No. 1
It was bound to happen. Sgt. Andrew Joseph Doiron, a member of the Canadian Special Operations Regiment, was killed Friday night (local time) somewhere in Iraq. Three other Canadian soldiers were injured and are being treated in Iraq. They are said to be in stable condition.
About six dozen members of Special Ops are in Iraq, participating in the American-led mission against ISIS (or ISIL, as Obama and his camp followers still call it). So was it ISIS jihadis who shot the four Canucks? Errr, no. Sgt. Doiron and his comrades were fired on by Iraqi Kurds. By mistake, of course.
Canadians were promised by their Dear Leader, Steve Harper, and his lickspittle ministers -- step forward Messrs. Baird, Nicholson, Mackay and Kenney -- that their troops would not be in harm's way, that they would just be "training" and "advising". Walt said at the time that trainers and advisors wear the same uniforms as combat troops, carry the same weapons as combat troops, and would doubtless be going into places where combat was taking place. It was therefore only a matter of time until they started coming home in body bags. See also "Canuck 'trainers' fired on in Iraq -- just fancy that!"
Since the initial Canadian commitment was for only six months, participation in the American invasion is supposedly up for review at the beginning of April. Messrs Harper et al. have, as recently as Thursday, been dropping broad hints that an extension of the mission was all but certain. Will they now rethink their mindless following the disastrous foreign policies of their good friends to the south, who, by the way, have not yet had a single casualty? Don't bet on it.
RIP, Sergeant Doiron. Walt hopes that the blowback from your death will prevent the deaths of others like you.
Some Canadians supported the military intervention against ISIS based on Harper's clear assurances (soon shown to be misleading) that our soldiers would not be on the front lines, would not be in the line of fire, but merely training Kurdish forces far from military action. Now a Canadian has lost his life, and 3 others are injured. This is intolerable.
ReplyDeleteThis mission has been ill-defined and misrepresented from the start. It has never been clearly explained what Canadian interests are at stake here. The tangled web of engagement Harper has us tied up in has us fighting enemies of our enemy, Syria. It makes no sense.
It looks very unlikely that ISIS will be eradicated. Even if it were to be, there are plenty of other extremists groups prepared to fill the vacuum. We have witnessed this cycle far too often. When will we learn?