Meet Dave

I am not a military person. I do not come from a military family. I therefore have no basis on which to form an opinion about anything to do with the military, aside from a general feeling that war is bad. So whenever I want an informed, rational, detailed analysis of military-related news, I turn to Dave over at The Galloping Beaver.

Dave is different from most people who blog about the military and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq because he actually spent his career in the armed forces as a sailor and a marine. Unlike most military and ex-military pundits, however, his support of the troops goes beyond mere boosterism and cries of "Support the mission at all costs!" Instead, he questions the underlying assumptions of both the military and civilians, he calls bullshit when he sees it, and then he explains exactly when and how we are being fed a great steaming pile by those who we assume know better than us about these things.

Here is what Dave had to say today:

So Harper, gushing all over the Manley Report, (Didn't we he do a lovely job on that!), tells us that he is pretty firm on the idea that Canadian expeditionary forces in Afghanistan need to have helicopters and surveillance drones as one of the conditions for keeping a Canadian combat force in Afghanistan.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper twice said yesterday that crucial new helicopters and drones for the troops in Afghanistan are "on order."

However, government officials later said the Prime Minister jumped the gun and that they are still trying to find the best way to obtain the equipment quickly.

Yes, Harper did say that. And he's a fucking liar.

He then goes on to explain exactly how you too can verify the status of these mythical helicopter and drone orders through the Canadian Forces’ own website.

And then he explains why we don’t have cargo helicopters anymore (Mulroney sold them to the Dutch) and why we could have some tomorrow if we really wanted to by buying used ones cheap from the Americans.

And then he reminds us of what the media and the bloggers seem to be overlooking in all this: that the overriding reason why we need these cargo helicopters YESTERDAY is so our guys can fly above the IEDs instead of repeatedly driving over them and getting blown up.

Dave is awesome. Dave is my guru. Keep up the good work, sailor.