Hillier Arming Canada For War

[scm77]

Hillier arms Canada for war
Defence chief wants to upgrade military, add beef to Afghan role
By SCOTT TAYLOR

ACCORDING TO OTTAWA insiders, Chief of Defence Staff Rick Hillier has put his senior staff at National Defence Headquarters on notice that as of now, the Canadian military is on a war footing. Armed with the moral support of Defence Minister Bill Graham, Hillier is trying to implement a rapid and radical rationalization of the befuddled bureaucracy and the ponderous procurement process. Those who voice objections to Hillier's reforms are being told to hand in their security passes and shuffle off into early retirement.

Using his vast operational field experience, Hillier is applying the combat arms "mission is paramount" mantra to remove or eliminate all obstacles in his path. The primary objective the good general has lined up in his sights is the deployment of a 2,000-strong, combat-capable expeditionary force in Afghanistan next spring. These troops are to serve as the nucleus of a NATO-based allied rapid reaction corps that will conduct offensive operations against the Taliban insurgents in the volatile Kandahar region. This new NATO force will ostensibly free up about 4,000 U.S. special forces personnel who will likely be transferred directly to Iraq.

To meet this challenge, the Canadian military procurement officials have gone on a spending spree. By begging, borrowing and paying a huge premium ($234 million), DND hopes to acquire 50 new armoured personnel vehicles, six new howitzers, airborne surveillance drones, John Deere utility vehicles and new communications systems â ” all by February. As the new role in Kandahar will focus on aggressive patrols aimed at hunting down Taliban guerrillas, it is Hillier's intention to deploy an unprecedented number of our elite Joint Task Force 2 commandos. One source speculated that up to 200 operatives will be in Afghanistan by February â ” nearly two-thirds of the unit's entire trained manpower. As an unorthodox special forces

unit, the JTF2 has a separate â ” and highly classified â ” procurement budget. Despite the secrecy surrounding this commando force, it is known that they, too, have been out purchasing a multitude of new hardware and vehicles for the upcoming mission. Everything from automatic grenade launchers and new assault weapons to armoured trucks has been hastily added to the JTF2's inventory.

Unfortunately, there are some things that simply cannot be obtained or produced before Hillier's expeditionary force heads off to battle. In the mountainous region of southern Afghanistan, the majority of the combat missions are facilitated by heavy transport helicopters escorted by heavily armed helicopter gunships. As Canada has neither of these types of aircraft, our troops will presumably be hitching a ride aboard allied helicopters. As well, to deploy and keep a 2,000-strong contingent supplied in theatre will require the use of strategic airlift, which Canada does not possess. If history repeats, we will either rely upon the help of our friends or rent some old Russian commercial airplanes.

While many senior Canadian officers are quietly wondering why Hillier is insisting on putting all his combat eggs in one basket called Afghanistan, there are now even more serious rumblings coming from the other NATO participants. The Dutch were to contribute up to 1,000 troops to the allied force â ” including a number of Chinook heavy-lift helicopters (yes, the very same choppers that Canada gave them in 1992, when our policy-makers concluded there was no future need for such aircraft). But that decision has been delayed by the Dutch parliament, pending additional guarantees of support from the Pentagon.

The British defence minister is also reportedly having second thoughts about this new mission, with some senior officers suggesting the whole operation should be abandoned. Their rationale is that there is presently no stated end game for Afghanistan and no apparent exit strategy for the international community.

One would like to think that similar constructive consideration is taking place here in Canada and that someone somewhere is calculating exactly what Canada's long-term projected involvement in Afghanistan is. (Whatever happened to Osama bin Laden anyway?) But the signs are not hopeful.

With an election campaign in full swing and Canadian casualties already mounting, the only political leader to even raise this issue is Jack Layton of the NDP.

In the meantime, it seems that Hillier remains a man on a mission, and come hell or high water, next spring, our military is gonna kick some "scumbag" butt in Afghanistan.

(staylor@herald.ca)

http://thechronicleherald.ca/Opinion/472370.html
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There is a discussion about this article here

Here are some of the comments some people have made...

I can understand his wanting to get goodies while he can...and I can understand his insistence on speeding up the process and getting rid of the chair-warmers...but the warrior rhetoric needs to be toned down.

And of course I personally don't think we should be in Afghanistan anyway.

There are other places we could and should be. Being waterboys for the US Imperial stormtroopers in Afghanistan is not one of those places.

Hillier 'arming Canada for war'

And the question arises...what war?

Canada is not 'at war'

We sent some troops as backup to the Americans under the NATO agreement...that's all.

And now that Afghanistan has had their 'election' it's time to come home...we weren't there to provide elections in the first place...we were supposed to be helping find Osama bin Forgotten.

And it's past time to duct tape Hillier.

Not everone is against him...

Well, I only have an amateur's knowledge of these things, but I agree with your post.

Only in Canada could the purchase of six howitzers be considered a major military purchase, or, for that matter, fifty armoured trucks, which is essentially, what the new APCs are (a South African vehicle, the Nyala, which has excellent anti-mine protection).

These are, in fact, the minimum equipment purchases any responsible government would have to make before sending its soldiers into a dangerous area like southern Afghanistan. Rather than being surprised that this is being done we should be collectively outraged that the armed forces have been so starved of essential equipment for so long that it is now necessary to make these purchases in such an emergency basis.

But most people are...

It's nuts that we're doing anything more than peacekeeping.
Has the definition of "peacekeeping" changed along with marriage ?
It's folly to "go after" a religious sect simply because they don't believe in the same things as us. We're forcing democracy upon countries that have little history of the concept. If only they could see just how fucked up democracies like the U.S.A. and Canada have become.
So just remember the next time you're in a hospital waiting list for knee replacement that your Liberal government thought it more important felt it more important to spend the money fighting in a country that has never been our enemy before with bullets supplied by SNC-LAvalin no doubt....a big Liberal party donar and contract recipient.
Somethings never change......

Your thoughts?

PS. If a mod thinks this will be better moved to an already existing thread, please do.  I searched and there was a couple threads where this could go, but I couldn't decide which one was best so I just made a new one.

 

[Holk]

Why not help in Afghanistan?

We're keeping a country that helped terrorist groups attack the US and the West,from falling back under the rule of the Taliban that would help them out again if gotten a second chance.

I know most people aren't big fans of the US,especially this adminstation,I'm not.
But as long as we're actually doing something to fight Al Qaeda,there's not much wrong with what we're doing.

After all Al Qaeda might one day find some fault with us as well.
It's better to get them now.

 

[Brad Sallows]

>One would like to think that similar constructive consideration is taking place here in Canada and that someone somewhere is calculating exactly what Canada's long-term projected involvement in Afghanistan is.

Then one might seek to interview Paul Martin or someone from the PMO rather than to speculate Hillier is marching to his own orders.

 

[Scoobie Newbie]

Any way I can get a message to this guy:
Xian Crusade
Author Host/IP: pi7p43.ark.com / 209.53.215.171

It's nuts that we're doing anything more than peacekeeping.
Has the definition of "peacekeeping" changed along with marriage ?
It's folly to "go after" a religious sect simply because they don't believe in the same things as us. We're forcing democracy upon countries that have little history of the concept. If only they could see just how fucked up democracies like the U.S.A. and Canada have become.
So just remember the next time you're in a hospital waiting list for knee replacement that your Liberal government thought it more important felt it more important to spend the money fighting in a country that has never been our enemy before with bullets supplied by SNC-LAvalin no doubt....a big Liberal party donar and contract recipient.
Somethings never change......

 

[scm77]

CFL, if you click here you can reply to his message.

http://www.voy.com/178771/105866.html

Scroll to the bottom and you will find the box where you can type your reply.

There's already ~25 replies to his message and it doesn't appear that he has replied to any of them yet, so I'm not sure if you will get a response.  It doesn't appear that the site has any sort of Private Message system, and he's using a fake e-mail address...

Good luck.

 

[Scoobie Newbie]

nah.  a bunch of sheep.  no sense in trying to explain to them what the deal is.

 

[Dog]

I personally have no problem with the Military being armed for war.

If it means that we don't have to beg for transport, don't have to scramble for some kind of "niche" role, and don't have to worry about kit crashing, breaking, or otherwise not performing to standard, that we get to train live-fire more than once or twice a year, then what's the problem?

These people who believe we are a "Peacekeeping Force"  have got their heads up their ass. While there's nothing wrong with peacekeeping per se, making yourself incapable to do anything than walk around with a blue helmut on, without the ability to affect change in areas of the world using force means that you have no right to criticize the American Government when they go and do it.... because no one else is going to.

Those same people would whine and complain that we aren't doing enough to help the oppressed people in the world if the only thing we did was hang out and direct traffic in Bosnia.

I think this is the first time I've felt so exasperated at the complete lack of support that the CF gets from some people.... maybe it's because I'm getting sworn in, in a few hours.

How have all you guys who've been wearing the uniform been able to do it all these years??
I can see myself becoming dramatically more jaded in the next little while...

 

[Scoobie Newbie]

There are 3 groups of people in the world.
The sheep.  The sheep dog.  The wolf.

The sheep are afraid of the sheep dog as well as the wolf.  They know when push comes to shove the sheep dogs will be there for you despite how much you ignored them.

The sheep dog as badass as the wolves except that they live to protect the sheep.

The wolf is the baddy with no remorse, no hesitation no morals that is looking to snatch the sheep while the sheep dog is down and out.

the majority of the public are sheep.  The military, police are the sheep dogs and the terrorists are the wolves.

 

[silentbutdeadly]

It shows you what the Canadian public really thinks about us and how we do things and where we should do it! we will never shake that Peacekeeper title ever i think.

 

[Good2Golf]

Well, in some hope that some folks might actually consider something if presented with new information, I replied to "begbie's" post here http://www.voy.com/178771/105935.html as skicanuck.  I think I will leave it as a "one-time post only"...unless they actually ask some questions that seem based in honest consideration of how things are over here.

Cheers
Duey

 

[Armymedic]

What gets me is that we should not be arming for war...

We should already be armed.

 

[Britney Spears]

As you all know, I'm a liberal, so my liberal civvy cocktail party friends often seek my opinion on these matters. Obviously, since I speak from a biased position, I try to be a bit more reconcillatory than most, and I try to stay away from the "sheep" references. The following spiel usually puts me in good steed.

I don't think the position that we should get out of Afghanistan and adopting an isolationist stance is necessarily an unreasonable one. I don't agree with it of course, because the only kind of isolationisim that can actually work, as a_majoor points out, in real life is the Swiss or Singaporean style "don't fsck with us" isolationism, where we arm ourselves to the teeth(nukes and all), develop an native arms industry, and introduce mandatory national service.

We could do it, but I don't think anyone will like it.

Same thing with the "there are other places we should be in instead of Afghanistan" thing. I'm all for getting out of Afghan and going to Sudan or DR Congo, as long as we're also getting our own heavy sea/air lift, tanks, tac hel, CAS, CVNs, etc. because there won't be any American B52s or Dutch helos for us to borrow in Dafur. That way, we'll be completely independent of US foreign policy, and able to represent the will of Canadians to maximum effect.

We could do it, but I don't like that either.

 

[GO!!!]

I agree with Britney.

I think Afghanistan is a waste of time, it's problems are just too big for Canada to solve. I think a Canadian sized contribution from all of NATO could make a pretty big dent, but I doubt that is forthcoming.

Sudan needs our help more than a-stan, but we are simply too poorly equipped to go there.

None of this will keep me off the '07 rotos though! 

 

[McG]

Hillier arms Canada for war

I'm pretty sure it is the government that is "arming Canada for war."

The primary objective the good general has lined up in his sights is the deployment of a 2,000-strong, combat-capable expeditionary force in Afghanistan next spring.

... or maybe the deployment of said force next month?

While many senior Canadian officers are quietly wondering why Hillier is insisting on putting all his combat eggs in one basket called Afghanistan . . .

I recall a R22eR BG being validated at BTE 05.  That "egg" is not going into the Afghanistan "basket."

 

[Scoobie Newbie]

bahhhhhhh
If not A Stan then were, Africa?
When did we get this peace keeping persona and by whom.  Surely not until after Korea.  So that means we need/have a few decades to "re-educate" the sheep, I mean public.

 

[Britney Spears]

That's the other thing that I find myself having to explain a lot: Peacekeeping.

The thing about peacekeeping is that it often involves killing a lot of people. If it didn't, we wouldn't need to send the army, we could just send Senators to talk at them and then laugh when they get beheaded on Al Jazeera. The French Foreign Legion  in Côte D'Ivoire and the Brit Paras in Sierra Leon were peacekeepers in every sense of the word: 1)They went in under a UN mandate, and 2)They were so ruthless in their methods(The FFL, as a reprisal for a "mistaken" bombing of their positions, summarily destroyed the entire Ivorian air force on the ground with a classic commando raid the very next day)  that all belligerent factions suddenly found themselves *really* wishing for peace to return.

If this is the model that we are to follow, then I'm all for us becoming "peacekeepers".

 

[Scoobie Newbie]

well that's a peacekeeping force to be proud of.

 

[a_majoor]

I wasn't sure if I should just smack my head against the monitor in sheer frustration or what:

Arm Canada for War? What do these people think our job is? Not to mention the 80 odd Canadian civilians murdered in NYC Sept 11 2001, a pretty dramatic declaration of war by the other side.

Britney, if you wern't so young I would kiss you! Please continue to make these points to your Liberal cocktail party friends (I am available for speaking engagements, given enough notice  ). Canadians have been very insular for far too long, if they don't raise their eyes from their belly-buttons and take a clear eyed look at the world they will discover something very nasty is about to bite them in the A**.

Message to all: spread the word about what we do and why. Look at the Ruxsted Group editorials on the opening page of Army.ca if you need help with your speaking points. We need to elevate this debate from the total ignorance being displayed in headlines and responses like the ones we were treated to at the beginning of this thread. Once the debate is at some sort of informed and sensible level, then maybe some sensible solutions can be generated by the government of the day.

 

[Michael Dorosh]

bahhhhhhh
If not A Stan then were, Africa?
When did we get this peace keeping persona and by whom.  Surely not until after Korea.  So that means we need/have a few decades to "re-educate" the sheep, I mean public.

And yet you pass up your chance to go to that other site.

You know, if about 20 professional soldiers went over there, and posted with real names, in a dignified, professional manner, perhaps one or two sheep lurking there might actually learn something.

So what's stoppin' y'all?

 

[baboon6]

That's the other thing that I find myself having to explain a lot: Peacekeeping.

The thing about peacekeeping is that it often involves killing a lot of people. If it didn't, we wouldn't need to send the army, we could just send Senators to talk at them and then laugh when they get beheaded on Al Jazeera. The French Foreign Legion  in Côte D'Ivoire and the Brit Paras in Sierra Leon were peacekeepers in every sense of the word: 1)They went in under a UN mandate, and 2)They were so ruthless in their methods(The FFL, as a reprisal for a "mistaken" bombing of their positions, summarily destroyed the entire Ivorian air force on the ground with a classic commando raid the very next day)  that all belligerent factions suddenly found themselves *really* wishing for peace to return.

If this is the model that we are to follow, then I'm all for us becoming "peacekeepers".

All the French troops killed in the airstrike were "Troupes de Marine", not Foreign Legion, and it was a platoon of them (from 2e RIMa) who destroyed two of the Ivorian SU-25s with Milan missiles. Also I don't know if you could call the operation a classic commando raid, since the French troops were already almost on-site ie. no infiltration was required.This was at Yamossoukro. Several other Ivorian aircraft were destroyed later that day by 43e BIMa (the permanent French unit in CI) at Abidjan airport, after their base (right next door) was attacked by Ivorian troops.