Parsing ‘combat’ from ‘non-combat’ isn’t as hard as we’re making it

Words matter. The meanings we assign to words matter. And this is especially true when lives are on the line.

Last week, the Canadian military announced that a sniper team, part of Canada’s elite Joint Task Force 2 special forces unit, had killed an ISIS combatant during a recent action in Iraq. The ISIS forces were preparing to attack an Iraqi unit that Canada was supporting. There were civilians in the area, so an airstrike was out of the question, as it could cause collateral damage. From a range of roughly 3,500 metres, the Canadian sniper team engaged the enemy successfully. The ISIS force, unsure of where the shot had come from, scattered.

This is good news. It is indeed, as the prime minister said on Tuesday, worth celebrating. But it is also a pretty big stretch of the term “non-combat,” which is what our mission apparently is.

Recall that, in February of 2016, the Liberal government announced that Canada’s CF-18 jets (a whopping half-dozen) would stop bombing ISIS targets in Iraq and Syria. Our two refuelling aircraft and an intelligence gathering plane would remain, but the fighter jets were out. At the same time, Canada would ramp up the number of special operations soldiers deployed on the ground, “advising and assisting” local forces in the fight against ISIS.

WATCH: Canadian sniper sets record for longest confirmed kill in military history.

0:56 Canadian sniper sets record for longest confirmed kill in military history.

Except, actually, not clear at all.

To many Canadians, myself included, it’s hard to conceive of a definition of non-combat that, on the one hand, excludes air strikes on enemy positions, as our government chose to do, but on the other, permits sniper attacks on enemy positions. I’m in favour of both, and always opposed pulling the jets out. Canada was more than capable of ramping up its ground forces operating while also keeping the jets in action, and in my opinion, should have.

I don’t set policy, alas, and the CF-18s came home. But why? The Liberal government has never articulated a coherent rationale for pulling the jets out, likely because it was always and exclusively a political decision, taken during the election campaign, to show a contrast between a hawkish Liberal position and a differently hawkish Conservative one. And I think a lot of the differences that people have tried to draw between the Liberal and Conservative visions have a hard time holding up if our snipers are killing enemy personnel.

To be clear, this is not about self-defence. That was always understood to be permissible. If Canadian troops operating in the region encountered an enemy force — these things happen in the fog of war — they always had the authorization to engage in battle to protect themselves and any friendly forces they were with. We have heard of these incidents several times over the course of the mission, where Canadian troops and ISIS forces have exchanged fire. The public has had no real objection to these clashes because I think reasonable people understand that the mission is a dangerous one and that our troops have to protect themselves.

But is a sniper shot at 3.5 kilometres defensive?

I’d argue no. Or, at least, if it is, it’s hard to see what also wouldn’t be. How you can draw a line between sniper fire, which would be defensive, and air or artillery strikes, which, one assumes, the government would deem offensive (though both would involve killing enemy personnel from beyond unaided visual range with long-range weapons).

WATCH: PM Trudeau comments on record-breaking shot by Canadian sniper

1:37 PM Trudeau comments on record-breaking shot by Canadian sniper

But others have noted that the Canadian mission has always included an element of “assisting” allied forces, in addition to “advising them.”

The prime minister himself noted that on Tuesday, saying the mission has “always had an element of defence,” and noting that that included defence of allied forces as well. Vance agreed, and had, in fairness, noted as early as November of last year that, “We don’t have to be shot at first. We can take the first shot if it is to save lives.”

That’s good! I support that. I also support our snipers engaging ISIS, and would love to see a more active role for Canada, including sending the jets back in. I have no objection to Canada waging war on ISIS, a vicious enemy in urgent need of total destruction. Canadians supported the previous combat mission against ISIS and, I suspect, would support it again. Put bluntly, ISIS has it coming.

But I would like some clarity. I understand what a non-combat mission is. And I’m not bothered by the reality that a combat mission may, from time to time, involve self-defence (or protecting allies). But if our forces are authorized to engage the enemy at their own discretion, when not under fire, to support allied forces that are in battle, and are constantly deployed with those forces near the front — near enough, specifically, to be in effective firing range — then I struggle to understand what “non-combat” even means.

To take all the government’s statements at face value, Canadian troops are engaged in a non-combat mission that also involves serving within shooting range of the front where they fire on any enemy that threatens us or any ally. This is a very strange definition of non-combat.

WATCH: Canada will renew its mission to Iraq: Sajjan

6:28 Canada will renew its mission to Iraq: Sajjan

We don’t have to twist ourselves into pretzels trying to re-invent the meanings of all these words. It’s far easier to simply conclude that our non-combat mission includes, and has always included, an element of limited combat, but our government, for political reasons, prefers to call the mission non-combat. It certainly rolls off the tongue better than “a more or less non-combat mission that sometimes involves our guys killing the enemy when it makes sense for that to occur.”

But again, words matter. Our soldiers are in danger, doing good work in service of a good cause. There’s no shame in combating ISIS.

Let’s put aside the pretense and call our mission what it plainly is — not only combat, maybe not even mainly combat. But combat when appropriate. Our troops deserve that honesty.

Matt Gurney is host of The Morning Show on Toronto’s Talk Radio AM640 and a columnist for Global News.