MILNEWS.ca News Highlights – 25 Jul 11

• Supporting the troops, one steak at a time.  “It’s been a little over a year since Harvey Dann started his Sponsor a Steak campaign. Dann owns Alert Agri Distributors, a West St. Paul, Man., company that exports fat cattle to the U.S. It’s been a good business for Dann, and he’s been thankful for it. Last year, celebrating his 25th year in business, Dann decided to give something back. He started the campaign to feed steaks to Canadian soldiers who were serving overseas. In the past year, Dann has spread the word at various beef industry meetings, and gathered support, with a goal of raising about $110,000 to purchase the steaks. A couple of weeks ago, Dann accomplished his goal. He called the News with the word that he had succeeded in raising enough money for military base parties across Canada, including Edmonton; Shilo, Man.; Gagetown, N.B.; Valcartier, Que.; and Petawawa, Ont. The base parties for Edmonton and Shilo were held in June, 2010 ….”
• Well done Winnipeg Jets!  “The new Winnipeg Jets logo is doing more for the Canadian Forces than just paying tribute. True North Sports and Entertainment, which owns the team, will give $1 million to military charities over the next ten years. Maj.-Gen. Alain Parent, commander of 1 Canadian Air Division, said it was easy to partner with the new hockey outfit. “Winnipeg has had a long association with the air force,” he said. “Blue Bombers and Jets are both aircraft that have served or are serving the air force.” “In turn, we consider Winnipeg to be the heart of the air force,” he said. Money will be donated to the Military Families Fund, the Air Force Heritage Fund and Soldier On ….”
• “Canada’s defence minister met Sunday with Canadian Rangers ahead of a major, annual Arctic sovereignty operation. Defence Minister Peter MacKay presented members of the 1st Canadian Ranger Patrol Group with Canadian Forces decoration medals in honour of their 12 years of service. Starting Aug. 8, the 1st Ranger patrol group will take part in Operation Nanook, the military’s annual northern training exercise. The Rangers, a sub-component of the Canadian Forces Reserve, patrol remote parts of Canada’s North, but were also called to Ontario last week to help evacuate First Nations communities threatened by forest fires ….”  More on the awards, as well as Ranger recruiting numbers, from the CF Info-Machine here.
• Afghanistan  “The loss of a not-so secret base in Dubai last year forced the Canadian military to use its unarmed Airbus planes for flights into Kandahar Airfield during the final phase of the combat mission, ministerial briefing notes say. “Pressures imposed by the closure of Camp Mirage and the need to maximize flexibility in providing strategic airlift to support OP Athena have culminated in the (censored) using C-150 flights in KAF,” said a Nov. 1, 2010, briefing note prepared for Defence Minister Peter MacKay. The Canadian military designates its Airbus passenger jets as the CC-150 Polaris but often refers to it simply as the C-150. The air force initially certified the Airbus aircraft to fly into the war zone in 2007. But their use, according to the documents, was considered a “last resort” and a “calculated risk” by commanders on the ground ….”  Um, the Hercules planes flying into and out of Kandahar are “unarmed”, too, although the article is a bit more specific about the risk later on:  “…. The Airbus planes do not have a defensive suite to deflect incoming missiles and are generally considered a civilian aircraft not suited for a war zone ….”
• What’s Canada Buying:  Big Honkin’ Ship Edition (1)  “Vancouver should brace itself for significant change if Vancouver Shipyards Company wins a portion of the $35-billion in federal contracts for new warships and other vessels this fall, a company executive says. In an interview shortly after the company submitted its bid, John Shaw, a vice-president at the parent company Seaspan Marine Corp., said winning the contract would mean expansion of training and apprenticeship programs, and a search for more than 2,000 new employees. “We would be rebuilding an industry. … We’re at a point where we would have to train a whole new generation on shipbuilding,” Mr. Shaw said. “It would be a huge change here.” ….”
• What’s Canada Buying:  Big Honkin’ Ship Edition (2)  “…. That isn’t to say money won’t be wasted or mistakes made. This project is too big and too spread out across the country to work perfectly. But MacKay’s well-timed slap three years ago might have set the stage for a more effective and coherent shipbuilding program this time around. And that is what’s important. Expensive as it is, this project will provide much more than cash and jobs: It will encourage technology development and trade, and stimulate business right across Canada. It had better be done right.”
• What’s Canada Buying?  Remember research being done on mine plows from a few years back?  Looks like a bit more work’s being done.
• “Senator Yonah Martin, on behalf of the Honourable Steven Blaney, Minister of Veterans Affairs, was joined by the Honourable Sung Choon Park, Minister of Patriots and Veterans Affairs for the Republic of Korea, to mark the 58th anniversary of the Korean War Armistice and the service and sacrifice of Veterans of the Korean War. A brief ceremony was held today at the Monument to Canadian Fallen followed by a wreath-laying ceremony at the National War Memorial …. From 1950 to 1953, more than 26,000 Canadians served in Korea, working to restore peace and stability to the area. There were 516 Canadians who made the ultimate sacrifice in the pursuit of peace, freedom and justice for the people of South Korea ….”
• More on the War of 1812 commemorations coming up. “Next year, Canada will commemorate the 200th anniversary of the War of 1812 — a three-year war that sent the invading Americans retreating home on the losing side of history. So will Canadians, known for their quiet patriotism, celebrate that victory with respect for our now closest ally and most valuable trading partner? Or, will it turn into a scene of chauvinistic triumphalism, a trait sometimes fairly or unfairly attributed to Canada’s neighbours to the south? “You don’t want to all of a sudden say, ‘We’ve kicked your butts,’ but there’s ways of presenting it,” said Clark Bernat, manager of Niagara Falls Museums, who is among the planners for local upcoming bicentennial celebrations in the city. “This is a war that has led to 200 years of peace between our two countries. There was a reason for them to do battle 200 years ago and we have to provide the reasons why it happened and what the results were.” ….”

MILNEWS.ca News Highlights – 2 Feb 11

• Oopsie…. “The Canadian Forces have handed out tens of millions of taxpayers’ dollars in benefits over the past five years without the government’s approval. But it was bureaucratic bungling, not malfeasance, that caused the costly oversight.  While Vice-Admiral Bruce Donaldson, the vice-chief of defence staff, said Tuesday the payments were made in good faith, “we didn’t do our homework … we didn’t make sure that we actually had the authority to do some of these things.”  At issue for CF brass is that the Treasury Board oversees the military’s benefits and compensation regime, and has a specific list of what is allowed.  But as the Canadian Forces expanded and changed in recent years, bureaucrats at National Defence didn’t keep up with the rules.  Many of the unauthorized benefits, paid out to between 3,000 and 7,000 members and their families, were reimbursements for certain domestic expenses and others related to non-Afghanistan deployments.  For example, reimbursing a member who had paid to store their car while he or she was sent out of the country, or paying to cut the grass while they were away on the job.  But they also include the costs for repatriation ceremonies of fallen soldiers and, even though Donaldson said the unauthorized payments would stop Wednesday, the ramp ceremonies will continue with private funds, “to continue supporting the families of the fallen to make sure that we’re doing the right thing by our people.”  He added the Forces will also keep paying for family members to visit wounded or sick CF members, some of which were also unauthorized ….” More here.  To be fair, some of this appears to be doing the right thing (helping family see wounded members, or achieve closure by visiting where their loved ones died), but not following ALL the steps.
• Wanna buy a slightly used Canadian Chinook helicopter? “The National Defence department has put “For Sale” signs on the air force’s Chinook helicopters in Afghanistan — two years after taxpayers shelled out $282 million to buy them. The department recently sounded out allies in the war-torn country to see whether any are interested in the heavy battlefield transports, bought second-hand from the U.S. Army …. So far there have been no takers for the five CH-147D choppers, which were rushed into Afghanistan after the Manley commission made it a condition of Ottawa continuing the war until 2011 ….”
• Longer way home from Afghanistan = bigger bill to come home.  “It will probably cost Canada an extra $90 million to sustain and then wind up its mission in Kandahar by the end of the year because its military aircraft are still banned from the United Arab Emirates, according to calculations by Postmedia News.  Several senior officers have confirmed that the previously cited $300 million — which was widely reported in the media and attacked by the opposition in November — was far too high as the cost of leaving the U.A.E. base.  But the military and the Harper government have not provided a breakdown of the additional costs that will be incurred because the military has had to shift its air hub for Kandahar from Camp Mirage in Dubai to a U.S. airbase at Spangdahlem, Germany ….”
• The NDP’s still trying to get Canada to pull ALL troops out of Afghanistan.  “I have a petition signed by dozens of Canadians calling upon the Government of Canada to end Canada’s military involvement in Afghanistan.  In May 2008, Parliament passed a resolution to withdraw the Canadian Forces by July 2011. The Prime Minister, with the agreement of the Liberal Party, broke his oft-repeated promise to honour the parliamentary motion and therefore refuses to put it to a parliamentary vote in the House …. Therefore, the petitioners call upon the Prime Minister to honour the will of Parliament and bring the troops home now.” Note to NDP:  the motion was passed in MARCH 2008, and only says Canada’ll be out of KANDAHAR, not Afghanistan.
• Taliban Propaganda Watch:  Attacks alleged in Kandahar, Zabul and claims of a UAV being shot down over Nimroz.
• “Parliamentarians were told Tuesday that Canada’s ability to search the Atlantic is severely inadequate for emergency calls that happen to come at night. While military search and rescue crews can usually respond to an emergency within an hour, that depends on a call coming during daylight. At night, two hours is considered permissible. Paul Clay, president of Seacom International, a St. John’s company that specializes in emergency response plans in the offshore oil industry, told the parliamentary defence committee that Canada is falling short. “The intention of search and rescue times is to save life and the attention of those resources is to save life,” Clay said. “Canada’s two-hour response is the longest in the world, as far as I know. It is grossly in my opinion, where it shouldn’t be. We should lower those times.” ….” More on this here.
• No Arctic mapping camp THIS year. “The Canadian government is abandoning plans for a remote scientific camp on the Arctic Ocean ice this year, citing dangerously thin ice conditions. Over the past five years, scientists have set up ice camps in remote areas of the Arctic Ocean as they gather extensive mapping data that could help Canada claim a greater area of the seabed under the Law of the Sea convention … This year, 25 Canadian scientists were to conduct their mapping work from an ice camp about 400 kilometres offshore. Last year, a similar camp housed 12 researchers on an ice floe on the Arctic Ocean, about 250 kilometres offshore from Borden Island in the High Arctic. But that ice floe started breaking up, said Jacob Verhoef, director of Canada’s mapping program with the Natural Resources Department ….”
• Canada and the U.K. may be talking about building a big navy ship together. “Britain is in talks with Canada about a possible joint program to develop a frigate for their respective navies, according to U.K. Defence Minister Gerald Howarth.  Responding to questions from parliamentarians Jan. 31, Howarth said the British government is in “close discussion with the Canadians” on a possible collaborative program to develop the Global Combat Ship, destined to replace Type 23 frigates in Royal Navy service by the start of the next decade.  The minister said Australia, Malaysia, New Zealand and Turkey have expressed interest in the warship program, to be called the Type 26 in Royal Navy service, when Defence Secretary Liam Fox recently visited the various countries ….”
• More testing for Canada’s Sea King replacement. “The new CH-148 Cyclone, which arrived at Shearwater January 6, will be undergoing further testing on board HMCS Montréal. The tests will last several weeks, under the direction of Sikorsky International Operations Inc., prime contractor on the Maritime Helicopter Project. The CH-148 Cyclone will provide anti-submarine surveillance, and will have enhanced search and rescue and tactical transport capabilities. Tests of the operational limits of a ship-borne helicopter will make a notable contribution to the Project, which seeks to replace the existing Sea King fleet that has been in service since the 1960s …. “
• What’s Canada Buying? New Trenton hangar build, Electric UAVs and Air Force Outerwear (via Army.ca)
• Canada’s PM on Egypt:  “Following President Mubarak’s announcement …. that he will not seek re-election, Canada reiterates its support for the Egyptian people as they transition to new leadership and a promising future.  Canada supports universal values – including freedom, democracy and justice – and the right to the freedom of assembly, speech and information. As Egypt moves towards new leadership, we encourage all parties to work together to ensure an orderly transition toward a free and vibrant society in which all Egyptians are able to enjoy these rights and freedoms – not a transition that leads to violence, instability and extremism …. We urge all parties in Egypt to renounce violence and allow peaceful and meaningful dialogue between the people and government to address political, economic and social concerns. This dialogue should lead to free and fair elections and a government that supports universal values.”
• Meanwhile, Canada’s cranking up the diplomatic machine to get more help quicker to Canadians needing a hand in Egypt. “The frustrating wait has ended for many Canadians who were trying to get the federal government to tell them how to escape the turmoil that has enveloped Egypt.  The Foreign Affairs Department’s decision to ramp up service at its operations centre in Ottawa, to deploy more staff to Europe and Cairo and to add several new telephone lines eased the backlog of people who could not get through to consular officials to ask for help.  “There are bumps in the road that obviously you wish you hadn’t encountered but I think there’s been an outstanding level of service and responsiveness to the situation,” Diane Ablonczy, the Minister of State for Consular Affairs, said Tuesday.  In the end, a large number of Canadians passed on the opportunity to leave the country, opting instead to wait out the unrest that shows some signs of abating ….”
• NDP MP wants 5 May to be designated as “Maple Leaf and Tulip Day” to honour Canada’s links to the Netherlands during World War 2 (via milnet.ca).  Note:  private members bills like these rarely pass.
• Jamaica’s trainee military pilots have a nicer place to live, thanks to help from Canada.

MILNEWS.ca News Highlights – 5 Nov 10

• Canada’s Governor General and Commander-in-Chief David Johnston is back from his first visit to Afghanistan. - more on that from Postmedia News and the Canadian Press.
• According to QMI/Sun Media:  “Five previously unnamed lakes in northeastern Manitoba now bear the names of some of the province’s fallen sons. Pte. Lane Watkins, Cpl. James Arnal, Cpl. Michael Seggie, Sapper Sean Greenfield and Trooper Corey Hayes (links to entries in the Canadian Virtual War Memorial) were honoured by the Manitoba government during a ceremony at the legislature Thursday where it was announced small lakes northwest of Utik Lake, located about 50 kilometres north of Oxford House, will forever bear the names of the fallen soldiers …. The families of Watkins, Arnal, Seggie and Greenfield attended the ceremony and were presented with plaques by Premier Greg Selinger.  Hayes will be honoured at a separate ceremony at a later date as his family was unable to attend Thursday …. “  More from the Winnipeg Free Press here and CTV Winnipeg here – Manitoba’s news release here.  One of the parents, though, is quoted saying “standing in line behind an NHL hockey player takes the lustre off the honour”.
• The Toronto Star looks over a statistical snapshot of Canadians wounded more than two years ago:  “Gun shot wounds, buried bombs, vehicle rollovers, rocket attacks and suicide bombers. For seven months in 2008 — from March to September — those were just a few of the battlefield traumas suffered by Canadian troops as they tangled with insurgents. They are the very incidents that the military has tried to keep out of the public eye with its decision to keep details on wounded soldiers under wraps. The policy of releasing the number of injured soldiers only once a year — on Dec. 31 — has obscured the intensity of fight facing Canadian soldiers, as well as the nature of the sometimes life-altering injuries. It has also given Canadians back home a mental buffer against the numbing realities of war — soldiers who fight hard also get hurt ….”
• Going into more detail, the Toronto Star also shares the ongoing story of a Sudbury reservist, Bill Kerr, as he learns to live without his legs and one arm:  “Cpl. Billy Kerr has a burning sensation in his heel and on the last two toes on his right foot. “I look down and I want to scratch them,” he says. “I feel it.” He can’t scratch them. He doesn’t have heels. Or toes. On the morning of Oct. 15, 2008, he stepped inside a mud compound in Afghanistan shortly before noon and a bomb ripped off his legs above the knee and his left arm a few inches below his elbow. Kerr, Canada’s only triple amputee to return from Afghanistan, remembers everything about that day ….”
• More on Canada leaving Camp Mirage in Dubai, via the Globe & Mail:  “…. Military planners were given one month to vacate a base that was not only an operational hub, but one they had been counting for Canada’s withdrawal from Afghanistan next year.  “It was a scramble,” chief of Defence staff General Walter Natynczyk said during a visit to Kandahar Airfield. “We had to move a lot of equipment over a month’s period of time.” Much of the logistical capacity has been transferred to an American base in Spangdahlem, Germany …. (and) the Canadian government was in the process of hammering out a memorandum of understanding with another country for use of an additional site ….” More on that from the Canadian Press.  (P.S.:  If you you believe the G&M’s anonymous “government source”, it wasn’t cheap, either.)
• How’s Canada’s withdrawal from Afghanistan going down in some quarters?  Not well, according to Macleans.ca:  “In private, American and British military officers have never hidden their disdain for the way Canada is handling this pullout. In February, a British general I was speaking with in Kabul called it “bad campaign work, and bad coalition work”. When I was back there in late September, I asked an American two-star general working at the IJC what they were going to do when Canada left. He sighed, then shrugged his shoulders ….” (Hat tip to Mark at unambig.com)  First to pipe up on the record (politely), via the Canadian Press:  Estonia.
• Some details about how Canadian troops are helping Afghan troops train, from the Canadian Forces information machine:  “4th Company is just about ready for the big time. The artillery battery of Kandak 4, 1st Brigade, 205th (Hero) Corps, Afghan National Army (ANA), showed its stuff recently in a highly successful training shoot with live ammunition …. The soldiers of the Kandak 4 Artillery Mentor Team — Warrant Officer John Lannigan, WO Steph Meinert, Sergeant Steph Houde, Bombardier Matt McCron and (Lieutenant Joshua Barber) — have worked tirelessly for seven months with 4th Company ….”
• Russia to NATO:  “Hey, whaddya doin’, driving the Taliban outta Kandahar into northern Afghanistan?  You think we want THEM as neighbours again?”
• Taliban Propaganda Watch: Usual list o’ alleged attacks in Kandahar, Uruzgan and Zabul, plus a pack o’ lies interview with an alleged Taliban commander in Arghandab.
• Canada’s Special Operations Command (CANSOFCOM) has a new (and first-ever) Colonel Commandant, according to this CF news release.
• Well done to VIA Rail, which is offering discounted rail travel year-round to “Forces’ members and veterans who qualify” – waiting to hear back from VIA regarding what kind of proof you need of former military service to get the discount.

Enjoy your weekend!

TALKIN’ TO THE TALIBAN: When is “Talking” Not REALLY Talking?

The buzz continues about talking with the Taliban, and the denials that earlier talks/discussions/whatever happened with UN Uber-envoy Kai Eide in Dubai.

Item: An official statement attributed to the Taliban’s “Leadership Council” says:

The Leadership Council of the Islamic Emirate, on the basis of its previous legitimate stance, refutes the  rumors in some media reports, about negotiation between representatives of the Islamic Emirate and, UN Special Envoy, Kei Ide (sic).  The Leadership Council considers this  mere futile and baseless rumors, being a machination against Jihad and Mujahideen who are waging Jihad   against the invaders. The Leadership Council once again emphasizes continuation of Islamic Jihad against all invaders as a mean to frustrate these conspiracies.

Item (Scribd.com):  A Taliban spokesperson, reportedly in contact with one of the “usual suspect” propaganda sites, is even more specific:

We the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan and the world keeps hearing about meetings taking places between the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan and the invaders and its stooges, be it in Saudi Arabia or Dubai, we the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan and the world would like to see some evident of these meetings, the names of the individuals who have participated in these meetings, because no member of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan has taking part in any of these meetings, be it in Saudi Arabia or Dubai, these type of false statements by the invaders and its stooges are to confuse the people, thus diverting the realities of the invasion …. no member of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan council has met with the UN representative for Afghanistan to discuss the possibility of laying down their arms.

This seems to be the party line anytime talks of any kind have been reported by the mainstream media (MSM).  But does that mean nobody’s talking?

A recent article (PDF) West Point’s Combating Terrorist Centre’s The Sentinel, authored by the Centre’s Vahid Brown (who also contributes to the Jihadica blog), paints an interesting picture of Osama Bin Laden’s oath of loyalty to the Taliban’s Mullah Omar.  It’s worth reading in its entirety, but here’s the main takeaway offering some insight into the “Talkin’ to the Taliban” issue.

Much has been made of Osama’s oath of loyalty to Mullah Omar as evidence that there’s a tight relationship between Al Queda and the Taliban.  On the other hand, some analysts say it’s more like “friends with benefits”.

According to Brown’s piece, when it came time to declare allegiance to Omar as a way to garner better protection while in Afghanistan, what did wily Osama do?

He had what appears to be a reasonably trusted henchman take the oath for him as a proxy.  And why did the proxy think Osama prefered this to doing it in person?  This, from a posting to a jihadist online forum in 2007:

I asked myself why (Osama) insisted on having me perform the bay’a to Mullah Omar on his behalf.  Why not do it directly?  I think he did it this way in order to leave himself plenty of room to maneuver, in the event that he be pressed on whether or not he indeed pledged allegiance to (Omar).  If circumstances require him to deny it, he can honestly say that he did not, as he did not swear allegiance personally.  And if circumstances require him to confirm the bay’a, he can say he did, ans this will likewise be the truth, as the bay’a was made – if only on his behalf.

Did talks with the Taliban take place?  Did talks take place with people other than Taliban leadership?

Yes they did.

TALIBAN PROPAGANDA WATCH: Talks? What Talks?

28 Jan 10:  We hear UN Uber-envoy Kai Eide had a chance to speak to “Members of the Taliban’s leadership council” in Dubai.

30 Jan 10:  The official Taliban response?

The Shura leadership of Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan in accordance with the position of the former fundamentalist rumors and some world media strongly, which was published on the participation of representatives of the Islamic Emirate in the talks with Kai Eide Special Representative of the United Nations.  Shura is the leadership of the Islamic Emirate of these rumors are baseless and unfounded propaganda ….

Want to read the rest?  Original in Arabic here, clunky Google English translation here and both at non-terrorist site here.

Update (1):  Here’s the official English version at Voice of Jihad, with the PDF at a non-terrorist site here:

The Leadership Council of the Islamic Emirate, on the basis of its previous legitimate stance, refutes the  rumors in some media reports, about negotiation between representatives of the Islamic Emirate and, UN Special Envoy, Kei Ide (sic).  The Leadership Council considers this  mere futile and baseless rumors, being a machination against Jihad and Mujahideen who are waging Jihad   against the invaders. The Leadership Council once again emphasizes continuation of Islamic Jihad against all invaders as a mean to frustrate these conspiracies.