MILNEWS.ca News Highlights – August 14, 2012

• Syria (1)  Remember the money Canada’s sharing to help out those “war-weary Syrians”?  “Canada is giving two million dollars to a group collecting money on behalf of a charity whose Pakistan office was once run by alleged al-Qaeda financier Ahmed Said Khadr, the late father of Guantanamo Bay detainee Omar Khadr.  On Saturday, Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird announced the donation to “Canadian Relief for Syria.” The group is not a registered charity, though its website says it is in the process of obtaining Canada Revenue Agency registration.  In the meantime, anyone wishing to donate to Canadian Relief for Syria is directed by its website to Human Concern International, an Ottawa-based charity. “Founded on Islamic principles of charity and goodwill to humanity, HCI has always believed in helping the needy regardless of their race, nationality or religion,” its website says.  Human Concern International was established in 1980 to help Afghans who had fled to Pakistan to escape the war in their home country.  In 1995, Osama bin Laden told an Egyptian interviewer that Human Concern International funded an al-Qaeda charitable front called “Blessed Relief.” Khadr was in charge of Human Concern International’s Pakistan office at this time. Khadr was arrested on charges of helping an Islamist bombing attack against the Egyptian embassy in Pakistan but was later released following an appeal by then-prime minister Jean Chrétien ….”
  
• Syria (2)  How some folks think Canada should help  “…. Canada’s government has also offered strong support to the Syrian National Council – one of the primary opposition groups – said University of Waterloo Mideast expert Dr. Bessma Momani.  The SNC was allowed to meet in Canada’s embassy in Turkey, and the federal government has also given them support in terms of logistics, she noted.  “We have been very active in helping out the opposition,” she said. “We don’t see ourselves playing a prominent role, but I’m told we are very helpful to the SNC.”  But Momani says arming the rebels with surface-to-air missiles would help level the playing field against the Syrian military and air force’s superior firepower ….”
  
• Syria (3)  One commentator’s take on Canada’s take  “…. If we want to prevent Syria from becoming another deadly playground, like Lebanon, we are going to have to engage not just with occasional diplomacy, but with our wallets and our wits.”
  
• Afghanistan  One commentator’s take on training Afghan security forces  “….  Canada still has about 900 troops deployed to Afghanistan to assist in the training of the Afghan security forces until the projected pullout of U.S. combat troops at the end of 2014.  That is still plenty of time for us to commit to and produce the nucleus of a professional, literate, disciplined and motivated Afghan security force.  Or we could just continue to do the minimum and keep both eyes glued on our eventual exit some 30 months from now.”
  
• “There’s growing concern among veterans a big chunk of a planned multi-million settlement over the clawback of military pensions could be gobbled up by legal fees.  One member of a class-action lawsuit has written to Defence Minister Peter MacKay, asking that the federal government pay the cost of lawyers over and above any out-of-court compensation that arises from upcoming negotiations.  “I hope that you make a separate reasonable payment to lawyers in accordance with the reasonable fees set by precedent in the courts,” wrote Louise Gagnon, a retired major.  “This payment should not come from the monies contractually and honourably owed us.” ….”
  
• CFB Goose Bay getting a load o’ environmental clean-up work – more in “What’s Canada Buying?” later today….
• Saving the turtles at CFB Gagetown  “Canadian Forces Base Gagetown has joined with a U.S. conservation organization to track the wood turtle, which is on the endangered species list in the United States and is moving up the “at risk” species list in Canada.  Deanna McCullum, a biologist at the military training base, said the measures the base took after a previous study in 2003 seem to be helping to stabilize the turtle population.  There are now about 75 to 100 turtles in a five-kilometre stretch of river by the base ….”
• Hunt for the next CDS:  Someone old could be new again?  “Retired three-star army general Andrew Leslie has been interviewed as a possible successor to Gen. Walt Natynczyk as chief of defence staff, Postmedia News has learned.  According to several recent accounts from those who work closely with Natynczyk, the former tank commander is still heavily involved in the military’s day to day operations. However, the top brass believes it is only a matter of weeks, if not days, before Natynczyk steps aside.  Leslie, an artillery officer, was the author of a report the military commissioned two years ago that provided a broad blueprint for steep staff cuts to military personnel and civilians at national defence headquarters. As part of a major structural rethink, it also called for shrinking the number of civilian contractors at the Department of National Defence ….”
• Minister:  They were working, not just fishing!  “Federal Defence Minister Peter MacKay is defending search and rescue officials who’ve come under fire after a photograph of military squadron members fishing in remote Labrador lake was made public.  “They weren’t on a fishing trip,” said MacKay, speaking at a Conservative Party Atlantic caucus meeting in Happy Valley–Goose Bay, Labrador, on Monday.  “They were there working and during that time there was fishing, but let’s be clear that wasn’t the intent, that wasn’t why they were there. They were there on a particular mission.” ….”
• Way Up North (1)  Speaking of environmental clean up, a detailed update on how cleaning up the Distant Early Warning (DEW) Line is going  “In a low-flying Twin Otter, the glaciers of Cumberland Peninsula seem close enough to touch, snaking down from peaks as far as the eye can see.  The view is a stark, stunning expanse of white ice and grey mountains, with polished layers of more recently exposed rock as glaciers retreat ever further.  “That’s global warming,” says Dave Eagles, an environmental engineer leading a team of federal scientists and officials flying to Cape Dyer, at the peninsula’s eastern tip.  Later, as the plane crosses the milky waters of Sunneshine Fjord, human influence on a pristine environment becomes as obvious as a boot cleat in the face.  From the sky, it looks like a giant post-modern flag on the tundra — 5,000 neatly aligned black vinyl bags and white crates, filled, Eagles explains, with soil contaminated by PCBs and lead.  The plane lands for a closer look on an unpaved runway, marked for approach by long rows of rusty oil drums recycled from the many thousands found scattered across the tundra.  On a hill in the distance, elevated on steel stilts, a huge geodesic white dome looms over the site like a giant golf ball or alien spacecraft. It’s a “radome,” the unmistakable symbol of the Distant Early Warning Line, a series of 63 U.S.-built radar stations across the Arctic, most of them on Canadian soil ….”
• Way Up North (2)  Who else is headed north to take part in Operation Nanook?  “A U.S. Coast Guard vessel based in Newport, R.I., is heading to Arctic waters.  The Coast Guard Cutter Juniper is scheduled to depart Thursday. It intends to travel about 2,300 miles to the northernmost region of the high Arctic.  The Juniper will conduct safety and security operations with naval and coast guard units from Denmark and Canada in a operation known as Operation Nanook.  The cutter’s commanding officer, Lt. Cmdr. Brian Caudle, said the mission provides an ‘‘ideal opportunity’’ to strengthen relationships with international partners ….”
• Some recent history from the RCAF Info-machine  “No one on board Her Majesty’s Canadian Ship (HMCS) Algonquin can remember the last time a Canadian CH-124 Sea King helicopter dropped five exercise torpedoes in one day. But, that’s exactly what happened July 19 during Exercise Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC), which took place around the Hawaiian Islands from June 29 to August 3, 2012 ….”
• Khadr Boy  “American authorities are expected to hand videotapes of Omar Khadr to the Canadian government this week now that the head of the military commission has signed off on their release.  Khadr’s Canadian defence team, meanwhile, served three affidavits on the government on Monday in support of its Federal Court application to force Public Safety Minister Vic Toews to make a decision on the prisoner’s transfer from Guantanamo Bay to Canada.  The government has a month to respond but the lawyers said they were hoping the hearing would be expedited.  Toews has demanded access to the tapes of two mental-health assessments done of Khadr prior to his trial two years ago in Guantanamo Bay.  One assessment was by Dr. Michael Welner, the prosecution’s star witness at Khadr’s military commission trial in October 2010. Welner concluded Khadr, 25, was an unrepentant and dangerous jihadist.  The other was by a U.S. military psychologist, Maj. Alan Hopewell, who considered Khadr to be defensive and manipulative, but also mentally stable, upbeat, and an independent thinker who sees himself as a Canadian.  Bruce MacDonald, the convening authority for the military commissions, agreed immediately to release the tapes ….”
• A bit of WW2 history unveiled at the Canadian War Museum  “The Canadian War Museum today unveiled the latest edition to its excellent LeBreton Gallery, the garage-like space in the building’s southeast corner that houses a very cool collection of military vehicles, artillery and one large jet plane. The latest edition is a restored M1917 Six-Ton Tank, one of only two such machines thought to exist in Canada from the 950 manufactured by the Americans at the end of the First World War. The tanks came off the line in the United States too late, though, to see any action in Europe. Nonetheless, this tank played a key role in the developed of Canada’s armoured capabilities in the Second World War ….” – more here.
  

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