Canada to establish permanent military base in Persian Gulf region
By David Adelaide
2 July 2005
The Canadian government is in the process of establishing a long-term military base in the oil-rich Persian Gulf region. According to a recent article in the Globe and Mail, the Canadian government is negotiating with the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to gain control of a section of the Minhad Air Base, located near Dubai, for years, if not decades, to come.
Since late 2001, when the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) participated in the US invasion and conquest of Afghanistan, the Canadian military have controlled part of the Minhad facility, operating a clandestine logistical and supply base there. The CAF has dubbed its UAE base Camp Mirage.
The Globe report portrayed the permanent base in the UAE as necessary if the Canadian government is to fulfill its oft-repeated commitment to provide long-term military support to Afghanistan’s US-installed government.
The CAF is playing a leading role in the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF)—the 5,000-man, United Nations-mandated, NATO-led military force that is charged with defending the government of Hamid Karzai in Kabul and its immediate environs.
Troops from the CAF were for a time the largest single component of the ISAF and currently the Canadian ISAF contingent is the biggest, save that of Germany. Seven hundred Canadian soldiers are stationed in Kabul, with another 240 scheduled to arrive in Kandahar in the near future, followed by a further 1,000 troops next year. To these must be added a complement of 250 troops aboard the HMCS Winnipeg (attached to a US carrier battle group in the Persian Gulf) and 200 troops stationed at Camp Mirage.
It would be naïve, however, to believe that Canada’s military, political and economic support for the Afghan regime is the only or even the principal reason that the Canadian government is seeking a permanent military base in the UAE. As some army critics of the plan cited in the Globe article note, Camp Mirage is four-hours flying time from Kabul.
The securing of a permanent CAF base in the UAE will mean that Canadian military forces can be rapidly deployed throughout the oil-rich Persian Gulf region—an area where the US is already embroiled in one war and which is at the center of Washington’s plans to gain a strategic stranglehold over the world’s oil supplies.
The Canadian navy (whose vessels in the Persian Gulf and Arabian Sea are routinely re-supplied from Camp Mirage) has had an almost continuous presence in the Persian Gulf since the 1991 Gulf War.
Operation Friction (1990-91), in which Canada’s navy participated in the US war to “liberate Kuwait,” was followed by a series of operations aimed at enforcing a punishing regime of economic sanctions against Iraq that resulted in over a million deaths: Operations Flag (1991), Tranquility (1995), Prevention (1997), Determination (1998) and Augmentation (1999-2002). In 2001, Canada’s navy further increased its presence in the Persian Gulf under Operation Apollo, a deployment ordered by the Chrétien Liberal government to assist the Bush administration in its war on terrorism.
continued at;
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/jul20 ... -j02.shtml
If this is really true, then it's nice to see we're not just riding the American's coattails but actually putting in an effort to properly support our troops in Afghanistan. I don't agree with the gist of this socialist article, but I've found other references on a variety of websites about Camp Mirage.
Other links;
http://www.freerepublic.com/~northof45/
http://www.airforce.forces.gc.ca/news/2003/02/11_e.asp
http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/afgha ... units.html
http://www.pmfrc.org/athena-photogalleryfeb18-20.htm
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