Much ado
"How can the military plan rotations that Parliament has not approved?" Ms. Black asked.
Very easily, Ms. Black. It's called staff work, and it's a big part of why the military can react to new situations quickly: much of the intellectual groundwork has already been laid by the time the situation presents itself.
Here's a better question: how can an MP who is her party's Defence Critic and a member of the SCOND not have even the most rudimentary understanding of military planning? And how can any of us take her seriously if she won't even make a cursory effort at learning about her area of responsibility?
Update: Bah. What is O'Connor thinking?
O’Connor, as he does almost every day, left the Commons via a members-only exit and, as a result, avoided reporters who may have wished to ask him about this.
Your job, sir, is to fight the political and communications battles, not run from them.
posted by Babbling Brooks at 9:32 a.m.
9 Comments:
Does the fact that a minister of this government side stepped the media actually come as a surprise to anyone?
Ms Black seems unaware that there is no constitutional requirement for Parliament (or the House) to approve any military deployments. Deploying troops is part of the crown prerogative (i.e. a decision for Cabinet), along with foreign policy. Legally the government can even declare war without authorization of Parliament.
And in fact almost all CF deployments abroad in the last 35 years (under both Liberals and Conservatives) have been made without any vote in the House.
The idea that Parliament must moreover approve a possible mission before any planning can be done by the CF is simply ignorant and absurd--and would bring the House to an even more grinding halt. And leave the CF unable to respond when called upon.
E.g., over the last fifteen or so years, can you imagine needing the House's approval of the missions to Croatia/BH, Kosovo, East Timor, Ethiopia/Eritrea, Darfur/Grizzlies (yes Dawn, we do have troops in Sudan), Afstan 2002, 2003 and 2005 before any planning was allowed?
And there is logical madness here. Without military planning, how could the government describe to Parliament what a proposed mission would actually entail?
The PM speaks to the House:
"The government wants to send troops to help deal with the current crisis in Ruritania. Once the House approves the mission the government will obtain plans from the Canadian Forces and then inform the House of the composition of the mission, what its members will do, and how long the mission may take. Thank you very much and please vote in favour of the Ruritanian mission."
Good grief.
Mark
Ottawa
Bingo, Mark.
And I forgot Somalia where the mission changed drastically almost at the last minute.
Mark
Ottawa
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Actually, odie441 I thought I would leave it at that but I was wrong.
If you look over my comments on this site, about 80% of them are basically questions. The ones where I make statements are never about the function of the military, about military equipment or CF personal.
So what you've basically done is lie by implication.
Yay you.
Cam, you're welcome to comment and even argue here, but I draw the line at profane insults. Feel free to rewrite your deleted comment with a little creative editing if you wish. You can even e-mail me if you've forgotten what you said.
BB your house your rules. I was just quite annoyed is all. I will email you.
thanks.
I'm going to take a stab at replying without the benefit of my original email.
odie441, my first point is the following, and it takes the form of a rhetorical question: Can you please show me where I commented, in this thread, about the military?
Here, I'll even answer it. You can't. Because I didn't. This entire government has crappy media skills. They appear to not know what century they live in and seem to think they'll just do some stump speeches and all will be good (though I note they get how the media works when they want to attack someone). I find this especially galling when the minister dodging questions is the very one who oversees putting CF personal in harms way.
Now, to your actual comment, "point" by "point'.
"I see Cameron the token know it all just had to put in his 2 tenths of a cent." I think you're undervaluing my comment, but then again I don't know the exchange rate from ITD (Internet Troll Dollars) to CDN. Poor attempt at levity aside, I find it funny that my comment, which to me seemed on topic is so worthless to you, when yours was, for the most part, an attack on me.
"If he actually had any understanding of how the military actually worked he might be taken more seriously." Ok, this is the part that actually quite annoyed me.
Here's why:
1. I've never pretended to know how the military works.
2. I've never pretended to have served.
3. I've never treated anyone who has served or is serving with anything but respect. Their opinions about certain subjects? Less so. Free speech. I'm told it's one of our freedoms. One I thank soldiers for.
4. Unless I've missed totally the point of this blog, it's not meant to be an echo chamber for (ex)military people only. It appears (though I'm guessing is no formal mission statement - you lot don't seem like the conference table, baked goods types) to be geared towards informing people who don't know about the military and towards correcting inaccuracies in the media or statements made by politicians.
If you, odie441, don't like my point of view (though my 3 line statement of fact hardly seems to count), perhaps you could actually discuss that and not attack me or my lack of knowledge.
I have to say that the irony of attacking me for not knowing about the military on a site that seems to have as it's primary function education about the military is rich. It's a bit like a teach screaming at grade 1 kids on the first day of class "YOU'RE ALL IDIOTS BECAUSE YOU CAN'T READ AND WRITE!"
Anyway, and feel free to prove me wrong, you've clearly decided (based on a handful of comments on an interweb site) that you know about me and what I think, so I expect that this and my earlier comment will be met with more ad hominem.
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