One Last Time I promise…
But first – Peter MacKay.
Some of you have taken exception to my pronouncement that Peter MacKay is the best Minister of Defence to date and truth be told, I share some of your concern.
However, I said “Best” – not ‘Great’. It is just that he has had so little competition in the role.
Let’s look back – Pearson was too occupied with Peace – Trudeau with free love and roses – Chretien well – who knows and Martin was just trying to hold on to power. The Liberals as a group did not put much stock into Defence and that was evident by the quality or lack of quality of their Defence Ministers.
Mulroney, a PM from Quebec, too did not put much stock in our Defence abilities and no one of note was appointed as DND Minister over his 9 – 10 years of power. Now we have Harper and his appointment of MacKay, given this most undistinguished past – seems brilliant.
Again I say MacKay is the Best I can recall, albeit he falls short of being a Great Minister of Defence.
That leads me back to our topic – the F 35s and I would like to present my case as follows:
- The USA is in decline and as I have said on numerous occasions, the country is broke – flat busted. England was the world’s policeman for the 18th and 19th Centuries with the US picking up the torch for the 20th. It still is top dog and will be so for some time to come, but with the rise of Asia, the clock is ticking.
- We in the Western World, outside of the States, have had a free ride more or less for the last 100 years when it comes to our collective defence. We now need to step up to the plate and do our bit in conjunction with the US of A – in partnership and the vehicle we all need to use is NATO.
- One more thing, the world is changing when it comes to how policing is done – we have now reached the point where battles will be fought from the air and not the ground. Ships will still be needed to ferry the planes and special forces, to go behind the lines – but the days of the grunt soldier are, I believe, history.
So that leads us again to the F 35s. Individual countries like Canada can no longer decide on their own what type of military equipment it needs. It must be a collective decision a.k.a – The NATO Decision. It is only via such a concerted effort can we in the West hope to hold on to our military advantage for as long as possible. If we continue to expect the States to do it for us – we are all doomed.
In the case of the F 35s, NATO proclaimed that this was its air weapon of choice and instructed its member countries to buy it. Canada fell into suit and yet poorly communicated its reasons for doing so, to Canadians. Canadians are not stupid, the election of McGuinty aside, if they are told the reasons for a needed action, they can usually be counted on to support it.
So here we have the Opposition Parties screaming at the top of their lungs that the Usual Procurement Process was not followed when they know full well that the ‘Usual Procurement Process’ does not apply.
Can’t you just imagine if it did apply…
- Required, NATO approved Lockheed Martin F 35s.
Result … “and the winner is, the Lockheed Martin F 35”.
There are lots of technical reasons why our military equipment must be compatible with our Allies’ equipment, too mundane to list. Suffice it to say though, we are in a new era and if we in Canada wish to play a part – and heaven knows we need to, then the old rules of procurement are passé, rhetoric to the contart.
The last time I deal with this sujbect – I promise.
As I see it…
‘K.D. Galagher’
