Government of Canada, Dishonouring a Promise to Afghan Interpreters

"Afghan interpreters were once heroes to the government of Canada. Today they are zeros because they are stressed, depressed, panicking and mentally unstable due to [fears over] the lives of their families and their loved ones."

Ahmad Shoaib, former Afghan interpreter working with Canadian forces in Afghanistan

"The federal government, in particular the IRCC [Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada], should stop playing politics with us."

"It's a matter of life and death for our parents and siblings."

"IRCC promised us and promised the public that if an applicant made it to a third country they would contact IRCC and they would help them to take them out of that country."

"Going to the Taliban and asking them for a family passport, the first question they will ask is why do you need a passport for every single member of your family, who did you work for and who did you have a relationship with, any foreign NATO members."

Ghulam Faizi, former interpreter

"We failed to build a society where freedom and women's rights are respected, where everyone has an opportunity to be what they want, where the dreams of young generations can be seen, and where minorities had a voice."

"This pain will always be hunting us down because we believed in it, we fought for it with the Canadian Forces, shoulder to shoulder."

"The minister of immigration made promises directly to us, and we want him to keep these promises."

"Zero families' members have arrived under this current policy."

Hameed Khan, former interpreter

Taliban members stop women protesting for women’s rights in Kabul, Afghanistan, on Oct. 21, 2021. Photo: Bulent Kilic/AFP via Getty Images

 

Former members of the Canadian military who had served in Afghanistan and valued the work of Afghans serving as interpreters, as staff working for the Canadian embassy, felt morally compelled and obligated to urge the government to speed up its promise of bringing to Canada these hundreds of workers that had been loyal to Canada while stationed in Afghanistan, before the fall of Kabul and the Taliban takeover of the country. 

 

These groups dedicated to extricating former Afghan workers with Canadians overseas, lobbied government, raised funds to supply to former interpreters and their families to enable them to live in safe houses while awaiting rescue, voiced their frustration with government's delays and excessive administrative paperwork hindering speed in rescuing them from a dire fate once the Taliban was in power and seeking revenge on those they considered 'traitors'.

The government of Canada was ill prepared and seemed in no particular hurry to extract people whom they had repeatedly assured they would be rescued and brought to Canada, along with their families. In the end, about 400 Afghan citizens were flown to Canada, leaving hundreds more behind and in danger. Now, and once again, Afghan interpreters who served with Canadian troops and are living in Canada, continue to urge the government to cut excess red tape and make good on their promises. 

In testimony before the House of Commons special committee on Afghanistan, former interpreters charge Canada's IRCC with misleading them; promises of the rescue of family members have been devoid of the sincere efforts their rescue requires. The hundreds of Afghan civilians who responded to Canada's need for local help during Canada's 14-year mission under the NATO umbrella included contractors who worked as interpreters, security staff and embassy employees.

 

People participate in a rally calling on the Canadian government to evacuate the families of interpreters and locally employed civilians who supported the Canadian Armed Forces in Afghanistan as they are being targeted by the Taliban, on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, on Tuesday, Aug. 3, 2021. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Justin Tang

 

Canada had introduced measures to grant Afghan allies permanent residence in Canada in recognition of their contribution to Canada's military in the country opposing the Taliban and post-conflict, digging village wells, building rural elementary schools and health clinics and many other civic initiatives, including training the Afghan police force and military. The promises have never been completed resulting from a desultory speed at which applications are processed and demands by the IRCC for additional, hard-to-obtain official documents 'qualifying' those desperately in need of rescue for what was promised.

At one point the interpreters in Canada, anxiously awaiting the arrival of their family members to Canada as promised, were informed that their family members would not need passports. But that assurance was changed, with the IRCC now claiming that transporting family members without passports would be "difficult". Suggesting that family members approach Taliban authorities directly to access passports. A mind-numbing prospect, and one so obviously likely to place any who might be foolish enough to take such a step, in immediate danger.

The Afghans awaiting reunion with their family members, as promised by the government of Canada, are aghast that they are now being informed that loosening immigration restrictions for family members would result in a number of security issues. This, at a time when they take note that immigration restrictions have been relaxed for Ukrainians fleeing the combustible chaos that has engulfed Ukraine, with Russia's violent invasion.

People participate in a rally calling on the Canadian government to evacuate the families of interpreters and locally employed civilians who supported the Canadian Armed Forces in Afghanistan as they are being targeted by the Taliban, on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, on Tuesday, Aug. 3, 2021. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Justin Tang

Rot At The Pinnacle

"I was told I could come back into the Canadian Forces as a captain, maybe a major. When I was told that, I felt the contributions I had made were of no value. I was completely disgusted by an organization I once loved."

"He [Chief of the Defence Staff] excoriates the mid-level leadership of the forces for leaving but does nothing to hold general officers to account."

"This says a lot about the current state of affairs."

Lt.Col. Mark Popov, retired Canadian Forces officer

 

"I acknowledge the personal toll events toward the end of his career at RMC [Royal Military College] have likely had on LCol(ret'd) Popov and thank him for his contributions to the Canadian Armed Forces through his many years of service."

"I acknowledge that he was not afforded procedural fairness in all circumstances."

"The CAF took a series of restorative steps to address the issues raised in that grievance [Lt.Col Popov's grievance brought against the military command when he was removed from his command position at the RMC]." 

General Wayne Eyre, Chief of Defence Staff

The official flag for the Royal Military College. The flag looks as disgracefully ragged as the RMC reputation ...  Photo by IAN MACALPINE /Postmedia

For years the scandalous behaviour of top echelon Canadian military elites in all branches of the service has raised an undercurrent of outrage among victims of sexual harassment and assault in the military, both women and men. Official enquiries were launched, resulting reports rife with recommendations, lauded for a formula that would bring the Forces out of the dark ages. And then the top brass simply shelved such reports.

But not without assuring Parliament, Canadian troops and the public at large, that work was underway to change the culture of sexual harassment, and to hold perpetrators fully responsible, meting out justifiable punishment in consequence of their actions. That victims of sexual abuse would be heard and their testimony used to launch related investigations. At the time of the latest revelations, the-then retiring Chief of Defence Staff was himself accused of sexually abusing an officer under his command.

And then his replacement too, before he had adequately warmed the seat of CDC, was also the subject of an accusation, and he stepped away from the position. A series of revelations unfolded, one after another, with high-echelon military officers shrouded in accusations, relieved of duty temporarily as the military investigated itself, and leaving the impression that no one in high office in the Canadian military honoured an equitable, respectful code of conduct.

Before all this unfolded, in 2015, one conscientious officer charged with the directorship of cadets at RMC acted in good faith in an effort to hold military cadets accountable for conduct unbecoming decency. Officer cadets in July of 2015 disgraced themselves by harassing a group of 17-year-old female sea cadets visiting Royal Military College. These future leaders of the Canadian military saw fit to hang out of windows shouting at the girls, threatening rape, sodomy and forcing the minors to perform oral sex.

 

Officers present at the time attempted to intervene only to be told to "f---off". When Lt.Col. Popov got wind of what had occurred he rushed over to the scene ordering the officer cadets to their barracks. Then he addressed them with scathing remarks on their conduct, reading back to them the documented sexual provocations and threats they were responsible for. Adding some of his own curses at them for good measure in an effort to have them acknowledge their behaviour. Not one among the several hundred cadets expressed regret.

 

Some of these future military leaders were the sons of current Generals and they lost no time complaining to their fathers of the humiliating treatment they had been subjected to. As senior officers at National Defence Headquarters damned Lt.Col. Popov, who had served for 27 years, he soon found himself ostracized. Then-RMC commandant Brig.Gen.Sean Friday removed his subordinate from his command, focusing on his use of profanity when addressing the cadets.

"During my time as Commandant of RMC, we did our utmost to ensure that our future CAF leaders could thrive in a healthy and safe learning environment. I worked with my team to disseminate a comprehensive 'RMC Operation Order — OP HONOUR' that contained specific and detailed orders directing all staff, faculty and students to act with Character, Courage and Compassion in responding to and eradicating all forms of sexual harassment and misconduct.” 

“This order contained a newly developed [over the first three months of my time as Commandant], detailed multi-year Action Plan for providing a safe, healthy and harassment-free environment for students, staff and faculty and contributing to CAF efforts to achieve permanent improvement in this regard."

Brig.-Gen. Friday, then-commandant, Royal Military College

By 2018 his position had become untenable; his career track was broken, he had no support among the generals, and he was diagnosed with PTSD, linked to the toxic environment he was exposed to. Three years previously, when he had been removed from his command, he had filed a grievance, but it took four  years for his complaint to be addressed, and that happened a year after Lt.Col. Popov's withdrawal from the military. He was forced by mental stress to retire prematurely, without so much as an apology from the department.

The-then Chief of Staff had finally responded: "These breaches are certainly regrettable" .. the career-ending actions of superior officers. The decision to remove Lt.Col. Popov from command was deemed "null and void". The disciplinary action placed on record by the-then commandant against Lt.Col. Popov was ordered removed. $25,000 was made available by the military to Lt.Col. Popov to pay for the legal bill he had incurred defending himself.

As for his PTSD, he was offered referrals to website links where he might receive information how to deal with his ailment. He was also given the offer of re-enlisting if he accepted a demotion and as long as  his medical condition improved. In the aftermath of the situation being reported in the news, soldiers anonymously praised Lt.Col. Popov's officer-rank abilities, judging his treatment as yet another example of failed leadership at the elite levels of the Canadian Forces. 

In particular, it was noted that to protect a group of entitled officer cadets, a combat veteran had been sacrificed.

“The lack of action and the fact the senior leadership looked the other way sends a message to the perpetrators that they have a free hand to do what they want."

“I tried to do something about it, but the chain of command didn’t have my back."

"These individuals are now officers in the Canadian Forces. The predators, the creeps, they are the ones who won."

"You have a situation where the leadership talks about being serious in dealing with sexual misconduct and issues statements like that. But their actions never support that talk. It is a failure of leadership." 

Lt.Col. (retired) Mark Popov

A graduating class of officer cadets stand in the square at the Royal Military College of Canada during a graduating ceremony in Kingston, Ont., Friday, May 20, 2016. (Lars Hagberg/Canadian Press)

Canadian Military Training Iraqi War Criminals in Military Best Practices

In this file photo, Major-General Peter Dawe speaks to reporters at a Canadian Special Operations Forces Command change of command ceremony in Ottawa on Wednesday, April 25, 2018. THE CANADIAN PRESS/ Patrick Doyle

 

"[The videos showed some of the Iraqi student-soldiers] raping a woman to death; the torture and execution of a line of bound prisoners whereby they were beaten to death with what appeared to be a rebar steel bar; the execution of bound prisoners by shooting; and the execution of a man by hanging him from the barrel of a MBT [Main Battle Tank]."

Garrison Petawawa troop document, Canadian Forces

 

"We remain uncertain whether appropriate action was effectively taken."

"I am an ethical man and I believe in our moral doctrine and the LOAC [Law of Armed Conflict]. I am bothered by the fact that my assigned duties allowed me to train and enable people who in my mind were criminals."

Briefing by Canadian soldier through his chain of command

 

"I think we have a pretty good vetting process in place to screen out those potential instructors to ensure we have quality people, that they -- the Iraqi government -- feel confident with."

Maj.-Gen.Dany Fortin, Canadian commander, NATO  training mission in Iraq

This 2019 file photo shows a Canadian Forces member at a U.S. base near Mosul teaching combat skills to Iraqi Wide Area Security Forces. Photo by Spc. DeAndre Pierce /Combined Joint Task Force - Oper

Canadian Forces personnel were stationed abroad to help bring stability to troubled countries in the Middle East and South Asia (Iraq and Afghanistan respectively) where they engaged in military training missions in cooperation with the United States, the purpose being to train troops in both those countries in the advanced elements and strategies of modern warfare. Inculcating them at the same time, presumably, with moral standards of the West, while in combat situations. Somehow, the latter prospect has gone missing, and even the former is in doubt, when judging the readiness of the Afghan police and military.

Now, complaints have surfaced from among Canadian military personnel, employed as trainers, to produce trainees that once having gone through the training process, would themselves become trainers to other troops in Iraq. The ostensible purpose was to ensure that whatever remains of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant would be left to the combative devices of the Western-trained Iraqi troops. The heinous atrocities committed by ISIL in targeting the Yazidi, Christians and other Muslims horrified the world, even as ISIL succeeded in recruiting Muslims living in Europe and North America to the cause of their caliphate.

Canadian military personnel attached to Garrison Petawawa, sent to a U.S. base close to Mosul to train the Iraqi Wide Area Security Forces (WASF), joining an international push against the terrorist group ISIL, were shocked to discover that the Iraqi troops they were tasked to train included among them war criminals. Iraqis proud of having committed atrocities easily the equal of anything that ISIL itself committed, as Islamist fundamentalist terrorists.

 

It seems that the Iraqi troops had no compunction about sharing their treasured videos that made them so proud of their actions, never imagining how appalled their Canadian counterparts would be in reaction to seeing the video contents of torture, rape and murder. The Canadian military personnel, reeling from the import of being instructed to train war criminals in the art of modern warfare, went directly to their leadership. 

 

Whose response was to inform the complaining soldiers that they were expected to continue the training, and merely to avoid watching those videos, despite Iraqis eager to share with them. These events took place in September of 2018. When the troops involved had returned to Canada they wanted to know what had been done about their complaints, continuing to voice concerns over whether their complaints were ever acted on. The videos which had elicited such alarm in the Canadian soldiers showed some of the personnel the Canadians were instructing committing barbaric acts of torture, rape and murder.

 

The indelible impression of the Canadian troops was that the Iraqis they were training were in essence, no different than the terrorist group they were being trained to eradicate. While ISIL, an acknowledged terrorist group, committed large-scale atrocities in Iraq, members of the Iraqi forces themselves, mostly drawn from sectarian militias, were also guilty of war crimes. A U.S-trained Iraqi division was acccused in 2017 of conducting executions and other crimes in Mosul.

 

Iraqi forces begin anti ISIS clearing operations    The Defense Post

Five Canadian Forces sergeants and two master corporals had viewed the videos and reported them to their leadership situated in Iraq. One sergeant had the expectation that the issue would be immediately dealt with, while routine activities in training would be temporarily placed in abeyance. Their officers, however, informed them that while the problem would be suitably dealt with, they were to continue processing the Iraqi troops. They were simply not to view or accept any videos from the Iraqis they were training.

 

The Canadian Joint Operations Command, which oversees the Iraqi and Middle East mission named Operation Impact, failed to respond with any information requested on the issue. The month prior to the Canadian soldiers reporting their concerns, then-Canadian commander of NATO training mission in Iraq spoke to journalists of his confidence that they would be weeding out the presence of any Iraqis suspected of having been involved in the commission of war crimes.

Initiated in 2014, Operation Impact saw the Canadian military expand their training mission by special and regular forces. There are at present 500 Canadian military personnel assigned to Operation Impact, including a headquarters in Kuwait, with two Hercules transport aircraft assigned to the mission. A year's extension was announced to run until March 2022. The extension comes complete with authorization for increased Canadian personnel numbers up to 850, if required.

Operation Impact has come with a cost to Canadian taxpayers of  over $1-billion, not inclusive of military personnel salaries. Western nations are anxious to sunder their military relationships with Iraq and Afghanistan. The fiercely fundamentalist Islamists are resilient enough to keep returning and growing their recruits, appealing to their followers' faith in Islam. 

 

For Western troops to be mired in the quagmire of Byzantine Middle East politics -- and worse -- Islamist politics in an effort to keep the worst among them from infiltrating and committing atrocities abroad the commitment seems endless, the financial cost monumental, the loss of lives unforgivable. In the interests of finally leaving it all behind, they are willing to gamble that the countries assaulted by their own co-religionists' massive psychopathy can look to their own interests. Overlooking in the process that the countries themselves are still basically tribal, sectarian and riven with ancient hatreds.

Security Force Assistance Operations    Army.mil

The "Untouchable" Chief of Defence Staff

"I was not to mention certain things about our relationships, our personal lives. The consequences were always the same -- that I had to stay silent."

"Definitely, he gave me very many consequences if I was not following his orders."

"He fathered two children to me."

"I definitely feel like there will not be justice for me, and that’s OK because if my coming forward can change everything for other women to come forward and change our policies, that's OK with me."

"I was first in the infantry when we were allowed to join, and I knew I was taking a hard road."

"Women are often looked down on, or shuffled out of positions quickly if they speak the truth. The guilt women feel also puts them in a prison, where they are made to feel shame, and that's by the very institution that they're committed to serve, and still want to serve."

Major Kellie Brennan, Canadian Armed Forces

Maj. Kellie Brennan told the House of Commons status of women committee on Thursday that she was subject to unfair power imbalances throughout her years with the Canadian Armed Forces.

For years there have been allegations that the Canadian military is rife with sexual harassment. Pledges were made on the part of Ministers of National Defense, of the heads of the military, that the situation would be investigated and if charges were found to be accurate, committees would be set up to examine the situation further and make recommendations that would have the effect of purging the military from situations and enlisted female members of the Armed Forces would no longer suffer gender discrimination and unwanted sexual harassment.

 

When General Jon Vance, former Chief of the Defence Staff stepped down at the end of his mandate in that position, he was replaced by another general, who, like Vance, pledged he intended to fully involve himself in ensuring that the service would be freed of sexual harassment against its female members. Soon after General Vance stepped down, it became public knowledge that  he was being investigated for his own behaviour of sexual impropriety.

 

And soon after that Vice-Admiral Art McDonald, who had succeeded General Vance as Chief of the Defence Staff, was also being investigated for the very same reasons. It didn't stop just there; other high-ranking and prominent officers in the military were also revealed to have had inappropriate sexual contact with women under their command, and Vice-Admiral McDonald too stepped down from the position he had so recently been installed in.

 

Ironically, one of the major complainants, Major Kellie Brennan, who had been coerced by General Vance into a two-decade-long sexual alliance, stated that the night before Vance had been sworn in as Chief of the Defence Staff in July of 2015, he wanted to have her opinion on the text of a speech he was prepared to deliver the following day where he planned to condem inappropriate sexual behaviour, warning it would not be tolerated under his command.

 

Then-Chief of Defence Staff Jonathan Vance responds to a question during a news conference Friday, June 26, 2020 in Ottawa. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld

 A House of Commons committee set up to investigate allegations of sexual misconduct in the military has been interviewing witnesses, and Major Kellie Brennan was one of those witnesses, one of many although her case would appear to be quite unique since it involves a twenty-year liaison with her commanding officer. Hugely inappropriate, if not illegal under military rules, engagement between a superior officer and someone under his command. Major Brennan testified hearing General Vance boast of being untouchable, that he 'owned' the military police in the process of investigating charges of sexual misconduct against him.

The Commons Status of Women Committee heard from Major Brennan that the former Chief of the Defence Staff ordered her to lie when being interviewed by military police investigating her allegations of impropriety against the general. Throughout their 20-year intimate relationship, she stated she felt she had little choice other than to continue, as a result of his senior rank, revealing that Vance fathered two of her children, testifying as well that he had not provided any financial support for those children.

A military police unit, the Canadian Forces National Investigation Service, is in the process of investigating General Vance on the basis of those and other allegations, just as they are investigating his successor in the position of Chief of the Defence Staff, and other high-ranking officers, all accused of sexual misconduct. Major Brennan explained that after she had been interviewed by the CFNIS she asked whether they would investigate Vance properly in view of his elevated position, but no answer was forthcoming.

"As [Vance] told me, he was untouchable. He owned the CFNIS. I feel there will not be justice for me". She had turned audio recordings, texts and emails over to the CFNIS to aid in their investigation, but she had little-to-no confidence that the investigation would be carried out in a neutral and professional manner. The Status of Women Committee and the Commons Defence Committee both have been holding hearings into sexual misconduct in the Canadian Forces allegations. 

In a February 21 interview on Global News, Major Brennan provided details of her 20-year relationship with Vance. She emphasized that it was common knowledge among senior military leaders that they had such an inappropriate relationship; she had herself informed some of those senior military leaders. The committee also heard from Major Brennan that she had worked with Minister of National Defence Harjit Sajjan in Toronto at a time when he was in the military -- both of them under General Vance -- before Sajjan's appointment as Minister of National Defence.

Harjit Sajjan, an elected Liberal Member of Parliament whom Prime Minister Justin Trudeau named in 2015 to the Cabinet position of Minister of National Defence, was "under control", General Vance had informed Major Brennan. 

 

As Chief of the Defence Staff, Vance had notoriously thrown his then-second-in-command, Vice-Admiral Mark Norman 'under the bus' as a sop to a furious Justin Trudeau who accused the Vice-Admiral of having divulged Cabinet information to the press over a badly-needed supply vessel for the Canadian Navy that the Liberal government was planning to cancel.

 

Bald-Faced Cynical Hypocrisy : Canada's Unrequited Love Affair With China

"Our impression is that DND/CAF [Department of National Defense/Canadian Armed Forces] reluctance to engage with the PLA [People's Liberation Army of China] is not solely related to Ms. Meng's arrest and the consular cases -- that there are other reasons for their interest in disengaging."

"From our perspective it is also perhaps to be related to a desire to be fully aligned with the FEYs [Five Eyes Intelligence group: United States, United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Canada] particularly the U.S."

Documents released through Freedom of Information request by Rebel Media

 

"Given the heightened scrutiny, any decision by Canada to reduce/cut ties should be carefully considered to avoid sending any unhelpful or unintended messages."

"Should Canada make any significant reductions in its military engagement with China, China will likely read this as a retaliatory move related to the Meng Wanzhou case."

"While resolving the consular cases [arbitrarily arrested and espionage-charged Canadians Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig] is the Government of Canada's top priority a certain amount of continuity in other parts of the Canada-China relationship remains important."

Canada's Foreign Affairs memo-alert to Ian Shugart, deputy-minister for foreign affairs

 

"Over the past two years, two Canadians, Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor have been detained arbitrarily by China and Canada has done absolutely everything necessary to try and get them home safe."

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau

Chinese soldiers take part in a winter training session in Heihe, northeast China's Heilongjiang province, on Jan. 28, 2015. (STR/AFP via Getty Images)

 

Rebel Media was handed a surprise when unredacted documents they had requested through an Access to Information request fell into their hands by an obliging individual at Canada's Ministry of Foreign Affairs. That incriminating passages making it obvious that Canada was indeed doing nothing whatever to convey its deep diplomatic displeasure -- outrage -- at China's tit-for-tat arrest of two Canadians who happened to be vulnerably available in Beijing, when Huawei's chief financial officer, Meng Wanzhou was arrested in Vancouver on a U.S. extradition warrant, was a godsend to the rabble-rousing alternate, frequently embarrassing news source.

Which then proceeded to publish and circulate as widely as possible, evidence that the top movers-and-shakers at Foreign Affairs were fully invested in the Prime Minister's Office's go-easy-on-China policy. their depersonalization of the two Michaels -- who have languished for fully two years on trumped-up charges in a Chinese prison, access to consular aid, to legal assistance denied -- were casually referred to as 'consular cases'; mere irritants in the relationship between Canada and China, spoke volumes.

Official diplomacy on Canada's part is to tippy-toe around any issues that might cause Beijing heartburn, making it more than evident that official Canada has never been invested in securing the two Canadians' freedom, nor advocating for reasonable trials and sentences for three Canadian citizens placed on death row in China for drug smuggling, after Meng's arrest and bail arrangements enabling her to live in comfort in her two Vancouver mansions while awaiting extradition hearings to proceed.

 

Meng Wanzhou leaves the Supreme Court of British Columbia with her husband, Liu Xiaozong, during a break from a hearing in Vancouver on Thursday. Photo: AP

The issue that begat these top secret memoranda that fell into The Rebel's (and editor Ezra Levant's) hands was the decision by Canada's Chief of the Defence Staff, General Jonathan Vance, to cancel a scheduled winter exercise with China's People's Liberation Army, planned for 2019 (after the two Michaels had been in a Chinese prison for months, after China had punished Canada by turning back on its imports of Canadian canola, soy and meat products, and threatening consequences if the decision was made to disallow Huawei to take part in Canada's 5G upgrades).

 

General Vance cancelled the exercises scheduled to take place at Canadian Forces Base Petawawa, Ontario. The winter warfare training exercise was meant to expose a small elite military delegation of PLA officials to Canadian expertise in cold weatheer combat. It was obviously inconsequential to those Canadian authorities involved in arranging this friendly teaching environment that this would be useful for China in its aggression against India in the Himalaya over disputed borders, or to quash any possible rebellion in the Tibetan highlands.

 

Secret documents have revealed that Prime Minister Trudeau invited the PLA to take part in joint military exercises, but General Vance nixed it over pressure from the Pentagon. Credit: Canadian Forces.

 

Nor, given Beijing's interests in the Arctic, as far from its shores as can possibly be imagined, but a potential source of expedited shipping to further its Belt and Road initiative as well as the imagined promise of a source of underwater natural resources from gas and oil to minerals, that this type of cold weather military expertise could one day aid the Chinese People's Liberation Army in a military skirmish against the Canadian military.

This type of "knowledge transfer" is precisely the type of activity that the Five Eyes Intelligence group is alarmed by, that one among them ostensibly dedicated to upholding Western democracy and the international rule of law against the military, industrial ascendance of the Chinese colossus that has been aggressively threatening its neighbours, is concerned with. Canada remains the sole member of the Five Eyes that has failed to rule Huawei, known for its espionage activities on behalf of Beijing, out of its 5G plans. A vast, international, interrelated communications system that will not tolerate a subverted link.

At a conference of the Five Eyes Intelligence gathering countries, concerns over the winter exercises to take place in Canada with Chinese military invitees were raised as a troubling issue. Which led General Vance to the conclusion that relations between Canada and its intelligence-sharing partners were far more vital to Canada's interests than exposing Canada to military surveillance by skilled Chinese military spies, leading to the cancellation. A decision viewed by Foreign Affairs, which advises the PMO, as a diplomatic insult to China, Canada's great good friend.

 

A member of the Arctic Response Company Group stands guard near Crystal City during Exercise GUERRIER NORDIQUE in Resolute Bay, Nunavut. Credit: Canadian Forces photo.

"What was Canada doing sending 171 Canadian soldiers to China to participate in a military sports competition last week?"

"It was nearly one year ago that Beijing kidnapped two Canadian citizens. It still holds them hostage as leverage in its dispute with Ottawa over the detention of a Huawei executive who awaits a hearing to decide if she should be extradited to the U.S. to face criminal charges there."

"Was the trip to China a colossal error of judgment by the Department of National Defence and the Canadian Armed Forces? Or were DND and the CAF acting on orders from Global Affairs Canada and/or the prime minister’s inner circle?"

"Although the Government of Canada website warns Canadians travelling to China to “exercise a high degree of caution in China due to the risk of arbitrary enforcement of local laws,” it has said almost nothing about why it ignored its own advice and chose to send an airplane full of Canadians to such a risky place. It only acknowledged that the trip, which it apparently wanted to keep secret, had actually taken place after it was revealed by the Globe and Mail’s ace reporting team of Steve Chase and Bob Fife."

Matthew Fisher, Global News, November 3, 2019

Michael Kovrig (left) and Michael Spavor (right) are seen in this composite image.

 

 

The Canadian Military Evacuating Iraq

The Canadian Military Evacuating Iraq

"For Canada and a number of the other nations, some of the soldiers that were retrograded in March will not be coming back because there is no longer a requirement for them to do the more hands-on, tactical-level tasks that they were performing."

"There is still very much a requirement to work at the higher levels, to work at the operational level and the strategic level. But for the low-level tactical training, that is no longer required. Which should be the normal progression for any capacity-building mission."

"[ISIL has become a] low-level insurgency [despite concerns late last year that the militants had been allowed to regroup in Syria]."

"Is there still a threat? Yes. But they tried to play up through media that they were increasing their tempo in May and June, and all evidence points to the contrary."

Brig.-Gen.Michael Wright, commander, Joint Task Force Impact

Warrant Officer Gord Cutting, an instructor of the Winter Mobile Training Team, assists the soldiers of the Lebanon Border Regiment with the construction of their snow shelters in the Bcharre region of Lebanon on February 19, 2020. (THE CANADIAN PRESS/HO-Department of National Defence-Cpl. Nicolas Alonso)

Up to 850 personnel of the Canadian Armed Forces have been stationed in the Middle East since 2014 focused on helping to defeat the presence in Iraq and Syria of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, hundreds representing Canadian military trainers, tutoring the basics of military practise to Iraqi forces representing a part of the global fight against ISIL. In March when the global pandemic became a universal health threat, the Canadian Military moved half its contingent back to Canada, resulting in a temporary halt to military exercises.

Most of those who had been returned to Canada were expected in the near future to return to the Middle East as needed. Since then plans have undergone a change. The military command feels it unnecessary to return, a reflection of allied commanders having decided the Iraqi military now stands trained and prepared to fight on their own against the terrorists. Unsaid, but a reality is that the Islamic Republic of Iran's al Quds division of the Republican National Guard Corps and Hezbollah, its Lebanon-based militia, now well integrated into the government of Lebanon, form a Shiite triangle in Iraq.

This has, for the most part, been a sectarian war, Sunni terrorists groups challenging Shiite terrorist groups. And the most organized and powerful of the terrorist Shia groups is Iran itself, an Aryan power seeking conquest within a greater Arab presence, that has succeeded in amassing a Shiite clique, a triangle of command encompassing, Iran, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Lebanon and Qatar as the honourary part of the group though a Sunni majority country.

In January the United States targeted the head of the Iranian al-Quds division of the IRGC for assassination, an event that caused friction between the U.S. and Iraq with Iraqi legislators calling for the U.S. to leave Iraq. Iran had retaliated over the loss of Brig.-General Qassem Soleimani, launching ballistic missile attacks against two U.S. military bases, one of which was also used by Canadian special forces. Western forces have overstayed their welcome in Iraq, where the country has had to juggle its dependence on both Iran and the U.S.-led coalition.

Canada's experience with Iran has not been without its pain. A Canadian-Iranian photojournalist had been imprisoned in Tehran and murdered there. Canada had under a previous government, cut off diplomatic relations with Iran. During the time of the Iranian Revolution many Iranians sought refugee status in Canada, and there is now a sizable Canadian-Iranian population. The IRGC shot down a Ukrainian passenger jet in January -- in the belief it was an incoming U.S. war plane --  killing all 176 passengers and crew; among the dead 57 Canadians.

Cpl. Brenna Baverstock of the Winter Mobile Training Team conducts a snowshoe lesson for the soldiers of the Lebanon Border Regiment in the Bcharre region of Lebanon, on February 17, 2020. Canada's war against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant has quietly entered a new phase, resulting in plans to keep fewer troops in the Middle East even after the COVID-19 pandemic passes. Cpl. Nicolas Alonso / THE CANADIAN PRESS

In very fact, the Middle East has always been a quagmire of intrigue and violence, with tribal and religious sectarian hatred easily fired into conflagrations. Syria, a more recent case in point of a dysfunctional, violent Alawite Shiite government preying on its majority Sunni Syrian population, committing countless atrocities to still a civil insurrection. The only nobility of defensive and protective forces arose from among the embattled Kurdish militias, fighting the Islamic State and protecting targeted Yazidis and Christians.

The decision to withdraw Canadian forces represents a permanent reduction in the Canadian military footprint for the first time in years. Mired in Afghanistan, in Iraq and in Syria, it is past time to allow these Islamic nations to find peace with one another and to man their own barricades against those who seek war, not peace. All Western forces are set to retire their military troops and return whence they came. Iraqi militias loyal to Iran are on the rise.

Doubtless there will remain some selected Canadian military staff to continue training senior Iraqi commanders.There are ISIL cells remaining in northern Iraq where special forces are aiding to root the local ISIL cells out. Lebanon, Jordan and Kuwait are additional sites where Canadian military teams, albeit reduced, remain. It is past time, however, for the countries comprising the Middle East and Asia to turn their attention to evolving into normal, tolerant nations.