Once again, Dart wasted

[Argus]

Its been a week since the Pakistani earthquake, and DART, Canada's exercise in feel-good internationalism, is gearing up to go over to help. Too little, too late. Again.

Just as was the case with the Indonesian Tsunami, DART sat on its collective butt for days on end because there was no way to get it over to where it might have done some use. We have no aircraft capable of flying them over so we have to hunt up Russian or Ukrainian suppliers who can rent us some aircraft. And that takes time.

Really, we should either disband DART or get some bloody aircraft. Sending them across to disaster sites two weeks late is a pointless exercise the Liberals engage in to make themselves look good. By the time DART gets to an area anyone who needed emergency medical care has either gotten it - or died. And that will be the case here, too. It will cost millions to get them over there and they'll accomplish prescious little.

Well, execept for their primary mission: to act as a backdrop for Liberal politicians who'll drop by with earnest, serious looks on their faces and congratulations to the boys for a "job well done". The Liberal sightseers will bring their own camera crews and the footage will be shown next election in areas with high East Asian populations.

So maybe the Liberal Party should fund DART out of its own budget. Shouldn't be hard. They can take it out of what they steal.

[Canuck E Stan]

Argus,

or get some bloody aircraft

I think this is the problem of the DART unit not getting to the destination sooner.

I believe all these excuses about whether to send DART or not is because the truth is, the government has to request for the Chartered Ukrainian Antono 124 from the private company that owns it and it takes a week for the plane to be available to the government for service. The same thing happened last December.

How many more times are we going to shell out mega bucks to this company (SKYLINKS?) before we get our own plane that will be available to the government immediately.

It's like owning a trailer and having to rent a vehicle everytime you want to take it somewhere.

Makes no sense.

[cybercoma]

don't be ridiculous, canada doesn't need a military or military type equipment like these aircraft you're looking for. we have the united states to defend us.

[plusgood]

There was an interesting discussion on a news show I watched yesterday about the cost of DART for the work it does vs. the cost of supplying that revenue to aid agencies in the area. Essentially, what cost the Canadian government 10million for the work done by DART, aid agencies could do double the work for $600,000. Is this a scandal, or is it important for the Canadian government to have a clear presence in helping with disaster relief, I don't know. But based on these figures, and the fact it takes DART forever to get to disaster sights, it seems an awful shame that it cannot be more effective. DART represents a romantic vision for the future of military engagement, so in that sense I want to see it continue and become more effective, but at the same time what matters most is getting the best possible help to those suffering as a result of a disaster. Right now it's simply a diplomatic tool so all tha matters to Foreign Affairs Miniter Pettigrew and other political players is what it appears to be doing, rather than what it is doin.g

[Yaro]

That's not true at all, the DART team is very highly trained. There are few examples of teams capable of what they are anywhere in the world. The notion that you can replace there expertise locally anywhere but a few places in the world is based on a false premise-that people like the DART team exists everywhere when they clearly don't.

I agree with Argus, we need SLC badly. Canada is to big a country not to have it, even just for domestic needs.

[plusgood]

I agree getting our own SLC would be a starting point, and would maybe go some distance to bringing down the cost. In countries that already have aid agencies working in them for other reaons when disasters strike however, it will still be cheaper for them to do the work that DART would do. Ultimately they purify water and have a mobile hospital at a rate of 10million a mission. What they do can be done much cheaper.

Also, I very much like the idea of DART, it just needs to find away to be more effective for the cost, if that's possible.