NORAD Pact To Be Amended.

It's good that Canada is being included in missile defence, we live right beside the US and if they're attacked we would get fallout. Sticking our heads in the sand is in no way taking responsibility for ourselves or our neighbours. Missile defence will go ahead with or without our participation, if we take some responsibility for our own defence we will know what's going on every step of the way. Missile technology is getting easier and cheaper to produce all the time, witness that private groups are putting people in space, having a defence against a missile attack is perfectly reasonable. Amending the pact is a positive step.

Um why are you visiting this site? You want us to be americanized? This is only the first step of many to bring us closer to being a part of Bush's Star Wars which the majority of Canadians do not want yet will probably get because we have a government who wants to be their best friend. Don't come on here spewing crap about it being good for us when it's just Paul Martin trying to pull the wool over our eyes.

The whole thing won't even work AND will kick off a new arms race. It's a big gimmee for defense contractors. While the government(s) wastes money on it, I'm sure the lines at the food banks will continue to swell.

I am not sure Santa will be sending missiles our way but I am sure "no" means "no" unless you are the Canadian Government. Like always the word no is only a temporary setback for our elected officals.

I think missile defense is a bad idea not just for Canada, for the United States and the rest of the world as well. All it will create in the long run is a race to point missiles at eachother's enemies and with one push of a button, kaboom, millions of lives lost. I think Canada and the United States need to focus their time and effort in building peaceful, fair relationships with eachother(United States needs to build it up again with Europe)instead of worrying about missile defense.

---
Alliance Atlantis films proudly presents...

I agree, anon, above.We need to take the initiative on defense- ON OUR OWN! We don`t need to be America`s little puppet.

---
Dave Ruston

Oh fu@k. You're a perfect example of why the vote should not be universal. <p>Missile defense technology still has a very low success rate, even with rigged tests -- single targets with homing beacons. <p>Even if the tech improves, it's cheaper to build more offensive missiles to cover the losses. You as much as say so. <p>And just where the fl@ming h@ll you think the radioactive wreckage is gonna come down? That was the original biggie argument against ABM in the first place - it's no defense, it's a suicide umbrella. <p>The only defence in this world is to stop tramping all over the sodding planet pissing off everyone else, like the US does. This is why we are not a serious target (tho it <em>is</em> why everyone loves to forge/steal our passports). But the snugglier we get with the beast, the more often we go play in one of their little genocidal conquests, the more we <em>legitimise</em> ourselves as a target. Legitimise, I say - it'd be what we deserved.

The point about private space craft is asute. The same
technology can be easily adapted to carry warheads. In a few short years anyone with a few million dollars will be
able to fire a small number of ballistic missles at
pretty much anyone. Of course we'll hear the usual
idiotic drivel about regulating this problem out of existence -- or if we're really serious call in the UN or EU. Frankly, missle defence is a better alternative. Particularily forward based interceptors. One of the great fears of the Soviets, remember them, when the original anti-ballistic missle treaties were negotiated way back in the 70s was that the
Americans would develop mobile interceptors and put them
on ships or submarines. This makes the weapons far more
versatile and far more difficult to counter. The early ABM treaties ruled this out and spelled out a number of fixed silos. Decoying fixed sites is cheap and easy. This observation has, over the years, led to a "mythology" that
missle defence cannot work even while we watch them
shoot down Iraqi missle on global TV. Missle defence, like
all military defence is not perfect. The goal is to
increase the risks your enemies must take. If I can destroy you with no risk or cost I will do so just for the fun of it. If I must run great risks I will probably opt for peace.

"Oh fu@k. You're a perfect example of why the vote should not be universal."

Well. Obviously Canadians are stupid for not creating a totalitarian regime and putting you in charge. Perhaps if you swear at them a little more...

I assume you are referring to the Patriot missiles deployed during the gulf war. Apparently, you missed the report on "60 Minutes" regarding the dismal failure of the patriot missiles during the gulf war. To quote the show,

"“A lot of money started flowing into the Patriot right after the Gulf War, because everybody thought it was a success,” says Cirincione.

But it turns out, that wasn’t true. Almost none of the Patriots had worked. Some of them had failed to hit the incoming Scuds. Some had shot at missiles that didn't even exist. But most of them still exploded in the sky, leading everyone to believe they'd scored a kill, when in fact they hadn’t.

“The best evidence that we found supports between two and four intercepts out of 44,” says Cirincione. “About a 10 percent success rate.”"

What you wouldn't have seen was the British fighter jet that one of these missiles blew out of the sky in friendly airspace. The transcript can be found at http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/02/ ... 1241.shtml.

As far as your implication that the Soviet Union disintegrated because of US armament, you are partially right. However, it wasn't simply becaue the US had these armaments but because the Soviets stupidly diverted its resources to building military armaments to match the US (which they did step for step) instead of building up their own economy. Of course, this was the real intent of the Americans continuing the arms race. Noam Chomsky documented in his book "Hegemony or Survival" that the Soviets made overtures to the Americans to stop the arms race but the US refused, likely due to the fact that a successful Soviet (socialist) economy and society would have shown up capitalism and exposed its flaws.

If you think this is about defence, you are grossly mistaken, misinformed, or naive. I doesn't take very deep thought to understand that you don't need to attach any offensive weapon to this system for it to act as such, since the real idea behind this is that the US will be able to attack anyone with impunity. Of course, this is just fanciful thinking on the part of the US, for as anyone who has seen the documentary "If You Love This Planet" on Helen Caldecot and has read her recent book "The New Nuclear Danger" knows there is no missile defence umbrella to hide from radioactive fallout or the nuclear winter that would still result from nuclear weapons being used.

Fighting missels is'nt it an endless fight it seems.I'm proud of everything we've fought to hold so dear not only the humans but the nature that could be ruined by missles.I do beleive we should protect our land from being hit by them.The qestion is why are they building them.Do they want to destroy the world with a blink of their eye.I heard that the people that all worked on the Uranium feilds all died of cancer.Uraniums also were we get our gas.I really wish they did'nt exist.Space warfare is actually to me unimaginable it has it's own beauty

I think this is a no brainer, if Santa is going to give us an early warning system, then we should let santa drill a few silos into our desolate north, that most of you city freaks will never see or ever explore. our government can not even aford a piece of sheet metal to weld onto our sinking used subs, and you imbisiles are going to bite Santa again in the ass.... the few brains that you city people have left please use them so we can have an early warning system with a potential back up system to deter extremests. north of 7