Politics, the Military and the Media

[ruxted]

Link to original article on ruxted.ca


Politics, the Military and the Media

Many column inches in the print media and even more gigahertz of bandwidth in the electronic media have been expended on parsing Gen. Rick Hillier’s recent comments about how long it might take to make the Afghan National Army (ANA) fit to defend Afghanistan on its own.

A recent Globe and Mail editorial is an example, but a sadly rare example, of a correct media analysis.

The Globe and Mail says: “...he owes no apologies for giving an honest assessment of the mission's status ...”

There are two important points that some media outlets have failed to explain to Canadians:

1. It is NOT Gen. Hillier’s duty (or even his right) to ‘sell’ the mission to Canadians. As Ruxted has said: “General Hillier has been the public face of Canada’s mission in Afghanistan and that, as we have said, is wrong. ... the Chief of the Defence Staff should [not] be explaining national policy to Canadians; that is the Prime Minister’s job and he has the bully pulpit in Ottawa, in the Parliament of Canada from which he can and must convince Canadians that our soldiers are fighting and occasionally dying in Afghanistan for good, valid, even noble reasons: for Canada and for Canadian values.”

But: Gen. Hillier does have a duty to speak to Canadian military personnel about what they are doing, how they ought to do it and why they are doing it, too. He also has a right to transmit that message to the broader ‘military family’ – CF members’ relatives and friends, retired soldiers, etc.

He has been doing that and he has been doing that well. In the process he has been, as the editorial said of his ‘honest assessment,’ telling Canadians at large about the realities of the mission and that is “...something that Canadians surely appreciate from their top general.”

2. The world has changed. Gen. Hillier is, head and shoulders, the most ‘visible’ Canadian military leader in living memory. He is a skilled media ‘performer’ and a reliable source of the ‘sound bites’ which are so essential for TV news, above all.

The relationship of the media and war goes back, at least, to the ‘jingoism’ of the Crimean war period. The media used the war to sell newspapers and the government used the media as a tool for ‘selling’ its policies. That carried on in South Africa nearly a half century later, then in the First and Second World War when Canadian war correspondents were an integral part of our national war effort. The media was conscripted into the government’s propaganda effort.

That changed in the 1960s. First: some journalists were, doubtless, sensitive to the complaint that Edward R. Murrow, for example, was little more than a British propagandist on America’s airwaves. Second: many Americans, including many American journalists, did not approve of the American war in Viet Nam. Third: technology allowed war, for the first time, to intrude into our living rooms. We can, and do, read e.g. Christie Blatchford’s war reporting and we can ‘feel’ the bumps and bruises and terror and laughter but nothing quite captures mass attention like a TV clip. Like it or not war is news and it is brought to our homes, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, on TV.

Gen. Hillier is just another ‘cog’ in the machine. He, and other military commanders, cannot help but be ‘used’ by governments and the media. In “The Unexpected war” Janice Gross Stein and Eugene Lang tell us that Gen. Ray Henault was picked to be CDS (by Prime Minister Chrétien) in some measure because of his skill at media briefings.1 It is not surprising that being ‘media savvy’ is as important to military commanders as it is to business executives.

We are accustomed, as we should be, to seeing admirals and generals on TV testifying to parliamentary (or congressional) committees, speaking at public events and, in the process, ‘selling’ the military and its ‘shopping lists.’ That is part of the day to day business of government in a modern democracy. Gen. Hillier has been doing that.

Some months ago Liberal defence critic Denis Coderre complained that Gen. Hillier was being used as a political prop. There is a risk, when a military is as ‘out front’ and public as ours, that the line between traditional, proper, apolitical military advice and information and partisan politics can become blurred or can be seen to be blurred – which is just as bad.

Military people, including Gen. Hillier must be apolitical; they must not cross the line. The missions they conduct – bravely and professionally – are assigned by Canada, by the people of Canada through their elected parliamentarians. The military does its best with what it is given. It can, should explain what it is doing and it can ask for more resources but it must not be in the business of saying this is ‘good’ or ‘bad.’ The soldiers’ job is to do it right  or resign. Politicians must, also, stay on their side of the line. It is neither their right nor duty to try to silence military commanders who are going about their proper business.

The media needs to understand this and explain it to Canadians.

----------
1. Stein and Lang, The Unexpected war, Toronto, 2007, p. 57

 

[geo]

Another good read Ruxted

Thankyou!

 

[Drif10]

Apolitical?

I worked EX, it's ALLLLLL politics, don't let anyone tell you different.

 

[Edward Campbell]

Two items caught my eye this morning:

1. A Globe and Mail column by Lawrence Martin; and

2. A letter, also in the Good Grey Globe, from former (Liberal_ foreign minister Pink Lloyd Axworthy .

Martin says, inter alia: “If someone wanted to paint a portrait of an intimidated country, they could choose worse than this locale. The most militarily powerful country the galaxy has ever known cowers behind these walls, intimidated by the most weakly armed enemy in history. No army, no air force, no nation.

For the enemy, it might well be strange to behold all this aforementioned activity. They must be thinking that the less they do, the more we tremble.

Our era of overreaction offers a golden opportunity for a political leader to forge a different mentality - a culture of courage to replace the one of fear. The courageous don't hide behind walls, don't inflate threats, don't run for cover when they see an unattended Loblaws bag.

But rather than overseers of this type, we have men and women of the status quo, who are more inclined to ride the tides of conventional thinking, making us pawns in the terrorist threat game.”

I happen to agree with him. I think that we hand al Qaeda and their fellow travellers an easy win when we sacrifice too many rights for security. But, I’m deeply conflicted. For example: I very much favour London’s all intrusive video surveillance. I believe I sacrifice my privacy every single time I leave the front door of my condo. I allow every person, security official or just curious bystander, to watch my every move and to analyze it – indeed, in so far as it is the security services, I welcome such attention because I believe the agents will, quickly, move away from me and watch more likely threats. The mass of cameras in London just make it easier for the security services to do what we pay them to do: watch us – and watch out for us – all of us, all the time.

There are real threats out there; we have real enemies; as Martin says: they have no armies, they have no state. But that’s one of their strengths – they can operate without the impedimenta of a nation state. They can and do operate in reasonable safety in weak and failing states and regions, like Pakistan’s North-West Frontier. They want to, almost certainly are planning to attack us, again, in our homelands and overseas. But does X-raying my shoes really make America safer?

The solution, which Martin does not offer, is to take our fight to the enemy. Globe and Mail reporters can go into the North-West Frontier and interview Taliban leaders. Our special forces soldiers should do the same, but conducting the interview with 5.56 mm rounds. Targeted assassinations – too many of which go wrong – should be part of our foreign and defence policies; so should espionage – especially financial espionage aimed at Arab money in banks in Paris, Prague and Pickering.

The second item, the one which is really germane to this thread is the Axworthy letter. Here it is, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions (§29) of the Copyright Act:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20071122.COLETTS22-6/TPStory/Opinion/letters

Don't let the generals decide

LLOYD AXWORTHY
Foreign affairs minister, 1996 - 2000

November 22, 2007

Winnipeg -- A disturbing trend of pro-military sentiment among Ottawa's chattering class these days can be summarized succinctly as "Let the generals decide" (Don't Leave Talk To The Politicians - Nov. 17).

It is a long held principle of Canadian parliamentary government that the military must be subject to policies enacted by those who are elected. Surprisingly, Eugene Lang's position is contrary to evidence in a book on Afghanistan he co-authored that documents how advice from defence headquarters, especially from General Rick Hillier, was generally wrong and at times duplicitous.

The generals wrongly asserted the only way to appease the ire of the Bush administration over a rejection on missile defence was to engage in action in Afghanistan. Gen. Hillier's commitment to Paul Martin that engagement in Afghanistan would not preclude becoming involved in humanitarian initiatives in Haiti or Darfur was false.

Most disturbing, we went to Kandahar without knowing what risks to expect or what, indeed, we were going for, an abject dereliction of the responsibility to give political decision-makers sound intelligence and a clear statement of mission.

We must not allow the erosion of a fundamental tenet of Canadian democracy about who governs; we must resist the siren call that we become acquiescent in accepting the dominance of the military in our decision-making.

This is part and parcel of the Big Lie and the New Narrative.

Eugene Lang clarified the new narrative in “The Unexpected War.” The problem, he explained, was not that Gen. Hillier drove policy, as Axworthy suggests, but rather that Hillier had a plan that was very much in line with Paul Martin’s emerging vision. To the degree that there was a problem, Lang and Stein suggest, it was that the foreign affairs bureaucracy was (and in my opinion still is) inept, at best. This is the very bureaucracy over which Axworthy presided for four years. It failed, miserably, to present any useful options to the cabinet. Hillier’s views carried the day because they were the only clear, coherent views available. Axworthy appears to believe that the rest of government should be as ineffective as the part he led.

Pink Lloyd Axworthy is taking a partisan political cheap shot at Gen Hillier, very much in line with Steven Staples cheap shots about the mythical militarization of Canadian society.

Axworthy appears to be abysmally ignorant of what political control of the military means. He suggests that the military dominates political decision making. If it does it is because the rest of the government’s decision making process is broken. And it’s broken because, for 40 years, it has been systematically weaken by a succession of Liberal, Conservative and Liberal governments – governments in which Axworthy served from 1979 through 2000.

 

[Teddy Ruxpin]

My loathing of Axworthy (and, by extension, his like-minded ilk in the Liberal Party - Chretien included) and his weak, vacillating, anti-military, "soft power" travelling road show reached new heights with this trashy, ill-informed shot in the press this morning.

 

[GAP]

An you think you have it bad.....it is my city Axworthy lives  and leaves his rhetorical messes in, much like an untrained puppy....He is president of our Lieberal and NDP think place (U of Wpg), and he's the spout that keeps on spouting.... :

 

[GK .Dundas]

An you think you have it bad.....it is my city Axworthy lives  and leaves his rhetorical messes in, much like an untrained puppy....He is president of our Lieberal and NDP think place (U of Wpg), and he's the spout that keeps on spouting.... :

When I'm asked if there are downsides to living in Winnipeg my usual reply is ." With the exception of Lloyd Axworthy, none that I can think of .On the other hand I have no objections to his brother Tom who is actually a nice guy.

 

[Greymatters]

Axworthy should know better.  He's likely posturing for the left-leaning academics he has become associated with since leaving government.  He himself knows the power that a defence minister has over the military, not the other way around...

 

[Rifleman62]

When Pink Axworthy was active in politics, my wife wore ear plugs due to my rants. Axworthy is still peeved he did not get the Nobel Peace Prize. My opinion is that all he was doing was centered on his efforts to get the NPP, to the determent of Canada. And yet he his held in somewhat high regard here in Winnipeg. Go figure. Recently at the U of W there was a threatening message left in a washroom on campus. So what did soft power pink Axworthy do? He called the police, an armed force!! Axworthy disgusts me, always has, always will. Self serving, pompous, stuffed shirt. He is in the same mode as many of our politicans who would send people into  harms way (for their cause), but not have the internal fortitude to go in harms way themselves, hiding behind what they are doing as politicans is so important to Canada ( Taliban Jack, Denny Coderre anyone?)

 

[Edward Campbell]

Here, reproduced under the fair Dealing provisions (§29) of the Copyright Act, is an interesting editorial from today’s Globe and Mail:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080226.wehillier26/BNStory/specialComment/home

Globe Editorial

Gen. Hillier steps out of bounds

From Tuesday's Globe and Mail
February 26, 2008 at 4:28 AM EST

There is much to be admired in General Rick Hillier. Canada's Chief of the Defence Staff has restored morale in what was a savagely underfunded military. With sometimes disarming candour, he has ably fought for the Canadian Forces' needs both publicly and behind closed doors, standing up to his political masters where necessary. His statement last fall that it would "take 10 years or so" for Afghanistan to be able to meet its own security needs may have been at odds with the government's messaging, but it was an honest effort to level with Canadians about the state of the mission. But even Gen. Hillier must adhere to a chain of command - something he appeared to lose sight of last week.

In his speech before the Conference of Defence Associations, Gen. Hillier crossed the line between military official and politician as he never had before. It may have been acceptable for him to articulate that it was in the interests of Canadian troops for Parliament to reach a quick decision on their future in Afghanistan. In noting that the Taliban recognized "a window of extreme vulnerability" as politicians debated the mission, he at least drew upon his expertise of the conflict to convey useful information. But there was nothing useful or appropriate about his call for MPs to unanimously pass a motion expressing support for Canadian troops - a gesture he called "the least our soldiers could expect."

It is a discouraging prospect that our soldiers are so hypersensitive that they require the expressed support of every single Bloc Québécois and New Democratic MP in order to do their jobs. But even in that unlikely scenario, military officials have no business telling political parties how they should be voting. Nor should Gen. Hillier be implicitly suggesting that those parliamentarians who oppose the mission's extension don't support the troops - an offensive misinterpretation of their sincere (if wrong-headed) view that it is in the soldiers' best interests to bring them home.

In a democratic country, generals are not permitted to bully elected representatives. If Gen. Hillier wishes to make use of the public support he has accrued to influence Parliament's decisions, he should resign his post and run for office. Until then, he should remember that he answers to the government - not the other way around. Defence Minister Peter MacKay, who opened yesterday's debate on the motion to extend the mission in Kandahar to 2011, should haul Gen. Hillier onto the carpet and remind him of the crucial distinction between their respective roles.

The Good Grey Globe is partially right:

• It is a bit much to suggest that Canada’s soldiers need the approval of the BQ and NDP in order to keep their morale high; and

• Generals (and admirals) ought to stay well clear of telling politicians how to vote on issues.

But, the Globe is wrong when it suggests that “generals are not permitted to bully elected representatives.” In fact the democratic system depends, in some measure, on public servants and the public “bullying” elected representatives – that’s how policy gets made. If the Globe and Mail finds policy making distasteful it should follow Bismarck’s sage advice and avert its gaze. Military men have been “bullying” parliamentarians for centuries – since about as long as we have had something akin to a sovereign parliament.

The Globe and Mail betrays a frail sense of just how rough, ready and robust a liberal democracy is, or should be. There is plenty of room for “bullying” – in public and, more often, in the privacy of offices and conference room – on both sides. Gen. Hillier is well within bounds to tell parliamentarians what he wants them to do about the Afghanistan mission but he ought not to cloak it in platitudes about what the soldiers want. The soldiers want, need and deserve sound, hard-headed, pragmatic policy and resources from their parliament – wishy-washy sentiment is sufficient for the silk-stocking socialists of the NDP but the army needs bullets, beans and consistent direction and there is no harm in admirals and generals spelling out what that might cost.

 

[54/102 CEF]

While a long way from "whats going on" but I will venture to say that

NATO provides a buffer for the Afghan government

The Afghan government may well take ten years to get its act together to provide for a sustained and responsible defence program that the lefties don`t accuse of operating with graft to supplement their incomes.

When you have the will - and the means - and they seem to have the means - you can do anything

That goes for both sides of the border.

The question should be

Is it the Afghan grunt thats the problem - his entire chain of command - or the policy side on both sides of the border? Then you'd have the great communicators - in uniform and out having a prolonged huddle..... never hurts to remind them who pays their wages.