I guess Canadians aren't really leaving Afghanistan, then.

Peter MacKay, Minister of Defence, has kicked General Leslie, the head of the Canadian army, out of a job. Well, not really, but they just don't know where they're going to put him yet. So they say. I believe them. Sure.

Head of Canadian army shuffled out of job

"The head of Canada's army, who was set to play a major role in the withdrawal of the Canadian combat mission from Afghanistan next year, has been moved out of his job, officials said on Wednesday."

"Leslie, chief of the land staff, made headlines early last year when he said the army was worn out and would need at least a year to recover once the 2,800-strong Afghan military mission ended in 2011...He later reversed his position, citing increased investment in the military.

"He is no longer chief of land staff, but he awaits future responsibilities ... (he) has several options under consideration. He's a very capable and valuable officer," said a spokesman for Defense Minister Peter MacKay."

Yeah, yeah, sure, Peter. What a mealymouthed, lukewarm piece of organic fertilizer that is.

"Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears!
I come not to bury Leslie but damn him with faint praise!
You believe me, don'tcha? Huh? Huh? Don'tcha?"

In his place?

"Leslie will be replaced by Lieutenant-General Peter Devlin, currently deputy commander of Canadian troops based abroad. He served a 15-month tour in Baghdad from 2006 to 2008 with the U.S. military as part of an exchange program."

So that makes two. Chief of Defence Staff Walter Natynczyk was also in Iraq. Few Canadians know the extent of Canadian military involvement in the illegal Iraq war.

Now the chief and the head of the army can boast of having Iraq War creds carved into their bedposts.

Could this have anything to do with the rumour that the U.S. will be asking (demanding?) that Canadian soldiers stay in Afghanistan, supposedly as "trainers" after the parliamentary mandated 2011 withdrawal date?

General Leslie said last year that the Canadian army is exhausted. So are the Canadian people and their tax money.

Generals speaking inconvenient truths?

Just put them in the discard pile and shuffle the deck.

Training with Americans - that should work.

Fighting American wars - one Canadian soldier at a time.

That's right - let's pay our soldiers to go and fight for the Americans. Now that's what Canadians stand for - U.S. military imperialism all over the globe. Canada - home of the mercenary. I'm so proud.

"Despite the government's official position abstaining from combat in Iraq, Canada has dispatched yet another top general to the command group overseeing day-to-day operations for the US-led occupation and counterinsurgency war...Matern is the third Canadian general to serve in the command group of Operation Iraqi Freedom as part of an exchange program that places Canadian Forces officers in leadership positions in the US military. His deployment is part of a three-year post with the US Army's 18th Airborne Corps, based out of Fort Bragg, North Carolina."

So we're going to send our soldiers to train in Texas to fight the Taliban in Afghanistan. With the Americans' outstanding success in Afghanistan and Iraq so far, that sounds like a wonderful plan. What the hell is going on here?

Meanwhile, 42 Canadian tanks and armored personnel carriers left Edmonton last week destined for Fort Bliss, Texas to participate in pre-deployment training exercises with the US Army before a summer rotation in Afghanistan. A Department of National Defense press release characterized the training as "massive," with more than 3,000 Canadian soldiers taking part in Exercise Southern Bear.

How much Canadian oil is being shipped south to the U.S.? If we weren't destroying our air and water to ship it south, we wouldn't have to import from Iraq, would we? But then, the U.S. owns Stephen Harper and would rather import from Canada - the willing doormats of the Americans - than the risky Iraq.

There are also economic interests in Iraq itself. The April 2007 Iraq Reconstruction Report lists Canada as the fourth largest importer of Iraqi oil. Industry Canada records that total Canadian imports from Iraq have risen from 1.06 billion dollars in 2002 to 1.61 billion dollars in 2006, making Iraq second only to Saudi Arabia as a Middle Eastern source for Canadian imports.

Warrior ethos - what the crap is this guy talking about?

Col. Bill Buckner of the 18th Airborne told the Ottawa Citizen. "We're the home of the airborne and the special operating forces, so he fits in very nicely to this warrior ethos we have here."

But at least we know why Stephen Harper bought those "slush breakers", the new frigates that were supposed to protect our northern border. We'd always be ready to protect American interests in the Persian Gulf.

As well, Canadian frigates continue to operate alongside the US aircraft carriers in the Arabian Gulf that are a primary staging platform for bombing raids in Iraq.

So not only are we taking part in a disastrous war in Afghanistan, we're also taking part in an illegal war in Iraq.

Though approximately 93 percent of the coalition troops in Iraq are American, the US has long been keen to emphasize the multinational component of a war that former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan described as "illegal."

I believe it's called putting lipstick on a pig, General Devlin.

Major General Peter Devlin, a Canadian Forces officer currently operating as deputy commanding general in Iraq, recently told the Washington Post that the effect of the multinational element is in bringing "greater legitimacy to the effort here in Iraq."

Robert Gates, ¿por qué no te callas?

Can nobody in the U.S. administration say anything without inserting both feet in their mouths up to their considerable asses?

"In comments reported Wednesday by the Los Angeles Times, Gates said that while U.S. forces in eastern Afghanistan are doing a terrific job, he is concerned that NATO allies are not well trained in counterinsurgency operations."

Now, he says NATO troops are doing a wonderful job.

Wow! Gee, Mr. Gates! Thanks!

"Gates made the remark a day after Pentagon officials acknowledged he has concerns about the allies' ability to battle an insurgency in Afghanistan."

..."Our NATO allies are playing a significant role, particularly Canada and the United Kingdom and the Dutch. This kind of role, even with the addition of our marines, will remain essentially the same."

Oh, you mean getting killed at a rate higher than any other forces there, and then getting slagged off by the U.S. Defence Secretary?

If you don't mind, I think we'll pass on that one.

These asinine remarks came close to the sixth anniversary (April 18, 2002) of the date when U.S. pilots dumped bombs on Canadian troops on night exercises on the ground in Afghanistan and killed four of them and wounded a further eight. Nice work! Canada's first casualties in the war, and the U.S. did it.

Then they killed another one in September, 2006. Dropped a bomb on him too.

And they've been finishing off the British troops, too.

As far as I know, the Dutch have escaped the U.S. bombs - so far, anyway.

As far as Canadian expertise goes, they had this to say:

"I think our allies over there, this is not something they have any experience with," he told the Times.

First of all, Mr. Gates, I think the number of your allies is diminishing by the minute.

Your NATO "allies" might do a bit better if you'd stop blowing them up.

And as far as our success with counterinsurgency: "Pentagon officials acknowledged he [Gates] has concerns about the allies' ability to battle an insurgency in Afghanistan."

By the way, how's it going in Iraq, eh?

Blackwater - good choice for training Canadian soldiers

N.Y times article about investigation into the Blackwater mercenary company:

The report by the Democratic majority staff of a House committee adds weight to complaints from Iraqi officials, American military officers and Blackwater’s competitors that company guards have taken an aggressive, trigger-happy approach to their work and have repeatedly acted with reckless disregard for Iraqi life.

Blackwater justified its actions by saying that it had never allowed one American diplomat's life to be lost.

That's nice. Shame about all those Iraqis, though.

Good thing Canada chose that wonderful outfit to train some of its military. I feel a lot better now.

What did the Canadian government know, and when did it know it?

If Harper's government didn't know what was going on, why not?

If it did and said nothing, or was complicit in the crimes by handing over prisoners without any guarantee that they would be treated humanely, then the government and the military leaders in Canada should be right up there beside the U.S. officials who condoned and carried out these crimes.

From Nat Hentoff at Village Voice:

History Will Not Absolve Us
Leaked Red Cross report sets up Bush team for international war-crimes trial

"If and when there's the equivalent of an international Nuremberg trial for the American perpetrators of crimes against humanity in Guantánamo, Iraq, Afghanistan, and the CIA's secret prisons, there will be mounds of evidence available from documented international reports by human-rights organizations, including an arm of the European parliament—as well as such deeply footnoted books as Stephen Grey's Ghost Plane: The True Story of the CIA Torture Program (St. Martin's Press) and Charlie Savage's just-published Takeover: The Return of the Imperial Presidency and the Subversion of American Democracy (Little, Brown).

"... [I]f we, the people, are ultimately condemned by a world court for our complicity and silence in these war crimes, we can always try to echo those Germans who claimed not to know what Hitler and his enforcers were doing. But in Nazi Germany, people had no way of insisting on finding out what happened to their disappeared neighbors.

"We, however, have the right and the power to insist that Congress discover and reveal the details of the torture and other brutalities that the CIA has been inflicting in our name on terrorism suspects."

Today NATO functions as an auxiliary US force...

Since "God" made this land, according to Harper's speech in Ottawa on Canada Day yesterday (I say with a barely repressed shudder), maybe this "God" person made Stephen Harper the new emperor, too.

From the Hill Times :

Harper says he hasn't changed his position on Afghanistan (The Hill Times, July 2nd)

PM Stephen Harper says it's 'only dawning on everyone' that Parliament will be asked to extend role in Afghanistan beyond February 2009

Q: So, you still support the mission?

Harper: ..But, when we will get to 2009 we have to present to Parliament some options and we are going to need, obviously, some support from the opposition parties if we want to start a new mission after 2009. We need that support, we need the public, and the Parliament behind men and women when we send them into dangerous missions. No, I don't believe it is a change, I think it's only dawning on everyone."

I think anyone with an ounce of brains pretty well knew what you were up to, Stevie.

But maybe you should listen to old hands like Paul Craig Roberts. He wrote about the overstretched empire to the south and the fools who want to wage even more Middle Eastern wars when they can't even manage the quagmires they're already got.

The article was about Iraq, but this little nugget about NATO and Afghanistan should be a caution to would-be punching-above-their-weight boxers and little emperors-in-waiting.

From Cakewalk to Quicksand

By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS

...[N]ATO, whose charter was to defend Western Europe from Soviet invasion should have been disbanded two decades ago. Today NATO functions as an auxiliary US force and has been sent to Afghanistan, where it is being defeated like the British and Russians before it.

...[T]he unintended consequences of the "cakewalk war" [Iraq] are already far outside the Bush administration's ability to manage and will plague future governments for many years. For the administration to initiate new acts of aggression in the MIddle East would go beyond recklessness to insanity.

With friends like this...

Gordon O'Connor, retired military man and former defense "industry" lobbyist, and now the Minister of Defense for the (neo)Conservative minority government of Canada, congratulated Donald Rumsfeld for his leadership and record of service in the War Against Terror (trademark pending).

An access to information request turned up these nuggets, as reported in the Globe and Mail today.

"As you leave office, I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate you on your many achievements as Secretary of Defence, and to recognize the significant contribution you have made in the fight against terrorism," Mr. O'Connor wrote on Dec. 15.

He goes on to speak of how the campaign against terror has been a "challenging undertaking, one that will require painstaking effort."

"Here we have been privileged to benefit from your leadership in addressing the complex issues in play," Mr. O'Connor wrote. "Your record of service has been a credit to your country. I wish you well in your future endeavours."

At least the representatives of the rest of Canada, the majority in the country who are being completely ignored, have brains and integrity.

"I don't think Canada has benefited from the leadership of Rumsfeld or George Bush and I think I'm with a majority of Canadians in stating that and perhaps now with a majority of Americans," NDP defence critic Dawn Black said.

And now we come down to the real reason.

John McCallum, a former Liberal defence minister, said that a "good luck" letter would be standard, but said Mr. O'Connor's note was "over the top."

"[Mr. Rumsfeld's] not a person that will any more have a major influence over U.S. policy so it's not as if one has to do that to curry favour with the Americans," Mr. McCallum said. "So I think it probably reflects the Harper government's support for the Iraq war to write such a letter.

Since we missed Iraq and the astounding success it's been, Stephen Harper has now decided that we should have our own mini-Iraq in Afghanistan - war without end, money poured down a black hole, young lives sacrificed to help Stevie "punch above his weight".