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<DIV><A
href="http://rabble.ca/columnists/2012/08/canadian-war-department-drones-summer-splurge">http://rabble.ca/columnists/2012/08/canadian-war-department-drones-summer-splurge</A>
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<H1 class=title>Canadian War Department drones on with summer splurge </H1>
<DIV class=story-author>By
<DIV class=tags-14><SPAN class=only-vocabulary-14><SPAN class=term-1807><A
href="http://rabble.ca/taxonomy/term/1807">Matthew Behrens</A>,
rabble.ca</SPAN></SPAN></DIV></DIV>| <SPAN class=date-display-single>August 20,
2012</SPAN>
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<DIV class="story-content story-content-columnists">
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<P>With student activists away for summer vacation, it was the perfect occasion
in late July for Carleton University to celebrate a new $40-million war-training
contract. In partnership with war manufacturer CAE, Carleton's Visualization and
Simulation Centre will enable Canadian Forces to better practice, in the coarse
but memorable phrase of former Canadian warlord Rick Hillier, the fine art of
killing people.</P>
<P>In a moment that would have done Orwell proud, Carleton President Roseann
O'Reilly Runte gushed: "This is about saving lives. This is about saving money."
On hand for the announcement was Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird, who
boasted this war-training partnership will advance "Canada's security interests
and...Canadian values around the world."</P>
<P>If such values are so great, one wonders why they need to come out of the
barrel of a gun. But that's a non-issue in a national security state: when
everything comes down to the rhetoric of "saving our way of life" from some
unknown threat and protecting "our soldiers" from the threats we often arm to
begin with, everything becomes justified, from transfers to torture to starving
the poor of billions to pay for the War Department's high-tech toys.</P>
<P>Such announcements regularly occur on Canadian university campuses, but
hopefully it will spur at Carleton the kind of protest that shut down similar
attempts to exploit bright young minds for nefarious purposes (such victories
occurred at <A href="http://www.homesnotbombs.ca/battellebooted.htm"
rel=nofollow target=_blank>OISE and the University of Toronto</A>).</P>
<P>The Carleton University contract was one of numerous boondoggles announced
during summer break by a Canadian War Department that's busily seeking out new
enemies and new rationales to shield the lion's share of a $23-billion budget
that is unquestioned by all major political parties. The military is so awash in
funds, that last March their expenditures jumped 14 per cent and no one could
explain why.</P>
<P>In May, Canada's Parliamentary budget watchdog remarked that the Harper
government had deliberately misled the public on the costs of the F-35 stealth
bombers (a deception built upon bureaucrats within the War Department also
ignoring their own internal warnings that the bomber project was plagued by
serious troubles).</P>
<P>Shortly after, we also learned that War Minister Peter MacKay had also
low-balled government figures by almost seven times when he discussed how much
it cost to drop bombs on the people of Libya (over $350 million at last count).
Needless to say, the Libyan "mission," as it was delicately called, was an
important benchmark for MacKay and the generals, who got to play with new
equipment and push for new weapons programs as a result.</P>
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<P>Meanwhile, the drawdown in Afghanistan -- where Canadians fired off almost 5
million bullets in one 20-month period -- is making some Canadian soldiers
itchy. In one <A
href="http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/Just+what+next+Canada+warrior+spirit/6681564/story.html"
rel=nofollow target=_blank><EM>Ottawa Citizen</EM> interview</A>, a Kingston
sergeant explained that garrison life on the home base "really discourages a lot
of guys. The question becomes, 'When do we go next?' Adrenalin is a drug and
they need the heart-pumping excitement and that level of unknown to keep them
happy now." Thus, war is an experience we must incessantly provide to those
trained to be warriors, finding new enemies and places to bomb so we can keep
our soldiers happy.</P>
<P>Some of the boys apparently got what they wanted when millions were wasted
last month as a Canadian contingent of 1,400 soldiers were shipped off to Hawaii
to take part in the U.S.-led Rim of the Pacific war exercises, an attempt to
remind China of who's boss on the world stage (and perhaps to reassure Canadian
mining firms that help is not far away when Asian locals agitate over poor
working conditions, toxic spills, or the murder of their union leaders).</P>
<P>The irony here is that at the same time we are preparing for war -- if
necessary -- with China -- the busy Mr. Baird signed a deal to export increasing
amounts of Canadian uranium to the nuclear weapons-holding government of
Beijing, a slap in the face to nuclear non-proliferation.</P>
<P>And while the Pacific was being pounded with ordnance, we also learned the
Canadian Forces are working to establish bases in the Caribbean, East Africa,
Europe and Southeast Asia. This allows Canada's military to "project combat
power/security assistance and Canadian influence rapidly and flexibly anywhere
in the world," <A
href="http://www.canada.com/news/military+outposts+more+overseas+missions/6960283/story.html"
rel=nofollow target=_blank>according to a memo</A> signed by Canada's top
soldier, Walter Natynczyk.</P>
<P>Part of that power projection will be done not so much with human beings who
-- despite thorough indoctrination in home-grown training camps to eliminate
their sense of empathy with those they are commanded to kill or transfer to
torture -- remain vulnerable to the twinges of humanity that lead to afflictions
like post-traumatic stress, depression, and suicide. Rather, the path forward is
the remote control warfare that has become de rigueur over the past decade.</P>
<P>Indeed, the eagerness of War Minister Peter MacKay and his cronies to grab
their joysticks and bomb from the safety of 5,000 miles away in Playstation
fashion is clearly palpable. The U.S. and Israel have long dominated in the
global use of drones (unmanned aerial vehicles), but now most countries are
getting in on the act because of cost savings (especially relative to
multi-billion contracts like the F-35 stealth bomber) and the relatively lower
political costs (no troop deployments, no body bags from "our side," no embedded
media who might step outside the boundaries and inspect the "collateral damage"
on the ground).</P>
<P>And so we have also learned that Canada's poor will have to sacrifice an
additional $1 billion so that armed Predator drones and their Hellfire missiles
will be part of Canada's growing arsenal.</P>
<P>The drones are also touted as vehicles by which Canada somehow "saves lives,"
but this equation always leaves out the lives at risk on the ground. Over 3,000
souls have been slaughtered from the skies in the not-so-secret and clearly
illegal drone war waged by Obama and his minions in Pakistan and Afghanistan,
and the rapidly evolving technology is also being used to prevent refugees from
finding asylum and to target political demonstrations. Drones represent the
ultimate tool in a 24/7 surveillance and punishment society: the forces of
control can always monitor us and, when convenient, vaporize us, without any
sense of transparency or accountability.</P>
<P>They've been used extensively by Obama in his targeted assassination program,
and are increasingly privatized to take them out of the already limited loop
that would provide any measure of accountability. Indeed, private mercenary
firms like Blackwater are deeply involved in arming and conducting drone
strikes, thus privatizing larger portions of what's known as the "kill chain."
Ironically, by the rules the Pentagon plays, such use of private mercenaries
creates a whole new army of "unlawful combatants" who, if captured by the
Taliban, would have no rights under the Geneva Convention. But such a scenario
is unlikely, since the Taliban cannot invade the safe sanctuaries in New York
and Nevada in which drone "pilots" sit in air conditioned comfort and fire the
missiles.</P>
<P>The usual rationale for anything military these days is being touted in the
drone PR: it is to protect "our Arctic" (and the precious resources that we
stole from First Nations) from anyone who'd steal them from us. But even the War
Department knows this is a red herring, as an <A
href="http://www.canada.com/news/Russia+move+protect+Arctic+interests+threat+Canada/6831454/story.html"
rel=nofollow target=_blank>internal assessment</A> revealed in late June
concluded Russia poses no threat to the region.</P>
<P>But corporations like Northrup Grumman are not letting logic or the facts get
in the way of a good profit, and so in June pitched the Canadian government at
the annual Ottawa weapons bazaar, CANSEC. War merchants have until September 28
to submit their tenders to provide the Canadian War Department with a fleet of
Hellfire-armed Predators.</P>
<P>In addition to the direct damage caused by drone strikes, they play a huge
role in projecting psychological torture on those who live beneath them.</P>
<P>Last year, Pakistan's Foundation for Fundamental Rights, in conjunction with
U.K. human rights group Reprieve, brought together 350 people to discuss the
traumas of life under the drones, which many reported seeing 10 to 15 times a
day. The anxiety of never knowing when the hovering drones will strike is
unimaginable: war by drone is a form of torture, an indefinite death sentence
hanging over the heads of villagers that can be executed at any time of the day
and night. And the victims never know what hit them, as Hellfire missiles travel
faster than the speed of sound. In addition, after a drone strike, villagers
often face death squads who believe someone in the village provided targeting
data. Kidnappings and torture ensue, a convenient extension of the "kill chain"
that begins back in a Nevada bunker.</P>
<P>The social justice group Homes not Bombs has long protested at the site of
Canada's largest drone profiteer, L-3 Wescam, located right next door to a
private elementary school in Burlington, Ontario. The group conducted their
first attempted weapons inspection of the plant in late 2002 and numerous direct
actions have followed, but such challenges have not, unfortunately, slowed the
relentless search for newer targeting systems (though one employee informed the
group of a resignation, spurred to leave when s/he discovered the true nature of
their work).</P>
<P>L-3 Wescam announced last month at the U.K.'s annual Farnborough weapons show
the launch of its MX™-10D electro-optical/infrared (EO/IR) imaging and
designating turret, with their equipment showing, in the lifeless language of
murder, "exceptional performance in all modes of flight throughout the HELLFIRE
operational envelope."</P>
<P>Canadians concerned about remote control murder, the rights of refugees, and
freedom to associate would do well to resist Canada's new generation of drone
warfare: with this technology, the wars have truly come home.</P>
<P><EM>Matthew Behrens is a freelance writer and social justice advocate who
co-ordinates the Homes not Bombs non-violent direct action network. He has
worked closely with the targets of Canadian and U.S. 'national security'
profiling for many years.</EM></P></DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV>
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