MILNEWS.ca News Highlights – 30 Jul 11

• Libya Mission  “Canada has joined an air war of a different kind in the skies over Libya, one where persuasion and sometimes insults are the weapons. Canadian CP-140 Aurora surveillance planes recently started broadcasting propaganda messages aimed at forces loyal to Libyan strongman Moammar Gadhafi. “It’s a psychological warfare operation, or PSYOPS, initially started by the Americans but now overseen by NATO _ the kind of mission western militaries are reluctant to talk about openly. The Canadian broadcasts are relatively benign in comparison to some of the harsher messages NATO has aimed at Gadhafi’s troops, in which women’s voices are telling them to stop “killing the children.” The Canadian messages, in English, are read hourly during patrols along the Libyan coast over AM/FM frequencies that Libyans usually monitor. “For your safety return to your family and your home,” says the message, which can be heard over unencrypted frequencies the military uses to broadcast basic information. “The Gadhafi regime forces are violating United Nations resolution 1973.” The message goes on to urge Gadhafi’s troops not to take part in further hostilities and not to harm their fellow countrymen …. ”
• Afghanistan (1)  CF Info-Machine is starting to share more info on the new mission.  “In every practical sense, the Consolidated Fielding Centre (CFC) is the birthplace of the Afghan National Army. Located in the expansive Pol-e-Charki military reserve in Kabul’s eastern outskirts, the CFC is where the ANA forms its units, equips and trains them, and then validates that training before deploying them to operational corps. More than 100 Canadian Forces members deployed in the Kabul area on Operation ATTENTION serve at CFC. Most of them are advisors to the experienced Afghan soldiers of the CFC training staff ….”
• Afghanistan (2)  More from the CF Info-Machine on the training mission (video – transcript). 
• Afghanistan (3)  It’s not just military folks leaving Afghanistan.  “A contractor for the Canadian military will be bringing its 370 employees home from Afghanistan as the Canadian mission there winds down. More than 60% of those employees call eastern Ontario home. “I would be lying if I said a lot of our folks weren’t looking for jobs online, even though they’re stationed in Afghanistan,” Derek Wills said from his Inverary home yesterday. Wills is a human resources manager with SNC-Lavalin PAE Inc. — the company with a $600- million contract to support Canadian Forces missions overseas. The company started with an office in Kingston in 2003. Since then, it has expanded from a one-person operation on Queen Street to the main civilian support system for the Canadian mission in Kandahar. Wills said employees in Afghanistan know their jobs will be terminated, but they don’t know when ….”
• “Canada’s military police received 784 complaints of physical and sexual assault, death and other incidents causing physical harm in 2010 — more than in any of the past four years, according to the Canadian Forces Provost Marshal’s annual report. The force received 176 reports of sexual assault and 518 of assault during the year — numbers one military expert says are worrisome. “Here, we have individuals who are well-paid, disciplined and operating within a hierarchical system,” said Michel Drapeau, a retired colonel who now practises and teaches military law. The numbers are up from 2009, when the police force received 166 reports of sexual assault and 514 of assault, according to the report. “Forces are there to protect Canadians and Canada . . . . Men and women are working alongside each other. There’s cause for alarm there.” ….”  The latest annual report is accessible here.
• “A Congolese man accused by the Canadian government of being complicit in war crimes, and facing deportation, says he’s never so much as killed a cat. Abraham Bahaty Bayavuge says he was a simple computer technician in his native land and has denied any wrongdoing during a detention review Friday before the Immigration and Refugee Board. Bayavuge is the fifth person arrested from a list of 30 alleged war criminals publicly posted last week by the Conservative government. But he scoffed at the attempt to depict him as a threat to society. In the seven years he lived here, openly and freely between 2000 and 2007, he said the worst thing he ever did was get parking tickets for failing to move his car. “Not yesterday, not today, not tomorrow, can anyone prove that I killed even one cat, one cat, he told the hearing. “I wouldn’t take a human life, I respect human beings” ….”
• “Chilling admissions of machine-gunning villages, assisting in torture and throwing bodies from a helicopter were made by one man on the government’s recently released list of most-wanted suspected war criminals. And he’s still at large in Canada. “In November 1987 I was part of a helicopter crew involved in the murder of two civilians. They were shot in my helicopter, in my presence, by army personnel on suspicion of being terrorists,” Jose Domingo Malaga Arica admitted to immigration officials. “Their bodies were weighted down with rocks and pushed out of the aircraft into a river.” Malaga, a former soldier in the Peruvian army, described his years of service in a written statement to a Convention Refugee Determination Division board ….”
• Niiiiiiiice…. “Emotions are running high in Forest Lawn where a group with ties to known white supremacists seems intent on recruiting like-minded people through a poster campaign. The black-and-white posters, with statements like “Immigration costs Canadian taxpayers $23 billion annually” coupled with statistics purporting to reflect Canadian immigration and unemployment, have been glued to bus stations, light standards and telephone poles throughout the southeast neighbourhood. At the bottom, the words “Does this seem right to you?” are followed by “If not, contact.” A phone number and e-mail address are printed, along with the website to the international white supremacist group known as Blood and Honour ….”
• “A watchdog has given Canada’s overseas eavesdropping agency a good report card, but has hinted that the secretive organization may occasionally push the boundaries when it comes to collecting information on Canadians. Communications Security Establishment Canada collects foreign intelligence for Ottawa, but is not allowed to spy on Canadians, whether they’re living at home or abroad. But an annual report by CSEC commissioner Robert Decary suggests the agency “may use information about Canadians” when seeking new sources of foreign intelligence. Decary says CSEC only pursues such methods “when other means have been exhausted” and when it believes they are likely to turn up new sources of information. “CSEC conducts these activities infrequently, but they can be a valuable tool in meeting Government of Canada intelligence priorities,” Decary writes in his latest report, which was released last week ….”  Full report available here.
• “Canada’s ability to comply with its international obligations could be compromised if a decision staying the extradition of Abdullah Khadr is allowed to stand, the federal government said Friday. In asking the Supreme Court of Canada to take up the case, Ottawa argues the lower courts were wrong to prevent an “admitted” terrorist from facing trial in the U.S. “This case raises issues of national importance that require consideration by this court,” Ottawa states in its leave-to-appeal request obtained by The Canadian Press. Principles of fundamental justice “should not be used to impose the technicalities of our criminal law on a foreign partner.” ….”  More on this here.