The Liberals' outrageous plans for our military

We saw it coming! Pull our military out the fight against ISIS and convert our bases into Muslim refugee camps.  Good grief, what absolute morons!



John Ivison; Don't believe Liberal spin

Defence Minister Sajjan's goofy "progressive" ideas

If this doesn't prove that, like Trudeau himself, Sajjan is "just not ready", nothing will: Negotiate with ISIS, climate change a cause of the Syrian civil war and the rise of ISIS.  Good grief!!



Neither Sajjan nor Trudeau will ever be ready.

"The world is laughing at us Justin"

The world is laughing at us: "a senior official [in Berlin] openly mocked Canadian soldiers" https://t.co/HT9G4Zouox #cdnpoli

— Anthony Furey (@anthonyfurey) January 23, 2016

[Via]

One response: "actually just laughing at Justin.  They have the discretion to know the difference."

Stephen Harper had gravitas and was taken seriously on the world stage.  From PM Selfie we get smug, narcissistic foolishness and he's treated accordingly by serious allies.

Buy the F-35!

It's still Canada's best bet as a replacement for the F-18:

... a competition would be a costly and largely pointless process.

... it is clear that cancelling the F-35 procurement will not result in tens of billions of dollars saved, nor serve any of Canada’s longstanding interests. The men and women who will operate Canada’s future fighter deserve better.

The above conclusions are based on the current fly-away cost per aircraft (using the F/A-18E Super Hornet as a comparison).  This is in contrast with  this partisan analysis which uses scary looking full life-cycle costing.

Fly-away cost is the simplest and most realistic basis for comparison.  Any aircraft of roughly similar capability will incur similar life cycle (operation, maintenance, supply and upgrade) costs.  The most important differences will be seen in the bang for fly-away buck. It's the way we all make decisions for big ticket purchases.

Unfortunately, politics, not cost or capability, will be the biggest factor in the decision, with Trudeau's promise to scrap the F-35 procurement sounding like Chretien's costly scrapping of the Sea King replacement in 1993 (we're still waiting for the replacement to be completed).

Fact checking the Pinocchio-in-Chief

During his SOTU address yesterday Obama boasted about US diplomacy success in negotiations with Iran saying:

"... for the first time in a decade we've halted the progress of its nuclear program and reduced its stockpile of nuclear material ..."

That might be nice, except that "he outright lied"!



More fact checking at Politico and the WaPo.  Of note (from the WaPo) was his global warmist claim:

“2014 was the planet’s warmest year on record. Now, one year doesn’t make a trend, but this does – 14 of the 15 warmest years on record have all fallen in the first 15 years of this century.”

That may not have been a "lie", technically, because he was just regurgitating the NASA-NOAA-NCDC alarmist bullcrap.
 

Those "aging warplanes"

Unethical journalism (a Canadian staple)

Hypocrisy and biased coverage (and suppression) of events have long been evident in Canadian mainstream journalism.  Two recent stories illustrate the problem: Canada's defence spending and Liberal rising star General Andrew Leslie's screwball comments on Israel's war against Hamas terrorists in Gaza.  Brian Lilley, Michael Coren and David Aiken discuss:





This is the kind of crap the Conservatives are up against in the 2015 election.  It represents a  multi-multi-million dollar media freebee advantage to Conservatives' opponents (mainly Liberals).  And that's why I'll be contributing several times my normal political donations over the next year.

General Leslie's moving expenses

MND Rob Nicholson and others are making a lot of noise about General Andrew Leslie's moving expense claims.

Like most media accounts the above linked article fails to tell us what moving expenses government/Treasury Board/DND regulations actually allow (and disallow). General Leslie's move was a local move (within 40 km) to an Intended Place of Residence (IPR) on release. His move was authorized under these regulations so it would be logical to conclude that his moving expense claim was within the rules. General Leslie would have been advised by DND administrative staff what expenses would be covered.

Rob Nicholson's observation that Leslie's local moving expense claims "appear grossly excessive" is understandable. So is his pledge to look into it:

"... I will be asking the Department of National Defence to examine how an in-city move could possibly total over $72,000".

That's good. It does seem excessive. He should look into it.

But Nicholson also attacked General Leslie's integrity:

"In the meantime, it is important for Andrew Leslie to explain why he believes this is a reasonable expense for hard working Canadians to absorb. This is a matter of judgment and the responsible use of taxpayers dollars."

There Nicholson is way off base. Leslie doesn't have to "explain" anything (even if he is an advisor to that dipsh*t, Justin Trudeau).   It's the Treasury Board and Nicholson's own DND officials, those responsible for the regulations and the authorizing of claims, that have the explaining to do.  Nicholson will be eating crow (and demanding changes in the rules).

FYI, the applicable government regulations are described here (see Chapter 14):
http://www.forces.gc.ca/assets/FORCES_Internet/docs/en/about-policies-standards-benefits-relocation/aps-paa-2009-eng.pdf

Update - Ezra Levant's take:



I agree with Ezra on the Media Party's double standard, the partisan bias and that Leslie is now fair game for partisan criticism.  However, like many partisan conservatives Ezra portrays General Leslie's claim for local moving expenses as some kind of  moral outrage.  It isn't.  That moving expense benefit has been available to all ranks for decades.  The  relocation regulations in question do not discriminate based on rank.  And since there are many more lower ranks than there are generals it can be assumed that there has been a lot more money shelled out for similar expenses for the lower ranks than for generals.  Now, if it were to be discovered that the lower ranks have been denied that benefit, then we'd have a real scandal on our hands.

Obama upholding the Democrats' record of bungled war

Syrial Losers:

Americans unsure what to think about President Obama's plans for Syria should remember that all military action undertaken by Democrats for the last half-century has led to utter disaster. (With the possible exception of the Village People's "Y.M.C.A." video, which I say still holds up.)

I know you liberals care more about free birth control than geopolitics, but if you keep electing Democrats, you'll be getting fitted for burqas, not IUDs.

Soaring F-35 hysterics

The supposedly skyrocketing cost of the F-35 program has been hyped for weeks and months by the media and opposition parties.  Jerry Agar injects some reality:

Obama's payback for sucking up to Vladimir Putin

Russian nuke subs in his backyard:

A Russian nuclear-powered attack submarine armed with long-range cruise missiles operated undetected in the Gulf of Mexico for several weeks ...

... The stealth underwater incursion in the Gulf took place at the same time Russian strategic bombers made incursions into restricted U.S. airspace near Alaska and California in June and July ...

... the vessel was a nuclear-powered Akula-class attack submarine, one of Russia’s quietest submarines. ...

“The Akula was built for one reason and one reason only: To kill U.S. Navy ballistic missile submarines and their crews,” said a second U.S. official.

... Instead of closer ties, Russia under President Vladimir Putin, an ex-KGB intelligence officer who has said he wants to restore elements of Russia’s Soviet communist past, has adopted growing hardline policies against the United States. ...

Good job, comrade Obama!

[Via]

"Banning-the-bomb" - dumber than "banning" guns

George Jonas:  Don’t ban the nuclear bomb, or else…

... A press release this week called it “fitting” that the anniversary of Hiroshima, Aug. 6th, should also be the day for the 600th Member of the Order of Canada to sign an appeal to the government “to join in an international effort to eliminate nuclear weapons.”... [Which speaks poorly of the quality of Order of Canada recipients.]

If the "ban-the-bomb" crowd of naifs got their way the world would be much more dangerous:

The result of nations agreeing to abide by such a ban would be no nuclear weapons in the hands of any nation except North Korea. [and soon, Iran]

That's dumber than the "ban guns" idea in the sense that at least gun-ban proposals allow for good-guy law-enforcement to carry guns.  In a "nuke-free" world only certifiable lunatics would have nukes.

What Canadians want their military to do

Pace my last post on the Harper government’s approach to defence and foreign policy comes an Ipsos poll that says Canadians may not be quite in tune with their government:

... Disaster relief in Canadian communities selected the top priority mission by 73 per cent
... followed by search and rescue, selected by 68 per cent,
... patrolling Canada's air space, land and maritime areas by 66 per cent.
... Enforcing sovereignty in the Arctic ... 52 per cent while
... fighting the war o[n] terrorism came last at 51 per cent.

That’s back-asswards to the military’s actual set of priorities which are defence and sovereignty followed by peacekeeping, search and rescue and lastly aid-to-the-civil-power (eg. disaster relief and riot control).

But hey, let’s look on the bright side. Maybe the Canadian penchant for “disaster relief in Canadian communities” can be turned to military advantage. If we’re going to do it properly (Canada’s a big country) a doubling of uniformed personnel is called for. Also whatever equipment is bought should be dual-roled for disaster relief and defence operations. That calls for a lot more tanks fitted to accept a snowplow blade and more APC’s fitted to accept street-sweepers (cleanup after riots) and even a Zamboni kit for special hockey emergencies. And we’ll need a much bigger fleet of CC-177 Globemasters to get the snowplows and cleanup equipment to where it’s needed. That’s just my back-of-the-envelope estimate of equipment possibilities - think what real military planners could come up with.

John Baird: “... undoing years of damage wreaked by Liberals”

There is a long list of things to congratulate the Conservative gov’t for and foreign policy and defence are two that top my list:

Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird knows some of his government's positions on the world stage are unpopular....

... "We don't develop foreign policy to be popular around the world," he said ...

... Gone is the so-called "soft power" and "human security agenda" of the previous Liberal government ...

... The Canadian military has emerged as a major player in Canadian foreign policy in recent years, bolstered by the fact the Defence Department budget has increased nearly $5.6 billion to $20.3 billion since the Conservative government came into power. [$20B is about double what it was when I left the military.]

... Baird said the government is simply undoing years of damage wreaked by Liberal governments in the 1990s and early 2000s. "The military was gutted for 13 years," he said. ... the government is pre-paring to spend billions on new F-35 fighter jets..

... Baird indicates those who are most critical of Canada's stances aren't likely to be friends anyway. ... "We've taken a tough stand on human rights in some parts of the world, and that makes some people feel very uncomfortable," he said. ...

As always it takes a Conservative government to clean up after years of Liberal weakness, neglect and folly. The last time there was any serious boost to defence was under Brian Mulroney and the Harper government has easily surpassed that.

Kudos to Harper, Baird, MacKay, et al.

Peter MacKay’s helicopter trip - a tempest (and a couple of dumb-ass colonels) in a tea-pot

My initial reaction to the press generated ‘furor’ over Peter MacKay’s ride in a Cormorant SAR chopper was near complete indifference. It’s much ado about bugger-all. I don’t see the scandal in the MND commandeering a ride in a military aircraft once in a blue-moon. Big deal!

Having read the latest story about the "scandalous emails" I’m still indifferent about MacKay’s helicopter trip, but disappointed in some of the military officers involved. If there’s any embarrassment in this situation it will be mostly because of stupid, indiscreet comments and speculation in emails that have been leaked [or FOI’d] to the press:

... At one point during the discussion, a different officer, Col. Bruce Ploughman of One Canadian Air Division Headquarters in Winnipeg, raised concerns about the optics of picking the minister up from a fishing trip with a military helicopter.

"When the guy who's fishing at the fishing hole next to the minister sees the big yellow helicopter arrive and decides to use his cellphone to video the minister getting on board and post it on YouTube," Ploughman wrote, "who will be answering the mail on that one?" [And he puts this in writing?! Good grief!]

Ploughman expressed reluctance to have the military accept the mission. [If true, Ploughman is truly an idiot. A tasking coming from high up the chain, in support of the MINISTER of Defence, isn’t something you’d expect a mere colonel to“express reluctance” about “accepting”.]

"If we are tasked to do this we, of course, will comply," he wrote. "Given the potential for negative press though, I would likely recommend against it, especially in view of the fact that the Air Force receives regular [freedom-of-information requests] specifically targeting travel on [military] aircraft by ministers." [Oh the irony! It doesn’t seem to have crossed Ploughman’s pea-brain that his own email musings might be even more damaging should they be made public.]

The next day, July 7, 2010, Lt.-Col. Chris Bulls wrote that the "mission will be under the guise" of search-and-rescue training. [“ ... under the guise of ...”!!? Kee-ryste - how about (at least) “... the mission is search-and-rescue training”??]

What a couple of dumb-asses! My bet is that those colonels’ careers will be suffering a severe set-back. Their bosses, right up to the CDS, will be livid.

Muslim advisory panels at DND

I missed the item last week in which the Kays (mother and son) debate the wisdom of having paid full-time Muslim advisory panels at DND.

Barbara Kay:

The cancellation of [Imam Delic's] speech by Defence Minister MacKay raises the question of why any government ministry would fund any religious consulting group. Why is there a paid “Muslim Working Group” permanently embedded at Foreign Affairs, whose job it is to advise the government on their foreign policy wherever it touches on areas of Muslim density? Why not a “Christian Working Group” or a “Sikh Working Group”? Can you imagine if there were a “Jewish Working Group” to advise on the Middle East? Don’t make me laugh. To me this is a scandal, and I don’t understand why it has not been addressed. Some of the people in this group hold very insalubrious views or are attached to groups with discomfiting agendas.

Amen! But Barbara's squishy liberal sonny boy, Jonathan Kay, thinks mom is all wet and that Muslim outreach is just what's needed at DND. He argues it was done with Germans and Italians in WWII to help win the war.

Barbara responds:

It’s more likely that Defence or Foreign Affairs invited the Muslims in as an appeasing gesture rather than a step towards victory, and that the motives for the Working Group are not to defeat radical Islam, but to spin it and promote the idea that radical Islam is not our enemy at all. You don’t need an embedded working group to help the military reach out to Muslims. The Israeli government doesn’t hire Arabic leaders to advise the Mossad.

... We’ve had a Communist party for generations, but the military never formed a panel to think about how best to reach out to them.

Jonathan might have a point if the so-called "advisory" panel weren't self-appointed representatives of the most radical and outspoken Muslim group (the CIC) in the country.  I seriously doubt that the CIC will be helping DND figure out how to more effectively kill our Islamist enemies.  Barbara is correct - this effort is more politically correct "community" outreach than anything. In other words, totally irrelevant to defence.

Meanwhile, Blazing Cat Fur asks: "What the hell is going on at DFAIT?"

DND and Islamic History Month

Playing catch-up for the record.
For some dim reason the Department of National Defence got involved in celebrating Islamic History Month.  A top Canadian Islamic Congress exec, Imam Zijad Delic, was scheduled to speak.  The CIC has a notorious history of its own involving, inter alia, radical anti-Israeli, anti-Semitic hate speech and  complaints to HRC's against Mark Steyn, Macleans Magazine and Ezra Levant.

Everything about DND's involvement in this begs serious questions.  MND Peter Mackay, to his everlasting credit, decided to cancel  Imam Delic's appearance. Naturally Delic and the CIC were not happy.

The MSM including CBC, CTV and major newspapers including the National Post have all provided coverage of the controversy, most of it lame, incomplete and/or sympathetic to the CIC and Delic with explicit or implied criticism of Peter Mackay.  There were exceptions. One that stands out is by Brian Lilley at Eye on the Hill.

And, today, Binks at Free Canuckistan provides some more needed insight.

Much earlier (years ago) Daniel Pipes wrote an interesting background on the inroads Muslim organizations were making into the Cdn government, DFAIT in particular.

D-Day, Normandy Invasion

On D-Day, sixty-five years ago today, over 150,000 incredibly brave Allied soldiers went ashore on the coast of France initiating the assault phase of Operation Overlord, the Invasion of Normandy.







Over 14,000 Canadian soldiers landed at Juno Beach with 340 killed and 574 wounded.









Support our troops! Whenever, wherever. And write to the troops.

North Korea's nukes

Charles Krauthammer:

The game is over. We have had 15 years of negotiations under three administrations, the Clinton, Bush, and now Obama. Not just are they a failure, but they are a humiliation.

I think it's time to recognize that it's over. North Korea is a nuclear power. It's not going to be stopped. The only issue is what do we actually do?

I would say forget about U.N. resolutions. Forget about the six- party talks, and forget about even bilateral negotiations. What we need is action.

Action number one, a nuclear Japan. Japan is a country that is directly threatened. I think we ought to have intensive negotiations with the Japanese to encourage them to declare themselves a nuclear power.

The only way in which we're going to have any progress in the area is if we reshuffle the interest of the parties here. A nuclear in Japan will send a message to China, especially, to recalculate its interests.

Up until now, it had zero interest in curbing its client. It is a thorn in our side. It is an ally in the area. It is a threat to South Korea. It supports its hegemony in the region.

A nuclear Japan will reshuffle the deck on its recalculations. It may send a message which would encourage China to change its policy.

Otherwise, nothing happens.

Brooks in Afstan

Damian Brooks' latest report from the wilds of Afghanistan. Fine reporting and photos.