RE: Why you hate the Conservatives and what is it about Libe
Kind of. The "coalition of the willing" didn't actually fight in the war. The coalition sent troops after the war to maintain the peace in the nation.
Wrong - last I checked, UK, Australian and Spanish troops were involved in the initial invasion along with US troops.
Global warming is not what Kyoto Protocal and David Suzuki think it is. The old idea was that pollution created global warming. Then a bunch of scientists had a new line of thought, hrm... how do we explain the ice age and the heating of the earth at that time?
Flat wrong. There is no scientific controversy about global warming - there is a political controversy. It is not just David Suziki. Virtually every credible scientist who studies this phenomenon is in general agreement that anthroprogenic (man made) CO2 forcing is causing an increase in the green house effect and causing global warming. Virtually every scientist who disagrees with this is on the payroll of an oil company or some neoconservative think tank. Government and NGO organizations that support the general consensus on global warming include:
US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Adminstration (NOAA) National Climate Data Center.
US Environmental Protection Agency.
Environment Canada
United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
UK Royal Society - the world's oldest and most respected independent scientific organization.
US National Accademy of Sciences
If you are going to quote Patrick Michaels, Sherwood Idso, Robert Balling or Fred Singer, please understand that they all are funded in various ways by the American Petroleum Institute. They do not represent the gold standard in scientific research, that is, independent, publicly funded, peer reviewed, published research.
Secondly, most scientists are not confused between historical and prehistorical ice ages and the current global warming. While they do not know all of the causes of ice ages, they have some pretty good theories, including the Milankovitch Theory which prosits that ice ages are the result of a convergence of the changing of the Earths tile (which is cyclic over about 20,000 years), and the ecentricity of the earths orbit (which is cyclic over 100,000 years). The current global warming does not coincide with either of these measurable phenomenons and has happened over 150 years.
NORAD Missile Defence is a land based missile program. The program is based on the PATRIOT missile which was designed to knock nuclear weapons out of the sky, but is currently used to knock SCUD missiles out of the sky... they work.
Secondly, the Americans offered to pay ALL of the expenses of this defence program.
Not flat wrong, but misleading.
True, the Americans have proposed a land based balistic missile defense, but even that would invalidate the balistic missile treaty. Unilateral voidance of this treaty will only create uncertainty and insecurity in Russia and China. In a nuclear situation, uncertainty is a bad thing.
They also have no intention of stopping there. The Americans have made it very clear that a "boost phase" balisitic missile defense (as opposed to reentry or terminal phase) is their ultimate goal. You can not achieve boost phase defense against intercontinental missiles with a land based system. It has to go in space.
Secondly, the Patriot has (eventually) been proven moderately effective against fairly low tech SCUD missiles, but not against more sophisticated balistic missiles. If you recall from the Gulf war, it took several rounds of upgrades before the Patriot PAC-2 missiles were even effective against SCUDS. If we are talking nuclear armed balistic missiles, you don't get second chances to upgrade your software. The Patriot PAC-3 has not been battle tested. So far the system has failed most of its intercept tests.
Fourthly, the proposed system is useless against cruise missiles. The Russians have co-developed with India a supersonic cruise missile with a range of about 400km. This range has been intentionally limited to prevent violating anti proliferation treaties. There is no current defense against supersonic stealth cruise missiles.
Fifthly, who would such a system be defending against? Terrorist don't use balistic missiles. Some guy in Newzealand demonstrated that a decent welder could build a home made cruise missile in his garage, but terrorists are not likely to use cruise missiles either. Terrorists favorite weapons are suit cases.
The cold war is over. Todays threats are not from Russia or China, but from countries like North Korea, Iran, Pakistan etc. Of these, only North Korea has a chance of reaching the North American continent with a balistic missile. Containment, isolation, negotiations and coersion are far more effective that BMDs. If you want to deploy balistic missile defense, do it in Korea or Japan where it is less of a threat to destabilize relations with China and Russia.
Lastly - it is the overwhelming viewpoint of most Canadian that we should not participate in this program.
I believe that Canada should cooperate with the US on continental defense in the basing and development of radar and tracking systems, and, to the extent to which they are effective, in ship based medium range air defense systems (and the integration of these systems into command and control infrastructure). We should not be basing missiles on Canadian soil which violate treaties which most Canadians beleive are essential to peace and stability in a nuclear capable world.