Flit

I LOVE HOW WE KEEP SLIPPING IN THERE

The newly redesigned Poor Man reminds us that Canada has once again shifted into the plus-column of Iraq coalition partners, despite vehement official government opposition to the war.

As opposed to the war itself, where some Canadian exchange officers got swept up in the deployment, this time it's largely because the current list is a list of "partners in the war on terror", or more specifically, countries with personnel under control of U.S. Central Command at the present time. One of the better current lists is here.

Canada's current contribution of 31 personnel comprises the NCCIS Squadron, which currently handles communications between Canadian forces abroad and the national headquarters. It's mostly based in Canada and/or Tampa, actually. For some reason, though, we keep slipping onto that Iraq list as the "35th country," in addition to the U.S. and Britain.

There's other little exaggerations here and there, for instance the inclusion of 650 Australians that are not actually in Iraq that we noted previously.

Other coalition mini-partner news:
*Moldova's 40-odd troops left last month as planned, but the country is sending a contingent of 12 back, presumably after June 30, for a six-month stint.
*Macedonia's 30-man Special Forces platoon is sticking on until at least end of June;
*Kazakhstan's 30-odd platoon, working with the Ukrainians, is withdrawing at the end of May as scheduled, without replacement;
*Estonia, with 55, is in for at least another year;
*New Zealand, which has 60 engineers that just arrived in March and are serving with the Brits, has said they will pull out in September without immediate replacement;
*Georgia's contingent is actually steadily growing;
*So is Albania's.

GOOD TO SEE WE ALL AGREE

Shorter Trent Telenko: Re-electing Bush will inevitably lead to the invasion of Iran.

He sees this as a good thing.