[R-G] Iraq War commander named head of Canada’s military

[Anthony Fenton]

Iraq War commander named head of Canada’s military
By Keith Jones
9 June 2008
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2008/jun2008/cana-j09.shtml

Canada’s Conservative government has announced that a Canadian Armed  
Forces (CAF) officer who helped direct the US-British occupation of  
Iraq for a year, beginning in January 2004, will become the next head  
of the Canadian Armed Forces.

While seconded to the US Army’s Third Corps, Lieutenant-General Walter  
Natynczyk served first as the Deputy Director of Strategy, Policy and  
Plans and then as the Deputy Commanding General of the Multinational  
Corps—”the tactical unit responsible for command and control of  
operations” of the US military and its allies “throughout Iraq.”

According to the Globe and Mail, for much of Natynczyk’s deployment to  
Iraq, he was the deputy commander of 35,000 US and allied troops; that  
is, the second in command of a force “far larger and wielding far more  
combat power than the entire Canadian army” and one “waging a fierce  
counterinsurgency” war. Interviewed by Maclean’s magazine in 2004,  
Natynczyk faithfully peddled the Bush administration’s justifications  
for the carnage wrought by US imperialism on the Iraqi people.  
“There’s a heck of a lot of people,” asserted Natynczyk, “who will  
have a better life and a better future because of what we are doing  
here today.”

Like his predecessor as CAF chief, General Rick Hillier, Natynczyk is  
a graduate of the US Army War College.

Natynczyk’s appointment was not unexpected. He is currently the vice- 
chief of defence staff, Hillier’s deputy. Nevertheless, Natynczyk’s  
promotion, which does not follow the standard practice of rotating the  
top CAF post among the army, navy, and air force, was clearly meant to  
send a strong message to the Canadian elite, the military, and  
Washington.

The Conservative government is determined to make good on its pledges  
to expand the CAF to the point where the world’s great powers take  
notice and to use Canada’s military to aggressively assert “Canadian  
interests”—that is, the interests of Canada’s capitalist elite—on the  
world stage.

Prime Minster Stephen Harper, who has brought Canada’s foreign policy  
even more closely in line with that of the Bush administration while  
championing the leading role the CAF is playing in the Afghan counter- 
insurgency war, said Natynczyk’s “service record includes a broad  
range of achievement at home and abroad. The Canadian Forces are a  
vital institution making a tremendous contribution to our country.  
Walter Natynczyk is the ideal person to lead the Canadian forces  
forward.”

Defence Minister Peter MacKay and Natynczyk himself stressed the  
extent to which the new CAF chief, who is to assume his command at the  
beginning of next month, will continue the transformation of the CAF  
undertaken by Hillier.

“This will bring great continuity within the Canadian Forces,”  
declared MacKay.

Speaking of Hillier, Natynczyk said, “In many ways, we are the same  
person.”

“We have to look at the huge success we have had over there in  
Afghanistan,” added Natynczyk. “We’re hearing from allies how much  
they recognize the quality of our men and women—we don’t take back  
seat to anybody. Hillier and the Armed Forces have done a great job of  
putting us on the right path. The question is, how do we accelerate  
that?”

In late 2003-2004, the outgoing CAF head pressed the then Liberal  
government to deploy more than 2,000 CAF troops to Kandahar, in  
southern Afghanistan, where they have taken a leading role in the US- 
NATO counter-insurgency war. For Hillier, and this was subsequently  
fervently embraced by the Conservative government and corporate media,  
the CAF expedition to Afghanistan has served as a means to bury the  
notion, associated with Liberal Prime Minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau,  
of the CAF as a peace-keeping force and revive, in fact and public  
image, Canada’s military as an instrument of war.

Hillier also flouted the notion of the subordination of the military  
to the civilian government, famously declaring at one point that his  
responsibility as CAF head was as much to the men and women in uniform  
as it was to the government and people of Canada. Yet he was the  
object of gushing tributes from the government and media when he  
announced his impending retirement in April.

Natynczyk said that one of his first priorities will be to visit  
Afghanistan: “I’ve got to get back over there pretty soon. I was just  
there in February.”

The CAF top brass, the government, and media have trumpeted the Afghan  
mission as a great success. But 85 CAF personnel have lost their lives  
in Afghanistan, proportionately the highest casualty rate of any  
foreign army in Afghanistan. The CAF has repeatedly been forced to  
deploy more men and equipment, including tanks, to Afghanistan, and it  
faces much opposition from the local population because of its support  
for a corrupt US-imposed government and readiness to call in air  
strikes, which inevitably result in heavy civilian casualties, and  
propensity to kill civilians who stray too close to CAF vehicles or  
roadblocks.

At Friday’s press conference at which his appointment was announced,  
Natynczyk touted the relevance of his Iraq experience for the CAF’s  
counter-insurgency war in southern Afghanistan —recently extended by a  
bi-partisan Conservative-Liberal motion till the end of 2011. Said  
Natynczyk, “The tactics and techniques and procedures” for pacifying  
Iraq and Afghanistan “are exactly the same. So are the risks.”

Natynczyk will also have responsibility for overseeing a Conservative  
plan to greatly expand the CAF’s firepower and overseas deployment  
capabilities. Last month the government announced its Canada First  
Defence Strategy under which Ottawa will spend upwards of $40 billion  
on re-equipping the CAF over the next 20 years.

While Natynczyk’s appointment underscores the current government’s  
plans to revive Canadian militarism, it also serves to expose the  
hypocritical character of the Liberals’ refusal to deploy the CAF  
alongside US and British troops in the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

Under Liberal government orders, the CAF was intimately involved in  
the Pentagon’s planning for the invasion of Iraq. Only at the eleventh  
hour did the Chretien Liberal government—to the consternation of  
Harper and his Conservatives and much of Canada’s corporate elite— 
decide to pull the CAF out of the invasion. It did so for two reasons:  
the mass anti-war sentiment, which was manifested in some of the  
biggest demonstrations in Canadian history and, secondly, apprehension  
over Washington’s willingness to trash the system of multilateral  
alliances through which the Canadian bourgeoisie had long sought to  
contain US power.

Nevertheless, Canada was completely complicit in the illegal US  
invasion and occupation of Iraq, which has led to some one million  
Iraqi fatalities, as well as 4,000 US war dead. Natynczyk was one of  
several dozen CAF officers who participated in the war while on  
exchanges with the US military. Moreover, the Canadian navy was  
helping to blockade the Persian Gulf. And from the beginning of the  
war, Chretien made clear that Canada supported a rapid US victory,  
while dismissing the question of the legality of the war as  
essentially irrelevant.

In 2004, as the anti-US insurgency was gathering force, the Liberal  
government, now headed by Paul Martin, agreed to assist the US by  
deploying Canadian forces to the center of the Taliban insurgency in  
southern Afghanistan.

Except when stumping for votes, the Liberals have since sought to  
downplay their decision to keep Canada officially out of the Iraq War.  
In late 2006, they came close to selecting an enthusiastic supporter  
of the war, Michael Ignatieff, as party leader. Ignatieff is now  
deputy Liberal leader.

Earlier this year, the Liberals rallied behind their ostensible  
Conservative government opponents to ensure a further 34-month  
extension of the Canadian military intervention in southern Afghanistan.

Not surprisingly, Liberal defence critic Bryon Wilfert welcomed  
Natynczyk’s appointment, noting his long experience, especially  
working with US military forces. “I think it’s the right choice at the  
right time,” said Wilfert.