Possible Disaster Looming For Canadian Military Independence

Who knows if peacenik leaders like Duceppe and Layton will try to stop this, and we know the Conservative position on Canadian military independence, although they so support increased spending to serve U.S. interests. Personally I've heard that hald of our CF-18s are already grounded or used for training, and Dr. Caleb mentioned one of our destroyers HMCS Huron (IIRC) was laid-up due to manpower shortages, but this is getting pretty transparent. Weaken Canada--and have an Orwellian gun registry to locate possible areas of resistance in an invasion, perhaps? I know two high-school graduates personally, who both did preliminary training for at least 2 years, and were told at the end of it, that they passed with flying colours, but could not be taken on due to "Lack of available funds." Let's be thankful for the internet. At least now the Liberals can't pull a C.D. Howe without us finding out about it quite quickly... Promise could gut military Ships, jets may be scrapped to fulfill Liberal troop pledge Chris Wattie; with files from Mike Blanchfield National Post, with files from CanWest News Service Saturday, August 21, 2004 The Canadian military may be forced to mothball all of its remaining destroyers and ground up to a quarter of its front-line fighter jets in order to fulfill a Liberal election promise to create a new, 5,000-strong "peacekeeping brigade." Bill Graham, the Defence Minister, is to present options on the proposed new brigade to Cabinet by the end of the month, but Defence sources have told the National Post the military has been told to prepare drastic measures to pay for the ideas. In an article posted yesterday on the Web site of Jane's Defence Weekly, the London-based defence publishing and analysis group said senior Canadian officers have been working in secret on finding a way to pay for the promised influx of new troops. Under the proposal, the navy is to take all of its Iroquois-class destroyers, the flagship vessels from which commodores or admirals can command a task force of warships, out of service, while the air force is to ground as many as 20 of its CF-18s, a quarter of its entire fighter force. The CF-18 Hornet is in the midst of a $2.3-billion, six-year modernization program. During the federal election campaign, the Liberals promised to add a new brigade of 5,000 troops to the overstretched and chronically underfunded Canadian military specifically for peacekeeping and "peace support" missions. The military was caught completely off guard by the pledge, which senior officers believe Paul Martin, the Prime Minister, made hastily in the heat of fighting an early Conservative surge in the campaign. One senior military official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the Armed Forces are worried they "are going to be perceived as being in bed with this cockamamie idea." They also fear the plan could lead to the effective demise of the navy and air force. Just shows how much our sellout politicians truly practice careerist-poltiics. To read the rest: http://www.canada.com/national/nationalpost/news/story.html?id=b393159c-5380-4b7d-91f3-8266b57ac1bf