RGlasel(4918 ) This notion that only Canadians are "predisposed to discount anything that suggests this country can be a world leader" is silly. I am a Canadian engineer and we're great. Or least some of us are. Okay, some of them are. But the Avro Arrow has long been a false idol of CanCult fantasy. Your approach of believing in it's sainted performance parameters unless someone proves otherwise is bizarre. The shortest counter argument is; "Why didn't the Russians copy it?"
Charles Tupper (4914) Ah, many's the beery night gone away contemplating the very subject of your quote. Of course we used say it as "what the hell is the matter with the dumb bastards?" Unfortunately I'm too busy with middle-aged course corrections for much beyond survival reading. Hume will be on my list of "hope-to-someday" reading.
Charles Tupper(4923) Your main flaw, as ever, is hasty induction and the lunge for the "gotcha". The capsule quotes you provide, at times, parse down to an empty core. In this entry you have referred to activities of the ICC. For younger readers, the Vietnam war, (the French one), ended in 1954 with the signing of the Geneva Accords by the French and the Viet Minh. Part of the accords set-up an International Control Commission to "control" compliance with the terms of the truce. The members of the ICC, a pro-Western country (Canada), a pro-Communist country (Poland) and a non-aligned country (India), supplied officers to staff tri-national teams to patrol and report on compliance with the terms of the truce. The Geneva Accords are here; http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/genevacc.htm . It's worth reading if only to understand how transparent fig leaves can be.
The official posture of the Canadians was to act impartially and independently. However, there was no such restriction on the Poles and they were regular little spies. Indian officers often acted 50-50. That is, they took their role as agreeing with the pole 50% of the time and the Canadian the other 50% of the time. I am not aware of any requirement not to report information and observations to the American allies of Canada, though I suspect these reports were normally informal. Anyway, Canadian officers often submitted formal minority reports when no consensus could be obtained with the other team members and minority reports were available to all.
You have made the argument that Canadian soldiers and diplomats violated the sacred duty of thoughtless impartiality (ie; good, evil,..just flip sides of the same coin eh?) to aid American allies in exchange for Auto Pact etc. In fact, Canada and the US were allies, (In Korea, in NATO, NORAD, exchange programs, etc). Your casual smear doesn't prove at all that the "rewards" you claim were due to these shocking transgressions. Just maybe the N Vienamese outrage was a little like the nonsense going on Indonesia right now with the expulsion of the long time local ICG rep due to "visa violations". Be interesting to see how you characterise that in 40 years.
Pengun(4925) and TM(earlier) I have no special knowledge at all of energy alternatives. However, the earth seems to be a little fixed, control mass with radiant heat energy streaming in and continuously re-radiating some energy. Unlike earth based energy schemes, space energy schemes would increase the energy input to our little control mass, and that seems to me have more potential problems than internal energy conversion schemes. There must be some stock answers to this?

Roger_D: Presumably the reason every part of the Arrows, except a nosecone, was cut up into scrap was so the Russians couldn't copy it. As you pointed out, we were an ally of the U.S. and enemy of the U.S.S.R. at the time. The Arrow was a classified program. As far as performance goes, the Arrow was test flown to just under Mach 2 with General Dynamic engines, and the more powerful Iroquois engine had been piggy-backed on another plane and fired at the required altitude before the project was cancelled. I'll throw your challenge back to you, what evidence do you have for this "false idol of CanCult fantasy?"

Regarding space energy schemes, I think you can rest easy about that. Human energy demands are an insignificant portion of the total energy potential of this planet. Even if the earth is "a little fixed, control mass with radiant heat energy streaming in and continuously re-radiating some energy", how are we going to make more than a drop in the ocean of energy that the sun beams to earth every second? Just what are you an engineer of?

Roger


However, the earth seems to be a little fixed, control mass with radiant heat energy streaming in and continuously re-radiating some energy.

Thanks, the best comment I have heard on the subject.

Charles: No matter how closely Canada is integrated with the U.S. (short of being absorbed completely into the U.S., with full statehood, not as a giant Puerto Rico), there will be cultural differences (however slight) between the countries, and Americans will never put the interests of Canadian citizens on an equal footing with themselves. Serving as a satellite to the U.S., to supply goods and services at unfavorable rates, as East Germany did for the U.S.S.R. is not exactly a "win-win" situation.

Edited by author 06-13-2004 02:17 AM
Rick: Such is the fate of a client state. Nations, as Lord Palmerston advised, have permanent interests not permanent alliances. Britain portrayed the same contempt with the repeal of the Corn Laws and little regard for the sacrifice of 60,000 in allowing colonial influence to shape imperial foreign policy. Canada will never be able to field a force large enough to act independently of US influence. Even the Brits have acknowledged this position. A Swiss model of self-reliant neutrality seems quite compelling. It is in our interests to be a guardian of the border we share. It might also be the best insurance of sovereignty, for as we are so often told if we do not do it they will do it for us.

The equal footing issue is just as prevalent in Canada. Quebec will never sacrifice its self-interests to allow an equal footing for Albertans. Large federal political constructs appear unnatural and tend to dissassemble into smaller more homogeneous units. Ontario has more of an affinity with Michigan and Ohio than Alberta or Quebec. Hewers of wood and drawers of water may not be romantic enterprises but they can be profitable.

The EG/USSR comparison is interesting. Care to expand your thesis? Are they really unfavourable rates?

Roger, Hume’s reasoning reduces the action of humankind to self-interest. There is no morality associated with this default position. In fact, he proclaims moral actions as derived from a self-interest motive.

Canada, from a Hume perspective, did not have a duty to act impartially. Canada imposed that duty upon itself by professing to act without bias. Canada professed to act from some higher moral plane, as some honest helpful fixer, more altruistic and noble than those duplicitous Poles, while disparaging the Indian view as the “immorality of neutrality”. You are with us or against us.

Your logic, with all due respect, is flawed Roger. If your official posture is impartiality, supposedly acting from fairness and objectively, then you set a standard. Once you favour one side over the other, you break that standard of trust or neutrality. If you are men of good faith that very pronouncement is the only requirement necessary to restrict passing information to the US. However, Canadian politicians like the Poles or Viet Minh act not from good faith but from self-interest.

The problem with the Canadian policy was not its self-interest but its duplicity.

Edited by author 06-13-2004 11:15 AM
Trying to impose Swiss-style "self-reliant neutrality" on Canada may just work ... if Canada cedes some of its territory to the US -- say all of it north of the parallel running through Montreal. That’ll work for both of us.

Edited by author 06-13-2004 02:40 PM
RGlasel(4928) Well you've certainly chosen the high ground. Trying to disprove suspect claims is MUCH harder than making those claims. I'll get there, but I've got real stuff to do too right now.
With respect to the earth as a control mass, just draw a line around the earth and atmosphere, and consider heat inputs and outputs, since no mass is exchanged. The difference between terrestial bound energy alternative schemes such as solar heating, geothermal, wind turbines, alternative fuels etc and giant reflectors or microwave energy is the energy crossing the control mass boundaries. I stated my lack of special knowledge in this and wondered what the standard answers are. You seem to have said that the standard answer is a flip remark discarding global warming but impugning my professional competence. I'm a Mechanical Engineer. What sort of Be.Calm are you supposed to be? And why aren't you?
P.S. Hadn't the Russians penetrated the Royal Aeronautical Society? http://www.avroarrow.org/Jim%20Floyd/JamesFloydRAeS4.html

Charles Tupper(4932) You deserve a reply and shall have one. But my first conjugal visit in this country in 6 months, and a couple of new contracts, trump aggrieved pride. For now. I'll be back to you about this as I have hardly even heard of anyone who knows what the ICC was and wasn't, and what Canada's role was. Stand by, slowly.

Edited by author 06-13-2004 10:39 PM
The US will always takes what it wants, so why cede it? Sounds like a good reason to get Canadian nukes. It works for North Korea.

Who really cares Kev? Washington can fabricate another bunch of Yankee bullshit; like freeing Canadians by bringing democracy, or liberating women or uncovering mass graves of murdered indigenes or model airplanes carrying nuclear warheads. If you throw enough shit against a wall some of it will stick. Besides, it will make the trip to Florida a lot easier.

I am not so sure anything really works for North Korea anymore. Libya doesn't. Iraq doesn't. China doesn't, apparently. Not sure about Syria, but their hopes can't be too high now. That unfortunate place is not a terribly compelling model for much, as the tea leaves seem to tell us that it would be unwise to go long on that country.

"Besides, it will make the trip to Florida a lot easier."

How so? Is it so much easier for the Swiss?

Are you misunderstanding me again?

Edited by author 06-13-2004 11:30 PM
1. Canada, big. Hard to protect by self. Switzerland little. Much easier to do. You heep interested in self-interest. Canada has big self-interest in heep big heep powerful heep rich heep friendly neighbor. Without such willing neighbor, will be able to protect by self only much smaller country.

2. Switzerland not really in the way of invading forces, planes, rockets, ICBMs, crazy guys trying to get to other places. Canada, very much in way. Buffer zone manned by allies much needed by US. If they no want or not able to share this heep big responsibility, big problem. This in US self-interest, dogmatic friend.

Simple point. Simple mutual self-interest. Glib statement clearer now? What's not to like?

Rick
Clarify for me if you will.
Your thesis is , if Canada had a strong enough military to act independently of the US, it would enable us to have a more independent foreign policy, which would mean greater trade opportunities with non-American partners and therefore greater prosperity.
Excuse me if I have missed something, but is that your argument?

Charles
you are right about the nuke thing. Everybody should have one (or two)
Its the same logic that says everybody should be armed to the teeth. Does the american right to bear arms extend to personal nukes? If not why not?
If gun ownership leads to less crime, shouldn't nuclear weapon ownership lead to a more peaceful planet?
Okay I'm being facetious, but it has been pointed out elsewhere, we don't even know that North Korea has nukes. Just the fact that they might have them sems to be a deterrent. Or perhaps its just that Uncle Sam is currently occupied in the Midddle East and he'll deal with North Korea when he has some spare time.

Edited by author 06-14-2004 01:09 AM
"Simple mutual self-interest" is an oxymoron. Self-interest by its very definition is exclusionary. You may have mutual interests but self-interest implies independent action. The problem is that even mutual defence is not necessarily reciprocal. For example the US gov dangles the prosperity carrot to ensure Canada destroys its advance fighter program because nuclear armed ballistic missile defence better serves our mutual interest against the Soviet threat. Or so we are told. However, the US is not interested in defending Canada only in drawing fire away from American targets. Where is the mutual interest and why should you believe the BS when you hear it a second time? Possibly because the threat is bogus and getting friendly with the US defence industry means jobs and re-election. And possibly sovereignty takes a distant second to eating and that freedom to starve is not freedom at all.

The misunderstanding is yours Kev. So bring it on good buddy. We've been waiting for you boys since 1814. Who cares if you pay your taxes to Ottawa or Washington. Ultimately, it becomes what serves your best interest.

Bill, It seems Uncle Sam has been pre-occupied for about fifty years now.

 There is another small country Canada could emulate. I don't think the Swiss analogy, we are not surrounded, is any more appropriate than the Isrealie one.

 I think 200 nukes would be well within our grasp. Delivery is not a problem. Where did we put those Bull plans? Ah yes artillery, the "Queen of Battle".

 Ridiculous, yes, probably possible though.

  PenGun
 Do What Now ???