BAGHDAD – Members of Canada’s elite JTF 2 are busy training Iraqi soldiers in how to disguise combat operations as training missions in a base outside of Baghdad.
“We are teaching the Iraqis valuable operational skills,” said Minister of National Defence Rob Nicholson visiting the troops who are about to engage ISIS near Fallujah. “Camouflage, concealment and decoys are not only important in the field, but also at home pretending that we’re not involved in direct combat.”
The Iraqi forces were taught how to avoid transparency regarding the movements or actions of the soldiers taking part, and how to send only a few so that it doesn’t raise suspicion.
According to Nicholson, the current batch of Iraqi recruits were advancing to a new phase in their training, where they were learning to deploy self-defence as a way of explaining away battles at press conferences, and how to extend military deployments without having to consult Parliament.
“Next, they will master tactics that will allow them to identify and neutralize questions from the Official Opposition, and from there we will familiarize them with how to deny Access to Information requests,” added Nicholson. “But the hardest part is by far the psychological training. The new Iraqi recruits have to convince themselves that the lie they are telling is true.”
The Iraqis are subjected to harsh conditions, wherein they are conditioned to resist the urge to read a history book and see how their training mission will inevitably balloon into a quagmire costing large amounts of money and lives for no discernible positive outcome.
“Once they master that, they’ll be able to naively insert themselves into sprawling geopolitical clusterfucks without our help,” Nicholson said before boarding a C-17 back to Canada.
