CANADA’S MILITARY PLOTS “WAR CRIMES” AGAINST INDIGENOUS PEOPLE
Mohawk Nation News
March 27 2007
It looks like the psychotics from the U.S. have hijacked Canadian policy taking Canada back to medieval blood lust. A 250-page field manual on counterinsurgency is being put out by Canada's Department of National Defense DND for its soldiers and officers. Jon Elmer of Global Research wrote on March 25, 2007, about these new methods of fighting insurgents like the “Taliban”, the “Chechnyans” and the “Mohawk Warrior Society”. Wait a minute, that’s us!
Let’s not kid ourselves. The main purpose of an army is to shoot and kill. Does Canada ’s Parliament or the Canadian people know about this genocidal action that is being done in their name? Since when is it legal to make plans to attack us?
If the DND see us as foreign insurgents, they obviously recognize our independent nationality. So when did they attempt to negotiate with us on a nation-to-nation basis? Under international accords that Canada has signed all countries must resolve differences by diplomatic means. War and the use of weapons to dominate are illegal.
Why are weapons being pointed at us? We are defenseless. Why are we being compared with the Taliban who have rockets, artillery and modern weapons to blow up U.S. , Canadian and British tanks that are inches thick?
These infiltrators and hijackers of Canadian institutions are attempting to break the old treaties of peace between us. Our historic alliances are well documented.
Certain individuals acting on behalf of the multinational corporations and banks want to send in the military to kill us and complete the theft of our land. These are worth billions in real estate development and extraction of resources. People and resources are not the property of multinational corporations and banks. Slavery was declared illegal 150 years ago. They think every person who is different is an enemy that they can spy on, create problems for and eliminate.
Public Security Minister Stockwell Day and Prime Minister Stephen Harper have to be brought before the International Criminal Court in The Hague to be prosecuted for proposing war crimes against us. We want to take our complaints to the Mohawk Nation, to the Confederacy, to the Canadian people, to the United Nations and to the world.
We are being called “terrorists”. We see a lot of people being killed in Afganistan , Iraq and elsewhere. Are they planning to bring this kind of violence here?
We are always ready to talk with the colonial governments even when they put a gun to our heads. For 500 years we have extended our hand of friendship to them. We believe that people should live in peace and friendship and to look at people as equals. The majority of Canadians want to learn about peace from us and to understand democracy better. Canadian Governor General Michaelle Jean, where are you? You are evading your duties to us.
How did these misguided sickos manage to infiltrate the DND? They are not following the legal agenda set by the Canadian people. They want peace.
We are trying to stop the subversion of law and order, to get Canada to obey its own laws, agreements, promises, treaties, laws of nations and the Charter of the United Nations. We have a legitimate government. We are not a line of ducks to be shot at in the amusement park.
The manual says, “Insurgent wars are characterized by their tendency to be local and often popular movements, rather than the traditional military conflicts between states. This type of irregular warfare has confounded U.S. and NATO forces in Iraq and Afghanistan respectively” and “successes are few and far between”. The U.S. and Canadian armies need practice so they are bringing the same blood bath here. They want more chances to reach for their guns and riot gear to confront us. Does nothing embarrass them?
We can tell this use of us as targets has already started. A few months ago Tyendinaga was suddenly swarmed by a long line of army trucks filled with troops. They claimed to be lost! Yeh!
In 1939 Europe saw the result of excessive militarism. It caused a war in which over 60 million were killed. Now these kinds of men want to “goose step” into our communities. They’re mesmerized by the movies glamorizing mercenary killings and the “History Channel’s” portrayal of Hitler, the Nazis and the Fascists in Europe and the U. S.
Gen. David Petraeus is the original author of the manual being used to divert the Canadian military from its original protective role. He took command of U.S. forces in Iraq in early 2007. Did his methods work? No way! Violence breeds violence. Yeh! Now they’re trying to get out because they’re getting their asses kicked. The average U.S. citizen has had enough. They don’t want anybody killed on any side. This Svengali has seduced the gullible minds at DND who can apply his failed schemes in Canada and elsewhere.
Maj. D.J. Lambert, the lead author of the DND version, points out that “Canadian Forces are actively engaged in various levels of confrontation with at least three ongoing insurgencies -- in Afghanistan , in Haiti and with domestic indigenous organizations in Canada , such as the Mohawk Warrior Society”. Government policy has pushed our people into poverty, starvation and death in the streets of Winnipeg and other Canadian cities. Why are they going after the weak?
Canada calls us their “citizens” but treat us like foreign insurgents. They are working against the Supreme Court of Canada which has told them time and time again they must treat Indigenous People with respect. DND covert actions are undermining this relationship by treating us as enemies.
The manual states, “Indigenous resistance in Canada are insurgencies because they are animated by the goal of altering political relationships with both the Canadian government and at the local level -- within indigenous reservations themselves -- "through the threat of, or use of, violence". We want to maintain the true relationship between us and the colonist as one of friendship. This definition of insurgency is so broad that any democratic action qualifies. We have made no threat of violence against the Canadian state. ”Canadian Forces have been used by the federal government in high-profile land confrontations with indigenous communities and protestors in standoffs with the Mohawks of Kanehsatake in 1990 and with the Ojibway at Ipperwash in 1995”. According to the DND, the military were at Ipperwash. This means the sniper who killed Dudley George might have been a soldier and not an Ontario Provincial Policeman. Is this why Corporal Deane and two other OPP key witnesses died in mysterious car crashes when they were just about to appear as witnesses at the Ipperwash Inquiry?
In our peaceful demonstrations at Kanehsatake, Gustafsen, Ipperwash, Six Nations, Grassy Narrows , and other places our legal rights were violated. Some lost their lives. The inquiries prove that. We know they want to provoke a confrontation to justify killing us. We won’t give them that.
In the January 12th 2004 covert operation at Kanehsatake, the government sent in heavily armed mercenaries to knock out the citizens’ police commission. The disinformation campaign made the weapons look like a Mohawk arsenal when in fact they were all supplied by the federal government.
”Canadian generals such as Leslie, Chief of Staff Rick Hillier and retired Maj. Gen. Louis MacKenzie have been outspoken critics of the Canadian military as merely a neutral middle-power and "blue-helmeted" peacekeepers”. This is what the Canadian public wants! The Canadian army is preparing to become the aggressors delivering death sentences to defenseless civilians, including infants and children, without so much as a charge or trial. These overgrown school yard bullies are still trying to play “paint ball” except they want to kill real people. Why should Canadian taxpayers pay for these “recreatech parties”?
Canadian Forces will leave Afghanistan in February 2009. "Let's not kid ourselves," Gen. Leslie said. “The enormous resources invested by the government in the transformation of Canada 's armed forces are clearly not for Afghanistan alone. It is logical to expect that we will go somewhere fairly similar to Afghanistan and do much the same sort of activity." With the whole world trying to find peace, where does he expect to go?
Stockwell Day, the Minister of Public Security, is a Pentecostal minister. He is known as a “Pharisee”, one who poses as a minister. His proposal to kill off Indians is contrary to the beliefs he espouses. He studies the Bible just like George Bush and Condoleeza Rice, who are psychopaths, liars and killers. They have no human feelings. As soon as their prayers are over, they have no qualms about ordering their military machines to go on bloody rampages.
If they kill us, we want the whole world to know they carried out premeditated murder of innocent people. The war games have to stop. We have to look out for soldiers in our backyards or their overhead choppers. They’ve been caught sniffing around our communities. We are asking all peace loving people worldwide to send your protests about this war mongering and targeting of Indigenous people to the Canadian government [harper.s@parl.ca], the Governor General [gg@gc.ca], the Queen [press@royalcollection.org.uk] and the Canadian military [http://www.forces.gc.ca/].
Kahentinetha Horn
MNN Mohawk Nation News
http://us.f520.mail.yahoo.com/ym/Compose?To=Kahentinetha2@yahoo.com http://us.f520.mail.yahoo.com/ym/Compose?To=katenies20@yahoo.com
For updates, workshops, speakers, to sign up, go to
http://www.mohawknationnews.com/
Sign the Women Title Holders Petition.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From the web:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=ELM20070325&articleId=5175
Canada: Counterinsurgency Manual Shows Military's New Face
by Jon Elmer
Global Research, March 25, 2007
IPS - 2007-03-22
Email this article to a friend
Print this article
TORONTO, Mar 22 (IPS) - Following closely behind their counterparts in the United States and Britain, Canada's Department of National Defence is preparing a comprehensive counter-insurgency field manual for its soldiers and officers. The manual will guide Canadian Forces doctrine and training well into the future, according to a draft edition obtained by IPS. A 250-page publication, the field manual outlines the principles and practices of fighting the kind of insurgencies that have come to define warfare for the Western powers in the 21st century, in places like Chechnya, Afghanistan and Iraq. The manual has been two years in development and is scheduled for release later this year. In it, insurgent wars are characterised by their tendency to be local and often popular movements, rather than the traditional military conflicts between states. This type of irregular warfare has confounded U.S. and NATO forces in Iraq and Afghanistan respectively, where growing insurgencies have taken a bloody toll on local populations as well as Western troops, and signs of success are few and far between. The increased prominence of the doctrine was recently on display when Gen. David Petraeus, author of the United States Army and Marine Corps counter-insurgency field manual, took command of U.S. forces in Iraq in early 2007. While perhaps as relevant as ever, counter-insurgency is not new a phenomenon, as the Canadian manual notes up front. Indigenous forces battled the Roman Empire in present-day Germany, Scotland and the Middle East two millennia ago. The British Empire fought insurgencies in 19th-century Afghanistan, as did the French in Algeria after World War Two. The U.S. withdrew from Vietnam in 1975 after a vicious decade-long counter-insurgency war against Vietnamese guerrillas. Maj. D.J. Lambert, the Canadian director of army doctrine and lead author of the manual, has cited several examples of historic Canadian counter-insurgencies, including battles with George Washington's U.S. forces or the Northwest Rebellion led by Louis Riel and the Metis in 1885. Presently, while Canada's Afghanistan mission dominates the attention and resources of the military, according to the manual, Canadian Forces are actively engaged in various levels of confrontation with at least three ongoing insurgencies -- in Afghanistan, in Haiti, as well as with domestic indigenous organisations in Canada, such as the Mohawk Warrior Society. Despite its "specific and limited aims", the First Nations rebellions in Canada are nevertheless insurgencies because they are animated by the goal of altering political relationships with both the Canadian government and at the local level -- within indigenous reservations themselves -- "through the threat of, or use of, violence", the manual states. In recent years, Canadian Forces have been used by the federal government in high-profile land confrontations with indigenous communities and protestors, including lethal standoffs with the Mohawk community of Kanehsatake in the 1990 Oka Crisis and with the Ojibway community at Ipperwash in 1995. Canadian Forces have been present in the Haitian capital, Port-au-Prince, since before the ouster of popularly-elected President Jean Bertrand Aristide in a military coup in February 2004. According to the draft manual, Canadian Forces have been "conducting COIN [counter-insurgency] operations against the criminally-based insurgency in Haiti since early 2004." Since the attacks on New York and Washington in September 2001, Canadian Forces have played a key combat role in Afghanistan, both in the U.S.-led Operation Enduring Freedom and the recent NATO mission to quell the growing uprising against the Western-backed government of Hamid Karzai. Today in Afghanistan, Canadian Forces from the Royal Canadian Regiment in Gagetown, New Brunswick are engaged in NATO's first major offensive of the season against what are broadly labeled Taliban insurgents. Code named Operation Achilles, the mission is characterised by NATO and Canadian officials as a pre-emptive attack on Taliban forces in Helmand Province who are reportedly preparing to launch a "spring offensive" against the presence of foreign troops. Maj. Gen. Ton van Loon, NATO's commander in Southern Afghanistan, said in a statement this week that Operation Achilles is the largest combined NATO-Afghan mission to date, involving 4,500 NATO troops and upwards of 1,000 Afghan National Army forces at its peak. Meanwhile, an Afghanistan-focused policy group, the Senlis Council, released the "alarming" results of a survey this week which polled 17,000 people in southern and eastern Afghanistan. The survey showed that one-half of respondents believe the Western-led war will fail to defeat the Taliban, and 87 percent of respondents believed that the tactics used by the Western forces in dealing with the insurgency were "not right". "The results from the survey are extremely alarming because they indicate that the international community is in serious trouble in Afghanistan," Senlis Council president Norine MacDonald said in a statement Monday. "A return of the Taliban into power would have grave consequences for both the people of Afghanistan and for global security." The counter-insurgency manual is one part of a significant modernising and restructuring of the Canadian Forces that the DND is billing as an effort to create a more effective force in fighting for Canada's "national interests" in the post-Cold War global order. But the changes are not only doctrinal; the intensity of the combat in Afghanistan is something Canadians haven't seen since at least the 1950s, when Canadian Forces fought in Korea. "It is a fascinating time to be a Canadian soldier," Lt. Gen. Andrew Leslie, head of the army, told journalists at a recent policy briefing at the Fraser Institute, a conservative research institute in Vancouver. "We are no longer a blunt instrument relegated solely to watching from the sidelines or inter-positioning ourselves between two formerly warring factions," Leslie said. Canadian generals such as Leslie, Chief of Staff Rick Hillier and retired Maj. Gen. Louis MacKenzie have been outspoken critics of the accuracy and utility of the long-fostered national self-image of the Canadian military as a neutral middle-power and "blue-helmeted" peacekeeper. While the Canadian Forces commitment in Afghanistan is currently slated to end in February 2009, "Let's not kid ourselves," Gen. Leslie said. The enormous resources invested by the government in the transformation of Canada's armed forces are clearly not for Afghanistan alone, he said, adding: "It is logical to expect that we will go somewhere fairly similar to Afghanistan and do much the same sort of activity." This story is part one of a two-part series on the transformation of Canada's military and humanitarian missions. With additional reporting by Anthony Fenton in Vancouver.
Global Research Articles by Jon Elmer
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
BLACKWATER NORTH OPENS NEAR CHICAGO
Read more about the rise of Blackwater mercenaries from author Jeremy Scahill:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&rlz=1T4ADBR_enUS214US214&q=Jeremy+Scahill+Blackwater+mercenaries
Blackwater opens training facility near Chicago
http://www.blackwaterusa.com/training/bwnorth.asp
Press release: Training Schedule Now Available for Blackwater North
Blackwater North is now offering training courses in Mount Carroll, IL.
Mount Carroll, IL (PRWEB) March 20, 2007 -- Blackwater USA's newest facility, Blackwater North, is announcing its 2007 training schedule and enrollment instructions through its website. Students are now able to access the website and review a full training schedule and enrollment forms.
The website is available through http://www.blackwaterusa.com/ under "training."
Blackwater North is a full service training center providing safe and realistic training environments on eighty acres consisting of seven flat ranges, a known distance range, an unknown distance range, a combat town range, a climbing/rappelling/shooting tower, a dismounted course, and a confidence course. Staffed by fully vetted and screened instructors with military and/or law enforcement expertise, Blackwater allows for the most comprehensive training for government, military, law enforcement, peace support operations, and qualified civilian customers.
Blackwater USA stands in support of security, peace, freedom, and democracy everywhere.
For more information, please visit http://www.blackwaterusa.com/ or call (815) 244-2900.
Mohawk Nation News
March 27 2007
It looks like the psychotics from the U.S. have hijacked Canadian policy taking Canada back to medieval blood lust. A 250-page field manual on counterinsurgency is being put out by Canada's Department of National Defense DND for its soldiers and officers. Jon Elmer of Global Research wrote on March 25, 2007, about these new methods of fighting insurgents like the “Taliban”, the “Chechnyans” and the “Mohawk Warrior Society”. Wait a minute, that’s us!
Let’s not kid ourselves. The main purpose of an army is to shoot and kill. Does Canada ’s Parliament or the Canadian people know about this genocidal action that is being done in their name? Since when is it legal to make plans to attack us?
If the DND see us as foreign insurgents, they obviously recognize our independent nationality. So when did they attempt to negotiate with us on a nation-to-nation basis? Under international accords that Canada has signed all countries must resolve differences by diplomatic means. War and the use of weapons to dominate are illegal.
Why are weapons being pointed at us? We are defenseless. Why are we being compared with the Taliban who have rockets, artillery and modern weapons to blow up U.S. , Canadian and British tanks that are inches thick?
These infiltrators and hijackers of Canadian institutions are attempting to break the old treaties of peace between us. Our historic alliances are well documented.
Certain individuals acting on behalf of the multinational corporations and banks want to send in the military to kill us and complete the theft of our land. These are worth billions in real estate development and extraction of resources. People and resources are not the property of multinational corporations and banks. Slavery was declared illegal 150 years ago. They think every person who is different is an enemy that they can spy on, create problems for and eliminate.
Public Security Minister Stockwell Day and Prime Minister Stephen Harper have to be brought before the International Criminal Court in The Hague to be prosecuted for proposing war crimes against us. We want to take our complaints to the Mohawk Nation, to the Confederacy, to the Canadian people, to the United Nations and to the world.
We are being called “terrorists”. We see a lot of people being killed in Afganistan , Iraq and elsewhere. Are they planning to bring this kind of violence here?
We are always ready to talk with the colonial governments even when they put a gun to our heads. For 500 years we have extended our hand of friendship to them. We believe that people should live in peace and friendship and to look at people as equals. The majority of Canadians want to learn about peace from us and to understand democracy better. Canadian Governor General Michaelle Jean, where are you? You are evading your duties to us.
How did these misguided sickos manage to infiltrate the DND? They are not following the legal agenda set by the Canadian people. They want peace.
We are trying to stop the subversion of law and order, to get Canada to obey its own laws, agreements, promises, treaties, laws of nations and the Charter of the United Nations. We have a legitimate government. We are not a line of ducks to be shot at in the amusement park.
The manual says, “Insurgent wars are characterized by their tendency to be local and often popular movements, rather than the traditional military conflicts between states. This type of irregular warfare has confounded U.S. and NATO forces in Iraq and Afghanistan respectively” and “successes are few and far between”. The U.S. and Canadian armies need practice so they are bringing the same blood bath here. They want more chances to reach for their guns and riot gear to confront us. Does nothing embarrass them?
We can tell this use of us as targets has already started. A few months ago Tyendinaga was suddenly swarmed by a long line of army trucks filled with troops. They claimed to be lost! Yeh!
In 1939 Europe saw the result of excessive militarism. It caused a war in which over 60 million were killed. Now these kinds of men want to “goose step” into our communities. They’re mesmerized by the movies glamorizing mercenary killings and the “History Channel’s” portrayal of Hitler, the Nazis and the Fascists in Europe and the U. S.
Gen. David Petraeus is the original author of the manual being used to divert the Canadian military from its original protective role. He took command of U.S. forces in Iraq in early 2007. Did his methods work? No way! Violence breeds violence. Yeh! Now they’re trying to get out because they’re getting their asses kicked. The average U.S. citizen has had enough. They don’t want anybody killed on any side. This Svengali has seduced the gullible minds at DND who can apply his failed schemes in Canada and elsewhere.
Maj. D.J. Lambert, the lead author of the DND version, points out that “Canadian Forces are actively engaged in various levels of confrontation with at least three ongoing insurgencies -- in Afghanistan , in Haiti and with domestic indigenous organizations in Canada , such as the Mohawk Warrior Society”. Government policy has pushed our people into poverty, starvation and death in the streets of Winnipeg and other Canadian cities. Why are they going after the weak?
Canada calls us their “citizens” but treat us like foreign insurgents. They are working against the Supreme Court of Canada which has told them time and time again they must treat Indigenous People with respect. DND covert actions are undermining this relationship by treating us as enemies.
The manual states, “Indigenous resistance in Canada are insurgencies because they are animated by the goal of altering political relationships with both the Canadian government and at the local level -- within indigenous reservations themselves -- "through the threat of, or use of, violence". We want to maintain the true relationship between us and the colonist as one of friendship. This definition of insurgency is so broad that any democratic action qualifies. We have made no threat of violence against the Canadian state. ”Canadian Forces have been used by the federal government in high-profile land confrontations with indigenous communities and protestors in standoffs with the Mohawks of Kanehsatake in 1990 and with the Ojibway at Ipperwash in 1995”. According to the DND, the military were at Ipperwash. This means the sniper who killed Dudley George might have been a soldier and not an Ontario Provincial Policeman. Is this why Corporal Deane and two other OPP key witnesses died in mysterious car crashes when they were just about to appear as witnesses at the Ipperwash Inquiry?
In our peaceful demonstrations at Kanehsatake, Gustafsen, Ipperwash, Six Nations, Grassy Narrows , and other places our legal rights were violated. Some lost their lives. The inquiries prove that. We know they want to provoke a confrontation to justify killing us. We won’t give them that.
In the January 12th 2004 covert operation at Kanehsatake, the government sent in heavily armed mercenaries to knock out the citizens’ police commission. The disinformation campaign made the weapons look like a Mohawk arsenal when in fact they were all supplied by the federal government.
”Canadian generals such as Leslie, Chief of Staff Rick Hillier and retired Maj. Gen. Louis MacKenzie have been outspoken critics of the Canadian military as merely a neutral middle-power and "blue-helmeted" peacekeepers”. This is what the Canadian public wants! The Canadian army is preparing to become the aggressors delivering death sentences to defenseless civilians, including infants and children, without so much as a charge or trial. These overgrown school yard bullies are still trying to play “paint ball” except they want to kill real people. Why should Canadian taxpayers pay for these “recreatech parties”?
Canadian Forces will leave Afghanistan in February 2009. "Let's not kid ourselves," Gen. Leslie said. “The enormous resources invested by the government in the transformation of Canada 's armed forces are clearly not for Afghanistan alone. It is logical to expect that we will go somewhere fairly similar to Afghanistan and do much the same sort of activity." With the whole world trying to find peace, where does he expect to go?
Stockwell Day, the Minister of Public Security, is a Pentecostal minister. He is known as a “Pharisee”, one who poses as a minister. His proposal to kill off Indians is contrary to the beliefs he espouses. He studies the Bible just like George Bush and Condoleeza Rice, who are psychopaths, liars and killers. They have no human feelings. As soon as their prayers are over, they have no qualms about ordering their military machines to go on bloody rampages.
If they kill us, we want the whole world to know they carried out premeditated murder of innocent people. The war games have to stop. We have to look out for soldiers in our backyards or their overhead choppers. They’ve been caught sniffing around our communities. We are asking all peace loving people worldwide to send your protests about this war mongering and targeting of Indigenous people to the Canadian government [harper.s@parl.ca], the Governor General [gg@gc.ca], the Queen [press@royalcollection.org.uk] and the Canadian military [http://www.forces.gc.ca/].
Kahentinetha Horn
MNN Mohawk Nation News
http://us.f520.mail.yahoo.com/ym/Compose?To=Kahentinetha2@yahoo.com http://us.f520.mail.yahoo.com/ym/Compose?To=katenies20@yahoo.com
For updates, workshops, speakers, to sign up, go to
http://www.mohawknationnews.com/
Sign the Women Title Holders Petition.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From the web:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=ELM20070325&articleId=5175
Canada: Counterinsurgency Manual Shows Military's New Face
by Jon Elmer
Global Research, March 25, 2007
IPS - 2007-03-22
Email this article to a friend
Print this article
TORONTO, Mar 22 (IPS) - Following closely behind their counterparts in the United States and Britain, Canada's Department of National Defence is preparing a comprehensive counter-insurgency field manual for its soldiers and officers. The manual will guide Canadian Forces doctrine and training well into the future, according to a draft edition obtained by IPS. A 250-page publication, the field manual outlines the principles and practices of fighting the kind of insurgencies that have come to define warfare for the Western powers in the 21st century, in places like Chechnya, Afghanistan and Iraq. The manual has been two years in development and is scheduled for release later this year. In it, insurgent wars are characterised by their tendency to be local and often popular movements, rather than the traditional military conflicts between states. This type of irregular warfare has confounded U.S. and NATO forces in Iraq and Afghanistan respectively, where growing insurgencies have taken a bloody toll on local populations as well as Western troops, and signs of success are few and far between. The increased prominence of the doctrine was recently on display when Gen. David Petraeus, author of the United States Army and Marine Corps counter-insurgency field manual, took command of U.S. forces in Iraq in early 2007. While perhaps as relevant as ever, counter-insurgency is not new a phenomenon, as the Canadian manual notes up front. Indigenous forces battled the Roman Empire in present-day Germany, Scotland and the Middle East two millennia ago. The British Empire fought insurgencies in 19th-century Afghanistan, as did the French in Algeria after World War Two. The U.S. withdrew from Vietnam in 1975 after a vicious decade-long counter-insurgency war against Vietnamese guerrillas. Maj. D.J. Lambert, the Canadian director of army doctrine and lead author of the manual, has cited several examples of historic Canadian counter-insurgencies, including battles with George Washington's U.S. forces or the Northwest Rebellion led by Louis Riel and the Metis in 1885. Presently, while Canada's Afghanistan mission dominates the attention and resources of the military, according to the manual, Canadian Forces are actively engaged in various levels of confrontation with at least three ongoing insurgencies -- in Afghanistan, in Haiti, as well as with domestic indigenous organisations in Canada, such as the Mohawk Warrior Society. Despite its "specific and limited aims", the First Nations rebellions in Canada are nevertheless insurgencies because they are animated by the goal of altering political relationships with both the Canadian government and at the local level -- within indigenous reservations themselves -- "through the threat of, or use of, violence", the manual states. In recent years, Canadian Forces have been used by the federal government in high-profile land confrontations with indigenous communities and protestors, including lethal standoffs with the Mohawk community of Kanehsatake in the 1990 Oka Crisis and with the Ojibway community at Ipperwash in 1995. Canadian Forces have been present in the Haitian capital, Port-au-Prince, since before the ouster of popularly-elected President Jean Bertrand Aristide in a military coup in February 2004. According to the draft manual, Canadian Forces have been "conducting COIN [counter-insurgency] operations against the criminally-based insurgency in Haiti since early 2004." Since the attacks on New York and Washington in September 2001, Canadian Forces have played a key combat role in Afghanistan, both in the U.S.-led Operation Enduring Freedom and the recent NATO mission to quell the growing uprising against the Western-backed government of Hamid Karzai. Today in Afghanistan, Canadian Forces from the Royal Canadian Regiment in Gagetown, New Brunswick are engaged in NATO's first major offensive of the season against what are broadly labeled Taliban insurgents. Code named Operation Achilles, the mission is characterised by NATO and Canadian officials as a pre-emptive attack on Taliban forces in Helmand Province who are reportedly preparing to launch a "spring offensive" against the presence of foreign troops. Maj. Gen. Ton van Loon, NATO's commander in Southern Afghanistan, said in a statement this week that Operation Achilles is the largest combined NATO-Afghan mission to date, involving 4,500 NATO troops and upwards of 1,000 Afghan National Army forces at its peak. Meanwhile, an Afghanistan-focused policy group, the Senlis Council, released the "alarming" results of a survey this week which polled 17,000 people in southern and eastern Afghanistan. The survey showed that one-half of respondents believe the Western-led war will fail to defeat the Taliban, and 87 percent of respondents believed that the tactics used by the Western forces in dealing with the insurgency were "not right". "The results from the survey are extremely alarming because they indicate that the international community is in serious trouble in Afghanistan," Senlis Council president Norine MacDonald said in a statement Monday. "A return of the Taliban into power would have grave consequences for both the people of Afghanistan and for global security." The counter-insurgency manual is one part of a significant modernising and restructuring of the Canadian Forces that the DND is billing as an effort to create a more effective force in fighting for Canada's "national interests" in the post-Cold War global order. But the changes are not only doctrinal; the intensity of the combat in Afghanistan is something Canadians haven't seen since at least the 1950s, when Canadian Forces fought in Korea. "It is a fascinating time to be a Canadian soldier," Lt. Gen. Andrew Leslie, head of the army, told journalists at a recent policy briefing at the Fraser Institute, a conservative research institute in Vancouver. "We are no longer a blunt instrument relegated solely to watching from the sidelines or inter-positioning ourselves between two formerly warring factions," Leslie said. Canadian generals such as Leslie, Chief of Staff Rick Hillier and retired Maj. Gen. Louis MacKenzie have been outspoken critics of the accuracy and utility of the long-fostered national self-image of the Canadian military as a neutral middle-power and "blue-helmeted" peacekeeper. While the Canadian Forces commitment in Afghanistan is currently slated to end in February 2009, "Let's not kid ourselves," Gen. Leslie said. The enormous resources invested by the government in the transformation of Canada's armed forces are clearly not for Afghanistan alone, he said, adding: "It is logical to expect that we will go somewhere fairly similar to Afghanistan and do much the same sort of activity." This story is part one of a two-part series on the transformation of Canada's military and humanitarian missions. With additional reporting by Anthony Fenton in Vancouver.
Global Research Articles by Jon Elmer
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
BLACKWATER NORTH OPENS NEAR CHICAGO
Read more about the rise of Blackwater mercenaries from author Jeremy Scahill:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&rlz=1T4ADBR_enUS214US214&q=Jeremy+Scahill+Blackwater+mercenaries
Blackwater opens training facility near Chicago
http://www.blackwaterusa.com/training/bwnorth.asp
Press release: Training Schedule Now Available for Blackwater North
Blackwater North is now offering training courses in Mount Carroll, IL.
Mount Carroll, IL (PRWEB) March 20, 2007 -- Blackwater USA's newest facility, Blackwater North, is announcing its 2007 training schedule and enrollment instructions through its website. Students are now able to access the website and review a full training schedule and enrollment forms.
The website is available through http://www.blackwaterusa.com/ under "training."
Blackwater North is a full service training center providing safe and realistic training environments on eighty acres consisting of seven flat ranges, a known distance range, an unknown distance range, a combat town range, a climbing/rappelling/shooting tower, a dismounted course, and a confidence course. Staffed by fully vetted and screened instructors with military and/or law enforcement expertise, Blackwater allows for the most comprehensive training for government, military, law enforcement, peace support operations, and qualified civilian customers.
Blackwater USA stands in support of security, peace, freedom, and democracy everywhere.
For more information, please visit http://www.blackwaterusa.com/ or call (815) 244-2900.
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