Fire. Aim. Ready.

                                                     http://www.aquila-style.com/

Paul Adams has an interesting piece this morning over at ipolitics. As of yesterday, Canada is now officially at war. Adams points out that, in the last twenty-five years, the United States has led five major wars in the Middle East. The only one that succeeded was the First Gulf War. It succeeded because Colin Powell thought very carefully about the situation before sending troops into the desert. What guided Powell was what has become known as the Powell Doctrine, which is best summarized in the answers to five questions:

• Is the goal clear and important?
• Is it a last resort after non-military efforts have failed?
• Does the mission command the support of the American people and the international community?
• Have the costs and expected gains been clearly analyzed?
• Can the planned military mission achieve the intended political objectives?
• Are the goals clearly circumscribed and is there a plausible exit strategy?

Adams writes that some thought has been given to answering the first two questions. But the rest of the answers -- particularly to questions 4 and 5 -- have been ignored:

Neither the Obama administration nor, for its small part, the Harper government has been frank about the potential costs of the mission. I am thinking now not just of the financial expense of an open-ended mission. I’m also talking about blowback from the Muslim world — which includes the implications of allying ourselves with the loathsome, head-chopping Saudis and, if we are honest, Bashar Al-Assad’s Syrian dictatorship. Not to mention the motley crew of Iraqi fighters who are now our military avatars.

Nor do many people who know about these things think that the military mission as it is now conceived — that is, bombing Islamic State and supplying the ragtag forces of our new best friends on the ground — can achieve its supposed aims. Stephen Harper, who seems so pleased just to be on the team, may say the mission is to “contain” Islamic State. But Obama, whose team it is, says the goal is to “eliminate” it.

We have entered a war without thinking about its long term consequences. When going to war, the standard advice is," Ready. Aim. Fire." We've got that advice backwards.

A Foolish Mission From A Foolish Prime Minister

                                               http://www.vancouversun.com/

After the Conservatives vote this afternoon to go to war, we will enter the annals of historical folly. Dishonesty and folly are Stephen Harper's hallmarks. They are present in everything he does. But his entry into Iraq is truly foolish, for several reasons. Michael  Harris writes:

When Steve made his war announcement against the beheaders, there was a strange addendum.

Although Canada would join the noble bomb-fest in Iraq, there would be no bombing in Syria without the permission of the leader of that country.

But the leader of that country is the same monster Steve wanted to bomb only a few months back. Remember that guy, the one who used poison gas to kill his own people? Hundreds of thousands of Syrians have died in that country’s civil war. So why does Steve need the permission of the monstrous President Assad to save Scarborough from ISIS?

Besides the problem of asking his enemy's permission, Harper has created the problem of bombing people who could be his allies. How does he propose to distinguish between enemies and allies:

And then there is the small difficulty of identifying who to drop the bombs on. For years, a deadly civil war has been raging inside Syria to topple President Assad. Many factions are involved in the fight, including some that are backed by the United States, and others that are mortal enemies.

That is where the trouble starts. The U.S. backs the Free Syrian Army. But it does not back and instead targets the Jabbat al-Nusra group because of its alleged affiliation to al Qaeda. And that is a problem because the Free Syrian Army sees Jabbat al-Nusra as a valued ally in the fight against Assad. Remember that old the-enemy-of-my-enemy-is-my-friend thing?

Michael den Tandt writes that this is Harper's Churchillian moment. But there is a big difference between Harper and Churchill. Churchill was no fool.