Canadian Armed Forces, inappropriate behavior and who knew what when?

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BetteTheRed said:
What disturbs me, possibly the most, was Vance claiming to his "special friend" that he had the Minister of Defense "under control". Sounds very much like the tail wagging the dog.
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Which is my biggest concern. We really need to make it clear to the generals/admirals that the civilian minister and senior bureaucrats are the ultimate authority, not them. And an independent civilian oversight board with investigative power over all ranks right up the Chief of Defense Staff would go a long away towards that. Also, not appointing ex-mil to be Minister of Defense. As we are seeing here, there is just too much risk that habits of deference to authority are a potential problem.
 
Yes. Agree that was a very disturbing comment

and Pinga. I started this thread. Are you telling me that you are going to police what I add to it
 
Lastpointe said:
Yes. Agree that was a very disturbing comment

and Pinga. I started this thread. Are you telling me that you are going to police what I add to it
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No, what I am saying is it is tiresome to have a thread about the armed forces end up a place to throw everything you dont' like about Trudeau in it.
If that is what it is, I will happily back out.
 
An article gets posted about another new report. And I post it. Yes I comment. And yes I think Trudeau is a twit. But I also think as the head of government he has to own what happens under his watch. And if he needs to fire ministers then so be it

i am interested why the liberal party is preventing Telford from testifying. Marquis said he told her. So either she knew and told her boss, which seems the right thing to do when we are talking about the chief of defense staff, or she withheld it. Either way it is an interesting thing to follow up on

it is interesting that Sagiin most recently , prior to getting elected, worked for Vance. That seems a tad close for comfort

In Any corporation, it’s pretty hard to report or discipline your boss or ex boss
 
I can't even imagine how this gets fixed.

Short of dismantling the whole system, which exists, to a large part, as a mechanism to allow former civilians to murder other people in a spirit of obedience, what does one do?

Mrs. A and I have just concluded a short workshop series on non-violence, and the leader is fond of referring to the Peace Virus. I don't know where you inject the peace virus into this organization.
 
And down goes another officer. Unfortunately, it's Major-General Dany Fortin, who is currently seconded to Public Health to handle logistics for the vaccination campaign. Well, WAS seconded to Public Health. Now on a leave pending investigation of a complaint against him.


BetteTheRed said:
I don't know where you inject the peace virus into this organization.
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You don't. You rip and replace. Set up a civil defense force focused on border security (including patrolling coastal waters), search and rescue, and disaster recovery. Still need military training for doing things like providing security in disaster areas and dealing with illegal activity in our waters, but combat wouldn't be their focus. Create a national reserve force, possibly with mandatory national service similar to Israel and Switzerland, for home defense. Put very, very strict limits on overseas operations of any kind other than disaster recovery. Canada is not going to be a military power. Ever. So let's focus on helping and protecting Canadians and let the big boys duke it out on their own dime.

(Yes, this would likely also involve withdrawing from NATO and declaring ourselves neutral and that carries some consequences esp. given our necessary relationship with the US.).

Given that this is likely not happening, though, my suggestions upthread about beefing up civilian oversight of defense and the military is probably the best approach. Make the generals as subservient as possible to the Department and Minister and put in place a civilian complaints commission with judicial powers and the ability to remove or demote any personnel right up to the Chief of Defense Staff to deal with these sorts of problems. Military officers need to be treated as managers, not as some kind of special people who deserve deference.
 
Is militancy another corruptive power in the eyes of the meek?

The spirited descent ... be attitudes ... perhaps? Lord the failures and collapses continue forever it appears ... incarnate? Tacky is naughty!
 
Mendalla, I agree completely. NATO left a mess in Libya, Afghanistan, Iraq. We put some of the best trained soldiers into situations with no clear purpose, no long term strategy, and little understanding of the people they invaded. They paid with their lives, their health, and other prices, all to serve the vanity of our governments and military leaders.
 
Mendalla said:
And down goes another officer. Unfortunately, it's Major-General Dany Fortin, who is currently seconded to Public Health to handle logistics for the vaccination campaign. Well, WAS seconded to Public Health. Now on a leave pending investigation of a complaint against him.



You don't. You rip and replace. Set up a civil defense force focused on border security (including patrolling coastal waters), search and rescue, and disaster recovery. Still need military training for doing things like providing security in disaster areas and dealing with illegal activity in our waters, but combat wouldn't be their focus. Create a national reserve force, possibly with mandatory national service similar to Israel and Switzerland, for home defense. Put very, very strict limits on overseas operations of any kind other than disaster recovery. Canada is not going to be a military power. Ever. So let's focus on helping and protecting Canadians and let the big boys duke it out on their own dime.

(Yes, this would likely also involve withdrawing from NATO and declaring ourselves neutral and that carries some consequences esp. given our necessary relationship with the US.).

Given that this is likely not happening, though, my suggestions upthread about beefing up civilian oversight of defense and the military is probably the best approach. Make the generals as subservient as possible to the Department and Minister and put in place a civilian complaints commission with judicial powers and the ability to remove or demote any personnel right up to the Chief of Defense Staff to deal with these sorts of problems. Military officers need to be treated as managers, not as some kind of special people who deserve deference.
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There was a time when our military was regarded as a peace keeping force, and then it changed. And a former Prime minister, Lester Pearson was known as the inventor of peacekeeping and even won a Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts:

natoassociation.ca

The Fall of Canadian Peacekeeping: Should It Be Revived?

In April 1993, there were 3336 Canadian peacekeepers deployed on UN missions. As of July 31st 2019, there are only 150. What has led to this extreme decline of Canadian peacekeepers? Should the practice of Canadian peacekeeping be revived or completely abolished? In this special report, I look...
natoassociation.ca natoassociation.ca
 
Waterfall said:
There was a time when our military was regarded as a peace keeping force, and then it changed.
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Didn't stop us from backing US operations or posting a significant percentage of our military in Europe as part of NATO, which was quite explicitly a hostile war posture against the USSR. Had the US taken military action against, say, the Soviet suppression of the Prague Spring, we likely would have been involved. And purchases like the Leopard II main battle tank and F-18 Hornet were pretty clearly not related to peace-keeping. Those are offensive military weapons, not "keeping the peace" ones. We may have been heavily involved in peacekeeping and even instrumental to it, but it was hardly our exclusive, or even primary, mission in that era.
 
Mendalla said:
Didn't stop us from backing US operations or posting a significant percentage of our military in Europe as part of NATO, which was quite explicitly a hostile war posture against the USSR. Had the US taken military action against, say, the Soviet suppression of the Prague Spring, we likely would have been involved. And purchases like the Leopard II main battle tank and F-18 Hornet were pretty clearly not related to peace-keeping. Those are offensive military weapons, not "keeping the peace" ones. We may have been heavily involved in peacekeeping and even instrumental to it, but it was hardly our exclusive, or even primary, mission in that era.
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We're not perfect, for sure, but it would be nice to see a return to peace as our main driver.
 
A return to a priority for peace keeping would probably require changing most of the he senior military commanders.
 
Mendalla said:
I think you missed my point. Peace was never our military's main driver in the Cold War era. Confronting the USSR as part of NATO was.
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Our power was never in our military.....our power once came from peacekeeping IMO.

Canada also had the largest number of peacekeeping forces in NATO during the cold war.....more than any other country and the most UN casualties.
During the 1957 Suez Canal Crisis it was Pearson's proposal of UNEF (UN Emergency Force) that broke the deadlock.
 
Waterfall said:
Our power was never in our military.....our power once came from peacekeeping IMO.
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Then how do you explain the hundreds of millions we spent on weapons that had no purpose other than fighting a war in Europe and maintaining a major military base in Germany.

Yes, peacekeeping was a major role for us and should be the only overseas role for our forces. However, we probably spent far more money and other resources preparing for WWIII than we ever spent on peacekeeping. The best thing we did for peace was keeping out of 'Nam and Iraq. Too bad Afghanistan kind of offset the latter since our presence freed up US troops for Iraq.


And,.to be clear, the true peacekeeping missions were UN. Most of our NATO missions have been military in nature (e.g. Afghanistan).
 
Mendalla said:
Then how do you explain the hundreds of millions we spent on weapons that had no purpose other than fighting a war in Europe and maintaining a major military base in Germany.

Yes, peacekeeping was a major role for us and should be the only overseas role for our forces. However, we probably spent far more money and other resources preparing for WWIII than we ever spent on peacekeeping. The best thing we did for peace was keeping out of 'Nam and Iraq. Too bad 'Afghanistan kind of offset the latter since our presence freed up US troops for Iraq.


And,.to be clear, the true peacekeeping missions were UN. Most of our NATO missions have been military in nature (e.g. Afghanistan).
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Youre talking later when our peacemaking objectives changed.
 
Waterfall said:
Youre talking later when our peacemaking objectives changed.
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When do you think that change occured? We have always had main battle tanks and attack planes. Had WWIII broken out in the fifties or sixties we would have been on the front lines. We were a military force doing peacekeeping, not the other way around, no matter what narrative we have been sold.
 
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