A Chinese balloon has been a wonderful gift for an alliance that embeds Canada deeply into the US Empire.
On the opinion page of Monday’s Globe and Mail, Royal Military College of Canada professor Christian Leuprecht argued that the recent shootdown of four different ‘objects’ over North American airspace should lead to “redoubling our commitment to NORAD”. Erasing decades of Cold War propaganda, the Director of University of Manitoba’s Centre for Defence and Security Studies, Andrea Charron, took to the pages of the National Post to write that the North American Aerospace Defense Command is “now needed more than ever”. For its part, the Canadian Press published “Airborne incursions offers clear evidence that NORAD needs upgrade: the US expert”.
But the balloon/UFO panic is a bread only sandwich. US officials are now admitting the three unidentified objects they recently shot down may have been “tied to commercial or research entities and therefore benign”. Additionally, the Washington Post reports that US officials tracked the Chinese balloon from Hainan island and that it “may have been diverted on an errant path”.
Still, NORAD has been given a boost. The pro-NORAD rhetoric has bolstered the government’s push to spend heavily on an alliance that undercuts Canadian sovereignty and strengthens the US Empire. In June the Liberals announced a $5 billion 6-year expansion of NORAD, which is the first phase in a 20-year $40+ billion plan to upgrade the military alliance. Additionally, spending on F-35s and other high-tech weaponry is partly designed to ensure the Canadian Forces are capable of working alongside their US counterparts in NORAD.
The main criticism of NORAD has been that it impinges on Canadian sovereignty. When the accord was being negotiated 65 years ago an internal External Affairs memo explained, “the establishment of NORAD is a decision for which there is no precedent in Canadian history in that it grants in peace time to a foreign representative operational control of an element of Canadian Forces in Canada.” Under the accord the Colorado-based US commander of NORAD could deploy Canadian fighter jets based in this country without any express Canadian endorsement. (more...)
Despite hot air about balloons Canada should withdraw from NORAD
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