Fisher: Allow Canadian special forces privacy to do necessary task in Iraq

Royal Canadian Air Force ground crew performs post-flight checks on a CF-18 fighter jet. Canadian forces in Iraq have not exchanged gunfire nearly as often as other coalition forces, Matthew Fisher writes. (Canadian Forces Combat Camera file)

Unlike our allies who have kept a tight lid on the operational activities of their special forces in Iraq, the Harper government and the Canadian military made an uncharacteristic decision to permit details to be released about what Canada’s special forces are doing there.

Hence the storm of criticism led by the opposition and the media which likely will intensify Thursday when Defence Minister Rob Nicholson and Gen. Tom Lawson, the chief of defence, are to answer questions from parliamentarians.

I have been told by Iraqis and Kurds during several visits to the region last year and by western sources there and elsewhere, that American and British special forces often have operated “outside the wire” and have been in serious gunfights with Islamic State from time to time.

The telling difference is that the Yanks and Brits, who between them have perhaps 30 times more special forces in Iraq than Canada does, have maintained silence on what they are up to — for reasons of operational security — while our “openness” has turned to bite both the government and our Special Operations Forces Command.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper, left, and Gen. Tom Lawson participate in a tribute in October 2014 to the Canadian Forces.
(Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press file) []

An upshot of this is that the opposition and journalists in Canada have been reporting that Brit and Yank soldiers have not been forward deployed and in combat alongside the Iraqis and Kurds they are advising. The implication is that only Canadians have, with the further insinuation that the government has been acting nefariously, breaking promises and so on.

Yet more than two months ago, Britain’s Daily Mail reported that “SAS troops with sniper rifles and heavy machine-guns have killed hundreds of Islamic State extremists in a series of deadly quad-bike ambushes inside Iraq” that were taking place almost daily.

If this report is true — and given the storied history of the SAS, the Green Berets and U.S. navy SEALs, it would be passing strange if it wasn’t — the Brits and the Yanks are deeply involved in real combat missions. That is something very different than what the modest number of Canadian advisers have been up to there.

The U.S. and Brits have been conducting such “black ops” for months. Canada’s 69 special forces apparently have been involved only in far more benign “white ops.” Small numbers of Canadians —  typically it would be four to eight soldiers at a time — have sometimes left the bases they are living on because that is the only way to effectively teach Iraqi and Kurdish forces how to surveil hostile terrain and to laser enemy targets for coalition aircraft flying overhead.

Openness is not second nature for Prime Minister Stephen Harper. Our allies must be wondering why his government decided to share this usually secret information now — because there is no going back. Imagine how the critics would howl if the information door were now to be slammed shut. They would go ballistic.

But if the government is going to be open, it should be completely open about what is going on. Canadian special forces soldiers are in Iraq. They are providing military advice to Iraqi armed forces. Sometimes they are out on patrol with Iraqi soldiers. If they come under fire, they are going to fire back. This was obvious to anyone with much experience of how recent wars have been conducted, yet the government and Gen. Lawson suggested this was not the case several months ago.

The ensuing hullabaloo is a reminder of the childish, uninformed level of debate in Canada about military issues. We are so different in this regard than our allies. One need only look at the Australians — who have three times as many special forces in Iraq as Canada does — and the more mature way they discuss defence matters.

There is a broad national consensus on defence Down Under instead of our deep chasm between handwringers and realists. Our elites want Canada to be heroic in some touchy-feely way but at the same time to remain boy scouts, unbloodstained, to let others carry the fight for us and to react with horror and anger at hearing our guys are returning fire. They want to play armchair quarterback in a game they not only despise but do not understand.

Canadians, particularly our elites, should wake up and grow up. There is something big and very frightening going on in the Middle East. A bunch of zealots under the banner of Islamic State is not only trying to take over Iraq and Syria, it has acted on its promise to come for us, in Canada. We can sit passively and await their further deadly incursions. Or we can take on our proper responsibilities to defend Canada and Canadian interests and get out into the world and assist those who confront this evil.

The opposition and some of the commentariat aside, most voters appear to be standing with the Harper government in its approach to Islamic State. An example was provided last week in St. Catharines, Ont., as an audience that had gathered for a business announcement applauded when the prime minister told them, “if those guys fire at us, we’re going to fire back and we’re going to kill them.”

Polls — including those conducted in Quebec, which is notoriously averse to sending Canadian troops into war zones — are of a piece with that.

Most Canadians understand the Islamic State threat and are not surprised or bothered by Ottawa’s military engagement in Iraq.

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