Signals.Cpl

They do train people to do their job, the problem is that once you start taking people from the bottom of the pile you obviously get the people with the least motivation, lowest capabilities and probably did poorly on the fitness and aptitude tests. Now, the problem that comes from this is that those same people who are selected based only on their race/sex rather than capabilities the policy will extend to promotions/as well as retention. This all leads to no fail courses. When push comes to shove who would you prefer for a position in a dangerous environment as the military the white guy who was at the top of the course or the visible minority(including women) who were selected simply because of some racist or sexist reason. If we have 100 positions open per year we should hire the top 100 candidates regardless of their race, sex or sexual preferences. I am all for more women and minorities in the military, but to me this means target recruiting drives aimed at attracting the right kind of candidate rather than accepting subpar candidate simply because we need to meet a quota.

Does he have to do anything but play on the other team for you to dislike him?

Made up scenario? The original link: http://news.nationalpost.com/2014/05/19/military-retreating-on-diversity-targets-after-failing-to-meet-recruiting-goals-for-minorities-women/ Making targets in the first place creates this environment when instead of qualifications, people get hired because of their sex or race.

Its not fair because its sexism, but more so its not fair because you end up putting incompetent people in positions where their incompetence will cause death and injury. And the only reason that the people are put in those positions is simply because they are of a certain race or sex.

Yeah, you are right, we should buy them a condo and let them live their lives... I see nothing wrong punishing someone for their crimes, unless those crimes are their sex or race...I mean I didn't get a choice to be a male and white, it sorta happened so why should I be punished for my race and/or sex?

So you conscript women and minorities to meet the required numbers even through there are plenty of candidates, only they are the wrong sex/race... I'm sure no one will complain about that one.

Damn Straight be careful, I mean punishing your kids by spanking them is one thing, hitting them so hard that they die is quite another thing. There are a number reasons for prison time: rehabilitation, prevention and punishment. are amongst them. Just because it will not bring her back nor prevent someone else from abusing their children doesn't mean that punishing the "father" shouldn't be a good reason for a longer sentence.

Well turns out that this case does not involve trained fighters, or at least the young girl was not a trained fighter.

You are right, lets fight racism with racism, sexism with sexism, while we are at it lets go and rape rapists etc... Women are under represented in the military, but that is not because there is a great big conspiracy to prevent women and minorities from joining, its because fewer women and minorities are applying for the military or qualifying for the position they choose. Two people apply for the military, one is a female while the other is a white male, the white male is more fit, better educated, more experience, better attitude etc. While the female is unfit, no education and no experience combined with bad attitude, if they go through the recruiting centre and the women is recruited simply because she is a women how is that fair? What happens when the military is starved for recruits while it has plenty to choose from except they are all white? If women and minorities simply don't want to serve what do we do? Simply keep the military is 60% or 70%? Or do we lower the standard to entice more and more minorities and women to join? Give them a bonus? Early Promotion?

Sorry but how does this help anyone? Ultimately it keeps competent people from doing a job simply because of their sex, race, skin colour or religion If that is not wrong I don't know what is. We will just end up recruiting from a lower quality of recruits while letting the higher quality candidates get away simply because they are the wrong religion, colour, sex etc... What if we cannot fill the quotas with suitable candidates? Do we lower the standard for specific people just so we can get the check in the box, yep we have 7% of our members who are black etc... I believe that if you are a candidate you have to meet certain conditions to work in the military, the colour of your skin should not be one of them or we run the risk of as I said earlier having incompetent people join and advance simply because of their race or religion rather than abilities. Then we have same group of people being promoted over more competent people simply because again they are of the right religion or race... There has to be a standard, you meet the standard all the power to you regardless of your race, sex or religion. It always infuriated me that a women would do the exact same job as me, for the exact same pay and benefits but the fitness requirements were significantly lower for a women. With the new FORCE test that was eliminated but I will wait and see how long this equality lasts before someone screams for equality but demands special treatment. Now start hiring or promote people who don't deserve a promotion over people who have earned a promotion seems sick to me, sick and extremely counterproductive and moral destroying. Military, Police, Fire departments and Paramedics to name a few should be recruited based on merit rather than racist or sexists reasons. Would you want to be treated by a substandard doctor who only gained his position because he fell in to a quota? I sure wouldn't, I prefer letting people gain employment and promotions based on abilities and willingness to use said abilities than something they have little say in. If someone is discriminating against a group then hammer them but when push comes to shove the best candidate for the position rather than going for a divided, incompetent military simply to be PC.

The government covers up to 5% loss of the value for serving members if I remember correctly. So that means if the house is valued at $1,000,000 and the sale prose is $960,000 them that difference will be reimbursed. Usually it is for out of town moves but ultimately it is meant to prevent service members, wether they are generals or privates, from taking a massive financial hit when they are forced to move every 3 years or so. I don't know the specifics but the whole purpose of this program is to keep members from losing tens of thousands of dollars over the length of their career because they had to move on short notice during a downturn in the market.

Really? So they will require less runways? Fewer Technicians? Less infrastructure to support them? and less of the 101 other things that a modern fighter aircraft needs? What goes in those figures? Are they comparable? Or are they comparing apples and bricks? IF the USAF counts airfields, maintenance teams, ground support etc in to the equation but the Navy does not count the carrier, its crew, support staff etc... is it really a proper comparison? The bulk of the cost is the operating cost which means that we will require the same RCAF bases, with the same or similar number of pilots, engineers and technicians regardless of which aircraft is chosen. We will need the same airfields, with the same support infrastructure, equipment and personnel to operate those aircraft. So your numbers are BS because likely the figures are not comparable, in fact more than likely they do not account the same things in the total figure.

Such as? What do we not require that we bought which would save us substantial funds? Some people do not understand that expensive does not equal to over priced. We need kit that will meet our requirements in the present, and cover as many future requirements as possible. This goes hand in hand with not buying overpriced kit when we can get it "better" for "cheaper". I call BS on this one, the initial cost might be more for the F35 but over the long run the F35 will be cheaper than the Super hornet. For example the F/A-18F the RAAF has is an aircraft that needs 2 crew members which means that right there it costs more, twice the engines require twice as many techs working on it or slower turnover rate for repairs and maintenance because same number of techs fixing 2X as many engines. Mid life refit will be the responsibility of Canada since the US will be dropping the aircraft in a decade or so thus they will not be upgrading it vs them upgrading the F35 and passing along that to other users. Most of the rest is equal whatever aircraft we choose, the only variation would be increase the number of fighters or decrease the number of fighters. Yeah, sure... who actually cares about wounded troops? They become important when trying to score points against the government, but when push comes to shove the government regardless of party will do the same. As for NATO... well we need to worry about ourselves first as the organized cold war era NATO is quickly becoming a thing of the past. Soon NATO will be an alliance without the coordination of capabilities...

I am getting tired of explaining this to you but because it is a stop gap measure. For the RAAF the Hornets are replacing an aircraft that is over 40 years old and they have judged that it meets their immediate needs without adding extra burden to their system by buying a different aircraft for a short term solution. It is a simple concept, the RAAF loses a capability it had until 2009, and thus they decide that they need an interim aircraft until the F35s start entering service. Better procurement? How so? How exactly would you solve that problem? Less waste? How do we accomplish that without destroying our capabilities? How do we accomplish that in terms of long term savings when our politicians cannot agree on what our military needs? Troops injured in Afghanistan come back missing limbs and get a few dollars and a thanks for coming out all in the name of less waste, people opposing an aircraft not because they don't approve of it but simply for political reasons because lets face it, in the long run the cost of the F35 is going to be equal to or less than the competition I can go on, but ultimately spending more on the military annually means that we can plan ahead with procurement and spend less overall rather than running equipment in to the ground decades past its lifespan and one government passing the puck to another. Such as?

The cheaper options might be able to do the same job in protecting sovereignty, might, but that would not be the only reason we will use it for. We need an aircraft that meets multiple requirements and provide us with options for whatever we might face in the future which might include us cooperating with our allies, but if our aircraft are obsolete and cannot work in conjunction with the USAF or our other allies what then? How much should Canada spend on Defence in YOUR opinion? Do we depend on the US for defence? What it seems to me is that some people or in this case many people don't want to spend money on defence, expect the US to defend us while we provide insignificant resources in our own defence yet expect us to maintain our independence? We may not be able to hold against say Russia or China all on our own, but we have to be willing and able to fight in our own defence with more than just slingshots.

What part was silly? Guys like him with legitimate concerns become white noise because everyone with or without legitimate goes through the media first and ignores the proper channels so when someone with legitimate concerns like him shows up and makes a complaint it gets ignored. From my understanding, jacee and Ghost are for ignoring the proper chain and just stright to the media which means that complaints wether legitimate or not will be ignored in an ever increasing quantities by people. You have 100 people with one problem or another, 5 of them have voiced a legitimate complaint and gone through the proper channels and the net result is nothing being done for the problem so they go through the media and their organizations are forced to deal with the problem because of public pressure. This is the right way as far as I am concerned, convincing people to skip on going through the chain of command and go straight to the media with every petty complaint means that those people like this officer who have a legitimate complain end up being ignored. If you have everyone crying wolf no one will believe the one guy or the few people who actually see the wolf Not police officer, just people. If suddenly every soldier, sailor, airmen, firefighter, police officer, paramedic, teacher etc... decided to air their grievances through the media without using the proper channels means that those with legitimate grievances will be ignored simply because it becomes everyday news and apparent that 95% of complaints are made by people who do not follow the proper channels the other 5% are ignored. I agree with this persons actions, but suggesting others should skip the chain seems irresponsible.

No, I don't. The Super Hornets and the F35's provide different capabilities and the Super Hornets are replacing the F-111's. Ultimately they would look at what is more affordable in the long run and the F35 is the more affordable aircraft when all is said and done even if the initial purchasing price is double that of the Super Hornets.

We have to arm ourselves for the unpredictable, buying kit for the threat we see now means that when the threat environment changes we will have to buy new kit to face a new threat. And what if that changes 10 years from now? Do we purchase new fighters when the threat environment changes? We may not need all the capabilities now, but can you guarantee this will stay the same over the next 20,30 or 40 years? Because when the threat environment changes we need to buy aircraft to meet the new threat which would cost more in the future. And in 15 years when we are one of the only if not the only major western power with those aircraft?

Or on the flip side, the guys like him become white noise. Every person with a complaint goes to the media rather than the proper chanels, soon enough we end up ignoring legitimate complaints because it fills the hole of being just another cry for attention. Cry wolf too many times and no one believes you, get 50,000 people to cry wolf and when the wolf comes no one will bother to listen because of all the false complaints.

I dont know everything, but I do know a lot about a few things. If you bothered to do some rudimentary research you would see that ultimately the fault for the mission's failure lay at the hands of the UN and its member states rather than a mission commander who had a small force of lightly armed peacekeepers with about 3X30 round magazines per soldier. Now tell me since you said that you were in the military at one point, how long would it take you to go through a 90 rounds in a firefight? And what do you do when your entire command is left with no ammunition after the first 15 minutes? The man was vilified because the world needed a scapegoat for its failure and downright betrayal of the Rwandan people and they pointed at the person in charge ignoring the fact that he did the best he can with the limited resources at his disposal.

And if he had done something that caused another hundred Paratroopers to die what happens then? If he had no means to rescue them without putting the rest of his command in danger his only option was to try and negotiate for their release.

Precedence suports that? How can you prove that? Because if internal mechanism designed to solve problems that pop up are successful then we are likely to never hear about it and as a result we will hear only the once that get out of hand. As for Dallaire, it is for a different thread and forum but the reality is that he had nothing at his disposal that could stop the massacre. He saved 30,000 or more people from death with the insignificant resources at his disposal. There are allot of things I disagree with Mr Dallaire but his handling of Rwanda is not one of them because he was put in a situation where the UN was working against him while expecting him to solve the problem when at every turn they fight him.

Two fleets to serve the same purpose?

And when they sober up, get their F35s they will quickly realize that having two or more fleets of aircraft aimed at meeting the same need get pretty expensive. Maintaining two parallel training systems, with supply and maintenance as well as infrastructure is financially and logistically prohibitive for such a small force as the RAAF and even more so with a smaller force like the RCAF. The sooner people realize we are not the US and cannot realistically expect to maintain two or more fleets simultaneously. More important, what would RAAF's use of the Super Hornets mean for Canada? So what if Australia has 48 Super Hornets? Unless we make a deal with the Australian government for joint upgrades to the Super Hornet fleet as well as maintain the ability to produce spare parts amongst the dozens of other aspects that will be necessary for our fleets survivability and that does not even consider the midlife upgrades.

The RAAF is replacing aircraft at the end of their lifespan with the Hornets, but that does not mean they intent to fly two kinds of fighter aircraft. Maintaining two different fighter aircraft will add to the overall cost of the airforce and increase the personnel requirements so likely they are purchasing more Super Hornets for the simple reason that their Hornet fleet is nearing its operational life and and more aircraft need to be replaced at an earlier date. Ultimately, if we make a decision we will likely live with for the next 30 to 40 years lets base it on a little more than the opinion of nations that are planning on using those aircraft for a fraction of the time.