Hah, there is a major discussion on this in the TOTA Forum

Here's a small sample of my posts.

quote:

Originally posted by crazedcanuck I was against the plan, since it seemed like a huge waste of money, and a useless enterprise. But if the only thing we lost was a little rented space, and gained an improved relationship with the US, then the benefits certainly outweigh the costs. (all financially taken by the US) Yet another Liberal grandstanding blunder. Do you really think all the trade issues between Canada and the US have anything to do with mad Cow or softwood lumber? It has to do with the US returning the finger gesture the Liberals have been pointing south all these years.

quote:

Originally posted by crazedcanuck We already have a mutal defense system called NORAD, which is made up of an early warning system via radar and interceptor planes. The missle defense system, although absolutely ridiculous IMO, was simply going to be an addition to NORAD and likely wouldn't have cost us any more money than we currently have invested in the radar system. Your hero Martin was heavily supportive of the plan, likely because of the policatl capital and favour he would have had with Bush, and the benefits to Canada. But since his Government is a minority one, and every vote counts, he changed his mind. Not because it's good for Canada, but because it's good for the Liberals.

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 – glancing 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.”

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.”

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.”

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” to 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 – that 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.”

Me: “You are right today – but 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’, it’s not ours, it’s the Americans’!”.

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.”

Him: “ I don’t care what you say, the polls are showing the majority of Canadians are against us getting involved and this is a democracy”.

Me: “ Sure the polls show a close race and that result emerged from a question like, ‘ Are you in favour of joining the U.S. in its expensive and unproven ballistic missile defence program?’ Result: 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?’ I would anticipate a dramatically different result.

Him: “I still say we would be safer without a bunch of nuclear interceptors out there in space”.

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?”

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?”

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”.


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.

quote:

Originally posted by discojoe Well it wasnt because of the cost that we pulled out. Its because its just another bad foreign policy example to be setting. Its the lessons we learned from the cold war. A defensive weapon is never defensive. As soon as America builds a missile defense system, china, russia, north korea etc... build new offensive technologies to get around it in case they are attacked. America responds with new defensive and offensive weapons of their own. Its part of a defense cycle we have been trying to get out of for the past 15 years. Its just the wrong direction to be going. We should be encouraging other countries to disarm and leading by example. Its these kind of reactive rather than proactive policies that are only exacerbating the threats facing the country. All bush has accomplished in his four years in office is create more enemies. And not only is it a bad example to be setting, its already completely obsolete. Why do it?

As lovey dovey as all that sounds, it hardly forms a realistic view of the world.

Here's a hypothetical scenario for you...

China has been cranking up it's armed forces unchecked over the years, and the US is too weak or spread too thin due to it's own foolish manifest destiny. China, with possibly North Korea, a long standing ally, will go on the offensive if it deems it neccesary to it's own survival.

Of course this SOUNDS ridiculous, and I don't think this sort of scenario is imminent, but they have been able to hold Tibet under their boot unchecked. Once they need another neighbour's resources due to their burgeoning population, you can bet their isolationist policy will be scrapped.

If this sort of thing ever came into play, are you still going to be calling for the US to play nice, or defend the helpless nations being raped and pillaged?

The BMD is unlikely to start an arms race. If anything triggers the next big period of international military conflict, it will be the US making such a foothold in long disputed territories like Iraq and Afghanistan. The wars there have given them two huge staging areas and access to resources in a region where they had little pre- 9/11. They are also much closer to traditional enemies like China, North Korea, and Russia.

The war on terror has presented the US with a logistical coup over the other majorpowers/superpowers, and I wouldn't be surprised if American agression in the region ended up screwing us all over in the next 10-20 years.