The United States Ambassador to Canada, Paul Cellucci, ticked a bunch of folk off when he said Canada was relinquishing it sovereignty by saying "No" to participating in the missile shield. The Canadian Press report said the following:
"We will deploy. We will defend North America," said Paul Cellucci, the U.S. ambassador to Canada. "We simply cannot understand why Canada would in effect give up its sovereignty - its seat at the table - to decide what to do about a missile that might be coming towards Canada." The response came just moments after Prime Minister Paul Martin ended months of ambiguity Thursday by announcing that he would not sign on to the controversial missile-defence program. "I personally don't think it's in Canada's sovereign interest to be outside of the room when a decision is made about a missile that might be incoming towards Canada."Under any circumstance, it is nutty to say that we lose sovereignty by doing this. We never had any. What would happen if we played along, the system actually were ever to work and were there ever to be inbound rockets over Baffin Island headed for Texas.
"FIRE" says the US President.What happens? They get fired. Tundra glazed. Conversely, rockets going to land on some hypothetically remote part of northern Canada with no affect on the USA:
"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!" says the Canadian Prime Minister.
"FIIIII-YAAAHHHHH!!!" says the the Canadian Prime Minister.Nuttin. No big kaboom. Polar bears fry. So we were never in the game to begin with. This system is all about outsourcing fallout to the north. Our northern hinterland, that is, as I doubt the hypothetical bad Slavs of the future will aim all the nukes to neatly pass through Alaska by putting a little english on the cue ball.
"Umm...nokey-dokey" says the US President.
So we lose a crack at playing nice-nice with the USA like a yes-yes-yessing bobblehead but gain the ability to have our government do what most Canadians want to be done on this issue. Cellucci is mostly right and maybe Martin was a little right, too.
Comments
Nils Ling - February 25, 2005 2:29 am
Excellent points about who would have access to the launch codes - no loss of sovereignty when none existed.
What I still don't get is: Who, exactly, is launching these missiles that are arcing gracefully over the polar expanses? Blecknakislackistan? Puh-leese. Isn't that assuming any of the tiny shards of the former USSR could muster the scientific and technical knowhow and the political will to attack North America and thereby commit suicide?
Let them build their missile sites and look to the sky. My prediction is that any nuclear attack on the U.S. won't be delivered by way of a Yugo rocket. It'll be hand-delivered in a nondescript suitcase left in a subway washroom.
THAT will be the way the world ends. Not with a bang, but a ... well, flush.
NYCO - February 25, 2005 1:08 pm
So funny, Alan, and so true.
Marian Evans - February 25, 2005 4:08 pm
The weird thing is that a lot of contemporary conservatives (both in the media and in politics) don't seem to be able to make up their mind
about their own position. Either what people want is identical with the common good or it isn't. If it isn't identical with the common good, then we have a case for idealism or even *gasp* socialism. If it *is* identical with the common good, then in situations such as these where conservatives oppose the will of the people, there is a problem. The standard neo-con view is that the two things are identical (thus the case for free markets and laissez faire capitalism). So if people want something other than (typical examples) privatisation or missile defense, these guys are in a pickle. Their answer it seems is either to try and *make* people want privatisation and missile defense; or to pretend that people actually want this stuff when they don't.
alfons - February 25, 2005 5:51 pm
You mean privatisation of missile defense?
Hmm. Interesting.