At least in my books.
The Opposition and Liberal Press are now calling for MacKay’s resignation in light of the Auditor General’s criticism of DND in the F-35 procurement.
Indeed, I did a Blog way back when somewhat critical of this expenditure too but along the way have had to modify my position.
My main concern about this expenditure then centred on the fact that, as a middle power, Canada could not, nor should not, seek out such ‘Cadillac’ military hardware to begin with. I cannot recall if I said so at the time, but my concern was subject to what other NATO nations were doing in this area. If collectively they had decided that this was the best military plane to buy then we here in Canada needed to be onside too and this turned out to be exactly what had occurred. The Tories for some reason did not properly explain this.
I have said on countless occasions that the days of relying upon the USA for world protection are quickly coming to an end if for no other reason than they are broke. If the world is to remain as safe as possible – it will not be the United Nations that steps up to the plate – it will be NATO. And with NATO deciding that the best aircraft to buy is the F-35 – then Canada needs to acquire its fair share. We cannot go into battle with each member nation employing different machines.
And to build on that, Canada as well as the other NATO Nations need to be taking more of their marching orders from NATO rather than the UN which is now dominated by petty tyrants, megalomaniacs, crooks and thieves.
But there is another reason why we need the very best in aircraft. The days of the ground wars are also coming to an end. Vietnam, Iraq, and currently Afghanistan have taught the West the futility of sending in ‘boots on the ground’. We need to Rule from the Skies. If and when an enemy pokes his head out of his cave or wherever, blow it off from above. We saw a good example of this in Libya where NATO did its thing in the air, led by a Canadian General no less, while the locals did the mop-up from below.
So the future of warfare, dear reader, is in the air. We’ll still need boats to transport and support the planes but the heavy lifting will be done by our piloted planes and pilotless drones. The huge casualties as sustained by young Americans over the years will be a thing of the past. When ground action is required it will fall to the special forces to execute and then quickly get the hell out.
So there you have it.
Maybe DND did not procure properly, but it did the right thing. The problem then is with respect to our Procurement Requirements so we need to get to work and update them so they work in everyone’s favour but the bad guys.
As I see it…
‘K.D. Galagher’
