[2Cdo]

Canadian_Mind Canadian_Mind:

ridenrain ridenrain:

Boot: instead of trading barbs, lets just agree that military funding is too important to be left to the party of the day.

RR, just an outside opinion on this, but you seem alot more reasonable and willing to get along with those who support the left wing of the political spectrum of late. Why the change? o.o

Good meds?

[Canadian_Mind]

I was hoping for something permanent rather than drug induced.

[ridenrain]

Canadian_Mind Canadian_Mind:

ridenrain ridenrain:

Boot: instead of trading barbs, lets just agree that military funding is too important to be left to the party of the day.

RR, just an outside opinion on this, but you seem alot more reasonable and willing to get along with those who support the left wing of the political spectrum of late. Why the change? o.o

It just depends who it's with.
Boot is reasonable and, although I'm not going to change his mind, he's unlikely to do the same to me. For the most part, he has a considtant direction and is logical.
There are OTHERS who, reguardless of past opinions, always pick the opposite side as I do, reguardless of topic. Even when it's an undisputable fact, they somehow come up with a tangent or condition.
I'll chose to disagree with the first group and try to ignore the second group.

[Canadian_Mind]

ridenrain ridenrain:

It just depends who it's with.
Boot is reasonable and, although I'm not going to change his mind, he's unlikely to do the same to me. For the most part, he has a considtant direction and is logical.
There are OTHERS who, reguardless of past opinions, always pick the opposite side as I do, reguardless of topic. Even when it's an undisputable fact, they somehow come up with a tangent or condition.
I'll chose to disagree with the first group and try to ignore the second group.

Gotcha, and it's nice to see.

Regarding military funding being to important to be left to the government of the day, do you mean all of the political parties are guilty of under-funding and backtracking on commitments?

[2Cdo]

Canadian_Mind Canadian_Mind:

Regarding military funding being to important to be left to the government of the day, do you mean all of the political parties are guilty of under-funding and backtracking on commitments?

In a nutshell, yes!

[Canadian_Mind]

Ah, kk. Same opinion as me then. I wasn't understanding the terminology.

Wonder why so many military members favour the conservatives?

[ridenrain]

Because they lived through the Liberals?

The CPC are not the best for the forces, but their better than the alternatives.
We do owe some of the blame ourselves because no one was calling up their MPs demanding they increase military spending in the 70s-80's.
Then again, no one was calling up, demanding higher taxes either.

[saturn_656]

Canadian_Mind Canadian_Mind:

Wonder why so many military members favour the conservatives?

While all political parties are guilty of short changing the CF at one time or another, the Conservatives are the "lesser evil".

[bootlegga]

ridenrain ridenrain:

She has anounced that this is her last term as MP and she will be moving to BC provincial politics.
.. by happy coincidence, I will be leaving Surrey North and moving into her riding where I will continue to be an active Conservative supporter.


Boot: instead of trading barbs, lets just agree that military funding is too important to be left to the party of the day.

I've always said that both sides of the political coin have fucked over the military. IMO, even Harper is beginning to get the same reputation as the Libs (Promise big and then cancel after everyone forgets - although Chretien was the unquestioned master at that). The last decent PM we had who genuinely cared about the CF was Pearson. He (and his predecessors) knew a properly armed CF was key to our foreign policy, especially given that most had lived through WW2, and knew that the CF was a key tool in our foreign policy arsenal.

Every single asshole after him has only cared about how many votes he could wring out of defence purchases. I honestly thought Harper was different, but I'm no longer sure of that. He was better than Chretien (hell anyone but PET was), but I don't see him doing a better job than Martin might have. I was seriously hoping he'd include the CF in his deficit spending, but that didn't happen.

I try to generally only toss out partisan replies to the usual hacks who constantly bring up the Sea King, the Victoria SSK, etc. Sometimes, I'm successful, sometimes not.

If you want a civil discussion on defence, I'm always willing, but if you start tossing jabs, expect a left hook back.

[ziggy]

So what should be the priority?
Defending our north or fighting in Afghanistan?
I dont think we can fully commit to both at the same time.

[saturn_656]

ziggy ziggy:

So what should be the priority?
Defending our north or fighting in Afghanistan?

The North of course, Afghanistan isn't our turf.

[Canadian_Mind]

ridenrain ridenrain:

Because they lived through the Liberals?

The CPC are not the best for the forces, but their better than the alternatives.
We do owe some of the blame ourselves because no one was calling up their MPs demanding they increase military spending in the 70s-80's.
Then again, no one was calling up, demanding higher taxes either.

Even after the 90s, instead of settlign for promises of a full meal and having to settle for craps (granted, better than nothing at all), it is just as bad, if not worse. The attrition race as a result of demoralisation, caused by a variety of factors, including having to settle for scraps, is going to cause a similar problem to the 90s. No where near the golden goose we need to be effective.

saturn_656 saturn_656:

Canadian_Mind Canadian_Mind:

Wonder why so many military members favour the conservatives?

While all political parties are guilty of short changing the CF at one time or another, the Conservatives are the "lesser evil".

I've seen no proof of that, so far all the parties are equally to blame.

ziggy ziggy:

So what should be the priority?
Defending our north or fighting in Afghanistan?
I dont think we can fully commit to both at the same time.

Would require a much bigger budget.

saturn_656 saturn_656:

ziggy ziggy:

So what should be the priority?
Defending our north or fighting in Afghanistan?

The North of course, Afghanistan isn't our turf.

No. Put every effort into Afghanistan until the day after we have left. Becoming complacent in the last months of the mission will only cause more people to come home in a casket rather than a comfortable seat. Once we are all back and done our mission, by all means we should work on securing our coastlines.

[ziggy]

saturn_656 saturn_656:

ziggy ziggy:

So what should be the priority?
Defending our north or fighting in Afghanistan?

The North of course, Afghanistan isn't our turf.

Then we need a nuke sub or two,and a base in the arctic,an all weather road all along our border,I dont see it happening anywhere in the near future.

[saturn_656]

Canadian_Mind Canadian_Mind:

I've seen no proof of that, so far all the parties are equally to blame.

Harper is worlds above Chretien. Martin wasn't in power long enough to have any effect one way or the other.

You want to argue that Trudeau was better?

If Iggy made promises for enlarging the CF, he'd get my vote next election.

[Canadian_Mind]

Need more than a couple nuke subs and a base.

Need multiple airbases and navl bases/stopover points along our largest coastline for the slushbreakers.

Need multiple arctic-capable submarines.

Need multiple surface heavy icebreakers, both to help counter sub threat, but also to provide a visable surface precence and deterrent.

Need more patrol aircraft and tactical interceptor aircraft permanently stationed in the north.

Need multiple underwater listening devices and hundreds if not thousands of undersea mines that will detonate if subs are near if we don't manually tell them to turn off. We can't turn the mines off if we don't know the subs are there.

I didn't think about the road connection Ziggy, but if you think it is feasable to have one go along the coastline...