Let's leave this ill-considered military mission altogether
The U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State (ISIL) is in utter disarray. Things are going so badly that some Arab members of the coalition who left the bombing campaign in Iraq and Syria to focus on Yemen now say they are ready to come back and provide ground forces. In the meantime, believing that President Bashar Assad is the best bulwark against ISIL, Russian air strikes are decimating coalition allies on the ground, blowing up the fragile UN-backed peace talks at the same time.
ISIL is proving so difficult to dislodge that the U.S., under cover of outrage over the November Paris attacks, has relaxed its targeting restrictions. And ISIL advances in Libya have the U.S. and U.K. openly musing about extending the war into that country. An urgent course correction is long overdue.
The non-military aspects of the new Liberal plan, including diplomatic peacemaking in Syria, and promoting regional stability and improving Iraqi governance, are important steps in the right direction. However, the military components of the Liberal response, which involve not only an expanded training role but continued participation in the air campaign through reconnaissance and refuelling, will only heighten Canadian involvement in an ever-deepening quagmire.
Since the announcement by Justin Trudeau that Canada would be withdrawing its CF-18s from the coalition bombing campaign, there has been an incessant media drumbeat demanding that he rethink this decision. The demand only intensified after the Paris attacks, as if the decision to change Canada’s role in the coalition was based on a misunderstanding of the threat and not on a desire to be more effective.
The federal government can be rightly castigated for not articulating more forcefully its reasons for wanting to adjust the role. But this does not excuse the failure of the Canadian media to consider the actual effect on the ground of the bombing campaign.
The so-called coalition “victories,” in which cities such as Kobane and Sinjar in Syria, and Ramadi in Iraq, are “liberated” with the help of massive air strikes, have resulted in the destruction of these cities. They are reduced to rubble, leaving nothing to house or sustain returning populations. Yet the American secretary of defence has made clear that this is his plan for cities such as Raqqa in Syria and Mosul and Fallujah in Iraq. If this plan is carried out, then the almost certain result will be far fewer habitable cities and far greater numbers of displaced, destitute populations.
Mason: Let’s leave this ill-considered military mission altogether | Ottawa Citizen
The U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State (ISIL) is in utter disarray. Things are going so badly that some Arab members of the coalition who left the bombing campaign in Iraq and Syria to focus on Yemen now say they are ready to come back and provide ground forces. In the meantime, believing that President Bashar Assad is the best bulwark against ISIL, Russian air strikes are decimating coalition allies on the ground, blowing up the fragile UN-backed peace talks at the same time.
ISIL is proving so difficult to dislodge that the U.S., under cover of outrage over the November Paris attacks, has relaxed its targeting restrictions. And ISIL advances in Libya have the U.S. and U.K. openly musing about extending the war into that country. An urgent course correction is long overdue.
The non-military aspects of the new Liberal plan, including diplomatic peacemaking in Syria, and promoting regional stability and improving Iraqi governance, are important steps in the right direction. However, the military components of the Liberal response, which involve not only an expanded training role but continued participation in the air campaign through reconnaissance and refuelling, will only heighten Canadian involvement in an ever-deepening quagmire.
Since the announcement by Justin Trudeau that Canada would be withdrawing its CF-18s from the coalition bombing campaign, there has been an incessant media drumbeat demanding that he rethink this decision. The demand only intensified after the Paris attacks, as if the decision to change Canada’s role in the coalition was based on a misunderstanding of the threat and not on a desire to be more effective.
The federal government can be rightly castigated for not articulating more forcefully its reasons for wanting to adjust the role. But this does not excuse the failure of the Canadian media to consider the actual effect on the ground of the bombing campaign.
The so-called coalition “victories,” in which cities such as Kobane and Sinjar in Syria, and Ramadi in Iraq, are “liberated” with the help of massive air strikes, have resulted in the destruction of these cities. They are reduced to rubble, leaving nothing to house or sustain returning populations. Yet the American secretary of defence has made clear that this is his plan for cities such as Raqqa in Syria and Mosul and Fallujah in Iraq. If this plan is carried out, then the almost certain result will be far fewer habitable cities and far greater numbers of displaced, destitute populations.
Mason: Let’s leave this ill-considered military mission altogether | Ottawa Citizen
