War of 1812 Bicentennial Symposium

 

 

 

Vincent J. Curtis


2 March 2013

 

The War of 1812 came to Hamilton, ON, again.  This time, it wasn’t Americans with guns.

 

In their stead came a number of distinguished historians and scholars armed with words.

 

The engagement, held at the Sheraton-Hamilton Hotel, was a bicentennial commemoration conference whose focus was the decisive events of 1813.  The theme of the conference was “Walking the Razor’s Edge: A Continent in Play.”

 

Both America and Britain were represented.  Leading the list of speakers was Dr. Andrew Lambert, professor of Naval History at King’s College, London.   Dr. Don Hickey, Professor of History at Wayne State College, Nebraska, closed out the symposium.  Twenty-two other speakers were scheduled to lecture in four sessions.

 

In the middle were conference attendees, who numbered 280, according to event organizers Rob McGuire and Tom Fournier.  Some attendees were dressed in period costume, and most of them sounded Canadian.

 

Representing the British side, Andrew Lambert was welcomed with whoops and cheering.  His opening keynote took the view that the war was a paltry affair, so far as Britain was concerned.  Britain had had much more powerful France under Napoleon to deal with.  Britain won the War of 1812 conclusively by crushing American finance through blockade, and then burning down of White House and seizing the USS President in a daring raid in June, 1814.

 

Representing America, Don Hickey was welcomed with good spirits, which he returned.  He entitled his closing keynote provocatively: “Ten things Canadians should know about the War of 1812 but probably don’t.”  He opened by saying “I should have called it ten things average people should know, since only Canadians remember anything about the war at all!”

 

He agreed that Britain won the war, and held British diplomacy before, during, and after the war in high esteem.  The “ten things” were a list items he usually presented to his American military audiences.  Noteworthy among them was Hickey’s calling this Canada’s “war of independence, critical to the evolution of a sovereign Canada.”

 

Enliving and adding colour to the symposium were a number of military re-enactor groups, including: 41^st Regiment of Foot Military Living History Group, 49^th Regiment of Foot (Canadian Military Heritage Society), and, in the person of media liaison Rob McGuire, the 1^st Regiment of Foot (Royal Scots) Grenadier Company.  The City of Hamilton, Mr. William Longo, and Military Heritage partnered with organizers to put on the conference.

 

War of 1812 symposia has been held annually since 1998.  The bicentennial of 1812 was convened last year at the University of Guelph, in Guelph ON, which organizer Tom Fournier described as a “tremendous success.”  Though attendance was down slightly this year, both Tom Fournier and Rob McGuire pronounced themselves “happy” with this year’s conference.

 

Next year’s bicentennial of 1814 symposium will be held in London, ON.

 

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Memorial Day in Canada

 

Vincent J. Curtis


5 June 2013

  

“When was the first day of remembrance of any kind celebrated in Canada?”

 

If you could get people even to answer the question, the likely answer would be, November 11^th, 1919; the first anniversary of the armistice which concluded the fighting of the First World War.  It was then called Armistice Day.

 

Though a good answer, it would be wrong.  The first time a day of remembrance was observed in Canada was on May 30^th, 1890, and it was for Canadian veterans of the American Civil War.  It is still observed in a small way today.

 

Over 40,000 Canadians are believed to have volunteered south of the border for the conflict, which raged from 1861 to 1865 and saw the deaths of some 600,000 men.  That staggering number was suffered by a country of only thirty million in population, the size of Canada today.  That casualty figure has yet to be exceeded by all the other wars that the United States has fought, before and since, combined.  In the 1890’s when one spoke of “the war,” the Civil War was the one meant.

 

Many Canadians volunteered to fight south of the border, in part because of the cause, the ending of slavery.  The adventure of it all drew many others.  But Canada was suffering an economic depression at the time, and American recruiters were offering a $100.00 bounty to sign up.  Aggressive recruiters for the Union even tried to get British soldiers stationed in Canada to desert.  The result was a large number of war veterans who lived in Canada.

 

The Grand Army of the Republic, the fraternal organization of Union veterans of the Civil War, in 1868 established “Decoration Day,” as May 30^th, a day on which flowers would be placed on the gravesites of Civil War casualties.  The name was later changed to “Memorial Day.”

 

A GAR Post, named after William Winer Cooke (of whom more later), was established in Hamilton in 1889 through the auspices of the U.S. Consul, Colonel Monahan, and the practice of holding a ceremony of honor at the gravesites of deceased Civil War veterans was begun the next year in Canada under the direction of Vice-Consul Colonel Richard Butler.  The Cooke Post continued the practice into the 1930s, when the last of its membership died.   The records of the Cooke Post were lost and the location of the specific gravesites were, in many cases, forgotten.

 

Interest in the location of the gravesites of Civil War veterans was revived through the activity of local historian Robin McKee.  McKee gave tours of the Hamilton Cemetery based upon certain themes, and one theme was of notable war veterans buried in the cemetery.  A veteran of note was William Winer Cooke.

 

Cooke was a veteran of the Civil War.  During the war, he happened to meet and befriend one General George Armstrong Custer.  Such good friends were they that Custer, on December 28^th, 1869, arrived in Hamilton to visit with Cooke’s family for several days.  Cook later served in Custer’s 7^th U.S. Cavalry, and was killed with Custer at the Battle of the Little Big Horn in 1876.  Cooke’s mother arranged to have her son’s remains disinterred from his burial site at the Little Big Horn battlefield, and reinterred at the family plot in Hamilton cemetery.  Because of his death with Custer, Cooke was the most prominent veteran of the Civil War from Hamilton, and the new GAR Post in Hamilton was named after him.

 

One of Robin McKee’s tour guests, an old gentlemen, happened to be the son of one of the veterans of the old GAR post, and got McKee started on mapping out the location of many more Civil War veterans.  Eventually, Civil War veterans became the theme of one of McKee’s tours.

 

The GAR was noteworthy for its endorsement of equal treatment for black veterans at a time when racial prejudice was strong in America.  McKee is most proud of having discovered the location, and of having a proper Civil War headstone from the United States government placed upon, the grave of Nelson Stevens, a veteran of the 25^th United States Colored Troops.  Stevens was an escaped slaved who found refuge in Canada, and who returned to fight for the freedom of his race.  He faced instant execution if he were captured by Southern troops.  Stevens returned to Canada, and died in poverty.  His grave was unmarked.  McKee knew of Stevens, and with a lot of detective work as well as the aid of ground penetrating radar, he located his remains.  A proper stone now marks the spot. 

 

McKee’s tours attracted the attention of American Legion Post 18, based in Burlington ON.  The members of Post 18 are either retired American servicemen who live in Canada, or are Canadians who served in the American forces, such as during the Vietnam War.  Post 18 arranged with McKee to perform Memorial Day honors at the gravesites of the veterans he found as part of his tour.  Since then, the remains of more Civil War veterans and of American veterans of other of her wars have been located, and Post 18 now conducts Memorial Day honors at three different cemeteries.

 

Between the work of historian McKee and the members of American Legion Post 18, Memorial Day continues to be observed in Canada, and remains Canada’s oldest service of remembrance.  Canada’s Civil War veterans are honored on that day.

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It’s all over but the paying

 

 

Vincent J. Curtis


1 May 2013

 

Canada isn’t committed to buying the F-35 Lightning II stealth fighter, Canada is condemned to buying it.

 

Condemned by a combination of factors.  The first is a complete lack of rigor in the analysis of strategic needs:  What threats will North American air space face between now and 2030, and between now and 2040, that will necessitate stealth technology?

 

What are the likely kinds of overseas deployments that will the RCAF have to undertake between now and 2040, given that any such deployment will be voluntary on Canada’s part?  Can tactics substitute for stealth?

 

Is the investment in stealth technology going to hold good for forty years, given the rapid advances in electronic technology?  (Stealth is derived from the shape of the aircraft and the materials of construction, and together these prevent the reflection of radar and other signals back to the enemy’s detectors.)

 

Will UAV technology overtake the requirement for manned aircraft?

 

What about investments in other CF capabilities, such as fighting ships?

 

In other words, is $85 million US times 65 copies a worthwhile investment of defense dollars?

 

The recent webcast conference sponsored by Lockheed-Martin, the manufacturer of the F-35, made it clear that Canada’s fighter pilots are convinced that the stealth fighter is the way to go.  The way to go in the same way that, if you like driving fast cars, an Italian sports car is the way to go over a Ford Mustang - when you don’t have to pay for either one.

 

Having the F-35 to fly will enable our fighter jocks to to sit across the Mess table from their peers from other countries and be able to thump their chests and say, “We’ve got the stealth fighter, too!”

 

Canadian fighter jocks won’t be “penalized” as they were in Kosovo because their jets had non-standard refueling nozzles.  Canadian fighter jocks won’t be left out of the fight because their jets will have all the same data sharing electronics and spare parts as those of our NATO allies.  The embarrassments of the Libya campaign won’t happen again.

 

There is no doubt the F-35 is a capable flying machine, and 80 of the estimated 3100 production aircraft have already been delivered.  However, not one of these aircraft is presently able to fight because the weapons systems for them are still being tested.  As racehorses go, these fighter aircraft are geldings.  They are a terrific flying platform with nothing on them except makeweights.  The electronics in them will be great, also.

 

Canada will be taking delivery of its first F-35 in 2017.  By then, one hopes, that Canadian aircraft will be a little more manly.

 

During the webcast, a remarkable claim was made that the cost of a Gen-4 fighter like the F-16 E will be the same as the Gen-5 F-35 in 2017.  Implication: there is no point in looking to scrimp on stealth because the costs will be the same.  The new, advanced electronics make the Gen-5 fighter far more capable in every respect to a Gen-4 fighter and so why not buy better for the same cost?  If you believe the premise.

 

The US Navy and the Australian government are not placing their faith in stealth technology, which is unalterable.  Instead, they are investing in tactics and in electronics.

 

The US Navy commissioned and has in service the EA-18G Growler aircraft, which is based on the “Super Hornet” airframe.  This aircraft has one purpose: to be the platform for all the superior electronics a fighter squadron needs.  It is capable of jamming radars, employing radars, and doing the data sharing among the individual jets of a fighter squadron.  The fighter squadron does not rely on stealth technology to remain undetected, but on blinding the enemy’s electronic detectors with the gear carried by the Growler.  The flyaway cost of one of these is $68.2 million, less than the F-35; and it can be employed with Canada’s current fleet of CF-18s immediately.

 

The F/A 18 Super Hornet is a new aircraft that presently is in service, (Flyaway cost: $67 million) and is considered to be a Gen-4.5 aircraft because it is not completely stealthy.  However, as a fighter/bomber it is as capable as the F-35.  The last time I checked, the Mark I human eyeball is capable of detecting a stealth fighter.

 

Canada’s fighter-jock mentality is of individual aircraft doing individual missions, just like World War I.  Consequently, no one is shaping the thinking of fighter tactics such that other than stealth technology is admissible to the discussion.

-          XXX –

 

The Self-Mutilation of Angelina Jolie

In the news recently has been an example of moral exhibitionism by Angelina Jolie.  This famous movie actress announced to the world that she has had her breasts removed as a preventative against cancer.  It has now been revealed that she will also have her ovaries removed.

The announcement of her prophylactic double mastectomy was greeted as a brave example to follow for other women who might also be threatened by breast cancer.  One fellow has had his testes removed because he carried the same gene that Jolie carries.

It seems to have occurred to no one that these may be only the latest examples of self-mutilation that Angelina Jolie has put herself through in the last fifteen years.  She may not be so much brave, as having a few screws loose.

Comparing pictures of her when she was a teenage model with those of her in her twenties make it obvious that she has had facial reconstruction, or plastic, surgery in her early twenties.  That freakishly sharp jawline and her famous puffy lips were not so straight or so puffy in her teenage years.

She became notorious in her twenties for her numerous tattoos and body piercings, as well as a bizarre marriage to Billy Bob Thornton.  She later became a lesbian.

Her marriage to Brad Pitt may have put her more self-destructive tendencies into abeyance for a while, but they seem to have broken out anew.

With the removal of her perfectly healthy breasts and ovaries, the substance of her womanhood - what made her famous on the screen - has been destroyed.

The doctor who recommended she mutilate herself in that manner must have something of the sadist in him.

Rather than marveling at the courage of Angelina Jolie, we ought to be wondering at the bizarre psychological needs she carries that has led her over the last fifteen years to a series of self-mutilations.

Facts, faith, and religion: a Response to T. David Marshall

RE:  Fact: Faith is not reasonable by T. David Marshall, The Spectator May 8^th, 2013

 

This is in response to an Op-Ed article published in the Hamilton Spectator on 8 May 2013.

 

 

While I generally agree with the conclusions of Mr. Marshall, the process by which he reaches those conclusions is full of error.

 

Mr. Marshall does not know what science is.  He does not understand the difference between rational science and empirical science.  He does not understand what reason is.  He does not understand the difference between faith and reason, or between faith and knowledge.  His definition of religious observance betrays a sense of contempt.  Yet he reaches the correct conclusion that a religion ought to be held accountable for what it professes.

 

Science is not, as Marshall says, a “mode of thinking and method of inquiry.”  Scientific method is a method of inquiry.  Science is an organized body of knowledge.

 

Prior to Sir Isaac Newton, all sciences were rational sciences - branches of philosophy like philosophical theology; or, like geometry, branches of mathematics.  Only since the 17^th century has empirical science, the kind of science Mr. Marshall actually means, been in existence.

 

Mr. Marshall, as a former lecturer in ethics, might be horrified to learn that ethics is a rational science, one founded upon a self-evident truth and which, like religion, offers propositions that are prescriptively true.  In contradistinction, chemistry is a both a rational and an empirical science that offers propositions that are descriptively true.

 

The difference between ethics and religion is that the prescriptively true propositions of ethics are those founded upon a self-evident truth, while those of religion are founded upon propositions dogmatically asserted to be true.  The difference between ethics and religion on one hand, and chemistry and physics on the other, is the difference between prescriptive and descriptive.

 

Reasoning is the process by which both ethics and religion create their bodies of doctrine, though they begin from differing basis sets of starting propositions.  Reasoning is also employed in the empirical sciences, and the conclusions of the reasoning process in empirical science can be confirmed by scientific experiment.

 

Religion is not unreasonable.  The Christian faith came to be what it is today because it passed through the filter of Greek philosophy during the early years of its existence, as the best minds of their time grappled with the meaning of Christ and God.

 

It is not unreasonable to assert the existence of God.  Aristotle, in his Metaphysics, first proposed the existence of a Prime Mover, an Uncaused Cause.  Today, the God of philosophical enquiry is understood to be the creator ex nihilo of the universe and the efficient cause of its continued existence.  One can understand this notwithstanding belief in any particular religion, or in no religion.  Religion adds understanding of God to the bare-bones understanding of the God philosophical enquiry.  This is where faith comes into play in religion – you either believe in the dogmatically asserted propositions of the faith or you do not.

 

Physics cannot touch this understanding of God, Stephen Hawking notwithstanding.  The laws of physics came into existence after the universe was born, and physics has no explanation for the continued existence of the universe.  The particular beliefs of this religion or that cannot impugn the existence of the God of philosophical inquiry.

 

Consequently, one can reach the conclusion Mr. Marshall reached - that a religion is accountable for what it professes to be true - without making all the errors Mr. Marshall made.  That some people shrink from the full conclusions of their professed religion is a statement about the condition of man not unknown to any religion.  It is as much a lack of rigor in reasoning – a failure to act on a philosophical imperative by the individual – that leads people to act in a manner inconsistent with religious beliefs.  It is not an act of reason, as Mr. Marshall asserts, to refrain from acting on religious beliefs, but a failure of reason.

 

Faith and reason are not at odds with each other; reason is a means by which the consequences of faith become known.  And if those consequences are discovered, empirically, to be in error, then fault lies in the propositions of the faith.

-30-

 

Why Can’t Our Malians Fight Like Their Malians?

 

 

Vincent J. Curtis


18 March 2013

  

Publisher Scott Taylor has been sounding the tocsin over Canada’s deployment of a C-17 Globemaster aircraft to Mali in aid of the French effort there.

 

As a result of the collapse of the Gadhafi in Libya, for part of which Canada bears responsibility, militarily proficient Tuareg tribesmen returned to their native Mali and nearly destroyed the country.  Troops from mainland France deployed to Mali and restored the situation, and for the sustainment of these forces France asked Canada for the assistance of one of her strategic lift aircraft.  Canada’s commitment has lasted longer than the government projected, and our commitment will likely persist for as long as French combat troops are in theatre.

 

That Mali collapsed ought to give pause to westerners.  Mali was created out of French West Africa in 1960.  It was seen as a stable country in the Treaty of Westphalia sense.  It had borders, a government, and a sense of nationality - leavened and weakened by powerful cross-currents of tribalism and race.  The relationship of tribe, religion, race and nation were supposed to have been settled, and all that remained was for Mali to develop economically and to expand and raise the level of education for it to ripen into a liberal democracy with African roots.

 

The overthrow of the Gadhafi regime disrupted Malian equilibrium with unsettling ease.  Freebooting Tuareg tribesmen, thrown out of work in Libya through the fall of Gadhafi, joined with elements of al-Qaeda, and tried to found a separate country upon the desert wastelands of Northern Mali.  What is worrisome to westerners is the ease with which an African country organized on western lines collapsed in the face of weak tribal forces motivated by grievance and fired by religious zeal.  Malian military forces, trained by western countries, ought to have given a good account of themselves.  In the event, large numbers of these military forces changed sides.

 

The French military theoretician Colonel Ardant Du Picq would account for the collapse of Malian forces before the Tuaregs to differences in morale.  The tribesmen had a cause, while the trained military force did not.  They did not even have professional pride, apparently, despite western training.

 

After an independent Azawad was declared, France deployed its military.  The French military provided the air power and the corseting on the ground that enabled fresh Malian forces to drive out the al Qaeda forces who had hijacked the rebellion.  The appearance of western civilization was thus restored, but France has more mopping up to do.

 

After sixty-five years of French governance followed by another sixty as an independent country, showing all the signs that a civilized political culture had taken root, Mali in this crisis reverted to the kind of Africa that the Saracens overran in the seventh century.  The larger question that Mali raises is when NATO partners should serve as fire brigades for liberal democracy.

 

After Afghanistan, Libya, Egypt, Syria, and now Mali, western countries ought to become alive to the differences between western civilization and other civilizations in the rest of the world.  It may rankle some to hear it said, but the wondrous beliefs of liberty, equality, justice for all before the law, and respect for human rights which were born of the Western experience, are not the cultural inheritance of large portions of the world.  Even the experience of these values for a long time seems to make no lasting impression in the Middle East and in large parts of Africa.

 

Those of the third world who speak in terms of western values talk in a learned language.  The collapse of Mali shows that there is little cultural basis for them.  Western values are forms to be observed until something thrusting comes along, such as a return to tribalism.

 

The French are admirable for the way in which they tend to the countries born of their empire.  The front line of western civilization runs through Mali, and because of decisive French action al-Qaeda presently has no Treaty of Westphalia to hide behind like they had in Afghanistan.

 

But is rescuing Africa the best medium term strategy against Islamic extremism?  Should the west be on the offensive everywhere?  Would it not be better to wait and allow extremist anti-western forces to gain a foothold somewhere, the better for them to concentrate?  Islamic extremism is no more the cultural inheritance of sub-Sahara Africa than liberal democracy is.

-30-

 

Bearding the Boss

 

 

Vincent J. Curtis


11 Mar 13

 

 

Jim Lacey is not afraid to pull the beards of his bosses.

 

Jim Lacey is a professor of Strategic Studies at the United States Marine Corps War College.  In a recently published article he demolishes point by point the campaign of the Navy and Air Force chiefs of staff to grab a greater share of the defense budget.  Though he and I see eye to eye on this issue, we reach diametrically opposite conclusions regarding Canada.

 

Interservice rivalry in the United States is more obvious and bloody than here in nice, civilized Canada.  Entire political campaigns are launched from the Pentagon to gain the favor of important Senators and congressmen for one service project or another.  Together, the pentagon and congressional committees conspire against the unsuspecting taxpayer to put spending programs into particular congressional districts that favor the re-election of the congressman or Senator on the congressional committees.  The pentagon, in turn, gets a bigger empire.

 

It’s called “bringing home the bacon.”

 

Nothing like this happens in Canada because, for one thing, there is no bacon.

 

Jim Lacey is unconcerned with bringing home congressional bacon.  What he is concerned with an adjective often associated with victory, namely “decisive.”

 

Decisiveness is our mutual point of departure.

 

The US Navy and Air Force have put together a military doctrine which they call the Air-Sea Battle, appropriated from the now thirty year old Air-Land Battle concept.  The Gulf Wars of 1991 and 2003 were applications of the Air-Land Battle concept.  The US Navy and Air Force believe the growing military threat from China requires the development of an air-sea battle concept for the United States to keep sea lanes open in the western Pacific and Indian oceans.  Of course, this requires money.

 

The US defense budget absorbed a self-imposed whack of a 10 % reduction in expenditures over the next ten years.  On top of this comes another 10 % reduction through a budget constraint known as “the sequester.”  While the US defense budget may see some funds restored, the long term prospect is for lower spending levels, smaller forces, less equipment, and lower readiness.

 

Some would say this is a good thing.  Unless you rely upon US military force for one’s protection.

 

Lacey attacks the new balance in lower spending among the services being proposed by the Navy and Air Force.  He argues forcefully that the true arm of decision are land forces, and therefore land forces are deserving of having its funding given preference over that of the other services.

 

He attacks the work of Admiral Alfred Thayer Mahan, The Influence of Sea Power upon History, saying that Mahan argued only half the story.  Reading Mahan, Lacey says, one would never get the idea that armies had anything to do with the wars Mahan wrote about.  On account of British sea power, one would never get the impression from reading Mahan’s work that the Brits lost the American Revolutionary war, and that Napoleon hung around for another ten years after his fleet was destroyed by Nelson at Trafalgar in 1805.  The surface fleets of both Britain and Germany were reduced to near worthlessness in World War I, and neither were decisive in the outcome of the war.  The battle of Midway, Lacey concedes, turned the tide of the war in the Pacific, but three years of land battles lay ahead to destroy Japanese power.

 

In the air, despite years of bombing round the clock, German manufacturing escalated every year until reaching its peak in September, 1944, when loss of terrain caused a loss of essential supplies such as petrol.  The only truly decisive blow struck by air power alone was the dropping of the atomic bombs on Japan in August, 1945.

 

Air power and naval power are great ancillaries to land power, Lacey says.  To what purpose, then, is enabling the opening of an air and sea corridor?  To enable the employment of land forces – whose power of rendering decision was deprived by diverting spending to air and sea power!

 

Canada is in a different strategic situation, and Canadian generals should take no comfort from Lacey’s case.  The US Army is capable of being an arm of decision; Canada’s army is not.  A Canadian expeditionary force will always be too small to achieve decisive results.

 

Surveying our possible enemies, Canadian peacetime expenditures preferentially belong on a navy that can strike a heavy blow at a particular center of gravity.

-          XXX –