Is there some kind of script that these people are reading from? Fucking hell:
Defence Minister Gordon O'Connor heatedly denied yesterday that a policy rift between himself and Chief of the Defence Staff Rick Hillier is holding up multibillion-dollar purchases of urgently needed new equipment for the Canadian military.
Mr. O'Connor also denied persistent rumours that the disagreement -- over whether to buy short-haul air transports for the mission in Afghanistan first, as General Hillier has said he needs, or long-haul aircraft, Mr. O'Connor's preference -- could lead to Gen. Hillier's departure...
While expressing support for Gen. Hillier, Mr. O'Connor also made no bones about the fact that he, and not the general, is in charge. "We are the government and we set the policy," he said. "The military and the public servants follow our policies."
Great. The civilian in charge of the military publicly slapping down the advice of the actual military leaders. What could possibly go wrong there?
9 comments:
This sounds oddly familiar somehow...
This is how it works in a democracy.
Move to a dictatorship if you want the military to run the country.
Whooooeeee, Wayne, that is some devastating kind of smackdown, yessir. Here, let me try ...
"If you think the war in Iraq is such a great idea, why don't you enlist and go and fight it?"
(Crickets ...)
No, that didn't seem to work. I guess I'm just not doing it right.
That was not a slap down or an attempted slap down. That is a fact. In a democracy, the elected government is in charge of the military.
Why would I go and fight in Iraq? Canada is not at war in Iraq.
Canada is at war in Afghanistan a NATO action.
I have young friends, who are fighting in Afghanistan, right now.
I’m to old to fight, I might pull a Dick and shoot one of our guys.
Wayne: That's how it fails in a democracy (wrong equipment for the job). How it works in a democracy is when you listen to the people who know more than you on a particular subject (right equipment for the job). None of this means the military is running things, it means the government should be properly supplying the neccessary equipment to the armed forces when it asks them to complete a task.
I agree with you Dave, good post.
What makes me mad is the Liberals listened even less, if at all. Yet the media are down on the Conservatives!!!
That's not OK. The liberals have run our military into the ground.
I know that the conservatives are/were consulting "experts" on military purchases. I just don't know who the "experts" are.
Expert always gives me a uneasy feeling, I would rather ask the soldiers.
Jesus, Wayne, are you really this boneheaded? Let me explain this for you slowly.
Yes, the party in power is in charge of the military, but good sense dictates that they temper their orders to the military with good military advice.
By way of analogy, if you take your car to your mechanic, you're in charge of what is to be done (tune up, oil change, etc.) but, beyond that, you leave it to the expert to do the actual job based on his recommendations. You don't start ignoring your mechanic's advice thinking you know better unless you are a total buffoon.
Is any of this becoming clear?
Very clear. I understand your post.
The CPC are consulting military "experts". But like regular people, "experts" disagree, with each other.
Good or Bad the civilian elected officials will decide, based on the recommendations they receive, from several sources.
They're not consulting experts. They're blatently ignoring what their employees have said they need for a specific task. This isn't a matter of disagreement of experts. It's political pandering over strategic planning. Unless by expert, you mean the current minister of defence who was a former defence contractor, in which case yes, they're listening to the experts just fine.
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