Ron and fellow Canadians

[ritterkruz]

Got another one for you as we share our angst over Canada's current military strength. Driving into Victoria, B.C., one sees the grand sign,"Home to Canada's Pacific Fleet"[:D] Wot a Joke! The old Russian sub tied up there for tours could double our "fleet" strength! And to think that at the end of WW2 Canada had the world's third largest navy! Sigh. I heard that in today's throne speech (Dear Americans, Don't even ask...), the Gov. Gen. said something about restoring Canada's military strength, yada,yada- maybe we'll get some new desert camies to dress our soldiers in before sending them somewhere green...[8|]

[esteban]

On the plus side, I see that the Canadian army has been holding excercises up near Ellsmere Island, to reinforce Canada's claim to their Arctic Islands.

It seems the U.S. doesn't believe that the Northwestern Passage (Coming into being due to the melting Arctic icecap. It seems Columbus was 500 years early.) is Canadian waters, and that even the Chinese are sending ships into northern waters now.

[Ron Saueracker]

Sad any way one looks at it. Our GovGen is a complete waste. Of course she's been reinstated! Spent her whole adult life sucking the CBC's taxpayer fed teet and continues to give us a sore nips in grander style as a professional political lamprey.

[esteban]

Hey now!! You might hurt a real lamprey's feelings!! [;)]

[BossGnome]

wait a minute guys, you all sound DISSAPOINTED in canada's defense...yeah i agree with you its a piece of shit. But give me one good argument why canada would need military? It hasnt pissed off the terrorists, or if it has, not enough to be noticed, no problem there. We don't fight wars, we dont get attacked. Basically we just need like a couple of guys with blue berets to be "peacekeepers". Honestly, why the hell would we want fancy new jet-fighters? Just to say we do? Think about it this way guys: if no one had any weapons whatsoever, the world would be quite a better place. Personally, thats why i played wargames. If only the fate of a country was decided on that, and not a real war...

[GBirkn]

The BBC says one of the officers died today. He'd been airlifted to a hospital in Ireland, but didn't pull through. It may be Friday before they can get a tow line rigged. It sounds like the situation has only gotten worse over the last 24 hours, although at least there are three ships on the scene now.

[madmickey]

ORIGINAL: BossGnome

wait a minute guys, you all sound DISSAPOINTED in canada's defense...yeah i agree with you its a piece of shit. But give me one good argument why canada would need military? It hasnt pissed off the terrorists, or if it has, not enough to be noticed, no problem there. We don't fight wars, we dont get attacked. Basically we just need like a couple of guys with blue berets to be "peacekeepers". Honestly, why the hell would we want fancy new jet-fighters? Just to say we do? Think about it this way guys: if no one had any weapons whatsoever, the world would be quite a better place. Personally, thats why i played wargames. If only the fate of a country was decided on that, and not a real war...

I hope you are kidding Chamberlain needed an advisor like you in 1938.
It should be noted that an al quada family lives in Canada and Jewish school was bombed in Montreal by an Arab group but of course Canada declared marital law in 1972 due to 2 kidnappings.

[Tankerace]

No offense BossGnome, but its because of people with attitudes like yours that WW2 started. If Britain and France had been like America with Iraq, as soon as Germany reoccupied teh Rhineland they should have moved in and ousted Hitler. No Hitler, no annexing Austria. No Hitler, No swallowing of Czechoslovakia. No Hitler, no invasion of Poland. No Hitler, no massacre of millions of Jews. But, because Britain and France stood by, like what you are advocating, on September 2, the World exploded. And look how many paid the price.

[madmickey]

Tankerace
Canadian PM Trudeau a multi-millionaire son, draft dodger in WWII who drove around in a Nazi helmet and then visited Communist China in 1950s was against the US arm buildup in 1980. He wanted to emphasize Northern Sovereignty. Lach Walsea and a lot of other people felt that lead to the fall of the Warsaw Pact.

[Belphegor]

ORIGINAL: Tankerace

No offense BossGnome, but its because of people with attitudes like yours that WW2 started. If Britain and France had been like America with Iraq, as soon as Germany reoccupied teh Rhineland they should have moved in and ousted Hitler. No Hitler, no annexing Austria. No Hitler, No swallowing of Czechoslovakia. No Hitler, no invasion of Poland. No Hitler, no massacre of millions of Jews. But, because Britain and France stood by, like what you are advocating, on September 2, the World exploded. And look how many paid the price.

I think that simplifies things just a tad too much don't you?

[Onime No Kyo]

ORIGINAL: Tankerace

No offense BossGnome, but its because of people with attitudes like yours that WW2 started. If Britain and France had been like America with Iraq, as soon as Germany reoccupied teh Rhineland they should have moved in and ousted Hitler. No Hitler, no annexing Austria. No Hitler, No swallowing of Czechoslovakia. No Hitler, no invasion of Poland. No Hitler, no massacre of millions of Jews. But, because Britain and France stood by, like what you are advocating, on September 2, the World exploded. And look how many paid the price.

Dont start Tanker. Like the man said, hindsight is 20/20. And if you have even an inkling of comparing Hitler to Saddam, I suggest you think it over carefully. We're not talking about a powerhungry dictator with a first-class military (equal to anything in the world) and an ideology that promotes racism. We are talking about a wannabe dictator with a has-been shambles of a military and no ideology. Thats right! Islam is not an ideology, its a religion, and a damn sensible one at that. It does not promote bigotry and genocide, they just have many, many legitimate gripes against our (Canada and UK included) foreign policy.

Not getting on your case or anything, I know you are just as intelligent, informed and able to discern information as anyone in here, but if you were planning to go where I think you were, it was a bad idea.

[esteban]

ORIGINAL: BossGnome

wait a minute guys, you all sound DISSAPOINTED in canada's defense...yeah i agree with you its a piece of shit. But give me one good argument why canada would need military? It hasnt pissed off the terrorists, or if it has, not enough to be noticed, no problem there. We don't fight wars, we dont get attacked. Basically we just need like a couple of guys with blue berets to be "peacekeepers". Honestly, why the hell would we want fancy new jet-fighters? Just to say we do? Think about it this way guys: if no one had any weapons whatsoever, the world would be quite a better place. Personally, thats why i played wargames. If only the fate of a country was decided on that, and not a real war...

Wow, this seems more than a little naive.

1) If Al Qaeda-style terrorists are willing to target Australia, do you really think they would pass up a shot at Canadians if they felt they had one? Sure, Americans get you more points, but Canucks will do. Especially if you could blow up an American consulate or corporate target in Canada. If Al Qaeda is willing to off hundreds of Tanzanians and Kenyans to get a dozen Americans, do you really think they would have any qualms about killing Canadians?

2) Eventually those blue-helmeted Canadians are going to end up somewhere that Al Qaeda doesn't want them--Sudan, Israel/Palestine, Somalia, Afghanistan, or so on. Then they will be targeted just like anyone else. At that point Canada can either choose to walk out on it's principles and pull the troops out, or fight back.

3) If Canada did become a "haven for terrorism" then the border would start to be locked down, and Canadian jobs would suffer. How many Canadians were killed in the WTC on 9/11? I would be willing to bet at least 30-40.

4) Canada produces quite a bit of modern Western culture on it's own. Do you think that Osama hates seeing Muslim girls dance around to Madonna or Britney Spears, but doesn't mind Nelly Furtado or Celina Dion posters on their bedroom walls? Or that Lorne Michaels-style political and social satire would be welcome on Saturday Night Live Baghdad edition? If Al Qaeda somehow erased the United States overnight, the war wouldn't stop tomorrow.

5) If no one had any weapons whatsoever....a lot of people would immediately start building them. And at the front of the line would be a bunch of very bad people who have little regard for Canadian standards of civil, international and human rights law. Let's face it, it seems the world is already losing the battle to keep the nuclear genie in the bottle. The last 6-7 years have seen more new nuclear powers than any similar period since the 1940s. Do you really think that somehow all the advances in chemistry that lead to plastics, pharmaceuticals, synthetic fibers and liquid fuels would not be used to put gunpowder back on the market?

6) You play wargames, which are simulations of warfare. Certainly better than the real thing, but implicit in your play is the possibility that people feel the need to compete. Sometimes that competition has very dark origins and results. You might enjoy a game about warfare, but some guy across the world may look at that game and decide that simply playing at warfare is not enough to meet his needs.


Moral:
Does Canada need a bunch of modern fighter aircraft? No idea really. Does it need submarines? Maybe not. But it definitely needs something if it intends to stand up for the values that Canadian society is based on.

[Tankerace]

Hindsight is 20/20 yes. But remember, in 1936 Hitler was a wannabe dictator, without a first class military. That's where my point comes in. Had Britain and France intervened when German was comparable to Iraq, then WW2 might have been prevented.

As to Islam, it a religion. I don't agree with it, but I don't think anything bad about it, just like I don't think anything bad about Judaism. Its there belief, and that's fine.

[pasternakski]

Let's see, here ... we started out making sport of Canadian national defense (and mighty entertaining it was), moved on to mentioning New Zealand's lack of an air force, noted that an English submarine bought by Canada had "something of a cock up," discovered, sadly, that a Canadian officer had died in the incident, and now we learn that various pseudo-Hitlers are afoot in the forums (or afore in the footums, I forget which).

Easy, fer chrissake, willya? The patch is only a few days away, from what I hear.

Note, Matrix, this is what's happening to people...

[Onime No Kyo]

Nazi Germany was never comparable to Iraq. Iraq is and has always been an underdeveloped, resource-difficient, largely uneducated society that had been artificially created and forcibly kept together. It is split ethnically and historically.

Germany was a highly developed, homogenious, industrial society full of pissed-off, educated, capable people with a military tradition virtually unmatched in the world to this day.

On top of everything else, it has been argued that what gave the Germans such an advantage over their opponents was their military doctrine (namely Blitzkrieg). Obviously, the competence of the Wehrmacht was a major factor. But in any case, this bears absolutely no comparsion to the Iraqis. These poor bastards on their best day had a military that could have been considered modern only in the 1980s. Any decent army could have beat the snot out of them in a standup fight. Maybe not so quickly or "cheaply" but beat them nonetheless.

[Tankerace]

Ug, I was originaly trying to point out one persons naivety, and was not wanting to debate the point. Here are my reasons for standing by what I said. If you look, many are similar cases with Iraq.

1) In 1936, Germany possesed few, lightly armed ill armoured tanks. In fact, the Pz II would not enter service in numbers until 1937, so the Pz I was the main MBT.
2) The German army, compared to other western armies, was vastly understrength (100,000 men).
3) The German Kriegsmarine's most powerful ships were the Deutshland class Panzerschiffes (2 in service, though Admiral Scheer would not be effective until 1937).
4) German posses only a token Luftwaffe, and with the exception of the Bf-109B had inferior planes to other air forces)
5) You had a dictator, which laughed in the face of every treaty signed, and tried to expand.
6) Its army was left in shambles thanks to a previous war.

Iraq was in a very similar position. Your main point on defeating my argument is saying the Wehrmacht was powerful, well trained, etc. My argument, however, talks of the German army of 1936, when the Wehrmacht didn't exist as a competent force, the military small, its tanks undergunned, and its airforce non existent. That IS a good comparison to Iraq. In both situations, you had a dictator that laughed in the face of signed treaty's, and who tried to get a way with unlawful things. The difference is Hitler got away with it.

And, FYI with regards to your post with Islam, religion has no bearing on this. It wouldn't matter if he worshipped Allah, God, Yaweh, or a bloody rock. People seem to think religion plays a massive part in the War on Iraq. The only part it plays is for those who damn the war to use it as a tool to incite others to damn it aswell.

If I had compared the German forces of 1939 to those of Iraq, then yes I am using an invalid argument. But the forces of 1936, and intervening at Hitler's first land grab DO bear a marked resemblance, like it or not.

Plus, I am also talking Governments and military, NOT the civilian population. Yes Iraq was split. But their leader called the shots, much like Hitler, irregardless of what the people wanted.

Now, off politics, and back to WiTP! I haven't played in a week, I need my patch! [:D]

[Onime No Kyo]

Amen brother. [:D] Back to things that make logical sense. [:D]

[strawbuk]

ORIGINAL: GBirkn

The BBC says one of the officers died today. He'd been airlifted to a hospital in Ireland, but didn't pull through. It may be Friday before they can get a tow line rigged. It sounds like the situation has only gotten worse over the last 24 hours, although at least there are three ships on the scene now.

Yeah I hearby regret my opening gag - bad timing. Apols to canucks.

[BossGnome]

lets not talk about the war in iraq ok? that was never my intent. Personally im against it, but since im canadian its none of my damn buisness. What I am saying, is that canada has a population of 30 000 000 people, and would have no reason to upp its military. For several reasons:

1) canada is a valuable trade partner to a lot of countries.
2) Who the heck would attack it? the taliban? no not really, we went to afghanistan, but you seem to be mixing the taliban régime and saddam hussein. We have no troops in Iraq, remember. However i'm pretty sure Australia does. Canada is thus not very high on the terrorist list.
3) If the US wasnt able to stop sept 11th, what are a few million dollars more going to do to canada's military budget in the face of the terrorist threat, which (for the moment at least) it does not face? Nothing, that's what.
4) Canada really doesnt have the money to upgrade its military, and its not mmore money thats going to do anything. You americans seem to forget that your military budget for one year would be enough to pay off our country's debt. We're just not that rich, and its not that useful.

[BossGnome]

ps: my meaning for point #1 was that the taliban were essentially wiped out in afghanistan.