Posted on 02/24/2005 11:01:28 AM PST by Unam Sanctam
TORONTO - Prime Minister Paul Martin said Thursday that Canada would opt out of the contentious U.S. missile defense program, a move that will further strain brittle relations between the neighbors but please Canadians who fear it could lead to an international arms race.
Martin, ending nearly two years of debate over whether Canada should participate in the development or operation of the multibillion-dollar program, said Ottawa would remain a close ally of Washington in the fight against global terrorism and continental security.
He said he intended to talk to President Bush (news - web sites) later Thursday and that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice (news - web sites) had been informed of the decision earlier this week.
A State Department official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the United States had been informed beforehand of the decision, adding that Washington expects that cooperation with Canada will continue on a wide variety of issues.
Talking to reporters several minutes after his foreign minister first announced the move in the House of Commons, Martin said Canada would instead focus on strengthening its own military and defense in proposals laid out Wednesday in the federal budget.
"Canada recognizes the enormous burden that the United States shoulders, when it comes to international peace and security," Martin said. "The substantial increases made yesterday to our defense budget are a tangible indication that Canada intends to carry its full share of that responsibility."
The federal budget presented to the House of Commons calls for $10.5 billion in the next five years to increase the country's beleaguered armed forces — including an additional 5,000 soldiers and 3,000 reservists — the largest commitment to defense in two decades. It also called for another $807,950 to improve Canada's anti-terrorism efforts and security along the unarmed, 4,000-mile border with the United States.
When Bush visited Canada in December, he surprised Ottawa by making several unsolicited pitches for support of the defense shield, which is in the midst of testing interceptors capable of destroying incoming missiles targeted at North America.
Martin, who leads a tenuous minority government, has said Ottawa would not support what he called the "weaponization of space." Though he initially supported joining the program when he was a candidate for the Liberal leadership, Martin has retreated, since polls indicate that a majority of Canadians oppose it. Many believe that the umbrella, when fully implemented, could lead to an international arms race.
The Bush administration has tried to make a public show of understanding that Martin heads up a minority government that could fall over such a contentious debate.
But U.S. Ambassador Paul Cellucci told reporters Wednesday that he was perplexed over Canada's apparent decision to allow Washington to make the decision if a missile was headed toward its territory.
"Why would you want to give up sovereignty?" he said. "We don't get it. We think Canada would want to be in the room deciding what to do about an incoming missile that might be heading toward Canada."
In other words, they opted out of paying for it. They are going to get coverage just the same. If an incoming was headed to Canada, you can darn well bet we will take it out of the sky when they get the system up and running.
Exactly correct. But, do you think this common sense will show up in any reporter's questioning of the Canadians about why they are opting out of the system?
Or is the lead, Canada agrees SDI is not needed. Someone restore my faith in the MSM and show me in this article or any other where this question is asked and answered.
Because one day we will have had enough of being treated like this and the consequences may be more than an arrogant, parasitic socialist country can withstand.
Let's design one that steers nukes in their direction. While we are at it why don't we pull our troops out of Germany -all of them.
On second thought, I’m not finished ranting.
What you see when you gaze north in my direction, My Friends, is the continual emasculation of a once proud and dynamic nation and its’ people. I honestly wonder what the future holds for Canada, but at this point I can think of little more than an economically hobbled backwater completely bereft of any identity and willingness to stand up for itself; a slow decline into regionalism and eventually a national implosion. Years ago, up until the late 1950’s, Canada was a nation that believed it could do anything despite its’ small population. Our aerospace industry was the envy of the world. Avro built and flew a multi-engine passenger jet years before Boeing launched the 707 generating interest from airlines worldwide and keen attention from the U.S. Military, not to mention building the Arrow, a fighter jet far better than anything in the sky at the time. All of that came to naught. Our telecommunications expertise was second to none, we patrolled the skies over Europe and had a seat at the international table far in excess of what one would expect from a nation of our size. A nation that sends soldiers far beyond proportion to its’ population gets that kind of respect (1 million troops in WWI from a nation of only 10 million). No more. I could go on but I’ll spare the bytes. Now we don’t even know who or what we are, if anything.
It’s tempting to lay the blame for this at the feet of Trudeau, but that’s too simplistic. The truth is far deeper. Socialist, and yes Communist, infiltration of our unions and media in the 60’s and 70’s allowed individuals intent on weakening the country by destroying its’ identity to rise and control these organizations, and the meek “lie back and take it quietly” attitude of many Canadians compounded the problem. Canadians by and large have a “subject” mentality as opposed to feeling like citizens who actually own our own country. An over powerful government took more and more taxes to support more and more socialist programs that employ so many people that they become voting blocs and special interests unto themselves, with the result being politicians too meek to confront them. Ordinary Canadians gradually realized they had no real voice in the halls of power so they took the defensive route and put their heads down and just focused on keeping a roof over their heads in the atmosphere of ever rising tax burdens. Feeling no one in Ottawa would listen the people stopped talking, and gradually the national identity, very similar to the pioneering identity of Americans, was lost. We now have no identity, and when you can’t define yourself what reason is there to protect anything?
Ask most Canadians what defines Canada and you’ll hear the Liberal mantra: Multiculturalism and National Health Care (soon to add National Child care after yesterday’s budget). Think about that for a minute. Our identity is that we don’t really have one and we’re all so afraid of the future that we need the government to look after our needs. Paranoid, self absorbed and bereft of anything of substance we can grasp onto as a nation. In search of anything to define ourselves some (by all means not all or probably not even a true majority) substituted “we’re not Americans” as a way of defining ourselves. How mature. Since that is no definition of anything it lead to the knee jerk anti-Americanism found in much of our media and cultural institutions. This decision on missile defense is another example. If we’re not Americans we have to be different from them simply to prove our independence, even if the position flies in the face of the national interest. Martin is sooooo determined to look strong (in fact even Liberal supporters are shocked at how incompetent he has shown himself to be) that he apparently feels the only way to do this is to oppose the U.S. for opposition sake. This isn’t leadership, it’s cowardice.
Canada stood to benefit mightily from open participation in the Missile Defense Program, and at basically no cost. We have technology industries that would have benefited, both from a technical and economic perspective. Forget that now, I suspect. Much of the damage wrought by the fool Chretien would have been put aside, now it will be compounded many times over. Decisions have consequences and there will be big ones here. The destruction of our aerospace industry in the 50’s drove our best and brightest engineers to flee to the U.S. where NASA and defense companies were happy to scoop them up. Our socialized medicine has driven scores of doctors and nurses south of the border to the point that our health care system is in slow collapse. The growing navel gazing and self righteous U.S. bashing will eventually result in more and more freedom loving Canadians who actually see what’s going on in the world to abandon Canada as lost and relocate to the land liberty calls home.
I’ve been furious at our governors many many times, and this Federal Government in particular, but today along with my anger I feel deeply embarrassed to call myself Canadian. We’re a nation that has lost it’s soul, lost it’s way, and it increasingly seems that we’ve lost our collective mind. The future is grim, I’m afraid. It’s a shame, we held out such promise once, but that I suppose was a long time ago in a very different Canada. Pity.
As long as it land in an unpopulated area I say shoot it down over our territory and force us to deal with the mess. Maybe it will smarten some of my stupid fellow countrymen up and snap some sense of reality into their puny little self absorbed minds. Can you tell I'm upset with our government yet?
A smart move for Canadian Conservatives would be a missle defense plan to shoot down incoming Liberals.
Does it matter what Canada thinks?
It's all political garbage from Canada to serve some internal agenda. Are elections coming soon in Canada?
Canada will be covered no matter what and they know that too. Their contribution is nominal (If there was any to begin with?). Whether they come or go in the program makes absolutely no difference, NMD will come. The program is near complete, NOW they chime in and are against it.
Wow-Canada is against it! I really really care. Is Uganda for or against it? What about Nepal? What is the Nepalese opinion on US National Missile Defense? It really matters to me, not because it matters in some functional way, but because CNN talks about it (sarcasm). Seriously though, besides the Canadians who say we should care what they think and are screaming “we’re against it now, today, for the time being, maybe”, who cares? There is no aspect where they matter. NONE! Besides them having discussions with themselves, talking about things they can’t change or influence, what difference do they make? This is one of those topics that becomes politicized and made into something for some domestic political gain. I’m not up to date on the current Canadian political lay of the land, nor do I care! But why do they talk so much about something they: Won’t influence much, don’t pay for, is near complete, and most people don’t even care about (reference their opinion)?
Red6
....Canada's apparent decision to allow Washington to make the decision if a missile was headed toward its territory.....
Why not let it slam on our friends(?)of the North? Why should we defend them?
Fact is we're members of NORAD, co-command actually, and last fall we signed the protocols to bring MD under the arm of NORAD, so we're already involved big time. Conceiveably, the responsibility to use the system in the face of an incoming missile could very easily fall to a Canadian, and be assured they would act according to the alliance's interest. Martin of course signed on very quietly so as not to upset his base.
There's also the possibility that there's a quid pro quo in this decision between Martin and NDP leader Jack Layton (ignorant silver spoon socialist). Martin leads a minority government and just brought down a budget. He may have made a deal to save him from a non-confidence vote. If that were to be true, and I don't put it past him to place his own political fortunes ahead of the best interests of the country, I'd want him driven from power.
1. Most early warning is space based. Try Google some day-If you try learning about something before posting you may not sound like an idiot so often.
2. The over horizon early warning radars are in Greenland, Alaska, Australia, and other places. Not Canada. Canada is actually ill suited. But once again you prove your poor German public education.
3. Much of the detection will be sea based. Many of the missiles will be sea based as well.
Actually you're right though! We need the Northern Territories so that we can better spy on your super high tech industry in Germany with the NSA (sarcasm). :)
Canada is not relevant in NMD. Just like, you are becoming more and more irrelevant as a nation.
Red6
Mr Dithers is at it again.All he wants is to be on international trips all the time and he couldn't care less about thewelfare of this country.
These idiotic Quebec liberals actually believe there is something they can say that will convince the separatists in Quebec to say:"Oh! Well now we will love Canada and never leave it....(WHATEVER)
Well, Red, I wasn't discussing the technical aspects of missile detection here - since my knowledge of it is very limited - but just replying to muawiyah's post.
1) If no radar sites are needed, then it totally voids muawiyah's argument that Canada has engaged in a "deliberate act of war".
2) If Canada is that ill-suited, why was it asked to provide for money for the missile shield, BTW ? I don't know if I prove my poor public education, but you sure are proving your poor manners.
3) Once again, I'm not discussing the technical aspects here.
4) Last time I checked , Germany was an advanced 1st-world nation, with an advanced economy and quite a lot of expertise in various technological fields, Red. But I know you prefer Russia.
Believe me, Mitch, I'm not saying the decision is sound. Given Canada's NATO membership, and given the history of militray cooperation between Canada and the United States, I'd say this decision is far from being sound.
My point is that one cannot accuse Canada of having engaged into a "deliberate act of war" because of its decision not to fund the missile shield.
As for encouraging Canada to break up, I can only say for myself that it's something we haven't done since the last 40 years ! LOL. You'll find more partisans of the break-up here, I suppose, as well as a few "invasionnists".
As for the "40 years", and I wouldn't at all be surprised if this never got any mention over there, after the last separation debate (that Chretien almost bungled completely) it emerged that Quebec Premier Bouchard had a deal with France to immediately recognize Quebec's independance had the separatist side won the vote. Can't recall who was in charge in Paris at the time.
It's a good rant. Although I was hoping otherwise, Martin has unfortunately demonstrated himself to be Chretian-lite.
Really ? Wow, that didn`t make the news here - maybe the independentists wannabes made that up. When was that referendum ?
What a great post, Red6. May I be the one to inform you that my Friend and our fellow FReeper Atlantic Friend is a French - and not German - citizen!?
Furthermore, you don´t need Northern territories to spy on us - you have a large facility right now in Rhineland-Palatinate, capable to tap electronically all phone talks and scan almost all e-mails for special word combinations. This facility allegedly also collects secret data from our companies - with full knowledge of the government. Your NSA is doing a good job. Too sorry that they had to leave with the US troops leaving my country (which is Germany). Can it be that this is another reason why you don´t leave? Ok, it´s a conspiracy theory, and actually not my style.
Next time you are insulting others, check their home-country, and check what your distinguished President says about their nation before you insult a whole people. I have something like "great and valuable friend" and "heart of Europe" in my ears from the last time he was here - oops, this was yesterday!
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