They owe us

[George Wallace]

As an aside......didn't we just discuss this about a week ago and turf it out with the bathwater then?


http://forums.army.ca/forums/threads/49752.0.html

 

[cplcaldwell]

Yup, horse dead.

Count down???

 

[HItorMiss]

10...9...8

 

[aesop081]

7,6,5....

 

[HItorMiss]

4....3....2....

 

[CrazyCanuck]

I really didn't mean to bash our allies I just thought that friends should be there when the going gets tough, I apoligise to all offended

 

[aesop081]

1.......

 

[cplcaldwell]

I don't take offence, it's just not the way we think...

and

0

 

[dglad]

You know it is nice to have 'selective memory'.  Seems to me that the Canadian Government did exactly the same thing to NATO back in the 1990's.  We pulled our troops out of Europe and said we would send money instead.  We pulled out of Cyprus.  We have pulled out of the Balkins.  We are pulling out of the Golan.  Nice glass house we live in.

There's nothing wrong with winding down missions.  Pulling out of Cyprus, the Balkans and the Golan aren't bad things...eventually, we DO have to back out of missions when it makes sense to do so, because we simply can't maintain large forces in these places forever.  In Bosnia, for example, it makes more sense for the European Union to take over the mission and, in turn, scale it down until, ideally, it's no longer necessary to maintain significant military forces in the theatre at all.  You can revert to what amounts to a monitoring mission, with some "over the horizon" forces tagged in the event of a sudden need.  But let the institutions of civil authority (national police, supported by something like an EU police mission), prosecutors, courts, etc. take over running the "safe and secure environment" gig.

Our withdrawal from Bosnia (which isn't complete, BTW; we still have a small cadre of specialist pers there) is an example of a successful peace support mission.  So is Cyprus.  We should be celebrating our withdrawal of major forces in those places as a job completed.  The Golan...well, harder to say, because it's integrated into a bigger and more unstable picture.

 

[aesop081]

  So is Cyprus.  We should be celebrating our withdrawal of major forces in those places as a job completed. 

Cyprus is a failiure........We withdrew OUR troops after 27 years.....the UN is STILL there.....27 years and no resolution to the conflict.....that is NOT success........Success would have been a full and permanent settlement leading to the complete withdrawl of ALL UN forces.

 

[a_majoor]

Sometimes, doing the right thing is very hard indeed. Britain was bereft of allies, armies and even modern military equipment in 1940; withdrawal, isolationism and even surrender was seen as the sensible thing to do by many (maybe even most) people, except for one:

"We shall not flag nor fail. We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France and on the seas and oceans; we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air. We shall defend our island whatever the cost may be; we shall fight on beaches, landing grounds, in fields, in streets and on the hills. We shall never surrender and even if, which I do not for the moment believe, this island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, will carry on the struggle until in God's good time the New World with all its power and might, sets forth to the liberation and rescue of the Old."

If France and Germany are unable or unwilling to come to our assistance, we need to realize that this is inconvenient but not fatal. After all, WE are the New World with all its power and might, and just need to find the willpower to harness the vast wealth of personnel initiative, economic and natural resources that give Western civilization its distinctive edge over all the others.

We are fighting one part of a complex and multi faceted war; we need to defeat the Taliban, train the Afghan people to establish their own robust institutions and security, win the information war at home and prepare to defend our own culture, institutions and nation right here. Outside of these areas, we need to realize there are other enemy actors, State powers like Iran and Syria, hostile institutions like Wahhabi massadras and the ISI, transnational movements like the AQ nurtured and protected by these powers, and third parties like China which seek to use these forces to confound or destabilize the West for their own purposes, and devise strategies that will protect us and confound them.

In the end, we will have earned a reputation that will sustain Canada on the world stage for decades, and have trained a new generation of leaders who have been forged in the unforgiving fire of combat; people who will rise in many of our institutions and take them in new directions and overcome obstacles with the skills they learned in Afghanistan and (too soon, perhaps), in other parts of the world. We will have paid a high price in blood and treasure for these lessons, but will have a knowledge and experience base for our leaders that few other nations in the world will be able to match.

They owe us nothing. This is our fight to win or lose, and while Canadians have never started a war, we have always finished them.

 

[zipperhead_cop]

Not much to say after that. 

 

[ambex]

a_majoor, well said.

cdnaviator, while I am no expert on Cyprus, I have not heard of any fighting there for quite some time.
While not the best outcome, it is a far cry from the worst possible outcome. IMHO.

 

[aesop081]

a_majoor, well said.

cdnaviator, while I am no expert on Cyprus, I have not heard of any fighting there for quite some time.
While not the best outcome, it is a far cry from the worst possible outcome. IMHO.

Agreed. However.....3 decades of peacekeeping anf still going indicates a failiure of the mission's untimate objective.  The peacekeeping troops were sent there to separate the factction and create the conditions required for lasting peace. The intent of these  is that once the conflict is resolved, UN troops leave.  That after this long, the conflict has not been resolved indicates a failiure of the mission's overall objective.

 

[delicious_in_t_o]

Yehh, I really don't want to go there, I have enough trouble ordering at Harvey's without having to make the mental note...

"Freedom Fries, not French Fries,
Freedom Fries, not French Fries,
Freedom Fries, not French Fries,
Freedom Fries, not French Fries...."

and besides who could live in a world without BMW? or Mercedes? or Bratwurst?

Seriously.

We should just do what we need to do and not worry about them.

Canadians make a big deal about doing the right thing, stepping up to the plate, punching above our weight... A wise fellow once said something to the effect that 'you shall be known by the things you have accomplished'. ( I see you there, padre, just proving I'm not a complete pagan...)

We've punted a couple of times in the last fifteen years, time to go for it. IMHO.

Let's do this, we had currency in the world for years based on Vimy and Normandy and a dozen other places. I say shut up and get up the hill, once the place is free and stable we will be able to, without sarcasm or undue pride, say what we mean and have people listen. Really, screw the French, they're just being French, as to the Germans, well, gettin' pounded at your national game twice in one century is enough to make one a bit trepiditious eh?

Next time there's a shite storm. we'll be listened to, and for what we stand for, I'm all for it...

Self righteous patriotic rant ends, over....

AGREED...First with laughter (cause who doesn't stand at Harvey's and for One. Second. Think UH..) and then intellectually I agree I agree I agree!! In some ways due to our past relationships (politically y speaking) with the UK and now the US, Canada seems to be experiencing a bit of the middle kid syndrome (we can do it on our own...but we need your approval KIND-OF).  I BELIEVE in Canada...I believe that though I don't want to see one more Canadian soldier come home other than on his or her own two feet...aren't we exactly the nation to have a real crack at this?

 

[1feral1]

  Personally I would like to see Canadians get this job done by any means necessary and if the French or Germans won't help....well thats just too bad for them.  WE SHALL GET THE GLORY!!!!!!!!! :cheers:

Glory?

Ever been on a two way rifle range?

Ever had a Katyusha rocket pay out a visit?

Ever patroled down a dangerous road in a LAV, with thousands of angry people eyeing you off?

Mate there is no glory in death, killing, and dying, remember that.


Now about Canada not in Iraq, well they are in Afghanistan, and the more soldiers there, the less pressure for the US, allowing them to fill holes elsewhere, so Canada PROUDLY is doing their bit, and paying the price in claret!

Regards from the sandbox,

Wes

 

[dglad]

You're right...perhaps it's a bit of a stretch to call Cyprus a "success".  But I would maintain that neither is it a bad thing for Canada to withdraw, if there are other, more appropriate forces to do the job (Bosnia) or if, as appears to be the case in Cyprus, an interminable "peace" has settled in with absolutely no end in sight...in which case the failure is a political, not a military one (or, to put it another way, a UN-EU-Greek-Turk failure, not a Canadian one).  Greece and Turkey are not fighting over the island, it's true, but the "conflict" remains; things have probably reached the point at which the situation has fossilized and the island might as well simply be partitioned.  But we did our part in Cyprus.

I guess my point is that we should not be too quick to label Canada leaving a mission some sort of "cut and run".  That would be, IMHO, true for present day Afghanistan, but is NOT necessarily the case for past missions, which was what had been implied.  Missions must end at some point, or else we will remain trapped in one or two unit-sized missions and exhausted of any real potential to contribute further elsewhere.

 

[bilton090]

Not now..

but we had troops for Iraq when the conflict started.
We very easily could have gone in with the Americans or at
least supported the war in other ways but we've denounced
the war in Iraq publically.

Now..
However, we are technically supporting the US by freeing up troops
in the sandbox to go to Iraq.  But that is more of a matter of
political conveniences because we can swallow the mission of Afghanistan,
but not Iraq. So I wouldn't quantify it as supporting Iraq but a
lucky coincidence.

      We are supporting NATO !

 

[Trinity]

      We are supporting NATO !

Thanks for coming in late and not reading...

Of course we're supporting NATO.

When giving an argument, or answering a question like I did for someone
else it's also equally important to answer questions or weak points in your
own theory in the same thread to tie up loose ends.  That's what I did.

I didn't say we are supporting the US, I said we are "technically" supporting
the US.. which is GOOD.  Our allies need to know that we have their back.
Yes it is a NATO initiative but that doesn't mean it didn't free up troops
allowing the US to put less in the sandbox and more in Iraq, which, is
technically supporting the US in a back door mannor

Thus, our American friends feel that we are supporting them.

 

[bilton090]

Thanks for coming in late and not reading...

Of course we're supporting NATO.

When giving an argument, or answering a question like I did for someone
else it's also equally important to answer questions or weak points in your
own theory in the same thread to tie up loose ends.  That's what I did.

I didn't say we are supporting the US, I said we are "technically" supporting
the US.. which is GOOD.  Our allies need to know that we have their back.
Yes it is a NATO initiative but that doesn't mean it didn't free up troops
allowing the US to put less in the sandbox and more in Iraq, which, is
technically supporting the US in a back door mannor

Thus, our American friends feel that we are supporting them.

  Was in Wainwright training for 07, some people have to work !