Doom IV: Kandahar

A cynical ploy or child abuse? Taking advantage of young boys who play first person shooter video games to entice them to fight and die in Harpers War.
It is obvious that the Canadian Armed Forces are desperate for new recruits.

Teenagers who enjoy first-person shooter video games can now test their aim at Canadian Forces recruitment drives.

It illustrates mock battle scenarios, inviting users to take hold of a variety of realistic-looking military weapons and shoot at a large, nine-foot screen when an enemy appears. The weapons are made of plastic, and make no sound.

It's been set up in the Regent Mall in Fredericton since Wednesday, close to a food court, video arcade and children's play area.

"Their eyes are drawn to the screen and guns. They all want to try it out," said game designer Brad Hetherington.

Players have to be at least 16 to pick up the guns and need parental consent if they are under 18.

The danger is that some of those who play these games and are recruited may get rejected by the military and end up doing this.

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Fight Or Else

Under the Liberals the Canadian Armed Forces were a peacekeeping force. They attracted young unemployed Maritimer's with the promise of careers and job skills. Their recruitment drives emphasized the Canadian Armed Forces non combat role in solving crisis's. Recruitment focused on jobs training, career and used humanistic slogan; No Life Like It . These have been replaced by Harpers war mongering slogan; We Fight.

But unfortunately some folks who joined do not want to fight in Harpers war. They wanted a job.

The Canadian military has released several soldiers after they claimed conscientious objection to serving in wartorn Afghanistan, according to internal records from the National Defence department.

Steve Staples, director of the Rideau Institute, said some are enticed by flashy ads, the prospect of steady employment or the chance to help out fellow Canadians in emergencies. He believes the Canadian Forces should find other roles for those who don't want to fight in Afghanistan.

"They thought they were signing up to help Canada, not fight someone else's war in the Middle East," he said.

Scott Taylor, a former soldier who now publishes Esprit de Corps magazine, said some resist deployment because they aren't psychologically or physically ready for combat or because they get cold feet.

Many signed up to learn a trade or because they thought it would be an adventurous career path -- not to fight a war.

"There was a long time when unless you were in the infantry, you wouldn't be doing any front-line stuff where there might be some danger," he said. "So it was kind of like a lifetime of training for a war you never thought was going to happen."

Employee turnover and loyalty pose serious problems for employers of all stripes. Stress, age or other factors including opportunities for more appealing, better paid work elsewhere have valued and highly skilled people changing jobs at an unprecedented rate.

Imagine the problem the Canadian military faces in keeping its well-trained force together. More soldiers are leaving than in the past.

The reason is evident: the work is hard and the pay doesn't always compare well to what can be earned in the private sector. Despite the fact that recruitment is up, the current attrition rate is hard to accommodate, especially in the Afghan mission.

This is particularly true of our Reservists who have regular lives and joined to be part of an armed forces more interested in peacekeeping and solving humanitarian crises. Now as we run out of regular forces for combat they are being relied upon more and more to fill the gaps in Harpers War. Unfortunately when they return from active duty still do not have their jobs assured them. They have to fight to get their jobs back.

Which is why the petition below is so important to support ,as is support for NDP MP Dawn Black's private members bill.

Black wants to make sure soldiers have jobs at home

While the government talks about helping the reservists the NDP is doing something.

The Conservatives’ Throne Speech promised to look at the issue by consulting with the provinces. However, such consultation is simply unnecessary and is a delaying tactic.

“In January this year, I visited Kandahar Air Field in Afghanistan and met reservists from across Canada. Many of them told me that they were unsure whether their jobs would still be waiting for them when their service was completed,” said Black. “Nobody should have to worry about being unemployed because they’ve chosen to represent Canada overseas.”

Job Protection for

Canadian Reservists

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Hidden Costs of Harpers War

The Harper government does not release the numbers of Canadians wounded in Kandahar.

Now most injuries not reported

A new policy has clearly emerged. Deaths are still reported but injuries are not, unless one of two scenarios exists. The first is if the injury is so severe, it may very well result in death. The second is if journalists already know about it. If a journalist happens to be in a convoy that is hit and sees the injury, they’ll obviously know about it.

Injuries are increasingly frequent these days. As many as four roadside bomb strikes happen each week. Soldiers are being injured in the process, some of them seriously. Some of them will lose limbs. Others will have their lives irreparably damaged. We won’t know. Whether we should know is another question.

So what’s changed? There is the argument that politicians — fearing a further loss of public support for this mission — don’t want to reveal the true number of injuries. Another school of thought is that the injuries have become so routine, the military doesn’t view them as a “new development” and thus not newsworthy (or publicly releasable). A final argument is that there is now so much violence, the deployed soldiers’ would prefer to reduce the publication of bad news that will further worry their families back in Canada.

As the medevac crew was launched on one medical mission after another, we repeatedly saw Canadian soldiers being loaded and unloaded.

The point is this: soldiers have died in this place, but many more have been injured. The United States, which is engaged in its own largely unpopular war in Iraq, still releases injury statistics. Canada does not.

The long term impact of this war is veterans returning with post combat syndrome. Once upon a time it was called battle fatigue, and those who suffered from it were often summarily executed in the field during WWI. We have come a long way since then. Hardly it remains a hidden injury of war and like other injuries occurring to our troops it is to be covered up from the public according to the Harpocrites.

Nearly 400 of 2,700 Canadian soldiers who have served in Kandahar province might have come home with mental health problems, according to a report by the office responsible for the health of deployed troops.

The heavy toll that the war in Afghanistan has taken on the minds and bodies of Canadian troops has been revealed in data, documents and interviews provided by the Canadian Expeditionary Force Command.

In addition to the 63 Canadian soldiers who have been killed in Afghanistan since February 2006, 243 have been wounded, according to the data.

Waiting lists are stretching from a few weeks to months for Manitoba soldiers seeking psychological help, say officials at a Winnipeg clinic.

Referrals from the Canadian Forces are up 78 per cent over last year, officials at the Operational Stress Injury Clinic in Winnipeg said Friday.

Operational Stress, sometimes known as combat stress, is the term used to describe any persistent psychological problem resulting from military service, including post-traumatic stress disorder.

SEE:

Harpers War Costs Another Canadian Life

Kandahar

Afghanistan

War



Job Protection for

Canadian Reservists

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Contracting Out Harpers War

Canada quietly has expanded the use of contracting out and privatization of military operations for Harpers War. Not only is Tim Horton's a private contractor working at taxpayer expense in Kandahar so is SNC Lavalin.

It is Canada's version of Bechtel and Halliburton. And like them it too has been rocked by scandals.But unlike them it is also a war-profiteer making weapons systems and small arms. It processes depleted uranium for weapons use in Iraq and Afghanistan. And your pension dollars help support them.

As this article points out if you want the real date that Canada will remain in Kandahar till, try 2012.

Since Canadian troops deployed to southern Afghanistan in the spring of 2006, the number of contractors working in support and logistics roles has more than doubled to nearly 200.

The privatized support dates back to Canada's multiple deployments in the former Yugoslavia in the late 1990s. Anticipating more overseas mission in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the federal government turned to defence-engineering giant SNC Lavalin, which won a five-year, $500-million contract that has renewal options running until 2012.

The federal government has already quietly opted to renew the contract, which has set renewal dates of 2007, 2009 and 2011.

In Afghanistan, for example, SNC Lavalin-PAE was given a five year, $400 million contract by the Canadian Department of Defense to build and maintain Camp Julien and provide laundry, food and other services to Canadian occupation forces there. And to meet the increasing demand for Quebecois bullets, SNC is building another artillery testing range on Cree land in Waswanipi, Quebec. Opposition to the project is rising in Waswanipi because the range will disrupt an important trap-line used by Cree hunters.

We even have our own version of Blackwater happening in Kabul.

Canada's diplomats in Kabul and visiting high-value targets like Prime Minister Stephen Harper are protected by a group of heavily armed gunmen hired by Saladin Security, a British firm with a long history of secretive and clandestine operations.

Department of Foreign Affairs officials in Ottawa are tight-lipped about the deal struck with Saladin, whose gun-toting employees provide perimeter security, operate checkpoints, serve as bodyguards and form a heavily armed rapid-reaction force designed to move quickly to thwart an attempted kidnapping and rescue survivors of suicide attacks or car-bombings in Kabul.

The department won't even confirm that Saladin's most recent contract - which ended in June of 2007 - has been renewed, but observers of the Canadian embassy in Kabul say Saladin employees remain on guard. Some Saladin guards, in baseball caps and paramilitary uniforms, openly patrol the road outside the Canadian diplomatic compound in Kabul.

But details of the extent of Canada's reliance on a private firm for diplomatic protection are even more scant than the now-controversial U.S. deal with Blackwater Security, the American firm whose hired gunmen killed 17 Iraqi civilians last month while protecting a diplomatic convoy.

Saladin Security, Ltd. is a private military company based out of London and headed by industry veteran Maj. David Walker. The company was orginally established as a subsidiary of Keenie Meenie Services, and financed by John Martin Southern of Blackwall Green, Ltd., in 1978 to handle local contracts. As KMS disappeared from the global stage, Saladin began taking on contracts in the Middle East and Sri Lanka.

They provide military training, weapons procurement, logistical support, post-conflict resolutions, commercial property security, and risk analysis.

Saladin trains the Omani troops and runs their airforce which is flown and maintained almost completely by British personnel. RAF bases in Oman were used as launching pads for American flights into Afghanistan. Saladin, along with KMS, aided the CIA and British Intelligence in arming and training the Mujahideen in the war against Soviet imperialism.

Saladin is currently operating in Iraq.

In 1984, KMS was approved by the British government to train the Special Task Force arm of the Sri Lankan military against the Tamil rebels. The STF was widely reported to have been committing atrocities against the Tamil population and by 1987 KMS had moved their two hundred personnel to Latin America. The British press had reported, though the company denied it, that employees for KMS were quitting their jobs because the Sri Lankan troops were out of control.

During the Iran-Contra investigations, KMS was accused of repeatedly carrying out sabotage operations in Nicaragua that included mining the Managua harbor and destroying enemy camps, buildings and pipelines.

On November 22, 1987 the London Observer's Simon de Bruxelles published a three page proposal from KMS to the CIA suggesting sending small teams of instructors into Afghanistan to train rebels in "demolition, sabotage, reconnaissance and para-medicine."

KMS was accompanied by Saladin Security (a subsidiary) and Defence Systems Limited in their training programs in Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia and Oman.

KMS closed down in the early 1990s, and Saladin began operating more internationally.

The BRITISH ASSOCIATION OF PRIVATE SECURITY COMPANIES (BAPSC) works to promote the interests and regulate the activities of UK based firms that provide armed defensive security services in countries outside the UK.

A Fistful of Contractors: The Case for a Pragmatic Assessment of Private Military Companies in Iraq," by David Isenberg
BASIC RESEARCH REPORT 2004.

Speaking of Blackwater they are used for training Canadian forces used in Afghanistan as well as to train the secret JTF-2 special forces, which have seen action in Iraq.

Select Canadian soldiers have been sent to Blackwater U.S.A. in North Carolina for specialized training in bodyguard and shooting skills. Other soldiers have taken counterterrorism evasive-driving courses with the private military company now at the centre of an investigation into the killings of Iraqi civilians and mounting concerns about the aggressive tactics of its workers in the field.

Canadian military police trained by Blackwater operated in Kandahar last year in support of coalition special forces. Members of the Strategic Advisory Team, which operates in Kabul, also underwent counterterrorism driving training, according to a military official.

The Ottawa-based counterterrorism unit, Joint Task Force 2, has also maintained ongoing training links to the company.

Military officials did not have further details on why Blackwater would be hired, but promised to provide those. Later, however, they did not comment on the matter.

Canadian Forces spokesman Lt.-Col. Jamie Robertson said the military does not discuss its special forces training. But he noted that Blackwater and other firms have been contracted to provide services for other units.

And the Afghan security forces used to protect the PRT in Kandahar are hired guns, euphemistically called contractors, mercenaries by any other name. And they are under the control of warlords.

So what is an occupying army, huddled behind the wire, supposed to do? Well, if you are NATO then you go ahead and pay some trustworthy locals to fight for you. That is, you hire mercenaries. Under the headline, "British hire anti-Taliban mercenaries", the Times of London reports on "newly formed tribal police who will be recruited by paying a higher rate than the Taliban."

Canadian forces, too, are getting in on the action. "For five years Col. Toorjan, a turbaned, tough-as-nails, 33-year-old soldier, has been working alongside U.S. and Canadian forces in Afghanistan as a paid mercenary commander," reports Canada's National Post. "Today, his militia force of 60 Afghan fighters guards Camp Nathan Smith, the Canadian provincial reconstruction team site (PRT) in Kandahar, and guides Canadian soldiers on their patrols outside the base." Toorjan and his armed men "wield significant influence in Kandahar's complex security web", making him a treasured ally, though before 9/11 he was "in effect a warlord", said the second-in-command of Canada's Provincial Reconstruction Team.

The use of mercenaries, it should be noted, runs counter to the International Convention on Mercenaries (1989). Canada, however, along with the USA, the UK and many others, is not a signatory to that treaty.

And the contracting out continues even when our vets retire an go looking for a new job.

OTTAWA, ONTARIO--(Marketwire - Oct. 25, 2007) - The Government of Canada today announced new measures to help retiring Canadian Forces Veterans make the successful transition from the military to new civilian careers. The Honourable Greg Thompson, Minister of Veterans Affairs; Laurie Hawn, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of National Defence; and Bram Lowsky, General Manager, Right Management, formally launched the national contract for the Job Placement Program.

The value of the contract with Right Management is for up to $18.5 million over the next four years.

Right Management is a subsidiary of Manpower Inc. the temporary placement agency that has benefited from government and corporate downsizing. The Conservatives continue the policy of the Liberals of Reinventing Government by downsizing departments and contracting out. When you contract out you no longer have to worry about staffing costs like benefits, pensions, nor pesky union grievances.

Right Management is a career transition and consulting firm operating in more than 40 countries.

Founded in 1980, Right Management was at the forefront of “inventing” the outplacement industry, and expanded globally to match the footprint of its multi-national clients.

Beginning in 1996, Right Management extended into consulting services to help clients address human resource and organizational consulting needs.

Right Management was acquired by Manpower in January 2004.

Manpower Inc. operates under five brands: Manpower, Manpower Professional, Elan, Jefferson Wells and Right Management.

Job Protection for

Canadian Reservists

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