Canada Backs Missile Defense

I first read about the fox news article this title in a fox news article. I thought, "Great News!!" Then I was a little angry because their leader just called us idiots a few weeks ago. Then I started reading the article, and I was disappointed.

"announcing on Aug. 5 that it will allow the United States to use data gathered by Canadians at NORAD. The North American Aerospace Defense Command, in the development of our missile defense system"

I know a little about NORAD from a discovery show special. It is on American soil, inside of a mountain in Colorado. The reason NORAD is inside of a mountain is so that it can survive a nuclear attack nearby, though not a direct one (which is improbable, because of the distance a missile would have to travel from Russia (think cold war technology)). I personally think it could be hit with a direct hit today. The Canadians and the US do have joint ownership, but America has provided the bulk of the money to build and support NORAD. I quote the dumb Canadians their selves:

Throughout the history of the agreement, the United States has often provided the
majority of the funding for various projects. Developing the various radar and ground tracking systems would have been completely out of reach for the Canadian government on its own. Canada is presently benefiting from a radar system - the North Warning System or nws - that is 4,800 kilometres long and 320 kilometres deep, and made up of 54 radar sites, 47 of which are located in Canada. Canada also benefits from the services of several us awacs planes (at a cost of approximately us$270 million) and provides only a few crew members. Canada's air defence is assured by only four fighter squadrons and 21 control and tracking planes based in Cold Lake, Alberta and Bagotville, Que-bec, 5 which is very little when you consider the thousands of square kilometres that must be scanned and monitored.

So allowing America to use equipment, resources, and information that the tax payers of America "provided the majority of the funding for" is a slap in the face of every single. Our defense shield will include Canada, even without them asking. Do you think that a missile defense shield will stop at the border?

The article points out that America would just have built a parallel system. Would this have resulted in two different, fully funded NORDs, I doubt it. We would have let the old rot, while we were perfecting the new one. One cannot begin to imagine the noise that would come out of Canada, if their country was struck by a nuke due to their own stubbornness. Also, we could not allow any from Canada over to the US because of potential radiation, which seeing how our health care is better would be a bad thing for them.

Should we end NORD out of spite and build our own? As much as I would like that, the cost may not be worth it to satisfy my desire to shut Canada up.

cube