someone will realize that a few dozen old Canadian armoured vehicles will do little to augment a Ukrainian Army that still boasts over 3600 modern main battle tanks.

In fact, due to their proficiency in capturing Russian equipment, the Ukraine Army has more tanks in action now than they did at the beginning of the war on Feb. 24, 2022.

As for Canadians actually fighting on the ground in Ukraine, this is hardly a piece of Russian disinformation.

In the early days of the fighting, Ukraine’s charismatic President Volodimir Zelenskyy put out the call for foreigners to join the Ukraine Foreign Legion.

There have been numerous media reports on those Canadians who heeded Zelenskyy’s call and headed off to war.

Some Canadian peace activists have pointed out that it is illegal to recruit Canadians to fight in foreign wars, but the Trudeau Liberals have made it clear that volunteers fighting for Ukraine will face no consequences as a result.

As for generating disinformation, the Russians have no monopoly on that commodity.

For those of us closely following the conflict, who could forget the mythical exploits of the ‘Ghost of Kiev’? This valiant pilot was credited with downing no less than six Russian warplanes in the first couple of days of the war. To add some gravitas to the pilot’s persona, photos appeared on social media.

Unfortunately it was soon revealed that the pictures were a hoax and the image was originally a Canadian CF-18 pilot posing in front of a hangar in Cold Lake, Alberta.

Another emotive myth hatched during the opening round of the war was that of the brave Ukrainian defenders of Snake Island. The narrative had a Russian navy warship radioing a request to the Ukrainian to surrender Snake Island. In response the Ukrainian soldiers radioed the message “Russian warship … Go f*ck yourself!”

The subplot was that the Ukrainian defenders all perished in the resultant Russian attack. The less dramatic reality is that the Ukrainians had a change of heart and quietly surrendered after their message of bravado.

Yet to this day, the phrase “Russian warship … go f*ck yourself” is emblazoned on t-shirts symbolizing Ukrainian valour in the face of Russian aggression.

The truth is indeed the first casualty of war. Always was, and always will be.

ON TARGET: Selling the ’Sizzle’: Canada Boosts Defence Spending

By Scott Taylor

Last Thursday, Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland tabled the joint Liberal and NDP budget. As was widely expected, the federal government has pledged to significantly increase the defence budget by as much as $8 billion.

This sizeable boost will push Canada to the brink of the collective NATO goal of member states spending 2% of their Gross Domestic Product (GDP) on defence.

Canada currently spends only about 1.52% of GDP on defence, but in terms of real dollars, our $26 billion budget is the sixth largest expenditure among the 30 NATO members. We are outspent only by the U.S, U.K, Germany, France and Italy.

By virtue of Canada having a relatively large GDP and an enviable absence of pressing defence challenges, the 2% goal is essentially meaningless. For instance, Turkey – with a population of roughly 60 million but with only half our GDP, does indeed meet the 2% of GDP yardstick.

However, in terms of real cash spent annually, Turkey’s budget is only $13 billion. Given the volatile region in which Turkey is situated – neighbouring Iran, Iraq, Syria and the ever-volatile Caucasus – the Turks can actually field a mobilized military upwards of one million troops.

Canada with double the expenditure can manage to mobilize but a tenth of that number. Hence my firm belief that for Canada to establish our defence spending priorities on a meaningless number is simply foolish. Yet that is what the Liberal government has just promised to do.

Partly driving Freeland’s boost in spending is the current public mood. On February 24th, Russian President Vladimir Putin did the unthinkable when he invaded Ukraine.

The pundits beat their war drums and predicted a complete collapse of the Ukrainian forces. In the first days of the Russian offensive, no one speculated on anything but a whirlwind Russian victory. The discussion was not about the fall of Kiev, it was instead focussed on which countries Putin would gobble up next.

People pointed at Moldova and the Baltic States. The Canadian led battle group prepositioned in Latvia was suddenly considered to be on the front line of WW3.

Canadians were rightfully frightened by this development, and the Colonel Blimp brigade took to the airwaves to bemoan Canada’s long neglect of our meagre defence forces.

No one bothered to fact check as we had some retired generals claiming that our Navy ships were tied up dockside for want of fuel, when in fact there were 5 RCN ships deployed on international operations at the time.

Never mind the facts, the Canadian Hawks knew it was time to fuel Canadian fears in order to get the government to open the defence treasure chest.

To their credit these defence cheerleaders succeeded in securing an additional $8 billion.

As they say in the world of grifters, they sold the public on the ‘sizzle’ of an insecure world before it became obvious that the ‘steak’ was not forthcoming.

By that I mean that the initial shock of Russian invasion forces soon gave way when those allegedly vaunted stormtroopers got bogged down by the defiant Ukrainian defenders.

After more than six weeks into the conflict, Russian forces have been halted and in many places they have been driven back with losses that even Putin’s loyal spokesman had to admit were ‘significant.’

The Russians never established air superiority over Ukraine and the propensity of sophisticated anti-armour weapons provided by NATO countries have turned the battlefield into a graveyard of Russian armoured vehicles.

No longer is anyone talking about Putin pushing on to further conquests. Instead people are wondering what sort of face-saving settlement can be reached by negotiators before even more of the Russian army is destroyed.

It remains to be seen just how Putin will be able to retain control of Russia politically given that his façade of being a military strongman has been shattered in Ukraine.

Here in Canada, we now have an additional $8 billion with which to boost our military. In her budget Freeland gave no specifics as to how the Liberal-NDP government plans to spend that money.

The promise is that they will conduct another thorough defence policy review to best ascertain where that money needs to be spent.

Let’s hope that they do not try to build up Russia as a ‘clear and present danger’ to the free world. It will take a long time for Putin’s toothless paper tiger to be restored to full bogeyman status after their debacle in Ukraine.

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ON TARGET: War in Ukraine Highlights Canada’s Hypocrisy

By Scott Taylor

The war in Ukraine has certainly served to highlight the emotional hypocrisy that exists among Canadians.

Russia was wrong to invade Ukraine, Putin lied to the Russian people and the world by claiming that Ukrainians would greet his soldiers as liberators.

The Canadian government has soundly denounced Putin’s aggression through the provision of lethal aid to Ukraine, enforcing crippling sanctions on Russia and throwing open our doors to Ukrainian refugees fleeing from the war.

Canada is not officially in this war, as Ukraine is not a member of NATO, but in spirit the Canadian people are standing firmly with Ukraine.

We are told by exasperated pundits that Putin’s actions are ‘unprecedented’ and his military tactics of bombing civilians is “barbaric.”

Where  were these same experts in 2003 when U.S. President George W. Bush lied to the American people and the world before illegally invading Iraq.

Saddam Hussein never possessed the Weapons of Mass Destruction that served as Bush’s excuse for acting in self defence.

As the U.S. invaders soon discovered they too would not be greeted as liberators by a defiant Iraqi population.

As for targeting civilians deliberately, the U.S. Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld openly bragged about it. The initial mass bombing of Baghdad was described by Rumsfeld as his ‘Shock and Awe’ campaign to demoralize Iraqi civilians.

Did Canada denounce the U.S. blatant aggression, supply the Iraqi insurgents with lethal aid, sanction the U.S. economy and call for war crime charges against Bush and Rumsfeld? Hell no.

Did we offer to accommodate the thousands of Iraqi civilians who were displaced during the U.S. invasion and subsequent occupation? Hell no.

While officially refraining from joining the U.S. invasion in 2003, Canada covertly supported our American ally in their quest. Even after the WMD self defence claim was proven to be a big lie, there was no official chastising of the U.S. regime by the Canadian government. An estimated one million Iraqis have perished during the U.S. invasion and the violent unrest which ensued, and continues to this day. Yet no one dares to level the word ‘genocide’ at the American aggressors.

On the subject of Putin’s troops shelling Ukrainian cities, again pundits are quick to denounce such a heartless act as ‘demonic.’

Did no one take notice of the U.S. led coalition attack on Daesh (aka ISIS or ISIL) held Iraqi city of Mosul in 2017? There were Canadian troops and aircraft mashed in that operation which reduced a city of one million inhabitants to a smoking pile of rubble.

We defeated the evil Daesh, but what about the plight of those Iraqis who simply were in the wrong place at the wrong time?

What about the lack of collective outrage over U.S. President Donald Trump announcing he had used a mother-of-all-bombs (MOAB) against Afghan’s in 2017. The MOAB is described as the most powerful explosive short of a nuclear bomb. There is no way an explosion of that magnitude did not kill innocent civilians as well as Daesh fighters.

Instead of moral outrage, most Canadians viewed the use of MOAB as something of a scientific curiosity - “wow that really was a big explosion.” Did Canada open its door to those Afghans fleeing from the war? Hell no.

Even after the Taliban defeated the U.S. in the summer of 2021, the Canadian government was still reluctant to grant asylum to those Afghans who had worked with our soldiers during the occupation.

To this day, many of those former Afghan translators are waiting in other countries and watching as the Ukrainian refugees get fast-tracked access into Canada.

On the subject of bombing civilians it was Canadian Lieutenant-General Charles Bouchard who commanded the 10-month long NATO air campaign in Libya in 2011. The genesis for this operation was to enforce the UN approved ‘No-Fly-Zone’ over Libya to prevent President Moammar Gadhaffi from bombing the Libyan rebels. From the outset, the NATO leadership laughingly changed their authorized mandate to what they described as ‘No-Drive-Zone’ and promptly bombed the bejeezus out of Gadhaffi’s loyalists.

Unfortunately the NATO assisted overthrow of Gadhaffi resulted in widespread violent anarchy in Libya which continues to this day. Did Canada throw open the doors to Libyans freeing the chaos and bloodshed which we helped thrust upon them? Hell no.

We held a victory parade for ourselves on Parliament Hill.

Putin is wrong to invade Ukraine, but we do not have the moral authority to be righteous about barbarity.

ON TARGET: Defence Spending and the Numbers Game

By Scott Taylor

The Russian invasion of Ukraine has captured the imagination of the Canadian public in a manner which seems almost inexplicable. Even when Canadian soldiers were being killed on the ground in Afghanistan, or RCAF aircrew were blowing up 'bad guys' in Iraq, Syria, Libya and Kosovo, there was no general clamour by average citizens to drastically increase Canada’s defence budget. 

Yet with Ukraine battling the Russian military, suddenly it seems that every retired general, defence pundit and politician is convinced that we need to commit to significant increases in the annual defence budget. 

The magic solution that these individuals collectively propose is that of increasing our spending to equal “2% of Gross Domestic Product (aka GDP)”. Canada currently spends about $23 billion per year on defence and this is equivalent to 1.3% of our $1.7 trillion GDP. The Colonel Blimp brigade parrots former US president Donald Trump in proclaiming Canada to be a ’shirker’ for this failure to meet NATO’s stated goal of members spending 2% of their GDP on defence.

The problem with aiming to spend an arbitrary amount on the military just to spend a required percentage of GDP does not in any way guarantee an actual increase in our national security. In theory we could simply boost our military salaries threefold and tell NATO ‘mission accomplished’.

We also need to put some perspective on what these percentages and dollar totals mean on the global landscape. The USA has an annual defence budget of some $811 Billion (USD) which is almost equivalent to the rest of the world combined. 

China spends $252 billion (USD) to put it in a distant second place on the list of annual defence budgets. Every western strategic analyst will tell you that we need to be ‘very afraid’ of Chinese ‘militarism’ however by Trump’s own standards they are ‘shirkers’ by spending just 1.7% of their GDP on defence. If you compare the USA’s defence expenditure per capita ($3806) to China’s ($200) the myth of Chinese militancy evaporates.

Big bad Russia outspends the US in terms of percentage of GDP on defence by a factor of 4.3% (Russia) to 3.7% (USA). However as a result of Russia having a relatively puny $1.57 trillion GDP, that amounts to a total defence budget of only $61 billion (USD) per year. 

Based on defence dollars spent per capita, Canada’s $23 billion for 35 million citizens ranks 20th in the world, whereas big bad Russia’s $61 billion spent on its military and a population of 144 million places them a very distant 57th in world rankings. 

In terms of the military power that Russia fields based on their defence budget, they have an impressive total of 425,000 regular force personnel, 2800 Main Battle Tanks (MBT’s), over 11,000 infantry armoured combat vehicles, 1300 combat aircraft and a naval fleet of over 350 warships. That force seemed impressive until it was tested and failed in Ukraine.

The defence budget for Ukraine is just under $6 billion (USD) with which it is able to field some 200,000 regular troops and an additional 600,000 reservists equipped with over 1600 MBT's. They are also able to count on the motivation of their soldiers fighting to defend against the Russian invaders. Canada by comparison has just 80 MBT’s and about the same number of CF-18 Fighter jets.

Saudi Arabia spends a whopping 8.4% of their annual GDP on defence making it the 4th largest military spender in the world at $57 billion (USD). Despite that, Saudi Arabia has been unable to militarily subdue tiny Yemen which can afford a measly $1.4 billion (USD) to battle the Saudis. 

Poor old Afghanistan was spending 10.6% of their GDP on defence (not to mention the massive US aid on top of that) yet their 400,000 strong security force collapsed like a cardboard suitcase the minute the primitively equipped Taliban re-emerged last summer. 

If there is anything we can learn from these recent examples is that money, numbers of personnel or sophistication of weaponry are not guarantors of military proficiency on the battlefield.

Before Canada makes a knee-jerk reaction and promises to commit to a meaningless dollar figure of defence spending, let’s focus first on what our military actually needs and more importantly, the role that Canada wants it to play moving forward into an uncertain future.

For the record, meeting the 2% of GDP spent on defence objective would cost taxpayers an additional $15 billion per year. 

ON TARGET: Beware the Polarizing Power of Propaganda

 By Scott Taylor

With the war in Ukraine still raging it has been amazing to watch the success of the West’s propaganda machine.

Even though Canada is not directly involved in this conflict the term used to describe Ukraine is ‘ally’.

As such, the Liberal government can take full credit for contributing lethal military aid to Ukraine, and Canadian civilians are told they can legally volunteer to fight in the Ukrainian Foreign Legion.

More importantly, the Ukrainian side can simply do no wrong in the eyes of western media. When the Ukrainian defence force has posted videos of Russian prisoners of war, they have violated the Geneva Convention which prohibits the using of prisoners for propaganda purposes.

In further circulating the videos, the collective attitude of western media outlets has been that of ‘who cares?’

As for the Russians, they can do absolutely nothing positive. Across North America, Russian vodka has been pulled from the shelves of liquor stores and night clubs.

Late night TV hosts ridicule Russians as being simpletons who have only potatoes, turnips and borscht in their diet.

Lost in this dumbed down racist stereotyping is the fact that roughly 30 per cent of the brave Ukrainians citizens resisting Putin’s invasion are ethnic Russians.

Also openly mocked is the fact that Putin has ordered his state-controlled media to refrain from using the word ‘war’ – the invasion is instead to be deemed a ‘special military operation’ – and it is now illegal to spread negative disinformation about the conflict in Ukraine.

Yet despite this media blackout, ordinary Russian citizens have taken to the streets in the tens of thousands to protest Putin’s illegal aggression. At time of writing, some 14,000 Russians had been arrested and jailed for publicly opposing this war.

This should be comforting to know that this many Russians still have access to the truth and are willing to sacrifice their own personal liberties to challenge Putin’s regime.

What is troubling is the fact that when U.S. President George W. Bush illegally invaded Iraq in 2003 there was no such violent public backlash in the U.S.A. We find it gobsmacking that Putin would claim he is taking military action in Ukraine in order to protect Russia. However, when Bush claimed he was invading Iraq to protect America from Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction the vast majority of the U.S. population cheered him on.

In those heady days leading up to Bush’s illegal and unwarranted invasion if Iraq, the sentiment across the U.S. was that America was being abandoned by its allies at a time of peril. When France refused to join in the war effort, they were pilloried as ‘cheese-eating surrender monkeys.’ French wine and cheese imports were boycotted and accusing fingers were also pointed at Canada for opting out of the invasion.

When Iraq was occupied and Saddam deposed without the discovery of any weapons of mass destruction, the world should have sanctioned the U.S. and Bush should have been tried for war crimes.

In addition to the self defence justification in the days leading up to the invasion, the U.S. leadership had portrayed Saddam as a hated dictator and they predicted the U.S. soldiers would be greeted as ‘liberators.’ If that sounds familiar it is because that is what Putin told the Russian soldiers they could expect in Ukraine. When the Ukraine invasion bogged down against heavy resistance Putin ordered a media blackout.

In Iraq, when the insurgency began in earnest, the Pentagon tried to prevent the media from publishing photos of the flag draped coffins of fallen soldiers being repatriated to U.S. soil.

On the subject of lionizing the Ukrainian resistance, Canadians, myself included, are saluting their bravery in combating the would-be Russian occupiers. Untrained civilians are using Molotov cocktails and improvised explosive devices to engage and kill the foreign soldiers trying to control their country. Many Hollywood aficionados have likened these brave Ukrainians to the mythical Wolverine U.S. resistance fighters in the Red Dawn movie series.

Employing that same yardstick, the Taliban and Afghan insurgents were the ‘wolverine’ freedom fighters in the war in Afghanistan.

Canadian soldiers, as part of the U.S. led occupation force were the hated foreigners trying to remake Afghan society in the western mold.

But we did not hail the Afghan mujahedeen as freedom fighting liberators when they chased the last of the American occupiers from their soil last summer. However we did salute the exact same Afghan Muslim extremists when they resisted the Soviet Union’s attempted and failed occupation in the 1980’s.

For the record, during Canada’s decade long combat contribution to the occupation of Afghanistan, the successive governments of the day tried to stifle any public debate by declaring that to question the war was to question the Canadian Armed Forces.

That argument is absurd, but it kept most critics silent.

ON TARGET: Putin’s Forces Foiled (For Now)

By Scott Taylor

On 24 February, Russian President Vladimir Putin launched what is being called the “largest ground invasion of a European Country” since the Second World War.

The descriptors are carefully selected to make the current Russian breach of international law seem to be without precedent.

For those with short memories, it was in 2003 that the USA led an invasion of Iraq based upon the fabricated excuse that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction.

But Iraq is not in Europe. Ditto for Afghanistan which the U.S. invaded in 2001 under the pretext of a manhunt for al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden in the wake of his 9-11 terror attack.

Bin Laden was killed by a U.S. Seal Team in Pakistan in 2011 but the U.S. led occupation continued until the Americans’ disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan last August.

In 1999 NATO launched a devastating 78-day air bombardment against Serbia which resulted in the alliances occupation of the province of Kosovo.

Serbia is definitely within Europe, but since it was an air campaign which forced a peace settlement prior to ground troops moving in, Putin’s current invasion is still the biggest ground assault since WWII.

For the record, I wholeheartedly condemn Putin’s military violation of Ukraine’s sovereignty. However, unlike the hypocritical apologists for the Pentagon, I also vehemently opposed the illegal invasions of Afghanistan, Iraq and Kosovo at the time which they were occupied.

I can also admit that I wrongly predicted Putin was bluffing with the threat of invasion as I did not believe he would be mad enough to actually launch such an attack.

That said, I also questioned why my fellow pundits were so quick to dismiss the combat capabilities of the Ukrainian military.

Since 2014, Canada has been contributing some 200 service personnel to assist in a NATO-led effort to train the Ukrainians. Prior to the Russian invasion, Ukraine had approximately 260,000 regular force personnel, and after President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s February 24 call-to-arms another 600,000 reservists were mobilized.

Equipped with modern sophisticated U.S. supplied weapon systems, the Ukrainian military has put up some stiff resistance in the early fighting.

They are, after all, fighting for their own territory.

Conversely, the Russian military machine has proven to be, so far, cumbersome, unwieldy and most importantly unmotivated.

The modern Russian soldier is not like the illiterate peasants that used to fill the ranks of the Czar’s army.

Despite the Kremlin’s best efforts to spin this as a “special military operation to demilitarize and de-nazify Ukraine,” these soldiers can easily communicate with the largely Russian speaking Ukrainian population. Nearly 35 per cent of Ukrainians are either ethnic Russians or Russian-speaking ethnic Ukrainians.

In fact, one would expect that those Russian soldiers currently deployed on Ukrainian soil are better informed of the international condemnation of their invasion than the misinformed Russian public at home.

Martial pride and professionalism will only go so far when soldiers are asked by their leaders to carry out questionable actions.

Between their unexpectedly flawed logistics and supply system and the demoralizing impact of being employed to subjugate defiant Ukrainian citizens, the mighty Russian bear may soon prove to be a toothless foe.

If Putin’s mighty army breaks itself apart on the Ukrainian resistance without any direct intervention from NATO, the Russian leader will have no justification to resort to his threat of nuclear weapons.

Far beyond the borders of besieged Ukraine, the now internationally heralded President Zelenskyy has been the major unifying figure to generate the global outpouring of support for Ukraine.

Early in the conflict, Zelenskyy called upon international volunteers to travel to Ukraine to fight the Russian invaders as part of a newly formed Foreign Legion.

This call from Zelenskyy has led to an instant wave of eager volunteers from the UK, U.S.A and even as far away as Thailand.

In Canada there have been a lot of stories in the media of average Canadian citizens heeding Zelenskyy’s call.

The problem is that while most of those volunteering are doing so out of a sense of moral obligation to freedom, they lack any form of military training.

The precedent of a Foreign Legion is not a new one, with France probably being the best example of historically employing foreigners to fight for their empire.

Spain also had a well-respected Foreign Legion to maintain order among its colonies.

It’s not enough to simply ask untrained individuals, or even military veterans to risk their lives to fight for Ukraine.

If these volunteers are to ever be anything more than simple cannon fodder, there needs to be a serious investment by Ukrainian authorities in equipping and training such a formation.

In preparation for a six month tour of Afghanistan, the Canadian military would take trained and formed regular units, augment them with trained reservists and still spend 12 months in intense preparation prior to deployment.

Bringing in an eager untrained civilian who does not speak Ukrainian and sending them to the frontline will not only endanger that volunteer, it will also hamper Ukraine’s military’s current war effort.

ON TARGET: Freedom Convoy was no Laughing Matter

Image credit: CTV NEWS

By Scott Taylor

Now that the self-proclaimed Freedom Convoy has been forcibly expulsed from the nation’s capital, it is perhaps a good time to start debunking the popular myths that sprung up in support of this protest movement.

The initial genesis for the convoy was to send a clear message to the Canadian government that cross-border truckers wanted an exemption on a mandatory vaccine mandate. Trucking associations were quick to point out that over 90% of Canadian truckers were already double-vaxxed, so this was protest, from the outset, was representative of only a tiny minority of drivers.

The second clue that this rolling protest had been hijacked was the composition of the organizers.

They were not hard-bitten teamsters with a career history of battling for truckers’ rights within the workplace. Not by a long shot.

Now known by Freedom Convoy zealots as the ‘spark that lit the flame,’ Tamara Lich is an energy industry worker. She was active in the Western separatist movement known as ‘Wexit’ while living in Alberta, and after moving to Manitoba she joined the Maverick Party.

Lich is not a medical expert nor does she have a vested interest in the trucking industry. At time of writing she remains in custody awaiting a bail hearing on a charge of counselling to commit mischief.

Ditto for fellow convoy organizer Pat King. This chap is also not a medical expert or a trucking enthusiast. He too has long been a rebel looking for a cause whether that be in the form of Yellow Vests Canada or his own Roll with Pat movement. King has cultivated a following with his videos espousing racist sentiments. Alarmingly, King often films his rants seated in front of a Canadian Armed Forces ensign, despite the fact that he never served in uniform. At one point King had to apologize for having created the false impression that his leg amputation was the result of his service in Afghanistan. It was, in fact, due to a workplace mishap here in Canada.

That is not to say that a large number of military veterans didn’t support the Freedom Convoy initiative. It is in this regard, when coupled with alleged ties to white nationalist or far right groups that this takes a far more sinister turn.

One of those active in the occupation of Ottawa was none other than a chap named Jeremy MacKenzie.

Unlike King, MacKenzie did indeed serve as a combat solider with the CAF and he had at least one tour in Afghanistan.

What he is now better known for is his role as the figure head for a group known as the Plaid Army.

MacKenzie is also the creator of the concept of a fictional North American nation state that he has dubbed ‘Diagolon.’ According to MacKenzie, this state of Diagolon would stretch diagonally from Alaska to Florida and encompass what he describes as the ‘sane’ regions of Canada and the U.S.A.

MacKenzie has gone so far as to design a flag for this new nation of Diagolon. It is a white strip which cuts a black background diagonally and he has nicknamed it “ol-slashy.”

Those who follow MacKenzie and his Diagolon movement have adopted the phrase “ Gun or Rope” as their solution to any ideological enemies who oppose them.

This list would include the Liberal government and the mainstream media. “This is the media’s baby. They built and supported it and pushed for this race war, this civil war,” MacKenzie reportedly stated.

MacKenzie is facing charges in Nova Scotia for weapon possession violations, and the alleged careless use of a firearm during a drunken incident that was video taped and posted online. The charges have not been proven in court.

However, a far more concerning development involves the RCMP arrests in relation to the vehicle blockade that was established at Coutts, Alberta.

Following a police raid wherein a large cache of weapons and ammunition were seized, the RCMP announced charges against four suspects for conspiracy to commit murder. One of those charged in the incident is a fellow named Chris Lysak.

Coincidentally, Lysak is a friend of Jeremy MacKenzie who reportedly referred to Lysak on social media as the ‘head of Diagolon’s security.’ To further reinforce the connection, it was noted that a tactical vest seized in the Coutts police raid sported the black and white symbol of Diagolon that MacKenzie calls ‘ol-slashy.’

When asked about any possible involvement, MacKenzie claimed that the Diagolon patches are simply a “branding – like a hockey team or something.”

The last time I checked, no professional sports team uses the catch phrase “Gun or Rope,” nor do they make public statements about engaging media with violence.

For all of those who wish to portray the Ottawa occupation as a trucker supported freedom protest, you need to start taking a closer look at these organizers.

You got played.

ON TARGET: Military Has No Place in Play-Acting Revolution

The Freedom Convoy that has occupied downtown Ottawa since Jan. 28 has proven to be a lightning rod for the underlying pent up anger that has been building among Canadian citizens over the past two years of COVID-19 restrictions.

In the very early stages of the pandemic, Canadians took to the streets to bang pots-and-pans in salute of the efforts and sacrifice being made by our frontline health care professionals and essential workers.

Now we have a nationwide movement-of-protest blaring air-horns in support of a tiny minority of cross-border truck drivers who refuse to comply with a vaccine mandate.

At least that was the initial genesis that prompted the organizers of the Freedom Convoy to bring their road show to the gates of Parliament Hill.

However, it did not take long for that simple single demand to morph into a rejection of all COVID related mandates – vaccines, masks and passports.

It also did not take long for the message of the protestors to escalate from simply fornicating Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to the ridiculous objective of actually overthrowing Canada’s democratically elected Parliament.

Believe it or not, Freedom Convoy leaders publicly called upon Governor General Mary Simon to recognize a new coalition government based on opposition parties, and, um, the unelected representatives of the trucker protest.

Once again, in the interest of full disclosure, I reside with my family in the downtown Ottawa and as such, I have had a front row seat to the horn-blaring occupation since the outset.

It has been irritating and at times inconvenient but thankfully it was at no point to date, personally threatening or in any way violent.

That said, it has also been far too festive to be taken as a serious outpouring of collective anger by the Canadian public.

There were Canadian flags everywhere. Pickup trucks seemingly always sported two flags while pedestrian protestors almost all carried their flags attached to a hockey stick.

Crowds would mill around looking for a focal point which would often materialize in a form of anything from a musical busker to a fervent religious believer shouting biblical passages through a battery powered karaoke speaker.

Some people set up entire club-sized sound systems to invigorate impromptu, alcohol-fuelled dance parties.

Crowds dancing to the rhythms of ‘Ghostbusters’  or ‘Don’t worry, be happy’ would quickly be brought back into focus with shouts of ‘F*ck Trudeau’ or simply the Braveheart movie rally cry of “Freedom!”

To keep the protestors’ collective strength up there was no shortage of free provisions. Barbecues churned out steady streams of hamburgers, hot dogs and sausages, free to all protestors and onlookers. There were also caches of essential supplies like paper towels and even mattresses, all available at no cost thanks to generous supporters.

For the little tyke protestors in attendance, organizers brought in bouncy castles (yes, there was more than one) and hay bales, making this purportedly national political protest seem more like a small town, county fair.

For their adult protestor/occupiers, provisions were made to take away the stress after a long day shouting for the overthrow of the Liberal government.

At the logistics centre established in the parking lot at the Ottawa baseball stadium, Freedom Convoy organizers had set up both a portable sauna and a hot tub.

In other words, this has been a first-world collective wail of mild discomfort, rather than a truly angry mob bent on creating revolutionary change.
In March 1917, when starving Russians rioted in the streets of St. Petersburg their shouted demand was “bread!”. In the ensuring days of continued violent protests the Russian rioters’ slogan morphed into cries of “down with autocracy” which soon resulted in the successful overthrow of the Tsar.

Those angry Russians were motivated by hunger and they sure as hell did not bring their kids along, let alone ensure that they had bouncy castles to jump on while their parents overturned the Russian government.
On the subject of freedom of speech, I am a firm believer that this is a basic tenet of democracy. As a former soldier, I also recognize the fact that our military’s role is to protect our democracy, not to practice it.

As such, there are strict rules in place to prevent service members from making political statements of any kind.

Which brings us to the bizarre case of Major Stephen Chledowski, an artillery officer who posted a nine-minute video online, in which he accuses federal and provincial politicians of being traitors and suppressing the rights of Canadians.

“I am calling on my military and police comrades to now stand up and protect your loved ones against this government’s forced medical tyranny.” stated Major Chledowski on the video.

I will acknowledge that Chlewdoski can have his own personal opinion regarding vaccines and government mandates, however him making a public appeal - as a major in uniform no less – for fellow soldiers to follow his lead arguably constitutes sedition.

It is one thing for the Freedom Convoy participants to play act the role of revolutionaries, it is quite another for a serving officer to incite widespread disobedience in the ranks.

ON TARGET: Freedom Convoy’s Dubious Legacy

Credit: Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs Twitter

By Scott Taylor

I will begin this column with the personal disclosure that I am a long-time downtown resident of Ottawa. As such, my family and I have been fully immersed in the noisy chaos of what is now widely known as the “freedom convoy.”

We are not participants in this protest. But given the reality that the parked trucks and crowds engulfed our home, this means that simply commuting to work puts us out on the same streets and in the middle of the action.

The incessant noise of truck air horns blaring was reminiscent of the 2010 world cup in South Africa wherein spectators across the globe learned to detest the steady hum caused by thousands of people blowing their vuvuzelas. We can now understand what it would be like to toil inside an active beehive for days on end.

It has also been abundantly apparent that this same crowd of anti-mandate, anti-vax protestors are also very pro-marijuana. The pungent clouds of second-hand pot smoke has noticeably increased our family’s craving for snack food, and even our cat has never been so ravenous.

Again, in the interest of full disclosure, I am double-vaxxed and boosted, I wear a mask in public, practice social distancing and I still sing ‘happy birthday’ twice when I wash my hands. That said, I am also a firm believer in freedom of speech and I endeavour to be tolerant of differing opinions.

The original genesis for the freedom convoy was to protest against the new imposed requirements cross-border for truck drivers to be vaccinated or face quarantines.

Many of the protest proponents argued that this mandate was adversely affecting the livelihood of many of those same drivers who had so selflessly ensured that vital necessities were delivered to us during the past two years of the pandemic.

However, it did not take long for truck drivers associations to point out that over 90 per cent of truckers are already vaccinated, and that the new mandate would only affect a small minority of their profession.

Worse was yet to come, as by the time the truck convoy began rolling into Ottawa, it was clearly evident that virtually every fringe element with a beef against the government was hitching their wagons to the so-called “freedom convoy.”

One of the first images to emerge from the burgeoning protest was of someone flying a Confederate flag from their pickup truck. This was soon followed with photos of protestors brandishing swastikas and one individual carrying a red-white-and-black maple-leaf flag meant to symbolize a Nazi-Canada.

Once the crowd had fully assembled, we had ignorant drivers parking their vehicles at the National War Memorial, protestors dancing atop the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, while others urinated at the very same sacred space honouring those soldiers who fought for our country’s freedom.

The media reports focussed on these disrespectful misdeeds and the presence of fringe minority groups caused the “freedom convoy” organizers to offer up hollow-sounding explanations that these individuals and isolated acts “did not reflect the true nature of the protest.”

One of the lame excuses offered by convoy organizers for the visible presence of swastika flags was that the individual’s carrying these symbols wanted to illustrate the fact that the Trudeau government’s vaccination mandate is equitable to Hitler’s policy of mass genocide in World War II.

Not only is such a comparison ludicrous in the extreme – and insulting to those who suffered the horrors of the Holocaust – it also fails to recognize what the swastika has come to symbolize.

The fact that someone would have one in their personal possession is one thing. That they would think they could brazenly display such a vulgar flag in the midst of a large crowd without recrimination is another level of offensive altogether.

Ditto for the knucklehead who attached a Confederate flag to their pickup truck and drove horn-a-blazing through the downtown Ottawa core.

There is no ‘interpretative’ wiggle room for a flag that symbolizes the ultimate white supremacist policy of historic Black enslavement.

The problem for the freedom convoy organizers and participants is not that some fringe loonies attempted to hijack the media attention generated by this mass gathering of big-rig trucks.

What the gathered mob failed to do was to self-police their own event to ensure these crazies understood that swastikas, Confederate flags and public urination on war memorials would not be tolerated.

On the fifth day of the protest, my friend – a veteran of the Canadian Armed Forces and an affected resident of Ottawa – took it upon himself to photograph the various license plates of the protest trucks parked in front of the Canadian War Museum.

Within minutes, an angry protestor had confronted my friend, demanded he surrender his phone and then revised this demand to that of a deletion of photographs.

When this request was also refused, the protestor, now backed up with fellow truck drivers, menacingly reminded my friend that he was “all alone” and might wish to reconsider their demand.

Thankfully that incident ended without violence, but it also stopped short any further recording of license plates.

I suggest that had the majority of Freedom Convoy participants taken an appropriate amount of offence to the swastikas and Confederate flags, they too would have quickly disappeared from the crowd.

Freedom is not anarchy and freedom of speech does not include hate speech.

ON TARGET: Putin is Playing NATO like a Fiddle

By Scott Taylor

The NATO narrative is very simple and very concise: Russian President Vladimir Putin has massed his troops along the Ukraine border and is poised to invade. 

The early intelligence reports predicted that this inevitable military incursion would take place in December and then was revised to January 2022. Satellite images provided by US intelligence sources clearly depict parade squares full of Russian armoured and logistics vehicles parked bumper to bumper in locations we are told are ’near’ the Ukrainian border. 

Estimates of the Russian troop build-up ranges from 70,000 to 135,000 soldiers pre-deployed along Ukraine’s eastern boundary (or the ‘Front’ as many hysterical western media reports now describe it).

This is all very frightening stuff if taken at face value and I must admit that many friends, neighbours and relatives have written to me expressing their fears that we are on the brink of a planet -destroying nuclear conflagration.

These fears are of course being deliberately mongered by the brain trust at NATO high command who are playing to the masses in order to pour fuel on the current unlit powder keg. 

The problem with the public affairs zealots at NATO HQ is that they cannot keep their fear-du-jours’ in order. To wit: We have been told for nearly eight years now that Russian aggression and Putin’s desire to restore Russia to the Soviet Union’s previous glory days has put the three Baltic States - Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania - in imminent danger of invasion. 

To counter this, Canada along with numerous other NATO countries have deployed thousands of troops into the Baltic states as a deterrent to Putin’s allegedly insatiable lust for land. There are presently approximately 650 Canadian combat soldiers forward deployed to Latvia as part of Operation Reassurance. 

Which is why it was somewhat surprising that last week Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania all announced that they were shipping a vast arsenal of US supplied anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles to Ukraine in advance of the expected Russian invasion. If we were to believe at face value the NATO hype, once Putin gobbles up Ukraine he will be polishing off the Baltic States, which is why we have so many Canadian soldiers pre-deployed to re-assure the locals of our NATO commitment to a collective defence. 

So, how is it that these same threatened Baltic States can suddenly divest themselves of their US-suppled defensive hardware? Which brings us to the question of why everyone is so quick to simply discount the Ukrainian military as its own standing deterrent to Putin’s forces. 

Most pundits seem to assume that once the Russians start to roll in, the Ukrainians will offer little to no resistance and that the capital Kiev will fall in a matter of hours. To reinforce this theory, Canada along with the UK, US, Germany and Australia have already engaged in a bit of pre-emptory theatre by withdrawing most diplomats and their families from Kiev in advance of the supposed big Russian push. 

Again, why is everyone so quick to dismiss the capabilities of the Ukrainian fighters? There are presently about 280,000 soldiers in the Ukrainian regular forces which could be mobilized to close to one million personnel if you include the newly constituted territorial volunteer units. Bolstering this force, the Ukrainian army possesses some 2400 Main Battle Tanks. 

While many of those tanks could be considered obsolete, it should be remembered that the Taliban in Afghanistan never numbered more than 30,000 fighters and they had no armour whatsoever. Yet NATO deployed over 150,000 of the best equipped soldiers the world has ever seen and could not win that two-decade long war.

Surely Putin’s 135,000 troops would fare no better against a determined million-strong Ukrainian military and hostile population of roughly 44 million?

In recent days, the UK and US have pumped into Ukraine an estimated $600 million (US) worth of sophisticated weaponry and munitions. Add to that the fact that NATO instructors, including Canadian military personnel, have been actively training Ukrainian troops since 2014. 

Surely all that training and equipment provides one hell of a deterrent to Putin, let alone the threat of increased sanctions or, worst case scenario, NATO intervention in support of Ukraine. 

Another thing we should all keep in mind is that Russia has produced some of the world’s best chess players and their military generalship is historically renowned for its strategic deception operations, or ‘maskirovka’ as the Russians call it. The sight of all those Russian vehicles parked near the Ukraine border may look ominous. That is because they are meant to. 

There is an old Siberian saying that ‘when the tiger prowls you cannot see him, or smell him’. At the moment we can see the Russian military build-up and it all smells rather fishy to me.

Meanwhile, our NATO leadership is still playing checkers when the game being played by Putin is chess.