MILNEWS.ca News Highlights – August 11, 2012

• Middle East  Canada’s Foreign Affairs Minister:  Way to go, Lebanon, for helping with the Syria thing  “Today I had the pleasure of meeting Prime Minister Najib Mikati and, later, the parliamentary leader of the March 14 opposition, Fouad Siniora. I expressed to both of them Canada’s sincere gratitude for the role Lebanon has played in hosting Syrians seeking asylum from the violence that is ravaging their homeland.  “Canada supports Lebanon’s efforts to deal with the effects of what is happening next door in Syria. Lebanon is an important and valued partner in the Middle East region, and we recommit ourselves to work closely together to deal with this crisis and its ripple effects ….” – more on Baird’s road trip through the area here, here, here, here and here.
• Canada, U.S. and Russia cleaning up after taking part in air force anti-terrorism exercise  “USA, Russia and Canada will carry out “Vigilant Eagle” joint antiterrorist maneuvers in 2012. It has been reported by Vesti.ru with reference to the head of US Army Northern Command and North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), General Charles Jacoby.  “I hope to hold meeting with my Russian colleagues in order to discuss tactics, hardware and procedures, which will help us organize these maneuvers”, — he said during Senate hearings.  Jacoby said that he considers “Vigilant Eagle” maneuvers, carried out by Russia, USA and Canada in 2011, to be successful. “We have elaborated the scenario for fighting terrorism in the air, which is absolutely necessary for adequate response to this threat”, — the General said. He also said that it is an important step in the area of confidence-building for all the parties and provision of transparency in the area of military activities, especially near Alaska ….” – U.S. military info-machine webcast coming here later today.
• Way Up North A hearty hat tip to Mark Collins for this one  “Getting America’s National Airspace System (NAS) ready for unmanned aircraft by 2015 will be hard going, but one good sign is that the FAA’s point man positively vibrates with enthusiasm.  “I actually volunteered for this job,” said James Williams, head of the FAA’s recently created Unmanned Air Systems Integration Office, right at the opening of his remarks to the conference of the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International, (AUVSI). “I’m very excited to be here and to be running this organization.” That said, he added, referring to the many mandates in the 2012 FAA reauthorization bill passed in February, “nobody mentioned that Congress was going to give me pages of instruction on how to do it.” …. Off Alaska, Williams, said, “we’re going to create a new type of airspace, ground to 2,000 feet, [where] there will be unmanned aircraft flying and they will not be able to see and avoid the other aircraft.” A drone by definition has no pilot aboard , and automatic “sense and avoid” systems to let a robot replicate a human’s ability to avert a collision are still a work in progress. Yet a fundamental principle of air traffic control, Williams said, is that “the pilot can see other aircraft and not run into them. The whole foundation of the system is built onto that.” ….”
• Ooopsie…. “Investigators say they are focusing on aircraft jacks after one of the Royal Canadian Air Force’s new Hercules CC-130s was damaged when the supports failed.  The incident occurred July 1 in a hangar at CFB Trenton, Ont., when crews heard a loud noise and went to see what happened.  They found the left wing jack had collapsed, damaging one of the landing gear doors.  The right wing jack had come off its pad and pierced the wing, although no fuel cells were affected.  As a result of the mishap, in which no one was hurt, the plane’s frame was twisted ….”
• NDP vets’ affairs critic looking into hospital food issue  ” Veterans Affairs critic Peter Stoffer will tour a Halifax veteran’s hospital next week after patients complained about mushy, reheated and generally unpalatable food.  Stoffer says he wants to make sure Camp Hill Veterans Memorial is doing everything it can to provide the elderly war vets with the best quality meals.  The NDP MP plans to visit the hospital Tuesday, having already received permission from Capital Health’s director of hospitality services.  e said he’ll examine all sides by talking to patients, to staff in charge of food services, and to employees who prepare the food ….”
  
• More on Woundedwarriors.ca  “In the last days of his army career, Wayne Johnston was tasked with bringing home Canada’s war dead.  As a repatriation officer with the Canadian Forces, Johnston would help the families of Canadians killed or seriously wounded.  The first family Johnston helped in September 2006 was that of a long-time friend.  The severely injured reserve soldier was someone who Johnston recruited.  That incident began an emotional assignment as an assisting officer that left Johnston himself severely traumatized.  Now Johnston is trying to help those soldiers who made it home and in the process, he is trying to help himself.  As founder of WoundedWarriors.ca, Johnston organizes fundraising efforts and outreach projects to help veterans recover ….”
• “The estranged wife of convicted killer Russell Williams has filed a statement of defence against accusations made in a $4-million lawsuit from the family of one of his victims.  In her statement, Mary Elizabeth Harriman refuted all claims made against her by the estate of Jessica Lloyd. Lloyd’s family sued the couple for emotional distress after the 27-year-old Belleville, Ont., woman was sexually assaulted and murdered in 2009.  Russell Williams is currently serving a life sentence at the Kingston Penitentiary after pleading guilty to first-degree murder in the sex slayings of Lloyd and Cpl. Marie-France Comeau, 37, of Brighton.  The former Canadian Forces colonel, who has been stripped of his rank, also plead guilty to 82 break-and-enters and thefts, as well as two sexual assaults.  The lawsuit, filed by Lloyd’s brother and mother in January, seeks damages worth $4 million for the mental suffering they say they have endured, among other things.  Lloyd’s family alleges that Williams secretly and fraudulently transferred assets, including a house in Ottawa, to Harriman in March 2010 after he was charged with murders and sexual assaults ….” - more here.
  
• An academic’s worries about Canadian cybersecurity  “…. China, Russia, and other developing countries are exercising their muscles in Internet governance forums, in meetings of the International Telecommunications Union and the United Nations, leading to a pitched battle over cyberspace governance. Should those states succeed in convincing others of their vision of a more top-down, state-controlled system, cyberspace will look a lot different than it does today.  What is the Canadian government doing about all of this? Unfortunately, not yet very much. The federal government released a cyber security strategy in 2010 that was thin on commitments and focused on securing networks here in Canada. While the latter is important, the issues that will affect Canada’s security are mostly “out there”.  The cyber security strategy did task the Department of Foreign Affairs to come up with a foreign policy for cyberspace. But nearly two years later, one has not materialized. Cyber security does not even appear as one of DFAIT’s “priority commitments for 2011-2012”. Unless there is some hidden logic behind this supine indifference, the Canadian government is conceding the future of cyberspace to others ….“
• Remembering peacekeepers again this weekend  “Royal Galipeau, Member of Parliament for Ottawa—Orléans, representing the Honourable Steven Blaney, Minister of Veterans Affairs, along with General Walt Natynczyk, Chief of the Defence Staff, Graham Muir, Assistant RCMP Commissioner (Retired), and Sharon Woodburn, RCMP Chief Superintendent, will participate in a commemorative ceremony to mark National Peacekeepers’ Day. The ceremony honours and remembers Canadian Armed Forces members and members of police forces who have served or are currently serving in peacekeeping operations around the world ….“
• “Logistical, engineering and other issues have prompted Project Ojibwa officials to delay the arrival of the Cold War-era submarine in Port Burwell beyond the target date of Sept. 8.  Ojibwa, currently undergoing work in Hamilton harbour, will still arrive this fall at a date soon to be set.  “The delay is not going to be a long one,” said project co-ordinator Dan McNeil.  Aside from the challenge of converting a vessel designed for use in the sea into a building compliant with the Ontario Building Code, McNeil said the delay will cause less disruption to local businesses at the tail end of the tourist season ….”
• More on Dieppe, and one academic’s theory for the reason behind the raid  “New research suggests the real intent of the historic raid on Dieppe in 1942 was to steal a machine that would help crack top-secret German codes.  Military historian David O’Keefe spent 15 years searching through the once-classified and ultra-secret war files and says the real purpose behind the Dieppe operation—which cost hundreds of Canadian soldiers their lives — was to capture advanced coding technology from the German headquarters near the French beach.  “For years, so many veterans, men who stormed the beaches and ended up in prisoners of war camps, had no clue what the reason was that they were there,” O’Keefe tells Global National’s Christina Stevens.  “They had their own missions, but they did not understand what the driving force was behind the raid.” ….” – more on the raid here (Government of Canada Info-machine) and academic’s theory here (Milnet.ca)
• Someone REALLY doesn’t like the Snowbirds…. “…. We read how this performance “often manages to pull in extra donations from the awestruck audience” for a charity which helps children.  The accompanying photos of blue summer skies with a giant heart made by the jets are good at distracting us from the real role of military jets, but the military connection is not altogether hidden: “From the white smoke ribbon produced for the last man to die in Afghanistan to the plumes of jet stream left by their dog fights, each manoeuvre leaves the audience more enamored.”  The implications of the phrase “the last man to die in Afghanistan” are clear. The sound and smoke of military aircraft overhead are supposed to fill our hearts with nationalistic pride, a pride in this case founded in our power over others and an acceptance of the necessity of military action.  This bid for the citizenry’s acceptance of Canada’s military operations is strengthened by the warm fuzzy association of jet aircraft with charities benefitting children.  The reality is quite different: The Canadian Air Force recently carried out a “helping children” campaign in Libya. Commanded by Canadian Lt.-Gen. Charles Bouchard, NATO planes destroyed much of Libya “to protect innocent lives.” The country now lies in ruins with warring factions imprisoning and executing their rivals. Libya’s Great Man-Made River, for example (which, in an amazing feat of engineering, uses the largest underground network of pipes and aqueducts in the world to tap into water underneath the Sahara and irrigate farms and supply drinking water) was bombed by pilots trained in Snowbird type jets. Of course only countries which don’t have an air force are bombed, so there are no “dogfights”, only “aerial acrobatics.”  The general population must always be misled, distracted and softened up in order to support blatant imperialist interventions like Afghanistan and Libya and beyond.  The family-friendly Snowbird display is a powerful tool in this campaign ….”