Stories by Scott Taylor
Time to talk to the Taliban for the greater good?
While there may be a sense of loyalty to these Afghan diplomats, the truth is that Canada needs to recognize the reality that they are now an impediment to future relations with a Taliban-controlled Afghanistan.
Canada officially denounced these parades in 2019, but one has to believe that as a good friend to Latvia, we could exert more pressure on the Riga regime to stop this public glorification of Nazis.
Putin might wish to mimic his U.S. counterparts with an equally cavalier disregard for international law, however, Russia of 2022 is not the Soviet Union at the height of the Cold War.
What this pandemic period has illustrated to Canadians is that there are different domestic threats to our citizens which have proven far more real than foreign military forces potentially redrawing the map of Europe.
There's been a lot of announced solutions without success to make one skeptical that this time around things will be different. But there's also been a major changing of the guard at virtually every top job. 
Having Ukraine join NATO, rather than remain a neutral sovereign state, is a publicly declared ‘red line’ for Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The focus of this parliamentary inquiry should instead be on how Canada got itself into such a botched mess in the first place. 
There is no institution more steeped in its own traditions and ceremony than that of the CAF, but many of the former battlefield glories may not seem as honourable when viewed through the prism of today’s values. Author
Our allies are not fooled by the amount of maple leaves on our generals’ shoulders. They care about the military competency that we can bring to the alliance.
It took all this time, but the powers that be in the Canadian military have finally realized that it was wrong to segregate Black volunteers and make them do menial tasks. 
Before, one could justify the loss of loved ones with the fact that in victory, they had made the world a better place. The same cannot be said for the conflicts in which Canada has engaged in the current century.
By the time the ragtag assortment of rebels defeated the Gadaffi loyalists, it was clear that a liberal democracy was not going to be the result. We promised democracy but delivered anarchy to the Libyans. 
Anita Anand should be encouraged by the fact the military has belatedly and slowly changed over the decades.
Like those Soviet commanders who went down in 1981, the damage being done to the Canadian Armed Forces is self-inflicted.
Operation Impact was a mission that never had a clear objective once Daesh was defeated in 2018. Like Afghanistan, there will be no victory parade when the war in Iraq finally peters out. 
The fact that the news of Major-General Peter Dawe's appointment generated enough internal reaction that it was subsequently leaked to the Ottawa Citizen, means that many of the rank and file do in fact 'get it.
Even now that it is increasingly clear how this has eroded public trust in the military institution, not one officer has been held to account.
These revelations of systemic Indigenous abuse actually caused me, for the first time, to further research my own familial roots.
When it comes ramping up our collective defence forces to counter China’s burgeoning military muscle, Canada is in fact already keeping pace. 
There is a good reason why the Libya war registers barely a footnote in Canada’s military history. Despite the fact that Canada declared ‘victory,’ the civil war in Libya never ended.
By the time this crisis erupted with lightning speed, the Canadian resources necessary to handle this mess were long since withdrawn from Afghanistan.
For those looking to understand just how the Canadian government could have been so wrong about our involvement in Afghanistan, we need to look at the self-delusion of the key players.
The Kabul airport attack not only sorely undermines the Taliban’s claim to be able to control the country, it also serves as a reminder that as bad as they are, there are even worse elements to deal with in Afghanistan.
For the two decades the Americans spent occupying Afghanistan, they did not realize that the Afghans never considered the presence of foreign troops on their soil as a liberation.
The perpetual violence and virtual anarchy of the warlord-era helped the Taliban movement to gain popularity with those Afghans who were prepared to sacrifice for the stability that the Taliban could provide them.
One has to also ponder the moral legacy of our military alliance having imprisoned tens of thousands of Afghan fighters whose only crime was resisting our armed presence on their soil.
U.S. President Joe Biden’s announcement indicates the U.S. is about to jump ship from Iraq. If they are giving up in yet another unwinnable war, let’s beat them to the exit once again.
It must not be forgotten that for more than 13 years, many of those associated with the CDA and CDAI were instrumental in pushing a narrative of success in what was clearly an unwinnable war from the outset.
Maybe Canada needs to establish a parliamentary probe into when it was first known by Canadian military leaders and politicians that our soldiers were being sent to fight a war they knew we could not win? 
Observers are no longer speculating as to whether the Taliban will defeat the Afghan security forces. They are now simply trying to pinpoint when that victory will occur. 
In this era, where we are constantly warned to be wary of malignant foreign actors spreading disinformation, it is all the more imperative that we can trust and rely upon the information we receive from official sources 
For anyone to think the mandate of the CAF’s public affairs branch would be enhanced by including psychological and information operations against Canadian civilians is simply mondo bonkers.