"Sending your sons and daughters for military service in Afghanistan was not really worth it," she said.
"No Canadian deserves to be killed here."
'This story has both sides'
While the documents paint a grim picture of the fight against the Taliban, Nemat said the impact on life in her country has been more nuanced.
"We cannot conclude 18 years of intervention with a complete failure, or complete success story," said Nemat, who has lived under both Taliban rule and the U.S.-led war and its aftermath.
After joining the war effort in the fall of 2001, Ottawa withdrew from Afghanistan in 2014, but spent billions and lost more than 160 lives over a 13-year campaign.
After a 12-year mission, a simple flag-lowering ceremony on Wednesday marked the end of Canada's military involvement in Afghanistan 3:23
While the cost of the war has never been fully accounted, it's estimated that Ottawa spent up to $20 billion on military operations, development assistance and aid.
Throughout the war, funds were siphoned away by corrupt officials, but Nemat said steps were being taken to improve accountability and transparency.
She said development efforts yielded results, adding that the fight against the Taliban was "not a war to be fought by bombs, by airplanes," but rather development and investment in infrastructure and education.
"I am able to today live and work in this country ... we have thousands of women working and serving in government, we have hundreds and thousands of girls going to school," she said.
Grade 4 girls learn to read and write in Pashto at an all-girls school on March 23, 2010, in Nangarhar province, Afghanistan. (Julie Jacobson/Associated Press)
She added that improvements in education has turned the younger generation "into very conscious citizens, in comparison to the past."
Increasingly, she sees more "courage from the younger generation, to stand against corruption, for women's rights and human rights or justice, and for better forms of governance." Written by Padraig Moran, with files from The Associated Press and CBC News. Produced by John Chipman, Max Paris and Samira Mohyeddin.
54 Comments
David Raymond Amos Perhaps folks who truly care about this issue should read Paragraph 83 of Federal Court File Number T-1557-15 then ask the "Powers That Be" in Canada and the USA some serious questions
Need I say that I was not impressed that Pat Stogran my pick of the litter for NDP leader Quit?
After I watched his video I am relieved that such a snob has given up. For the record I had a long talk with one of his campaign assitants one day and he welcomed emails from me. Yet snobby Patty Baby did not have the decency or balls to answer emails or return phone calls just like every other politician on the planet.
Scroll down to see some of what both he and I know
Pat Stogran quits NDP leadership race, slamming party for 'selfish, incompetent politics'
Afghan veteran says insiders blocked his candidacy and called for reform of party
The Canadian PressPosted: Jun 03, 2017 3:20 PM ET
'The fight to take on politics incorporated while also trying to take on the insiders of a political party that has no desire to see me win has proven insurmountable,' Pat Stogren said in a YouTube video Saturday. (Sean Kilpatrick/Canadian Press)
One of the candidates for the federal NDP leadership race is quitting, blaming party insiders who he says don't want to see him win.
Pat Stogran posted a video Saturday on YouTube, saying the inside workings of the NDP are "fundamentally flawed."
"The fight to take on politics incorporated while also trying to take on the insiders of a political party that has no desire to see me win has proven insurmountable," he said in the five-minute video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UR0HutM1XT4
But he said, "As I enter my golden years, I came to the conclusion that my love for family far outweighs my love for politics, especially selfish, incompetent politics."
Stogran said the NDP will never form a government until the party itself is reformed and he doesn't see any possibility of reform.
He said he resigns with "huge sadness" from the race, and thanked his supporters and campaign team who stood behind him in his effort "to defeat politics incorporated."
There are now five official candidates in the race to succeed current leader Tom Mulcair, who didn't survive a leadership review.
Methinks Harper, Jagmeet Singh, Dominic Cardy and the ghosts of Jack Layton and Paul Dewar remember this old email from 2006 about the War in Afghanistan N'esy Pas?
---------- Original message ---------- From: "Anderson-Mason, Andrea Hon. (JAG/JPG)"<Andrea.AndersonMason@gnb.ca> Date: Thu, 7 Feb 2019 06:29:52 +0000 Subject: Automatic reply: YO Jagmeet Singh do you think Dominic Cardy or the ghosts of Jack Layton and Paul Dewar remember this old email rom 2006 about the War in Afghanistan ? To: David Amos <motomaniac333@gmail.com>
Thank you for your email. Your thoughts, comments and input are greatly valued. You can be assured that all emails and letters are carefully read, reviewed and taken into consideration. If your issue is Constituency related, please contact Lisa Bourque at my constituency office at Lisa.Bourque@gnb.caLis > or (506) 755-2810. Thank you.
Merci pour votre courriel. Nous vous sommes très reconnaissants de nous avoir fait part de vos idées, commentaires et observations. Nous tenons à vous assurer que nous lisons attentivement et prenons en considération tous les courriels et lettres que nous recevons. Si c’est au sujet du bureau de circonscription, veuillez contacter Lisa Bourque à Lisa.Bourque@gnb.caLis
a.Bourque@gnb.ca> ou (506)755-2810. Merci.
Andrea Anderson-Mason, Q.C. / c.r.
a.Bourque@gnb.ca
Subject: RE: Portions of wiretap tapes to impeach George W. Bush and put a stop Harper's motion tommorrow Date: Thu, 18 May 2006 13:49:47 -0400 From: "Dewar, Paul - M.P."Dewar.P@parl.gc.ca To: "David Amos"motomaniac_02186@yahoo.com
Hi David. My name is James and I have been asked to send this message onto you from Paul…
Dear Mr. Amos,
Thank you for informing me of your concerns regarding Canada 's role in Afghanistan after February 2007.
The NDP voted against this motion because we believe it is the wrong mission for Canada . It does not reflect the peace-making values that Canadians want to see our forces undertake on the world stage. This forced motion essentially ties our aid and development funds to war-making, and we cannot support that.
It is quite clear that Harper's Conservatives aren't interested in due diligence. They're interested in dragging us further into a US-style combat role and away from our traditional peace keeping role. Much like the Liberals before them, the Conservatives have failed to tell Canadians:
- What the chain of command and control will be for this mission.
- What the definition of success will be for our troops.
- What our exit strategy will be.
Many Canadians have written me wanting answers and it is our duty as representatives of our constituents, to get answers before committing to any new missions overseas. As any soldier knows, time spent on reconnaissance is never wasted.
New Democrats recognize that Canada does have a role in assisting Afghanis in rebuilding their country. Afghanistan is the largest recipient of Canadian overseas development aid and we fully support the continuation of that funding - outside of this mission.
Thank you again for the time and effort you have taken to share your thoughts with me, and for bringing your opinion on this matter to my attention.
Sincerely,
Paul Dewar, MP Ottawa Centre
From: David Amos [mailto:motomaniac_02186@yahoo.com] Sent: May 16, 2006 8:13 PM To: Allen, Mike - M.P.; rcastrocalvo@yahoo.com; irislana@hotmail.com; Angus, Charlie - M.P.; Atamanenko, Alex - M.P.; Bell, Catherine - M.P.; Bevington, Dennis - M.P.; Black, Dawn - M.P.; Blaikie, Bill - M.P.; Charlton, Chris - M.P.; Chow, Olivia - M.P.; Christopherson, David - M.P.; Comartin, Joe - M.P.; Crowder, Jean - M.P.; Cullen, Nathan - M.P.; Davies, Libby - M.P.; Dewar, Paul - M.P.; Julian, Peter- M.P.; Marston, Wayne - M.P.; Martin, Pat D. - M.P.; Martin, Tony -M.P.; Masse, Brian - M.P.; Mathyssen, Irene - M.P.; Nash, Peggy M.P.; Priddy, Penny - M.P.; Savoie, Denise - M.P.; Siksay, Bill - M.P.; Wasylycia-Leis, Judy - M.P.; Emerson, David - M.P. Cc: Simms, Scott - M.P.; Russell, Todd - M.P.; Manning, Fabian - M.P.; Hearn, Loyola - M.P.; Doyle, Norman - M.P.; Byrne, Gerry - M.P.; McGuire, Joe - M.P.; MacAulay, Lawrence - M.P.; D'Amours, Jean-Claude - M.P.; Hubbard, Charles - M.P.; Murphy, Brian - M.P.; Thibault, Robert - M.P.; Savage, Michael - M.P.; Regan, Geoff - M.P.; Keddy, Gerald - M.P.; Eyking, Mark - M.P.; Cuzner, Rodger - M.P.; Brison, Scott - M.P. Subject: Portions of wiretap tapes to impeach George W. Bush and put a stop Harper's motion tommorrow Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Hey
Before all the Parliamentarians argue and then vote to support further Canadian deaths in one of George W. Bush's Wars for Global Control for the benefit of his corporate cohorts perhaps, you should at least listen to the attachments if you do not wish to bother to read what Billy Casey and the Bankers got on May 12th. If I can assist in preventing the demise of just one more Canadian warrior in a malicious foreign war, all of my work will have been worth it EH?
If everyone ignores me as usual, I will not be surprised. At least I will sleep well with my conscience tonight because I know I have done my very best to stop the nonsense since early 2002 long before the War in Iraq began. None of you deserve to sleep well at all because you all supported Harper's orders to send our people to war even before the 39th Parliament sat this year. As far as I am concerned the blood of four very honourable soldiers can be found on your hands. Shame on all of you for not even bothering to honour our dead by lowering the flag on the Peacetower. As long as I have been aware and could consider myself a Proad Canadian, I thought we were peacekeepers rather than poorly paid hired guns for crooked corporations, corrupt politicians and their wicked Yankee bible pounding buddies.
Veritas Vincit David Raymond Amos
FEDERAL EXPRESS February 7, 2006
Senator Arlen Specter United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary 224 Dirksen Senate Office Building Washington, DC 20510
Dear Mr. Specter:
I have been asked to forward the enclosed tapes to you from a man named, David Amos, a Canadian citizen, in connection with the matters raised in the attached letter. Mr. Amos has represented to me that these are illegal FBI wire tap tapes. I believe Mr. Amos has been in contact with you about this previously.
Very truly yours, Barry A. Bachrach Direct telephone: (508) 926-3403 Direct facsimile: (508) 929-3003 Email: bbachrach@bowditch.com
That's what John Crosbie wore in 1979, the last time a budget brought down a Canadian government in a minority-Parliament situation. It proved to be a bad omen, given that the Conservative government of the day foundered on Crosbie's document.
The mukluks proved to be symbolic of Joe Clark's short-lived administration -- overconfident and blind to convention. As Crosbie observed in his memoirs, Clark "decided to govern as though we had a majority, a decision that was as arrogant as it was presumptuous."
By RANDY BURTON — Saskatoon Star-Phoenix
May 10th, 2006
Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Franky Boy McKenna,
Afghans will not be surprised by documents alleging U.S. failures in war, says activist
Guests: Murray Brewster, Pat Stogran, Orzala Nemat
LL:Hello, I'm Laura Lynch and you're listening to The Current. [Music: Theme]
LL:Still to come, how an island in Nunavut is helping NASA plan a mission to Mars. But first, a Washington Post investigation reveals troubling details about the war in Afghanistan.
SOUNDCLIP [Sirens]
VOICE 1: On my orders, the United States military has begun strikes.
VOICE 2: We've been at war for 18 years now. We're not winning. We're not losing. Presidents come and go, but nothing really seems to change.
VOICE 3: Vital national interest to send an additional 30,000 U.S. troops to Afghanistan.
VOICE 4: Our troops will fight to win. We will fight to win.
LL:U.S. Presidents Bush, Obama and Trump have all tried to win the war in Afghanistan. But the words of those presidents are in stark contrast to a trove of documents published by The Washington Post. It's being compared to the Pentagon Papers that reveal the failures of the war in Vietnam. The documents show top officials warned there was no clear plan in Afghanistan. Some even believe the war was already lost. The documents also include revelations about Canada's role in the country. The CBC's senior defence writer Murray Brewster has been looking into this. He joins me from our Ottawa studio. Hello.
MURRAY BREWSTER:Good morning.
LL:Murray, what did you make of what you saw in the documents?
MURRAY BREWSTER:For anyone that's covered Afghanistan as a journalist or someone who has been intimately involved from the military development capacity or even politics? A lot of what we're reading here, the individual details. It doesn't surprise many people who have been closely associated with the war. What I believe is significant is to see it laid out in a huge compendium in just in all this detail. I think what's significant about what we're seeing is that for the first time, I think there is now a stirring of conscience in the United States where they have begun to ask themselves very serious questions about why they have been at war for 18 years.
LL:These were the results of interviews that were compiled by the Office of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction with the odd name of SIGAR. Who did they speak to?
MURRAY BREWSTER:They spoke to a vast array of United States officials, officials with NATO, both military and civilian political staffers. And there's it's a mixture of interviews, but also material that they've gleaned notes from conferences. Among the documents you're going to see, some of the names are blanked out. There are redactions, et cetera, where SIGAR was attempting to get these people to go on the record to talk about it. One of the things that I found incredibly fascinating were some of the lessons learned, interviews that were conducted, particularly with the the senior military officials. And as someone who sat and interviewed many of these senior military officials, it's interesting to hear how pessimistic and unguarded they were in those interviews in comparison to some of the times that I've spoken with them.
LL:I'm sure that's true. How prominently did Canada figure in the interviews?
MURRAY BREWSTER:Well, there were a number of documents, I'd say about three dozen documents that referenced Canada. The documents are divided in two. There's about 2000 documents there divided into bins. And they're looking at corruption, looking at the overall war strategy, but looking at NATO as well, NATO's involvement. And that's where you find most of the references to Canada is in NATO and in the timeframe roughly of 2006, 2007, where there seems to have been a lot of talk either by U.S. officials who were watching the deteriorating situation in 2006 in southern Afghanistan very closely or by military officials, notably General Sir Sir David Richard, who was the commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan at that time. He did an interview with cigars representatives.
LL:He's British. I remember interviewing him myself and thinking of him as a fairly plain talking man. But he revealed things in his interviews with this reconstruction report that we hadn't heard before. What did he reveal about the situation in Kandahar and Helmand during his command?
MURRAY BREWSTER:He was very blunt and very plain spoken, and he talked about how there were not enough troops on the ground. And one of the things that I found incredible was that he recounted a conversation that he had with. The then U.S. defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, where he said directly to the U.S. defence secretary. There are not enough troops on the ground because Donald Rumsfeld was gobsmacked at the increase in violence in 2006. And essentially, Richard said that we don't have enough resources and we don't have enough troops on the ground. And Rumsfeld blew him off, basically dismissed him and said that I don't agree with you. Let's move on. General, and that's significant for Canada, because at that point in the war, Canadian troops were under daily assault by a resurgent Taliban and there were casualties. We were suffering at that time as a nation, our first major casualties in terms of killed and wounded almost on a daily basis. And it led up to in the fall of 2006, the Operation Medusa, where because the Taliban had dug in west of Kandahar City and they had to be removed. And it was just a spiral of violence. And it shocked not only the Canadian public, but the Canadian government. The Canadian government was looking for reinforcements, was looking for NATO to send help to southern Afghanistan. And here with Donald Rumsfeld was essentially blowing that off.
LL:Why?
MURRAY BREWSTER:He was blowing it off. I think for a couple of reasons. The first is that the Americans were fully engaged in Iraq at that point. Iraq had completely spiralled out of control. And the U.S. pouring more of its or most of its attention and money and its troops into Iraq to stabilize the situation there. That's the first thing. But also to the Bush administration was subscribed to a notion that wars could be fought with lightly light forces. Not a lot of like heavy I guess big army is the best way to describe it, forces where you have a large amount of troops going into an area to suppress it. And it took several years for not only the Bush administration, but for commanders, including Canadian commanders, to come around to the idea that they needed an incredible amount of of reinforcements to stabilize the situation in Afghanistan.
LL:Now, on Monday, our defence minister Harjeet Sajjan, who served in Afghanistan, was asked about these revelations. He had this to say.
SOUNDCLIP
VOICE:As you know, conflicts like that, it is very, very complex. Once we had a good understanding of what was going on, that's when we start figuring out, this is not just a military solution. You need to start looking at how you do development. How do you look at capacity building? It's a lot of lessons were learned very early on. The one thing that I can probably say that Canadian Armed Forces and the resources that was put in by Canada had a substantial impact.
LL:Murray, what do you make of that response?
MURRAY BREWSTER:Well, let me just put it this way: I think it took the Canadian military a while to make that logic leap. The minister's talking about how, you know, once they had figured it out, well, it took them an incredible amount of time to figure it out. It took them a couple of years to do that. But also to what the documents show is that Canada knew that it did not have not only enough troops on the ground, but enough financial resources to help stabilize the situation. It's one of the things that sir that Gen. Richards mentions in his debrief to SIGAR is that Canada and Britain did not have enough financial resources. Because you see, when you go into a conflict and when you try to stabilize an area during a counterinsurgency war, you have troops that go in to clear the area. But then they're followed up by development projects, reconstruction to be able to win hearts and minds if we have to use that well-worn phrase. And there was an acknowledgement by Richards in these documents that Canada and Britain, which was in Helmand Province adjacent to Kandahar, did not have enough resources to be able to do that. And that contributed to the deterioration of the situation and the the extension of the war. And it Richards noted that it was only the United States that had the resources and the ability to be able to go into a certain area and be able to put enough troops on the ground. And then then stabilized with by putting by rebuilding roads, rebuilding bridges, by getting the power stations working again.
LL:Alright, Murray, much more to talk about, but we're going to have to leave it there for now. People can see more reading your stories online today at cbc.ca. Thanks so much, Murray.
MURRAY BREWSTER:You're welcome.
LL:Murray Brewster is the CBC's senior defence writer. He was in our Ottawa studio. Retired Colonel Pat Stogran can relate to the revelations in the Afghan papers. He was a key commander during Canada's move into the volatile Kandahar province in 2006, and he later became Canada's first Veterans Ombudsman. Pat Stogran joins me from Ottawa. Hello.
PAT STOGRAN:Good morning.
LL:What was your reaction to what these papers have revealed about the U.S. led war in Afghanistan?
PAT STOGRAN:I hesitate to say a bit of jubilation because it really validated the bad feelings I had when I left the Canadian Forces to become the Veterans Ombudsman. Really, what they're reporting is the feeling that I had about the way the Canadian operation had gone. And I had been a key planner in the move from Kabul and the start up of operations in Kandahar. So, you know, it basically confirms the situation, as I remember it all those many years ago.
LL:Well, you were there. What was Canada's strategy for winning the war in Afghanistan? PAT STOGRAN:Yeah. To suggest, as the minister did, that we learned about capacity building during the operation. I was my staff down in Kingston. I was demanding an organization known as the Job that had it later became Expeditionary Force Command headquarters. So I had a lot of planning staff there and I had been there myself and as a commander with all the Apollo. And I saw the profound impact that our troops had by building schools, by that's what we were doing in our spare time. By drilling wells, by building the capacity of the locals to sustain themselves. We were one with the community.
LL:The papers also reveal a major gap between what U.S. leaders were saying about the war amongst themselves and what they were telling the public. So how truthful was the Canadian leadership about successes and failures?
PAT STOGRAN:Oh, it was smoke and mirrors. In fact, I was quoted in an article saying just that. The level of frustration amongst some of the officers at national defence headquarters was palpable. But really, it was it started off. They rolled their shirt sleeves up and we're showing off, you know, how good our soldiers are at combat operations, right. For Mountain Thrust, Operation Mountain Thrust was shortly after we touched down there and it was built by the Americans. The biggest search and destroy operation since operation started in Afghanistan. And that was really setting the wrong tone for what we should have been doing in that country.
LL:Do you think then that Canada accomplished anything in Afghanistan?
PAT STOGRAN:No, I don't think we accomplished anything in Afghanistan. But when I went back in 2010 after my ombudsman's tour, I just wanted to be able to compare where we were at to what I had seen in 2002. And they didn't even remember the Canadians that I went to the villages, that we were one with the community and they'd forgotten about us because we were just another force in NATO. So all of the goodwill that our troops had, you know, with the drilling of the wells, the integrating with the community around. I think there were seven or eight villages and part of the city of Kandahar. I recognize things were different in 2006, but the minister hit the nail on the head. We should have been focussed on capacity building. It shouldn't have been there as the troops referred to it, like a Taliban kind of operations. They even had a Canadian term mowing the grass. It was ridiculous.
LL:I wonder then you when you see this trove of documents released and the frankness of the exchanges and this attempt to sort of record and learn from the past, should Canada be doing this as well?
PAT STOGRAN:Or, ma'am, we should have a public inquiry into this just to make sure that Canadians understand the current security situation in the world and they don't get hoodwinked by the government into sending our sons and daughters into harm's way without a plan. You know, we talk about exit strategies on operations like this. The exit strategy is when it becomes politically distasteful. We down tools and run. So we should define success from the outset. What are we exactly? Are we sending our troops in there to accomplish and not only troops. Remember, it was a whole of government operation.
LL:Pat Stogran, thank you for your time.
PAT STOGRAN:Well, thank you for your interest in the story.
LL:Pat Stogran is a retired colonel in the Canadian military and Canada's first Veterans Ombudsman. He was in Ottawa. If Canada paid a heavy price in Afghanistan, the toll on the Afghan people has been immense. Tens of thousands of civilians have been killed and wounded by the war. Even today, a powerful bomb exploded near the U.S. Bagram Air Base north of Kabul, wounding a number of Afghan civilians. My next guest has experienced life under Taliban rule and the U.S. led war. Orzala Nemat is the director of the Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit, and that's an independent research institute in Kabul. And that's where we've reached her today. Hello.
ORZALA NEMAT:Hello Laura.
LL:What were your thoughts when you first heard that the U.S. had been misleading the public about the war in Afghanistan?
ORZALA NEMAT:To be honest, I was not very surprised because I didn't need them to say that. I could see and witness the failure part of this intervention and also the success part of it. So in a way, it's not surprising, but probably it is more shocking and surprising for the families of the troops who served in Afghanistan as more shocking and surprising for people who are basically the taxpayers with whose money is being kind of channelled to Afghanistan for different purposes. So for me as an Afghan, as someone who experienced the Taliban ruling and also the post Taliban domination or the post 2001 context, as we call it, it is not entirely surprising because we are witnessing and we've raised our voices, as you know, civil society, as women's rights activists about how parts of this intervention are extremely problematic and are not serving the purpose.
LL:Do you have any sense of how people in Afghanistan are reacting to all of the revelations in the papers?
ORZALA NEMAT:People in Afghanistan are not really like it's not like catching the media. So far, probably this probably wouldn't be the reaction of people that, OK, like we anyway knew that the war is a failure of the war side of it. The violence side, that side of it. If I can list the following to your other persons that were interviewed earlier. I mean, this program, the coin of strategy, in my opinion, was an absolute failure. War on terror, a complete failure. Winning hearts and minds, as it was mentioned. I can say it was extremely problematic because when I say that as a development practitioner at the time, I find it extremely problematic that the military will use development as a tool to win hearts and minds. So these were things that we hope will not be repeated in any other future experiences like Afghanistan or the lessons that needs to be learned.
LL:And just just for listeners who may not know that the term coin means counterinsurgency. A whole generation grew up under the U.S. war on terror in Afghanistan. What are you hearing from young people these days?
ORZALA NEMAT:Well, the young people say, look, we remember everything from this period, but we also have a good knowledge thanks to this, thanks to the interventions and development sector in this period of past 18 years. We've been educated enough to read the history, to know also what was the situation before 18 years. So people, the younger generation have a very good knowledge of historical context. Thanks to the educational support that they have received over the past 18 years. And that turned them into very conscious citizens in comparison to the past. And what happens now is increasingly is to see more accountability and to see more courage from the younger generation, to stand against corruption for women's rights and human rights or justice. And for, you know, better forms of governance and examples are evident in the parliament, in the Afghan civil society and even in the government and in government, despite the challenges that we have with the government in Afghanistan and challenges are there can be a long list of it that I can say, but we can see that it is mostly led by a younger generation and average age is somewhere between 35 to 40 for the people serving as key leadership of the government.
LL:Right. And you are the director of Afghanistan's largest think tank. That wouldn't have been possible under Taliban rule. So what you just said and your presence in this job, does that suggest that there have been improvements as a result of the US led presence in Afghanistan?
ORZALA NEMAT:Well, yes, but I tell you this, we cannot conclude an 18 years of intervention with a complete failure or complete success story. This story has both side. One side of it, as I mentioned and I mention this now, I was mentioning as an activist from the grassroots movements of home based literacy classes back in and the time of the war, I'm talking about, you know, October, November, 2001. I was saying then that military solution was not a solution to this conflict, and I'm saying it now. 18 years on that what I was claiming them as a young Afghan from the grassroots was right. It is proved right because this war is not a war to be fought by bombs, by aeroplanes, by dismantling or eliminating some forces. It's a war that requires development, that requires interventions and poverty reduction requires intervention and building infrastructures, education, providing more opportunity for a country that is deprived because of the war prior to US led war that started here. So miniaturization is an absolute failure side, but this intervention of the past 18 years has lots of advantages that thanks to which I am able to today live and work in this country, thanks to which we have thousands of women working and serving in government. We have hundreds and thousands of girls going to school. The schools infrastructures are there and it's unprecedented in comparison to any other time in the history of Afghanistan. The number of schools in the country, across the country, particularly in rural areas, is unprecedented. However, when it comes to quantity, when it comes to train teachers, we have a long, long way to go. So there are positive elements. There are some signs of success that you can see in this past 18 years. But of course, there are also failures.
LL:So for people in Canada who are reading about these new papers and who may be asking themselves whether this war was in vain, what's your response?
ORZALA NEMAT:My response is that parts of this should have not happened. The military parts should have not happened. No Canadian deserves to be killed here just because they've attacked some people on this side. The sources of terrorism in Afghanistan was not hidden here. The sources were elsewhere, which was not sought at. And so for that reason. That's part of it. Sending your sons and daughters for military services in Afghanistan was not maybe worth it, but then sending your money to rebuild this war ravaged country. Thank you for your money and think tanks to your financial assistance and the development sectors. Now we are much better placed than any other time before.
LL:I'm sure that some Canadians are listening to you now, but they also still worry about the spectre of corruption in Afghanistan and whether their money actually goes where it's supposed to go. What do you say to that one?
ORZALA NEMAT:Unfortunately, corruption is a phenomenon that is the result of massive level of financial intervention without any accountability. The sources of corruption are not only national. It is national as well as international. I would mechanisms for accountability are so weak internationally that opens a space for corruption. So my message to Canadians is that at least the Afghan people are taking more strong steps toward keeping their governments, their non-governmental organizations more and more accountable. More community-based system of accountability is a solution to tackle the massive issue of corruption. And that requires some level of conditionality in the funding and support that Canadians and other international partners are providing to Afghanistan, whether they are private sector, NGOs or government.
LL:Alright. We will leave it there. Thank you.
ORZALA NEMAT:Thank you.
LL:Orzala Nemat is the director of the Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit, an independent research institute based in Kabul. She is in Kabul, Afghanistan. [Music]
It took three years and two federal lawsuits for The Washington Post to pry loose more than 2,000 pages of interview notes with generals, ambassadors, diplomats and other insiders who offered firsthand accounts of the mistakes that have prolonged the war in Afghanistan.
The Post has made all of those interviews, plus hundreds of confidential memos by former defense secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld public and easily accessible so that Americans can see for themselves what has been done in their name.
David Raymond Amos@DavidRayAmos Replying to @DavidRayAmos@Kathryn98967631 and 49 others Perhaps folks who truly care about this issue should read Paragraph 83 of Federal Court File Number T-1557-15 then ask the "Powers That Be" in Canada and the USA some serious questions
Parents of Canadian soldier killed in Afghanistan say a memorial is more important than an inquiry
'Nobody wants to hear that their child died in a pointless war': Sally Godard
CBC Radio· Posted: Dec 14, 2019 4:00 AM ET
Canadian soldier Nichola Goddard, was the first female member of the Canadian Forces to die in combat. 'Nichola died believing she was doing her job and I guess that's what we hang onto. It would be great to blame all kinds of people, but I don't think we can do that. She chose to go to Afghanistan. She believed in the mission, she believed that they were helping,' said her mother, Sally Goddard. (Submitted by Sally Goddard)
The parents of the first Canadian woman killed in combat in Afghanistan say recent news reports about U.S. military officials misleading the public about the war should encourage steps to ensure those who died in the war are properly remembered.
Sally and Tim Goddard told CBC's The House on Thursday that they don't believe a public inquiry is needed in the wake of Washington Post stories that show the extent to which senior U.S. military and diplomatic officials knew the mission lacked clear objectives, troop deployments were inadequate and a democratic government in Afghanistan could not survive without western military support.
Those disclosures have sparked calls for a proper accounting of Canada's role in the war.
But the Goddards said they would prefer to look ahead, not back. They want the federal government to cut through the "Gordian knot" of bureaucracy to ensure a long-overdue monument to Canada's mission is built.
CBC News: The House
Interview - Sally and Tim Goddard
Sally and Tim Goddard, whose daughter Captain Nichola Goddard was the first Canadian woman to be killed in combat, reflect on what the Afghanistan Papers reveal — and what they want the Canadian government to do about it. 12:15
Capt. Nichola Goddard of Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry was killed on May 17, 2006, during a firefight in the Panjwaii area west of Kandahar, Afghanistan.
Sally Goddard said each family of a fallen soldier has a place to go to remember their loved ones, but Canadians need a communal place to pay their respects — and time is running out.
"It's 14 years almost since Nichola was killed. We're getting older and so are the parents of the fallen and I think the monument [going] up sooner rather than later would be terrific," she said.
Site for federal monument finally approved
In June, the National Capital Commission finally approved a site for the monument to Canada's mission in Afghanistan. The project has faced several setbacks due to disputes over previously proposed locations.
The approved location is across the street from the Canadian War Museum and behind the National Holocaust Monument. Design work is expected to start in the coming months and the memorial's unveiling is scheduled for 2023 — nine years after it was promised by former prime minister Stephen Harper.
A cenotaph built by troops in Kandahar was later transferred to the Department of National Defence's headquarters in Ottawa, but it is not readily accessible. Members of the public may visit it, but they must register 48 hours in advance.
It was rededicated in August, months after the Canadian Forces were criticized by families and the public for dedicating the cenotaph in May with only senior officials present. Chief of Defence Staff Gen. Jonathan Vance later apologized for the situation.
Tim Goddard said he just wants the government to get the monument built.
"I just don't understand why somebody can't just say, 'Do it,'" he told The House.
Call for public inquiry
He added a monument would be more meaningful to his family than an inquiry — which is what Pat Stogran, Canada's ex-veterans' ombudsman and the former commanding officer of the first Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan, called for this week.
"We should have a public inquiry to make sure that Canadians understand the current security situation in the world and they don't get hoodwinked by the government into sending sons and daughters into harm's way without a plan," he told CBC Radio's The Current.
"I'm not sure about the usefulness of an inquiry," Tim Goddard said.
"A retroactive review of what happened isn't going to change anything, it's not going to bring anybody home. What we're seeing now, five years after we finished the active combat role, is the lack of a plan for transition, the lack of a plan for looking after people who are coming out of the armed forces with PTSD, who are homeless.
"We don't have a plan for that, so putting in a lot of money and effort into looking at why we did things back in 2002, 2003, 2004, I think I'd rather see that money spent on doing things now."
'She believed in the mission'
The so-called "Afghanistan Papers"— the trove of documents released to The Washington Post — include notes and transcripts of interviews with key players in the 18-year-old conflict in Afghanistan.
They show those in charge of the effort consistently misled politicians and the public about how the war was going and suggested a democratically elected government in Afghanistan could not survive without military support.
For many survivors of the war, the reports also call into question whether the deaths of 165 Canadians in Afghanistan were in vain.
Sally Goddard said her daughter died defending what she believed was right.
"Nobody wants to hear that their child died in a pointless war," she said.
"Nichola died believing she was doing her job and I guess that's what we hang onto. It would be great to blame all kinds of people, but I don't think we can do that. She chose to go to Afghanistan. She believed in the mission, she believed that they were helping."
122 Comments
David Raymond Amos Perhaps folks who truly care about this issue should read Paragraph 83 of Federal Court File Number T-1557-15 then ask the "Powers That Be" in Canada and the USA some serious questions
John Bouy
Reply to @David Raymond Amos: thanks for this
David Raymond Amos
Reply to @John Bouy: Thanks for paying attention
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Parents of Canadian soldier killed in Afghanistan say a memorial is more important than an inquiry
'Nobody wants to hear that their child died in a pointless war': Sally Godard CBC Radio · Posted: Dec 14, 2019 4:00 AM ET
"The so-called "Afghanistan Papers"— the trove of documents released to The Washington Post — include notes and transcripts of interviews with key players in the 18-year-old conflict in Afghanistan.
They show those in charge of the effort consistently misled politicians and the public about how the war was going and suggested a democratically elected government in Afghanistan could not survive without military support."
49 Comments
David Raymond Amos Perhaps folks who truly care about this issue should read Paragraph 83 of Federal Court File Number T-1557-15 then ask the "Powers That Be" in Canada and the USA some serious questions
At war with the truth U.S. officials constantly said they were making progress. They were not, and they knew it, an exclusive Post investigation found. By Craig Whitlock
---------- Original message ---------- From: Póstur FOR postur@for.is Date: Mon, 4 Apr 2016 22:05:47 +0000 Subject: Re: Hey Premier Gallant please inform the questionable parliamentarian Birigtta Jonsdottir that although NB is a small "Have Not" province at least we have twice the population of Iceland and that not all of us are as dumb as she and her Prime Minister pretends to be.. To: David Amos motomaniac333@gmail.com
Erindi þitt hefur verið móttekið / Your request has been received
Kveðja / Best regards Forsætisráðuneytið / Prime Minister's Office
---------- Original message ---------- From: Póstur IRR postur@irr.is Date: Mon, 4 Apr 2016 22:05:47 +0000 Subject: Re: Hey Premier Gallant please inform the questionable parliamentarian Birigtta Jonsdottir that although NB is a small "Have Not" province at least we have twice the population of Iceland and that not all of us are as dumb as she and her Prime Minister pretends to be.. To: David Amos motomaniac333@gmail.com
Erindi þitt hefur verið móttekið. / Your request has been received.
Kveðja / Best regards Innanríkisráðuneytið / Ministry of the Interior
83 The Plaintiff states that now that Canada is involved in more war in Iraq again it did not serve Canadian interests and reputation to allow Barry Winters to publish the following words three times over five years after he began his bragging:
January 13, 2015 This Is Just AS Relevant Now As When I wrote It During The Debate
December 8, 2014 Why Canada Stood Tall!
Friday, October 3, 2014 Little David Amos’ “True History Of War” Canadian Airstrikes And Stupid Justin Trudeau
Canada’s and Canadians free ride is over. Canada can no longer hide behind Amerka’s and NATO’s skirts.
When I was still in Canadian Forces then Prime Minister Jean Chretien actually committed the Canadian Army to deploy in the second campaign in Iraq, the Coalition of the Willing. This was against or contrary to the wisdom or advice of those of us Canadian officers that were involved in the initial planning phases of that operation. There were significant concern in our planning cell, and NDHQ about of the dearth of concern for operational guidance, direction, and forces for operations after the initial occupation of Iraq. At the “last minute” Prime Minister Chretien and the Liberal government changed its mind. The Canadian government told our amerkan cousins that we would not deploy combat troops for the Iraq campaign, but would deploy a Canadian Battle Group to Afghanistan, enabling our amerkan cousins to redeploy troops from there to Iraq. The PMO’s thinking that it was less costly to deploy Canadian Forces to Afghanistan than Iraq. But alas no one seems to remind the Liberals of Prime Minister Chretien’s then grossly incorrect assumption. Notwithstanding Jean Chretien’s incompetence and stupidity, the Canadian Army was heroic, professional, punched well above it’s weight, and the PPCLI Battle Group, is credited with “saving Afghanistan” during the Panjway campaign of 2006.
What Justin Trudeau and the Liberals don’t tell you now, is that then Liberal Prime Minister Jean Chretien committed, and deployed the Canadian army to Canada’s longest “war” without the advice, consent, support, or vote of the Canadian Parliament.
What David Amos and the rest of the ignorant, uneducated, and babbling chattering classes are too addled to understand is the deployment of less than 75 special operations troops, and what is known by planners as a “six pac cell” of fighter aircraft is NOT the same as a deployment of a Battle Group, nor a “war” make.
The Canadian Government or The Crown unlike our amerkan cousins have the “constitutional authority” to commit the Canadian nation to war. That has been recently clearly articulated to the Canadian public by constitutional scholar Phillippe Legasse. What Parliament can do is remove “confidence” in The Crown’s Government in a “vote of non-confidence.” That could not happen to the Chretien Government regarding deployment to Afghanistan, and it won’t happen in this instance with the conservative majority in The Commons regarding a limited Canadian deployment to the Middle East.
President George Bush was quite correct after 911 and the terror attacks in New York; that the Taliban “occupied” and “failed state” Afghanistan was the source of logistical support, command and control, and training for the Al Quaeda war of terror against the world. The initial defeat, and removal from control of Afghanistan was vital and essential for the security and tranquility of the developed world. An ISIS “caliphate,” in the Middle East, no matter how small, is a clear and present danger to the entire world. This “occupied state,” or“failed state” will prosecute an unending Islamic inspired war of terror against not only the “western world,” but Arab states “moderate” or not, as well. The security, safety, and tranquility of Canada and Canadians are just at risk now with the emergence of an ISIS“caliphate” no matter how large or small, as it was with the Taliban and Al Quaeda “marriage” in Afghanistan.
One of the everlasting “legacies” of the “Trudeau the Elder’s dynasty was Canada and successive Liberal governments cowering behind the amerkan’s nuclear and conventional military shield, at the same time denigrating, insulting them, opposing them, and at the same time self-aggrandizing ourselves as “peace keepers,” and progenitors of “world peace.” Canada failed. The United States of Amerka, NATO, the G7 and or G20 will no longer permit that sort of sanctimonious behavior from Canada or its government any longer. And Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Foreign Minister John Baird , and Cabinet are fully cognizant of that reality. Even if some editorial boards, and pundits are not.
Justin, Trudeau “the younger” is reprising the time “honoured” liberal mantra, and tradition of expecting the amerkans or the rest of the world to do “the heavy lifting.” Justin Trudeau and his “butt buddy” David Amos are telling Canadians that we can guarantee our security and safety by expecting other nations to fight for us. That Canada can and should attempt to guarantee Canadians safety by providing “humanitarian aid” somewhere, and call a sitting US president a “war criminal.” This morning Australia announced they too, were sending tactical aircraft to eliminate the menace of an ISIS “caliphate.”
In one sense Prime Minister Harper is every bit the scoundrel Trudeau “the elder” and Jean ‘the crook” Chretien was. Just As Trudeau, and successive Liberal governments delighted in diminishing, marginalizing, under funding Canadian Forces, and sending Canadian military men and women to die with inadequate kit and modern equipment; so too is Prime Minister Stephen Harper. Canada’s F-18s are antiquated, poorly equipped, and ought to have been replaced five years ago. But alas, there won’t be single RCAF fighter jock that won’t go, or won’t want to go, to make Canada safe or safer.
My Grandfather served this country. My father served this country. My Uncle served this country. And I have served this country. Justin Trudeau has not served Canada in any way. Thomas Mulcair has not served this country in any way. Liberals and so called social democrats haven’t served this country in any way. David Amos, and other drooling fools have not served this great nation in any way. Yet these fools are more than prepared to ensure their, our safety to other nations, and then criticize them for doing so.
Canada must again, now, “do our bit” to guarantee our own security, and tranquility, but also that of the world. Canada has never before shirked its responsibility to its citizens and that of the world.
Prime Minister Harper will not permit this country to do so now
From: dnd_mdn@forces.gc.ca Date: Fri, 27 May 2011 14:17:17 -0400 Subject: RE: Re Greg Weston, The CBC , Wikileaks, USSOCOM, Canada and the War in Iraq (I just called SOCOM and let them know I was still alive To: david.raymond.amos@gmail.com
This is to confirm that the Minister of National Defence has received your email and it will be reviewed in due course. Please do not reply to this message: it is an automatic acknowledgement.
I talked to Don Newman earlier this week before the beancounters David Dodge and Don Drummond now of Queen's gave their spin about Canada's Health Care system yesterday and Sheila Fraser yapped on and on on CAPAC during her last days in office as if she were oh so ethical.. To be fair to him I just called Greg Weston (613-288-6938) I suggested that he should at least Google SOUCOM and David Amos It would be wise if he check ALL of CBC's sources before he publishes something else about the DND EH Don Newman? Lets just say that the fact that your old CBC buddy, Tony Burman is now in charge of Al Jazeera English never impressed me. The fact that he set up a Canadian office is interesting though
Anyone can call me back and stress test my integrity after they read this simple pdf file. BTW what you Blue Sky dudes pubished about Potash Corp and BHP is truly funny. Perhaps Stevey Boy Harper or Brad Wall will fill ya in if you are to shy to call mean old me.
"But Lang, defence minister McCallum's chief of staff, says military brass were not entirely forthcoming on the issue. For instance, he says, even McCallum initially didn't know those soldiers were helping to plan the invasion of Iraq up to the highest levels of command, including a Canadian general.
That general is Walt Natynczyk, now Canada's chief of defence staff, who eight months after the invasion became deputy commander of 35,000 U.S. soldiers and other allied forces in Iraq. Lang says Natynczyk was also part of the team of mainly senior U.S. military brass that helped prepare for the invasion from a mobile command in Kuwait."
"I remember years ago when the debate was on in Canada, about there being weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Our American 'friends" demanded that Canada join into "the Coalition of the Willing. American "veterans" and sportscasters loudly denounced Canada for NOT buying into the US policy.
At the time I was serving as a planner at NDHQ and with 24 other of my colleagues we went to Tampa SOUCOM HQ to be involved in the planning in the planning stages of the op....and to report to NDHQ, that would report to the PMO upon the merits of the proposed operation. There was never at anytime an existing target list of verified sites where there were deployed WMD.
Coalition assets were more than sufficient for the initial strike and invasion phase but even at that point in the planning, we were concerned about the number of "boots on the ground" for the occupation (and end game) stage of an operation in Iraq. We were also concerned about the American plans for occupation plans of Iraq because they at that stage included no contingency for a handing over of civil authority to a vetted Iraqi government and bureaucracy.
There was no detailed plan for Iraq being "liberated" and returned to its people...nor a thought to an eventual exit plan. This was contrary to the lessons of Vietnam but also to current military thought, that folks like Colin Powell and "Stuffy" Leighton and others elucidated upon. "What's the mission" how long is the mission, what conditions are to met before US troop can redeploy? Prime Minister Jean Chretien and the PMO were even at the very preliminary planning stages wary of Canadian involvement in an Iraq operation....History would prove them correct. The political pressure being applied on the PMO from the George W Bush administration was onerous
American military assets were extremely overstretched, and Canadian military assets even more so It was proposed by the PMO that Canadian naval platforms would deploy to assist in naval quarantine operations in the Gulf and that Canadian army assets would deploy in Afghanistan thus permitting US army assets to redeploy for an Iraqi operation....The PMO thought that "compromise would save Canadian lives and liberal political capital.. and the priority of which ....not necessarily in that order. "
You can bet that I called these sneaky Yankees again today EH John Adams? of the CSE within the DND?
After I heard you speak on CBC I called your office again and managed to speak to one of your staff for the first time
Please find attached the documents I promised to send to the lady who answered the phone this morning. Please notice that not after the Sgt at Arms took the documents destined to your office his pal Tanker Malley barred me in writing with an "English" only document.
These are the hearings and the dockets in Federal Court that I suggested that you study closely.
This Judge understnds the meaning of the word Integrity
Date: 20151223
Docket: T-1557-15
Fredericton, New Brunswick, December 23, 2015
PRESENT: The Honourable Mr. Justice Bell
BETWEEN:
DAVID RAYMOND AMOS
Plaintiff
and
HER MAJESTY THE QUEEN
Defendant
ORDER
(Delivered orally from the Bench in Fredericton, New Brunswick, on December 14, 2015)
The Plaintiff seeks an appeal de novo, by way of motion pursuant to the Federal Courts Rules (SOR/98-106), from an Order made on November 12, 2015, in which Prothonotary Morneau struck the Statement of Claim in its entirety.
At the outset of the hearing, the Plaintiff brought to my attention a letter dated September 10, 2004, which he sent to me, in my then capacity as Past President of the New Brunswick Branch of the Canadian Bar Association, and the then President of the Branch, Kathleen Quigg, (now a Justice of the New Brunswick Court of Appeal). In that letter he stated:
As for your past President, Mr. Bell, may I suggest that you check the work of Frank McKenna before I sue your entire law firm including you. You are your brother’s keeper.
Frank McKenna is the former Premier of New Brunswick and a former colleague of mine at the law firm of McInnes Cooper. In addition to expressing an intention to sue me, the Plaintiff refers to a number of people in his Motion Record who he appears to contend may be witnesses or potential parties to be added. Those individuals who are known to me personally, include, but are not limited to the former Prime Minister of Canada, The Right Honourable Stephen Harper; former Attorney General of Canada and now a Justice of the Manitoba Court of Queen’s Bench, Vic Toews; former member of Parliament Rob Moore; former Director of Policing Services, the late Grant Garneau; former Chief of the Fredericton Police Force, Barry McKnight; former Staff Sergeant Danny Copp; my former colleagues on the New Brunswick Court of Appeal, Justices Bradley V. Green and Kathleen Quigg, and, retired Assistant Commissioner Wayne Lang of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
In the circumstances, given the threat in 2004 to sue me in my personal capacity and my past and present relationship with many potential witnesses and/or potential parties to the litigation, I am of the view there would be a reasonable apprehension of bias should I hear this motion. See Justice de Grandpré’s dissenting judgment in Committee for Justice and Liberty et al v National Energy Board et al, [1978] 1 SCR 369 at p 394 for the applicable test regarding allegations of bias. In the circumstances, although neither party has requested I recuse myself, I consider it appropriate that I do so.
AS A RESULT OF MY RECUSAL, THIS COURT ORDERS that the Administrator of the Court schedule another date for the hearing of the motion. There is no order as to costs.
“B. Richard Bell” Judge
Below after the CBC article about your concerns (I made one comment already) you will find the text of just two of many emails I had sent to your office over the years since I first visited it in 2006.
I noticed that on July 30, 2009, he was appointed to the the Court Martial Appeal Court of Canada Perhaps you should scroll to the bottom of this email ASAP and read the entire Paragraph 83 of my lawsuit now before the Federal Court of Canada?
"FYI This is the text of the lawsuit that should interest Trudeau the most
83 The Plaintiff states that now that Canada is involved in more war in Iraq again it did not serve Canadian interests and reputation to allow Barry Winters to publish the following words three times over five years after he began his bragging:
January 13, 2015 This Is Just AS Relevant Now As When I wrote It During The Debate
December 8, 2014 Why Canada Stood Tall!
Friday, October 3, 2014 Little David Amos’ “True History Of War” Canadian Airstrikes And Stupid Justin Trudeau?
Vertias Vincit David Raymond Amos 902 800 0369
P.S. Whereas this CBC article is about your opinion of the actions of the latest Minister Of Health trust that Mr Boudreau and the CBC have had my files for many years and the last thing they are is ethical. Ask his friends Mr Murphy and the RCMP if you don't believe me.
This will acknowledge receipt of a copy of your e-mail of December 29, 2006 to Corporal Warren McBeath of the RCMP.
Because of the nature of the allegations made in your message, I have taken the measure of forwarding a copy to Assistant Commissioner Steve Graham of the RCMP “J” Division in Fredericton.
Thank you for your follow up e-mail to me today. I was on days off over the holidays and returned to work this evening. Rest assured I was not ignoring or procrastinating to respond to your concerns.
As your attachment sent today refers from Premier Graham, our position is clear on your dead calf issue: Our forensic labs do not process testing on animals in cases such as yours, they are referred to the Atlantic Veterinary College in Charlottetown who can provide these services. If you do not choose to utilize their expertise in this instance, then that is your decision and nothing more can be done.
As for your other concerns regarding the US Government, false imprisonment and Federal Court Dates in the US, etc... it is clear that Federal authorities are aware of your concerns both in Canada the US. These issues do not fall into the purvue of Detachment and policing in Petitcodiac, NB.
It was indeed an interesting and informative conversation we had on December 23rd, and I wish you well in all of your future endeavors.
NATO marks 70 years with mutual suspicion and insults
Doubt in the era of Trump: will the U.S. step up when the chips are down?
Evan Dyer· CBC News· Posted: Dec 01, 2019 4:00 AM ET
U.S. President Donald Trump attends a meeting of the North Atlantic Council during a summit of heads of state and government at NATO headquarters in Brussels July 11, 2018. (Geert Vanden Wijngaert/The Associated Press)
After weeks of watching supposed allies trade allegations of betrayal and of insulting each others' troops, delegates to the NATO Summit in London this week might be wondering who their friends are these days.
But bitter as the recriminations have been, there's an even bigger cloud hanging over the summit: doubts about the fundamental principle of trust upon which NATO was built 70 years ago.
For decades, the 29 countries making up NATO have been reassured by the treaty's ironclad guarantee of mutual defence in Article Five of its founding charter: "an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all."
But in the era of U.S. President Donald Trump, governments now have doubts about the United States' commitment to Article Five. The mutual defence clause has only ever been invoked once — by Canada on behalf of the U.S. in the immediate aftermath of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.
The 158 Canadian soldiers and seven Canadian civilians who lost their lives in Afghanistan died upholding Article Five. The NATO alliance only works when members trust that others will answer when the call comes.
Military analyst Dave Perry of the Canadian Global Affairs Institute said NATO allies still trust the U.S. military, American institutions and the individual Americans they work with in the alliance.
"The concern is really about a president who keeps demonstrating, over and over again, that he has a very different view of how America should be relating to its allies," he said.
"The American president has left the impression at times that he's got better relations with the Russian president than he does with some of the heads of NATO allies in Europe or even Canada."
A legacy of disloyalty
Ivo Daalder, president of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, was the U.S. permanent representative on the NATO Council for four years under President Barack Obama.
He said President Trump has undermined the alliance by sowing doubts about America's intentions.
"He has said many times that NATO is obsolete. He refused for the first six months of his presidency to reaffirm Article Five, and has called into question whether the United States should continue to be a member of NATO if the allies are not willing to spend more on defence," he said.
"It's those kinds of questions that lead allies to say, 'If the chips are down, will the U.S. be there?' And there's less confidence about that today than there used to be."
Kurdish forces withdraw from an area near Turkish border with Syria, overseen by the Russian forces, near the town of Amuda, Sunday, Oct. 27, 2019. (Baderkhan Ahmad/The Associated Press)
Daalder said Trump has undermined that trust through both his words and his actions.
"President Trump has taken a number of steps, including abandoning his Kurdish allies in Syria, that would call into question his commitment to alliance relationships," he said.
Perry agrees that the betrayal of the Kurds sent a shiver through the Western alliance.
"It's not just that the United States bailed out on the Kurds, because I think we've seen a version of that movie before. It's the no-notice way of doing it, and the fact that the president would make these kinds of decisions not only capriciously, but also appearing to have totally ignored any advice that he did bother to solicit," he said.
"The president's whims are increasingly being translated into tangible outcomes. People have been speculating for several years that the president will send some tweets, but then the 'grown-ups' will prevail. I think the Syria example shows that the 'grown-ups-prevailing' narrative may be coming to an end."
Fighting with France
While some European leaders expressed their doubts in private, France's President Emmanuel Macron made his public in a recent interview with The Economist. In it, Macron said NATO was suffering "brain death" and openly questioned Article Five.
Daalder said the French leader's concerns about the United States' reliability as an ally may be affected by his own ambitions to lead Europe.
"My reading of President Macron's latest statements are back in this Gaullist perspective that France needs to lead Europe," he said. "I'm gratified that the reaction to that from allies within Europe has been to say, 'Don't call into question the fundamental nature of the alliance with the United States, and indeed with Canada,' while at the same time trying to say how can we do more ourselves within a European context."
Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, right, shakes hands with French President Emmanuel Macron during the G-20 summit in Osaka, Japan June 28, 2019. (The Associated Press/Presidential Press Service)
On Thursday, Macron defended his harsh language and expanded on it.
"The questions I have asked are open questions that we haven't solved yet — peace in Europe, the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, the relationship with Russia, the issue of Turkey," he said. "Who is the enemy?
"So I say, as long as these questions are not resolved, let's not negotiate about cost-sharing and burden-sharing, or this or that. Maybe we needed a wake-up call, as they say in English. I'm glad it was delivered, and I'm glad everyone now thinks we should rather think about our strategic aims."
But the U.S. does want to talk about cost-sharing; in fact, the Trump administration announced unilaterally this week that it intends to cut its contribution to NATO's total budget from 22 per cent to 16 per cent. Other members, including Canada, will have to pick up the slack.
Feuding with Germany
It's a feature of NATO that the closer its members are to Russia, the more likely they are to meet the desired threshold of spending at least 2 per cent of GDP on defence.
Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borissov, while visiting President Trump in the Oval Office on Monday, made a point of noting that his country spends 3.1 per cent of its GDP on defence. "You should tell that to Germany," Trump huffed.
Trump has singled Germany out for failing to spend enough on the alliance, although his administration also is pressuring Canada.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel, left, and U.S. President Donald Trump pose for a photograph prior to a bilateral meeting on the sideline of a summit of heads of state and government at NATO headquarters in Brussels July 11, 2018. (Markus Schreiber/Associated Press)
In the run-up to the NATO summit, the U.S. and Germany have been feuding over another topic familiar to Canadians: Huawei.
Like their Canadian counterparts, Germany's leaders are wrestling with whether to permit the Chinese company to bid on contracts to build its 5G networks. Berlin has been subjected to a pressure campaign by Washington to ban Huawei as a potential security risk.
On Sunday, German minister Peter Altmaier recalled during a TV debate that it was the Americans — not the Chinese — who were caught spying on Germans through the PRISM program exposed by Edward Snowden in 2013.
Pointing out that Germany had not boycotted the U.S. companies that facilitated that spying, Altmaier reminded Germans that "the U.S. also demands from its companies that they pass on information."
Back in 2013, when German Chancellor Angela Merkel personally reproached President Obama about the bugging of her phone, he apologized and promised to make changes to the program.
U.S. Ambassador Richard Grenell said Altmaier's remarks were "an insult to the thousands of American troops who help ensure Germany's security and the millions of Americans committed to a strong Western alliance."
Turkey: With friends like these….
Meanwhile, Turkey continues to behave more like an adversary than a member of the NATO alliance, doubling down on its arms purchases from NATO's main strategic rival Russia — and threatening other members with sending jihadists captured in Syria back to their European countries of origin if their governments don't stop complaining about Turkey's actions in Syria.
Turkey has depended on President Trump to shield it from U.S. retaliation over its attack on Kurdish enclaves in Northern Syria, which infuriated both Republicans and Democrats. At the same time, it has counted on Trump to block enforcement of a U.S. law that requires Washington to impose sanctions on Turkey for installing Russian-made S-400 air defence systems.
On Thursday, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu castigated Macron for hosting a delegate from the Kurdish YPG last month.
"He is already the sponsor of the terrorist organization and constantly hosts them at the Elysée. If he says his ally is the terrorist organization ... there is really nothing more to say," said Cavusoglu.
"Right now, there is a void in Europe. [Macron is] trying to be its leader."
'You are brain dead'
Macron shot right back, arguing Turkey's attack on the Kurds was at cross-purposes with NATO's mission to defeat the Islamic State.
"One cannot say on one hand that we're allies, and consequently demand our solidarity, and on the other hand put one's allies in the face of a military offensive delivered as a fait accompli that endangers the action of the coalition against the Islamic State," he said.
And on Friday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan upped the stakes again, accusing "some countries that are accustomed to not taking risks and always winning" of being unable to "tolerate Turkey's efforts to protect its own rights, laws, borders and sovereignty. Most particularly, the latest comments of French president are the examples of this sick and shallow understanding.
"[Macron] says NATO is experiencing a brain death. I'm addressing Mr. Macron from Turkey and I will say it at NATO: You should check whether you are brain dead first."
Pardoning war criminals
As if the rancour wasn't enough, Perry said that President Trump is sowing new doubts by pardoning convicted war criminals.
"For all its warts, the U.S. has long been an upholder of the laws of armed conflict. For him to be intervening in that process of maintaining order and discipline is extraordinarily troubling," he said, citing Trump's recent decision to intervene in a disciplinary case against a Navy SEAL accused of war crimes in Iraq.
"From allies' perspective, it's another piece falling on top of the Syria withdrawal. It's increasingly uncertain what the United States stands for. You're not as sure now what it means to contribute to an American military operation as you would have been even a year ago."
Evan Dyer has been a journalist with CBC for 18 years, after an early career as a freelancer in Argentina. He works in the Parliamentary Bureau and can be reached at evan.dyer@cbc.ca.
Is it just me or has this world become a much uglier place since Trump became president. If he wins again in 2020 what will that mean for the rest of us? Nothing good I'm afraid.
David Amos
Reply to @Alex Matheson: Methinks Trump is just the latest in along line of puppets working for the taxman. The Yankees lost their independence from British banksters on December 23, 1913 with the enactment of the Federal Reserve Act. 100 years later Obama and his cohorts renewed the malicious contract N'esy Pas?
Garry Cyr
The US is a mess. Can't wait for Trump and his Republican hacks, especially McConnell and Nunes, to be tossed out.
David Amos
Reply to @Garry Cyr: Trust that I am no fan of Trump but I have questioned the existence of NATO since the Iron Curtain was no more. That said I must ask how many Canadians working for NATO were killed before Trump was elected? How many have died since?
Trump makes surprise Thanksgiving trip to Afghanistan, voices hope for ceasefire
Trip marks U.S. president's first visit to Afghanistan since taking office in 2016
The Associated Press· Posted: Nov 28, 2019 3:32 PM ET
U.S. President Donald Trump eats dinner with U.S. troops at a Thanksgiving dinner event during a surprise visit at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan on Thursday. (Tom Brenner/Reuters)
U.S. President Donald Trump paid a surprise Thanksgiving visit to Afghanistan, where he announced the United States and Taliban have been engaged in ongoing peace talks and said he believes the Taliban wants a ceasefire.
In his first trip to the site of America's longest war, Trump arrived at Bagram Air Field shortly after 8:30 p.m. local time Thursday and spent more than two and a half hours on the ground, serving turkey, thanking the troops and sitting down with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani.
As per tradition, reporters were under strict instructions to keep the trip a secret to ensure his safety in the country. About 12,000 U.S. forces remain in Afghanistan.
Travelling with Republican Sen. John Barrasso of Wyoming and a small clutch of aides, including his acting chief of staff, press secretary and national security adviser, Trump appeared in good spirits as he was escorted around the base by heavily armed soldiers, as the smell of burning fuel and garbage wafted through the chilly air. Unlike last year's post-Christmas visit to Iraq, the president's wife Melania Trump did not make the trip.
Trump's first stop was a dining hall, where he sat down for a meal. But he said he only tasted the mashed potatoes before he was pulled away for photos.
"I never got the turkey," he told the troops. "A gorgeous piece of turkey."
Trump speaks to the troops during the visit. (Olivier Douliery/AFP/Getty Images)
During his visit, Trump said the U.S. and Taliban have been engaged in peace talks and insisted the Taliban want to make a deal after heavy U.S. fire in recent months.
"We're meeting with them," he said. "And we're saying it has to be a ceasefire. And they don't want to do a ceasefire, but now they do want to do a ceasefire, I believe ... and we'll see what happens."
The trip came after Trump abruptly broke off peace talks with the Taliban in September, cancelling a secret meeting with Taliban and Afghan leaders at the Camp David presidential retreat after a particularly deadly spate of violence, capped by a bombing in Kabul that killed 12 people, including an American soldier.
Trump meets with Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani at Bagram Air Base. (Tom Brenner/Reuters)
That ended a nearly yearlong effort by the U.S. to reach a political settlement with the Taliban, the group that protected al-Qaeda extremists in Afghanistan, prompting U.S. military action after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. U.S. and international forces have been on the ground ever since. It was not immediately clear how long or substantive the U.S. re-engagement with the Taliban has been.
Taliban spokesperson Zabiullah Mujahid said the Taliban's stance is unchanged. He said the United States broke off talks and when it wants to resume the Taliban are ready.
2,400 U.S. service members killed
Trump ran his 2016 campaign promising to end the nation's "endless wars" and has been pushing to withdraw troops from Afghanistan and in the Middle East, despite protests from top U.S. officials,
Trump's Republican allies in Washington and many U.S. allies abroad. For months now, he has described American forces as "policemen" and argued that other countries' wars should be theirs to wage.
Tens of thousands of Afghan civilians and more than 2,400 American service members have been killed since the war began 18 years ago.
U.S. President Donald Trump had said he would be spending Thanksgiving at his club, Mar-a-Lago, in Florida. Instead, he visited the troops at Bagram Air Field. (Olivier Douliery/AFP/Getty Images)
Just last week, Trump flew to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware to oversee the transfer of remains of two officers killed when their helicopter crashed as they provided security for troops on the ground in Logar Province in eastern Afghanistan. The Taliban still controls or holds sway over about half of the country, staging near-daily attacks targeting Afghan forces and government officials.
The U.S. and Taliban had been close to an agreement in September that might have enabled a U.S. troop withdrawal.
Trump meets with Afghan president
Trump said he was proceeding with a plan to reduce U.S. troop levels to about 8,600, telling reporters we're "bringing down the number of troops substantially."
Still, he said, the U.S. will stay in the country "until we have a deal or we have total victory."
Trump also met briefly with Ghani, the Afghan president. Ghani thanked the Americans who have made the "ultimate sacrifice" in Afghanistan and assured Trump that Afghan security forces are increasingly leading the fight.
"In the next three months, it's going to be all Afghanistan," Ghani said.
Taking pains to keep trip secret
Ghani also praised Trump for the October mission that killed Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
The Afghan leader also said, as Trump himself has, that the al-Baghdadi mission was even more significant than the 2011 mission targeting al-Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden. The bin Laden mission was ordered by then-president Barack Obama.
"President Trump, people talked a lot about bin Laden, but what you did to eliminate al-Baghdadi, who was an organizer and not a talker, is a much great accomplishment," said Ghani, in remarks to U.S. troops before Trump's departure.
The White House took pains to keep the trip a secret after Trump's cover was blown last year when Air Force One was spotted en route to Iraq by an amateur British flight watcher.
Decoy airplane
Cellphones and other transmitting devices were confiscated for the duration of the trip from everyone travelling aboard Air Force One. And Thanksgiving-themed tweets were teed up to publish ahead of time from Trump's account to prevent suspicions arising about the president's silence.
A small group of reporters was told to meet Wednesday night on the top floor of a parking garage and transported in black vans to Andrews Air Force Base. Meanwhile, the president was secretly flying back from Florida, where reporters had been told he'd be spending Thanksgiving at his Mar-a-Lago club.
Air Force One sits on the tarmac at Palm Beach International Airport in Florida on Wednesday. (Yuri Gripas/Reuters)
The plane he'd flown to Florida — the modified 747 painted in the iconic white and blue of Air Force One — remained parked on the tarmac at West Palm Beach Airport to avoid revealing the president's movement.
About 9:45 p.m. local time Wednesday, the president boarded a nearly identical plane concealed in a hangar at Andrews Air Base, taking off and landing under the cover of darkness, with cabin lights dimmed and window shutters drawn.
'We thought it'd be a nice surprise'
White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham said plans for the visit had been in the works for weeks.
"It's a dangerous area and he wants to support the troops," Grisham told reporters before Trump landed. "He and Mrs. Trump recognize that there's a lot of people who are away from their families during the holidays and we thought it'd be a nice surprise."
Shortly after midnight, Trump and his entourage departed from Afghanistan.
The president told the troops he was honoured to spend part of his holiday with them.
"There is nowhere I'd rather celebrate this Thanksgiving than right here with the toughest, strongest, best and bravest warriors on the face of the earth," Trump said.
U.S. government has misled public throughout Afghanistan deployment: report
Washington Post obtained thousands of pages of documents quoting officials over many years
The Associated Press· Posted: Dec 10, 2019 8:38 AM ET
U.S. Resolute Support (RS) forces guard the site of a car bomb explosion in Kabul on Sept. 5. Documents obtained by the Washington Post reveal deep frustrations about the U.S.'s conduct in the war in Afghanistan. (Rahmat Gul/The Associated Press)
The U.S. government, across three White House administrations, misled the public about failures in the war in Afghanistan, often suggesting success where it didn't exist, according to thousands of pages of documents obtained by the Washington Post.
The documents reveal deep frustrations about the U.S.'s conduct during the war in Afghanistan, including the ever-changing U.S. strategy, the struggles to develop an effective Afghan fighting force, and persistent failures to defeat the Taliban and combat corruption throughout the government.
"We were devoid of a fundamental understanding of Afghanistan — we didn't know what we were doing," Douglas Lute, a three-star army general who served as the White House's Afghan war czar during the Bush and Obama administrations, told government interviewers in 2015.
The interviews were conducted as part of a Lessons Learned project by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction over the past several years. SIGAR has produced seven reports from the more than 400 interviews and several more are in the works. The Post sought and received raw interview data through the Freedom of Information Act and lawsuits.
The documents quote officials close to the 18-year war effort describing a campaign by the U.S. government to distort the grim reality of the war.
"Every data point was altered to present the best picture possible," Bob Crowley, an army colonel who served as a counterinsurgency adviser to U.S. military commanders in 2013 and 2014, told government interviewers, according to the Post. "Surveys, for instance, were totally unreliable but reinforced that everything we were doing was right and we became a self-licking ice cream cone."
The Pentagon released a statement Monday saying there has been "no intent" by the department to mislead Congress or the public.
I'm glad this report is out, and I hope this becomes an eye-opener to the American people and that the U.S. government begins to change its attitude now toward Afghanistan.
- Hamid Karzai, former Afghanistan president
U.S. Department of Defence (DoD) officials "have consistently briefed the progress and challenges associated with our efforts in Afghanistan, and DoD provides regular reports to Congress that highlight these challenges," said Lt.-Col. Thomas Campbell, a department spokesperson. "Most of the individuals interviewed spoke with the benefit of hindsight. Hindsight has also enabled the department to evaluate previous approaches and revise our strategy, as we did in 2017 with the launch of the president's South Asia strategy."
SIGAR has frequently been vocal about the war's failures in reports going back more than a decade, including extensive questions about vast waste in the nearly $1 trillion spent on the conflict.
The Post said John Sopko, head of SIGAR, acknowledged the documents show "the American people have constantly been lied to." SIGAR was created by Congress in 2008 to conduct audits and investigations into waste of government spending on the war in Afghanistan.
Gillibrand calls for new hearings
Democrats on Capitol Hill were quick to endorse the story's findings.
California congressman Ted Lieu tweeted: "The war in Afghanistan is an epic bipartisan failure. I have long called for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from that quagmire. Now it appears U.S. officials misled the American public about the war. It is time to leave Afghanistan. Now."
Ro Khanna, also serving in a California district in the House, said in a tweet that "775,000 of our troops deployed. 2,400 American lives lost. Over 20,000 Americans wounded. 38,000 civilians killed. Trillions spent. [Donald] Rumsfeld in 2003:
I have no visibility into who the bad guys are."'
New York Democratic Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, a member of her chamber's armed services committee, called for new hearings in the wake of the report.
"The committee owes it to the American public to hold hearings to examine the questions raised by this reporting and provide clarity with respect to our strategy in Afghanistan, a clear definition of success, and an honest and complete review of the obstacles on the ground," she wrote in a letter to the Republican chair of the committee, Oklahama's Jim Inhofe.
'What could we do?': Karzai
Afghanistan's former president said Tuesday that Washington helped fuel corruption in his nation by spending hundreds of millions of dollars over the past two decades without accountability. Hamid Karzai said the documents obtained by the Post confirm his long-running complaints about U.S. spending.
The documents also describe Karzai, Afghanistan's president for 14 years, as having headed a government that "self-organized into a kleptocracy." Karzai has denied wrongdoing but hasn't denied involvement of officials in his government in corruption.
Former Afghan president Hamid Karzai speaks during an interview with The Associated Press, in Kabul. Karzai's final years in power were characterized by a fractious relationship with the United States. (Altaf Qadri/The Associated Press)
Karzai became Afghanistan's president after a 2001 U.S.-led invasion ousted the Taliban government.
The documents obtained by the Post portray U.S. governments lying about successes and hiding failures. After 18 years and over $1 trillion dollars in U.S. taxpayer money spent on the war, the Taliban is now at its strongest and controls or holds sway over half the country.
Karzai said the U.S. spent hundreds of millions of dollars in its war on terror, with the money flowing to contractors and private security firms, and that this fostered corruption.
"What could we do? It was U.S. money coming here and used by them and used for means that did not help Afghanistan," Karzai said.
He argued that there was no accountability.
"I'm glad this report is out, and I hope this becomes an eye-opener to the American people and that the U.S. government begins to change its attitude now toward Afghanistan," he said.
Michael Kugelman, deputy director of the Asia Program at the U.S.-based Wilson Center has said,
"I'm not sure I'd go so far as to say that the U.S. used corruption as a tool, but it has long been suspected — and these new documents make quite clear — that U.S. officials have thrown huge amounts of money at Afghanistan knowing full well that this would lead to more corruption than development or peace."
Speaking from Ottawa in response to the report, Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan defended Canada's military and development record in Afghanistan.
Sajjan, who did three tours of Afghanistan as an intelligence liaison and later as an adviser to American commanders, said Monday he personally saw progress throughout his time there. Canada's mission in Afghanistan, which was based for the most part in Kandahar province, ended in 2014.
Canadian and American troops on a joint patrol in late June 2011, one of the last conducted by Canadians during the Afghanistan war. (Murray Brewster/The Canadian Press )
Kandahar was made a better place by Canada's military presence, Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan said following The Washington Post's publication of documents that suggest successive U.S. administrations saw the Afghanistan war as unwinnable.
Sajjan, who did three tours of Afghanistan as an intelligence liaison and later as an adviser to American commanders, said Monday he personally saw progress throughout his time there.
Sajjan defended Canada's military and development record — but on Monday ducked the question of whether the Conservative government of the day knew how deeply pessimistic some of the allies had become about the war's conduct and prospects for success.
Harjit Sajjan as a serving combat officer in Afghanistan. (Twitter)
The troops on the ground, Sajjan said, were fully aware of the challenges they faced. "One thing I assure you, our understanding of our situation was extremely high," he said, adding the Canadian army's view was shared with its "partners."
Sajjan did not say who those partners were — whether they were elements of the Canadian government or represented allied nations.
The U.S. Office of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, known as SIGAR, conducted a study that looked at the core mistakes made by Washington during the war. SIGAR conducted over 600 interviews with former commanders and decision-makers to compile its report.
Following a three-court fight under the United States' freedom of information law, The Washington Post obtained over 2,000 of the SIGAR documents, including notes, transcripts (some of them redacted) and audio recordings.
A war without a strategy
What emerged was a stark portrait of how the administrations of former U.S. presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama lacked a clear war strategy — and how their mistakes prolonged what became the longest war in American history.
Sajjan was asked whether he saw the conflict as unwinnable.
"We can't boil it down to very simple things like that," he said, arguing that the situation in Afghanistan was "very, very complex."
Throughout its dozen years in Afghanistan, Canada lost 158 soldiers to combat, accidents and suicides. Dozens more Canadian veterans have taken their own lives since the end of the mission in 2014.
It has been estimated that Ottawa spent up to $20 billion on military operations, development assistance and aid related to its mission in Afghanistan, which was based for the most part in the province of Kandahar. But there has never been a full and complete accounting of the war by the federal government or parliamentary watchdogs.
Sajjan appeared Monday to dismiss the published reports about the SIGAR study, and by extension the interviews with U.S. officials it contains. Many of those officials expressed frustration, exasperation and despair over the management of the war.
"I'll be honest with you, if somebody was to read it in, see it in a certain way, I'm not surprised because it is very complex," Sajjan said.
"But if somebody who's been on the ground and saw the progress, and the work, the ups and downs over the years, I think {they] would understand that this is very, very complex, but the work that has been done on the ground has had a significant impact."
Public doubts
Despite Sajjan's confidence, the former Conservative government of prime minister Stephen Harper did publicly express doubts about the goals of the conflict and the absence of a clearly defined path to victory.
"We are not going to ever defeat the insurgency," Harper told CNN's Fareed Zakaria in an interview in March 2009. "Afghanistan has probably had — my reading of Afghanistan history — it's probably had an insurgency forever, of some kind."
The Obama administration was newly elected in 2009 and was in the process of pouring tens of thousands of troops into Afghanistan — a troop "surge" meant to stabilize the country.
"If President Obama wants anybody to do more, I would ask very hard questions about what is the strategy for success and for an eventual departure," Harper told Zakaria that spring.
What went wrong in Afghanistan? Our MPs don't seem to be in a hurry to find out
If joining the war was a mistake, Liberals and Conservatives have to wear it together
Aaron Wherry· CBC News· Posted: Dec 11, 2019 4:00 AM ET
Canadian soldiers help a comrade, center, get on a helicopter after he was injured in an IED blast during a patrol outside Salavat, in the Panjwayi district, southwest of Kandahar, Afghanistan, Monday, June 7, 2010. (Anja Niedringhaus/Associated Press)
The House of Commons spent Tuesday debating a Conservative proposal to establish a special committee of MPs to study Canada's ongoing "diplomatic crisis" with China.
Whatever the actual merits of that proposal, the timing of it at least underlines another significant matter in Canadian foreign policy that could use some accountability.
On Monday, the Washington Post published the first of its stories based on newly revealed U.S. government documents that raise profound questions about the execution and results of the war in Afghanistan and the massive nation-building effort that surrounded it.
Even though Canada played a major combat role in that mission, not one MP raised the Post's reporting during question period in the Commons on Monday or Tuesday.
But if the current dispute with China deserves special attention from Parliament, surely the 13 years this country spent fighting an actual war in Afghanistan deserves at least as much scrutiny.
It's not hard to see why the Conservatives would jump at an opportunity to launch a prolonged inquiry into the Trudeau government's differences with China. Two Canadians are effectively being held hostage by Beijing and there are no simple solutions.
No points to score
Committee hearings (for as long as they last) would provide a regular forum for poking and prodding government ministers, second-guessing the government's handling of the situation and dwelling on the lack of a resolution. There are partisan points to be scored here.
But both Liberals and Conservatives would find it much harder to score points over Canada's intervention in Afghanistan — which began under a Liberal government and was then enthusiastically embraced by a Conservative government. In 2006 and 2008, Conservative and Liberal MPs voted together to extend the mission. The Canadian military's involvement ended in 2014, before the current government came to office.
Master Cpl. Daniel Choong (left), Cpl. Harry Smiley (centre) and Cpl . Gavin Early (right) take down the Canadian flag for the last time in Afghanistan on Wednesday March 12, 2014, bringing an end to Canada's 12-year mission there. (Murray Brewster/Canadian Press)
So there's little to no short-term political incentive for any of the parties to push for parliamentary hearings now. Even the NDP would stand to gain little, although its former leader Jack Layton was an early mission sceptic.
But the Post's investigation of the war raises questions that should transcend partisan manoeuvring ahead of the next federal election.
Though the Post's reporting is focused on the U.S. government's handling of the American campaign, its conclusions — that the war lacked clear direction and purpose, that the American government misled the public about the war's progress, that the effort to establish a new government in Afghanistan was misguided and quickly corrupted, that billions of dollars in aid and development money were mishandled — should trouble every country involved in that war.
Where are the 'lessons learned'?
Maybe there were no such shortcomings in Canada's contributions to the military and development campaigns. But here we are, five years after the Canadian mission ended, and we still have no comprehensive public examination of that mission and its successes and failures. That omission is now harder to ignore.
More than 40,000 members of the Canadian Forces served in Afghanistan. One hundred and sixty-five Canadians — 158 soldiers and seven civilians — died there and 2,000 were wounded. In 2008, the parliamentary budget officer estimated that the mission could cost as much as $18 billion, including military operations, aid and development, caring for veterans of the conflict, and diplomatic efforts.
Steve Saideman, a professor and researcher at Carleton University, was able to obtain an internal Canadian report on "lessons learned" in 2017. But that report, which covers the period from 2008 to 2011, is only 10 pages long — "a shallow cut at best," in Saideman's words.
Pte. Glen Kirkland, seen here in a wheelchair, was one of five soldiers injured in a direct fire explosion in Afghanistan on Sept 4, 2008. Here he's seen attending a ramp ceremony for fallen comrades in Khandahar. (Tobi Cohen/Canadian Press)
A year ago, Chrystia Freeland ordered an internal review of Canadian aid spending in Afghanistan, which at that point totalled $3 billion. According to Global Affairs Canada, the results of that review are expected in the new year.
Few acts of the federal government over the last 20 years, if any, were more consequential than its decision to join what became a 13-year military and development mission in Afghanistan. So it follows that few federal decisions, if any, are more worthy of study and scrutiny.
When it was still going on, the mission in Afghanistan was the subject of loud and often acrimonious debates in this country — including a prolonged dispute over the Canadian Forces' handling of Afghan detainees. Liberals, New Democrats and Bloc Québécois MPs eventually united to force Stephen Harper's minority government to provide Parliament with internal documents related to the detention and transfer of detainees.
In the absence of easy points to score, it's hard to imagine MPs summoning that kind of collective curiosity now. But Parliament now includes a chamber that's supposed to be above the pursuit of political points.
By virtue of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's reforms, the Senate is supposed to be an independent and non-partisan institution. It's a chamber filled with accomplished Canadians who should be preoccupied with dispassionately reviewing legislation and studying important matters of public policy — and empowered with all the authority and resources that the upper house of Parliament possesses.
If any public institution is capable of a thorough study of Canada's war in Afghanistan, surely it should be this new Senate.
There will come a day when Parliament is asked to consider another military mission like Afghanistan. The resulting debate inevitably will be heavy with a sense of responsibility and appeals to principle.
When those future MPs gather to consider such life-or-death decisions — or hold the government to account for the consequences — will they be drawing on a clear understanding of what happened the last time Canada tasked its soldiers with fighting a war and building up a country?
Aaron Wherry has covered Parliament Hill since 2007 and has written for Maclean's, the National Post and the Globe and Mail. He is the author of Promise & Peril, a book about Justin Trudeau's years in power.
A Canadian soldiers with 1st RCR Battle Group, The Royal Canadian Regiment, climbs over a wall as he patrols with his unit to find Improvised Explosive Devices or IEDs in the Panjwayi district, south west of Kandahar, Afghanistan on June 6, 2010. (Anja Niedringhaus/The Associated Press)
It was a long ago — and perhaps long-forgotten — conversation among allies that neatly but indirectly summed up Canada's experience in the Afghan war.
Buried deep within the trove of documents released as part of The Washington Post's investigation of America's longest-running war is an account of a conversation between the now-former commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan and the U.S. defence secretary at the time.
"In 2006, Donald Rumsfeld asked me why things were deteriorating in the south," retired British general Sir David Richards said.
"And I said we don't have enough resources ... and Rummy said, 'General what do you mean?' I said: 'We don't have enough troops and resources. And we've raised expectations.' "He said, 'General, I don't agree. Move on.'"
The conversation still speaks volumes about the myopic way in which the Afghan conflict was planned and conducted by the Bush administration, which believed wholeheartedly in the theory that nasty little wars against guerillas and terrorists did not require large numbers of troops.
British General Sir David Richards (left) and U.S. General Martin Dempsey listen to opening comments during a meeting of NATO Military Chiefs of Staff at NATO headquarters in Brussels on Wednesday, Jan. 18, 2012. (Virginia Mayo/The Associated Press)
The "south" to which Richard referred includes the Kandahar and Helmand provinces where Canadian and British troops were, at the time, locked in a death-struggle with a resurgent Taliban. It was a particularly brutal spring, summer and fall, with dozens of soldiers killed as the Canadian army fought its first major battle with insurgents, known as Operation Medusa.
There are several references to Canada in the 2,000 pages of interviews, notes, transcripts and audio recordings that make up the U.S. Office of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction's (SIGAR) probe into the key mistakes made by Washington during the war. The documents were released after The Washington Post fought a series of court actions over three years under U.S. freedom of information law.
Fighting a war 'as cheaply as possible'
The records, taken together, paint a searing portrait of the mistakes made by both the Bush and Obama administrations and show how the war lacked a clear strategy.
One of those mistakes — the lack of troops — cost Canadians dearly.
In its early years, the Afghan conflict was war on the cheap and there's a lot of blame to go around, said a defence expert.
"Pretty much every country sent the smallest size [contingent] they could, hoping it would do the trick. And then they had to reinforce over time, realizing they had not sent enough," said Stephen Saideman, director of the Canadian Defence and Security Network and a professor at Carleton University. He wrote the book on the conflict: NATO in Afghanistan, Fighting Together, Fighting Alone.
"This was a British problem, a Canadian problem, a Danish problem, a German problem, a Dutch problem, on and on ... If you take a look at what each country did, they tried to solve it as cheaply as possible."
Ian Brodie, who was chief of staff to former prime minister Stephen Harper in the early part of the Conservative government mandate, said that when the need for more troops became clear, Canada pressed hard for reinforcements and was rebuffed at the NATO Leaders Summit in Riga, Latvia in 2006.
"We were disappointed that nothing came out of the NATO summit," he said. "This helped Prime Minister Harper decide to set up the Manley panel a year later and that did get two things — an end date for the mission and more U.S. troops"
A Canadian soldier calls in an airstrike Saturday, Sept. 2, 2006 during the first day of Operation Medusa in the Panjwaii area west of Kandahar, Afghanistan. (Canadian Press)
Following the summit. Harper established a blue-ribbon, non-partisan panel that recommended Canada remain in combat until 2011 — as long as NATO delivered reinforcements.
Richards, who went on to become Britain's chief of defence staff, said in his interview with SIGAR that the Canadian contingent and others had too few troops to hold the areas that had been cleared of the Taliban, and lacked sufficient aid and development cash to stabilize and reconstruct those regions.
'Over-optimistic plans'
"The U.S. had the best resources for post-clearing stabilization, but the rest of us didn't, especially the Canadians," Richards said, pointing to a Canadian road building project — known as Route Summit — which ran through the Operation Medusa battlefield.
It took months to build and he recalled being given "over-optimistic plans to flood the area with support" after the battle was finished.
That was before the fiscal reality set in for the Canadians.
"They were embarrassed they couldn't do more," said Richards, who noted that local Afghans were watching the project with close interest.
"Panjwai residents wanted to believe what we had promised, but they had been told all along that aid was coming, but it never came, so the Taliban slowly came back in to exploit it. "It didn't win hearts and minds because it was all a bit too late."
Retired Canadian colonel and former veterans ombudsman Pat Stogran said that myopic view of Afghanistan was not restricted to Washington — and many in the Canadian military and political establishments were simply following American direction.
'We were just flopping around'
He said that, after his return home as Canada's first battle group commander in 2002, he warned that the Taliban enjoyed respect and support among rural Afghans.
Stogran said he was ignored. He said he decided to retire when Canada returned to Kandahar in 2006 with no clear strategic campaign plan, other than to open up NATO's mission in the southern portion of the country and then leave after a year.
"We were just flopping around," he said.
Canada lost 158 soldiers to combat, accidents and suicides in Afghanistan. Dozens more veterans have taken their own lives since the end of mission in 2014.
It has been estimated the federal government spent up to $20 billion on military operations, development assistance and aid. But there has never been a full and complete accounting of the war by the federal government or parliamentary watchdogs.
The current commander of the Canadian Army, Lt.-Gen. Wayne Eyre, said he believes there should be some form of national reflection on the war — but added that five years after the last Canadian troops left Afghanistan is still too soon to draw any conclusions.
"What we did was, we provided space for the Afghan people, the Afghan government to find their solution," said Eyre, who deployed twice to the war-torn nation. "What they did, what they are doing and what they will do with that space is their choice."
One of Stogran's successors, retired major-general Denis Thompson, admitted to being a bit mystified by all of the commotion. He said much of what Post has reported has been out there in political and military circles for a long time.
"A lot of the incongruities, misunderstandings and lack of resources were certainly in the public domain," said Thompson, who was task force commander in 2008-09. "It's just that someone has put it altogether and put it in a mainstream publication and not buried it in a military journal somewhere." Stogran agreed, adding that now that the Americans have begun to ask why their war has lasted almost two decades, Canadians should do the same — because they're getting even fewer answers.
"I have long believed there should be a public inquiry into how the war was prosecuted in this country," he said.
Murray Brewster is senior defence writer for CBC News, based in Ottawa. He has covered the Canadian military and foreign policy from Parliament Hill for over a decade. Among other assignments, he spent a total of 15 months on the ground covering the Afghan war for The Canadian Press. Prior to that, he covered defence issues and politics for CP in Nova Scotia for 11 years and was bureau chief for Standard Broadcast News in Ottawa.
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This is the correct email address for requests for news coverage and
press releases.
---------- Original message ----------
From: Forsætisráðuneytið <for@for.is>
Date: Sat, 14 Dec 2019 17:15:19 +0000
Subject: Forsætisráðuneytið hefur móttekið tölvupóst þinn / Prime
Minister's Office hereby confirms the receipt of your email.
To: David Amos <david.raymond.amos333@gmail.
Forsætisráðuneytið hefur móttekið tölvupóst þinn / Prime Minister's
Office hereby confirms the receipt of your email.
Vinsamlega ekki svara þessum tölvupósti, hafið samband í gegnum
for@for.is / Do not reply to this email. Contact us with any queries
via for@for.is
Með bestu kveðju / Best regards
------------------------------
Forsætisráðuneytið / Prime Minister's Office
Stjórnarráðshúsinu, IS - 101 Reykjavík, Sími/Tel. +354 545 8400
www.stjornarradid.is<http://
Fyrirvari/Disclaimer<http://
From: David Amos <david.raymond.amos333@gmail.
Date: Sat, 14 Dec 2019 13:15:25 -0400
Subject: Re CBC and the so-called "Afghanistan Papers"
To: afghanpapers@washpost.com, Newsroom@globeandmail.com,
Chuck.Thompson@cbc.ca, postur@for.is, birgitta@this.is,
Bill.Blair@parl.gc.ca, birgittajoy@gmail.com,
Roger.Brown@fredericton.ca, Mark.Blakely@rcmp-grc.gc.ca,
mark.vespucci@ci.irs.gov
Cc: motomaniac333@gmail.com, harjit.sajjan@parl.gc.ca,
PETER.MACKAY@bakermckenzie.com
Stephen.Horsman@gnb.ca, carl.urquhart@gnb.ca
https://www.cbc.ca/radio/
Parents of Canadian soldier killed in Afghanistan say a memorial is
more important than an inquiry
'Nobody wants to hear that their child died in a pointless war': Sally Godard
CBC Radio · Posted: Dec 14, 2019 4:00 AM ET
"The so-called "Afghanistan Papers"— the trove of documents released
to The Washington Post — include notes and transcripts of interviews
with key players in the 18-year-old conflict in Afghanistan.
They show those in charge of the effort consistently misled
politicians and the public about how the war was going and suggested a
democratically elected government in Afghanistan could not survive
without military support."
49 Comments
David Raymond Amos
Perhaps folks who truly care about this issue should read Paragraph 83
of Federal Court File Number T-1557-15 then ask the "Powers That Be"
in Canada and the USA some serious questions
https://www.washingtonpost.
At war with the truth
U.S. officials constantly said they were making progress. They were
not, and they knew it, an exclusive Post investigation found.
By Craig Whitlock
---------- Original message ----------
From: Póstur FOR postur@for.is
Date: Mon, 4 Apr 2016 22:05:47 +0000
Subject: Re: Hey Premier Gallant please inform the questionable
parliamentarian Birigtta Jonsdottir that although NB is a small "Have
Not" province at least we have twice the population of Iceland and
that not all of us are as dumb as she and her Prime Minister pretends
to be..
To: David Amos motomaniac333@gmail.com
Erindi þitt hefur verið móttekið / Your request has been received
Kveðja / Best regards
Forsætisráðuneytið / Prime Minister's Office
---------- Original message ----------
From: Póstur IRR postur@irr.is
Date: Mon, 4 Apr 2016 22:05:47 +0000
Subject: Re: Hey Premier Gallant please inform the questionable
parliamentarian Birigtta Jonsdottir that although NB is a small "Have
Not" province at least we have twice the population of Iceland and
that not all of us are as dumb as she and her Prime Minister pretends
to be..
To: David Amos motomaniac333@gmail.com
Erindi þitt hefur verið móttekið. / Your request has been received.
Kveðja / Best regards
Innanríkisráðuneytið / Ministry of the Interior
This is the docket
http://cas-cdc-www02.cas-satj.
These are digital recordings of the last two hearings
Dec 14th https://archive.org/details/
Jan 11th https://archive.org/details/
This me running for a seat in Parliament again while CBC denies it again
Fundy Royal, New Brunswick Debate – Federal Elections 2015 - The Local
Campaign, Rogers TV
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/
Veritas Vincit
David Raymond Amos
902 800 0369
FYI This is the text of the lawsuit that should interest Trudeau the most
http://davidraymondamos3.
83 The Plaintiff states that now that Canada is involved in more war
in Iraq again it did not serve Canadian interests and reputation to
allow Barry Winters to publish the following words three times over
five years after he began his bragging:
January 13, 2015
This Is Just AS Relevant Now As When I wrote It During The Debate
December 8, 2014
Why Canada Stood Tall!
Friday, October 3, 2014
Little David Amos’ “True History Of War” Canadian Airstrikes And
Stupid Justin Trudeau
Canada’s and Canadians free ride is over. Canada can no longer hide
behind Amerka’s and NATO’s skirts.
When I was still in Canadian Forces then Prime Minister Jean Chretien
actually committed the Canadian Army to deploy in the second campaign
in Iraq, the Coalition of the Willing. This was against or contrary to
the wisdom or advice of those of us Canadian officers that were
involved in the initial planning phases of that operation. There were
significant concern in our planning cell, and NDHQ about of the dearth
of concern for operational guidance, direction, and forces for
operations after the initial occupation of Iraq. At the “last minute”
Prime Minister Chretien and the Liberal government changed its mind.
The Canadian government told our amerkan cousins that we would not
deploy combat troops for the Iraq campaign, but would deploy a
Canadian Battle Group to Afghanistan, enabling our amerkan cousins to
redeploy troops from there to Iraq. The PMO’s thinking that it was
less costly to deploy Canadian Forces to Afghanistan than Iraq. But
alas no one seems to remind the Liberals of Prime Minister Chretien’s
then grossly incorrect assumption. Notwithstanding Jean Chretien’s
incompetence and stupidity, the Canadian Army was heroic,
professional, punched well above it’s weight, and the PPCLI Battle
Group, is credited with “saving Afghanistan” during the Panjway
campaign of 2006.
What Justin Trudeau and the Liberals don’t tell you now, is that then
Liberal Prime Minister Jean Chretien committed, and deployed the
Canadian army to Canada’s longest “war” without the advice, consent,
support, or vote of the Canadian Parliament.
What David Amos and the rest of the ignorant, uneducated, and babbling
chattering classes are too addled to understand is the deployment of
less than 75 special operations troops, and what is known by planners
as a “six pac cell” of fighter aircraft is NOT the same as a
deployment of a Battle Group, nor a “war” make.
The Canadian Government or The Crown unlike our amerkan cousins have
the “constitutional authority” to commit the Canadian nation to war.
That has been recently clearly articulated to the Canadian public by
constitutional scholar Phillippe Legasse. What Parliament can do is
remove “confidence” in The Crown’s Government in a “vote of
non-confidence.” That could not happen to the Chretien Government
regarding deployment to Afghanistan, and it won’t happen in this
instance with the conservative majority in The Commons regarding a
limited Canadian deployment to the Middle East.
President George Bush was quite correct after 911 and the terror
attacks in New York; that the Taliban “occupied” and “failed state”
Afghanistan was the source of logistical support, command and control,
and training for the Al Quaeda war of terror against the world. The
initial defeat, and removal from control of Afghanistan was vital and
essential for the security and tranquility of the developed world. An
ISIS “caliphate,” in the Middle East, no matter how small, is a clear
and present danger to the entire world. This “occupied state,”
or“failed state” will prosecute an unending Islamic inspired war of
terror against not only the “western world,” but Arab states
“moderate” or not, as well. The security, safety, and tranquility of
Canada and Canadians are just at risk now with the emergence of an
ISIS“caliphate” no matter how large or small, as it was with the
Taliban and Al Quaeda “marriage” in Afghanistan.
One of the everlasting “legacies” of the “Trudeau the Elder’s dynasty
was Canada and successive Liberal governments cowering behind the
amerkan’s nuclear and conventional military shield, at the same time
denigrating, insulting them, opposing them, and at the same time
self-aggrandizing ourselves as “peace keepers,” and progenitors of
“world peace.” Canada failed. The United States of Amerka, NATO, the
G7 and or G20 will no longer permit that sort of sanctimonious
behavior from Canada or its government any longer. And Prime Minister
Stephen Harper, Foreign Minister John Baird , and Cabinet are fully
cognizant of that reality. Even if some editorial boards, and pundits
are not.
Justin, Trudeau “the younger” is reprising the time “honoured” liberal
mantra, and tradition of expecting the amerkans or the rest of the
world to do “the heavy lifting.” Justin Trudeau and his “butt buddy”
David Amos are telling Canadians that we can guarantee our security
and safety by expecting other nations to fight for us. That Canada can
and should attempt to guarantee Canadians safety by providing
“humanitarian aid” somewhere, and call a sitting US president a “war
criminal.” This morning Australia announced they too, were sending
tactical aircraft to eliminate the menace of an ISIS “caliphate.”
In one sense Prime Minister Harper is every bit the scoundrel Trudeau
“the elder” and Jean ‘the crook” Chretien was. Just As Trudeau, and
successive Liberal governments delighted in diminishing,
marginalizing, under funding Canadian Forces, and sending Canadian
military men and women to die with inadequate kit and modern
equipment; so too is Prime Minister Stephen Harper. Canada’s F-18s are
antiquated, poorly equipped, and ought to have been replaced five
years ago. But alas, there won’t be single RCAF fighter jock that
won’t go, or won’t want to go, to make Canada safe or safer.
My Grandfather served this country. My father served this country. My
Uncle served this country. And I have served this country. Justin
Trudeau has not served Canada in any way. Thomas Mulcair has not
served this country in any way. Liberals and so called social
democrats haven’t served this country in any way. David Amos, and
other drooling fools have not served this great nation in any way. Yet
these fools are more than prepared to ensure their, our safety to
other nations, and then criticize them for doing so.
Canada must again, now, “do our bit” to guarantee our own security,
and tranquility, but also that of the world. Canada has never before
shirked its responsibility to its citizens and that of the world.
Prime Minister Harper will not permit this country to do so now
From: dnd_mdn@forces.gc.ca
Date: Fri, 27 May 2011 14:17:17 -0400
Subject: RE: Re Greg Weston, The CBC , Wikileaks, USSOCOM, Canada and
the War in Iraq (I just called SOCOM and let them know I was still
alive
To: david.raymond.amos@gmail.com
This is to confirm that the Minister of National Defence has received
your email and it will be reviewed in due course. Please do not reply
to this message: it is an automatic acknowledgement.
---------- Original message ----------
From: David Amos david.raymond.amos@gmail.com
Date: Fri, 27 May 2011 13:55:30 -0300
Subject: Re Greg Weston, The CBC , Wikileaks, USSOCOM, Canada and the
War in Iraq (I just called SOCOM and let them know I was still alive
To: DECPR@forces.gc.ca, Public.Affairs@socom.mil,
Raymonde.Cleroux@mpcc-cppm.gc.
william.elliott@rcmp-grc.gc.ca
dnd_mdn@forces.gc.ca, media@drdc-rddc.gc.ca, information@forces.gc.ca,
milner@unb.ca, charters@unb.ca, lwindsor@unb.ca,
sarah.weir@mpcc-cppm.gc.ca, birgir <birgir@althingi.is>, smari
< smari@immi.is>, greg.weston@cbc.ca, pm <pm@pm.gc.ca>,
susan@blueskystrategygroup.com
eugene@blueskystrategygroup.
Cc: Edith.Cody-Rice@cbc.ca, terry.seguin@cbc.ca, acampbell@ctv.ca,
whistleblower@ctv.ca
I talked to Don Newman earlier this week before the beancounters David
Dodge and Don Drummond now of Queen's gave their spin about Canada's
Health Care system yesterday and Sheila Fraser yapped on and on on
CAPAC during her last days in office as if she were oh so ethical.. To
be fair to him I just called Greg Weston (613-288-6938) I suggested
that he should at least Google SOUCOM and David Amos It would be wise
if he check ALL of CBC's sources before he publishes something else
about the DND EH Don Newman? Lets just say that the fact that your
old CBC buddy, Tony Burman is now in charge of Al Jazeera English
never impressed me. The fact that he set up a Canadian office is
interesting though
http://www.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/arts/
Anyone can call me back and stress test my integrity after they read
this simple pdf file. BTW what you Blue Sky dudes pubished about
Potash Corp and BHP is truly funny. Perhaps Stevey Boy Harper or Brad
Wall will fill ya in if you are to shy to call mean old me.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/
The Governor General, the PMO and the PCO offices know that I am not a
shy political animal
Veritas Vincit
David Raymond Amos
902 800 0369
Enjoy Mr Weston
http://www.cbc.ca/m/touch/
"But Lang, defence minister McCallum's chief of staff, says military
brass were not entirely forthcoming on the issue. For instance, he
says, even McCallum initially didn't know those soldiers were helping
to plan the invasion of Iraq up to the highest levels of command,
including a Canadian general.
That general is Walt Natynczyk, now Canada's chief of defence staff,
who eight months after the invasion became deputy commander of 35,000
U.S. soldiers and other allied forces in Iraq. Lang says Natynczyk was
also part of the team of mainly senior U.S. military brass that helped
prepare for the invasion from a mobile command in Kuwait."
http://baconfat53.blogspot.
"I remember years ago when the debate was on in Canada, about there
being weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Our American 'friends"
demanded that Canada join into "the Coalition of the Willing. American
"veterans" and sportscasters loudly denounced Canada for NOT buying
into the US policy.
At the time I was serving as a planner at NDHQ and with 24 other of my
colleagues we went to Tampa SOUCOM HQ to be involved in the planning
in the planning stages of the op....and to report to NDHQ, that would
report to the PMO upon the merits of the proposed operation. There was
never at anytime an existing target list of verified sites where there
were deployed WMD.
Coalition assets were more than sufficient for the initial strike and
invasion phase but even at that point in the planning, we were
concerned about the number of "boots on the ground" for the occupation
(and end game) stage of an operation in Iraq. We were also concerned
about the American plans for occupation plans of Iraq because they at
that stage included no contingency for a handing over of civil
authority to a vetted Iraqi government and bureaucracy.
There was no detailed plan for Iraq being "liberated" and returned to
its people...nor a thought to an eventual exit plan. This was contrary
to the lessons of Vietnam but also to current military thought, that
folks like Colin Powell and "Stuffy" Leighton and others elucidated
upon. "What's the mission" how long is the mission, what conditions
are to met before US troop can redeploy? Prime Minister Jean Chretien
and the PMO were even at the very preliminary planning stages wary of
Canadian involvement in an Iraq operation....History would prove them
correct. The political pressure being applied on the PMO from the
George W Bush administration was onerous
American military assets were extremely overstretched, and Canadian
military assets even more so It was proposed by the PMO that Canadian
naval platforms would deploy to assist in naval quarantine operations
in the Gulf and that Canadian army assets would deploy in Afghanistan
thus permitting US army assets to redeploy for an Iraqi
operation....The PMO thought that "compromise would save Canadian
lives and liberal political capital.. and the priority of which
....not necessarily in that order. "
You can bet that I called these sneaky Yankees again today EH John
Adams? of the CSE within the DND?
http://www.socom.mil/
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: David Amos motomaniac333@gmail.com
Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2017 09:32:09 -0400
Subject: Attn Integrity Commissioner Alexandre Deschênes, Q.C.,
To: coi@gnb.ca
Cc: david.raymond.amos@gmail.com
Good Day Sir
After I heard you speak on CBC I called your office again and managed
to speak to one of your staff for the first time
Please find attached the documents I promised to send to the lady who
answered the phone this morning. Please notice that not after the Sgt
at Arms took the documents destined to your office his pal Tanker
Malley barred me in writing with an "English" only document.
These are the hearings and the dockets in Federal Court that I
suggested that you study closely.
This is the docket in Federal Court
http://cas-cdc-www02.cas-satj.
These are digital recordings of the last three hearings
Dec 14th https://archive.org/details/
January 11th, 2016 https://archive.org/details/
April 3rd, 2017
https://archive.org/details/
This is the docket in the Federal Court of Appeal
http://cas-cdc-www02.cas-satj.
The only hearing thus far
May 24th, 2017
https://archive.org/details/
This Judge understnds the meaning of the word Integrity
Date: 20151223
Docket: T-1557-15
Fredericton, New Brunswick, December 23, 2015
PRESENT: The Honourable Mr. Justice Bell
BETWEEN:
DAVID RAYMOND AMOS
Plaintiff
and
HER MAJESTY THE QUEEN
Defendant
ORDER
(Delivered orally from the Bench in Fredericton, New Brunswick, on
December 14, 2015)
The Plaintiff seeks an appeal de novo, by way of motion pursuant to
the Federal Courts Rules (SOR/98-106), from an Order made on November
12, 2015, in which Prothonotary Morneau struck the Statement of Claim
in its entirety.
At the outset of the hearing, the Plaintiff brought to my attention a
letter dated September 10, 2004, which he sent to me, in my then
capacity as Past President of the New Brunswick Branch of the Canadian
Bar Association, and the then President of the Branch, Kathleen Quigg,
(now a Justice of the New Brunswick Court of Appeal). In that letter
he stated:
As for your past President, Mr. Bell, may I suggest that you check the
work of Frank McKenna before I sue your entire law firm including you.
You are your brother’s keeper.
Frank McKenna is the former Premier of New Brunswick and a former
colleague of mine at the law firm of McInnes Cooper. In addition to
expressing an intention to sue me, the Plaintiff refers to a number of
people in his Motion Record who he appears to contend may be witnesses
or potential parties to be added. Those individuals who are known to
me personally, include, but are not limited to the former Prime
Minister of Canada, The Right Honourable Stephen Harper; former
Attorney General of Canada and now a Justice of the Manitoba Court of
Queen’s Bench, Vic Toews; former member of Parliament Rob Moore;
former Director of Policing Services, the late Grant Garneau; former
Chief of the Fredericton Police Force, Barry McKnight; former Staff
Sergeant Danny Copp; my former colleagues on the New Brunswick Court
of Appeal, Justices Bradley V. Green and Kathleen Quigg, and, retired
Assistant Commissioner Wayne Lang of the Royal Canadian Mounted
Police.
In the circumstances, given the threat in 2004 to sue me in my
personal capacity and my past and present relationship with many
potential witnesses and/or potential parties to the litigation, I am
of the view there would be a reasonable apprehension of bias should I
hear this motion. See Justice de Grandpré’s dissenting judgment in
Committee for Justice and Liberty et al v National Energy Board et al,
[1978] 1 SCR 369 at p 394 for the applicable test regarding
allegations of bias. In the circumstances, although neither party has
requested I recuse myself, I consider it appropriate that I do so.
AS A RESULT OF MY RECUSAL, THIS COURT ORDERS that the Administrator of
the Court schedule another date for the hearing of the motion. There
is no order as to costs.
“B. Richard Bell”
Judge
Below after the CBC article about your concerns (I made one comment
already) you will find the text of just two of many emails I had sent
to your office over the years since I first visited it in 2006.
I noticed that on July 30, 2009, he was appointed to the the Court
Martial Appeal Court of Canada Perhaps you should scroll to the
bottom of this email ASAP and read the entire Paragraph 83 of my
lawsuit now before the Federal Court of Canada?
"FYI This is the text of the lawsuit that should interest Trudeau the most
http://davidraymondamos3.
83 The Plaintiff states that now that Canada is involved in more war
in Iraq again it did not serve Canadian interests and reputation to
allow Barry Winters to publish the following words three times over
five years after he began his bragging:
January 13, 2015
This Is Just AS Relevant Now As When I wrote It During The Debate
December 8, 2014
Why Canada Stood Tall!
Friday, October 3, 2014
Little David Amos’ “True History Of War” Canadian Airstrikes And
Stupid Justin Trudeau?
Vertias Vincit
David Raymond Amos
902 800 0369
P.S. Whereas this CBC article is about your opinion of the actions of
the latest Minister Of Health trust that Mr Boudreau and the CBC have
had my files for many years and the last thing they are is ethical.
Ask his friends Mr Murphy and the RCMP if you don't believe me.
Subject:
Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2007 12:02:35 -0400
From: "Murphy, Michael B. \(DH/MS\)"MichaelB.Murphy@gnb.ca
To: motomaniac_02186@yahoo.com
January 30, 2007
WITHOUT PREJUDICE
Mr. David Amos
Dear Mr. Amos:
This will acknowledge receipt of a copy of your e-mail of December 29,
2006 to Corporal Warren McBeath of the RCMP.
Because of the nature of the allegations made in your message, I have
taken the measure of forwarding a copy to Assistant Commissioner Steve
Graham of the RCMP “J” Division in Fredericton.
Sincerely,
Honourable Michael B. Murphy
Minister of Health
CM/cb
Warren McBeath warren.mcbeath@rcmp-grc.gc.ca wrote:
Date: Fri, 29 Dec 2006 17:34:53 -0500
From: "Warren McBeath"warren.mcbeath@rcmp-grc.gc.ca
To: kilgoursite@ca.inter.net, MichaelB.Murphy@gnb.ca,
nada.sarkis@gnb.ca, wally.stiles@gnb.ca, dwatch@web.net,
motomaniac_02186@yahoo.com
CC: ottawa@chuckstrahl.com, riding@chuckstrahl.com,John.
Oda.B@parl.gc.ca,"Bev BUSSON"bev.busson@rcmp-grc.gc.ca,
"Paul Dube"PAUL.DUBE@rcmp-grc.gc.ca
Subject: Re: Remember me Kilgour? Landslide Annie McLellan has
forgotten me but the crooks within the RCMP have not
Dear Mr. Amos,
Thank you for your follow up e-mail to me today. I was on days off
over the holidays and returned to work this evening. Rest assured I
was not ignoring or procrastinating to respond to your concerns.
As your attachment sent today refers from Premier Graham, our position
is clear on your dead calf issue: Our forensic labs do not process
testing on animals in cases such as yours, they are referred to the
Atlantic Veterinary College in Charlottetown who can provide these
services. If you do not choose to utilize their expertise in this
instance, then that is your decision and nothing more can be done.
As for your other concerns regarding the US Government, false
imprisonment and Federal Court Dates in the US, etc... it is clear
that Federal authorities are aware of your concerns both in Canada
the US. These issues do not fall into the purvue of Detachment
and policing in Petitcodiac, NB.
It was indeed an interesting and informative conversation we had on
December 23rd, and I wish you well in all of your future endeavors.
Sincerely,
Warren McBeath, Cpl.
GRC Caledonia RCMP
Traffic Services NCO
Ph: (506) 387-2222
Fax: (506) 387-4622
E-mail warren.mcbeath@rcmp-grc.gc.ca
Alexandre Deschênes, Q.C.,
Office of the Integrity Commissioner
Edgecombe House, 736 King Street
Fredericton, N.B. CANADA E3B 5H1
tel.: 506-457-7890
fax: 506-444-5224
e-mail:coi@gnb.ca
NATO marks 70 years with mutual suspicion and insults
Doubt in the era of Trump: will the U.S. step up when the chips are down?
Evan Dyer· CBC News· Posted: Dec 01, 2019 4:00 AM ET
But bitter as the recriminations have been, there's an even bigger cloud hanging over the summit: doubts about the fundamental principle of trust upon which NATO was built 70 years ago.
For decades, the 29 countries making up NATO have been reassured by the treaty's ironclad guarantee of mutual defence in Article Five of its founding charter: "an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all."
But in the era of U.S. President Donald Trump, governments now have doubts about the United States' commitment to Article Five. The mutual defence clause has only ever been invoked once — by Canada on behalf of the U.S. in the immediate aftermath of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.
The 158 Canadian soldiers and seven Canadian civilians who lost their lives in Afghanistan died upholding Article Five. The NATO alliance only works when members trust that others will answer when the call comes.
Military analyst Dave Perry of the Canadian Global Affairs Institute said NATO allies still trust the U.S. military, American institutions and the individual Americans they work with in the alliance.
"The concern is really about a president who keeps demonstrating, over and over again, that he has a very different view of how America should be relating to its allies," he said.
"The American president has left the impression at times that he's got better relations with the Russian president than he does with some of the heads of NATO allies in Europe or even Canada."
A legacy of disloyalty
Ivo Daalder, president of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, was the U.S. permanent representative on the NATO Council for four years under President Barack Obama.
He said President Trump has undermined the alliance by sowing doubts about America's intentions.
"He has said many times that NATO is obsolete. He refused for the first six months of his presidency to reaffirm Article Five, and has called into question whether the United States should continue to be a member of NATO if the allies are not willing to spend more on defence," he said.
"It's those kinds of questions that lead allies to say, 'If the chips are down, will the U.S. be there?' And there's less confidence about that today than there used to be."
"President Trump has taken a number of steps, including abandoning his Kurdish allies in Syria, that would call into question his commitment to alliance relationships," he said.
Perry agrees that the betrayal of the Kurds sent a shiver through the Western alliance.
"It's not just that the United States bailed out on the Kurds, because I think we've seen a version of that movie before. It's the no-notice way of doing it, and the fact that the president would make these kinds of decisions not only capriciously, but also appearing to have totally ignored any advice that he did bother to solicit," he said.
"The president's whims are increasingly being translated into tangible outcomes. People have been speculating for several years that the president will send some tweets, but then the 'grown-ups' will prevail. I think the Syria example shows that the 'grown-ups-prevailing' narrative may be coming to an end."
Fighting with France
While some European leaders expressed their doubts in private, France's President Emmanuel Macron made his public in a recent interview with The Economist. In it, Macron said NATO was suffering "brain death" and openly questioned Article Five.
Daalder said the French leader's concerns about the United States' reliability as an ally may be affected by his own ambitions to lead Europe.
"My reading of President Macron's latest statements are back in this Gaullist perspective that France needs to lead Europe," he said. "I'm gratified that the reaction to that from allies within Europe has been to say, 'Don't call into question the fundamental nature of the alliance with the United States, and indeed with Canada,' while at the same time trying to say how can we do more ourselves within a European context."
"The questions I have asked are open questions that we haven't solved yet — peace in Europe, the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, the relationship with Russia, the issue of Turkey," he said. "Who is the enemy?
"So I say, as long as these questions are not resolved, let's not negotiate about cost-sharing and burden-sharing, or this or that. Maybe we needed a wake-up call, as they say in English. I'm glad it was delivered, and I'm glad everyone now thinks we should rather think about our strategic aims."
But the U.S. does want to talk about cost-sharing; in fact, the Trump administration announced unilaterally this week that it intends to cut its contribution to NATO's total budget from 22 per cent to 16 per cent. Other members, including Canada, will have to pick up the slack.
Feuding with Germany
It's a feature of NATO that the closer its members are to Russia, the more likely they are to meet the desired threshold of spending at least 2 per cent of GDP on defence.
Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borissov, while visiting President Trump in the Oval Office on Monday, made a point of noting that his country spends 3.1 per cent of its GDP on defence.
"You should tell that to Germany," Trump huffed.
Trump has singled Germany out for failing to spend enough on the alliance, although his administration also is pressuring Canada.
Like their Canadian counterparts, Germany's leaders are wrestling with whether to permit the Chinese company to bid on contracts to build its 5G networks. Berlin has been subjected to a pressure campaign by Washington to ban Huawei as a potential security risk.
On Sunday, German minister Peter Altmaier recalled during a TV debate that it was the Americans — not the Chinese — who were caught spying on Germans through the PRISM program exposed by Edward Snowden in 2013.
Pointing out that Germany had not boycotted the U.S. companies that facilitated that spying, Altmaier reminded Germans that "the U.S. also demands from its companies that they pass on information."
Back in 2013, when German Chancellor Angela Merkel personally reproached President Obama about the bugging of her phone, he apologized and promised to make changes to the program.
U.S. Ambassador Richard Grenell said Altmaier's remarks were "an insult to the thousands of American troops who help ensure Germany's security and the millions of Americans committed to a strong Western alliance."
Turkey: With friends like these….
Meanwhile, Turkey continues to behave more like an adversary than a member of the NATO alliance, doubling down on its arms purchases from NATO's main strategic rival Russia — and threatening other members with sending jihadists captured in Syria back to their European countries of origin if their governments don't stop complaining about Turkey's actions in Syria.
Turkey has depended on President Trump to shield it from U.S. retaliation over its attack on Kurdish enclaves in Northern Syria, which infuriated both Republicans and Democrats. At the same time, it has counted on Trump to block enforcement of a U.S. law that requires Washington to impose sanctions on Turkey for installing Russian-made S-400 air defence systems.
"He is already the sponsor of the terrorist organization and constantly hosts them at the Elysée. If he says his ally is the terrorist organization ... there is really nothing more to say," said Cavusoglu.
"Right now, there is a void in Europe. [Macron is] trying to be its leader."
'You are brain dead'
Macron shot right back, arguing Turkey's attack on the Kurds was at cross-purposes with NATO's mission to defeat the Islamic State.
"One cannot say on one hand that we're allies, and consequently demand our solidarity, and on the other hand put one's allies in the face of a military offensive delivered as a fait accompli that endangers the action of the coalition against the Islamic State," he said.
And on Friday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan upped the stakes again, accusing "some countries that are accustomed to not taking risks and always winning" of being unable to "tolerate Turkey's efforts to protect its own rights, laws, borders and sovereignty. Most particularly, the latest comments of French president are the examples of this sick and shallow understanding.
Pardoning war criminals
As if the rancour wasn't enough, Perry said that President Trump is sowing new doubts by pardoning convicted war criminals.
"For all its warts, the U.S. has long been an upholder of the laws of armed conflict. For him to be intervening in that process of maintaining order and discipline is extraordinarily troubling," he said, citing Trump's recent decision to intervene in a disciplinary case against a Navy SEAL accused of war crimes in Iraq.
"From allies' perspective, it's another piece falling on top of the Syria withdrawal. It's increasingly uncertain what the United States stands for. You're not as sure now what it means to contribute to an American military operation as you would have been even a year ago."
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