Our pernicious professoriat

Even worse than Prof. Michael Byers. Michael Mandel, professor at Osgoode Hall Law School, Toronto, wrote this piece of vile bile in the Ottawa Citizen, March 17 :

We're in it with Bush

Be warned. I won't bother to excerpt from it. I did send this letter to the editor, not published (bit too technical I guess):

The US does not control ISAF

Michael Mandel, in his article about Afghanistan ("We're in it with Bush", March 17), claims that "ISAF [Interntional Security Assistance Force] does not answer directly to OEF [US Operation Enduring Freedon] but must defer to it." That is not true.

ISAF is directly subordinate to NATO's Allied Joint Force Command Headquarters in The Netherlands, led by German General Egon Ramms. That headquarters is itself under NATO's Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE) in Belgium, led by US General John Craddock. But SHAPE itself is under the political direction of NATO's North Atlantic Council, the organization's senior decision-making body. There is no requirement for ISAF to "defer" to OEF in this command structure; if there were I'm sure we would have heard about it from the German general mentioned above--not to mention various members of the Council such as the French.

When Mr Mandel goes on to write that all foreign troops in Afghanistan "...in essence...are under permanent American command..." he is simply continuing his disingenuous effort to turn readers against Canada's Afghan mission by further stressing the Yankee bogey man.

It should be kept in mind that, while the current ISAF comander Gen. Dan McNeill is American, his predecessor was British Gen. David Richards. Hardly "permanent American command".

References:

http://www.nato.int/isaf/structure/comstruc/index.html
http://www.nato.int/shape/bios/saceur/mission_saceur.htm
http://www.nato.int/issues/isaf/index.html
http://www.nato.int/docu/handbook/2001/hb070101.htm
http://www.nato.int/isaf/docu/pressreleases/2007/02-february/pr070204-086.html

For Pete's sake the US would love to control ISAF, strip away those caveats, and deploy others' troops where it wanted.