The missile defence decision

It would be sad, if it weren't so silly. We weren't being asked to do anything, the system doesn't depend on us doing anything, and we've already done whatever it was they needed us to do, through NORAD, though that in itself amounted to doing what NORAD does anyway. The only thing achieved by us not participating is to ensure that we aren't consulted in any decision to shoot down an incoming missile over Canadian soil -- the very consultation that Paul Martin once insisted was the reason we should participate. Not that there'd be much time for consultation, always assuming this unlikely event ever occurs, or that the system is ever deployed that can prevent it. But the Prime Minister now insists we must be consulted, even though we're not part of the system and have no way of defending ourselves on our own: our defence strategy in the event of an attack now consists of praying the Americans will protect us, using the system we've just rejected. In which case, we better hope they don't consult us. If it's a choice between saving Toronto and asserting our sovereignty ... It would be silly, if it weren't so sad. All we were asked to do, really, was to say we are doing what in fact we are doing: cooperating in whatever inconsequential way we might, through NORAD and other forums. It was a free throw, a layup, a cost-free gesture of solidarity that might repair some of the damage done by our refusal to participate in Iraq (although in fact we did, we just said we weren't). But there is a rule in Ottawa: you can say you are doing something without doing it, or you can do something without saying it, but under no circumstances is it permissible to say and do the same thing at the same time. So we couldn't even make the gesture, not even at the level of empty symbolism: not because the critics have any serious objection -- it used to be that we shouldn't do missile defence because it would make the Russians mad, which was at least an objection, if not a serious one: but the Russians have not only dropped their objections, they're bidding on parts of the system. And I suppose a few people believe that, although this is a land-base system, it would ultimately lead to the "weaponization of space," which is obviously a Very Bad Thing: lobbing missiles through the stratosphere is one thing, but God forbid they should be shot down from the ionosphere. But no, the only objection most of the critics have is that it involves a) the Americans, and b) military hardware. And because a good number of these people are to be found on the Liberal backbench, the Prime Minister feels obliged to kowtow to them. So we will make critical decisions on foreign and defence policy based on purely internal politics -- internal, not as in Canada, but as in the Liberal Party. It isn't that the Americans will respond in some vastly hurtful way. They'll just shrug and move on. It will simply confirm them in the opinion that we are terminally feckless and utterly unreliable -- just not a serious country, and certainly not one worth taking seriously. So the damage from Iraq will be redoubled, the more so for the hopes that were temporarily invested in Martin. We could have taken our place alongside the United States, Great Britain and Australia, that historical alliance that fought two world wars and to whom literally dozens of countries owe their freedom. Instead, we have chosen to side with our new best friends, the Chinese, the Russians, the Germans and the French, who between them have never liberated a single country, including their own. How very sad. How preposterously silly.