Is research really that hard to do?
In an article entitled "Canada eyeing using more reservists to bolster Afghan mission," CBC News is gamely trying to report on personnel issues within the CF, as identified by LGen Andrew Leslie, the CLS. Unfortunately, when it comes to military matters, our national broadcaster seems unable to find its posterior with both hands:
"Traditionally used in peacekeeping?" How about "traditionally used wherever Canadian Forces personnel are needed?"
All of the reservists deployed to Afghanistan are volunteers. All train diligently and intensely with their regular force counterparts for months leading up to their deployment. The truth is that our reservists go where the regular forces go when it comes to deployments - if we were sending more regular force troops on peacekeeping missions, more reservists would be alongside them. But we're sending our troops predominantly to Afghanistan right now, which means reserve soldiers too. Reservists aren't peacekeeping specialists any more than any other CF member. To suggest otherwise is misleading.
Equally misleading is the idea that using more reservists for the Afghan mission is a new idea. More than 10% of our fatal casualties in Afghanistan have come from the reserves, and I'd expect that a similar proportion holds true for the wounded. Canada has been steadily increasing the proportion of reservists deployed to southwest Asia for at least the past four years: from 2.55% in 2003, to 7.61% in 2004, to 8.9% in 2005, to 12.2% - over 700 reservists - in 2006. As long as we continue to have sufficient volunteers from the reserves - a proposition not without its challenges - we should be fine in the short term.
This isn't to say that the personnel challenges described by LGen Leslie aren't troubling, because they are. But by focusing on reserve force red herrings, the CBC has missed his point entirely.
Lieut.-Gen. Andrew Leslie said the concern is so great he is considering dipping into the part-time reserve force — troops traditionally used in peacekeeping — to bolster the ranks seeing combat in Afghanistan.
"Traditionally used in peacekeeping?" How about "traditionally used wherever Canadian Forces personnel are needed?"
All of the reservists deployed to Afghanistan are volunteers. All train diligently and intensely with their regular force counterparts for months leading up to their deployment. The truth is that our reservists go where the regular forces go when it comes to deployments - if we were sending more regular force troops on peacekeeping missions, more reservists would be alongside them. But we're sending our troops predominantly to Afghanistan right now, which means reserve soldiers too. Reservists aren't peacekeeping specialists any more than any other CF member. To suggest otherwise is misleading.
Equally misleading is the idea that using more reservists for the Afghan mission is a new idea. More than 10% of our fatal casualties in Afghanistan have come from the reserves, and I'd expect that a similar proportion holds true for the wounded. Canada has been steadily increasing the proportion of reservists deployed to southwest Asia for at least the past four years: from 2.55% in 2003, to 7.61% in 2004, to 8.9% in 2005, to 12.2% - over 700 reservists - in 2006. As long as we continue to have sufficient volunteers from the reserves - a proposition not without its challenges - we should be fine in the short term.
This isn't to say that the personnel challenges described by LGen Leslie aren't troubling, because they are. But by focusing on reserve force red herrings, the CBC has missed his point entirely.
posted by Babbling Brooks at 1:24 p.m.
3 Comments:
(sorry if this is a double post)
Another stupid article here: http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20070228/Afghanistan_reservists_070228/20070228?hub=Canada
"The Canadian military is expected to announce today that a large group of reservists from Western Canada will be deployed to Afghanistan to compensate for a troop shortfall.
Col. Kelly Woiden, commander of 38 Canadian Brigade Group, will hold a news conference this afternoon to discuss plans to send more than 160 reservists to Afghanistan by next year."
The use of 38 CBG reservists (with other Western Area reservists in smaller numbers) for TFA Roto 5 (Feb-Aug 08) has only been planned for what, 2 years or so? This isn't to compensate for a shortfall, this is business as usual.
One thing that I think has changed is the habit of using few or no reservists on early tours (think back to 2002). Except for the first tour in the case of a rapid deployment, I believe reservists will be used at the 10-20% level in all major future expeditionary ops.
I don't know the code for a link, so remove the carriage returns from the link below:
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/
ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20070228/
Afghanistan_reservists_070228/
20070228?hub=Canada
greg, here, in the following example replace [ with < and ] with >:
[a href="www.yoursiteyouwanttolinktohere"]Text that we will all click on[/a]
that shoudl do the trick.
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