It's about time

I suspect I will take a few lashes for what follows. Tough. So is my hide.

Via Steve and Impolitical is a report that Canada's Chief of Defence Staff, General Rick Hillier has been reined in.

My response to that is: it's about time. In fact, it's a day late and a dollar short.

Canada's Chief of the Defence Staff, Rick Hillier, has been told to tone down his political interventions after he spoke out last week on the direction of the Afghanistan military mission, sources have told The Globe and Mail.

“He got his marching orders,” a senior government official said Wednesday. “He was reminded what his role is. His role is not to be the chief spokesperson for the mission.”

That's right. His role is to lead, manage, represent and speak for the entire body of the Canadian Forces. Hillier's blatant drumming for the Afghanistan mission has been unprecedented. No chief of defence staff in Canadian history has been so public, so often in the media, as Rick Hillier. And that is not his place.

The Chief of Defence Staff does not make defence policy. The CDS is a sworn servant of the Crown charged with the responsibility of executing the government's defence policy with the resources provided. If the CDS disagrees, for any reason, with that policy or feels the resources prevent him/her from executing that policy, the CDS is then obliged to inform the minister and the prime minister - not the public. If the government refuses to adapt to the advice of the CDS then the CDS has an option - accept the situation quietly or resign. If resignation is the chosen course of action, once the uniform is off, the former CDS is free to speak as openly as he/she sees fit.

Back in the era of the Cold War the Canadian Forces were suffering from all forms of malaise. Some were internal; some were a result of government policy. At one point, then Chief of Defence Staff, General J.A. Dextraze, was being pursued by the media over his insistence that the rolling footprint (trucks and things) of the Canadian Army was worn out and needed immediate replacement. At some point a compromise was reached and Dextraze, reluctant to become too public, allowed that there would indeed be new vehicles provided to the field army, just not as many as he had asked for.

A reporter suggested, by way of a question, that Dextraze should be unhappy with the result. Dextraze responded by saying, "I'm a soldier. I told the government what I wanted. They told me what I would be getting. That's it. As a soldier, I salute and carry on."

I can tell you that I was among thousands who hated Dextraze for that answer. We felt that all three services, running at full-tilt to keep old gear operational, needed a boost in equipment. But Dextraze was right.

No one in the Canadian Forces is compelled to serve, including the CDS. If one doesn't like the conditions, whether it is the state of equipment, operational tempo, government policy, etc., one can simply resign. But while serving, government policy comes from the government - not the office of the CDS.

If there is anything wrong with the report that Hillier has been told to control his mouth and his public appearances, it is that it has taken so long.

The Conservatives were happy to let him run free amongst the media bazaars when he was spouting their line. Now that he's provided comment which appears to run counter to their communications strategy, they've decided that he should maintain his proper place - a place he should have been required to occupy all along.

The Conservatives have just been given a lesson in structural leadership. There is a reason not to allow military and naval officers to make political comment and to insist that they remain at arms length from the political arena. They're not the policy makers.

Regrettably, Hillier's last comment to the media, which caught the Harperites off-guard, may have been the single most important statement he's made to date: The truth surrounding the state of readiness of the Afghan National Army.

However, we can't have it both ways. I've been calling for a long time to have Hillier withdraw from his overly visible public stance. He has been getting away with it ostensibly because he is extremely popular with the troops and those who unquestioningly support the Afghanistan mission. That's too bad, because the performance of a senior military officer, even the CDS, is not a popularity contest.

This took too long.