Outgoing CJOC commander gagged by government

[The Bread Guy]

Lt.-Gen. Jon Vance becomes responsible for all Canadian troops deployed at home and abroad during a handover ceremony to take place Tuesday afternoon in Ottawa.

The outgoing leader of Canadian Joint Operations Command (CJOC) is Lt.-Gen. Stu Beare. Both he and Vance served with distinction in Afghanistan — Vance during two combat tours in Kandahar and Beare with NATO in Kabul.

Beare was muzzled by the Harper government a couple of weeks ago, preventing him from talking to journalists about the challenges that CJOC and Canada face during this period of global tumult. The general deserved better than this parting order after 36 years of service. During his Afghan and CJOC years he has been responsible for the lives of thousands of Canadians in dangerous places, as well as for spending billions of dollars.

Forbidding Beare to speak was an example of the mindless messaging micro-management that has become one of the Harper government’s least appealing hallmarks. Such orders — and this was hardly the first — have long left the brass scratching their heads. After all, the government is constantly braying about Canada’s glorious military heritage and famously fond of talking as if nobody in the West is tougher on Russian President Vladimir Putin and terrorism ....

Canada.com/Postmedia News, 8 Sept 2014

 

[FJAG]

I have a hard time building up moral outrage on behalf of the NP.

The term "muzzled" is pejorative and nowhere within the article is there any context for what or how Gen Beare was curtailed in speaking. In fact we only have the article's author's word that he was.

Quite simply, CJOC is going into the hands of Gen Vance. The only person who should be speaking about "the challenges that CJOC and Canada face . . ." is the new commander Gen Vance and/or the MND. It would IMHO not be appropriate for Gen Beare to talk to the press on these issues in any event.

To me this article merely smacks of the continuation of the NPs browbeating of a tired mantra. If Fisher wants to find out about Canada's defence issues and challenges, let him ask the Minister - that's the person with overall authority.

:2c:

:cheers:

 

[ModlrMike]

:goodpost:

What he said!

 

[PanaEng]

I disagree. Yes the MND "the person with overall authority" but we, as the public, should be able to get our information or opinions on the state of DND and CAF from other than the conflicted party or the auditor general. Otherwise, how is the general public to know any better than what the politicians spew? How is the debate about defence policy be productive if the people are ignorant about it?

 

[Colin Parkinson]

they may be referring to the new ethic guidelines that recently came out. Here is the PWGSC version http://www.tpsgc-pwgsc.gc.ca/apropos-about/code-cond-eng.html#ch_1

 

[Edward Campbell]

I disagree. Yes the MND "the person with overall authority" but we, as the public, should be able to get our information or opinions on the state of DND and CAF from other than the conflicted party or the auditor general. Otherwise, how is the general public to know any better than what the politicians spew? How is the debate about defence policy be productive if the people are ignorant about it?

Traditionally, in our system of responsible (as opposed to simply representative) government, admirals and generals stayed far, far away from the media, even in war ... even Field Marshal Montgomery, who both understood the value of publicity and courted the media, was very, very careful to restrict his comments to strictly military maters and to defer, mightily, to his sovereign and to his equally publicity hungry political master, Churchill.

The Americans, whose constitution shields the government, proper, from the requirements of parliamentary confidence, have always had a somewhat different system. George Marshall might have been the very personification of rectitude, but Douglas MacArthur was, in fact, in the mainstream of American commanders from Light-Horse Harry Lee through to George S Patton.

But, in a system of responsible government admirals and generals are best kept in the shadows.