2400 Unsourced Allegations Deployed To Gulf Coast

Today, I opened my email to find this little gem of a story about 2400 Canadian Soldiers deployed to Gulf Coast. Wow, this is huge, foreign soldiers on American soil! I can’t believe this isn’t all over the news. Well, it’s obvious we can’t trust the mainstream media to report the news accurately, so it’s no surprise this story isn’t on any of the major networks. But surely it’s making the rounds on the alternative news sites?

In fact, it is. If you do a Google search for “2400 Canadian Soldiers” you’ll get (at the time of my search) nearly 14,000 results.

See for yourself.

If you’ve read any of my blog, it should be obvious that I don’t shy away from a good conspiracy, or even a mediocre one, but I’m afraid this little conspiracy is dubious, at best.

“Before It’s News” (Or is that “We Make The News”?)

Now, I didn’t go through all those thousands of Google search results, but I did check the hits on the first three pages. What I found was that all the reports, about the 2400 Canadian Soldiers, were linked back to one story from the website, Before It’s News.

​2400 Canadian Soldiers deployed to Gulf Coast

2400 Canadian Soldiers and the 1 Combat Engineer Regiment based in Edmonton Alberta are on a 72 Hour notice for deployment to the U.S. Gulf Coast.

The 1 Canadian Mechanized Brigade Group (1 CMBG) frequently train with U.S. Army units including up to a 3 year secondment in the U.S. Military for Career Officers. The Canadian Engineer Regiment is often associated with the British SAS and their role in recent conflicts such as Bosnia and Afghanistan has seen them doing less reconstruction work and more urban pacification and counter insurgency operations.

Canada and the U.S. have signed an agreement that paves the way for the militaries from either nation to send troops across each other’s borders during an emergency, but some are questioning why the Harper government has kept silent on the deal.

Before It’s News | Screenshot

Did you notice that the headline says the soldiers have been “deployed”, but the article only states that they’re on 72 hour notice? Was this an attempt to make the story sound a little more titillating than it actually is? Na, I’m sure it was just a typo.

Anyway, the first sentence of the article makes the claim of soldiers being put on notice for deployment, and the rest of the story is about the U.S. and Canada basically playing an adult version of Red Rover. Well, that’s nothing new. This was reported back in February…of 2008.

​Canada, U.S. agree to use each other’s troops in civil emergencies

Canada and the U.S. have signed an agreement that paves the way for the militaries from either nation to send troops across each other’s borders during an emergency, but some are questioning why the Harper government has kept silent on the deal.

Neither the Canadian government nor the Canadian Forces announced the new agreement, which was signed Feb. 14 in Texas.

The U.S. military’s Northern Command, however, publicized the agreement with a statement outlining how its top officer, Gen. Gene Renuart, and Canadian Lt.-Gen. Marc Dumais, head of Canada Command, signed the plan, which allows the military from one nation to support the armed forces of the other nation during a civil emergency.

The Ottawa Citizen | Screenshot

Now I’m not saying that foreign soldiers on U.S. soil isn’t a big deal, it certainly is, but to make the claim of soldiers being deployed or put on 72 hour notice, without a legitimate source, is at best unethical. At worst, deceptive.

Enter The Scarlet Whore

No, I’m not making a derogatory statement about some dubious source. That’s the name of the website, Before It’s News listed as their source for the Canadian Soldiers story, Scarletwhore.com.

​2400 Canadian Soldiers go to Florida

2400 Canadian Soldiers and the 1 Combat Engineer Regiment based in Edmonton Alberta are on a 72 Hour notice for deployment to the U.S. Gulf Coast.

Canada and the U.S. have signed an agreement that paves the way for the militaries from either nation to send troops across each other’s borders during an emergency, but some are questioning why the Harper government has kept silent on the deal.

Neither the Canadian government nor the Canadian Forces announced the new agreement, which was signed Feb. 14 in Texas.

The U.S. military’s Northern Command, however, publicized the agreement with a statement outlining how its top officer, Gen. Gene Renuart, and Canadian Lt.-Gen. Marc Dumais, head of Canada Command, signed the plan, which allows the military from one nation to support the armed forces of the other nation in a civil emergency.

The Scarlet Whore | Screenshot

What makes this source questionable? Other than the name of the website, you mean?

2400 Canadian Soldiers and the 1 Combat Engineer Regiment based in Edmonton Alberta are on a 72 Hour notice for deployment to the U.S. Gulf Coast.

With the exception of that one sentence, the story from the Scarletwhore is verbatim from the Ottawa Citizen story, and there is no source for the claim of soldiers being put on deployment notice.

Now I may be a little picky, but I’m uncomfortable referencing blogs that have clearly plagiarized their stories, while adding a few creative embellishments, as a source for “breaking news”. Maybe the Scarletwhore is a source of other credible news, but not this story. Sorry.

Sad thing is, it could be true that Canadian soldiers are being deployed to the Gulf coast, and we should be told about it, whether it’s Canadian or even U.S. soldiers, but with unsourced allegations like this, no one will ever take it seriously–at least those who actually do some fact checking.

UPDATE: After I published this post, a friend sent me this story, which is the nearest link to Canadian Soldiers on U.S. Soil; however, it was also written the same year as the Ottawa Citizen story, 2008.

​Canadians Train for Afghanistan in Texas

More than 3,000 Cana­dian sol­diers prepar­ing for a rota­tion in Afghanistan are wrap­ping up a pre-deployment train­ing exer­cise the week of Feb. 27, that included U.S.-led instruc­tion in coun­ter­ing impro­vised explo­sive devices.

The three-week 2nd Cana­dian Mech­a­nized Brigade Group exer­cise, dubbed Exer­cise South­ern Bear, con­cludes Feb. 28.

Sol­diers from Cana­dian Forces Base Petawawa, in Ontario, arrived Feb. 7 to train for their deploy­ment to Kan­da­har in Sep­tem­ber, Lt. Andrew Hen­nessy, the 2nd Cana­dian Mech­a­nized Brigade Group spokesman, told Amer­i­can Forces Press Ser­vice. Once deployed, the sol­diers will serve with the Kan­da­har Provin­cial Recon­struc­tion Team and as observer men­tor liai­son teams that embed with and train Afghan sol­diers and national police.

About 80 per­cent of the troops will be deploy­ing to Afghanistan for the first time, but they’re no strangers to tough mis­sions far from home in Bosnia, Haiti, Eritrea and other hot spots, Hen­nessey said. “They’ve had lots of expe­ri­ence in lots of places,” he said.

The North Shore Journal | Screenshot

Unfortunately this still doesn’t corroborate the story from Before It’s News. I think it’s safe to say Before It’s News was trying to imply the Canadian Soldiers were en route to the Gulf because of the oil spill catastrophe, to help BP keep a lid on just how bad it is, or whatever they need them for. However, it’s just unsourced sensationalism causing unneeded worry. Besides, why does BP need Canadian troops, when they have their own private mercenaries?