Canada’s current fleet of CF-18s cost $4 billion to purchase in 1982, $2.6 billion to upgrade in 2010, and $3.8 billion was budgeted in January 2020 to extend their lifespan. That adds up to at least $10 billion for these fighter jets with billions more likely spent over the past decades on fuel and maintenance costs.
As the Canadian government now prepares to spend $1 billion on Raytheon missiles and related equipment for these CF-18s and accept bids for a $19 billion contract for new fighter jets this coming July 31, it’s timely to ask if the billions Canada has spent on fighter jets have helped to avert war/bring peace.
Here’s a brief overview of the 1,598 bombing missions Canadian CF-18s have conducted over the past 30 years:
Gulf War/Iraq – 56 bombing missions
The CBC reports: “In 1991, the Canadian Forces deployed 24 CF-18s to aid the U.S. in Operation Desert Storm and Desert Shield during the first Gulf War. These aircraft were based out of Qatar and flew over 5,700 hours, participating in 56 bombing missions.”
In January 2020, The Hill reported: “Iraq’s electricity woes can be traced to 1991, when the U.S.-led bombing campaign nearly destroyed Saddam Hussein’s electricity infrastructure. The campaign included 215 sorties aimed at Iraq’s grid. …Human Rights Watch condemned the bombing, saying that the destruction of Iraq’s grid ‘resulted in severe deprivation of clean water and sewage removal for the civilian population and paralyzed the country’s entire health care system’. …The lack of clean water led to a cholera outbreak. Water contamination and other health-related problems resulted in a surge in civilian deaths with credible estimates putting the number of Iraqis killed by disease at 70,000.”
Joshua Holland has critically written: “The first Gulf War was sold on a mountain of war propaganda. It took a campaign worthy of George Orwell to convince Americans that our erstwhile ally Saddam Hussein — whom the US had aided in his war with Iran as late as 1988 — had become an irrational monster by 1990.”
Yugoslavia – 558 bombing missions
The CBC has reported: “In June 1999, 18 CF-18s began participating in NATO air strikes against Serbian forces, conducting 10 per cent of all strikes, including 558 bombing missions.”
Jaume Castan Pinos has written: “The 78-day campaign, known as Operation Allied Force, was officially conducted to protect civilians [but] between 80% and 87.5% of the victims of the Kosovo conflict died during or in the aftermath of Operation Allied Force. The KLA took advantage of the power vacuum created by the NATO intervention to carry out revenge killings and abductions against Serbs, Bosniaks, Roma and other minorities.”
His assessment of this intervention concludes: “Decades on, it’s clear that reaching a political settlement after a military intervention can be a nightmare. Certainly much more difficult than launching a bombing campaign.”
Libya – 733 bombing missions
In March 2011, Canada joined the NATO mission in Libya. By November 4, 2011, the CF-18s had returned to Canada.
In August 2011, the National Post reported: “The six CF-18s — backed up by one spare — have logged 733 bombing sorties above the North African nation, while the Canadian refuelling and reconnaissance aircraft have added hundreds more flights.”
The Canadian Press adds: “They eventually flew 10 per cent of all NATO strike missions.”
Bianca Mugyenyi of the Canadian Foreign Policy Institute has written: “In 2011, a Canadian general led the bombing of Libya, which the African Union vigorously opposed. AU officials argued the NATO war would destabilize that country and the region. An upsurge in anti-Blackness, including slave markets, subsequently appeared in Libya and violence quickly spilled southward to Mali and across much of the Sahel.”
And Investigative journalist Nafeez Ahmed has written NATO “debilitated Libya’s water supply by targeting critical state-owned water installations.” That included bombing a state water utility in Sirte in April 2011 and the water-pipe factory in Brega in July 2011. Ahmed adds: “By September 2011, UNICEF reported that the disruption to the GMR [Great Man-Made River water supply system] had left 4 million Libyans without potable water.”
Iraq – 246 bombing missions
In October 2014, the Ottawa Citizen reported: “As the Conservative government contemplates sending CF-18 fighter jets into Iraq, Canadian pilots may soon be bombing some of the same gunmen their actions supported several years ago elsewhere. …The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, or ISIL, which has seized parts of Syria and Iraq, includes a large number of volunteers from Libya who fought in the 2011 uprising that overthrew dictator Col. Moammar Gadhafi.”
By February 2016, the National Post reported: “Canada’s CF-18 fighter jets stopped their bombing in Iraq and Syria… The CF-18s flew their first mission on Oct. 30, 2014. They conducted 251 airstrikes [five on Syria], dropping 606 bombs…”
And then by July 2016, The Guardian reported: “Allegations that the [illegal] invasion of Iraq [in 2003] increased the terrorist threat to the UK and helped spawn the terror group Islamic State are supported by intelligence documents released as part of the Chilcot report.” In other words, one war helped to create the conditions for another war.
Syria – 5 bombing missions
By April 2015, the BBC reported: “Canada has carried out its first air strikes in Syria, as part of the US-led coalition fighting Islamic State militants.”
Prior to the start of that bombing, the CBC reported: “The move has raised difficult questions about whether the operation would violate international law. Similarly, it would mean Canada is joining a very small group of nations pushing the boundaries of international law in the name of self-defence, say legal experts.”
On March 11 of this year, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres tweeted: “The conflict in Syria is entering its tenth year. A decade of fighting has brought nothing but ruin and misery. And civilians are paying the gravest price. There is no military solution. Now it is the time to give diplomacy a chance to work.”
It should also be emphasized that CF-18 bombing missions have resulted in civilian casualties. The Globe and Mail has reported that this could include up to 40 civilians in Iraq, while CBC has reported Off-target airstrikes in Iraq buried behind wall of secrecy.
With the Canadian government now prepared to spend billions more on fighter jets and missiles, this is a critical moment to discuss alternatives to war and to mobilize around the need for peacebuilding.
