Moonbox

The arrests and violence at the G20 were a lie made by communist Chinese officials looking to smear Western government. It didn't happen. All video footage is fabricated and the protests were peaceful and fair. Do not believe Chinese lies.

Communism is a lie!

He's right. It's one of the reasons I don't like reading the Post. It was a pretty pathetic attempt to put a spin on something honest and fair that a Liberal wrote.

Hmm...I hadn't even thought of that. Why are we talking about how we spelled it? I guess we just dismiss it as a bunch of idiotic nutjobs and forget about it. We ARE weird.

Bingo. Simple grammar is the great equalizer. If you can figure out the grammar properly, you can dumb the language down with simple words. Experience and memory will eventually fill in your holes in vocabulary.

That was pretty funny actually.

Wyly you're suggesting we're purchasing stealth fighters to intercept jet liners over the arctic. That's ludicrously dumb. We're purchasing them to fulfill our NORAD obligations and, if necessary, project air power abroad with NATO partners. The F-35 is a strike fighter, much like the F-18, and its meant to be both an offensive and defensive weapon. Two of the requirements of the Canada First Defence Strategy: -Lead and/or conduct a major international operation for an extended period. -Deploy forces in response to crises elsewhere in the world for shorter periods. Basically you don't know what you're talking about. You're only digging yourself a hole. Take a look at how widely distributed the Mig-29, Su-27 and Su-30 are. All of these planes are every bit as advanced as Canada's F-18's. As for the Super Hornet, the only reason it's called the Super Hornet is because it was easier to pass it through Congress with that name than proposing it as the brand new plane that it actually is. It's a completely different airframe and it would be a pointless marginal upgrade for Canada. You're hilarious.... We don't know what we might need the planes for. That's the whole point. The equipment has to already be there when you need it or you're screwed. Hostile third world nations ALREADY have comparable (or better) airframes. That is ONE of the issues only. Actually, The Russians could blow our F-18's out of the air without blinking with even numbers over the arctic. I've highlighted several areas where what you're saying is false. If you're thinking above ANYONE on this forum, it's the head in the clouds burnout flunkie type thinking. The fact that you're still asking this question only proves that you're REALLY struggling here. We've already answered several times that it's unlikely anyone will 'invade' us. That being said, there are numerous scenarios I could think of, and obviously governments across the western world can think of, where we would need to project air power abroad to protect our interests. There have, in fact, been two instances of this in the last twenty years. Perhaps this is too much mental exercise for you, but Canada doesn't live in a void. We are part of this world and there are many things that can and do affect us regularly all over the world. If not for the Gulf War, Saddam Hussein could have destabilized the entire middle east with profound implications on us. Your bus rides, for example, would be a lot more expensive as a result.

I don't advocate the killing of civilians, but the only way theocracy as a system of government can be sustained is through oppression.

August I thought you were smarter than that. If each police officer were simply paid $50,000 each to work for a weekend, I'd be similarly upset. The math I'm sure doesn't work out that way, however. While I'm sure they were paid well to come, a huge amount of the cost of security during the summit was logistical.

Oh you. I always love reading your posts. Herr Bonghit. That's hilarious

Reread what you wrote. The "other reasons" are why we decided to purchase the F-35. 5That's not why we're buying them. By the time the F-18 is replaced in Canada it will be a 40 year old design. 2nd and 3rd rate powers have usually been equipped with comparable Russian fighters themselves anyways. Mig-29's and Su-27's are proliferated throughout the 3rd world, and are comparable to the F-16 and F-15 respectively. That's not exactly garbage hardware and if Canada were to enter a conflict against one of these powers the F-18 wouldn't really be at a huge technical advantage against them. Take this premise another 10-20 years further and countries like Iran etc will be flying BETTER fighters than what we're flying. I don't really think you have any idea what you're talking about. Why are we even talking about the Americans? If we claim the majority of the arctic I doubt they'd be upset about it. NAFTA ensures they have access to all those resources at a fair price already. Hell it'll be American owned subsidiaries that exploit the resources anyways. They've flown their Bear bombers right up to the border of our airspace. Having worthwhile planes to patrol it acts as a deterrent. Unsurprisingly, you still don't get it, and a good many other things aside from that . Nobody is going to invade us because big daddy USA is our closest neighbour. Having said that, it's not exactly fair or responsible to expect them to foot the bill for their own protection and for ours at the same time. Canada should be responsible for upholding its share of NORAD (in fact it is obligated to as far as I know) and we can't do that properly with 50+ year old hardware. You'd probably be happy if we were still flying patrol missions over Canadian airspace in Voodoos wouldn't you???

They were granted special powers by the McGuinty government for the summit. Civil liability claims will be negligible and the courts will see that they were reasonably acting to prevent and contain what was essentially a small riot.

You're right that's true but the F-22 doesn't really fit in with any of those profiles I don't think does it?

The carrier is the only way the US can reliably project it's air power abroad. One of the reasons the F-22 was cancelled was because in the event that it went to war with anyone against whom the F-22 would be required (ie China or Russia), any allied airfields that could launch the F-22 would be bombarded to death by missiles. A carrier group, on the other hand, moves and is escorted, and therefore is much easier to defend. Basically the USAF felt that the F-22 could potentially be neutralized before it was of any use.

The F-22 costs enormously more per flight to maintain and requires tens of thousands of dollars worth of repainting and repairs after EVERY flight. Aside from that, it has no carrier variant and even the US military doesn't think it's worth building any more of them.

Gee I'm glad I'm not your friend. I'd know that you'd never have my back.

The F-22 is significantly more expensive to build and purchase and prohibitively more expensive to operate and maintain. The radar absorbing paint it uses wears off after every flight and it costs retarded amounts of money to repaint.

You can be hesitant all you want. The fact is that this plane is going to pretty much be the biggest fighter purchase in US history and THEIR record since the mid 70's has been pretty damn strong in that category. The F-14, F-15, F-16 and F-18 were all fantastic planes and did everything they were supposed to and more. Considering the last 35 years has almost always shown the US to be ahead of the curve in virtually all aspects of military technology, I'm willing to put my faith in their expertise instead of yours. Given that we don't have a military industrial complex of our own, we kind of have to take the leavings of other countries. Canada's military procurement problems have been purely political. Our government doesn't plan ahead nor is it willing to invest good money in it, so we're left with crap and hand me downs.

HAHAHAHAHA! I don't doubt you haven't seen the Ministry of Defence's analysis of their fighter requirements. That doesn't mean it didn't happen, just that they probably don't disclose all of the plane's specs to armchair generals on internet forums. Your 'knowledge' of the project appears to be nil. Let's go with what we DO know though. We DO know that the USAF considers the F-35 4x more effective than current 4th generation fighters. There isn't another plane out there that boasts that sort of capability that would be available to the Canadian market. You could say the same about virtually any piece of military equipment. The equipment acts as a deterrent and it's better to have it and give yourself some measure of safety and self-reliance than need it and not have it. How many dead soldiers could have been saved in Afghanistan if we'd had heavy-lift helicopters and properly equipped tanks? The US discovered in Vietnam what the cost was of not having the right equipment for the job.

The concept of quality vs quantity seems to be escaping you. The fact that a DEVELOPING nation with over a billion people is pumping out lots of engineers is irrelevant to the field of aerospace technology. It takes the brightest and best of the best to be on the cutting edge of warplane technology, and thus far India has not shown itself to be even in the same DECADE as the USA in that respect. Okay well answer me this then: Canada is paying about $138M/unit for a fighter that the company is going to be producing for about $89M/unit (based on production of about 1700 units) or according to Lockheed perhaps even 20% less than that. We're not getting the R&D for free.

Bloodyminded you don't get it. Give us examples of what you're talking about and, item by item, I'm sure we could outline the HUGE differences between them and the frothing rabid clerics calling for general violence against everyone and anyone that doesn't share their beliefs.

With over a billion people living there the need for engineers is enormous and it stands to reason that they'd do everything they could to train and educate them. It really doesn't matter how many engineers they have anyways as the most compelling argument you can make is that India does not have a 5th generation fighter and there's a reason for that.

Haha yeah fortunately our government is not decided by who people DIDN'T vote for.

They have 3 times the USA's population, thus it stands to reason that they'd come up with 3 times the number of engineers. If their per capita income is $3000, all that means is it's probably a heck of a lot cheaper to train them there than it is here. As I mentioned before, however, the top talent is being sucked away from India to North America and Europe anyways. The research costs are factored into the price of the plane genius. Anyone buying an American, European or Russian fighter is paying for the whole shebang -- research, materials, labour AND mark up. As far as I know it's state of the art and it's being manufactured solely in the USA. It's not an 'inferior' model in so much as it's a scaled-down and more efficiently designed aircraft. The F-22 was an over-engineered plane that cost tens of thousands worth of maintainance after every flight. The US military is designing and asking for 6th generation fighters as we speak. They're already designing man and unmanned replacements for the carrier-based F-18e for 2025-2030.