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 ….”

MILNEWS.ca News Highlights – 29 May 11

• Karl Manning, 5 RALC, R.I.P.:  Statements by the Governor General/Commander-in-Chief, Prime Minister and Minister of National Defence.
• Marc Diab, 1986-2009, R.I.P.:  “As Canadians mourn the loss of another soldier to the war in Afghanistan, a group of Mississauga residents gathered Saturday morning to honour local heroes lost in the line of civic and military duty at a Service of Thanksgiving.  The service was hosted by the Knights of Columbus (KofC) of Mississauga at St. Patrick’s Church on Flagship Drive in Mississauga. The event first started in 1934 in Washington DC by the KofC and quickly spread throughout North America as a way to pay tribute to local servicemen and women.
  Among those in attendance were Mississauga residents Jihan Falah and Han Diab whose son Marc was killed in action in Afghanistan in March of 2009 ….”
• Jeff Francis, 1970-2007, R.I.P.:  What it’s like getting “the call”.
• Taliban Propaganda Watch:  40+ ISAF, Afghan troops claimed killed across Kandahar, Uruzgan and Zabul.
• Libya Mission:  Update from the CF Info Machine.
• Richard Curnow, R.I.P.:  “The death of a missing soldier appears to have been an “accidental drowning,” says army affairs officer Cpl. Fraser Logan. The body of Master Cpl. Richard Curnow, 25, was found in the North Saskatchewan River on Sunday near Redwater, about 65 km northeast of Edmonton. Dental records were used to confirm his identity late Thursday. Curnow went missing nearly a month ago during an early morning army run while training for the Death Race marathon …”
• Still MORE speculation over Julian Fantino as Associate Minister of National Defence.  “…. Fantino, now the MP for Vaughan, had a long career as a senior police administrator. He had several careers, in fact -in London, in York Region, in Toronto, and with the province of Ontario. But what does he bring to Defence, exactly, that MacKay doesn’t? Fantino has been put in charge of procurement -that is, buying trucks, ships, aircraft and other military hardware. Ostensibly that accounts for just 15% of the total $22-billion annual defence budget. But in reality procurement is more important than that. Procurement creates legacy. The quantity and quality of weapons and transport determines what a military can do, often for a generation or two, or three. And Fantino is not MacKay’s only new playmate. Chris Alexander, a justly celebrated former Canadian ambassador to Afghanistan, is now the MP for Ajax-Pickering -and parliamentary secretary for defence. Alexander, as anyone familiar with his Afghan work will attest, is no mild bureaucrat. He is an effective and forceful leader and thinker. So, two Conservative heavyweights, and one leading figure in the Conservative Party, competing for oxygen in one teensy ministerial office. What gives? ….”
• F-35 Tug o’ War: “Delivery of Canada’s new F-35 fighter jets could be delayed beyond its expected date of 2016 due to ongoing development problems in the U.S. In the meantime, according to the Defence Department, Canada will continue flying its CF-18s, which are scheduled to retire between 2017 and 2020. Critics of the F-35 program — the costliest military acquisition in Canadian history — believe the delay is proof of the government’s dwindling credibility on the issue ….”

MILNEWS.ca News Highlights – 10 Nov 10

• Guess how bad guys could start coming into Canada? This, from the Canadian Press:  “The chilling prospect of terrorists or other extremists exploiting the Canadian Arctic has attracted the watchful eye of federal security agencies. A newly declassified intelligence assessment, obtained by The Canadian Press, raises the spectre of the North as a conduit for international or domestic radicals. “In recent years, vessels with links to human smuggling, drug trafficking, and organized crime have attempted to access the Canadian Arctic,” says the report. The assessment was prepared by the Integrated Threat Assessment Centre, which includes representatives of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, the RCMP and other agencies ….”
• In keeping with Remembrance Day coming tomorrow, there’s media talk of how to remember the sacrifices of Afghanistan vets – this from CBC.ca:  “…. Will we make the same mistake as many Americans did after the Vietnam War and treat the veterans of our first lost war with backs turned and a public monument that took years of controversy to bring to fruition? ….” Here’s one example of how those who served and died are honoured in Petawawa, again via CBC.ca.
• Young Canadian film-makers have learned war is about young people – this, from Postmedia News:  “Most Canadian soldiers killed in Afghanistan have been young men in their 20s.  Brendon Culliton, the director of a documentary film about the death of one of them, 22-year-old Lebanese-Canadian trooper Marc Diab <links to the Canadian Virtual War Memorial>, is equally young.  Culliton, 23, and co-director Dan Heald, 22, both of London, Ont., say the making of the film, If I Should Fall, took them on an educational journey about life and death and the military ….”  (YouTube video preview here)
• Hell, if you believe this Pakistani media outlet, the troops are staying:  “Canada’s government has agreed to keep 750 military trainers in Afghanistan until 2014, a pledge of support which may help plug a critical shortage of 900 trainers for NATO’s year-old mission to bolster Afghan security forces ….” Better read the stories your copy-catting a bit more closely, folks.
• An interesting take on the possibility of Canadians continuing to train Afghan security forces, from, of all outlets, the Toronto Star – this from columnist Rosie DiManno:  “…. Military mentors always accompany the troops, on patrol and into combat. They may oversee from the rear but they move to the front when the enemy is engaged or an operation turns sketchy. To impose a wire barricade on Canadian soldiers is an absurdity. To sell an extension of our Afghanistan deployment to the Canadian public on these terms would be a lie. Our soldiers have always fought from the front. Our duck-and-cover politicians could take a lesson from them.”
• My guess:  IF the PM agrees to a continued training role for Canadian troops, and IF he continues the “no combat” caveat, the training is going to be done outside Kandahar (to meet the wording of the March 2008 resolution of parliament) and inside the wire.  More along those lines from the Globe and Mail:  “…. Afghanistan will only be safe if the Afghan National Police and Army are dominant enough for the Karzai government to set the terms of negotiations. Afghans hold their security institutions in high regard (92 per cent think the ANA is honest and fair), but they need outside help. Canadians have been providing that, in the Taliban heartland of Kandahar. The experience has given Canadians perhaps the best sense, of all NATO forces, of how Afghanistan security forces can help do nation-building, fight the Taliban, and defend their own people in the field. So a Canadian training force of 750 military trainers and around 200 support staff in Kabul would make a meaningful contribution at less risk to us ….”
• How about letting Parliament vote on whether Canada stays to train troops?  Uh, not so fast, according to U of Ottawa professor Philippe Lagassé (followable on Twitter as @pmlagasse ), as quoted by Postmedia News: “I’m certainly in favour of rigorous debate in the House of Commons and I do think that it’s obligatory for the government to present to the Commons any change in the mission and what it plans to do …. That being said, I think it’s problematic that we’re holding these votes in the House and making it seem that it’s the House that decides whether or not the military is deployed.”
• Counterpoint?  This from historian Jack Granatstein, via the Globe & Mail:  “…. As Mackenzie King also understood, no substantial Canadian force should ever be deployed abroad without a vote of Parliament. Representing the people of Canada, Parliament must decide before our soldiers go abroad to fight or even to keep the peace.” (Hat tip to Mark C for this one)
• How do we give dismounted troops another way to check things out ahead of them?  Why not mini-helicopters with cameras transmitting images back to a remote station? Canada’s military research arm is looking into the idea.
• Just in case you think the Taliban’s the good guy in Afghanistan, this from ISAF:  “Despite senior Taliban leadership claims of protecting civilians, insurgent fighters were responsible for more than one hundred Afghan civilian deaths and over two hundred injuries during the month of October ….”
• Taliban Propaganda Watch: Attacks alleged in Uruzgan, Zabul.

Marc Diab, R.I.P.

Yet another fallen, and four more injured.