Brig.-Gen. Ménard: How low can the Toronto Star go?/Update: Michael Yon gets his General?/US command for Task Force Kandahar?
Guilt by association, flip all your blinking biscuits, hurl to the stinking max, low. Goodest on Norman Spector:
Moreover ISAF Regional Command (South) will this fall be coming under US Army Major General James Terry along with his 10th Mountain Division HQ. It would be easy to argue that the CF's Task Force Kandahar, which is getting close to being a US brigade equivalent, might best fit under that HQ with an American commander.
From the Canadian standpoint, a rationale for such a change might be that Task Force Kandahar has grown so large, and its operations so complex, that the next Canadian commander will have his hands full enough under his other hat as chief of the overall CF mission, Joint Task Force Afghanistan.
Uppestdate: The Globe and Mail does the Star one worse: front page, top of the fold, lede paragraph:
Beyond Uppestdate: A topic thread on Gen. Menard's relief (some remarks on Mr Yon) at Small Wars Council (via Starbuck in "Comments", thanks for kind words).
...Update: Topic thread at Milnet.ca, note that Michael Yon is on to the story. Really on it--from BruceR. at Flit:--What else the Star is reporting (sic!)
Ménard is the second high-ranking Canadian military officer to be relieved of his command in recent months.
Col. Russell Williams, former commander of CFB Trenton, faces charges in the deaths of two women, the sexual assault of two others and dozens of break-ins.
...
...The recently disembedded Michael Yon is claiming personal responsibility tonight for getting Menard fired: "This fight was expensive for me in many ways, but I got him. Getting this man fired was worth the fight and the costs. This will save American, Canadian, and Afghan lives." In the comments he elaborates: "I reported the sexual affair."Upperdate thought: Brig.-Gen. Ménard's command includes many more American field troops than Canadian, an unusual situation for US forces (from a previous post:"...three battalions versus one (augmented)--in the CF's official list; and why is the 1st Squadron, 71st Cavalry Regiment, 1st Brigade Combat Team,10th Mountain Division, not included in the list?
And to be fair, there's reason to believe him...
...the 1-71st Cavalry is in Kandahar, the country’s Taliban hotbed, attached to a Canadian battle unit...).The Americans have already served under Brig.-Gen. Ménard's immediate predecessor, Brig.-Gen. Jon Vance, who is now being rushed back to Afstan to replace him. But I really wonder how they will feel about continuing to be subordinate to a Canadian when Gen. Vance is replaced in September by Brig.-Gen. Dean Milner. A time when things in Kandahar City, and the province as a whole, look like being very hot indeed (see middle of this story). Especially as the CF are to be pulled out next year.
Moreover ISAF Regional Command (South) will this fall be coming under US Army Major General James Terry along with his 10th Mountain Division HQ. It would be easy to argue that the CF's Task Force Kandahar, which is getting close to being a US brigade equivalent, might best fit under that HQ with an American commander.
From the Canadian standpoint, a rationale for such a change might be that Task Force Kandahar has grown so large, and its operations so complex, that the next Canadian commander will have his hands full enough under his other hat as chief of the overall CF mission, Joint Task Force Afghanistan.
Uppestdate: The Globe and Mail does the Star one worse: front page, top of the fold, lede paragraph:
The reputation and morale of Canada’s military, still reeling from allegations that a base commander committed multiple murders, has [sic] suffered another blow with the dismissal of its top soldier in Afghanistan for breaking the rules on personal relationships in the field...Nice to know the reporters (one of whom is in Kabul, the other in Toronto) had time to do all that research to determine definitively the state of the country's and the CF's thinking; they can't even get their grammar right.
Beyond Uppestdate: A topic thread on Gen. Menard's relief (some remarks on Mr Yon) at Small Wars Council (via Starbuck in "Comments", thanks for kind words).
posted by Mark, Ottawa at 9:36 a.m.
8 Comments:
I can hear the happy feet dance Steve Staples is doing now as he rolls this news over in his feverish little marxist oriented brain cells.
Both of them.
I had expected better than this from CanWest (10th paragraph):
"Told of Menard’s dismissal and alleged misconduct Sunday morning at Kandahar Airfield moments after leaving his sleep tent to grab a shower, a soldier of junior rank shook his head in disgust and said, “First Col. Williams and now Gen. Menard. What is the public to think?” "
What's next? A comparison to Somaila? >>insert head shake here<<
I expect to see this government beginning to distance themselves oh so gently but clearly from the CF, what with this and that, budget tightness, and Afstan winding down.
Mark
Ottawa
THESE are the times when we need red shirt days, or the equivalent, to demonstrate to the Forces that we still support them even if some high-ranking fellas turn out to be bad apples.
The thought of the Public and Gov "distancing" themselves from the mil makes me sick to the stomach.
FYI - even the National Post is in on the act:
"Told of Brig.-Gen. Menard's dismissal and alleged misconduct Sunday morning at Kandahar Airfield moments after leaving his sleep tent to grab a shower, a soldier of junior rank shook his head in disgust and said, "First Col. Williams and now Gen. Menard. What is the public to think?"
"The soldier was referring to Col. Russell Williams, former commander of Canadian Forces Base Trenton, who was charged in January with two counts of first-degree murder in the sex slayings of two Ontario women. One of the victims was an enlisted woman under his command."
With even soldiers in the field are making the connection, have you ever considered the possibility that there are real parallels between the two stories, and that mentioning them together isn't such a dispicable journalistic outrage after all?
You gentlemen might want to take a look over at the Small Wars Council--good commentary. We still respect the Canadian Armed forces here in the US.
Question about 1-73 in the 10th MTN--maybe they're temporarily attached to the CF for an operation? I could find out.
Link right here: http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/showthread.php?t=10498
Starbuck: Thanks, see Beyond Uppestdate , would love to know about the 1-73.
Mark
Ottawa
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