Army Guy

What our nation needs is to replace equipment as it becomes due for replacement, to have a steady form of funding, not one that gets chopped just before every election because it is an easy target....I am not advocating for a huge military, or a military capable of knocking over small countries.....i am advocating a military large enough to defend our sovereignty, all our foreign interests, all our defensive pacts to include NATO, NORAD, ABCA, plus have the resources to assist with any operations that other security agencies with our nation might have , Such as CSIS , RCMP, DFO, etc etc and lastly to be able to respond to any natural disaster within our borders with a reasonable force level to make a difference....

I have been doing this since my second tour, in fact i did several posts here on this forum form a lap top/ stick in the back of a LAV III, while on operations in Afghanistan answering questions to readers on this forum my whole platoon got in on it it was fun at the time........we wanted Canadians to know what it was like, and to correct all the misconceptions that a lot of Canadians had on the mission....That and i had alot invested into afghanistan, with my own blood sweat and tears, but most importantly the sweat ,blood and tears of my fallen comrades, i owed them to much, not to ensure the truth was told about them, and our mission....For me the mission was so important i volunteered 3 times, or 22 months total time in Afghanistan i would have done alot more but my wife and new baby son at the time had said enough, or we are leaving...and what seems to be a no brainer, i was torn between the two , and almost went on my forth tour....3 Tours may sound like enough, but i know soldiers with 6 or 7 tours, in the Infantry i think 4 was average....I felt as if i was letting my fellow platoon mates down.... rehashing this over and over is good for me, or so they say, don't get me wrong i'm not medically released, i don't have problems with head space and timing issues, although everyone that was there was changed in some form or another, those that say other wise are lying....the mission changed everyone , and not in a good way, most of us have learned to cope with it, and some how control it or push it down into the depths it can not come back up from.... Not sure what you want from me exactly but you can PM me about any questions you may have i'll consider it.

This is what i mean , TPP, CETA are about 1 % of they're platform, and activities, look at JT, he slipped in the poles so he conducts a canada wide election type campaign....worried about image instead of issues that effect our nation....everything they do is all about perception like they future plans of our military, they know it is going to get very costly to bring our military back into the fold, but their first act was to bring it to the public...lets gauge what they think....incorporate that into our plans and look like heros their plan is our plan........Now i would say 90% of Canadians know nothing or very little about our military, or the current state it is in right now....the logical thing to do would be inform Canadians on the state of our military, and then lay out a well thought out plan to correct the situation, Leadership is also making those decisions that may be unpopular with the public but necessary for the nation.... Perhaps i have a very different perspective of Afghanistan, Even in Kanadar we worked very closely with the the US armed forces, keeping in mind the base in Kanadar had over 40,000 troops on it, or around it....and at the peak of Canadian operations we had only 3800...maybe 4200 during rotation periods...troops on the ground....a spec of sand in the desert of things.....Kanadar was far from the largest base in Afghanistan.....The Canadian Area of operations was huge, the size of PEI, Kanadar was the birth place of the Taliban so they would not let it go without a fight.....Remember this is the time were this operation is becoming not very popular with the people back home....so getting in more troops was out of the question, as with getting in newer equipment well that was paid for by the blood of our soldiers.....and trust me equipment costs alot of lives..... As for us being their proxy, well if you look at all the other nations there, Canada did not have all the restrictions they had......restrictions in ROE, (rules of engagement) restrictions on how we could be deployed, could we be used in combat, Canada had sent us over to do one thing "Combat" get er down......while other nation were very restrictive on the use of their combat troops. So when things needed to get down , Canadian military got the call, that and the fact we had by this time earned a rock solid reputation as soldiers that could be counted upon....I don't remember how many times we we asked to assist the UK or US troops for operations or while they were under attack...SO it may of seemed like we got all the shit jobs they did not want, but i can remember staying over night in some UK and US FOB's while passing through, and thinking to myself, i've been to alot of shit holes but i would not want to be there in the middle of no where, surrounded by taliban, being in contact for 355 days out of a 365 day tour....with most engagements lasting a couple of hours....these units or sub units would have a 40 to 45 % Cas rate, over a full year that is alot of lost comrads.... I think you give Chretien to much credit , he threw us to the dogs without even missing a beat, he may of made the right decision on Iraq, but he knew we were going somewhere, and despite DND recommendations again'st going into Afghan.....we went, regardless of our equipment, supplies, or troops strengths..... Canada has no excuses for letting it's military slide into it's current state.....and the navy may be the worse element, all 3 of them are in terrible shape....IE the army has fields upon fields full of military trucks completely rusted out, being used for parts to keep the last 1/3 of them on the road.....and todate only one truck type out of 6 has been ordered and expected to arrive and operational in 2018-19....The army can not move with out trucks....units train by gather trucks up from dozens of other units, or by renting school busses.....or for going training with vehs and doing everything dismounted.....meaning by foot....one question how can a Mechanized unit train for combat while being dismounted.....You Can't....Don't get me started on Armoured Fighting vehs and all their shortages....

Road rage ....Is on the rise , by leaps and bounds, nearly 80% of all Canadian drivers surveyed admit to road rage in one form or another, including one driver pepper spraying a 2 year old in a car....come on...a 2 year old....anger management classes anyone....or maybe all Canadian drivers.... http://www.canadianunderwriter.ca/insurance/nearly-80-of-canadians-admit-to-road-rage-behaviour-survey-1001833674/ http://driving.ca/auto-news/news/why-is-road-rage-anger-getting-worse-experts-say http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/road-rage-why-are-we-seeing-so-much-of-it-1.3028733

I get the fact that the warning points are confidential between mod and member.....However i asked why have them and your mods explained they mean nothing , and will not count again'st us in the future....That being said they really do not have value, and with no value or consequence then why have them at all.

Is that how you would describe Canada's major political parties as globalist. I don't think they have the vision to be globalist, i mean most of their actions and policies seemed to be pointed towards themselves, not the nation or globally. It is their continuous effort to get re elected that takes up most of their time, leaving very little time to really think about national improvements, let alone inter national.....Yes there are a few minutes the liberals have put together to try to win a seat in the UN, but this is party driven.... As far as Kandahar being a disaster, in your mind how so....and to whom are these disasters attributed to.... Well once again Canada and it's citizens need to take a look at the whole picture, such as Why are we still a member of NATO, and by being a member what does it give us....and to continue being a member what will it cost us, such as deploying troops to the fringes of NATO, or assisting in other ways on the ground in Iraq to train local troops... Not sure what the EU is doing , what everyone does know is most EU nations have been riding the peace bonds that the destruction of the wall , and the pull back of Russian forces have created.... it is now to the point that there are major shortfalls in NATO defensive units...it was bad during the cold war, but it is down right disgusting now....militarily speaking. As for ABCA or US/UK/Aus/NZ/Canada military alliance it has been a defensive pact for the most part since the end of WWII, and has been expanding rapidly over the last 10 years as the point of interest is shifting from the european theater to the pacific..

None of the above, trying to dispel some of Hot enough conspiracies theories. Do i need some sort of motivation to post here or on a certain topic ? and if so why do you care about my motivations ?

put yourself in their shoes....would you have spent millions in wining and dining these guys after the US had already dropped a few cruise missiles on them i mean do you think the taliban would be friendly after that or perhaps a little pissed............or would you have developed a wait and see outlook.....I also said that it was not until 2006 or 7 that the mission lost support from the citizens, making getting anything done that required funding almost impossible....so uncal would not have really known what is going on until around that period of time....also around the time that they decide to go around Afghanistan....

Para 5: John Mcnamer was Canadian, but he was not a Canadian military vet, but rather a US army vet.......John McNamer is an independent human rights activist and journalist. A Canadian citizen, he has worked in the past as a researcher and writer for Lawyers Against the War (LAW). He was awarded the Bronze Star Medal for service with the U.S. Army’s 4th Infantry Division in Vietnam. The brief he sent to members of parliament was looked at and then brushed aside, as not credible.... he did pass his brief to an Ottawa prof, who took it and ran and ran ....it did get traction, in fact his entire concept was laid at DND front steps accusing the military of all the above comments...you can goggle it , it's all a matter of record, except after a long and drawn out investigation, by an independent panel, plus one by DND, and the UN, and Human rights council, DND was cleared of all charges......It did however stream line DND entire POW policies.....As for the statement All national and international law forbid the killing of non-combatants. Total civilian deaths caused by U.S. led military actions are estimated at 8,991 to 28,583 direct and indirect deaths.8 is not true, you might want to clarify all that in the Geneva conventions which i'm pretty sure most inter national laws are based on in regards to topics of war....any ways the geneva convention does say that all precautions should be taken to reduce civilian deaths.....notice the words reduce....no where does it say it is again'st the law to kill civilians...if that was the case why do we have the words co lateral damage.... you might want to look that one up , anyways like i said before for a criminal lawyer and all his staff to not find theses mistakes makes you wonder just who wrote this , and then did a fact finding check on it....they need to be fired....as it puts the entire document in question.....

Hot enough. I looked at your source written by a Thom Cincotta who has a impressive job title. one that is fully described below it shows he is a program director at Political Research Associates and a Criminal Defense lawyer. I mention this because after a 5 min search on goggle i found lots of mistakes in his article....which i will list one by one....Now i'm only a recently retired Canadian Infantry soldier, with grade 12 education, and 34 years of soldiering for our country.....And thomas has had much more education than i, along with a full staff to ensure that all his facts are correct.....and have been researched....there is also the fact that the article was published by National Lawyers Guild Massachusetts chapter....who should have did they own fact check before publishing....who also should have a full staff who do those things....So i will list the things i think are wrong with the article....and you and perhaps thomas can sort me out.... 1 st para: It is 100 % correct the US and UK did not receive any permission from the UN to invade, and yet No One stood up to the us and UK and told them they were going to be charged with War Crimes....nor was any charges brought forth....speaks volumes about the power of the UN, and the rest of the world....No one was screaming about charges.....maybe i am wrong, but are they're any pending charges....I get it the lack of charges does not mean that no laws were broken.....but history is a little clouded.... Now for the record this is not the Al queda first attack on the US, in fact lets put a few things into perspective here, there are 4 major events that AL Qaeda took credit for.....Dec 29, 1992 Aden Yemen hotels bombed where suspected US service men were staying, no US soldiers killed or wounded here but Bin ladin and Mohamed Khan take credit.....Feb 26, 1993 World Trade Center bombed 1 st time......again Al Qaeda takes credit....August, 1998 US Embassies in Nairobi and Tanzania are bombed 200 killed 5000 wounded, Oct, 2000 USS Cole bombed 17 us killed.... And some how like magic we can not draw a line and say Al Qaeda will not attack the US again, and somehow we are also expected to think that the Taliban did not know anything of theses attacks.....when the Al Qaeda took credit for them.....they were splashed on every news net work around the globe....including afghanistan media....And yet we are expected to believe the Taliban when they say they knew nothing of AL qaeda activities....when there is a long track record of this terrorist attacks.....and the Al Qaeda took responsibility for them......Here is another tidbit for you.....Bin ladin and is merry band of terrorist were actually embedded into the Taliban's military strength see 055 brigade....which goes a little way to describe that the taliban and Al Qaeda were linked at the hip, to the point they were in the taliban's military chain of command ...which comes in handy when trying to establish link between a state actor, or just a group of people does it not.....just saying.... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/055_Brigade Recap, there is already a direct link between Al queda and it 's several major attacks against the US.....The taliban knew of these connections, one would have to be a blind idiot not to.....which dismisses they knew nothing of any attacks is plain bullshit.....the other point was AL Qaeda was integrated into the Taliban's military arm and took orders from both Bin Ladin and the taliban merry band of idiots....and some how in a lawyers eyes everything is coming up roses, and still hissing about war crimes.... Para 2: I'll guess i'll see your art 2 and see you an art 51...... Para 3 : And yet after the invasion , the UN steps up and creates ISAF, but still no war crimes charges.....and while there is no official nod of the UN heads to say yes go ahead.....they did nothing to stop it either....

Your right the entire pipeline argument is nothing but a straw man argument....It pisses of some of the liberals that have said over and over that this entire Mission was about pipe lines, and later it would shift to minerals.....Anything but the real reason which was to take down the Taliban and the long list of terrorists...... The planning portion of the pipeline , i am not denying it, it is a matter of record, what i am saying it was not on the US government radar at the time of the invasion or a side objective in the planning of the invasion of Afghanistan.....It was however a concern of Uncal a civilian company that wanted permission to route a pipe line through afghanistan. It is also a matter of record that the US government dropped the pipeline idea before the invasion of afghanistan, it is also a matter of record that uncal also dropped the ball on pipelines in afghanistan, after the first missile strikes for embassy bombings...Not as you quoted when they realized the utter mission failure.....which if you follow the time line is about mid mission, or about 2006 or 2007.....See source i provided you check the time lines, they do not support your story. Has the mission gone as planed i don't doubt they would be a pipeline, had the taliban just laid down and died....but that did not happen, in fact the subject pipeline was rerouted around Afghanistan...... And now there is talk about a TAPI pipe line for natraul gas, which is suppose to be built in 2019, but it to will end up be re routed the situation in afghanistan with the taliban is still not secure....

Your convinced enough to post your opinion....and yet bold enough to tell me to do some research.....The fact there is no pipe line in existence today, follow the time line and it will show you, or at least show the common sense portion of the pipeline...... add the UnoCal tears up the proposal before 9/11, then the attack, and then the withdrawal of most of the NATO forces in Afghanistan....without a pipeline....being built....Not to mention the spending of hundreds of bils just in fighting the conflict and hundreds of bils more building new infra structure...Only to come up empty, no pipeline shit not even the trillions in minerals..... why would they invade just for a pipeline then never build it.....

I Get that, neither has anything to do with the other, however, people are saying if it is not the pipeline then it was for the minerals both theories are Bullshit....Yes US companies were trying to gather favor for the pipeline, that was up until the first set of cruise missile strikes took out several terrorist camps in Afghanistan. Shortly thereafter, however, the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania were blown up, leading the United States to launch cruse missile strikes against OBL's camps in Afghanistan. These and related developments led Unocal to withdraw from CentGas, convinced that Afghanistan under the Taliban would never have the peace and stability needed for the pipeline project.38 Rashid, finishing his book in mid-1999, wrote that the Clinton Administration had shifted its support to the pipeline route from Azerbaijan through Georgia to Turkey, adding that "by now nobody wanted to touch Afghanistan and the Taliban."39 http://www.911myths.com/html/9_11_and_the_afghan_pipeline.html Notice the time line, well before the 9/11, and the Unocal had already decided to cancel the afghan route and move it to another which is built today and running....where the Afghan route is still not built....so why would the US, if it was it's objective to do anything to get this pipeline through risk it all by launching a few cruise missiles at OBL camps...

Are you kidding me....how many soldiers would you need to protect 700 KM of pipeline, how much funding would be needed to fund just that.....when NATO could not even get countries to ante up more troops for fighting.... Let alone to talk about the costs....Even the US has it's limits , and i'm pretty sure they don't spend 100 to make a 1 dollar profit.... Not to mention that the mineral surveys were done near the end of the conflict.....trillions of dollars just waiting in the ground for someone to dig up.....and yet it still remains in the ground....maybe next time...Now you may of been convinced , but here in reality were the sky is blue, why would you leave all that stuff in the ground, and not build a pipeline if it was your main objective......

Your not interested in debating the Canadian myths about this mission, in fact your trying to continue another topic that you started here before..that ended with everyone calling your ideas crazy.....so you duped me into this post not having read your orginal post ... Sorry i to think your theories are on the wild side...I did provide you with plenty of sources, however your the one that is making incredible statements with NO proof, yes you have provided sources from gods know where that mention secret reports, or government here say....with no actual reports......Here's a sample disneyland has also produced a report one that sees perhaps mickey and mini have had a hand in the downing of the twin towers, using a stolen laser from the props warehouse and a powerful magnet purchased from INC that was used to drag those planes from the sky, while the laser vaporized them just as they struck the building for good visual effects...this theory has been proven by a long list of scientist, including the famous "Goofy" who stakes his reputation on the whole event... Now you can call me crazy or a loon, or someone that can not read a source or comprehend the topic at hand.....What i can tell you was during my 3 tours in Afghanistan, not once did i see a pipe line.....nor did i see any new mining operations....these things would have been major targets for the taliban, and NATO would have been briefed on them.....and with the down sizing of NATO military personal and equipment building those things and keeping them from being a target for the taliban is a fairy tale....they knew that before the mission started and they know that now....i guess we will see if this New Natural gas pipeline gets built in 2019....I got 10 bucks says in does not.....

Why would you even care Gosthacked, you have been on the other side of most of the topics i have addressed, so explain to me why your concerned on how i feel to be used by the government, over and over again.....you make it sound like you were not screwed by the same government..... I mean come on the liberals are just as guilty as the cons over this entire Afghanistan thing.....but i will tell you this after a while you get used to listening to your government talk out of both sides of their faces, and learn not to expect to much out of them...............However what will always stay with me is the lack of support from Canadian people , Ya thats right gost guys like you, left us there to rot in hell, you complained and whined only loud enough to have funding shut off, to ensure we did not get any of the equipment or supplies to finish the job Canadians sent us over, what equipment was purchased was done only when enough soldiers had died, and then it was only small numbers..........your complaints and whinning was not loud enough to have us withdrawn, because you did not care enough to make that happen......... And a majority of Canadians were good with that.....The Afghan mission was not a canadian mission in which the country took part in.....It was a DND mission that you stuck us with, then forgot we were there except when one of us returned to make a trip down the high way of heros....and it got a few second sound bite on the media.....then it was back to the hockey game..... Don't get me wrong there are Canadians out there that deeply care about our military and the missions there are sent on, the care on how we are trained, and equiped.....but they are far from the majority.....I have made my peace with this betrayal.....one day so will you....

Your so right Gost...infact there must be thousands of pipelines built by now, perhaps you can name one.....just one anyone....I did not call you a loon , but if it quacks like a loon, walks like a loon, odds are it is a loon...

Well if we don't care about being on the sidelines why does all our PM's but so much concern into these organizations, NATO, NORAD, UN, or maybe your talking our the rear end of a passing bufflo, maybe Canada and it's PM's no something you don't. Maybe there are benefits to our country being involved in these defensive pacts.... I did not assume anything, I said that the US is getting tired of picking up the entire bill, and it was going to take measures if countries did not start picking up their own tabs....The US is the worlds largest military industrial complex.....However that being said, our country has very little US made wpns systems, most of the are european, design.... I'm glad you have it all figured out DRE, i'm also sure your new social services plan will be popular with the people, however ever nation on the globe has a military, every nation on the globe has used thier military to enforce their policies, home and abroad.....Including Canada, for all kinds of reasons, from fighting off the Boars, to the Germans in WWI, the NAZI's in WWII, korean conflict....the Afghanistan conflict.....and the countless of UN and NATO missions around the globe.... NON interventionalist policy is nothing more than sticking your head up our own ass, and pretending everything in the world is going just fine, and every once in a while we will remove our heads long enough to feel sorry, and some what guilty that people are starving, or living with the effects of war and we will feel the need to send some money, or invite a small percentage here.....then reinsert heads.....Works for you not me.... acting as corps of engineers, building low income housing...that is the best you can come up with for military uses....you don't want a military ...you want someone that will come by your house with a camouflaged lawn mower and do your out door work for you.....deliver your paper, clean up dog shit off your lawn....mean while you have no clue what your current military does for you and the rest of us on a daily basis, 7 days a week, 365 days a year, 24 hours a day.....Your sovereignty is challenged every day you just don't know it....

I gave you the opportunity to make your own topic.....You chose not to, the topic i chose is Canada's Afghanistan mission and it's myths...No where does it mentions anything about conspiracy theories about what happened on the day of 9/11. try to maintain focus....of course your always free to make your own topic.... You've have no proof on the topics of pipe lines........and you have no proof on the mineral theories.....reality has shown us that the US military has withdrawn most of it's military forces from Afghanistan, with plans to total withdrawal when the Afghanistan military is able to handle all of it's tasks., and some how your suggesting that in the middle of the night a US C-5M is going to land and scoop up all this shit.....so lets recap , no pipelines now or in the near future......no major effort to extract minerals......No major US companies in country...... But since you have no proof on these topics , now you want to get into the theory that 9/11 was a hoax, carried out by the CIA, so they could invade Afghanistan, because of aircraft can not produce the heat or impact to topple a modern skyscraper.....sorry i can not go down that rabbit hole with you...nor will I find another sucker....and another topic.

Yes i can read and comprehend sources..... There are a couple of pipelines in discussion right now, yours the caspian sea pipeline, an oil pipeline, which was suppose to run through Afghanistan and has not been built nor is it planned to be built..... two very different pipelines.....but these are the only pipelines mentioned for Afghanistan.....if you have a different source please provide....I did explain the difference between the two, thought you would be able to keep up..... There is the TAPI pipeline which is a natural gas pipeline which is suppose to be routed through afghanistan, which for the most part is built "with the exception of the Afghanistan portion" which as of 2016 has not been started, in fact it may never get started, as the security levels are not even close to being able to build pipelines....which take enormous resources to protect....and Afghanistan does not have those resources....

You still don't get it, The US white House see's leaders from all around the world, some good, some bad....in fact our own PM has spent a day there , Can we say for sure what was discussed, or set to stone by signing paper work....No and yet some how you want us to believe because they were in the US that something very bad was agreed to, and when the US could not get what it wanted it used force to do so.......You have no proof, no facts just a bunch of maybes....maybes are not facts.....there guesses, they are false news....But then again iof you had the proof the US would be in hot water with the UN and inter national law would it not..... I've asked for proof or facts and you've provided nothing of any substance.....You are bringing these maybes forward, it is up to you to prove them.....

We live in a nation were we have access to world class education, health care, access to the free market to purchase anything your imagination can think of. I can get a burger in under 5 minutes, or a 15 course meal. we can raise our kids in almost complete safety, we have plenty of job opportunities, our standard of living is second to none.....And with all that there is..... still some saying we can not share any of that, we can not use our resources to maybe change some of that.....because it is dumb and wasteful....

At the very most all you have here is that various US government agencies and US companies courted the taliban government to get a pipeline. That does not string together all the dots from courting for a pipeline to a massive leap, we are going to war, and we'll take a pipe line.... But what of the proof, the smoking gun....still nothing....no proof a lot of reading material from the same source , repeating it a million times does not make it true.... But what about reality.....US forces did invade, over threw the Taliban regime, help install a democratically elected government, stayed in country to assist the new government with security concerns, Spent bils, hundreds of bils on the conflict and in rebuilding the nation....Now here is a crazy point , why would anyone spend hundreds of bils to secure resources that cost half of that.... the reality is that there is still no pipeline built, never is going to be one, sure alot of people have spent funding for one, but the threat remains it is not secure enough to build much of anything .....And now the US is withdrawing or withdrawn most of it's combat power, still no pipe line, oh and still no mines to extract all those trillions in minerals either.....Now this may be a stretch but maybe , just maybe the US went in there to do exactly what it said it would, relieve the taliban from its control over Afghanistan, help stabilize it and move on....all with out building a pipeline, or digging up all those minerals...i mean actions speak louder than words.... Now before you say the US will come back later in the night for all that stuff, lets keep all this based in reality..... Unless you got another source that can be used as proof that the US, CIA , what ever agency went to war to gather a pipe line, and extract minerals then your theory is dead...and we can finally file this once again in conspiracy theories...area 51.

No, what i am doing is waiting for you to impress me with solid piece of evidence that makes your claims instead of news articles from i'm not sure where that do alot of talking but provides no evidence.........right now your running around squawking about a pipe line that never got built, in fact the powers to be built it just not through Afghanistan.....now there is also talks about a natural gas line it has been built , with once exception not through Afghanistan that was in 2016... So to even suggest that the US entered this conflict because of the pipe line is false and misleading.....it is so crazy to think that the US would spend multi bil dollars running a conflict when the return would be far less than that..... Who cares if the taliban is being wined and dinned bu the CIA, shit they talk to everyone .....But like i have said before it does not prove anything, as the vists have yet to be put into context.....you and your sources have yet proven the trips mean anything....papers, documents, conversations.....you got nothing except someone drawing a picture by following the dots and making guesses.... Most of your sources did not show up....maybe ,,,,maybe they have something in them.....If what you said is true ....then the evidence must be out there....but lets ask a question first......why would the US be playing multi sides, one with the northern Afghanistan , another with it's own forces, and now as you put it with the taliban ....sorry try again....prove it...

The key word here is MAY have.....when you press the link it does NOT give any evidence of such an activity.....it does imply and provide evidence that Pakistan's ISI was funding and running the show, not the US CIA..... And yet there is NO classified report......or it would have been splashed all over this web page.... please try again....maybe provide a copy of the report, or maybe ask the question why would anyone give a copy to Turkey to start with....