Kudos to Outback Steakhouse!

A whole lot of announcing by senior federal Conservatives will be going on tomorrow; this appears to be the reason:

Royal to return to Canadian Forces

Remember there never was a Royal Canadian (or British) Army. As for the observatory…other suggestion for resurrecting previous names?
Update via Milnet.ca:

CANFORGEN 147/11 VCDS 021/11 151502Z AUG 11
RESTORING THE HISTORIC NAMES OF THE ROYAL CANADIAN NAVY, THE CANADIAN ARMY AND THE ROYAL CANADIAN AIR FORCE.
UNCLASSIFIED
THE CDS IS PLEASED TO ANNOUNCE THAT THE GOVERNMENT IS RESTORING THE HISTORIC NAMES OF THE ROYAL CANADIAN NAVY (RCN), THE CANADIAN ARMY (CA), AND THE ROYAL CANADIAN AIR FORCE (RCAF)
THE INITIATIVE TO RESTORE THE HISTORIC NAMES OF CANADA’S THREE FORMER SERVICES IS AIMED AT RESTORING AN IMPORTANT AND RECOGNIZABLE PART OF CANADA S MILITARY HERITAGE. THESE WERE THE SERVICES THAT FOUGHT AND EMERGED VICTORIOUS FROM THE SECOND WORLD WAR AND KOREA AND CONTRIBUTED TO THE DEFENCE OF EUROPE AND NORTH AMERICA FROM THE EARLY DAYS OF THE COLD WAR. THESE WERE ALSO THE SERVICES THAT PAVED THE WAY IN TERMS OF INTERNATIONAL PEACEKEEPING MISSIONS
THE CHANGE WILL BE IMPLEMENTED BY RENAMING THE THREE ENVIRONMENTAL COMMANDS. MARITIME COMMAND WILL BE NAMED THE ROYAL CANADIAN NAVY LAND FORCE COMMAND WILL BE NAMED THE CANADIAN ARMY AND AIR COMMAND WILL BE NAMED THE ROYAL CANADIAN AIR FORCE. IN THIS WAY WE WILL REGAIN AN IMPORTANT PART OF OUR COLLECTIVE HERITAGE WITHIN A UNIFIED EFFECTIVE CANADIAN FORCES COMMAND STRUCTURE..

Phil writes from Ottawa;

I met a gentleman in the Calgary airport yesterday who mentioned the
Portraits of Honour project now touring Canada. Essentially it’s a
large 50′ mural with painted portraits of our fallen soldiers with
a goal to raise funds for troop support.
Afterwards I thought about you and SDA nation.
It has already received plenty of media attention and their website
http://www.portraitsofhonour.com/ with a 9 minute video at the bottom
clearly explains the background and the goal of the project.

There are four stops scheduled for Saskatchewan in August. Check it out.

That’s what the author (check him out) of this piece in the LA Times strongly hopes:

U.S. foreign policy: War fever subsides
As Americans weary of the mission in Afghanistan, Democrats and Republicans alike are raising serious questions about the nation’s propensity for multiple, open-ended wars. Finally.

Update: Tom Ricks wonders, at his Best Defense blog, if the US can do some pretty Martian things without there actually being war:

Annals of Obama & national security (II): What are the politico-diplomatic consequences of the drone warfare era?
…
Back in the old days, air strikes were considered an act of war. But the Obama Administration sez no — and here I am beginning to change my mind. Maybe they are onto something. The drone strikes being conducted in those three countries are not being done to challenge those states, but to supplement the power of those states, to act when they cannot or will not. More importantly, these are precise strikes against certain individuals, making them more like police work than like classic military action. Police work involves small arms used precisely. Drones aren’t pistols, but firing one Hellfire at a Land Rover is more like a police action than it is like a large-scale military offensive with artillery barrages, armored columns, and infantry assaults…

Sort of reminds one of Alexandria, 1882.

…or, putting the RAF in Rafale. From a story last year:

…
Air Vice-Marshall Bagwell said that one way around the shortages was to collaborate more with the French [more here].
“It looks like we are going to twin 3 Squadron [a typhoon squadron] with one of the [French] Rafale [fighter-bomber] squadrons. I’ll make a prediction we will have British officers flying Rafale from a carrier within a few years. I’m quite sure of it.”..

Now:

Bandits à neuf heures, Jacques! RAF pilots have language lessons so they can use French aircraft carrier
Royal Navy top-gun pilots are being forced to learn French so that they can fly from France’s flagship aircraft carrier.
The Navy pilots are training with the French, whose jets they may have to use while they await the delivery of the new Joint Strike Fighters, which are unlikely to be ready until 2020.
They will use French to communicate with their Gallic counterparts in the air and in the officers’ quarters on board France’s carrier, the Charles de Gaulle.

Reach for le ciel: Royal Navy pilots will learn to fly French Rafale fighters…
A senior Royal Navy officer said last night: ‘Who would have thought that more than 200 years after the Battle of Trafalgar, we would be asking the French to train our Naval fighter pilots? Our relationship with the French has always been a bit tense, so this will be a big test of co-operation.
‘For decades, our perception of the French has always been that they arrive when the battle is over. Now David Cameron has forced us to join forces, take French lessons and eat their food.’..

Fings certainly ain’t wot they used t’ be (h/t Richard Bray). Who’d a thunk the British military would have to go bilingual too?

No one has been a more staunch supporter of Canada’s presence in Afghanistan than yours truly but with the war having dragged on about the same length as World Wars 1 & 2 combined, perhaps the time is soon coming to pull the bulk of our forces out? This article by Dan Lamothe, inspired by an e-mail from Retired Marine Sergeant John Bernard is a real eye opener.

16 years after the Somalia inquiry which resulted in its “disbandment in disgrace,” the final commanding officer of the regiment is demanding an apology from the federal government.

h/t Alex in Winnipeg

Canadians remember our brave soldiers who have died every November 11th. Americans remember their fallen on the last Monday of May, in what they call Memorial Day.
A year ago at this time I was fortunate enough to be over in Hawaii. I made a point of driving up to the magnificent and sacred Punchbowl National Cemetery to witness the events first hand. Here’s a video I put together to commemorate that solemn day:

Continue reading →

Related: ‘These SEALs, these guys who killed bin Laden, earn about $54,000 a year’

May they all rest in peace.

Publius puts the case (and several others):

…
So an Ignatieff government will mean more Canadians soldiers to be used as slow moving targets in Third World hell holes? I’m not opposed to Canadian forces fighting in Afghanistan. Clearing out a swamp of Islamist fanaticism is a good thing. The idea of responsibility to protect, however, is making altruism central to our foreign policy.
Should it be the goal of this country to be part-boy scout and part-Rambo in every sub-Saharhan country where Tribe Y gets in mind to wipe out Tribe X? How is this different from old fashioned European imperialism? Except that the old fashioned imperialists would at least try to civilize the natives. Something which was – of course – very, very evil and we would never do. We value diversity. No matter how bloody diverse it gets…

Canadian Army technical precision. Years of training must be required, take that USMC. Viva La Bamba:

Via Bouhammer, forgive his spelling.

Action in Manitoba, learning from the Chinese?

Now is the time at SDA when we juxtapose!
1955.

2011.

Foreign military intervention, including Canadian, in Libya–a post at Milnet.ca.
Update: Other international contributions detailed here, note Danes, Norwegians and Spaniards.

FYI–will be broadcast delayed on CPAC, also online, at 1100 ET (note appearance by Commander, U.S. Cyber Command):

Ottawa Conference on Defence and Security
The Conference of Defence Associations and the CDA Institute hold their annual conference. Day two’s theme will be “The Canadian Forces Post-Combat Mission in Afghanistan”.
| More

Agenda:

11am ET / 8am PT
Peter MacKay – Canadian Defence Minister
11:45am ET / 8:45am PT
Gen. Walter Natynczyk – Canadian Chief of Defence Staff
12:30pm ET / 9:30am PT
Gen. Mieczyslaw Bieniek – NATO Deputy Commander
1:15pm ET / 10:15am PT
Gen. Keith Alexander – Commander, U.S. Cyber Command
2pm ET / 11am PT
Armed Forces Update
Lt. Gen (ret’d) Michel Maisonneuve – CDA Institute
Lt. Gen. André Deschamps – Chief of Air Staff
Lt. Gen. Peter Devlin – Chief of Land Staff
Vice-Adm. Dean McFadden – Chief of Maritime Staff
3:30pm ET / 12:30pm PT
Future Challenges for the Canadian Forces and Department of National Defence
Brig.-Gen. (ret’d) Don MacNamara – CDA Institute
Philippe Lagassé – University of Ottawa
Lt. Gen. Andrew Leslie – Chief of Transformation, Canadian Forces
Dan Ross – assistant deputy minister of defence

Fuller agenda here

“The lessons? Our enemies are human, they can be beaten, and hell hath no fury like a woman sick of sharia.

Nicola Timmerman’s Valentine’s Day reminder.

Please send a brief message to the troops. There are fewer and fewer messages I find, and often they are weekly from the same people.
Go to www.forces.gc.ca and pick English or French and then click on the right hand side box which says Write to the Troops. You can write a bilingual message if you want..

A 360 degree view from the pilot’s seat. (h/t Dave S.)