Iraq from an opinion page

Mulcair on Iraq: 'We think it's wrong for Canada to be involved

NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair says his party would pull Canadian troops out of Iraq if elected, as the party does not think Canada should be involved in a U.S.-led war.
While the NDP has opposed the current Canadian mission in Iraq, Mulcair clarified the party's plans for the mission should it form government on CTV's Question Period.
"If they (the government) extend (the mission) for a year, despite our opposition to it, yes, when we form government on October 19, we would bring our troops back home," Mulcair said

In particular, Mulcair took issue with the fact the mission against ISIS falls under U.S. leadership.
"When it is a UN mission, when it is a NATO mission, we are open to it. But here, this is an American-led mission," said Mulcair. "We think it's wrong for Canada to be involved."
Proposed mission extension, expansion
Mulcair's comments come as the Conservatives prepare to present a motion in the House of Commons next week to extend and expand Canada's involvement in Iraq.
Although Harper did not clearly indicate whether that expansion would mean Canadian troops going into Syria, he said the current mission has “laid open” the possibility of doing so.

While the NDP has said it will not support the mission extension, the Liberals have not been clear on their position – and they fully admit that.
"We haven't taken a position yet," said Liberal Defence critic Joyce Murray on Question Period. "It's speculation right now as to what the government is going to propose."
While Murray said the Liberals think Canada should play a part in the fight against ISIS, she refused to say what kind of role the party would entertain.
Liberal MPs were split on the Oct. 7 motion authorizing Canada’s current six-month mission in Iraq, which expires April 7. Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau voted against it, urging Canada to provide humanitarian aid to those displaced by the conflict instead.
Now, the Liberals are being accused of flip-flopping on the issue.
"We're going to watch the Liberals reinvent themselves here, I suspect, because they have put their wet finger in the wind and have noticed that Canadians are supportive of this mission," said James Bezan, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Defence.
While Bezan called for multi-party support of the mission extension, NDP Deputy Leader Megan Leslie said her party isn't budging on its opposition to the proposal.
"It looks to me like the prime minister is willing to sleepwalk his way into a wider mission here. We went from having a one-month deployment to assist, and now we have troops on the frontlines and there's potential to drop bombs," said Leslie.

Canadian troops deployed to Iraq last September to join U.S. troops in advising the Iraqis on how to address the threat posed by ISIS. Later that month, Canada received a request for additional support from the U.S. government. Following a debate in the House of Commons, the government announced in October that Canada would help conduct air strikes and continue to train Iraqi troops for six months in a non-combat role.
But the government faced heavy questioning about the “non-combat” mission when the Canadian Forces revealed in the new year that Canadian troops had exchanged fire with ISIS. Concerns grew when the first Canadian soldier, Sgt. Andrew Doiron, was killed in a “friendly fire” incident earlier this month.
It remains unclear what the expansion and extension of Canada’s mission in Iraq will look like. Those questions will be answered when the government tables its motion in the House of Commons this week.
A role for Special Forces
Retired Canadian Maj.-Gen. David Fraser, who commanded troops in Afghanistan, told Question Period that the Canadian Forces have the ability to expand its role in the fight against ISIS. And he said Canada absolutely has enough fighter jets to expand its role in the region.
"Just because we've got ones that are in Iraq doesn't mean that you can't use those ones over in Syria if they decide to go over there," said Fraser. "The other (option) is you can actually put more fighter (jets) into the theatre to do both missions simultaneously."

Fraser said Canadian Special Forces could also play a role on the ground in Syria, such as laser-guiding potential air strikes.
Fraser said Canadian military planners have probably presented a number of options to the government for a mission extension and expansion. One possibility, he said, would be to replicate the current Iraqi mission in "adjacent regions."
"They'll give the political authorities as many options as they can to pick and choose what they want, with the advantages and disadvantages of each one," said Fraser.
But Fraser still has a major question about an expanded role, especially into Syria: "Which fighters are we going to align ourselves with?"
And if the government does expand the mission into Syria, Fraser expects them to deploy more Canadian troops.
"69 Special Forces in Iraq are doing a great job. But trying to expand the mission to another region will probably extend the capabilities of the 69 beyond what they're capable of doing. You can't be in two places at one time."


http://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/mulcair-on-iraq-we-think-it-s-wrong-for-canada-to-be-involved-1.2291716

Rags, while I agree that JTF2 guys were not the right choice to send over there, because the vast majority of them are shooters, not advisers. It would be buttering a piece of bread with a samurai sword, then being surprised that the bread didn't survive the ordeal. But I doubt that these guys were going for a joy ride. They were probably on a government sanctioned mission. The kind of mission that if this incident hadn't happened, we would never have been told about. That is the nature of JTF2, to go places that you are not supposed to go, do the job, then get out without leaving a footprint.

We have a responsibility to assist other nations with there protection from forces of evil it is just the right thing to do a good people. What we do to assist them is the key. The current mission is proper.....JTF2 as usual are being cowboys and showing their immature incompetent ways again by breaching the rules and playing silly dumb bugger at the front in a combat war that is way way beyond there knowledge or capabilities. Not to mention it is not part of the mission.
In the words of the Col commanding the Peshmirga....they are not to be at the front with us. This is a front line there is no training happening here. They should not have been trying to get to the front line.

So yes we should be there but as the government agreed only to train....that does not include sneaking to the front to get a shot in at ISIS.

Should we expand the mission......no

Rags

MOAB on every city then you dont have to wait so long to put up the vacant land for sale signs.

Option Nuclear weapons strike , let's get this over with and move this world ahead. It's called housecleaning and that's the only way to clean out that scum.

No let the arab countrys fight it out with isis their cult religion their problem. Maybe then they will update their perverted religion.

Just my opinion here when it comes to sending troops to Iraq, our troops - or any western troops for that matter.

First off when a Country makes a decision to send there troops abroad, regardless of the mandate, if our troops are sent in a combat environment, they are in combat, you can call it a support role, you can call it limited, call it what you will, they have weapons, they are in combat.
The fight against ISIS, front line ? There is no front line in general, the front line is where ISIS wants it to be, and this line can change by the minute, so to me once you land on the ground, you are in the front lines until you board the aircraft to return home.
So once a decision has been made to send our troops into a combat environment, it is important that those troops know that the whole Country is standing with them in showing their support, this bickering back and forth between parties is in no way helping those who need all the support they can get, and that's the troops who are out in that environment.
The decision has been made, so lets focus on supporting our troops.

As far as the effectiveness of the US coalition is concerned, this in my view will degrade ISIS to a limited degree, yes they will do some damage to ISIS, but in no way will they eliminate ISIS - or the threat from ISIS.
Is it better than standing by and doing nothing ? Absolutely.

Will the Iraqi army or other rebels or other army's from the middle east succeed in eliminating ISIS ? They may succeed in taking back some ground taken by ISIS, but this will not eliminate ISIS.

This is a new type of war, and the enemy is a new type of enemy, this new enemy is a real threat to the whole world, which includes Canada.

Personally, I think there's only one way to beat ISIS, and that is to assemble a coalition of several different units, from several different Country's and have it commanded from a purely military stand point, once a target threat is brought forward regardless of where it is in the world, a military decision is made to dispatch what is required to eliminate the threat, there could be many different operations going on all at the same time, we bring the fight to them, with different Countries fighting side by side, to eliminate the enemy, this will not happen overnight, as it will take some time to eventually eliminate this kind of threat.
This may sound unrealistic, and that's fine, but what is going on today is not working, and the longer we wait to change our tactics, the bigger ISIS will grow, and that is in nobody's interest.

Again, just my opinion.

... and let God sort 'em out, shy of Darwin.
Just thinking about Sgt. Doiron...... pinger..

Why are we there, thats a war between a 7th century cult and a 21st century cult let the scummy child raping bastards kill each other off.

The government truthful ,nah!

LEGER: Is our Iraq mission about politics?


Just what, exactly, did people think would go on when Canada sent some of its most hard-core soldiers to the most dangerous place in the world?

Did people really think that Canadian special forces operators would spend all their time in Iraq giving seminars and supervising target practice?

Apparently, we did think that, judging from the reaction to the news that Canadian soldiers got into a deadly gunfight with ISIS militants, contrary to expectations. Somehow, we were all surprised.

But then, the Conservative government told us that the ground mission was going to be pretty low-key, a training adjunct to the mission for the air force fighter-bombers deployed there. Canada would hit the ISIS army from the air and send in ground troops, but that wouldn’t count as a combat mission.

The Chief of the Defence Staff, Gen. Tom Lawson, said the Canadians would be there solely to “advise and assist” the locals fighting their own war.

But if that really was the mission, Ottawa could have sent just about any infantry unit in the army. All have qualified trainers, many with combat experience from Afghanistan.

The government chose to send the elite members of the Canadian Special Operations Forces, the most aggressive war fighters in the army. They are the best trained forces in the army, and the most ready.

The only way to keep soldiers like that out of combat is to base them far away from the fighting, with orders not to engage. You generally don’t need special forces for non-combat roles far from the enemy.

On the other hand, targeting bombing runs from the ground does sound like a special forces mission. And it turns out the Canadians are doing just that, infiltrating enemy areas and painting targets with lasers to ensure bombing accuracy.

Lawson now says that circumstances changed on the ground, which indirectly led to the firefight. No doubt there’s some truth to that, since circumstances change in every deployment.

But to pretend it all happened by accident is a stretch.

Canadian forces are in Iraq with carefully worded instructions from Ottawa. Soldiers don’t cross a street in a foreign country without these formal directions, called status of forces agreements, or SOFAs.

SOFAs govern everything about foreign deployments, right down to where bases can be built and supplies obtained.

To make sure the SOFAs are respected, Canada sends military lawyers along to make sure that troops respect the local laws and the agreements with the host country.

By the time they reached Iraq, the soldiers would also have been issued rules of engagement, which specify the circumstances under which they are allowed to fight fire with fire.

Typically, they can shoot back if they’re attacked. Mere threats don’t cut it.

Those orders seem to have been issued at precisely the time when the government was pretending that the Canadians were only there to train the locals. The mission’s rules and goals should have been properly explained to Canadians, but weren’t.

Now, you can argue all day about whether it is right for Canada to be sending forces to fight in Iraq. Everyone loathes ISIS; there’s little debate on that.

But let’s not pretend any longer that the government didn’t know exactly what those soldiers would be getting into on the ground.

In Iraq, every foreigner is a prime target and Canadians are no exception.

That’s why the government should be clear and truthful about what the army is meant to do there.

Bellicose comments like the prime minister’s last week: “If those guys fire at us, we're going to fire back and we're going to kill them” are made for pure cowboy political effect.

And maybe that’s the real Canadian mission in Iraq. Our soldiers can’t do much to defeat ISIS, but in following orders and doing their jobs, they might help Stephen Harper get re-elected.

http://thechronicleherald.ca/opinion/1265097-leger-is-our-iraq-mission-about-politics   pinger.