Dangerous War Preparations

Oppose Attempts to Embroil Canada in U.S. Ballistic Missile Defence

Concern is mounting in Canada that the cartel parties in Parliament will once again conspire to participate in the U.S. ballistic missile defence program (BMD). The Liberals and their cartel party partners are pushing to destroy Canadian public opinion that has been opposed to participation in the U.S. BMD. For instance, The Trudeau Liberal government before the pandemic election announced plans to spend more than $553 billion on war preparations over the next 20 years. Much of this funding will go into the U.S. war economy to purchase fighter jets, armed drones and other war production.

This increased spending was confirmed the day before the election call when Canada's Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan and U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin issued a joint statement agreeing to "modernize" NORAD, the North American Aerospace Defence Command, and outlining "priority areas for new investments."

The August 14 joint statement says: "Canada and the United States share a desire to coordinate in fielding new capabilities to complement and eventually replace the North Warning System with more advanced technological solutions as soon as possible. Ensuring effective awareness ultimately requires a system-of-systems approach including a network of Canadian and U.S. sensors from the sea floor to outer space."

"System-of-systems" is Pentagon jargon for Ballistic Missile Defence (BMD). NORAD modernization includes the positioning of U.S. missiles in Canada and weaponization of outer space as part of the U.S. ballistic missile shield. When BMD is declared operational, the U.S. and its war allies including the Canadian government believe and will then declare that "a U.S. nuclear war is winnable" and a pre-emptive nuclear strike could be used. The U.S. war economy since 2014 has conducted 17 BMD tests of its "system-of-systems" to "destroy incoming ballistic missiles."

The cartel parties have jumped on the "winnable war" bandwagon. In 2014, the year the U.S. began testing its "system-of-systems," a parliamentary committee gave its support for the government to join in the development of the U.S.-led missile shield. The Canadian Senate Committee on National Security and Defence soon agreed and announced it was "unanimous in recommending that the government of Canada enter into an agreement with the United States to participate as a partner in ballistic missile defence."

In 2017, the Conservative Party's then foreign affairs critic and now leader Erin O'Toole said that Canada must join BMD.

The defence committees in both the House of Commons and the Senate joined the pro-war chorus in 2019, advocating for BMD. Christian Leuprecht, a professor at the Royal Military College, gave urgency to the demand to join BMD, telling CTV News earlier this year that the integrated U.S./Canada power grids could be targets of Russia and/or China's intercontinental ballistic missiles.

"You can hit a component in Canada and have a dramatic impact on the entire North American continent, and the entire North American system and how it functions," Leuprecht said.

In the U.S., anti-war public opinion is always under attack as pointed out by Mark Muhich writing in Counterpunch this September. "Despite fantastical cost overruns, persistent test failures, cynicism from the scientific community, warnings that Ballistic Missile Defense can be easily defeated with chaff and camouflage technologies, bi-partisan opposition, and credible charges that Missile Defense has renewed a nuclear arms race, BMD finds its place in the Defense Authorization Act year after year. One prime reason is the vast lobbying power of defense contractors, especially Missile Defense contractors like Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Raytheon. Defense contractors spent $58 million in the first six months of 2021 lobbying Congress to fund defense and missile defense contracts."

The program of the federal NDP during the pandemic election states under the heading, "Defence at home and abroad:" "Unfortunately, after decades of Liberal and Conservative cuts and mismanagement, our military has been left with outdated equipment, inadequate support and an unclear strategic mandate. In contracting for new military equipment, including ships and fighter jets, New Democrats will ensure maximum industrial benefits and jobs. This will help ensure the survival of healthy shipbuilding and aerospace industries all across Canada."

In this way, the NDP uses high sounding phrases of economic benefit and jobs as a smokescreen to shield it from criticism for being warmongers by calling for integration into the U.S. war economy and war preparations and participating in the U.S.-instigated anti-China and anti-Russian propaganda campaigns. It is tantamount to saying that war preparations and pouring money into the U.S.-dominated military cartels are not destructive to the social and natural environment but necessary for the economy to grow.

The Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist) has a principled anti-war program with no equivocation. It calls on all Canadians to join the movement to establish an anti-war Government and build a self-reliant economy that forms the material basis to meet the needs of all and humanize the social and natural environment.

Get Canada out of NATO and NORAD!
Oppose Integration into U.S. Homeland Security,
War Machine and Wars of Aggression!
Make Canada a Zone for Peace!

Note

President George W. Bush withdrew the U.S. from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in 2001. Since then the U.S. government has poured $100 billion into building a ballistic missile shield. This money has gone to Boeing, Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, BAE Systems and others in the war economy. Those war companies are hungry to have Canadian public money as well and have dispatched lobbyists to make it so.

(With files from "War hawks quietly positioning Canada to participate in US-led Ballistic Missile Defence program," Joyce Nelson, The Canada Files)


This article was published in

Volume 51 Number 10 - October 10, 2021

Article Link:
https://cpcml.ca/Tmlm2021/Articles/M510104.HTM


    

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