Re-Open Missle Defence Debate

The guy is an ex-officer and wants bigger and more bang-bangs.

If the USA ever invaded Canada, they would be welcomed with brass bands, with the officers crossing their legs, while waiting to don new uniforms, just like the Austrians in '38.

The military is a special interest sector, like any other profession, who have more in common with their foreign counterparts than with others in their own country. The professional military and war lords of history have the biggest turncoat record of all sectors. Anybody can check this out. As long as somebody can offer them fancier uniforms and bigger guns, they're off.

The one exception I can think of were the Western POWs in nazi Germany. On the other hand, German and satellite officers in Soviet captivity were fighting on the Soviet side before the war ended and were the foundation for the new Red Armies, just as ex nazi Germans were in the West for NATO.

I'd sooner see Kim Campbell as Defence Minister than an ex-officer.

Ed Deak, Big Lake, BC.

paging Mel Hurtig...

methinks it's time to bombard the Honourable Minister's office with calls and letters expressing the will of the majority of Canadians on this issue. I seem to recall that you had many bits of polling data that we used to pepper Mr. Martin with when it looked like he might reopen talks.

I know that with a new (albeit minority) mandate, the Cabinet is less likely to allow public opinion to sway policy formation, still, I think we ought to work together to bring this issue back to the forefront in the media and in the hearts and minds of the average Canadian.

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... just a friendly reminder to always take the internet less seriously than you take your gut!

There once was a convention in Canadian politics that you did not appoint someone too closely connected with a department as a cabinet minister. Over the years that has been changing but it appears that this government has done what could be the best job yet of putting the fox in the hen house.

During the election, Stephen Harper promised not to react to "public" opinion. He said his government would use its own judgement. Obviously, that judgement includes deciding which promises it would break and which ones it would keep.

Obvioulsy he is not interested in reacting to public opinion; that would indicate democracy! We need an action on this, as well as the LM Census. The war mentality will continue unless we join together to help them understand that public opinion is necessary in a democracy.

This is a fluid motion, no election could change the path here, lib or con are both taking us down this path. The Lib's were publicly making it look like they didn't want war, BMD, etc but behind the scenes is an entire different plan, and that plan has a Conservative face!

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If I stand for my country today...will my country be here to stand for me tomorrow?

Harper said he would look at this again during the campaign. There is no duplicity in this.

There was never a vote in the commons on our participation... nor was there any debate in the commons on what was to be done, or the pros and cons of the program. Most Canadians don't even know what the BMD is (half of them think it is the weaponization of space... so I guess Mel's propoganda campaign reached sufficient people to kill the deal). The Liberals first provided some half hearted support for the issue and then reversed their position when it looked like public opinion was moving against them. Martin wanted to look like Trudeau, so he slapped the Americans in the face after telling them he would support them. If you prefer that kind of "democracy" perhaps you should move to Russia.

The Conservatives obviously believe in democracy since they are:
1.) doing what they said they would do during the election
2.) saying that they will put this to a vote in the Commons

The opposition controls parliament. If this is such a bad idea that can't stand up to scrutiny, then let the debate be made and the program should fail. However, if the debate occurs and the vote comes in against you, then you only have your arguements to blame.

You ever hear of something called a MIRV?

It's an acronym that means:

Multiple Independent Re-entery Vehicles.

Simply put it's a nuclear tipped missile that given modern warhead tech can dump better than 15 individually targetted nukes per missile.

Current treaties allow for 2-3 max if I recall rightly.

ABM for widespread use is currently against international treay.

Now, how long do you honestly think that nation A building a "missile shield" will be happening before nation B (perhaps even a C & D in future) will start building nukes with 15+ warhead capability in order to swarm the system to make sure their birds get through?

Instant arms race.

Now if that's what you want, be my guest.

I'll move to Austrailia to avoid the fallout cloud.

While we're "peppering" Mr. O'Connor, let's tell him that we want Cdn forces OUT of Afghanistan until there's a thorough public debate on what the %^&*! we're doing there. And let's tell him as well, that we don't want billions more spent on military toys when there's such a shortage of funds for social needs.

As for Missile Defense, I think it's kind of on the back burner at present. Last I heard, the Pentagon was quietly shelving the idea because of equipment failures. (Will hunt up some sources on this.) However, it never hurts to remind the Honourable Minister that we don't want the issue to be revived at any time in the future.

Right now the hue and cry should be about Afg, and new military spending. These are the forms that "deep integration" of our military is taking right now.

Eleanor

Why are we in Afghanistan you ask?<br />
<br />
24 Canadians killed in 9/11 attacks<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.members.shaw.ca/kcic1/cdnwtc.html">http://www.members.shaw.ca/kcic1/cdnwtc.html</a><br />
<br />
Take a good look at each and every one of those people, at their faces and read the memorandum at the bottom telling you who these people were. These are the faces of your countrymen and women who were murdered for the sake of Al Queda's ideology. That's why we are there. That's why we need to stay. To make sure we don't add any more people's names and faces to that list. <br />
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We cannot allow Afghanistan to fall back into chaos and become a terrorist sponsor state. We cannot bomb the country one day and then turn our backs on a fledgling government and throw them to the wolves. If there was ever a case for nation building this is it. We secured Kabul and established some basic infrastructure. We now need to spread that out to the rest of the country.

It isn't designed to stop Russia (who could launch 1000 missles anyway if they were so inclined). It's designed to stop North Korea. That's why it's based in Alaska and California. In case you didn't know, NK already tossed a missle over Japan. So it's no small wonder that both they and Australia have signed on to this shield even though it is unproven technology.

So if they get the bomb and decide to use it... your flight to Australia might be cancelled on account of the mushroom cloud over Sydney.

Actually we're "in" Afghanistan because BushCo didn't like the idea of the Taliban signing an oil pipeline construction contract with an Argetinian company instead of Unocal.<br />
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Than 911 "happened" was either by US gov't design at worst or with their permission at best.<br />
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Either way is a suck job.<br />
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For more background:<br />
<br />
<a href="http://cronus.com/oil/">http://cronus.com/oil/</a>

to<br />
Michael Scott <br />
Stop eating that shit Michael It rots the brain!<br />
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"These are the faces of your countrymen and women who were murdered for the sake of Al Queda's ideology." <br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.oilempire.us/qaeda.html">http://www.oilempire.us/qaeda.html</a><br />
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<a href="http://bellaciao.org/en/article.php3?id_article=9410">http://bellaciao.org/en/article.php3?id_article=9410</a><br />
<br />
<br />
Shortly before his untimely death, former British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook told the House of Commons that "Al Qaeda" is not really a terrorist group but a database of international mujaheddin and arms smugglers used by the CIA and Saudis to funnel guerrillas, arms, and money into Soviet-occupied Afghanistan. Courtesy of World Affairs, a journal based in New Delhi, WMR can bring you an important excerpt from an Apr.-Jun. 2004 article by Pierre-Henry Bunel, a former agent for French military intelligence. <br />
"I first heard about Al-Qaida while I was attending the Command and Staff course in Jordan. I was a French officer at that time and the French Armed Forces had close contacts and cooperation with Jordan . . . <br />
"Two of my Jordanian colleagues were experts in computers. They were air defense officers. Using computer science slang, they introduced a series of jokes about students’ punishment. <br />
"For example, when one of us was late at the bus stop to leave the Staff College, the two officers used to tell us: ’You’ll be noted in ’Q eidat il-Maaloomaat’ which meant ’You’ll be logged in the information database.’ Meaning ’You will receive a warning . . .’ If the case was more severe, they would used to talk about ’Q eidat i-Taaleemaat.’ Meaning ’the decision database.’ It meant ’you will be punished.’ For the worst cases they used to speak of logging in ’Al Qaida.’ <br />
"In the early 1980s the Islamic Bank for Development, which is located in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, like the Permanent Secretariat of the Islamic Conference Organization, bought a new computerized system to cope with its accounting and communication requirements. At the time the system was more sophisticated than necessary for their actual needs. <br />
"It was decided to use a part of the system’s memory to host the Islamic Conference’s database. It was possible for the countries attending to access the database by telephone: an Intranet, in modern language. The governments of the member-countries as well as some of their embassies in the world were connected to that network. <br />
"[According to a Pakistani major] the database was divided into two parts, the information file where the participants in the meetings could pick up and send information they needed, and the decision file where the decisions made during the previous sessions were recorded and stored. In Arabic, the files were called, ’Q eidat il-Maaloomaat’ and ’Q eidat i-Taaleemaat.’ Those two files were kept in one file called in Arabic ’Q eidat ilmu’ti’aat’ which is the exact translation of the English word database. But the Arabs commonly used the short word Al Qaida which is the Arabic word for "base." The military air base of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia is called ’q eidat ’riyadh al ’askariya.’ Q eida means "a base" and "Al Qaida" means "the base." <br />
"In the mid-1980s, Al Qaida was a database located in computer and dedicated to the communications of the Islamic Conference’s secretariat. <br />
"In the early 1990s, I was a military intelligence officer in the Headquarters of the French Rapid Action Force. Because of my skills in Arabic my job was also to translate a lot of faxes and letters seized or intercepted by our intelligence services . . . We often got intercepted material sent by Islamic networks operating from the UK or from Belgium.<br />
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<br />
<a href="http://www.commondreams.org/views01/1128-10.htm">http://www.commondreams.org/views01/1128-10.htm</a><br />
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<br />
<p>---<br>People are more violently opposed to fur than leather because it's safer to harass rich women than motorcycle gangs. <br />
Alexei Sayle

Hardly Sydney, a N. Korean missile would at best be an IRBM, and that makes Darwin a far more likely target based solely on range.

Now if N. Korea had access to Chinese or Russian booster tech, then the equation changes.

Your argument also assumes that n. korean guidance system tech is good enough to actually hit a city.

All n. korea did was send a rocket over japan, which is roughly analogous to throwing a rock at a barn from 20 feet away.

It's possible to miss, but you'd have to be a real co-ordination case to do it.

The Taliban have been put into power by the US government in the first place, armed, feted, welcomed in the US and financed until they balked on the pipeline.

The question of who really bombed the WTC towers and why they collapsed has only been "solved" and believed by the brainwashed faithful.

During WW2, US and Brit airforces killed hundreds of thousands of civilians, because they couldn't or didn't want to hit military targets, so they went into terror bombing, wiping out cities. This has been confirmed in many studies and books by government officials, including JK Galbraith, sent out after the war to report on the effectiveness of the bombing. Virtually none. It was pure and simple mass murder that didn't shorten the war, while production went up till the end.

I still remember the faces of my schoolmates who were killed miles from any military targets and when I had to climb a tree to scrape the intestines of a little girl from my school into a box. 11 people died in that house, 2 of them little girls, one who went over to play.

The generals and the crews got medals for their actions. I still curse the B52s every day, as they fly over our heads, training to kill more innocent civilians somewhere.

Ed Deak, Big Lake, BC.

What is terrorism?

• Unlawful use of force or violence, committed by a group(s) of two or more individuals, against persons or property, to intimidate or coerce the Government, Civilian population or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objective. (FBI)

(One could say quit rightfully, street gangs like the Bloods, the Hells Angels, Mafia and all other organized criminal organizations in North America and around the World fall within this definition but for some strange reason these groups here and in their own countries have rights, freedoms and liberties and are not considered terrorists locally or internationally.)

This is why Canada joined and supported the U.S. in its War with the Taliban, the ruling governing party in Afghanistan that was protecting the terrorist group Alqada.

Potential Outcomes for Terrorists Events

• Mass casualties
• Overwhelms response resources
• Disrupts normal Business and personal processes
• Panic and confusion
• Mass suspicion / oppression of ethnic, cultural and racial groups
• Loss of faith in Government agencies
• Loss of faith in Emergency Response Systems (ERS)

What would I want to do to terrorists who struck Canada?

I would and support hitting them, hitting them hard, and hitting them repeatedly, their sponsors and allies, with every form of force— military, political, economic— as nation and as a people could muster. Hit them till they were destroyed and annihilated from the face of the earth.

The threat of doing this has little deterrent value though; even as some people would put it if Canada had the ability to do so. We can see this by the fact that the Taliban, years later, is still operating and functioning in Afghanistan.

Terrorists are fanatics and fanatics do not reason before acting.

Fundamentalism is the enemy of rational people, religion and culture. Fear makes you over re-act to situations. It makes you panicky; it makes you act without thinking. It entices you to use poor judgment.

NORAD was set up to protect the United States from Russian bombers and missiles landing on American soil not Canada’s as stated by the US Commander of NORAD in the early 1970’s, Canada was not a consideration.

The U.S. informs its allies but does not consult them. What would be different with the Missile Shield Program? As to the Missile shield program Canada has not been asked to supply any money or land to base missile defenses, but it has agreed to share NORAD data to help the plan. The North American Aerospace Command is a joint U.S.-Canadian military operation, but mainly run by the U.S. Government, that dates back to the Cold War to monitor missiles, aircraft and space objects and warn of threats to the continent. "We think it's in Canada's sovereign interest to be in the room to decide what's going to happen when there's an incoming missile," said Ambassador Paul Cellucci. Does anyone think that with the speed that ICBM’s fly so slow that there is going to be a discussion over whether to shoot it down? I think not! We will be lucky to get a call even if know about it. Let’s face it, the missile, no matter how you calculate it, if detected soon enough to intercept it will be intercepted over Canadian territory and the impact or fall out lands on Canada and the people of Canada. Not on the United States of America on!

Canada went down the road to peacekeeping because the United States said the next War would be nuclear war fought with ICBM’s and they would defend North America not Canada. Yet, now the U.S. condemns Canada for following previous U.S. Administrations wants and desires but at the same time wants Canada to follow the Bush Administrations wants and desires.

Canada needs to defend itself territorially, economically and internationally without foreign nationals and Governments, who have no vested loyalty in Canada, its values or its people, influencing and interfering in Canada’s domestic and foreign affairs.

Let’s not have the U.S. entice Canada to use poor judgment and act without totally thinking it through.



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Perception is two thirds of what we perceive reality to be.

Difficult decisions are a privilege of rank.