Missile Defense Revisited

My very good friend Sarah left the following comment about Canada and the missile defense shield, with regard to that lunatic that Canada expelled.

expelling the lunatic doesn't cost as much as the missile defence programme.

apples and oranges, Fly. i know how you feel about my government and this whole fiasco w/ the missiles and stuff, but this is a bit ridiculous. are you purposefully looking for stuff to put up to throw some more mud up over the border?

Smear campaigning is for the weak, man. You sound like Bill fucking O'Reilly.

I think maybe my thoughts are being misconstrued on this one, so I'm going to be very clear about my stance on the issue.

I'm not demanding that Canada shell out tons and tons of money to support ballistic missile defense; it's emerging technology, and Canada doesn't allocate enough money for defense spending to support these kind of research and development programs. My beefs with this are three-fold.

Canadians are more interested in shelling out money for a socialized health care system (that they should have known from the beginning to be doomed to failure) than they are willing to spend money to defend their freedom; they let the United States do it for them.

When the United States develops a system, in this case ballistic missile defense (which, contrary to popular belief, is a very legitimate threat to national security, particularly with rogue states like North Korea and Iran developing ballistic missiles and illegal weapons), Canada doesn't even give diplomatic support to the system, even though it benefits only Canada and the United States. The Canadian government refuses even to say "Good on ya, thanks, eh!"

Canada then turns right around and expels some lunatic and calls it "national security." Their words, not mine. I don't really have a big problem with Canada kicking this guy out, particularly if it were a mere refusal to renew his visa. It's the claim that it's "national security" that makes this entirely hypocritical.

Sarah goes on to make another comment, which I'll address paragraph by paragraph.

Perhaps it's just a case of different priorities. Maybe my government doesn't see the need at this time to have a system to shoot missiles out of the air because they don't think we're going to get shot at. Until Canada actually gets hit by a terrorist attack, it's going to stay that way. We don't subscribe to the "pre-emptive" strike doctrine. So far, it's working for us.

"Pre-emptive" strikes? The ballistic missile defense program long predates 9/11 and the invasion of Iraq. It's also a purely defensive system; there is no pre-emptive capacity. And if you're claiming that Canada won't be attacked because Canada doesn't go around invading other countries, then you're absolutely naive. Don't think you're going to get shot at in the first place? Well, I'm sure that the Canadian intelligence agencies are positive that Chairman Kim's goons can perfect a targeting system, right? And Chairman Kim wouldn't possibly shoot a missile at the United States, would it?

Hear me now and believe me later, if protecting your own national sovereignty isn't your nations top priority, then you have a problem. If you think you're safe from the evil people in this world, then you're no better than a sheep who hopes the wolf will eat him last.

And in my opinion, accessing public school library and computer records à la PATRIOT Act is just as much lunacy in the name of national security as kicking a delusional anti-semite out of our country. Land of the free indeed. Land of the free as long as you don't talk smack about your government.

Well, correct me if I'm wrong, but the PATRIOT Act has judicial oversight, and public school library and computer records are government records, and thus subject to government searches. The PATRIOT Act does not threaten those who "talk smack about [the] government"; that would be more along the lines of the Alien and Sedition Acts from back in World War I, during the Democratic Wilson administration. Those who speak out against the government have nothing to fear; those who seek to blow up buildings, detonate car bombs, and put on suicide bomb vests do.

And one last word - If you guys are so damn concerned about terrorists getting into your country via Canada, why doesn't your government tighten up your border security and not let them in!

We should. I'll totally agree with you on that. The "National Guard" should have been deployed along the Mexican and Canadian borders a long time ago, and money invested in programs like Amtrak should have been invested in putting a border, preferably electrified, along both borders, particularly the Mexican border.

Look, if the Canadian government did as little as say "Thank you, we can't afford to support a missile defense shield financially, eh, but we appreciate the fact that you hosers put the thing together, and we acknowledge that we will directly benefit from it," I'd still be a bit disgruntled, but I'd concede and call it the right thing to do. I even appreciate the fact that Canada's military got a budget increase. I think it's ridiculous, though, to claim "it doesn't even work", right before there's a successful test, and then not even give diplomatic support to the program.

When Canada, the nation known for "liberal tolerance", expels some lunatic just because he was using his right to free speech to say something that offends people, that offends me; that's no better than the Thought Police. When Canada then goes on to claim that it did it all for "national security", which is obviously nonsense, I think it's reasonable for me to call it what it is: completely hypocritical.

Canada isn't very "neighborly", and it's actually rather underhanded. Why do I say this? Because it often condemns and criticizes America's actions, expends a mere pittance on national security, then allows America to protect it. That's a travesty.

And by the way: Smear campaigning? Bill O'Reilly? You've gotta come up with better than that.

Eh?