The secondary part to that, some member of the pm's staff being supposed to have called Bush a moron, was headlined on cbc tv news tonight ... of course right away they got JC standing up to say he wasn't ... so now you have the distinction of being the only nation on the planet whose leader is certified 'not a moron' by le p'tit gars du Shawinigate .... this won't help your case in BC one bit -g-
Did you know Trudeau and Nixon hated each other's guts ... for well-known reason in the case of Trudeau of course, and in the case of Tricky Dick because he knew Pee-air saw right through him and would not take his shit in any way .... apparently the Bush staff calls Chrétien a 'dino', short for dinosaur, but they kept it private until today, so they're all even now, and can presumably get back to weightier issues, like the Commerzwaffe assault on BC
This new minister of war McCallum was reputed to have less backbone in standing up to Washington than his predecessor Eggleton, who got cashiered for giving an ex-girlfriend some minor contract [which she seems to have performed admirably and at a reasonable price, so go figure] .... perhaps he is posturing, to improve his reputation ... what he says here, that canadian defense is entirely canadian business, is well duh fairly obvious, and Bush has been pushy lately on the perma-war-now platform [isn't that election over now?], still it would behove an ally to converse with a measure of decorum, and that applies to both sides
As it happens i agree that this g.w.n. needs to revive its defense capabilities, dramatically and starting yesterday .... this is the case no matter who rules in DC, no matter whether they rule wisely or go right off their cowboy nuts with the intoxication of all that power .... take the two cases -
Case 1 - all that absolute military power corrupts absolutely, rulers of the US get even more pushy and the concept of free and independent peoples they decide to disregard entirely as not in their vital interest, and they a. get their current allies bogged down in occupying other peoples' real estate all over the globe, b. start something so clearly heinous in its beginnings [as opposed to later on as is the usual] that we are morally compelled to break off our alliance with them, or c. the mindset that now rules the Commerzwaffe gets power over the Pentagon too, and decides they covet a larger slice of this g.w.n. than just the forestry land of BC
... then Canada is going to need an effective military, isn't she ... defend it or lose it
Case 2 - the good news - cooler and more honourable elements prevail, all that killing power gets used more or less reasonably, the juvenile cowboy attitude gets controlled by wiser internal forces, no more Viet Nams or Nicaraguas, and we in the g.w.n. eventually get back to our idealised relationship with the US, where we're not worrying quite so much what the hell they're going to do next ... or, perhaps more accurately, who they're going to do next
... well in this case we still need an effective military, for the very reasons that Cellucci [sp?] and Bush have been saying - it is a fact that there are threats in this world other than departments of the US government, this islamofascist thing for instance ... for all that it is overblown in the media it does form something of a genuine menace, and we must guard our portion of the continent against it if we want to proceed with the continental trading bloc ...... and we must do it ourselves, because a. we must not have foreign troops on our soil or in our waters, beyond allies visiting or training of course, never stationed here, not once, not ever, because you never know when the cowboys and the Polks et al are going to get back into power .... and b. along with that continental trading bloc and the duties of an ally comes a responsibility that is purely ours - there is no reason why US taxpayers should pay for our defense
Either way, we need to do defense better ... it's pretty ridiculous now, we pay something like three hundred fifty loonies per capita, should be more like one thousand .... and a modern mobile force too, not overly heavy to the fantastically expensive wartoys, but not lacking the effective stuff either, a balance in there somewhere, and not too many generals either, we've got plenty already .... far more fighting men, total DoD is fifty-seven thousand now, should be double that at a minimum, plus among other things revive the militia .... rob ideas from all over, including the swiss with their extensive citizen force .... it has just got to be done, and started soon |
