Army Guy

Canadian Patriot: I take it your talking about the Gas attack on Halabja a Iraqi kurdish town thought to have Iranian soldiers in it. There are plenty of western links that blame the Iranians for this attack and discount the eye witiness reports that they clearly seen aircraft with Iraqi markings on them dropping bombs. Not arty shells as the western intel state( and we know how good thier intel is) The same group that reported WMD in Iraq. But this is not the only town that was gassed over the years, who are you blaming those on the Iranians as well. Aside from the gas attacks, Sadam and his motly crew are responsable for killing thousands of kurds with conventional arms. some of the links below compare his actions with the Kurds to the Nazi's death camps. Kurds. proof of attacks My Webpage Dutch court My Webpage Where do you get your info from, One hiroshima bomb is equal to 13,000 tones of TNT, the best the americans did was 15,000 tons of bombs, not TNT on the opening day. Your calculations would mean Coalition forces dropped 3,250,000 tonnes of TNT in 24 hours. when in fact the entire war the entire coalition dropped on 88,500 tonnes of bombs. NOT even close. www.danshistory.com/operations.shtml#storm www.mindfully.org/Reform/2002/American-War-Airpower.htm Can you prove this number or do you make this up as you go along. Can you prove that Iraq is better off with out Sadam. And are you saying we should have left him alone. Your whole post is suspect...He uses his opposite hand in the video alot He is also wearing a "gold" watch which is again'st his beleifs. Perhaps it was his stunt double....

uOttawaMan: My piont was this if students are to be armed then they would need the wpns training. Training someone to use a pistol does not take months or weeks, you might at the very most add 2 weeks to your training time and that would be a very intensive training period. That being said are the RCMP (volenteers part timers) armed, last i heard they were not. This would all that would be needed if you were working with a full time ARMED person. If the crossing is to dangerous to allow this partnership, then perhaps using students to fill these postions should be looked at. And more full time postions added. Border services is no different than any other department when it comes to summer holidays. Better planning on thier part would be required to ensure that there was an adquate number of full time gaurds available to handle any situation that may come up. Hicksey: That was not my piont, i was responding to Uottawaman post that wpns training would add to his training time. my response was without this training it would be a disaster waiting to happen. And yes our government has acted irresponsiable, for not allowing our border gaurds to be armed along time ago, for not ensuring they had the proper equipment to do there job safely. And i did say students should be regulated to performing tasks that do not require them to be armed. If you had read all the posts you'd find that i did say i was for arming our border services.

Uottawaman: Having a part time student armed without having the proper training is a disaster waiting to happen. But there are many diffent options such as leaving those part timers unarmed,paired with an experianced officer that is. There are many diffent forms of non lethal wpns available for students to carry such as pepper spray, a spray foam etc. Or just delegate them to other tasks that do not require them to be armed. There are other ways as well that can improve thier safety, as well as improve the security of our borders, such as reinforcing structures, installing bullet proof glass, Panick Gates to seal of roads. All can be done without our borders looking like fort apache.

Perhaps they should expand on programs that Corrections Canada already has up and running. Such as CorCan (corrections Canada)already produces Office furniture for sale to anyone mostly goverment depts, I'm not sure were the revenue goes, I'm sure the federal goverment gets it's slice. It would teach them a trade, or skill, make good use of thier time spent on the taxpayers dollar.

We've had this debate before, it's actually a "no brainer". Arm the border gaurds, give them the tools they require to accomplish thier jobs safely. If the biggest obsticle in arming them is training, then train them whats the big deal, it can be done by any policing agency be RCMP or local. In a short time. This is another mess left by our last goverment, and one i hope will be solved quickly by the present one. Nobody should have to put thier lives at risk unnessicarily for this Country. But then again when have we as Canadians been concern about lives when compared to a dollar.

Drea: As a member of the military, I'd like to know what it is your actually trying to say here. That we are better off dying in Afganistan...A mission that has brought more grief to the liberal party than any other mission due to poor equipment, not enough equipment, which can be attributed to the deaths of some of our soldiers, or atleast putting them in undo harm. Or we'd be worse off Dying in Iraq under the conservatives that would actually spend more money ensuring that we would have at least safer equipment and in quanties that we need. or so they say.

Fleabag. I tend to disagree, the last thing DND needs is another Non military dept to operate, we already have far to many taskings such as Search and Rescue, emergency prepardness(both provincial and national levels), Dart, to name a few all suck funds out of an already cash strapped dept. DND has spent alot of time and money rebuilding the depts image. The last thing we need is some bad press over taking corrections canada jobs, or killing an convict over something stupid. The military does not have the training to Handle civilian prisoners who are extremely spoiled with our tax dollars. Nor does it have the man power. I may be wrong but i believe thier are more correction officers than actual military members in all 3 elements. Yes the Military does have it's own prison for personal charged with non federal crimes only. and trust me there is no comparison to any of our civilian prisons and i'm talking about our maxium security facilities. And thats after human rights toned it down. I think the only measure is to give the Corrections dept the mandate they need to solve thier own problem. getting the Government to pass new tougher legislature taking away more of thier rights once convicted and sentenced. That combined with tougher sentencing and actually doing the time they were sentenced for. Getting time off for good behavior is stupid, want to be a badass then add more time on to his sentence. Be a good boy and get out when your time is up. Military prisoners have to earn pionts each day, not enough pionts then that day does not count again'st your sentence. No judge no jury you do another day end of story. As for our youth and thier problems they to need thier own program perhaps even thier own dept. There has been dozens of private ventures that resembles a military boot camp, some have shown good results and i think if we mixed in other specialties like professional therapy, some tough love, etc they may get a program that produces results.

Politika Your joking right, Any military force that was capable of destroying our current military would have no problem in securing the rest of the country...i mean what would you fight them with Snowballs, what would you make your bombs from when was the last time any Canadian actully lived of the land...You can't compare Canada with Iraq or Afgan two totally different cultures. Don't get me wrong i'm not questioning your patriotism just your idea's about stopping a determined enemy.

Cybercoma. Good question, Why work and pay taxes, i mean we have the government social programs to take care of us. And yet for some reason most of the country goes off to work every morning. Can you name one time in the last 100 years were the US had use it's military to protect our nation. I think not. It is not the US that stands on gaurd for thee, But proud Canadians. How many nations in the world today do not have a military of any sort. you can count them on one hand Why is that i wonder.

Yes, i am currently serving in CFB (sunny) Petawawa Ont.

AZIZ. I guess that would depend on just were you practiced your religion, if you were born in Afgan,Iraq, or many of the other radical muslim dictatorships what would your equation read. Islam=Quran + what ever your local religous leader is preaching like hate,Jihad, what ever benifits them. I think because Islam is a religous culture the extremists have taken advantage of this for thier benifit, to convince those who's believes are very strong or those not as educated as most to become extremists in the name of thier religion.

There seems to be some misconceptions about BMD, thier are serveral componets that make up the entire system. A land based system for long range high alt missles (ballistic missles) Another land based system made up of patriot and other Air defense systems to counter low flying cruise and other low flying missles. And a sea based system on board an Aegis type destroyer or frigate. Combined they make up the entire Missle defense system. MDA My Webpage My Webpage There are many portions to this Missile defense system and most work or very close to becoming mass produced and put into military service. That being said Canada was only offered a seat at the table "at no charge" because of possiable future radar sites tying it all in with existing Norad sites. How it all works is in the below link. url=http://www.fas.org/spp/starwars/program/nmd/]My Webpage[/url] So it's not just for those high alt missles but for any incoming missle threat. I think the public have been either mis informed or not told the whole story from both sides the US and Canadian Governments. Those that think that the whole system comes at no price tag to Canada think again. those ground based short range systems and the Aegis systems have a huge price tag and would be required to complete the system ...sort of in for a penny in for a pound. Canada will have to decide what it wants more money, or a total defense and most will agree it's not defense that a large portion of the population wants.

Agreed, Mr hellier was not very popular among'st the Military after unification of the elements.

MAR. No you were right, Diefenbaker did tell Kennedy "he would not put his military on high alert" My piont was that the Canadain Military disregarded those orders and placed thier troops on High readiness because they saw the situation as it really was and were it was leading to, and nuke stand off. DND had ordered it's ships to par take in the blockade to atleast have a seat at the table when the button was pushed. Diefenbaker relented when he found out that DND had acted against his orders.

Mar. I think if you research the Cuban Missle Crisis you'll find that our Military was on high alert, in fact Canadian warships were part of the blockade, these orders came from DND, not the PM.

There seems to be a few misconceptions about our Military out there. There are a few rules to becoming a member 1. you must be a Canadian citizen, 2. must be of the ages of 17 -50. 3. you can not have a crimanal record.( If you do you'll be asked to apply for and be granted a pardon before you apply.) 4. you must be able to pass a physical. 5. you must pass a written,and oral exam. Thats it, Thats all. There are no exceptions at all. The military stop accepting youths ref by the courts some 20-15 years ago because of human rights issues and the whole program really never produced results. Recruit training is designed to weed out those kids with major attitude or social problems in the early stages of training. Human rights and other so called groups have already diluted the training, by reducing standards to fit women, and other ethinic groups to ensure DND remains within our goverments diveristy standards, IE so many women, so many of each ethinic back ground adding kids with thier own problems will only degrade this problem even farther. My piont is that these kids require alot of one on one training, and in a dept such as DND there are no individuals. very little time is spent on training Indiv's and the majority of time is spent on training a team. Those that can not grab the team concept quickly are normally weeded out. Another piont i'd like to piont out , that yes DND is very undermanned but getting recruits is not the issue there are thousands that want to join and serve thier country. The problem is training them and housing them once they are in. There is just no infra struture available to train them as fast as we need them. This problem is not going away anytime soon unless the Government throws money at it. Finally one question you have to ask yourself as a tax payer is do you want some one operating multi million or billion dollar equipment designed for war, that has a major social or attitude problem.

Some very interesting pionts have been brought up in regards to our military which truely needs some form of intervention be it by the people (voters) or the government to make it once again a viable department. I think Black dog hit the nail on the head, DND needs a white paper that clearly defines what the people of Canada want from there military. And the mission creep he talks about is already there" to many jobs not enough equipment to accomplish them all". All that being said, years of neglect have left the dept in very sad condition and what every equipment is bought would be welcome by the Dept. Again i agree with black dog, peacekeeping was not the primary role for the Department, yes we became good at it ,but with the decline of the powers of the UN ,UN sponsored missions have not produced the same results as say peace making missions run by NATO. I think that the whole peace keeping process should be redesigned to include a vast array of depts. Limiting DND's role to short term peace establishment then leaving. Allowing the other depts to carry out thier functions. Agreed, But there must be some piont or time that someone has to take action. Hopefully this action comes before it becomes mission impossiable"just to expensive to revive" I think that this statement is a little unfair, Gen Hillier is Army but is surrounded with the commanders of each element whom i'm sure aticulate each elements needs and wants. with peanuts for a budget i think he's done well with what he's had to work with. That being said the cheapest element to outfit is the Army, most single Army contracts are not worth the billions that say a frigate replacement project or F-18 replacement project would cost. Or what the government is willing to shell out.

That explains it all, a worldly quote from a man who wants to continue running our nation. I hope that is not the best Canada can do and i hope the rest of Canada speaks through thier votes.

Black dog: There is already a federal dept and provincal depts of emergency preparedness which is funded out of the Military budget. Accounting for just over 1/4 of DND's total budget. As a cost saving measure it was agreed to use military equipment and personal for reasons already stated in other posts. You'll have to admit the military does go along way in carrying out our foreign policies.

I agree that spreading already existing and established Regular force units or formations across the nation is "not" the answer, and would only dilute thier effectiveness in any situation , be it preparing for combat or national crisses. Unless they were new formations that were created. On the other hand Harper never really was specfic in what "Military forces he wanted in our cities" regular or reserve forces, and perhaps we are all just assuming that is what he meant (putting in regular force units) . The Dept of national defense has been saying for years that it wants to increase the size of our reserve and Militia forces. These forces are already located in most if not all major popualation centers across the country. Yes they have guns, Tanks, even aircraft. and have had this equipment for decades. They are postioned in each of these population centers because that is where thier primary jobs are, being a reserve or part of a militia unit is thier secondary job. Thier not there to control the population, or in case of a national crisses ie forest fire, Ice strom, or flood, those units are there because that is where the population is based. Mr. Martin is not only the leader of the liberal party but is responsiable for all it's actions including all those that happen in the election campiagn, But he is also the PM of this country...of which the Department of National defense serve. His comments depict every man,women that has served or is currently serving our country as blood thristy beasts that threaten the very people they are paid to serve, and are unworthy or uncapable of living side by side with the rest of ordinary citizens of Canada. These comments only go to prove what the Liberal party truly thinks about the men and women of our Armed Forces. That risk thier lives on a daily basis putting our governments words and promises into action. These are not the comments expected of the leader of this Nation, but words of a desperate liberal trying to stay in the pork barrel.

What is the difference, the Navy is still part of our Military forces is it not. And your right it is all about perception and interpretation exactly what the liberals wanted. The fact remains that our military did assist the US naval forces during the time the invasion took place. Jordan

When as a nation have we used our military based on a bad chioce ? And i can't say with 100 % certainity that it will not happen in the future, However most of our operations that Canada has been involed with have been on a volunteer opition, if a soldier does not fully agree with the operation he simply does not volunteer. Yes there has been periods that this country has ordered it's citizens to war. but even then there are clauses placed in there to allow an indiv an out. When have we as a nation gone to war or sent troops solely based on the fact we were protecting the interest of the wealthy and powerful? As for the OIL aspect the western world depends on oil for it survival, not only the rich and powerful but everyone. The war on Iraq is not going to change that. Nor is it going to solve that, How much oil is actually imported from the outside the US, i think you'll find those numbers very small. Not every military operation is the same, but for the most part Canada as a nation has taken part in some noble operations. Which have primarily been about rights and freedoms if not ours then someone elses. Everyone is going to have different reasons for joining up and fighting. What freedoms would we have now under Nazi rule. Again you are entitled to your opinon. I believe this nation needs a force of people that are willing to stand-up to those that may want to take something from this country be it our freedoms or rights. And when man finally grows up and decides it's armys are no longer required i'll be the first to turn in my uniform.

The task force you are talking about was part of a US naval battle group which included an A/C carrier. what do you think that battle group was doing in the gulf if not supporting the invasion. Intercepting and boarding what suspect ships ( Iraqi ships) If that is not enough why are we now training Iraqi military and police forces in Jordan. We are involved, our goverment is just not telling you the whole truth. All this info is available on the DND web site.

A tool of the goverment perhaps yes, but no more than any other government worker. As far as our government is concerned and the powers to send us into combat your right we are at thier mercy to a piont , but we rely on the voters to keep them in check. Besides soldiers are not just going to throw thier lifes away for a governments bad chioce or politcal asperations. you've lost me, what privileged place are you talking about, Europe not under german control, or the rest of us under Nazi control. what have we siezed from someone else to earn our priviliged place. How do you get that (above) out of what you wrote (below) And as you've pionted out above you sure they protect our freedoms and are making a difference why not just say "thanks" and save your comments for those that deserve it. I agree that war is not to be glorified, and is the result of the lack of strong government leadership. but then your statement was not about war, but soldiers and citizens that believe there are things worth fighting over. such as rights and freedoms. Suckers."

It is relevent, it has everything to do with it. They joined because they believe that they can make a difference, that there sacrifice will be worth something. But, for the most part, it doesn't. And it's not. Thats your opinion, i have been doing this for over 26 years now, and i still believe that every endevour Canada has taken place in has been worth it. every last minute of it. To you it's a lie, to us that do it everyday it's what we believe in, and we do that as strongly as you do, in disbelieving it. when they stop believing they'll stop and get out of the military. Soldiers are not a bunch of mindless robots, everyone is giving the option to get out, war time being a little different but no one can make an indiv fight if the don't want to. Those that do believe what they are doing is right. Then what are you saying other than they are "suckers" implying that all our present freedoms that we take advantage of daily where not worth the price they paid for them. What price would you pay for any if not all the freedoms you enjoy today. What is it you are trying to tell me, that you don't like your current freedoms because the price was to high. And to achieve our current freedoms it took military intervention. the western world got to where it is now, through alot more than it's supremacy of arms "canada a perfect example" but it does retain it's current freedoms because it's military acts as a deterant to others. I think you watch to much TV, And regardless of what i post i will not change your mind, as someone has feed you a line of shit and you've bought it hook line and sinker. Soldiers are regular people just like you they have families ,dreams , asperations just like the rest of Canadians why is it so hard for you to believe that those that wear the uniform are going above and beyond that the everyday Canadian citizen does and they do it because they believe that what they are doing is worth it. they believe it is going to improve someones life. Stop thinking that the world is full of roses ...it's not ..it's full of thugs, scumbags who would not think twice of taking what every you have, and put 2 in your forehead just because. Someone has to stand up . Draw a line in the stand and tell them cross it and pay the price.