Op Attention Danger Pay Reductions?

[Scoobie Newbie]

Interesting

 

[brihard]

This isn't the difference from Kandahar to Kabul, this reassessment is from; Kabul one year ago, to Kabul today.  One year ago, the same committee decided that Op ATTENTION was a 4 risk and 4 hardship.  Nothing has changed in terms of the hardship on the camps within Kabul, but we are receiving constant intelligence reports regarding the daily threats and the highest levels of command in Afghanistan have made it very clear the threat situation is worse than when it had been previously assessed.  I would not be angry with a lower reassessment if it accurately reflected the situation.  In this case, it is just the opposite, but they are still reducing the allowances.

Then perhaps the earlier assessments were incorrect.

A couple years now of paying pretty close attention to the news suggests that Kabul is not even close to as dangerous as Kandahar. Now, while the plural of 'anecdote' is never 'data' and my observations consequently aren't scientific, I'd be very skeptical towards any claim that inside the wire training work in Kabul comes close to the same degree of hazard as nearly anything in Kandahar.

I'm only concerned with, objectively, how the CURRENT hazards in Kabul stack up against the norms by which risk and hardship are assessed. Not how they compare to Kabul a year ago, nor to Kandahar, nor to Sudan or DRC, but on their own what is actually merited according to the objective criteria we've been using for a long time now.

$133 of the drop is risk. $333 is hardship. How are living conditions in Kabul? How are the accommodations, amenities, food? How much contact with home do the troops get? How's the climate and environment?

This looks to me to be a classic case of the media going on a crusade to crap on the government without doing proper research.

 

[Scoobie Newbie]

http://www.cbc.ca/m/touch/news/story/2013/04/10/pol-soliders-danger-pay-afghanistan.html

 

[brihard]

http://www.cbc.ca/m/touch/news/story/2013/04/10/pol-soliders-danger-pay-afghanistan.html

Interesting. I would take that to mean that hardship will remain at 4 too.

 

[AirDet]

This looks to me to be a classic case of the media going on a crusade to crap on the government without doing proper research.

Totally argee! The media look for any excuse to malign the Canadian Gov't. That's why they're called the "Liberal Media".

 

[Humphrey Bogart]

This is a non-issue IMO and If people are complaining about losing money, that's fine, I will happily take their job. 

 

[Journeyman]

But DND will cut the budget.

Just don't touch the Snowbirds.....or the Parliament Hill Changing of the Guard.....or the Kabul Cash Cow (especially with all the A/WSE Colonels that are lining up now that they're safely inside the wire).

And with the CDS saying there's no HQ fat to trim, I guess that just leaves the field force. 


Here's your hari-kiri knives, boys -- start trimin'    :not-again:


[/cynicism]

 

[Edward Campbell]

Apparently the centre has ordered a rethink. Maybe the prime minister is finally getting a bit tired of having his explicit direction, to identify the HQ fat and cut it, ignored.

 

[Canadian.Trucker]

Even in Kandahar it was a constant fight to fend off 'combat tourists' - both uniformed and civilian - when we were doing convoy ops...

Preaching to the choir.  As you said, both uniformed and civillian, and in my experience the ones in uniform were worse because they had a sense of entitlement to be outside the wire trying to do my job and the job of my soldiers.

Now you got me fired up, time for another smoke and I just had one 45 seconds ago.

 

[brihard]

Preaching to the choir.  As you said, both uniformed and civillian, and in my experience the ones in uniform were worse because they had a sense of entitlement to be outside the wire trying to do my job and the job of my soldiers.

Now you got me fired up, time for another smoke and I just had one 45 seconds ago.

Yeah, if memory serves I'm pretty sure we did convoys together. Keeping people out of our RGs was easy enough, but for some reason some folks had the idea that any clown could right seat your trucks... Never mind how badly us trunk monkeys were spread out on a long halt...

 

[dapaterson]

This has nothing to do with HQ fat; it has everything to do with a defined process to conduct periodic reviews of the risk and hardship on deployed operations - that old question, integral to military thought - "Has anything changed"?

Given that incremental costs associated with deployed operations are generally flow through funding to DND, cutting these allowances saves DND zero money.

 

[ModlrMike]

It seems the PMO has reversed the reduction.

 

[Jarnhamar]

Now we can get back to arguing about clerks and infanteers making the same allowences?  ;D

 

[Harris]

Don't forget inside vs outside the wire.  >

 

[UnwiseCritic]

As much as I agree that there should be a reduction in the level of danger allocated to the canadians serving in op attention, would I want to see them make less money? Only if it meant putting the money back into the military on stuff that we need. Not if it goes to some save the whales project that is just a political stunt. However the Canadian military makes ridiculous amounts of money compared to most people overseas, including people currently fighting. And most of us would go overseas with or without the extra pay. So I don't think there is much to complain or worry about.

And I currently have to agree with royaldrew.

 

[The Bread Guy]

It seems the PMO has reversed the reduction.

Not quite yet (although a <corrected, in French> message has been sent) - highlights mine....

A planned cut to the danger pay of Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan is under review after the prime minister's office intervened.

National Defence officials recently scaled down the risk level for the armed forces serving in the war-torn country — and subsequent hardship pay by a reported $500 a month.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper's spokesman Andrew MacDougall said Wednesday the government asked the officials to head back to the drawing board and "consider all the factors" before imposing the pay chop ....

QMI/Sun Media, 10 Apr 13

A plan to reduce danger pay for Canadian troops in Afghanistan is now under review by the Harper government.

The stipend was reportedly facing a cut of more than 30 per cent, which would have meant nearly $500 a month less for roughly 920 soldiers based in Kabul, who are training Afghan forces.

The rationale for the initial decision, which was made by the federal Treasury Board, was that Kabul is safer than Afghanistan's volatile south, where Canadian soldiers are no longer serving.

Veterans Affairs Minister Stephen Blaney says the decision is being "reviewed." ....

The Canadian Press, 10 Apr 13

.... the Prime Minister's Office on Wednesday said it would reverse the decision, which it said originated with bureaucrats.

"For your information, it is an interministerial panel of civil servants that made this decision, and we are going to reverse their decision," a PMO spokesman said in French in an email to Radio-Canada.

In a later email to CBC News, PMO spokeswoman Julie Vaux said, "Officials make these decisions based on a number of considerations. Government has asked officials to re-examine this decision."A similar statement was also issued in French ....

CBC.ca, 10 Apr 13

 

[McG]

The French announcement about reversing and the English announcement about revisiting are two very different messages.

 

[The Bread Guy]

The French announcement about reversing and the English announcement about revisiting are two very different messages.

Indeed - it sounds like the French message was corrected to match the English one.

 

[DAA]

On a side note, if you look only at the subject heading of those messages issed by DCBA you will see the subject header of "Inter-Departmental Hardship and Risk Committee......".

The CF/DND just doesn't arbitrarily change Risk and Hardship levels on a whim.  There is a review process involved and includes OGD's and what a review process it is.  Been there, done it, got the t-shirt and hated all 38 pages of it.

Rates go down and then a possible reversal in the works?  The periodic review must going through some scrutiny......

 

[PuckChaser]

$333 is hardship. How are living conditions in Kabul? How are the accommodations, amenities, food? How much contact with home do the troops get? How's the climate and environment?

Depends where you're at. The guys in KAF got the same hardship as the guys in MSG for ATHENA, did they not? Just the same as Phoenix is better than Alamo which is better Blackhorse. Just because Phoenix has a Burger King and a Pizza Hut, does that turn down the hardship for the troops in Alamo with nothing but a DFAC and a plywood gym?

To me, its a money saving move from people who have never been to Kabul and nothing more.