Open military to non citizens?
- Thread starter Hoid
- Start date
No plausible one for sure!
I just got to wondering if "Curious Cdn" isn't an alternate nom de plume for "Cannuck"! I.Q. seems about right!
That's my philosophy, clean up the shit which could result in a slight change in climate.
It's sort of coincidence (maybe) but we are replacing a contingent from our NATO ally Germany who can't get out of Mali fast enough. This thing is probably happening on a few levels although clearly, it is not a NATO operation.
I thought that the UN would hit on us to contribute Francophone ground troops for Mali as there are so few advanced Francophone armies about and Mali is French speaking. That hasn't happened ... yet.
One has only to look at the RELIEF that floods over NATO countries- and SEATO nations like South Korea and Japan whenever North Korea, Iran, or Russia starts to make noise and that mass of YANKEE ARMOUR and Warthog support craft come forward to support the "allies" who all want somebody else to do the heavy lifting!
One has to wonder just how long Yankees will be willing to rescue the entire world from its own chickensh+t appeasement of thugs and dictators!
And its not as if NATO countries are using the money to pay down debt or build anything useful!
It is all being spent on civil service union Hog salaries and on Muslim illegals who will some day become major security risks that will have European LIE-berals SCREAMING for Yankee aid!
WE Cdns do not have to slavishly follow Yankees into every over seas adventure that comes along- but we SHOULD NOT be virtually defenseless - in the fashion that anti western white hating and Yankee baiting LIE-berals desire!
Is it not an odd coincidence that in the past couple of years we have had well over 100,000 refugess and illegals arrive in Canada and shall we ask if the spike in Toronto gun violence is not simply the result of NON EXISTENT LIE-BERAL SECURITY CHECKS ON THE NEW ARRIVALS?
The Americans like it that way and the building and excercise of their power has rewarded them greatly on more levels than you can count. They are the whining, moaning, richest winners.
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Canada to command NATO training mission in Iraq
CAt the urging of the U.S., the Western military alliance will conduct what's known as a "train the trainer" mission to better develop the skills of the Iraqi army to stabilize the country and prevent the re-emergence of groups such as the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS).
It will be commanded by a Canadian major-general, and Canadian troops will provide the bulk of the headquarters staff and the force that will protect the hundreds of other NATO trainers who are expected to begin their work in July.
The decision addresses two vexing political problems for the Liberal government.
It had committed to keeping Canadian troops in Iraq until 2019, but since the battlefield defeat of ISIS there have been questions about what they will do.
Canadian special forces troops had been training both Kurdish Peshmerga fighters and Iraqi army soldiers in the north of the country, but that program was put on hold following the outbreak of violence last fall when the Kurds voted overwhelmingly for independence.
Ammunition to rebut Trump
Leading the training mission in Iraq, along with a NATO battle group in Latvia, also gives Trudeau ammunition to rebut criticism of U.S. President Donald Trump, who has been insisting allies pay more and meet the alliance's defence spending targets.
Canada has had a small contingent of combat engineers in Iraq, under the NATO flag, instructing Iraqi forces on how to clear unexploded bombs and booby traps. Canada will assume command of a NATO training mission in Iraq, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced Wednesday.
Trump has insisted the alliance do more to counter militants. European members of the alliance have been reluctant to undertake a larger role following the decade-long, open-ended commitment in Afghanistan, which included both a combat and training mission for local forces.
There has been considerable debate at the defence ministers' level about which country would protect the trainers and provide transport.
Canada has had helicopters in Iraq as part of its existing mission. Those aircraft will stay to assist the new NATO initiative.
Rosie DiManno: I hate to say it, but Trump is right about Canada’s military spending
Canada is a welsher state.
(Hold your outrage, that adjective has nothing to do with the Welsh.)
I am speaking specifically about this country’s financial contribution to NATO, the international alliance formed after World War II, constructed around the principle of collective defence. Article 5 of the establishing charter declares that “an attack on one is an attack on all.”
Originally and for four decades the thrust of NATO’s raison d’être was deterring Soviet aggression. With the end of the Cold War, NATO shifted toward helping former Soviet-bloc countries embrace democracy and the market economy.
But now it’s come full circle. Once again, under the militancy of President Vladimir Putin — annexing a chunk of Ukraine, sending troops into the Georgian civil war, intervening on the side of the Assad regime in Syria — Russia is a regional belligerent. Global even, in an era of cyber meddling and mischief and electoral interference.
With leaders of the 29 member nations meeting in Brussels on Wednesday and Thursday, the agenda includes countering that Russian bellicosity, introducing a new training mission in Iraq and counterterrorism support for Afghanistan, Jordan and Tunisia.
President Donald Trump, however, clearly intends to pick up where he left off at their last confab a year ago — knocking ally heads together to shame them into meeting dollar commitments made three years ago (actually the target was first set in 2002): contributing two per cent of GDP toward spending on national defence within a decade.
The whole world was bracing for grenades Trump was expected to toss at the summit, against some of America’s staunchest friends. Before leaving Washington on Tuesday, the president got in a couple of pre-emptive shots across the bow. “NATO has not treated us fairly but I think we’ll work something out. We have paid far too much and they have paid for too little.”
Meaning Europe and Canada.
Less antagonistic than previous declarations Trump has made about NATO allies, such as last month characterizing the U.S. as “the piggy bank that (NATO) likes to take from”. He also recently sent hectoring letters to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and other NATO leaders complaining that too many countries were not humping their fair share of the collective cost and investing too little in their own militaries, a commitment of tax dollars that just doesn’t square well with domestic populations.
Trump wrote that it will “become increasingly difficult to justify to American citizens why some countries continue to fail to meet our shared collective security commitments.”
It’s painful to say this but Trump is essentially correct.
The U.S. provides most of the NATO muscle in funding and troops, shouldering nearly three-quarters of the alliance’s operating budget. NATO’s current annual operating budget is $1.38 billion, $252 million for the civilian budget, and $704 million for its Security Investment Program.
The president somewhat conflates — and misleads — by conflating national defence spending with NATO support. But the point is fundamentally well taken. The combined defence budget of NATO nations has grown by $14.4 billion since 2016, with all but one of the countries increasing their spending and 26 contributing troops to NATO missions. “Sixteen — but not Canada — are on track to spend the NATO target of two per cent of their gross domestic product on defence by 2024,” notes a primer for the summit released by the Canadian Global Affairs Institute.
Canada, sturdy participant in combat and security operations, including a 12-year boots on the ground campaign in Afghanistan and a Canadian lieutenant-general who directed the air campaign that toppled the Gadhafi regime in 2011, is in the middling middle of defence spending, currently at 1.29 per cent of GDP, with a projected target of 1.4 per cent by 2026. On his way to Brussels, Trudeau doubled down on his Trump resistance by reiterating that Canada has no plans to almost double-up on its defence budget, maintaining that the two per cent target is “an easy shorthand” but also “a limited tool” for measuring a nation’s commitment to NATO.
In his usual rhetorically obtuse way, Trudeau said: “There are always perspectives on doing more, and that’s fine, that’s an important conversation to have. But the reality is, the way NATO has been having a meaningful impact wherever it goes continues to be a really important thing, and that’s certainly at the heart of the message I’ll be bringing.”
Trudeau made his remarks whilst visiting Canadian troops at a military base outside Riga, Latvia. A clever photo-op moment, jamming that drop-in on the eve of the NATO summit. Canada has 455 troops deployed to NATO’s mission in Latvia — the alliance’s buffering response to Russia’s annexation in Ukraine — and heads the seven-country battle group. Trudeau further announced that Canada is extending its Latvia mission for another four years, through to 2023, and boosting troop numbers to 540. The prime minister can burnish Canada’s international engagement by pointing to the new Mali mission, which is a UN peacekeeping operation.
Still, there is treasure in blood, potentially — which the Trudeau government has tried mightily to avoid — and treasure in hard dollars defence spending. And if Canada, an original NATO founding member, truly values the alliance in a turbulent contemporary world, then it needs to pony up its proportional share, along with the rest of the laggards. Canada loves multinational alliances; Trump, not so much. Only a year ago he called NATO “obsolete,” though he’s back off that rash dismissal. It’s ironic that some commentators with little appetite for NATO, even less stomach for military interventions — recoiling from Western geopolitical “interests” — actually found an unlikely ally in Trump’s initial NATO skepticism. The president has threatened to reduce the 70,000 American troops currently deployed on the continent if NATO members don’t live up to their spending avowals.
It should be noted, though, that even president Barack Obama urged Parliament: “NATO needs more Canada.”
European leaders were bracing for a showdown with Trump, amidst crises in Britain (Brexit) and Germany (migration and refugees).
Just as intriguing, from a Canadian perspective — insofar as we’re allowed a look-in — is how Trudeau and Trump will contend with each other in their first face-to-face since the disaster of the June G7 summit in Quebec City, wherein the president first agreed to a group communique on trade and then withdrew from it, calling the PM “dishonest” and “weak” in a Twitter tirade.
In any event, Trump seems more dazzled about his one-on-one sit-down in Helsinki next week with Putin. Putin he respects, NATO leaders he doesn’t.
“I have NATO. I have the UK, which is in somewhat turmoil. And I have Putin. Putin may be the easiest of them all. Who would think?”
Who indeed.
CAt the urging of the U.S., the Western military alliance will conduct what's known as a "train the trainer" mission to better develop the skills of the Iraqi army to stabilize the country and prevent the re-emergence of groups such as the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS).
It will be commanded by a Canadian major-general, and Canadian troops will provide the bulk of the headquarters staff and the force that will protect the hundreds of other NATO trainers who are expected to begin their work in July.
The decision addresses two vexing political problems for the Liberal government.
It had committed to keeping Canadian troops in Iraq until 2019, but since the battlefield defeat of ISIS there have been questions about what they will do.
Canadian special forces troops had been training both Kurdish Peshmerga fighters and Iraqi army soldiers in the north of the country, but that program was put on hold following the outbreak of violence last fall when the Kurds voted overwhelmingly for independence.
Ammunition to rebut Trump
Leading the training mission in Iraq, along with a NATO battle group in Latvia, also gives Trudeau ammunition to rebut criticism of U.S. President Donald Trump, who has been insisting allies pay more and meet the alliance's defence spending targets.
Canada has had a small contingent of combat engineers in Iraq, under the NATO flag, instructing Iraqi forces on how to clear unexploded bombs and booby traps. Canada will assume command of a NATO training mission in Iraq, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced Wednesday.
Trump has insisted the alliance do more to counter militants. European members of the alliance have been reluctant to undertake a larger role following the decade-long, open-ended commitment in Afghanistan, which included both a combat and training mission for local forces.
There has been considerable debate at the defence ministers' level about which country would protect the trainers and provide transport.
Canada has had helicopters in Iraq as part of its existing mission. Those aircraft will stay to assist the new NATO initiative.
Rosie DiManno: I hate to say it, but Trump is right about Canada’s military spending
Canada is a welsher state.
(Hold your outrage, that adjective has nothing to do with the Welsh.)
I am speaking specifically about this country’s financial contribution to NATO, the international alliance formed after World War II, constructed around the principle of collective defence. Article 5 of the establishing charter declares that “an attack on one is an attack on all.”
Originally and for four decades the thrust of NATO’s raison d’être was deterring Soviet aggression. With the end of the Cold War, NATO shifted toward helping former Soviet-bloc countries embrace democracy and the market economy.
But now it’s come full circle. Once again, under the militancy of President Vladimir Putin — annexing a chunk of Ukraine, sending troops into the Georgian civil war, intervening on the side of the Assad regime in Syria — Russia is a regional belligerent. Global even, in an era of cyber meddling and mischief and electoral interference.
With leaders of the 29 member nations meeting in Brussels on Wednesday and Thursday, the agenda includes countering that Russian bellicosity, introducing a new training mission in Iraq and counterterrorism support for Afghanistan, Jordan and Tunisia.
President Donald Trump, however, clearly intends to pick up where he left off at their last confab a year ago — knocking ally heads together to shame them into meeting dollar commitments made three years ago (actually the target was first set in 2002): contributing two per cent of GDP toward spending on national defence within a decade.
The whole world was bracing for grenades Trump was expected to toss at the summit, against some of America’s staunchest friends. Before leaving Washington on Tuesday, the president got in a couple of pre-emptive shots across the bow. “NATO has not treated us fairly but I think we’ll work something out. We have paid far too much and they have paid for too little.”
Meaning Europe and Canada.
Less antagonistic than previous declarations Trump has made about NATO allies, such as last month characterizing the U.S. as “the piggy bank that (NATO) likes to take from”. He also recently sent hectoring letters to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and other NATO leaders complaining that too many countries were not humping their fair share of the collective cost and investing too little in their own militaries, a commitment of tax dollars that just doesn’t square well with domestic populations.
Trump wrote that it will “become increasingly difficult to justify to American citizens why some countries continue to fail to meet our shared collective security commitments.”
It’s painful to say this but Trump is essentially correct.
The U.S. provides most of the NATO muscle in funding and troops, shouldering nearly three-quarters of the alliance’s operating budget. NATO’s current annual operating budget is $1.38 billion, $252 million for the civilian budget, and $704 million for its Security Investment Program.
The president somewhat conflates — and misleads — by conflating national defence spending with NATO support. But the point is fundamentally well taken. The combined defence budget of NATO nations has grown by $14.4 billion since 2016, with all but one of the countries increasing their spending and 26 contributing troops to NATO missions. “Sixteen — but not Canada — are on track to spend the NATO target of two per cent of their gross domestic product on defence by 2024,” notes a primer for the summit released by the Canadian Global Affairs Institute.
Canada, sturdy participant in combat and security operations, including a 12-year boots on the ground campaign in Afghanistan and a Canadian lieutenant-general who directed the air campaign that toppled the Gadhafi regime in 2011, is in the middling middle of defence spending, currently at 1.29 per cent of GDP, with a projected target of 1.4 per cent by 2026. On his way to Brussels, Trudeau doubled down on his Trump resistance by reiterating that Canada has no plans to almost double-up on its defence budget, maintaining that the two per cent target is “an easy shorthand” but also “a limited tool” for measuring a nation’s commitment to NATO.
In his usual rhetorically obtuse way, Trudeau said: “There are always perspectives on doing more, and that’s fine, that’s an important conversation to have. But the reality is, the way NATO has been having a meaningful impact wherever it goes continues to be a really important thing, and that’s certainly at the heart of the message I’ll be bringing.”
Trudeau made his remarks whilst visiting Canadian troops at a military base outside Riga, Latvia. A clever photo-op moment, jamming that drop-in on the eve of the NATO summit. Canada has 455 troops deployed to NATO’s mission in Latvia — the alliance’s buffering response to Russia’s annexation in Ukraine — and heads the seven-country battle group. Trudeau further announced that Canada is extending its Latvia mission for another four years, through to 2023, and boosting troop numbers to 540. The prime minister can burnish Canada’s international engagement by pointing to the new Mali mission, which is a UN peacekeeping operation.
Still, there is treasure in blood, potentially — which the Trudeau government has tried mightily to avoid — and treasure in hard dollars defence spending. And if Canada, an original NATO founding member, truly values the alliance in a turbulent contemporary world, then it needs to pony up its proportional share, along with the rest of the laggards. Canada loves multinational alliances; Trump, not so much. Only a year ago he called NATO “obsolete,” though he’s back off that rash dismissal. It’s ironic that some commentators with little appetite for NATO, even less stomach for military interventions — recoiling from Western geopolitical “interests” — actually found an unlikely ally in Trump’s initial NATO skepticism. The president has threatened to reduce the 70,000 American troops currently deployed on the continent if NATO members don’t live up to their spending avowals.
It should be noted, though, that even president Barack Obama urged Parliament: “NATO needs more Canada.”
European leaders were bracing for a showdown with Trump, amidst crises in Britain (Brexit) and Germany (migration and refugees).
Just as intriguing, from a Canadian perspective — insofar as we’re allowed a look-in — is how Trudeau and Trump will contend with each other in their first face-to-face since the disaster of the June G7 summit in Quebec City, wherein the president first agreed to a group communique on trade and then withdrew from it, calling the PM “dishonest” and “weak” in a Twitter tirade.
In any event, Trump seems more dazzled about his one-on-one sit-down in Helsinki next week with Putin. Putin he respects, NATO leaders he doesn’t.
“I have NATO. I have the UK, which is in somewhat turmoil. And I have Putin. Putin may be the easiest of them all. Who would think?”
Who indeed.
Oh, but you voted for the guy that upped the troop numbers in Iraq after he pulled the 6 F-18's out, the guy that volunteered us back into UN peace keeping and sent men and equipment to Mali, who just reupped in Latvia and took over Iraq troop training. Should have stuck with Harper
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Hoid is the TYPICAL LIE-beral!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Hoid spews his fake news about Harper- who NEVER sent troops to Iraq!!!!!!
Hoid conveniently forgets that it was LIE-beral CHRETIEN who sent Cdn troops to Afghanistan!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Hoid forgets that it was LIE-berals who sent Cdns to Afghanistan wearing JUNGLE PATTERN uniforms and rifing in those worn our Iltis jeeps!!!
Hoid conveniently FORGETS that the Iltis jeeps were so worn out that after Harper Conservatives bought heavy armoured personnel carriers for Cdn troops- the Iltis jeeps were then offered to the Afghan army- and they told us THEY WOULD RATHER WALK THAN RIDE IN THAT VULNERABLE OLD CDN CRAP!!!!!
And Hoid is IGNORING the latest news - that Our idiot BOY and his LIE-beral moronic minions have been so shamed by Trump arguments on national security issues that they have decided to replace the 40 year old and worn out Cdn Leopard tanks with newer models!!!!
Hoid is IGNORING the 2 year Defense Dept effort to find buyers for the 50 old leopard tanks!!!! And THERE ARE NO LEGAL BUYERS FOR SUCH WORN OUT CDN JUNK!!!!
Hoid is DELIBERATELY IGNORING the truely dilapidated and utterly rusted out state of the Cdn military!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
And Hoid is deliberately ignoring the fabulous MESS LIE-berals are making of our national security but he is also ignoring the incredible mess that LIE-berals are making of the fight against street crime!!!!
Hoid prefers to spew Fake News about the Cdn military while praying desperately that Cdns will FORGET about Omar Khadr and the $10.5 MILLION DOLLARS in blood money LIE-berals gave Khadr!!!!
And Hoid is also praying we will forget about the total of $37 million dollars given to 3 Muslim Algerian immigrants in yet anothr shameless LIE-beral effort at buying Muslim votes!!!!
Poor Hoid- ALL LIE-beral policy is collapsing in disgrace and his ONLY DEFENSE IS FAKE NEWS!!!!!
Poor Hoid! He has no plan!
Poor Hoid is here simply to muddy the waters and to make his beloved LIE-berals look a little less muddled, less hypocritical and less incompetent!
Hoid has a job that is beyond his skill set!!!!!!
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
What all LIE-berals want is to sneer at Yankees.
To dismantle NATO.
To destroy so called white privilege.
To promote the rise of non whites- in the same way that Lenin and his Red Guards promoted the rise of Russian peasants.
Hoid is what Lenin referred to as a "USEFUL IDIOT"!