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THE GOOD-
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Briadier General Vance tells it like it is. Well Done General-April 4, 2015
Brig Gen Vance a proud Canadian Commander Canadian commander lays down the law at village shura ! !
DEH-E-BAGH, Afghanistan - Canada's top soldier in Afghanistan laid down the law today to a shura of village elders in the Dand district outside of Kandahar city. Dand is home to the village of Deh-e-Bagh, where tribal elders rejected the Taliban and asked for help from Canada and the provincial government.
A speedy recovery to Canadian wounded soldier. It makes me wonder why Canadians are risking life and limb, when in this so called Model Village, they do not appreciate our assistance. Yet in some polls Canadians want Canada to return to peace keeping. Men and women still get killed on Peacekeeping. There were 1,558 Canadian casualties, including 516 dead. In all UN peacekeeping roles since 1948. Many Canadians think that it is far easier to be a peacekeeper. However they are wrong Canadians and other UN Troops and RCMP still have casualties.
Time to consider peacekeeping reloaded As we reduce our commitment in Afghanistan, we must not allow wishful thinking to cloud our vision of the future By Cam Ross, FreelanceAugust 15, 2009 Canada will reduce its commitment in Afghanistan in 2011. As Canadians consider their future role in the world, they must not confuse reality with wishful thinking.
Remember Everyone Deployed
Nil Sine Labore
Robby
While the extent of Canada's withdrawal from Afghanistan has yet to be determined, Ottawa has clearly signalled Canada will have a reduced combat footprint. The key words are reduced and combat.
We can initially expect the 1,000 to 1,500 troops remaining to assist in training and development. And there will no doubt be an element of combat capability that will be included to provide security for those trainers and civilians. However, the bulk of the Canadian battle group will return home.
The new NATO chief does not want that to happen. He wants Canada to stay the course; that is not likely to happen. The reality is that there are four immovable truths. None has anything to do with how incredibly effective our troops are.
First, the polls, while extraordinarily supportive of the Canadian Forces, reflect increasing calls to bring the troops home.
Second, it was not just the Harper government that decided on the 2011 reduction. By astutely commissioning the Manley panel, the PM laid the groundwork for a parliamentary vote to stay until 2011. A similar all-party agreement would have to be undertaken to change the current 2011 decision; this is highly unlikely.
Third, Afghanistan is expensive in dollars as well as human capital. At a time of soaring national debt, it will be increasingly difficult to rationalize such expeditionary expenses. Also, we are entering an Arctic sovereignty era in which the military has a role. The cost will be immense.
Most importantly, the human cost in casualties and attrition from repeat tours is staggering. One combat unit's recent study revealed that over a 33-month period, troops were spending, on average, 22 months away from home.
Afghanistan has placed Canada's army, one of the best in the world, under tremendous strain. At 19,000 soldiers, the Canadian army fits into Calgary's Saddledome. Three thousand of those soldiers are in Afghanistan, 3,000 more are training to go, and another 3,000 have just returned home. This is unsustainable.
Fourth, Afghanistan presents a political burr under the saddle for a minority government, regardless of the party stripe. With a rebounding economy on the horizon, there will be a great temptation to hold an election within the year and the pressure on all parties to remove that Afghanistan burr will be immense. The burr will be replaced by familiarity, traditional peacekeeping -- regardless of the logic of staying the course in Afghanistan.
Many Canadians believe that UN peacekeeping is our traditional overseas military role. It is falsely perceived to be safe it exemplifies our desire to compromise, to be nice...Jean Chretien's boy scouts to the world. It is our comfort zone, as the NDP and others would say.
But what is traditional peacekeeping? Too many UN veterans have vivid memories of being shot at and blown up while under the UN flag to believe the calm portrayed on the back of our $10 bill, labelled Remembrance and Peacekeeping, is a realistic portrayal of their peacekeeping duties. Since 1948, traditional peacekeeping has cost us 114 lives; Canada has the third highest toll on the UN's country casualty list behind India and Ghana.
Since the end of the Cold War, the demand for international intervention has grown almost exponentially. In June, the UN had 93,216 military personnel deployed on 17 missions worldwide compared with only 12,084 personnel on 15 missions in 1999. The foreseeable future does not herald a rosier picture. The Haitis, Sudans and Congos of the world will not be solved easily or overnight.
The face of peacekeeping has changed. With the exceptions of Italy and France, 18 of the top 20 peacekeeping contributors are developing countries.
For a well-to-do country of 34 million, Canada's current contribution is abysmally small in numbers. Canada ranks No. 52 for UN peacekeeping with only 55 military personnel deployed on 10 UN missions. Whether it's a combat role with NATO or a peacekeeping mission with the UN, we should be cognizant of our own limitations. Something is wrong if we can only deploy about 3,000 military at a given time. Our wishful thinking is that we are a middle power that can positively influence troubled lands. The fact is that we are punching well below our weight class in both security and development, not in quality but in quantity.
What is certain is that there will be increased interest in Canada returning to its perceived default position, more for political expediency than sound foreign policy.
A return to the UN fold will resonate well with the voters. A recommitment to Haiti will be especially attractive for Quebec voters. To say no to the UN because we don't do peacekeeping anymore would be unwise, especially at a time when Canada is aggressively seeking a January 2011 seat on the UN Security Council. And the response of sorry, we have already given at the office will no longer apply post-2011.
Do I personally advocate a return to the traditional role of peacekeeping?No. Peacekeeping reloaded? Probably. But, realistically, the peacekeeping of today is scarcely identifiable as the task defined in 1956 by Lester Pearson. Change that $10 picture for one that depicts Canada's Armed Forces as the capable warriors they are and stop deluding ourselves. Effective peacekeeping sometimes needs a big bat.
Retired major-general Cam Ross, a former UN assistant secretary general and force commander of UNDOF on the Golan Heights, is a fellow of the Canadian Defence and Foreign Affairs Institute.
NATO forces concentrated their efforts on ensuring the security of the village and on resurrecting the local economy in the hopes of finally convincing residents that their best course of action was to support the coalition and not insurgent forces. But an IED blast just outside the village's limits sent a Canadian soldier to hospital with a serious leg injury and angered Brig.-Gen. Jonathan Vance, the commander of Task Force Kandahar.
Vance demanded and received an immediate shura or meeting with village elders and told them he was disgusted that one of his soldiers had been injured and no one in the village had reported the explosive device being planted. He told them it is a two-way street and hinted that without their support he wouldn't be willing to risk any more Canadian casualties.
COMMENT: No more Rwandas.... ever again....
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AFGHANISTAN- 2009
Top CAN. soldier lashes out at Afghan elders-TAKE CHARGE OF YOUR COUNTRY -
October 4, 2009 (We so love our Canadian troops- land, air and sea)
Rising Frustration; Demands information on roadside bombs
Defence Minister Peter MacKay says he stands behind his top general in Afghanistan, who warned Afghans yesterday that Canada is going to halt development unless he starts getting information from the locals about who is planting roadside bombs that are maiming and killing Canadians.
Brigadier-General Jonathan Vance, commander of the Canadian troops, lashed out at elders in a Kandahar village after one of his soldiers was injured in a bomb explosion, saying that he wanted to start seeing some "serious co-operation" from the beneficiaries of Canadian aid.
"If we keep blowing up on the roads I'm going to stop doing development," Gen. Vance told a meeting he hastily convened with village elders in Deh-e-Bagh in the district of Dand, according to news reports. "If we stop doing development in Dand, I believe Afghanistan and Kandahar is a project that cannot be saved."
He also reportedly mused about whether it was "worth another Canadian life" if the situation didn't immediately change.
Mr. MacKay said he understands Gen. Vance's frustration and the Minister concurred that the co-operation of villagers is essential to the ability of Canadians to deliver development and programs, such as immunizing children and building schools.
"Do I think that our security is directly linked to development? Absolutely, and I think perhaps the way in which Gen. Vance has expressed it is indicative of the frustration that he was feeling and certainly the trauma that one would feel after being bombed on the road," Mr. MacKay said on Parliament Hill.
"There is a connection between our ability to deliver and the security and co-operation we require from local Afghans."
Mr. MacKay dismissed the prospect that Gen. Vance was issuing an ultimatum, saying that his message was more "help us to help you."
NDP defence critic Jack Harris, however, said that Gen. Vance's outburst was "a very surprising reaction from a general who is supposedly trying to win the hearts and minds of the people he is trying to protect in Afghanistan."
Mr. Harris said that identifying Taliban insurgents and giving Canadians advance warning of bomb attacks would not be easy in the complicated politics of Afghanistan.
"To try to simplify the matter by saying, 'You tell us who the Taliban are or we're walking out of here,' is basically throwing up his hands and saying we don't know how to solve this problem, we don't know how to fight this war," Mr. Harris said.
TAKE THIS JOB AND SHOVE IT / johnny paycheck - And Brig. Gen. Vance and Nato troops.... you tell em all in Afghanistan.... fight for the aid and development we give you and build for you- don't let the talibans destroy your lives like this- or we should just leave.... and tell Nato, politicians and all.... to take this job and shove it!!!!!!
TAKE THIS JOB AND SHOVE IT.... CANADA STYLE- that was our mantra in 2009
Conflict prevention key with no clear military wins in future: Vance
Chief
of Defence Staff Jonathan Vance speaks with the media following a speech to the
Chamber of Commerce in Ottawa, Tuesday May 24, 2016. (CP)
OTTAWA — The country's top general says Canadians
need to accept hard truths about their military's future role in a
volatile world — preventing conflicts will be essential, while clear-cut
battlefield victories are a thing of the past.
Gen. Jonathan Vance, the chief of the defence staff,
offered that assessment Wednesday in a major speech to a defence industry
conference in Ottawa.
Vance says he welcomes the government's new defence
review, but he says Canadians need to accept that the days of decisive military
victories, such as those of the two world wars, are long gone.
"That's somewhat counterintuitive to many
Canadians. But it's the truth."
The military, he said, now often finds itself having
to "stitch together and reweave the social, political and economic
fabric" of countries they are still fighting in.
"Given that reality," the general added,
"given that the types of threats that we are facing do not necessarily
lend themselves to cataclysmic wins and losses, I think we have to turn our
mind to conflict prevention, to try to prevent the conflict before it
happens."
Vance's acknowledgment of a greater role for the
Canadian forces in peacekeeping dovetails with the Liberal government's plan to
return the military to that traditional role.
Foreign Affairs Minister Stephane Dion told The
Canadian Press that he agrees with Vance's assessment of the shifting global
landscape. That's one reason why Canada is also focusing on Jordan and Lebanon
as part of its expanded mission to fight Islamic militants in Syria and Iraq.
Dion also cited Egypt and Tunisia — two countries he
visited this last week on a Middle East tour that also took him to Saudi
Arabia — as examples of countries that need support to prevent them from
falling into chaos.
Both countries have been rocked by terror attacks and
that has hurt their respective tourism industries, Dion said.
"It's a tragedy for their economies," he
said in an interview from Egypt on Wednesday. "You see how much there is a
strong link between security and the economy.
"We need to help them find a way to help them
get out of this vicious circle."
Vance said modern peacekeeping is becoming more
dangerous and stopping conflict before it starts is complicated.
Long-running missions, such as Canada's contribution
to the multinational observer force in the Sinai Peninsula monitoring the
Egypt-Israel peace agreement, face renewed threats from the militants of the
Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant.
"ISIL in the Sinai has now grown in strength and
impedes the conduct of the mission. It impacts badly on mission
viability."
Vance suggested it might be tough to sell the
Canadian public on peacekeeping missions that focus on prevention.
"It is very difficult to contemplate the
investment in blood and treasure in something that hasn't happened yet,"
he said. "Conflict management and mitigation are becoming clearly a
trend."
The government is currently grappling with how best
to recommit Canada to UN peacekeeping missions, after more than a decade of war
fighting in Afghanistan. Prevention is a question that has been the subject of
discussions at Global Affairs Canada.
"We'll have to make tough decisions about where
and how we'll do it," Dion said.
And despite the sorry state of world security, the
last thing Canada should be doing is rushing into missions, said Vance.
"We have to do a better job of thinking and
understanding before we start shooting," said Vance, who commanded
Canadian troops in Afghanistan.
"We do not want to go to places in the world
where we make enemies because we made friends with the wrong people."
The Canadian Press
LEGER: Adapting to the 21st century and its wars without winners
DAN LEGER
Published May 29, 2016 - 2:37pm
Chief of Defence Staff Jonathan Vance says he thinks the tradition model of winning and losing wars may no longer apply. (CP)
Remember those groovy times when you could flash the peace sign, ask “what if they gave a war and nobody came” and you weren’t even trying to be ironic?
OK, you have to be a certain age to remember those days but trust me; we thought we could make peace by doing simple things.
Turns out, peace isn’t simple at all. Wistful catchphrases don’t change much and people do keep showing up for wars. They’re the volunteers. Many more end up as unwilling participants.
I ran across a Serbian aphorism that captures that perfectly. “We have got our war assignments,” it goes. “We are to be the killed civilians.”
But ask a different question. What if they gave a war and nobody won? Today that’s happening around the world, according to Canada’s senior soldier.
Gen. Jonathan Vance, Chief of the Defence Staff, thinks the historical pattern of tension-conflict-war-resolution-peace might be growing obsolete. It could turn out there will be no more winners, therefore fewer chances for lasting peace.
That’s a bit surprising, given that wars have been won and lost since primitive men first took up the cudgels against other primitive men.
But the days of victory parades and “unconditional surrender” could be over, Vance suggests. Global politics have changed. So have the players, the characteristics of conflicts as well as their potential results.
“The types of threats that we are facing do not necessarily lend themselves to cataclysmic wins and losses,” Vance said in Ottawa.
“Clear wins are hard to achieve and measure,” especially against terror groups and other non-state actors who don’t present straightforward targets for conventional armies.
The general has a point about unresolved conflicts. To cite a particularly nasty example in which Vance himself served, in Afghanistan war has been going with barely a pause since 1978. Nobody is winning.
The Balkan wars of the 1990s produced many “killed civilians” but ended without a winner, just a resentful and enduring stalemate.
In parts of Africa, wars have boiled for decades with few examples of resolution. In Ethiopia, Somalia, Sudan, Congo and many other places, they continue with no evident hope for lasting peace, only persistent torment.
Libya, Iraq and Syria are settling into that pattern of near-constant warfare in which no side can win, but all sides suffer.
Canada is involved in some of those places, with 330 special operations troops training Kurdish fighters in northern Iraq and personnel heading to Jordan and Lebanon to bolster defences in those countries. Nearly 850 Canadians will be in the Middle East by the summer.
But not necessarily in Libya, which is threatened by Islamic militants as a UN-fostered government tries to consolidate control after five years of civil war.
Vance seemed skeptical that armed intervention would be useful in Libya, which disintegrated after dictator Muammar Gaddafi was ousted in 2011. Canadian jets bombed Gaddafi’s forces at the time, ostensibly to protect civilians.
Libya’s collapse made it a hub for arms and people smuggling and for Islamic extremism. It’s hard to see how the western air campaign helped anyone on the ground.
That’s the pattern being repeated around the world. Interventions rarely work once the shooting begins. When it’s over, conflicts leave behind failed states and lawless lands.
The alternative, Vance suggested, is “conflict prevention . . . prevent the conflict before it happens.” Along with allies and friendly nations, Canada could play a part in conflict prevention similar to its 20th century role as a peacekeeper.
Vance might be getting the peacekeeping religion from the new Liberal government. But militaries don’t re-task overnight and changing course requires a clear direction from the political level.
The general can’t prejudge the defence policy review going on in the Trudeau government. But he seems to be suggesting that Canada’s armed forces get ready for a new focus, one that gets engaged before the bullets start to fly.
Dan Leger is a freelance journalist in Halifax.
http://thechronicleherald.ca/opinion/1368191-leger-adapting-to-the-21st-century-and-its-wars-without-winners
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President Obama is Visting Hiroshima. Why Not Pearl Harbour?
On the 75th anniversary of Pearl Harbor, what lessons does the U.S. need to relearn?
This year marks the 75th anniversary of the December 7, 1941, Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor that killed more than 2,400 Americans.
President Obama is visiting Hiroshima this week, the site of the August 6, 1945, dropping of the atomic bomb that helped end World War II in the Pacific Theater. But strangely, he has so far announced no plans to visit Pearl Harbor on the anniversary of the attack. The president, who spent much of his childhood in Hawaii, should do so — given that many Americans have forgotten why the Japanese attacked the United States and why they falsely assumed that they could defeat the world’s largest economic power. Imperial Japan was not, as often claimed, forced into a corner by a U.S. oil embargo, which came only after years of horrific Japanese atrocities in China and Southeast Asia. Instead, an opportunistic and aggressive fascist Japan gambled that the geostrategy of late 1941 had made America uniquely vulnerable to a surprise attack.
By December 1, 1941, Nazi Germany, Japan’s Axis partner, had reached the suburbs of Moscow. Japan believed that the German army would soon knock the Soviet Union out of the war.
Japan had also hedged its bets by signing a nonaggression pact with the Soviets. Japanese leaders assumed that even if communist Russia survived, Japan could avoid a costly land war on its rear flank. The U.S., not Japan, would likely have a two-front war.
RELATED: The West Is Repeating the Mistakes of the 1930s
By 1941, the Netherlands, France, and Belgium had all been defeated and occupied by the Third Reich. Only the British remained of the original European anti-Axis allies, and London had been under constant aerial assault by the German Luftwaffe during the Blitz. Japan figured that Germany and Italy might soon win the war and wished to pile on before it ended.
Japan had calculated that all of Europe’s resource-rich Pacific and Asian colonies were now orphaned and up for grabs. By starting a Pacific war and knocking out the U.S., Japan could get its hands on the resources necessary to fuel its war machine.
British-held Singapore and the American bases in the Philippines were isolated and poorly defended. And they would be completely cut off once the U.S. Seventh Fleet and air arm were neutralized at Pearl Harbor.
RELATED: Could World War II Have Ended Sooner than It Did?
Starting a war in the Pacific meant the Japanese would have easy access to huge supplies of oil, rubber, rice, and strategic metals for their newfound mercantile empire, the Great East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere.
The U.S. also had lost military deterrence. The Japanese had watched carefully as America did little to help its two closest allies: France and Great Britain. The former was easily overrun by the Nazis, the latter bombed unmercifully.
http://www.global.nationalreview.com/article/435850/barack-obama-hiroshima-visit-why-not-pearl-harbor
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BLOGGED:
CANADA MILITARY NEWS- The good
(Vance)...the bad (Lib. appt.McNeil's brother)... 2 the f**king ugly-IMF banks
and stock markets get a pass 4 stealing $$$trillion of our money/ 6 Nations and
UN shove IRAN down billions of women's throats -NEDA- #1BRising- no more
excuses UN /Remember Hilary Rodham Clinton Hijacked by her own party... and
other memories.... and back 2 the good- our troops and it's Easter and
Christians still give a sheet and Afghanistan Voted April 5, 2014-bravest of
the brave nations/Girl Guides and Boy Scouts Canada /Halifax Explosion/SHAME ON
ELITES... TORONTO SYMPHONY- let Valentina Play - SHAME ON U- Ukraine's White
Man's War of Nato on Russia is ugly and killing./MAY 5- 2day Canada celebrates
victory and freedom of Netherlands and if TERRORIST OMAR KHADR is freed 2day in
our Canada- monsters truly win in the face of our glorious brave troops
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BLOGGED:
CANADA MILITARY NEWS-
Remembering Afghanistan- Canada Politicians snub Afghanistan Leaders Visit
because of Iraq?/ honour, respect- September 11, 2001- thank u / Canadians
Remember 158 PHOTOS/Other Canada Military news -Remembering Canada Troops
Killed on Canadian Soil and Iraq and our Mounties/Canada and our Flag first
...PERIOD/The Letter
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WORLD POLITICIANS .... WHAT HAVE U DONE..... TO HUMANITY..... SHAME ON U EACH AND ALL...your each and all #Trump - he's just more vocal loud and honest about greed, $$$, power vs humanity and our planet.... our beautiful troops.... the 1% who save us 99% who get a pass.... just weep.... and heartbroken.... so upset with #Obama and #USA vs #China vs #Russia vs #UnitedNations bullsheet.... God is watching... and so is the world.... so helpless... so disappointed.... 40 years of giving every extra cent... time and so much that truly believed was helping our world.... for naught.... for naught....
Tell me a story of how good people get good things... and bad people get bad... Tell me a story of justice...
