http://apnews.myway.com/article/20050225/D88F6QO01.html

A sincere thank you to Paul Martin and our neighbors to the north, for standing up to the bullying tactics of the Bush administration. Even if you leave out the fact that the missile defense system is going nowhere, costs an absurd amount, and has failed testing at least twice already, there's nothing Canada would have gained from this partnership. Missiles are way down on the list of likely ways America and Canada would be attacked in this day and age, especially, as they love to say, "In a Post 9/11 World." This missile defense system is a giant kiss for the defense contracting industry, and I'm glad Canada decided to stay out of it.

It's a 'Full Employment for Alaskans' project, very popular there because of it, especially with the large right-wing contingent. Even the engineers I know who are working on it doubt it will ever work (or need to...) but they like the money--and anyone in the Aleutians or Big Delta this time of year is earning it....!

I'm a bit confused by that article. One of the big reasons it says they bowed out of it was due to "effectively allows Washington to decide what to do if a missile was headed toward Canada". By my understanding, the entire program would have been an extension to what NORAD already does. It is a joint operation, manned, funded, and operated by both governments. If something dangerous is spotted, equal amounts of urgent calls go out from Cheyene Mountain to both the US President and Canadian Prime Minister. With the new program, the same processes would occur, and some magical system could then be used to shoot the missles out of the sky.

It seems to be much more a political approval move then anything else, since the article talks about how unpopular the plan was with the Canadian people, and how somehow the program would have decreased the sovereignty of Canada. It doesn't seem the Canadian people will pay less taxes over this, since a 10.5 billion over five year increase was approved for the military there.

I think the notion is more along the lines of "we don't want to be part of an arms race". Of course, it's pointed out that no one that's going to attack the US or Canada actually has ICBMs, so it's unclear who this arms race would be with.

Free MiG-35 if you buy 20?

I would have liked to see the Canadian military budget frozen. 12.x Billion Canadian? Fek that. If the US government is so gung-ho I'd like to see them pay for everything they get their hands into and be held responsible (and have to hand over cash) to other nations also affected by their actions.

Bush is crapping all over the world and we're being asked to pay for the toilet paper. The only axis of evil lives in Washington DC. It's just that simple.

Bruno

Right now, anything supportive of the USA military is a definite political no-no up this way. Prime Minister Martin is on past record as being supportive of the "missile shield", but he knows he'd be rapidly turfed if he openly supported it at this point. Blame Bush.

On the other hand (as others in this thread have noticed), there's nothing we (Canada) really would have to do anyway, beyond allowing N.O.R.A.D. data to be used to trigger missile launches. And my New Brunswick pseudo-kin (ex-Premier Frankie McKenna, as oppsed to current Premier cousin Bernie Lord) has already pointed that out, which kinda forced the recent reverse announcement.

Cheers

Don't forget that a large portion of that new cash is going to giving the troops a decent raise for once....in the 20 years I served (and at the height of the cold war no less) we received about a 6% increase in total...ever wonder why some young soldier's families used to line up at food banks?