Rage Meter Resetting
The nice thing about having a blog, is that when you see a trend emerging before anyone else, you can crow about it down the road and have the documentary evidence to back your claim up. (The other side being that when you totally blow something, the same can be done by those who don't like you.)
I say this because back in June, I noted a story about the Canadian Forces being forced to cancel training courses because of a shortage of trainers. A sign that, whatever else you might hear, the conflict in Afghanistan is stretching our militaries capacity.
I also noted another phenomena that has increased resonance thanks to a new story I came across; the likelihood that we would see increased use of Private Military Contractors for training Canadian troops.
I wonder of this will be used as another reason to give more training contracts to some of the many new mercenary companies that have cropped up recently. (Probably be no-bid.)
The part about this that is interesting is that most of the guys in the PMC's are being lured from the armed forces by higher pay for doing much the same job in Iraq and Afghanistan. Basically, they're also responsible for the shortage of highly qualified trainers, and thanks to thier poaching of those troops, they'll get to make even more money by getting paid to replace them. Hell, they can probably even use it as a competitive advantage; their guys already know Canadian training methods.
So when I came across a story about the Canadian Forces using a PMC to train its soldiers for their mission in Afghanistan, I should be able to pat myself on the back and smile indulgently at those who are shocked that the Canadian military can't find sufficient resources to train its own soldiers. And if that was all the story entailed, I probably would be. Instead, I'm feeling a bit of shock myself and a not insignificant amount of disgust at who our government has decided to contract the training of our soldiers to:
Select Canadian soldiers have been sent to Blackwater U.S.A. in North Carolina for specialized training in bodyguard and shooting skills. Other soldiers have taken counterterrorism evasive-driving courses with the private military company now at the centre of an investigation into the killings of Iraqi civilians and mounting concerns about the aggressive tactics of its workers in the field.
I'm damn near at a loss for words. Whatever hope we ever had of winning the "hearts and minds" of the Afghan people, training our soldiers in the tactics used by Blackwater will settle the matter quite firmly in the negative. We haven't lost the moral high ground, we've simply chosen to abandon it.
