MILNEWS.ca News Highlights – 1 Dec 11

• Way Up North (1)  As Canada says it’ll focus its northern presence on “disaster training” (fourth bullet), DND is looking for someone to train military personnel to plan arctic search and rescue operations - more in the Statement of Work downloadable here (4 page PDF)
• Way Up North (2)  Speaking of search and rescue ….  “The military has struck a handshake deal to have part-time volunteers provide first response search and rescue services in the Arctic, CBC News has learned. Military officials have been negotiating with the Civil Air Search and Rescue Association (CASRA), a national agency that promotes aviation safety and provides air search support. The new deal would see CASRA put volunteers aboard civilian planes to search for downed aircraft, missing hunters or lost adventurers, CBC’s James Cudmore said. The agency will even base planes in four locations across the North ….”
• Way Up North (3)  And what kind of sled would be used for surveillance patrolling?  “The future of Arctic sovereignty will be riding on traditional Inuit wooden sleds that are being assembled by a group of Canadian Rangers in Yellowknife. The nine Rangers have been tasked with building more than 30 qamutiks — sleds that are traditionally used to haul supplies over snow and ice — for use in guarding remote northern regions and promoting Canada’s claim of sovereignty over the Arctic. The Rangers, who were commissioned by the Canadian Ranger Patrol for the sled surveillance project, all hail from Nunavut and include six people chosen from Clyde River and three from Pond Inlet ….”
• From the MP that brought you the “let’s not have to pay for the military” bill, another Private Members Bill, this time on creating a Department of Peace.  Caveat on both these bills:  Private Members Bills have a miniscule chance of passing without government support.
• In spite of the recent unpleasantness in/around the U.K.’s embassy in Tehran, Canada’s keeping it’s facilities open for now.
• Credit where credit is due:  Postmedia News says it will post ATIP-obtained documents with a recent story on the French-version “fracas” behind renaming Canada’s Air Force.  I look forward to the documents being shared.
• Afghanistan (1)  Welcome home TF Canuck folks!  More here.
• Afghanistan (2)  “Hundreds of sea containers stuffed with military gear that were supposed to be returning to Canada are instead languishing at an undisclosed location in Afghanistan because of Pakistan’s decision to close its border to NATO, a military spokesman said Wednesday. Lt.-Cmdr. John Nethercott said the border closure isn’t expected to affect the military’s imminent withdrawal from Kandahar, though he acknowledged there could be complications if Pakistan doesn’t reopen its borders soon. “We’re assessing the situation,” he said. “At this point, there’s no impact on our withdrawal of personnel and no immediate impact on our efforts to repatriate equipment back to Canada by land and sea.” About 1,200 troops are in Kandahar packing up for the imminent end of Canada’s military presence after six years in the southern Afghan province. They have until the end of the year to wrap up their work. High-priority and sensitive equipment is being shipped out by air, while the rest was to be sent by convoy across the Afghan-Pakistan border and down the 1,600-kilometre route to the Indian Ocean for transport by sea. Nethercott said there are containers already gathered at a port in Pakistan, where they were waiting to be loaded onto a ship once the remainder arrived. The containers being held in transit in Afghanistan are not at the Kandahar Airfield, he added, though he would not say where they are. It’s likely they are close to the Afghan-Pakistan border ….”
• “The families of at least four unmarried soldiers killed in Afghanistan have stepped forward to file human-rights complaints. The relatives allege Veterans Affairs discriminates in favour of married troops in the payment of a $250,000 death benefit, The Canadian Press has learned. The cases, which are at the investigation stage, follow the dismissal last week of a similar complaint by the parents of Cpl. Matthew Dinning, who died in an April 2006 Kandahar roadside bombing. A federal human-rights tribunal rejected the complaint of Lincoln and Laurie Dinning because Veterans Affairs abruptly decided to recognize their son’s girlfriend as his common-law spouse, technically making him no longer single. Errol Cushley, the father of Pte. William Cushley, and Beverley Skalrud, the mother of Pte. Braun Scott Woodfield, confirmed they have launched their own challenges of the death stipend, which was instituted as part of an overhaul of veterans benefits in 2006. The families of Trooper Jack Bouthillier and Trooper Marc Diab have launched similar complaints. “You have four men killed in the same battle, three of them are paid $250,000, (but) William does not qualify because he is single. It doesn’t make any sense to me,” said Errol Cushley, who lives near Wallaceburg, Ont. “I always understood you couldn’t discriminate on those grounds.” ….”
• Mark Collins reminds us Canada Command seems to cover more than JUST Canada anymore.
• What’s Canada Buying?  Wanted:  someone to help find better ways to see what shape the oil, fuel is in while the vehicle’s running.
• Hamilton’s Mayor is hiring a former Reserve CO to be (what appears to be) an on-call military consultant.  “A military consultant and a municipal affairs expert are the two newest additions to Mayor Bob Bratina’s staff. In an email sent to councillors Tuesday afternoon, Bratina announced that Lieutenant Colonel Geordie Elms — a defeated Progressive Conservative candidate in October’s provincial election — will take on the role of senior adviser of military heritage and protocol. “Hamilton always has been, historically, a military town. It continues to be. We had 400 people from Hamilton in Kandahar,” Bratina said in an interview. “So it’s important to have a liaison between the mayor’s office and the city. Municipalities have a set of skills and it doesn’t usually include the military.” Former city clerk Kevin Christenson will take on the job of municipal analyst. Bratina said Christenson’s role will be to provide advice and guidance on city issues. “There’s not necessarily a focus,” Bratina said of Christenson’s role. “He may tell us that based on how our office is operating, it may be better to do that or do this,” he said. The two men will act as consultants on an as-needed basis, Bratina said. They will be paid, though the mayor declined to reveal their compensation ….”
• At one level, it appears the Cold War never really ended for some countries.  “Picture it: a junior executive, excited to be travelling to Hong Kong representing his company at the table with potential Chinese investors. Little does he know, they’ll be the ones doing the courting — and the consequences, for his career, and his company, can cost millions. It happens all the time, says Brian McAdam, a former Canadian diplomat who now specializes in Chinese organized crime. “It’s the co-mingling of the oldest profession, and the second oldest profession: prostitution and espionage,” he said. McAdam, who spoke Wednesday at the Canadian Industrial Security Conference in Gatineau, said Canadian business people and government officials who frequently travel abroad are prime targets for “sexpionage” because, until now, Canadians have been “as babes in the woods,” only recently becoming aware that foreign spies will pay good money to steal our ideas. “Sexpionage is far more effective than any technological surveillance by satellite or anything else,” said McAdam. “It’s so easy and it doesn’t cost much: They hire a prostitute, she does her work, and they have a film — instead of complex spying.” Those who favour the technique — in particular, China and Russia — use hidden cameras and microphones to up their spygame ….”  More here.
• “Abousfian Abdelrazik, the Canadian citizen labelled a national-security risk by the Harper government and kept in forced exile for years, was taken off the UN Security Council terrorist blacklist Wednesday, ending his nearly decade-long ordeal. On being told of the delisting, Mr. Abdelrazik “shouted for joy, and then he wept,” his lawyer, Paul Champ, said. “You could hear his children cheering and clapping,” at their home in Montreal. The delisting removes the stain of being labelled an al-Qaeda operative in the secretive UN process and vindicates Mr. Abdelrazik’s long-standing assertion that he was never a jihadist, nor the paymaster, plotter or terror-cell leader as portrayed by the United States and echoed by Canadian agencies. The removal from the UN’s 1267 terrorist blacklist represents a second significant victory for Mr. Abdelrazik. The first was his return to Canada after a federal court in 2009 ruled that the government had trampled his constitutional rights and said Canadian Security and Intelligence Service agents were complicit in his imprisonment abroad. The government still refused to pay for his return, leaving ordinary citizens to buy the airline ticket ….”

Nah nah nah nah, nah nah nah nah, HEY hey hey….

….goodbye to the Taliban’s military boss, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, who is reportedly a guest of Pakistani intelligence, according to the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal.

Here’s his last signed statement from October 2009, saying the Taliban couldn’t be bought.

Have to agree with Thomas Ruttig that it may be early to figure out ALL the implications, but I also have to agree with Joshua Foust saying it IS a big deal.

More, as I let it cook a bit in my head.

Special Envoy for Afghanistan: Deja Vu All Over Again

Let’s look at a bit of the history of Canadian “special envoys” for things Afghan.

11 Feb 09: Responding to a question in the House of Commons by Liberal foreign affairs critic Bob Rae, Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon rejects idea of Canada getting its own “Special Envoy” for Afghanistan.

5 Mar 09: Same Lawrence Cannon says we may name a Special Envoy.

9 Oct 09: Maclean’s tells the world that (hat tip to Mark at The Torch for drawing my eye to this):

Maclean’s has learned that the Harper government is on the verge of appointing a member of the Canadian government who will work as part of Holbrooke’s Washington team. “Canada is currently considering potential candidates for an assignment in Mr. Holbrooke’s office,” Jamie Christoff, a Department of Foreign Affairs spokesman, wrote in an email.

19 Oct 09: Liberal MP Bryon Wilfert, during discussion in the House of Commons, AGAIN calls for a Special Envoy. Response from Jim Abbott, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of International Cooperation:

“We on the government side are less concerned with the actual title  our officials carry than we are with the actual work they carry out and the quality of our assistance in Afghanistan.”

27 Jan 10: The Liberals call for, you guessed it, a “special envoy to lead Canadian efforts to work on governance, on a reconciliation process and a post-2011 future in Afghanistan.”

Where I stand:

1)  Just a reminder – we have

• a Representative of Canada in Kandahar, **
• an Ambassador to Afghanistan,
• a High Commissioner to Pakistan,
• a Cabinet committee looking at Afghanistan, and
• a Special Committee on the Canadian Mission in Afghanistan.

** – Who knows how long this will last, though, given Canada leaving Dodge Kandahar by end of 2011.

Do we need anybody else, public servant or political appointee, to do this as well?

2)  If Canada’s departure is going to be as complete as the latest from the Prime Minister, it doesn’t appear we’re going to have any significant level of “Canadian efforts to work on governance, on a reconciliation process and a post-2011 future in Afghanistan”.  Given that, this special envoy would do what, exactly, and with what?

http://www2.macleans.ca/2009/10/09/a-new-turn-in-our-afghan-strategy/print/

TALIBAN PROPAGANDA WATCH: Taliban Senator Speaks

Finally getting around to sharing a few thoughts on this piece (PDF here in case link doesn’t work, and a link to a French-language version), based on an interview with Afghan senator Maulvi Arsala Rahmani, a former Minister for Religious Affairs under the old “Taliban In Charge” days.

The latest on the “how close are AQ & the Taliban”?  Rahmani suggests they’re not indivisible:

He believes that the time has come for the guerrilla movement to dissociate itself from his “friend Osama.” But are the members of Mullah Omar’s choura (council of notables), with whom he is in contact, ready for that divorce? In his opinion, it’s not impossible.

He also suggests there’s some leeway in the Taliban’s management regime to allow under-bosses to talk to the Afghan regime:

For, in spite of their military “success,” the Taliban, like all soldiers, would like to be able to go home. Moreover, and contrary to what has been suggested in Mullah Omar’s communiqués, it is sometimes the guerrilla leaders, and not the Afghan presidency, who take the initiative for these meetings, Maulvi Arsala Rahmani assures me.  Last year, Mullah Baradar led a Taliban delegation to Kabul to talk with Karzai’s older brother, Qayyum.

That last line intrigues, if only because of its conflict with the “there’s no such thing as a moderate Taliban” line Baradar took in a statement attributed to him late in October:

The terms of moderate (Taliban) and extremists are American-invented terms, which have no physical existence.

Then again, there’s also been in statements early November attribued to official Taliban spokespersons suggesting that some mediated discussions may have taken place:

“There are some people who are conveying each others’ (Taliban and US) messages. But there were no direct talks between us and America,”

A critique of the “bribe the tribes” approach comes from another Taliban “intermediary”, Pir Mohamed, reportedly a former university president under the Taliban (non) Salad Days:

Afghanistan is not Iraq. The Taliban come from very different origins. Mores come from Uzbekistan, Kandahar or Khost. And one may neither set the tribes against one another nor buy them: there are too many of them!

Here’s one vision of what the Taliban Head Shed would like to do:

The rebels would like to install themselves somewhere, then form a government-in-exile to elaborate the conditions for a negotiation with the Karzai government. Why not in Saudi Arabia where Mullah Zaeef, former Taliban ambassador to Pakistan, has already tried to organize a meeting between the enemy sides? Then from Riyadh, the Taliban leadership could negotiate its own neutrality in exchange for a right to return, amnesty and participation in political life after the withdrawal of foreign troops.

Rahmani closes with how Pakistan’s Taliban bosses have to be brought into the tent as part of a solution:

“As long as Pakistan’s vital interests, such as the future of the Durand Line, are not taken into account, all discussions will fail,” explains Rahmani. According to him, the key to potential negotiations is in the hands of the Pakistani mullahs, themselves under ISI – the Pakistani secret services’ – control.  As are Mullah Fazel Rahman and Sami ul-Haq, who lead the coalition of Pakistani fundamentalist religious parties. “Before the Taliban, it is they who must be convinced to make peace, because today they control al-Qaeda and bin Laden and hold the future of the region in their hands …”

More grist for the mill.

TALIBAN PROPAGANDA WATCH: Alleged Talks with Taliban Firing Alright, Alleged Talks – STOP!

Remember this?

Let’s Take a Deep Breath before we put too much faith in the latest reports of talks between the Taliban and the United states….

Here’s why I warned you to take a deep breath before believing all the latest rumblings – from a Pakistani media outlet:

During the talks, the representatives of the US and the Karzai regime had their own preconditions, the most important being that the Taliban militia should accept Afghanistan’s new constitution and join the political mainstream under the existing system of governance.

The Americans also wanted the Ameer of the Afghhan Taliban Mullah Mohammad Omar to ditch Al-Qaeda and help arrest Osama bin Laden. The talks eventually failed due to the obstinacy of the Taliban representatives who wanted the withdrawal of the US-led allied forces from Afghanistan before initiating a formal dialogue with the US and the Karzai administration.

The sources?  Unnamed Pakistani Foreign Office sources and “well informed diplomatic circles in Islamabad”.

Move on folks, nothing to see here.

TALIBAN PROPAGANDA WATCH: More Haiku

The Tailban Info-machine is in overdrive when it comes to issuing statements and op-ed pieces.  The latest (Voice of Jihad English here – albeit a bit slow loading – and PDF at non-terrorist site here) seems to cover old message threads, with some reference to recent events. Here’s a quick haiku summary:

Bad Blackwater folks,

Bombing crowded market squares.

NATO shoots from schools.

The Blackwater mention appears to come from other events in the neighbourhood, with the Taliban borrowing the “PMCs are bad” meme from their Pakistani colleagues:

Recently, they are resorting to some other devilish tactics, like detonating bombs and mines in congested places where common people are shopping. This is a heinous effort by CIA-related agencies like Black Water in order to create hatred among the common people against Mujahideen. Black Water was renamed Xe after its flagrant human rights violations in Iraq.

Enjoy the lies!

More on Nabbed Pro-Taliban Web Mistress

Remember Beverly Giesbrecht, aka Khadija Abdul Qahaar?

While I can’t say I agree with everything on The Jawa Report, I love the bluntness of some of the content.  Case in point:  this, on the missing web mistress:

Let me just make note of a few things in this terribly researched Canada.com story. The author, “Jane Seyd”, seems to interview only a few people for the story, but the main source is a close friend of Beverly’s named Glen Cooper.

Any person who was close friends with Beverly Giesbrecht will also meet one or more of the following criteria: very stupid; on the Leftwing fringe; a terror supporter; or the kind of person who finds it necessary to befriend the crazy old lady with all the cats down the street.

Besides the source, here are the two major problems:

1) Nowhere does the article mention that Jihad Unspun was an objectively pro-terrorist and pro-Taliban publication.

2) The friend tells us that Beverly went to Pakistan to make a documentary. What it does not mention is the fact that the documentary was meant to portray the Taliban as the good guys in the war.

Accurate, brief and clear – the ABCs of good writing.

Remember the Canadian Jihadi Web Site Operator…

….kidnapped in Pakistan last year (lots of back-story and comments on this one at Milnet.ca here)?  The latest from the Canadian Press suggests work continues via Pakistan to get her out:

Glen Cooper, whose friendship with Giesbrecht spans more than two decades, said he spoke to her by telephone two months ago …. Cooper said he’s had several conversations with the kidnappers, though the number of direct calls has slowed in recent months.

“I did speak to her in the summer so I knew she was alive then,” Cooper said. “I have not heard from her since and I don’t know what her status is.”

Cooper has been reluctant to speak out on Giesbrecht’s abduction in the past while officials worked to secure her release. But as the one-year anniversary of the kidnapping approaches, he said government officials aren’t telling him anything and he’s worried his close friend won’t last much longer.

“I have her phone number,” he said, speaking of Giesbrecht and her captors.

“I could just phone her but I don’t because that gets in the way of what other people are doing.”

In the weeks following Giesbrecht’s abduction, Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Lisa Monette issued a statement saying, “Canadian officials continue to engage with Pakistani authorities in seeking her safe and early release.”

This week, when asked to update the situation, Monette issued a near-identical statement, saying, “Canadian officials are engaged with Pakistani authorities in seeking her safe release.”

Monette declined further comment.

“I’m sure that you can appreciate that we will not comment or release any information which may compromise our efforts or jeopardize the safety of a Canadian citizen,” she said.

John Weston, a Conservative MP for the West Vancouver riding that Giesbrecht used to call home, confirmed he’s familiar with the case but declined to provide further details.

“I look forward to a day when I can discuss with you more openly what hopefully will have been a successful release of Ms. Giesbrecht,” he said.

“This is a peculiar case where we’re relying on the local government (in Pakistan) to assist in the release of Ms. Giesbrecht.”

A spokeswoman for the High Commission for Pakistan in Ottawa also declined comment on the case.

Meanwhile, someone’s updating parts of Giesbrecht’s web page Jihad Unspun (although it appears to be more than a year since the site’s news archives have been updated).

I hope for her safe release, if only to see what she has to write about her hosts now that she’s been a guest for so long.

AGAIN with the Special Envoy for Af-Pak!

Under the mainstream media radar this week, the Liberals are asking, again, for Canada to appoint a special envoy for Afghanistan-Pakistan, something I’ve disagreed with in the past.

This from Liberal MP Bryon Wilfert, via Hansard (19 Oct 09), with PDF of exchange here:

The United States, Great Britain, France and the EU have all assigned a special envoy to the region. Given the importance of Pakistan, particularly with regard to the Taliban and the current situation in Waziristan, et cetera, it is important that we have an envoy on the ground and certainly subject to our resolution …. We want to build better institutions there with the EU and the United States. Because of the changing strategies that President Obama announced back in March, this needs to be done …. Even in General McChrystal’s assessment recently, that was done in August for the president, he indicated very clearly the need for this type of strategy, the fact that the Taliban are in Pakistan, that there is a porous border and they go across …. The special envoy, as I say, is something others have clearly done. They recognized the need. The EU does not even have any troops, obviously, because it is a political organization, yet it found that this was necessary. Certainly the British, the French and the United States have found it necessary. We need to be there to be a major player.

(Nitpick:  The bit in red is technically correct, but let’s not forget the EU’s police training mission EUPOL, which includes civilian and paramilitary police trainers from across Europe in Afghanistan.)

Canada has

• An Ambassador to Afghanistan,
• A High Commissioner to Pakistan,
• A Cabinet committee looking at Afghanistan, and
• A Special Committee on the Canadian Mission in Afghanistan.

I’m not convinced that having one more “envoy” would improve the process.  And if the people already in place are not communicating and co-operating, I don’t think having one more in the line diagram won’t fix that, either.

A bit more history:  the then-Senlis Council even suggested the idea in 2007 (h/t to The Torch for this tidbit).

UPDATE (1): From Mark at The Torch – maybe the American Special Envoy will get a Canadian sidekick?

AFG Taliban “Expeditionary” Forces

This, from Pakistan’s The News:

The Pakistani militants based in South Waziristan Agency committed the terrorism acts in the past couple of weeks or so with the help of the Afghan Taliban, The News learnt here on Saturday.

“Leaders of various militant groups active in Pakistan under the banner of the banned Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) have succeeded in winning support of the Afghan Taliban for committing terror acts in Pakistan,” a source in the security forces disclosed on condition of anonymity.

“They have mounted the deadly attacks in Peshawar, Bannu, Rawalpindi and Lahore with the help of Afghan Taliban,” he said.

The source said the top leaders of outlawed Lashkar-e-Jhangvi have established links with the Afghan Taliban and all its operatives who have been operating in the Punjab have reached South Waziristan or Afghanistan to evade arrests as the law-enforcement agencies have launched a crackdown on such elements in the Punjab province.

“Initially, this group was involved in sectarian violence and has been targeting people belonging to a particular religious sect but now it is targeting the security forces,” the source said.

But the Taliban is a LOCAL threat, right?