If we don't call it an 'about face', do you think anyone will notice?

I suspect that's what MND Mackay's staffers were asking themselves when the decision to put Griffons in Kandahar as armed escort choppers was made.

Pugliese either misses the point, or twists it, though:

I would also think Liberal Senator Colin Kenny might find this announcement interesting. He suggested sending the Griffons in the fall of 2007 at which point Mr. MacKay ridiculed him for it……Mr. Kenny wanted to the Griffons sent ASAP to act as surveillance choppers and to haul some supplies and troops.

The Air Force responded that the Griffons couldn’t operate in Kandahar’s high altitude and heat.

“It is unfortunate that Senator Kenny doesn't know his facts,” stated Mr. MacKay’s office. “There is no intent to deploy the Griffon to Afghanistan.

Okay, if you say so Pete………

I'm the first to admit the CF and the MND look like they've flip-flopped on this. But if you look at what was actually said in the public arena on the issue - in context - the disagreement isn't quite what Pugliese portrays:

But Mr. Kenny says Canada has an existing fleet of smaller Griffon choppers that could be used in Afghanistan. "Obviously the Griffons won't be able to carry as much as a Chinook, but they can still play a role in moving some equipment and reducing some of the exposure of supply columns to IEDs," he said. "Any amount counts."

"Why isn't that being done?" Mr. Kenny asked. "Why do we have 76 Griffons still sitting here in Canada?"

Defence Department spokeswoman Sarah Kavanagh said the current Afghanistan mission requires a medium-lift helicopter able to carry sufficient numbers of personnel, up to 30 at a time, or an appropriate amount of cargo and equipment.

"The role of the Griffon is not intended to fill the role of a medium-lift helicopter, and at this time there is no intent to deploy the Griffon to Afghanistan," said Miss Kavanagh. But, she added, "While the performance characteristics of the Griffon are not ideally suited to the environment in Afghanistan, the Canadian Forces continues to monitor the evolution of operations in that theatre to determine if there may be an appropriate role for the Griffon in the future." [Babbler's emphasis]

It seems to me that Kenny was suggesting the Griffons should be used for airlift. It seems to me that the MND's spokesperson said that the Griffon isn't suited to that role. And it seems to me that the Griffons being sent over now aren't going over in an airlift capacity - they're going over in an escort and possibly CCS (Close Combat Support) role.

It also seems to me that the MND's office left itself considerable wiggle room to reverse course on the idea of a Griffon deployment with the weasel words I've highlighted in bold print at the end of the quoted piece above.

Not quite the 'gotcha' moment our CanWest scribe would have you think it is. Of course, I don't have to feed my family or make a mortgage payment off what I write, which means I'm not part of a mainstream media culture that values such 'gotchas', and I feel no pressure to dig them up.

And as I said, regardless how the journalists focus on the political side of the decision, DND has really screwed the pooch with their public handling of the issue. I was told by any number of people within the defence community that deploying Griffons to Afghanistan was never going to happen, and was also told that it was happening for sure. 'Never' is one hell of a long time, people, and I don't know anything in the military that's 'for sure'. The MND and his people should have been saying all along that all options were on the table - not bashing Colin Kenny and setting themselves up for people to accuse them of going back on their word.

Now, to the rest of the silliness surrounding this announcement...

• Mark has already dealt with Ujjal Dosanjh's predictable idiocy.


• The Griffon may have been gussied up to do this role, but it's emphatically not an 'attack helicopter'.


• A 7.62mm gatling gun isn't insignificant, but it's hardly a "large machine gun" as this CBC piece would have you believe.


• Remember that the Griffons going over will be INGRESS equipped, which means they will be able to provide a significant ISR resource to the battlegroup as well as armed escort. It's not just about the guns, people.

Much as the questions being asked by our politicians and media are mostly off track, I think there are some questions surrounding this deployment that are worth pursuing. We at The Torch asked them months ago, and I don't believe they've been answered since then:

Thanks, *******. There's a lot of acronyms and jargon in there that I don't fully understand, but if I'm getting the gist of things, the writer believes it's worth stressing a few airframes in order to get even their most limited capabilities into the fight. Your idea of CCS [Close Combat Support], with the option of medevac if required/practical is an interesting one.

But is it worth trashing those choppers by riding them that hard in a situation they weren't designed for? I'm still on the fence on that one. At the end of the day, the CF doesn't exist solely to fight the Afghan mission, and as sure as God made little yellow politicians, you're going to need the whirlybirds somewhere else at some point - at which time, if they aren't there because we flew them too hard in Afg, somebody's going to throw a fit. Not to mention what happens if one goes down - remember the shit-storm over using the Iltis in Kabul? Best vehicle we had for the job at that point, just not the vehicle anyone wanted - which sounds suspiciously like the Griffon. And there's not a single politician who wants to be accused of sending over kit that's not up to the job.

Tough call on this one.

If one of these helos goes down, will people be screaming "Iltis!"? You bet they will. Is the government and the CF ready for that possibility? We'll see. Same thing with riding the birds so hard they wear out quicker than we're willing to replace them. But 'sufficient to the day are the evils thereof' or something like that, I guess: DND and the GofC will have to cross that bridge when they come to it.

I'm cautiously optimistic about this announcement. It's not the equipment we'd hope to have for such a situation. But it's what we've got, and we're finally going to stop letting the perfect be the enemy of the good. We're also finally going to be letting our Tac Hel guys and gals do more than just play RC pilot with UAV's, which they've been squirming and itching to do since their Army friends started deploying over there in the first place.

I wish them the best of luck. They're headed to the Two-Way Firing Range: they'll need it.

Update: Hmm. Just got some boilerplate stuff from the Air Force on this:

To support the helicopter escort role, February 2009, the Griffon will be equipped with an enhanced weapon system that will provide a higher rate-of-fire and a greater ability to sustain such fire than the existing armament. There will be further enhancements several months later that will include an advanced electro-optical sensor and a significantly enhanced weapon system with increased calibre and higher rate-of fire than the exisiting armament.

OK, I'm guessing that "enhanced weapon system" is the gatling gun I linked to above, but I'm not sure if there's another weapon system enhancement to come later that I'm missing here. But hey, when you're picking up e-mail at 5:00 on a Friday, you only get so much of a follow-up window, eh?

One other point from the e-mail that I thought interesting:

For more than a year, Griffon crews have been conducting extensive integration training with Canadian army units that they would support in Afghanistan. This training includes aerial fire support and airborne control of other aerial weapon systems in direct support of army personnel on the ground. Additional to this army integration training, Griffon crews have also conducted "hot and high" flying training at locations in the United States that replicate the conditions in the Afghanistan theatre of operations. This training included advanced tactics, night vision goggle training, mountain flying and practice with 'dust-ball' landings commonly experienced by aircrew operating in Afghanistan. As well, personnel training has included mission rehearsal exercises and scenario simulations that have emphasized command and control, leadership and decision-making in support of integrated air-land operations, in particular, the tactical integration of Griffon and Chinook helicopters together in Afghanistan.

So it seems the Griffons will be doing CCS work, at least if what they were practicing for is any prediction. Ready yourself for the outraged screams of "attack helicopter!"