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| quote: | Originally posted by ShadoWolf
LIEBERALS TAKE NOTE:
http://www.cfc.forces.gc.ca/spotlig...zie041229a.html
BMD doesn't deserve such a bumpy ride
by Lewis MacKenzie
Never get behind me in a grocery store check-out line. You are guaranteed to be a silent observer as our cashier calls for a price, hands over to her replacement, chats with a relative who is entitled to 10% off most, but not all, of her items and is on her first day solo without someone showing her the ropes. I have equal luck on long commercial airline flights. No matter how I much I want to use the transit time to prepare for whatever awaits me at the other end, I am destined to be assigned a seat beside a gregarious talker. Last week’s trip to Calgary was no exception.
Him ?Eglancing up from his paper before I have my seat belt fastened: “Can you believe this missile defence thing? Those Yanks and that Bush guy are steamrolling us into helping them fill space with nuclear weapons.?E
Me - long pause - do I take the bait or not? What the Hell: “Well , not really, the only nuclear-tipped missiles out there would be the ones coming our way and those are the ones the U.S. wants to destroy before they get here.?E
Him: “But with all those nations like China, Russia, Israel, India, Pakistan and God knows how many others building nuclear missiles, this Star Wars system is going to need thousands of U.S. interceptors to handle the threat.?E
Me: “Absolutely not, and don’t confuse this current system with Ronald Regan’s Star Wars. The critics of Ballistic Missile Defence (BMD) are intentionally calling it “Star Wars?Eto scare the public, particularly regarding the scope and cost of the system. The number of interceptors planned for the current system will be so small - somewhere around 40 to 50 ?Ethat none of the potential enemy countries you mentioned would be encouraged to increase their number of offensive missiles, as it would be easy for them to overwhelm our defensive shield with a fraction of their current inventory. This system is designed to handle the tiny number of incoming missiles that countries like North Korea or Iran might throw in our direction, intentionally or otherwise, as well as any that might be launched by some wacko terrorist organization, when and if they take control of some state’s nuclear capabilities.
Him: “That’s ridiculous! None of those folks have the capability to launch a ballistic missile against us and if they did, they wouldn’t risk being annihilated by the U.S. in retaliation.?E
Me: “You are right today ?Ebut what about tomorrow? We are dealing with groups who have as their number one stated priority the elimination of their Great Satan, the U.S. and her allies. Within the past few years some of these groups have sprayed children running away from school with machine gun fire, sent suicide bombers to blow up night clubs, and slowly, sometimes taking two to three minutes, have severed innocent victims heads from their bodies, keeping them alive as long as possible in the process. Do you really think they would be deterred by the thought of U.S. retaliation? Should we wait until they have the capability before we do anything about it?
Him: “Well let the U.S. worry about that, it’s not our problem. A little earlier you said, ‘our defensive shield?E it’s not ours, it’s the Americans?E?E
Me: “It just so happens that we are already involved. We have hundreds of military cooperation agreements with the U.S. signed since the end of the Second World War. The North American Aerospace Command (NORAD) is the most important one, and we provide the deputy commander and many of the staff. Our Air Force responds to threats to North American, not just Canadian airspace. We are already involved with the system you seem to dislike, as NORAD will provide targeting data to the BMD’s interceptor missiles regarding any incoming missile target. Frequently those will be Canadian officers at NORAD’s headquarters passing on that critical information. My friend, if you aim the rifle at a deer and someone else pulls the trigger, you share the meat.?E
Him: ?EI don’t care what you say, the polls are showing the majority of Canadians are against us getting involved and this is a democracy?E
Me: ?ESure the polls show a close race and that result emerged from a question like, ?EAre you in favour of joining the U.S. in its expensive and unproven ballistic missile defence program??EResult: 50/50. Think if the question was, ‘The U.S., NATO, Japan, Britain, Australia, Russia, France, Israel, and Denmark are all cooperating with the implementation of a ballistic missile system that you won’t see, won’t pay for and won’t be based on Canadian soil, but will make you and your family safer. Are you in favour of joining??EI would anticipate a dramatically different result.
Him: “I still say we would be safer without a bunch of nuclear interceptors out there in space?E
Me: “Actually, nuclear weapons are banned in space and they aren’t very effective out there anyway. It's space! The interceptors will not have explosive war heads. They will destroy incoming missiles with kinetic energy, like a head-on car collision. The interceptors will be launched from land or sea where they are obviously easier to service, upgrade and control.
Him: “Yeah, but haven’t all the tests failed??E
Me: “That’s why you test, to perfect the system. Do you really think that a nation which sent men to the moon in 1969 and can put a cruise missile through the bathroom window of a house 1,000 kilometres away will fail to perfect a system to track and hit an incoming warhead the size of a BMW??E
Aircraft Captain: “Ladies and Gentlemen. We have Calgary in sight. Please place your seat backs in the upright position, fasten your seatbelt and until we have safely come to a full stop at the terminal, try to stop arguing with the person seated beside you, particularly the two of you in 13 A and B. After all, we are Canadians?E
Maj-Gen. Lewis MacKenzie, now retired, commanded UN troops during the Bosnian civil war of 1992.
This article is presented here with the kind permission of the author. It also appears in the 29 Dec 04 issue of The Globe and Mail. |
who fucking cares what some idiot in the army thinks about the whole matter. That would be like taking the advice of bulldozer operator on a major decision in your engineering company. He is just paid muscle or in this case a bullet recepticle who cares what he has to think?
Naturally, those in the army are supportive of the whole matter. The armed forces is by nature one of the most rascist, unprogressive and closed minded canadian instituions. I should now i was there for a summer. I remember once being drilled on potential threats of nuclear attack from nations like russia. I was like " umm sir the cold war is over you know?"
"Give me 20 private lavell I dont want anymore of this school talk in my unit!"
Ya great people to take advice from.
While we are it i know some people up at the lumber mill who might be able to provide some insight into Natural resource management
hahahhaha
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Nathan Fake - Outhouse (Valentino Kanzyani Remix) 
