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Serge Labbé: Trump says U.S. 'never needed' NATO. Canadian blood says otherwise

In Davos, President Donald Trump dismissed allies as staying "a little back" from the front lines. Retired Canadian Brigadier General sets the record straight on the sacrifices that saved American lives

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In a recent interview in Davos, Switzerland, U.S. President Donald Trump claimed that the U.S. “never needed” NATO allies and had “never really asked anything of them.” He added that allies “sent some troops to Afghanistan, or this or that. And they did — they stayed a little back, a little off the front lines.”

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I wonder if draft-dodger Donald Trump is aware that some 30,000 Canadians voluntarily joined the U.S. Armed Forces to serve in Vietnam, that 12,000 served in combat roles, and that 134 never made it back while 60,000 other U.S. draft dodgers sat comfortably back in Canada.

Serge Labbé: Trump says U.S. 'never needed' NATO. Canadian blood says otherwise Back to video

Trump and his Administration are void of the political acumen of former President George Bush senior (not a draft dodger — he served in the U.S. Navy during the Second World War and was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross) who took the time, after Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in August 1990, to build a coalition of some 42 nations prior to launching, with the support of a UN Security Council Resolution, Operation Desert Storm in January of 1991 to liberate the country.

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Among the member states of the coalition were Bahrain, Bangladesh, Egypt, Kuwait, Niger, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates. It was the largest coalition since the Second World War. Unlike George Bush junior and the current president, the master Republican statesman understood that inclusive, multilateral interventions, wherever they may be, were more likely to succeed than whimsical regime changes… or unnecessary claims of unilateral domination of parts of the globe in what is, de facto, a global world.

And there was also the 1992 intervention in Somalia. Again, knowing that multilateralism under a robust Chapter VII mandate of the UN Charter authorizing the appropriate use of force, not only brought strength but also legitimacy to an overseas intervention, Bush senior built a coalition in an attempt to stop the internecine fighting between the warlords and provide the secure environment for humanitarians to stave off severe malnutrition and the death of hundreds of thousands in the fragmented country. One of his first telephone calls was to Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, who agreed to divert the Canadian mission to Somaliland to join the U.S.-led coalition focused on bringing a modicum of peace to the beleaguered south of the country.

As Commander of the Canadian Joint Force which arrived days after the U.S. Marines in mid-December 1992, I assured the Coalition Commander — U.S. Marine Corps Lieutenant General Robert B. Johnston — that Canada was seeking a challenging role in re-establishing order in the country, and that we wished to collaborate closely with Coalition forces.

We had deployed unique assets to theatre, amongst them, Sea King helicopters equipped with forward looking infrared radar (FLIR) — remarkably, the only ones in the Coalition to possess the capability of tracking the movement of ground forces at night. In early 1993, Johnston asked me if we could deploy the Sea Kings to the southern port city of Kismayo to support the embattled US/Belgian forces against Somali militants. Without hesitation, I ordered HMCS Preserver — the support ship for the Sea Kings — south to support our allies, notwithstanding the fact we were temporarily losing a valuable asset in support of our operations. Johnston would later write the Canadian Chief of Defence staff as follows:

“Of particular note was the support given by HMCS Preserver to other Coalition operations and most especially to operations in Kismayo involving U.S. Army and Belgian forces. Once again, the Sea Kings flew FLIR missions in support of that operation. Because of the volatile situation in Kismayo, the Sea King operations continued for 11 days with 22 missions flown. I cannot underscore how important the Navy role was in support of both Canada and the Coalition forces.” 

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Royal Canadian Navy helicopters saved U.S. and Belgian Army lives in Kismayo. But that’s what allies do — one team…one mission. U.S. Ambassador Robert B. Oakley, a seasoned diplomat with a reputation for shrewdness in Washington and toughness in many of the world’s trouble spots, was dispatched to Somalia as the U.S. Presidential envoy even before the arrival of the U.S. Marines — he knew Somalia, having served there as Ambassador between 1982 and 1984. In the spring of 1993, prior to leaving Somalia, he wrote a letter to then-Minister of National Defence Kim Campbell. His words:

“Canada has every reason to be extremely pleased and proud of its military forces in Somalia. Certainly, the United States military and civilian authorities and Somali people hold them in the highest esteem… We regret that they are not staying longer. However, we also recognise the strain upon Canada’s limited resources from such a high level of commitment to so many peacekeeping operations over many years. Our military has a lot to learn from yours about this sort of activity.”

Oakley may have been a career diplomat, but he had also spent four years as an Intelligence Officer in the U.S. Navy… he understood the military and was certainly no draft-dodger.

I suppose Trump is unaware that the day after the 9/11 attacks, NATO invoked Article 5 for first time in its history, thereby allowing NATO Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) aircraft based in Geilenkirchen, Germany, to patrol U.S. skies allowing U.S. AWACS aircraft to deploy to Central Asia to help wage their “war on terror.” Or that Canadian special forces were amongst the first to join the U.S.-led coalition in Afghanistan in October 2001 — a war of U.S. revenge for the 9/11 attacks.

Trump also appears to have conveniently forgotten that, having launched Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) in Afghanistan in 2001, George W. Bush promptly attacked Iraq less than two years later, allegedly because the country possessed weapons of mass destruction and that Saddam Hussein was supporting al-Qaeda — neither being the case.

This was a war that consumed the U.S. Armed Forces for eight years as their strategic main effort, thereby driving a very reluctant NATO into assuming command of the International Security Assistance Force Afghanistan (ISAF) in August 2003. It was British Lord Robertson, the then-NATO Secretary General, who turned the tide, strongly supported by Canada, to intervene in the Alliance’s first mission outside Europe and North America.

In August 2003, Canadian Major General Andrew Leslie was immediately appointed Deputy Commander of the ISAF mission and the Canadian Government authorized the deployment of a brigade headquarters and a 950-person infantry battle group to secure Kabul and environs, within the NATO area of responsibility.

Six months later, then-Canadian Lieutenant General Rick Hillier was appointed as Commander ISAF, with a largely Canadian staff. Despite the presence of Afghan-born U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad and U.S. Army Lieutenant General David Barno trying to call the shots, it was always Hillier who Afghan President Karzai turned to as a trusted agent… I often sat in on their private meetings. Under General Hillier’s watch in 2004, Canadian and British soldiers took down countless al-Qaeda terrorists in Kabul, set the conditions for successful Afghan Presidential elections and expanded the NATO mission into the north, thanks to largely German and British efforts.

In early 2005, my German boss at NATO Joint Force Command Brunssum in the Netherlands asked me to contact Rick Hillier and suggest that Canada assume command of ISAF expansion into the relatively quiet provinces of western Afghanistan. I did so and was promptly told by Hillier that doing NATO’s bidding would be the first time in the history of the Alliance that a member nation had complied with a request. He told me that his recommendation to the Canadian Government was to go for the jugular and seize the spiritual homeland of the Taliban — Kandahar City in the south. Strategic as ever, he knew that the key to defeating the Taliban insurgency was to strike and deny their centre of gravity.

As a result, in the Spring of 2006, Canadian Brigadier General Dave Fraser assumed command of OEF Sector 3, (comprising the provinces of Nimroz, Helmand, Kandahar, Uruzgan and Zabul in the southern part of the country). His task was a daunting one: replace the efficient, well-honed and battle-hardened U.S. Task Force Bayonet (which had been operating in southern Afghanistan for one year) with a composite multinational force made up of eight nations (virtually all laden with caveats), as well as the Afghan National Army, and eventually transition his task force from Operation Enduring Freedom to ISAF (the Americans were desperate to thin out their forces in Afghanistan in favour of Iraq — the latter being their strategic main effort). Building a multinational team in peacetime takes months — trying to do so whilst engaged in combat operations against an emboldened Taliban insurgency on a daily basis posed enormous problems for Fraser… units trickling into his area of operations came under fire immediately upon arrival.

The first unit of Fraser’s task force had arrived in Kandahar two months earlier. Canadian Task Force Orion, commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Ian Hope — based on the 1st Battalion Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry — had taken over responsibility for the entirety of Kandahar Province in mid-February 2006… a force of just under 1,000 all ranks responsible for an area of some 54,000 square kilometres.

Over the ensuing months, in addition to securing the southern border with Pakistan, Hope was tasked with facilitating the deployment of British forces into Helmand Province to the west and the Dutch contingent north into Uruzgan Province — neither of these two nations could have done so without the Canadian contingent of just under 1,000 all ranks which had taken over from a U.S. Army brigade of more than 3,000.

A case in point was the March 31 deployment of a company of light armoured vehicles to re-enforce a beleaguered Forward Operating Base (FOB) of U.S. Special Forces and Afghan Army soldiers near Sangin, Helmand. FOB Robinson was literally surrounded and immobilized by a strong Taliban presence. Hope’s task force was the only unit in southern Afghanistan at the time with the mobility, protection and firepower necessary to intervene in a timely manner — Canadians saving American lives.

The Canadian Battle Group was to return to Helmand Province several more times to relieve the beleaguered British Army units which had deployed completely ill-equipped due to political constraints. That’s what allies do — they work together as co-equals… they don’t try to dominate. It would later turn out that Sangin — nicknamed “the city of death” by Afghans — was where the U.S. and U.K. forces would suffer the highest casualty rates.

While the 40,000 Canadian Armed Forces soldiers, sailors and airmen and airwomen who would eventually suffer 158 killed in action, as well as 7 civilian diplomats and development workers, during our 13-year commitment in Afghanistan, what Trump doesn’t appear to understand is that it’s not just about casualties, it’s about how deployed forces are employed. Canada saved southern Afghanistan in 2006 — not bad for a middle nation.

In the Fall of 2006, prior to a formal meeting of NATO Chiefs of Defence in Brussels, the Chairman of the NATO Military Committee hosted a working breakfast. My boss couldn’t attend and designated me, as the Deputy Military Representative of the Canadian Joint Delegation, to represent him. As I was waiting with the military representatives of the other NATO nations — lieutenant generals and vice admirals — the NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe, U.S. Marine Corps General Jim Jones entered the room. Our eyes locked — we had met before in Afghanistan — and he walked through the crowd directly to me, a mere colonel at the time, shook my hand and stated for all to hear that NATO couldn’t have done it in southern Afghanistan without Canada.

It may be true that in the early days of the US-led intervention in Afghanistan, the majority of Coalition deaths were American — after all, it was their war of retribution, but, between 2006 and 2011, many NATO and non-NATO troop contributing nations to the ISAF suffered high casualties, particularly the Canadians in Kandahar Province and the U.K. in Helmand Province. And other nations serving under the British-led Task Force Helmand such as Denmark, Estonia and Georgia (a small nation in the Caucasus — not one of Trump’s 50 states) incurred some of the highest deaths rates of all troop-contributing nations. After all, Iraq was the American main effort — Afghanistan was, for several years, a secondary effort. Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Michael Mullen neatly summarized the nature of this effort when he told the U.S. Congress in 2007 that “In Afghanistan, we do what we can. In Iraq, we do what we must.”

While Trump may feel comfortable re-writing American history, he can’t fool the allied nations which sent their armed forces into Afghanistan over a 20-year period and saw their own blood and treasure perish there.

During his 6 years in Afghanistan, Brigadier General (Ret’d) Serge Labbé served two tours in Afghanistan in uniform. He acted as senior policy advisor to several Afghan ministers and worked two years as senior political advisor to the NATO Senior Civilian Representative for Afghanistan.

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