Flush Rob Anders. Keep the plunger handy

Old snoozy?

Veterans advocates say a Conservative MP on the Commons veterans affairs committee slept through their presentation about efforts to help homeless former soldiers.

Jim Lowther, president of Veterans Emergency Transition Services, said he couldn't believe it when Calgary MP Rob Anders slept through the group's presentation at the Commons veterans affairs committee on Tuesday in Halifax.

Lowther said Anders came into the meeting 10 minutes late. "He was putting his arms up and rubbing his face," explained Lowther. "Then he started texting and then just slept for the rest.

"He almost smashed his head on the table, he was that out of it."

Too bad he didn't. Most veterans would have looked at the waste of skin and started laughing.

Liberal MP Sean Casey, who is on the committee, said Anders has fallen asleep before at its meetings. "This happens fairly regularly at veterans committee so it wasn't out of the ordinary," he said. "This isn't the first time."

Casey said it is up to Anders to offer an explanation. But he added: "I wouldn't for one minute accuse him of falling asleep because he doesn't care, although I can see why someone would come to that conclusion."

Let's just accept that a majority of veterans and serving personnel have already figured it out for themselves. The Harperites have good words followed by ... their actions.

The Stephen Harper Party kneels before the High Priestess

As Steve V says, interesting defence of Sandra Buckler.

"She acknowledged she misspoke, and she handled herself in a professional and competent fashion," said Mr. Van Loan. "If everybody up on the Hill who misspoke themselves once in their life had to resign, none of you would be here, I wouldn't be here, nobody would be here up on Parliament Hill."

No, Van Loan, she lied. Further, in an effort to shed her nasty little boss in a better light, she tried to blame the troops. So, what does Van Loan do? He just adds to the lie.

"The question of transfers is one that has always been an operational decision of the military in the field and we aren't going to comment on that," government House leader Peter Van Loan told reporters.

Grab that. That's their talking point. They don't have another one. So when Buckler flat-out lied it had already been distributed as the scripted answer. The great dodge.

Van Loan is full of shit. The operational decision in the field is limited. The longer term decision is one requiring government approval.

Then he adds this:

But Mr. Van Loan said the disclosure of too many details about detainees could endanger Canadian troops.

"To give information about where they may be, whether they're being transferred or not, where they're being held, how many there may be and so on, that's the kind of information that would put our troops in the field at risk."

More bullshit.

Nobody asked for specific details. The general arrangements however, are a matter of public policy. I will repeat, once a combatant has been taken prisoner divulging the fact is a matter of meeting an international standard of conduct. The enemy already knows who has been taken prisoner and they have a good accounting of the numbers. Disclosure of those details does not put any Canadian troops at any more risk than they already are.

In fact, in order to comply with the Geneva Conventions, Canada must disclose who has been taken prisoner and provide for monitoring by a third party. Van Loan seems have missed the point that Canada's policy towards all captive taken in theatre is to observe all aspects of the rules of armed conflict including the treatment and processing of enemy combatants taken prisoner.

The risk to our troops is being created by the Harperites who, in an effort to save their own political asses and hide from the embarrassment generated by their own ridiculous secrecy, are suggesting that Canadian troops are not required to observe the rules which have been driven into the Canadian military ethos from the first day a person enters the service.

Peter MacKay and Stockwell Day are always more than willing to point out that the "enemy" is watching and listening to the debate in Canada. That when we question "the mission" we embolden the "enemy".

They might then want to listen to their own words. If the "enemy" is keeping tabs on everything we debate surrounding Afghanistan, the fact that we are no longer transferring prisoners into Afghan government custody might actually increase the security of Canadian troops.

Despite the rabid howls from the mouth-breathers of the authoritarian right-wing, we have never had a Canadian soldier taken captive or tortured in Afghanistan. If MacKay and Day are right, then the fact that Canadian combatants treat prisoners with the respect due a surrendered combatant might one day translate to the difference, should any of our troops fall captive, between having a Canadian soldier returned whole and alive instead of in two or more separate pieces.

Interesting that Van Loan should express so much concern for the safety of Canadian troops when clearly his first concern is the preservation of Harper's personal mouthpiece, and she clearly doesn't give a red rat's ass about the troops.

Calls for Buckler's resignation will continue of course, but don't expect it to happen any time soon. Dismissing insiders and loyalists is not a Conservative Party trait. And as deBeauxOs said here, Buckler knows where all the bodies are buried.

The more things change, the more they remain the same

Back in the day there was no such thing as a military ombudsman. We had to state a complaint, "at the table", as a Captain's Requestman. (The procedure for the Royal Navy and Canadian Navy are identical).

When the military ombudsman became a fact of life there were two things we all hoped:

1. That the pressure of complaints and the means to provide redress would be somewhat relieved; and,

2. That some of the ongoing irritants which so regularly and consistently pissed-off sailors, soldiers and air-force personnel would be addressed.

It would appear, however, that such is not the case. In fact, given that we now have fairly regular casualties occurring in Afghanistan, "things" may have gotten worse.

The outgoing military ombudsman is criticizing Ottawa for failing to provide adequate support to families of fallen and injured soldiers, especially those with post-traumatic stress disorder.

In an exclusive interview with CBC News, Yves Côté said his office has dealt with many families who complain of too few answers after a death in Afghanistan or little help after loved ones return home with mental health problems.

Here's the point: PTSD is still treated as something embarrassing by the Canadian Forces and there is still a stigma attached to those who visit the "shrink".

The ombudsman was supposed to have provided a fast-track in the resolution of problems. From all accounts, that has occurred, but there are great gaping holes, one of them being the difficulties encountered by families and the ability of families to speak directly to the CF bureaucracy in the absence of the military member.

The article continues with something even more revealing than most people think. Do you know how difficult it is to get a special forces member to speak about anything?

A former member of Canada's elite special operations force told CBC News that while he was serving in Afghanistan, his wife haggled with the military in a dispute over $30,000 in moving expenses.

Brian, who did not want to give his last name, said he returned from his mission and witnessed the toll it took on his wife.

"She had lost a bunch of weight; her skin was grey. She looked sick," he said. "I was making my wife sick because of my job and their lack of support."

He quit the military last July, citing family stress.

"It was the greatest job I've ever had," he said. "It was fantastic, but I love my wife more, and I'm not going to let them treat her like that."

Cote gave it a good shot, but he was fighting a system that provides a lot of lip service to problems involving families. The bureaucracy would rather not hear from families or spouses at all, much less acknowledge their existence.

Côté said Ottawa should make sure families are not ignored or lost in the system, as they are "paying a huge price as a result of their dear ones having served Canada in Afghanistan."

He said he is presenting recommendations on how to address such issues in two reports his office is preparing, to be released this spring.

No one from the department of national defence was available for comment.

Taken in order, Cote is absolutely correct, the two reports will find themselves a place on the famous "shelf of dust" and, I'm not surprized.

Supporting the troops has nothing to do with being a cheer leader for a dubious mission.

H/T CC.

If you support the troops, you don't support Bush

And you don't support the war in Iraq. Take a good hard look at that poll. (click to enlarge).

Now go take a read of Blue Texan and Jane Hamsher.







Funny, you won't find anything about this at PowerTools either.

H/T CC

In order to support the troops, you have to have an inkling of an idea of what's happening to them.

I have to say, this was a jaw-dropper when I read it this morning. Raphael Alexander may be one of the saner members of the right-blogosphere but this little piece indicates a level of intentionally erected insulation or, as Red Tory in CC comments calls it, willful obduracy. (Emphasis mine)

One could write it off if it were one or two stories in the media, perhaps even from news sources considered to have a political bias. But more and more lately we are hearing about Iraq war veterans being cheated out of bonuses, compensation, and basic benefits in all forms of the American media. Not too many bloggers have picked up on this story, but it's an important one to tell. The idea that the U.S. is cheating war veterans first caught my attention in October...

This recently past October?!

I would like to remain polite during the writing of this. That will depend on where my mood takes me, however. I have no particular opinion of Raphael's political posture nor do I spend much time reading his blog. Regardless, I am still asking, "Which frigging rock have you been living under, Raphael?"

I was going to provide a list of links from this blog over the past couple of years which highlight the occasions during which the contributors to this blog pointed out the abysmal treatment endured by US troops at the hands of the Bush administration. I've decided not to do that. Look it up using the search function, or perhaps even Google. Do some digging. We have.

I was going to provide links to a plethora of progressive blogs which are relentless in exposing and making public all manner of injustice perpetrated by the Bush administration on US veterans. But why should I? The blogosphere is rife with posts on the subject. You do the work, if it can even be called that. Your new found awareness should provide you with enough curiosity to expose a litany of horrors with a few keywords in a search engine.

There's more. We have also been very vocal on the problems faced by other troops involved in both Afghanistan and Iraq, notably Canadian and British.

Yet, unlike you Raphael, according to more than one of the Blogging Tories, we don't support the troops. I have personally been harangued by some mouth-breathing cretin who wouldn't know where to find the ejection port cover on a C7 because, in the vacancy that exists between his ears, I am not supporting his beloved troops. I've also watched a few lies in comments as one individual attempted to tell me that he was the Canadian forward air controller responsible for a blue-on-blue US air attack on a Canadian position and that I didn't know what I was talking about. I let that particular dough-head go on believing he had scored a point even though what he purported to be was completely and utterly impossible.

This and thousands of other blogs, Canadian, American, British and beyond, have spent the last few years documenting a stream of injustice perpetrated on the troops by American, Canadian and British governments. From inadequate medical care and misappropriated pay and allowances to equipment that simply doesn't pass muster, the progressive blogosphere has been jumping on each and every instance.

But, apparently, we don't support the troops.

Then you come along, two years out of sync, sporting your little yellow "support the troops" fridge magnet to tell us about the latest Bush atrocity committed on his own armed forces as though it's something new and revealing. There's a lot telling in that.

Look up some of the following items:

- Walter Reed

- Extended deployments

- Day short rotations

- Loss of combat allowance due to being wounded in action

- Involuntary extension of enlistments by implementing "Stop Loss"

- Troops forced to buy their own body armour

- Families forced to pay for lost or damaged equipment of sons and daughters killed in action

- Failure to treat PTSD

Just to name a few of the subjects which the progressive blogosphere pounds on and all of which occurred before you noticed something wrong this recently past October.

But we don't support the troops, because we don't display some stupid depiction of a fridge magnet.

Let me put a lie to that.

I was one of the troops. I spent a whole, very long career as a member of either the British or Canadian Forces and served on exchange with US forces. It's impossible for me not to support the troops. They're my people. And I won't insult any of them with a fridge magnet.

As you are just now becoming aware of the treatment troops receive at the hands of the Bush administration, the progressive blogosphere has been vociferously attacking every injustice against those people that passes our eyes. All the while a palpable silence on those subjects has been evident amongst the Bush and Harper cargo cultures.

So, to repeat Canadian Cynic's words, we really do have the situation under control on this side of the aisle. In fact, it is the progressive blogosphere which has been supporting the troops all along by pointing out every occasion when government has fucked them over.

I suppose we're expected to thank you, that "centre-right" element of the blogosphere, for suddenly waking up and noticing that returning veterans are being treated as some form of waste product by the government which committed them to combat. That isn't going to happen.

No, Raphael, you came along late in the game. Earn your own stripes. They come with a cost. Some of the targets of any expressed outrage will eventually have to be some of the politicians you so admire. Ready to take them on?

If you are, then watch out for the booby traps. If you're not, then please feel free to going back to admiring the little yellow fridge magnet with our blessing.

Shorter Peter MacKay: SHUT UP! Just SHUT UP!

So then, Petey MacKay, addressing a friendly audience, (well, perhaps), turns to page 38 of the Donald Rumsfeld playbook and pulls out the If you don't support the troops (which actually means support my questionable mission) you are aiding and abetting the enemy. Treason!

Waning support for the mission in Afghanistan is a weapon in the hands of the Taliban, said Defence Minister Peter MacKay during a stop in Edmonton yesterday.

"The Taliban are very intelligent - they read newspapers, they go on the Internet.

"When they see Canadian resolve weaken, that's when they up their effort," MacKay said.

That's right. You've heard this all before from the now disgraced Donald Rumsfeld. And then there was this.

The younger generation of Canadians aren't used to seeing flag-draped coffins, he said, and perhaps don't understand sacrifice the way older Canadians do.

Ohhh! I see! It's simply a matter of getting used to it.

Actually Petey, younger Canadians understand sacrifice just as well as older Canadians, and apparently, judging by the statistics, there are a lot of older ones who don't share your Bushian view of war.

So, what MacKay wants you to do is just... shut up! To MacKay, "support the troops" is "support the mission". Anything else is too difficult for him.

I was going to explain it, but this came from comments over at Buckdog and deals with it perfectly.

Having been one in the past, I do support the troops. I don't always support what the government wants them to do, however. A lot of people can't tell the difference between the two, and that's what McKay and Harper are counting on.

Exactly.

And if you want to compare supporting the troops, lets take a little walk back to a nasty rumour that's been floating around the military and naval bazaars in places like Victoria, Edmonton, Ottawa and Halifax, just to name a few.

The federal government is about to stop its practice of giving extra money to Canadian soldiers posted to some of the country's most expensive cities.

Since June 2000, almost half of Canada's soldiers have been receiving a bump in their monthly salary -- the posting's living differential -- for living and working in cities with a high cost of living.

You can excuse the term "soldiers" since sailors and air force personnel are also involved. But, to make a point, that allowance isn't new. It's been around for decades in various forms, Post Differential Allowance being the last mutation. And now, there is more than a strong understanding among "the troops" that PDA or Accommodation Assistance Allowance or whatever you want to call it, is going to be ripped away by a Conservative government which out of the other side its mouth talks about supporting troops and their families.

Now that's support, isn't it? I wonder, MacKay, does the Taliban check out the effects of the Conservative government's morale busting efforts or do they just read me when I bitch that you haven't properly defined what victory is in Afghanistan?

You know what the "older" Canadians who used to wear the uniform (and thus, understand "sacrifice") are telling the "younger" Canadians who now wear the uniform (and therefore don't understand "sacrifice")?

Conservatives will always hack away at the pay and benefits of the armed forces. Diefenbaker did it, Mulroney did it and now you can count on Harper doing it. It's in their blood.*

So, let's see what colour MacKay wears on Fridays after he cuts the pay of some service personnel by up to $450 per month.

* From a conversation across a table full of beer near one of Canada's naval bases. The retired were speaking to the serving. The serving were not happy.

Toy soldiers

Cat, one of our readers who often contributes news items, sent two articles to me last night. I was appalled at the contents because they involved wounded soldiers and marines being treated as though they has failed to complete a peacetime military engagement - the contract under which US armed service personnel serve.

Unfortunately, I couldn't jump on both articles and let loose with my rage at the treatment of individuals who had given everything in the service of their country only to find a level of abandonment in dealing with wounds that would have a profound effect on them for the rest of their lives.

Luckily, Red Tory provided an observation which is completely rational and very close to the mark. Further along, Canadian Cynic made another observation, assisted by the commenters of TPM, who ably point out the continuing pattern of maltreatment returning US veterans suffer at the hands of the Bush Administration.

What are they on about? Well, this and this, and I'll quote from the second one.

The U.S. Military is demanding that thousands of wounded service personnel give back signing bonuses because they are unable to serve out their commitments.

To get people to sign up, the military gives enlistment bonuses up to $30,000 in some cases.

Now men and women who have lost arms, legs, eyesight, hearing and can no longer serve are being ordered to pay some of that money back.

Horrifying, right?

Well not as much as if these people had actually been engaged under a wartime commitment.

Red Tory is very close to being correct. What actually happened is that a financial administrative order exists regarding the payment of enlistment bonuses which requires the inductee complete the defined period of service in order to qualify. Some weenie in Washington, probably with a few bars on its shoulders, decided that that the book over-rode reality and enforced the financial administration regulations to the letter. Hell, it happens.

Except that it shouldn't have.

The day after September 11th, 2001, George W Bush and his gang of sycophants could have exercised the Selective Service legislation and re-started a draft. Honestly, there would have been almost no complaint. That would also have required any domestic tax increases to be set aside until "hostilities" were completed.

But rather than declare war on a country and then mobilize the entire union against a common enemy, Bush and crowd chose to pursue an unchanged domestic agenda and use, what they viewed as extraordinarily advanced technology and a relatively small armed forces and use that as the means to wage war. Further, there was uncertainty as to whether an opportunity would arise to attack Iraq. Having a drafted army would create problems. The people in that army and those who provided their sons and daughters would demand a full accounting as to why their offspring were off to fight a war that currently had no casus belli. Better to attack with the technologically advance armed forces that were held as peacetime retainers under peacetime regulations.

That decision reflects back on the problems that occured and which now are becoming the common thread for returning service personnel with serious and life-long wounds.

Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld had no idea as to the purpose of the US armed forces nor their sustainability over the long term. They viewed the engagements they planned on getting into as short operations - something which the volunteer armed forces could deal with without having to implement a national system of conscription.

They avoided the World War Two scenario of having troops engaged "for the duration", otherwise known as "Hostilities Only" forces.

What then was not done was the implementation of regulations which would have provided a system of secure benefits to those who had suffered debilitating wartime wounds, The US armed forces were, and still are, administered as a peacetime force with manning ceilings and financial restrictions.

The regulations under which most members of the US armed forces are administered are designed for peacetime and the contractual obligations, on both sides, view completion of contracts as a peacetime condition.

Bush and crowd had no idea what they were getting into, nor did they understand the peacetime impediments placed on the armed forces. To them, lacking even the basic understanding of the purpose of a peacetime force, a retained armed forces was able to fight whatever war the administration wanted to fight. The Bush administration failed to understand the difference between a peacetime armed forces retained as a contingency force and the need, if the administration intended to fight a full-blown war, to expand those forces for protracted military action.

Bushco thought they could walk away with Iraq in a few days without changing the conditions of service for their volunteer armed forces, beyond providing the various combat theatre allowances troops earn for being deployed.

To Bush, Cheney and Rumsfled these were little more than toy soldiers. They would go in, fight and occupy, quickly and easily. No messy draftees, no expensive "hostilities only" troops. And because they were little more than lead figures in a sandbox, there was no consideration given to the lifelong wounds of tens of thousands of wounded troops. They simply weren't supposed to happen so the regulations affecting their engagements were not changed from the peacetime application of the rules.

To Bush, Cheney and the chickenhawks who are running the show, this is nothing more than a game of Risk® engaged from their secure and comfortable desks with the occasional quick visit to a safe area for a photo op with a rubber turkey. The troops are board pieces, nameless, faceless and with no more meaning than a plastic game symbol. Something to be wasted if you loose and something to count up if you win.

So, yes, those who say this was an administrative cock-up are quite correct. But it's because the Bush administration has failed to grasp the gravity of what they have done. Had they done it properly from the start many things would have been different but certainly they would not have had a peacetime armed forces fighting a war with peacetime administrative and financial regulations which fail to meet the realistic needs of that part of the US population which has taken on the burden of the administration's poor decision making.