Today Bob Rae not only came to the realization that Canada may indeed be involved in counter insurgency operations in Afghanistan, he also showed the country that he has no clue about how military operations are carried out, nor about just how far a government should be micro managing those operations from Ottawa.
If the Liberals are deluded enough to think that they should be directing the daily combat actions of our military from Ottawa, than I hope the troops do get pulled out of Afghanistan because these arrogant clowns in the LPC will end up costing lives on the ground. Canada has a very well trained and responsible Armed Forces who know how to handle their military operations, and they do so without broadcasting their plans and protocols to the world. How they quietly handled the prisoner issue goes to enforce just how professional our troops are in the job they have been tasked with by our government, NATO, and the UN.
Combat operations should not be run in public by consensus, nor should they be run from a classroom run by a nerdy professor with Marxist ideas. Only fools, incompetents, or ones who choose to play politics on the backs of our military would 'think' otherwise.
Which of these would better explain the actions of either Bob Rae or Field Marshall Dion? Either way, the Liberals have again shown Canadians why they are not capable of forming a government for some time to come.
BIG UPDATE: Dion knew about this a week ago. Watch the Liberals try now to spin and explain Dion and Iggy both knew about the change yet allowed Bob Rae and the rest of the attack machine to try to embarrass the Harper government.
As I said, playing politics.
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Very late update: Canadian Cynic linked to this post 3 times to incite and spin this non issue.
Links at the bottom of the comments.........But be warned that CC uses his free speech rights to offend people and not work friendly. It is strange considering that CC goes out of his way to offend while he supports the HRC's abusing the free speech rights of Levant and Steyn.
15 comments:
your observation that bob rae serves as foreign affairs critic but remains unelected is laughable.
rae will be in the house soon enough, let's say about a month and a half from now.
fortier's not elected, but appointed, and he runs public works!
does rae's current out of house status disqualify him as critic? since when did winning an election qualify you as an expert in anything besides ass kissing?
the story here is about a cover-up, a serious breach of the public trust.
we rely on our elected officials to run the government in a clear and transparent manner. harper campaigned on the very issue. yet, his govt continues to hide things from the public. shameful.
the military gets it's orders from the canadian people, not the other way around. don't forget it.
scary thought, Jeff you said the military gets its direction from the Canadian people, does that mean they are to be directed by 33 million advisors. God help us if others share your opinion
It boggles my mind that the LPC would embrace Rae as some messiah for the party. His credibilty to critique anything from a liberal perspective is zero. The positions the LPC are taking under Dion are making the NDP the party of the center. There is is a solution to the prisoner issue,take no prisoner,problem solved!
Jeff..the Canadian Army is run as an autocracy, not a democracy, as it is beholden to the foreign policy of the land, dictated to them by the govt of the day.
The Canadian army has never acted on behalf of the Canadian people, only on Govt. mandate.Thus it shall ever be..
If the Canadian people had that direct of a voice to our armed forces, there would be anarchy in our land as the military raced about from one dispute to the other , like some volunteer fire dept.
Hey Jeff, Bob Rae is currently unelected, this is a fact and there is nothing laughable about this unless of course your reality is somehow different than anyone else. (Which it mught be judging by some of your partisan comments)
Yes Fortier is unelected as well, just like Dion was, so whats your point?
You appear just as deluded as Rae, Dion and the rest of the arm chair generals who somehow feel that these types of things need to be public. War is NOT fought by public consensus Jeff; it is not a beauty contest.
The Liberals have been calling for action such as this for some time, and when they get it, start crying cover up because it was not made public. Whats more important Jeff, doing the right thing or looking like your are doing the right thing?
This pathetic politicizing by the Liberals on the backs of our troops is not going unnoticed by the public Jeff, you can be sure of that.
Ardvark, regardless of whatever valid points you've made here [I'm no Bob Rae fan], your thesis is entirely wrong. The military does have an obligation to tell the government of Canada of a change in prisoner policy or transfer. The fact it did not tell our government is extremely troubling. If our own government don't know what our military is doing, there is a serious problem.
Rapheal, the Canadian Government is not the detaining power, unless maybe Dion happened to capture a couple of Taliban while he was there for his photo op, but rather the detaining power is the Canadian Military. I am sure they have done all the necessary paper work.
At the risk of repeating myself on several different blogs, it's important you understand the fact that it is not a defensible position to say "I am sure they have done all the necessary paper work." You have to be certain. And from what early evidence we've seen, there is no indication that paperwork was done, since the governing power [Canada] is denying any knowledge of it. You'd now have to ask the Red Cross and other aid agencies if they knew, although if Amnesty International didn't know until they went to trial, then you can be certain that nobody else did.
Let me be clear: nobody is accusing the government is anything sinister. But we are collecting and gathering facts as we know them. It is important to ascertain whether the government has failed to maintain control of the military in Afghanistan, or whether there was a breakdown of command structure itself, or whether there are elements of the Canadian government itself which did not communicate changes in the prisoner transfer protocol.
I repeat, arguing it didn't matter to tell Canada is not an argument. It does matter, as it is an explicit part of operating under a United Nations and NATO mandate. If you have a problem with that, take it up with NATO or the UN.
I know Dion suggested we bring Taliban prisoners to Canada but unless the government is doing the physical detaining of prisoners, I would say that the CF are the detaining power. This under the authority of the Government to be sure, as well as the authority of NATO and the UN, but nobody is suggesting that they are at fault here, just the Harper government.
The military source quoted in the Globe and Mail:
"Thursday, a senior military officer, Brigadier-General André Deschamps told a Federal Court hearing that the decision to stop transfers was made by the deputy commander of the task force in Afghanistan, Colonel Christian Juneau, while the commander, Brig.-Gen. Guy Laroche, was on leave.
“The chain of command was made aware of the decision,” Gen. Deschamps said.
He said Gen. Rick Hillier, the Chief of Defence Staff, was told, but suggested that there was no need for approval from the high command because the ground commander in Kandahar had the authority. “The task force commander made his decision independently,” he said.
And a note to the trolls. Go away you are not welcome here.
"And a note to the trolls. Go away you are not welcome here."
but-but-but....
KEvron
Says lanarklady: There is is a solution to the prisoner issue,take no prisoner,problem solved!
I hope your suggestion is that Canadian troops, aware of any tactical victory, simply let the opposition run away. If however, you are intimating that professional Canadian combat troops, bound by the laws of armed conflict, simply kill potential prisoners that would put you in a very dangerous position.
If you were in my fire-team and did either of those two things of your own accord, the former would land you in jail at my command and the latter would result in me shooting you on the spot.
I guess we don't have to worry about it though since you've never been exposed to such difficult ethical positions.
Aardvark. Go read the Geneva Conventions. You are so far out to lunch it isn't even recognizable as a meal. The CF is not the detaining power. It can't be.
Dave, most certainly we would follow the Geneva conventions.
The reality is however, that if the non-uniformed, enemy combatant does not want to give it up, they will be given no quarter.
When you make a soldier a defacto paper pushing politico in situations like these, the smaller the chance the ending will be a positive one for your enemy.
I'm still hoping that Rae is elected in Gaydale (gay & rosedale). He will keep giving and giving for the CPC just like Dion is. (real conservative)
Kursk. You might try something unique in your ilk.
Start with the Officer's Professional Development Program, military law.
You don't get to decide.
As you pointed out, the CF, internally at least, is not a democracy.
Understand completely, I have been in a situation where I threatened to kill one of my own men for making a move not to protect a prisoner.
It's not a fucking video game and you don't have a clue what you're yapping about.
Dave I really do not know if the CF would be called the detaining power, but they are the ones doing the actual detaining so... Could NATO or even the UN be called the detaining power as the mission is under those umbrellas?
Either way it does not matter as this little contrived story has done nothing but again shown the Liberals to be incompetent boobs. I guess Bib Rae doesn't have a blackberry or cell phone as both Dion and Iggy could not manage to contact him before he started going off in public about something they ALREADY knew about.
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