MILNEWS.ca News Highlights – 24 May 12

• Afghanistan (1)  Canada “condemns …. cowardly and senseless act” of attempting to poison Afghan girls in school.
• Afghanistan (2)  Congrats to the Americans! “His Excellency the Right Honourable David Johnston, Governor General and Commander-in-Chief of Canada, announces the awarding and presentation of the Commander-in-Chief Unit Commendation to the 1st Battalion, 3rd Special Forces Group (United States Army). On behalf of the Governor General, Lieutenant-General Stuart Beare, C.M.M., M.S.M., C.D., Commander Canadian Expeditionary Force Command, presented this honour to the battalion during a ceremony at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, on May 23, 2012 ….” - more from the U.S. Special Forces Info-machine, The Canadian Press, and the Fort Bragg hometown paper.
• Afghanistan (3)  Column:  “The lesson from Afghanistan should be obvious. But it is one we forget again and again. The lesson is that war is not a game. Nor is it simply a tactic that aspiring middle powers like Canada use to burnish their foreign policy credentials. Clausewitz was wrong. War is not just diplomacy by other means. It is something far more dangerous and should be used sparingly …. Now the Afghan war is a political orphan. Even Harper and U.S. President Barack Obama, who came to power promising to win “the good war,” have disowned it. The war, it seems, was no one’s idea — just something that happened. No one has taken responsibility for it. We have again learned nothing.”
• Afghanistan (4)  Column:  “When NATO formally decided earlier this week to pull out of Afghanistan in 2014, no less a global realist than Henry Kissinger grumbled that the exit strategy is now “all exit and no strategy.” Still, that’s preferable to the reverse — strategy without any end in sight. Personally, after a decade of listening to the endless debate between generals and diplomats over how best to deal with Afghanistan, I’ve long felt that NATO was never going to find a clear-cut way to end the insurgency no matter how many bright minds were thrown at the quest ….”
• Afghanistan (5)  “The federal Opposition is calling for the creation of a task force to find ways of dealing with the growing “crisis” among Canadian veterans suffering from war-related mental illness. “There is a reluctance to treat this as a crisis,” said NDP defence critic Jack Harris Wednesday, “but that’s what it is. We are trying to deal with it in a patchwork fashion and we need to find a better way.” In an interview with the Citizen, Harris slammed the Conservative government for announcing a $110-million annual training budget for Afghan soldiers while returning Canadian veterans are suffering from inadequate mental health care. Earlier this week, Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced that Canada would contribute $110 million a year to build the Afghan army just weeks after his government cut the budget of Veterans Affairs Canada and slashed jobs of research professionals involved in suicide prevention and monitoring post-traumatic stress disorders. “What about our soldiers we asked to go there?” said Harris. “The cost for their treatment should be made part of the entire mission. Instead of laying people off, we should be dealing with the problem and doing everything we can to make them whole again.” ….”
• Meanwhile, “The Honourable Steven Blaney, Minister of Veterans Affairs, (Wednesday) met with a group of Veterans from the Québec City area who have been getting together for breakfast at the Galeries de la Capitale for more than 10 years. The Minister, accompanied by the former mayor of Québec City and former Lieutenant-Governor of the province, the Honourable Gilles Lamontagne, took time to meet and chat with the former soldiers ….”
• “George Matte, a retired brigadier-general, says too many Canadian soldiers have trouble finding jobs after leaving the military, let alone writing a résumé. That’s why he decided to become executive director of Helmets to Hardhats, a program aimed at helping Canada’s veterans, soldiers and reservists transition into careers in the skilled trades. A fundraiser for the initiative, featuring Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty, was held in Woodbridge on Wednesday. Mr. Matte, who worked in public service after serving as a Canadian fighter pilot for 29 years, said he and his colleagues experienced great difficulty re-entering the everyday workforce. “I found the transition to be challenging on many levels,” said Mr. Matte. “One of them is, how do you prepare your C.V.? When you apply for a job, how do you explain what it was you did in the military in a way that the civilian employer will go, ‘OK, I get it. I understand what you did there and we can see value in that.’” Helmets to Homes intends to make that process easier by establishing formal relationships between the Canadian Forces and Canada’s building and construction companies. Apprenticeships and on-the-job training sessions will be reserved for soldiers ….”
• “It has been a tradition for the Government of Canada to offer an official gift commemorating Royal Tours. In recent practice, these gifts have taken the form of federal donations to charitable initiatives that benefit Canadians, in the name of the Royal guests and consistent with their own charitable activities or interests. In honour of the Canadian tour of Their Royal Highnesses The Prince of Wales and The Duchess of Cornwall, Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced on May 23, 2012, that the Government of Canada will make charitable donations to The Prince’s Operation Entrepreneur program and the RCMP Foundation. The Government of Canada will contribute $100,000 to The Prince’s Operation Entrepreneur program, which provides recently retired and transitioning members of the Canadian Armed Forces with the education, financing and mentoring needed to launch and sustain successful businesses. Canada will also be providing $50,000 to the RCMP Foundation, which supports community-based volunteer engagement with youth at risk.”
• Way Up North (1)  “The Canadian Forces recognized the 1st Canadian Ranger Patrol Group Tuesday in Yellowknife for the role they played in the aftermath of the First Air crash in Resolute Bay, Nunavut, last August. The Canadian Forces’ Unit Commendation honours a military unit that has performed a deed or activity considered beyond the demand of normal duty. Canadian Rangers were in Resolute on Aug. 20, 2011, as part of the training exercise Operation Nanook, when a 737 passenger jet crashed near the airport. Twelve people on board were killed, three survived. After the crash, rangers guarded the site 24 hours a day. Authorities investigating the crash relied on the Rangers to frighten away polar bears drawn to the site by the smell of rotting food cargo ….”
• Way Up North (2a)  “Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Kathy Dunderdale says she believes a military Cormorant helicopter should have been dispatched to aid in the search for a boy who went missing while snowmobiling in coastal Labrador. Since the death of 14-year-old Burton Winters in February there has been an ongoing debate in the province over the use of military resources. The Department of National Defence has said weather conditions were too poor to fly at the time the call for assistance was made in the Winters case. But Dunderdale says that reason just isn’t good enough. She says the province’s helicopter was able to fly two hours after the assistance call was made and the military could have at least attempted to join the search effort. Dunderdale says it’s one of the issues she wants to discuss in a requested meeting with Prime Minister Stephen Harper. She says a meeting hasn’t yet been finalized.”  More here.
• Way Up North (2b)  “Federal cabinet minister Peter Penashue says Ottawa would by necessity co-operate with a provincial inquiry into the death of Burton Winters, if Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Kathy Dunderdale calls one. Family and friends of Winters have wanted an inquiry into the search for the 14-year-old Makkovik resident, whose frozen body was found outside the community on Feb. 1, three days after he went missing. In an interview with CBC News, Penashue said it is not the place of the federal government to call an inquiry, but said the federal government would take part if the provincial government called one. “We would not be in a position not to co-operate,” Penashue said during an interview recorded Wednesday for On Point with David Cochrane. The full interview will air on Saturday’s program. “This is a legally initiated process and everyone would have to co-operate.” ….”
• Way Up North (3)  Remember this CF helicopter flying into powerlines outside Yellowknife, putting the community in the dark for a bit, during a major Arctic exercise in February?  The initial accident report is out.  REMEMBER – the investigation is still not over!:  “…. The investigation is focussing on aircrew supervision, pre-flight preparations and briefings, aircrew human factors, in-flight decision making, low level flying in the wires environment and the wire strike protection system.”
• Speaking of unpleasantness in flight, remember this explosion/fire on a Hercules transport plane flying in Florida in February of this year?  The initial accident report is out.  REMEMBER – the investigation is still not over!:  “…. The investigation team identified that a stainless steel braided flexible hydraulic line associated with the auxiliary hydraulic system pump was breached where it routed next to an electrical power cable. The ongoing investigation is focussed on the maintenance history of the auxiliary hydraulic system.”  A bit more from The Canadian Press here.
• F-35 Tug o’ War  “Only 6% of Canadians say they give the federal government a passing grade on how it’s handled the F-35 fighter jet program, according to an Abacus Data survey exclusive to QMI Agency. Even among Conservative supporters that number is only 11%. “They recognize and admit that the federal government hasn’t handled the issue well,” says David Coletto, president of Abacus Data. Overall, 32% of respondents say the way the government has handled the F-35 program makes them “much less likely” to vote Conservative in the next election. Coletto says that includes a big chunk of voters who wouldn’t support the party anyway. More interesting for him, says Coletto, is that only 4% of those who cast a ballot for the Tories in 2011 say they’d be a lot more reluctant to do so in the next election in 2015. “It doesn’t look like this issue is a game-changer,” says Coletto ….”
• Canada, U.S. agree to keep a closer, more co-operative eye on outer space  “The Department of National Defence (DND) announced today the establishment of a long-term partnership with the U.S. Department of Defense on Space Situational Awareness (SSA). Vice-Admiral Bruce Donaldson, Vice-Chief of the Defence Staff, and Heidi Grant, Deputy Under Secretary of the U.S. Air Force (International Affairs) signed the SSA Memorandum of Understanding on behalf of their respective departments at National Defence Headquarters, in Ottawa on May 4, 2012. Under the agreement, data from DND’s Sapphire satellite will be contributed to the U.S. Space Surveillance Network, enhancing the ability of both countries to detect and avoid the collision of critical space platforms with orbital debris ….”
• Canadian Special Forces troops training in Florida?  “…. In a mock drill, downtown Tampa was invaded by Special Operations Forces in a rare public display of U.S. military might. Ninety nations showed up to be a part of the special drill, almost never seen by the public. The staged mission was to rescue Tampa Mayor Bob Buckhorn, who, under the scenario, was kidnapped by terrorists. Chinook helicopters offered aerial support, and the tactical assault showed up by water. Two special ops teams invaded the “terrorist village” near the Convention Center. Within seconds, Special Operations Forces rescued the hostage, and got him to a safe location …. SOF members from from Canada, Brazil, Australia and many more were part of this staged combat mission.”
• What’s Canada Buying?  “Temperature data loggers” for delivery to CANSOFCOM in Petawawa and to Richmond, Ontario, someone to build a new cenotaph at St. Jean Garrison, and someone to do research into blowing things up better.
• What’s Canada Selling?  Canadian company CAE signs deal with “Armour Sentral, a Malaysia-based technology management and services firm, (and) the National Defence University of Malaysia to develop simulation-based training solutions for the land systems market in Malaysia and the surrounding Asia region ….”
• “Residents of a Scarborough highrise have mixed feelings on whether terrorist Omar Khadr should be allowed into their building to live with his family when he’s released from U.S. custody. Khadr’s mother, Maha el-Samnah and her daughter, Zaynab, have been living for about two years in a Kennedy Rd.-Eglinton Ave. E. area apartment building, which may become home for soon-to-be-released detainee. His release plans call for Khadr, 26, to be transferred from a U.S. military base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, so he can live in the community under supervision of the National Parole Board. The Khadrs refused to comment on Tuesday about his impending return …. News of Khadr’s return to Scarborough was not welcomed by some of her neighbours. “He shouldn’t be in Canada after what he has done,” said student Shashwad Bokhriyal. “This is a very dangerous man and he should be kept in detention.” Bokhriyal said Khadr should not be walking free in society. Wally, a two-year tenant in the building who did not wish to give his last name, said he used to live 10-minutes away from the World Trade Centre when it was destroyed in the 9/11 attacks. “No way (do) I want to see this man here,” he said. “These terrorists don’t play around and no way this man should be here.” ….”
• “Canadian Mounties made an historic ride down the Mall (in London, England Wednesday) as they acted as the Queen’s personal bodyguard. In the run-up to the Diamond Jubilee, the Commonwealth personnel received a special invitation from Her Majesty and have been trained by the Household Cavalry. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police took part in the 11 o’clock Changing of the Queen’s Life Guard ceremony with the Household Cavalry. The Mounties became the first non-military unit to guard the Queen during the centuries’ old tradition.” More from media here, here, here and here.
• “Quick, identify the Canadian battalion that celebrates its 75th anniversary this month. If you didn’t guess the Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion you’re not alone. Few would. Their founding date, May 1937, will go unheralded and the vets who served with them in the Spanish Civil War (1936-39) won’t be celebrating either. Of approximately 1,543 original members, only Jules Paivio is still alive and at 95, he’s too frail to be kicking up his heels …. It’s been 75 years: it’s time to cut these men, their families and their memory some slack. It’s time to accord them their rightful place in the history books and time to give them a thought come next Nov. 11.”