Armed Forces

David Miller Raises Rainbow Flag, Takes Down Support Our Troops Decals

Mulder

God Bless Lowell Green.

This morning he is raving mad and he has a right to be. The leftist mayor of Toronto, David Miller, is calling for Toronto’s firefighters, police, and ambulance services to remove the “We support our troops” magnetic decals off of the cities vehicles.

However, just a few short days ago, the mayor, himself, raised the rainbow flag to kick off Toronto’s Gay Pride parade.

Lowell Green is calling for an immediate boycott of Toronto and I, for one, am joining him.

What I find most ironic about the mayor’s stand is that it was the military that was called in to dig the Big Smoke out of a blizzard back in the days of mayor Lastman.

I encourage Canadians out there to join this boycott until mayor Miller comes to his senses and I encourage everyone to email the mayor at mayor_miller@toronto.ca and let them know that if they continue to insult our troops, we are giving up on this modern day Sodom and Gomorrah.

Red Friday Rally And Parade In Petawawa

Mulder

I received the notice below directly from Lisa Miller. I hope anyone within a short drive of Petawawa will be in attendance. After filming the original Red Friday Rally (see links on this page) and after catching Lisa and Karen drop the puck (by fluke) while I was at a Sens hockey game this year, I sometimes feel that I am destined to promote Red Fridays!!

I am not sure if I will be able to make it, but I think that it would be great to attend the event in the town where it all started. I am sure it will be a grand Parade of red.

Lisa Miller and Karen Boire are pleased to announce:

Petawawa will be holding a Red Friday Rally and March of Military Appreciation on May 11th, 2007.

Time: 9:30am
Location: Petawawa Legion Parking Lot (Located at 3583 Petawawa Blvd.)

The Rally itself will be short in time. (approx. 30 minutes total)

National Anthem – 9:30 am
Prayer for our troops – 9:40 am
Speeches
10:10 am the roads will be closed and participants will be asked to form the rows of the parade.

Two Parade marshals will be there to help people form up and stay organized.

The Parade route will be as follows:

Down Petawawa Blvd, up Victoria Street and ending behind the town office.

Pictures can be taken from the bottom of the hill at this point.

Due to road closures, our timings must be strict. The OPP will be on hand to participate and to ensure safety during the Parade.

Canadian War Museum Simply Awe Inspiring

Mulder

Being on vacation can be a lot of fun. Instead of sitting around doing nothing, I took the kids skiing Monday and yesterday (Tuesday), I took Cookie, my ten year old daughter, to the new Canadian War Museum in Ottawa. The cost of her company was a sushi lunch and a Beavertail later in the afternoon which I consider a small price to pay to get a chance to show her a part of our history.

This was my first visit to the museum and I was pretty impressed with the layout and displays. Once you go through one of the galleries, you can easy step out to the main lobby or continue on to the next gallery which made the tour flow wonderfully.

The first gallery (Battleground:Wars on Our Soil, earliest times to 1885) covered much of the historic battles between French, English, First Nations, and to me the highlight was the War of 1812. There was also a great hallway walk through showing what it was like to stand on the line separating British and French soldiers lining up in the traditional manner of war. The courage displayed was quite moving.

The second gallery (For Crown and Country) covered the South African wars and World War I (The Great War). The highlights in this section were the Billy Bishop display, but even more so the display on Vimy Ridge and the depiction of the Creeping Barrage, the brainchild of my favourite Canadian Hero, Arthur Currie. Those of you who have read my blog, or watched some of my videos, know that I am as proud now of our victory at Vimy as Canadians of the day were. I enjoyed watching Cookie kneel down to touch what she thought was mud in a section that was made to look like the battlefield and seeing how surprised she was that it was plastic.

The third gallery (Forged in Fire) covered the 1931 to 1945. Most of this exhibit was dedicated to World War II. It was at this point that I started to notice the artillery progression that the museum displayed. The first gallery showed a French mortar, and the second gallery a proper artillery piece with the big wheels (which my daughter asked about) and in the third section you started to see shielded field artillery and howitzers. The highlights of this section was one of Hitler’s cars, and the informative sections on Dieppe and D-Day. The trench walk through was also really interesting (and one of the fun parts for the kids).

The fourth gallery (A Violent Peace) covered 1945 to present. It was at this point that I could see Cookie glazing over so we didn’t get as much time to spend here as I would have liked but I would say the highlights were the advanced weaponry and the Korean war display and the Cold War section.

There is also the massive LeBreton Gallery which was a bit hard to find without looking at the map and it contained dozens and dozens of vehicles, artillery pieces, tanks, and was a real highlight of my trip. Seeing the size differences between a Sherman Tank and a Leopard was something you just couldn’t get a real feel for unless the two were very close to each other as they were in this gallery. I would call this a must see. The kids at the gallery seemed really impressed with this section.

The highlight of the Special Exhibition galleries was the Afghanistan exhibit. Below is a photo of what a roadside bomb can do to a vehicle. Seeing this vehicle really made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. It was also in this gallery when I was proudest as a father. There were various sections throughout that let you and your children write on stickynotes to leave answers to questions or notes for the troops. Cookie really impressed me with all the notes she wrote. Her message to the press was so touching. I am paraphrasing but the message was “Tell the truth. Tell about all the good things soldiers do.”

Canadian Jeep Bombed

I think that everyone should visit this museum at least once in their lifetime. You may get more out of it with older children, but living in Ottawa, I know I will have the luxury of going back a few times to take a slower time going through the museum, and perhaps spend a bit more time talking to the several veterans roaming the exhibits.

Human Rights Groups Now Responsible For Commiting Human Wrongs

Mulder

I would love to start a group to sue the Human Rights groups for abusing people with frivolous legal action. We could call it a Human Wrongs group.

Canada’s practice of turning detainees over to Afghan security forces, widely accused of torture and abuse, violates international law and the Charter of Rights, Amnesty International and the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association say.

The two groups will Wednesday file an application in Federal Court in Ottawa seeking judicial review of the military’s controversial policy. Named as respondents in the action are Defence Minister Gordon O’Connor, General Rick Hillier, Canada’s Chief of the Defence Staff, and Attorney-General Robert Nicholson.

The legal action will be announced today by Alex Neve, Amnesty International Canada’s Secretary-General, and Shirley Heafey, a B.C. Civil Liberties Association board member.

What these groups don’t realize is that we are not at war with Afghanistan. We are there now in rebuilding/reconstructive role. This means we work WITH their police forces and not against them.

If there are issues with the Afghani police forces, that is a concern and should be addressed via the appropriate Internal Affairs (or similar equivalent) department within their police.

Law Professor Allegations Meant To Remove Canadian Forces From Afghanistan

Mulder

Amir AttaranOttawa University Professor Amir Attaran appeared on Canada AM this morning to discuss the possible abuse by Canadian troops of Afghani prisoners.

I have been doing some light reading this evening and I am wondering why Mr. Attaran would be so interested in the possible abuse of these men.

The information which will be presented in an investigation look pretty clear cut to me.

The three Afghans were captured near Dukah by a small group of Canadian soldiers.

One of the detainees was seen observing the soldiers but escaped, only to be captured the next day. In a field report, the soldiers described him as “non-compliant.”

Another is described as being “extremely belligerent” and “it took four personnel to subdue him.”

In the most serious instance, it was said that only “appropriate force” was used and that the suspect was an alleged bomb maker.

And what did these men suffer? Remember, one that they were “non-compliant”, “extremely belligerent” and one was an alleged bomb maker.

All three of them had a similar set of injuries to their face, to their head and the most seriously injured man had his eyes swollen, cuts on his eyebrows, a slash across his forehead and a cut on his cheek.

So in other words, these men looked like this.

Rocky

Big Deal. It took 4 men to subdue one of them. How do you expect these guys to look?

Right now it seems to me that most of this is still speculation, hearsay, and allegations by Mr. Attaran. Apparently, the men were returned to Afghan authorities and “never seen again.” (cue Twilight Zone music).

So what is this really all about?

Well we can tell you that Dr. Attaran has conveniently brought up these cases (with one file missing) when only a year ago he was criticizing Canada’s Prisoner Transfer Agreement with Afghanistan.

Professor Amir Attaran of the Faculty of Law fears that the agreement between Ottawa and Kabul on prisoner transfers makes Canadian soldiers complicit to torture.
He made this assertion during the conference on the “Canadian Legal Response to Torture” that took place on March 24, 2006 at the University of Ottawa.

This event, organized by the Law Society of Upper Canada, the Human Rights Research and Education Centre and the Faculty of Law, attracted more than two hundred people from different government departments, human rights organizations and lawyers interested in the subject.

So after criticizing the agreement almost a year ago, Mr. Attaran has been reviewing report after report after report on the Afghani prisoner transfers and has finally found 3 that can make his criticism valid. How many prisoner files did he need to review before he found these? How many hundreds of prisoners were processed properly without issue before three “Belligerents” took a couple of shots to put them back in line?

Mr. Attaran should produce a bit more evidence before making allegations as he has.

Judge him for yourself. Mr. Attaran has written for the Globe and Mail (left leaning), The Washington Post (left leaning), The New York Times (VERY left leaning) and his previous employer was the “Sierra Legal Defence Fund” (Granola crunching, left leaning, tree hugging, legal action group).

I think Mr. Attaran should come clean. His actions indicate he wants Canada out of Afghanistan. Just like his buddy Jack Layton.

ADDENDUM: Actually, Mr. Attaran is quoted on page 3 of one of Alexa McDonough’s “Global Perspectives” flyers from 2003. e

Liberals Would Have Us Believe Lightweight Lift Aircraft Are Heavyweight Lift Aircraft

Mulder

On Tuesday January 30th, 2007 the Minister of Defence, Gordon O’Connor, cleared up any question of the heavy lift aircraft tender with one statement.

In answering Liberal Denis Coderre’s question regarding the contract being changed so that only one aircraft could meet the requirements, the Minister said:

Requirements are set by the military and they go through a process from a desk officer all the way to the Chief of the Defence Staff, and then they come to me. At that point I get the requirements from the military.

The military requirement was not changed after the Chief of the Defence Staff gave it to me. By the way, the weight I think was 39 tonnes and the aircraft we eventually selected lifts 85 tonnes.

(emphasis mine).

So let’s figure this out. Let’s say that the contract weight lift requirement was dropped to 35 tonnes to allow a second or third bid to be eligible, these options would be lifting LESS THAN HALF what the Boeing airplanes can lift.

Since the armed forces were not looking for a lightweight or middleweight lift aircraft, I think the arguments being made by opposition are simply baseless and the Boeing C18’s are clearly the king of heavy lift … twice over.

To accept other bids from aircraft that can lift 30 odd tonnes would be like a soccer mom buying a Volkswagon Golf instead of a Suburban. Oh sure, it can get our team to the game, but it would take two or even three trips to do it and when it comes to the troops putting their lives on the line, I would rather they get what they need as quickly as possible.

But the ulterior motive is that the Liberals would rather have a non Boeing company provide us with the aircraft because Boeing spreads the wealth around the country, whereas other contractors would focus much of the reinvestment in Quebec.

HandoutThis ties in nicely to how Gilles Duceppe is looking for 60% of the Boeing reinvestment to be in Quebec as Quebec has 60% of the military contractors in Canada. Does Mr. Duceppe not see the hypocrisy of his request? He is trying to slam the government for not addressing the fiscal imbalance but he wants a completely disproportionate amount of the Boeing money in his province. He is starting to look like a ragged beggar with his hand out all the time.