Our warlord is better than their warlords

The Canadian Forces have always been pragmatic in who it uses to help the CF in places like Kandahar.

White western forces are at a disadvantage in a place where it is incredibly difficult to know who is on first.

That's why warlords and those on the ground are the way to ensure peace.  Their troubled past will not make these people go away and in fact Col Toorjan is well known as the protector of the Provincial Reconstruction Team.

My own experience working closely with Turjoon and his soldiers allowed the PRT of 2005 to be largely incident free due to his power within the vacuum of Kandahar's politics after the Taliban left in 2001.   When Glyn Berry the Canadian diplomat died in a suicide attack on the 15 January 2006 his troops went door to door and ensured that the leader of the suicide bombing cell was arrested.  Unfortunately in a story that's all too common Pir Muhammad was released soon after due to his connections with another Kandahar heavy hitter named Mullah Naqib the warlord of Arghandab.  He once fought valiantly against the Soviets during the war in 1979 to 1989 and then solidified his own position as warlord until the Taliban took over in 1994.  He arranged a surrender of over 3000 Taliban fighters in the US led invasion of 2001 and was an enemy of Gul Agha Sherzai the Governor of Kandahar Province (a ally of Col Turjoon).  His ability to switch sides was noticed that although he arranged for the only person to be arrested in Glyn Berry's death he met just a few weeks later with PM Harper in a room named after the senior diplomat.  Before his death he even warned of Canadian Forces planned withdrawal and was a huge supporter of the International Security Afghanistan Force, at least on the surface.

Mullah Naqib meeting Prime Minister Harper in 2006 outside the conference room named after Glyn Berry

 Pir Mohamed was then arrested a second time after several months living in the open and placed into a Kabul jail where he once again walked out the door.  He even did an interview with CTV claiming his innocence.

Pir Muhammad head of the suicide bombing cell that killed Diplomat Glyn Berry

All of that story would never have come out and the death of a Canadian diplomat would have been left unsolved had it not been to the soldiers of Col Turjoon.  Mullah Naqib died of a heart attack after his convoy was attacked in Oct 2007.  Pir Muhammad has not been seen since his release and its is well assumed by many that he has been killed.

When fighting in the third world there are times when third world skill sets are needed.  If our goal is to ensure that Afghans fight Afghans problems then people like Col Turjoon are the ones to do the dirty work.

Gul Agha Sherzai and Hamid Karzai

A Kandahar warlord, with links to former governor Gul Agha Sherzai, earned $2.5 million since 2008 providing security outside of the provincial reconstruction base.

Col. Haji Toorjan employed a 40-man militia. But there are questions about how much was spent for his service because the documents tabled in the House of Commons are not consistent with access-to-information records and published reports that show he was on the payroll in 2007.

The NDP's foreign-affairs critic said it's appalling Ottawa had no mechanism to govern hired guns and charged that what the country tried to accomplish in terms of rule of law in Kandahar has suffered.

"It undermines our credibility," said Paul Dewar. "Afghans are not stupid. They see these people. They see what they're doing and they know who is paying them."

Dewar questioned why contractors were needed in the first place. But a defence expert, who has written extensively on the use of hired guns in war zones, said they are fact of life in the age of all-volunteer armies.

The contractors, usually ex-soldiers, are most often used in a defensive manner, taking up guard duties that free combat troops, said researcher Dave Perry in Ottawa.

He also cautioned that moral outrage over unsavoury alliances with local warlords should be tempered.

In conflict zones "I think it would be hard to find somebody who could provide credible security force that did not have something in their past that somebody could point to and say that they've done something inappropriate," said Perry.

Complete article is here:

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/breakingnews/canadas-hired-guns-in-afghanistan-slammed-in-us-senate-report-115426179.html?viewAllComments=y

Gul Agha Sherzai's new mansion in Jalalabad

Australian Digger wounded in Afghanistan

The Australian Defence Force (ADF) has taken a role of transparency when it releases reports on wounded and fallen soldiers.....

The soldier has become the second wounded in Afghanistan since the start of this year.

This is something that I hope that the Canadian Forces can model itself after.

Other Examples of true transparency....

AN Australian soldier has been wounded in Afghanistan after his patrol was hit by an improvised explosive device.

A local interpreter died and an Afghan soldier was also wounded in the blast that occurred in the Chorah Valley region of Uruzgan Province on Saturday.

The Australian soldier, a member of Mentoring Task Force Two, was evacuated to the ISAF medical facility at the multi-national base Tarin Kowt, a statement from the defence force said.

He had surgery there before being flown to the ISAF medical facility at Kandahar for further treatment.

Joint Task Force 633 Commander, Major General Angus Campbell, said although the soldier's wounds were considered serious; he was now in a satisfactory condition.

"Our soldiers and their Afghan partners show great courage in facing the threat of improvised explosive devices on a daily basis," Maj Gen Campbell said.  Two Australian soldiers have been wounded in action in Afghanistan since the beginning of 2011, while a total of 166 soldiers have been wounded since Australia commenced operations in Afghanistan in 2001, defence said.

Read more: http://www.news.com.au/national/australian-soldier-wounded-in-afghanistan-blast/story-e6frfkvr-1225988996305#ixzz1CpnLkGdV

AN Australian soldier seriously wounded by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan has been flown to Germany for specialist treatment.

The unnamed soldier was one of two members of the Mentoring Task Force (MTF-2) hurt in separate improvised explosive device blasts in the Baluchi Valley region of Oruzgan province on Sunday.

MTF-2 commanding officer Lieutenant Colonel Darren Huxley said one of the soldiers received superficial wounds.

However, the other suffered serious blast and fragmentation wounds when the IED exploded near an Afghan National Army foot patrol accompanied by Australian soldiers.

“He is still in a serious condition. He has been flown to Germany to the major NATO hospital there,” Lieutenant Colonel Huxley said from the Australian base at Tarin Kowt.

“He has got some serious wounds but none of them are life-threatening.

“His mother has been flown out to be with him as well.”

The soldier was initially treated at the medical facility at Tarin Kowt before being transported to the medical facility in Kandahar for further treatment.

These were the first casualties experienced by MTF-2, which replaced MTF-1 in Oruzgan from September. They brought the number of Australian wounded this year to 62, most from IEDs.

Since Australia started operations in Afghanistan, 162 soldiers have been wounded. In that time, 21 have been killed, 10 this year.

AAP

ANA and ADF prep for a combined patrol

AN AUSTRALIAN soldier who was wounded in Afghanistan last month has been flown home.

The soldier was injured on December 19 when he was hit by an improvised explosive device (IED) while on foot patrol in the Baluchi Valley region of Uruzgan Province.

Defence says the digger is focused on recovering from his wounds and being with his family.

It said he suffered serious blast and fragmentation wounds when his joint Afghan National Army and MTF-2 patrol struck the IED.

He had previously been flown to Germany for treatment at a NATO hospital.

TWO Australian soldiers have been shot and wounded in Afghanistan while troops were trying to secure an area around a roadside bomb.

The Australian Defence Force said the first Digger was wounded yesterday by “a single shot fired from an unknown location and direction”.

The second was shot a short time later while securing a landing zone for an aircraft to carry out a medical evacuation.

Defence said both soldiers were flown to the Australian base at Tarin Kowt, while one was subsequently moved to Kandahar for further treatment.

Both soldiers were in a satisfactory condition in separate hospitals.

“Medical staff will continue to monitor the soldiers' condition,” said Acting Chief of Joint Operations, Rear Admiral Ray Griggs.

Defence would not release any further details because operations were continuing.

Early last week an Australian soldier seriously wounded by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan was flown to Germany for specialist treatment.Sixty-four Australian soldiers have been wounded in Afghanistan this year, most by improvised explosive devices.

The unnamed soldier was one of two members of the Mentoring Task Force (MTF-2) hurt in separate improvised explosive device blasts in the Baluchi Valley region of Oruzgan province on December 20.

One of the soldiers received superficial wounds, but the other suffered serious blast and fragmentation wounds when the improvised explosive device exploded near an Afghan National Army foot patrol accompanied by Australian soldiers.

AAP

ADF LAV

Canadian Navy Recruiting Video

Canadian Navy Centennial Commercial

Navy to cut fleet in half

HMCS Saskatoon

The Canadian Forces is having to cut half its patrol fleet as budget cuts slashed:
From an Official web site:

Kingston Class Patrol boats are used for:

"Coastal surveillance, general naval operations and exercises, search and rescue, law enforcement, resource protection, fisheries patrols and mine countermeasure capabilities."

A shortage of money and sailors is forcing Canada's navy to mothball half its fleet of 12 vessels used to patrol the Arctic, Atlantic and Pacific coasts.  In a statement to CBC News, the navy said it made the tough choice to leave several of the 55-metre vessels at dock in Halifax and Esquimalt, B.C., and strip them of their crews because it doesn't have the resources to operate them all.

The navy said the move is necessary to continue the primary mission of defending Canada.

"Upon close examination of resources and priorities, this was deemed necessary to safeguard and optimize our operational capability, both now and in the future," wrote Denise LaViolette, a navy spokeswoman.  Three ships will remain on each coast. The others won't be scrapped, but they will be put in long-term storage.

HMCS Brandon (MM 710)

The navy has not said how much money it would need to keep the whole fleet active or how much it will save by reducing the fleet by half.  The Kingston-class ships were built in the mid-1990s to hunt for mines that could block Canadian ports. They are lightly armed and can be converted to carry a small underwater robot or even platoons of soldiers.  LaViolette said the federal government is providing "stable and predictable" funding, and the navy continues to modernize its frigates and refit its submarines.

No warning

Nova Scotia Premier Darrell Dexter said he did not get any warning from Ottawa about the cuts — even though as the minister responsible for military relations, he is regularly briefed by Defence Department officials.
Dexter said he would have gladly helped Defence Minister Peter MacKay make the case for keeping the fleet intact.
"Minister MacKay would have my full support in making the case to the cabinet and the prime minister on the importance of naval operations — not just to this province, but to this country — and that anything that would lead to the paring down of operations would be of concern to us," the premier said.  Dexter plans to ask for details on this latest move by the military.
During question period in the House of Commons on Thursday, MacKay said the Conservative government has increased funding to the navy and will continue to do so.  


"The reality is, the navy is getting $200 million more in its budget," he said.
On top of that, MacKay said the government plans to spend $40 billion on new ships over the next 20 years.  Liberal MP Keith Martin, who represents Esquimalt, a navy town in British Columbia, said the news of the cuts shocked him, coming on the heels of sweeping government promises to increase military spending and rebuild the navy.  "Why is this government choosing to gut our navy and put the lives of our brave men and women at risk?" Martin asked.


MacKay replied the government is investing in the navy.  "We're investing in the Canadian Forces in unprecedented numbers," he said. "The Canadian navy, in its 100th anniversary, will have more money than it's had in a 100 years."

CF Budget as a percentage of GDP

But Vice-Admiral Dean McFadden, in a letter sent fleet-wide, said the navy had to make some tough financial decisions.  "As with any large organization, DND continuously monitors its financial status, evaluates its expenditures against actual results and, as required, sequences its priorities accordingly," the commander of Maritime Command, wrote.  "Managing funding and assigning priorities is part of our normal cycle of business. I have made choices to ensure programs key to the future of the Navy remain protected and that required force generation and force employment capabilities are sustained within the boundaries of national procurement resources allocated to the Navy."

'Slap in the face'

Government budget figures published by the department show that spending this year has actually gone down. Last year, Canada's Maritime Forces were allocated $2.1 billion; this year this was down to $1.97 billion, with a further reduction planned for the following year.  The NDP's shipbuilding critic, Peter Stoffer, called the cuts a "slap in the face" to the men and women in the navy.
He said the navy was forced to mothball its ships because of government cutbacks.  "The Conservative government should hang their head in shame," Stoffer said. "I really feel for all sailors and military personnel who will be affected by this decision."  He said the decision will have an impact on the economies of both Halifax and Victoria, as well as the ability to adequately patrol Canada's coasts.

Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/nova-scotia/story/2010/05/13/ns-navy-coastal-ships.html#ixzz1CpH6r7wa

Kingston Class Patrol Boat

This was something that was tried last year but the cuts were rescinded by higher command:

Defence Minister Peter MacKay is denying reports that the navy is cutting by half the fleet used to patrol all three coasts and limiting the number of frigate missions.

“These operational decisions have not been taken,” Mr. MacKay said yesterday in response to an Ottawa Citizen article was based on a letter from the navy’s commander detailing the cuts.

“We are going to have increased naval capability in the future as a result of the historic investments that we’re making in the Canadian navy."

Read more: http://www.nationalpost.com/news/MacKay+denies+navy+fleet+half/3025055/story.html#ixzz1CpNG9Uoo

Earlier this week, Vice-Admiral Dean McFadden, the head of Canada’s navy, ordered half of the country’s Kingston-class maritime coastal defence vessels to be docked and also shelved upgrades and maintenance on many other ships, including frigates.

He said he was forced to take such drastic action because he simply didn’t have enough funding.

Defence analysts called it a major reduction in the number of ships available for service, prompting howls from opposition MPs in the House of Commons -- and many sailors -- that the Conservatives, as their gift to the navy on its 100th anniversary, was essentially to starve it of the money needed to keep ships afloat.

But after two days of tough questions from the opposition in the House of Commons, Chief of Defence Staff Gen. Walter Natynczyk reversed Vice-Admiral McFadden’s decision, saying the Canadian Forces will re-allocate some financial resources so that Vice-Admiral McFadden and the navy won’t have to tie up a substantial portion of the fleet.

That sets up the possibility of a fierce turf war within the Canadian Forces as each service -- the navy, the army, and the air force -- tries to defend its existing budget allocations.

Gen. Natynczyk would not say if he was told to undo Vice-Admiral McFadden’s order by Defence Minister Peter MacKay.

“At the end of the day, in the military chain of command, it’s my decision to rescind the order,” Gen. Natynczyk told reporters at a Parliament Hill news conference Friday. “It’s my job to make sure the minister is not surprised.”

Hours earlier, Conservative MPLaurie Hawn, MacKay’s parliamentary secretary, angrily denied that Vice-Admiral McFadden had even issued such an order.

“No ships are going into dry dock. That is simply false,” Hawn told the House of Commons. “The navy has been given $200 million more this year than last.”

But even with that extra money, the navy -- like the other branches in the Canadian Forces -- is finding it tough to keep up.

The navy’s top two budget priorities are the modernization of the Halifax-class frigates and repairs to its Victoria-class submarines.

“We could always use more money,” Gen. Natynczyk said. But he also suggested that part of the reason for tying up some ships at dock -- what the navy calls “extended readiness” -- was due to a shortage of trained sailors.

David Akin, Canwest News Service · Thursday, May 13, 2010

Read more: http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=3029312#ixzz1CpMULp61

Soldiers serving overseas to have benefits cut... a new dark decade?

"These are challenging times, but there has never been a better time to wear the uniform."

- General Walt Natynczyk, during his 24-25 January 2011 presentations to United Kingdom’s Royal United Services Institute and Royal College of Defence Studies.

In a good window of the future of the Canadian Forces and how they look to treat our serving men and women one need only look at the recent announcement made by Vice-Admiral Bruce Donaldson.

These kinds of budget cuts by blaming accounting errors or the Treasury Board is what we will see more in the future especially as the Vice Admiral will probably the next Chief of Defence Staff.  Telling bad news is a kind of  litmus tests to see how he would handle giving out bad news to the Canadian public and how he handles himself at news conferences.

The military is looking at releasing all the wounded that are unable to complete the fitness tests, even though there are many overweight or unfit people working at headquarters or throughout the various bases.  This is another cost saving measure to reduce the budgetary amounts that DND is paying to the wounded and injured. 

 It appears that treasury board is rearing its ugly head again and first it was VAC now the soldiers serving overseas......

The unauthorized benefits include:

- Next-of-kin visits to Afghanistan.

- Travel fee reimbursements for troops deployed to different parts of Canada.

- Bonuses for overseas postings and allowances for soldiers assigned away from families.

- Use of taxpayer dollars to bring families of fallen soldiers killed in Afghanistan to repatriation ceremonies.

"the Canadian Forces understand that deployments can be challenging for families, and have the resources in place to help.'"

Canadian Forces recruiting website

DND halts millions in benefits

MEMORIAL Misty Lyttle pays tribute to her brother, Sapper Steven Marshall, killed in Afghanistan in 2009, at the cenotaph in Kandahar 0ct 2010

Jonathan Montpetit/THE CANADIAN PRESS

The Canadian military says an error at the Department of National Defence resulted in tens of millions of dollars worth of benefit payments paid to up to 7,000 service members over the last five years.

The benefits include the Defence Department's use of taxpayer dollars to bring families of fallen soldiers killed in Afghanistan to repatriation ceremonies, which did not receive proper approval from the Treasury Board.

The DND payments will be cut off at midnight Tuesday while the military reviews the benefit assessments and payment process, said Vice-Admiral Bruce Donaldson, vice-chief of the defence staff.

In a hastily arranged news conference at National Defence Headquarters in Ottawa, Donaldson said an internal review determined DND officials mistakenly changed internal eligibility policies for benefits offered to military posted outside Canada and their next of kin.  The unauthorized benefits also include next-of-kin visits to Afghanistan, travel fee reimbursements for troops deployed to different parts of Canada, bonuses for overseas postings and allowances for soldiers assigned away from families.

'We didn't do our homework'

Donaldson stressed the error was the result of an "interpretation" by military administrators over eligibility for payments, and servicemen and women who received the benefits did not do anything wrong.  "Canadian Forces members are not to be blamed for this oversight," Donaldson said. "We didn't do our homework."  The military is now seeking Treasury Board approval for these costs. In addition, the costs for any future next-of-kin visits will be paid out of a non-public fund.

Donaldson stressed Canadian servicemen and women will not see cuts on their paycheques, but acknowledged they will have to wait for future payments until the process is sorted out.

He added he believes it will have a minimal impact on soldiers currently deployed to Afghanistan.

"Every effort is being made to rectify this situation," Donaldson said.

So far, no one is facing disciplinary action, he added.

Jay Paxton, a spokesperson for Defence Minister Peter MacKay, said that while the minister's priority is to provide support to military members and their families, the payments must cease until they are approved by the Treasury Board.  "The [Canadian Forces] leadership have informed Minister MacKay these payments were made in good faith and that a process has been initiated to rectify the situation quickly and minimize any impact the cessation of payments may have on individual members of the Forces," he said.

Wednesday, February 2, 2011   CBC News

Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2011/02/01/military-benefits.html?ref=rss#ixzz1Cp51jDnC

Lets encourage DND to do the right thing and bring back these benefits that cost so little in the great scheme of thing and stop penny pinching first the veterans and now the serving members.

Are we entering a new "dark decade'?