Congo: Jim Travers of the Toronto Star really loathes Rick Hillier

And the CF's leadership. His latest column is a travesty. The last thing the former CDS would have wanted was major CF involvement in the UN's Congo mission--from a post by Damian, quoting the General's memoirs:

...

"The ideal of UN peacekeeping is beautiful, but after my time in Zagreb I concluded that the United Nations itself couldn't run a one-man rush to the outhouse. Pragmatically, it was almost criminal to put Canadian troops under UN command in missions that were anything but absolutely benign because the UN was fundamentally incapable of running effective military operations."

I mean, why can't the man stop beating around the bush and tell us how he really feels?

But Mr Travers gives us this guilt by association smear:

Congo decision ends Hillier era

With more whimper than bang, Canada’s military has lost its booming foreign policy voice. By rejecting a UN request for General Andrew Leslie to lead the Congo peacekeeping mission, Stephen Harper is ending a phenomenon that began when Paul Martin named Rick Hillier chief of defence staff.

Complicated as that sounds, the Prime Minister’s message to Walt Natynczyk, Hillier’s successor, is clear. Broad national interests, not solving a military personnel problem, will determine what Canada does abroad...

[How did the Kandahar mission, say, solve any personnel problem? And Mr Travers then mindlessly pushes the Canadian love of UN "peacekeeping" button.]

Other considerations led Harper’s government to the conclusion that the Congo is the wrong place at the wrong time. While peace has been declared, the roiling conflict known as Africa’s World War continues, allegations of rape and wrongdoing swirl around the UN force and Joseph Kabila’s shaky, corrupt government wants foreign troops out by August, when Congo celebrates 50 years of independence.

Ottawa wonks dumped those factors into the policy blender and decided that risks were too high that a small, relatively safe commitment of Leslie and a few other Canadians would grow into something larger and more dangerous. On balance, those threats outweighed reinforcing Canada’s current campaign for a Security Council seat or dispelling the notion that Conservatives are indifferent to Africa.

Even if that analysis is mostly correct, it minimizes Congo and UN needs while largely ignoring the benefits of dispatching an internationally respected general to command developing country troops in one of the world’s worst neighbourhoods. Whatever the military’s internal motivation, sending Leslie would have reinforced Canada’s commitment to peacekeeping — in all its varied forms — while signalling support for the UN’s largest, most difficult blue-helmet deployment.

But those plusses were overshadowed by what was widely seen as a not very subtle attempt to force the government to create a suitable post for Leslie after his four distinguished years leading the army through the Afghanistan war. Along with evoking bitter peacekeeping memories, including Somalia, Rwanda and earlier Congo misadventures, the push to return to Africa touched a raw political nerve by reminding Ottawa of what can go wrong when generals call the policy shots...

As for the CF and the Congo, the start an earlier post of mine:

This is really starting to look like a well-orchestrated campaign. It would certainly seem that well-placed people in Ottawa are hard at it; a combination of the government and the CF/Army (if the latter are involved shameful and shameless)?..

Whatever the CF involvement in pushing a Congo mission, I am certain they were not alone in the government in floating the idea (i.e. DFAIT)--and I suspect some involvement at the political level. Stick it, Mr Travers.

Update analysis: His anti-military attitude results in incoherence. He believes, all in all, that participating in the UN mission would have been a Good Thing. "[W]onks" however shot it down. Surely a Bad Thing. On the other hand the CF were advocating for a mission. Surely a Good Thing--except that because it was the CF advocating for the mission it turned into a Bad Thing. Huh?