Beyond The Commons

 Beyond The Commons

Aaron Wherry covers all the goings-on in and around Parliament Hill. Follow Aaron on Twitter: @aaronwherry

Categories: Beyond The Commons, Capital Read

Never let a crisis go to waste

by Aaron Wherry on Friday, October 29, 2010 10:28pm - 0 Comments

In the aftermath of an international terror scare that is presently topping the news in the United States and Britain, one that necessitated the scrambling of Canadian fighter jets, the Prime Minister’s Office identifies the most important takeaway.

The Prime Minister’s Office pointed to the incident to support their decision to buy 65 F-35 fighter jets. “Whether it is the CF-18s or the F-35s, Canada’s air force needs the right equipment to protect Canadian airspace,” said Harper spokesman Dimitri Soudas. “Michael Ignatieff’s Liberals and their coalition partners would cancel the deal to buy the F-35s. They would rather use kites to defend Canada than fighter jets.”

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  • brooster2

    “Michael Ignatieff’s Liberals and their coalition partners would cancel the deal to buy the F-35s. They would rather use kites to defend Canada than fighter jets.”

    See, this is the kind of needlessly partisan, totally gratuitous reference to "the coalition", even in response to an international event, that reinforces the impression that this isn't the Government of Canada speaking…these are the relentlessly-campaigning parochial yokels (good name for a bluegrass band) currently occupying the offices of the government….like an extended sit-in by a bunch of frat boys.

    • RadRacer

      Soudas must have photos of Harper or something, because for the life of me I cannot understand why they keep him around.

  • kcm

    Does Soudas ever not say anything stupid?

    • BCer in Mtl

      The George Costanza of Canadian politics

  • LaxAtlDfwYow

    For cris sake, we can shadow airliners in friggin' WW2 Spitfires.

    This is the crap that requires $10M/year to inform Canadians?

    • Philanthropist

      An airliner would leave a WW2 Spitfire in the dust, airliners are almost twice as fast.

    • Crit_Reasoning

      DC-10 max. cruise speed: 610 mph
      Spitfire max. cruise speed: 369 mph

      • Emily

        Missing the point guys…

        • brooster2

          It's Friday nite…the mind wanders.

          • MostlyCivil

            One guy with a shoulder mounted surface to air missle can take down a passenger jet.

            Or, pretty much any jet fighter built in the last 30 years. Or a turboprop armed with a heat seeker. Or Farley Mowat with a hunting rifle.

            Or Dimitri Soudas thrown hard enough from a helicopter…but you have to find him first.

          • Emily

            LOL can we vote on our choice?

          • Reverend_Blair

            Can we get Farley Mowat to throw Soudas from a helicopter? I would pay to see that.

      • madeyoulook

        But how fast can a kite fly?

    • Holly Stick

      Hey, telling lies is more expensive than telling the truth. Always.

  • Emily

    Fighterplanes…of either country….couldn't have done anything anyway…they were useless window-dressing….and to take this event as an excuse to attack a fictional 'coalition' and to spend untendered billions …is beyond the pale.

    Harper has lost it completely

    • brooster2

      I agree with your comment that fighter planes, of whatever vintage, configuration, or capability are ineffective in response to these guerrilla tactics. They represent a conventional warfare response to strategies that are deliberately and necessarily unconventional. In the ultimate outcome, the perpetrators of these incidents would be pleased to provoke the only response of which a fighter is capable…shoot down down the transgressing target.

      If that's the best a combat plane can offer by way of response, an F-18 can do the job as effectively as an F-35.

      For a fraction of the price.

  • chet

    A crises involving the need to scramble advanced fighter jets, is off limits,

    in citing the need for advanced fighter jets?

    To suggest this is somehow improperly exploiting a crisis, as opposed to being an obvious example, is rediculous.

    Rediculous but expected.

    • pdpd

      If by "advanced fighter jet" you mean "fighter jet", then yes.

    • brooster2

      So, Chet…just when I thought we were starting to get along…what's your response to almost every other comment on this board, so far, suggesting that using this incident to justify the purchase of F-35s is a totally irrelevant and tactically inappropriate response? Are you proposing that we'd use these new toys to shoot down planes hi-jacked by terrorists?

  • dave

    A kite would actually be fairly effective against a jet liner. Make a nice titanium/carbon nano-tube frame, little composite wire as your ground controls… yup, that'd mangle an engine pretty quickly if you could get it sucked in…

    On a more serious note, Jet Fighters as an end resort are really only capable of shooting down an Airliner. You can do that from the ground/water just as easily. It's a silly argument in favour of them – "Hey, if that lumbering missile target with no means of defense had been evil and we had advanced warning so our planes could get out in front of it we could've blown it up!!"- especially given that our aircraft are stationed northerly for intercept purposes and out of quick intervention for most of our major cities if there were an actual 911 style set of attacks. Given that there are multiple trans-continental flights out of Pearson with planes loaded for bear with fuel, they'd be parked on Bay before anyone even woke up unless you're going throw up SAM's or Phalanx units on the office towers or run constant CAP on your cities. Wheres my national defence money for stopping that?

    Oooh, that's right, countries who consider such things actually assign those tasks to drones because shooting down an airliner is functionally target practice when it comes right down to it and you can put those on 24 hour patrol for pennies compared to what it would cost to sustain a full time combat CAP.

    • brooster2

      Holy cow! I had a whole movie going in my head there. Do you do scripts? I'd rather invest my tax money in the drones than in Soudas' new-fangled planes. And I'll invest my savings in the movie. As long as the good guys win. And make it 3D.

    • chet

      I'm gonna go with the judgement of the top Canadian and American Generals (the top military minds in the world), who obviously saw a need to scramble,

      rather than "Dave" the Maclean's commenter.

      And I'm no military expert, but to suggest lobbing ground fire from hundres of miles away, is more accurate, nimble and reactive to a situation that can change by the second, than a fighter one hundred meters away from the situtation, is pure folly.

      Most likely ideologically driven folly, but folly nonetheless.

      • Emily

        The militaries never miss a chance to show how 'useful' they are….even if they make up sh*t…especially at budget time.

        The UK pulled the same the 'Russkies are coming' as Mackay when they were on the chopping block

      • brooster2

        So, you'd shoot 'em down?

      • MostlyCivil

        Just like a Conservative to trust the "experts" and the elites instead of a real Canadian guy named Dave.

        Elitist!

      • brooster2

        "I'm gonna go with the judgement of the top Canadian and American Generals (the top military minds in the world), who obviously saw a need to scramble, rather than "Dave" the Maclean's commenter."

        Come to think of it, that's a rather elitist response. You seem to be suggesting that the average Canadian has no common sense. Perhaps you should check in with CPC headquarters to get a refresher on "talking points" (Gawd, I hate that term!)

      • dave

        who obviously saw a need to scramble

        They will always scramble a against a known "threat". What they won't tell you is that the outcome is either:
        1) Pilot does what he's told, plane lands safely
        2) Pilot doesn't do what he's told, plane gets 'sploded as soon as the "threat" to the ground is deemed greater than the threat to the passengers
        3) Terrorists blow up plane/bomb goes off. Scrambled planes provide visual confirmation to ground radar of the destruction of the plane and they didn't just try to drop below RADAR.

        You can strap a missile on a Snowbird Tutor and it can do those jobs just as well as a F35. That said, the reality is that there's no outcome in this particular scenario which Fighter Aircraft are superior to the alternatives available and there are other options that can do it just as effectively for far less cost with far superior uptime. There's a reason CAP over fixed bases or secured zones has largely been handed over to armed drones – they can sit up there for 24 hours or more, can be left in autonomous mode until you need them, and need far less downtime for pilot rest and maintenance.

      • danby

        Re:Census

        I am going to go with top statistical analysts that say making the long form census voluntary will badly skew the results,

        rather than "Tony's" (most likely) ideologically driven folly….. but folly nonetheless.

  • chet

    I have also heard the power of symbolism and power projection that is critical.

    Canadian and American military was "on top of it" and in control, from the get go. The world, including our enemies, saw this.

    Harkening back to WWII, Korean, and other epic battles, the presence of air superiority coming to the scene was an incredible psychological boost to the troops in the trenches (and conversely a terrifying prospect to the enemy).

    • Emily

      What the world 'saw' was terrified Americans going overboard again.

      And we don't have any enemies.

      I'm also amazed that WWII and Korea had trench warfare. Still got your gas mask, have you?

      • Gored

        Look, if all you're worried about is the ability to shoot down jetliners or cargo planes, why don't we just drag the old CF-5 airframes out of storage at CFB Mountainview? For this kind of threat all you need is an airframe that can match speed and fire AIM-9s. It's not like a cargo plane is going to start deploying flares and chaff. Extra bonus: even avionics upgrades would still cost less than the F-35.

        Look, does Canada need new airpower? Yes. Is the F-35 the answer? I don't know, because nobody's convinced me, because no-one's explained what we're using them for other than "working with our allies." Given the recent conflicts we've been involved in — that is, ground-based, anti-insurgency — is the F-35 the right tool? Or would we be better off buying Eurofighters for air defense and a lot more helicopter gunships?

        I don't know, because nobody's told me what the vision for our Forces are. I would think that would be, I don't know, the role of the government and DND. Still waiting to see it.

        • Emily

          I've been waiting for years to hear an intelligent coherent military policy that sets the stage for any purchases….but so far it's all been ad hoc

    • JoeC

      I'm sure the display warmed the hearts of our soldiers in Afghanistan, and stuck fear into the hearts of the Taliban.

      Sheesh.

    • brooster2

      …and the cavalry always arrived in the nick of time…and Custer whupped the redskins by ruinin' their reputation…and Pearl Harbour was a strategy to whip up support for the war.

      Where do you get this stuff?

  • Emily

    No one has attacked Canada. No one is going to attack Canada.

    It's safe outside your bunker.

    • Philanthropist

      Have you read the news in the past ten years? It is you that has a 'bunker' mentality.

      • Emily

        No one has attacked Canada. No one is going to attack Canada.

        Gotten over Y2K yet?

    • Richard_S_Argent

      Nope, nobody's attacked us since the Fenians in the 1860s…hasn't stopped our government from ginning up fear to justify all sorts of nasty behaviour like invoking the War Measures Act in WWI and interring the Japanese in WWII.

      • Trudeau lover

        Invoking the "War Measures Act in the 1970's.

  • tobyornotoby

    We need advanced anti-courier weapons! To the defence lab!

  • danby

    ….and their coalition partners

    ShamWow! politicking.

    I think the PMO should collectively go fly a kite

    • Emily

      I'll agree with that!

  • M_A_D_world

    Does any real work get accomplished in Ottawa anymore? It certainly has become a hotbed for sound bites but I suspect it's driven by mad libs books and bored teenagers.
    Bomb detection should have been the focal point here. How we got to fighter procurement is a badly skipped record.

  • chet

    Harper,

    standing alone in defence of our military,

    faced off against three three left leaning parties, seemingly obsessed, not with the protection of those who put their lives on the line to protect us and our way of life, but of taliban prisoners in Afghanistan, and convicted terrorists who vow to kill us and our soldiers.

    Thank you Mr. Harper.

    • Emily

      Can you do your 'party piece' somewhere else? Nobody is buying this nonsense.

    • Amateur Hour

      Iggy as NEVER said the Liberals wouldn't buy new jets.
      He's also NEVER said they wouldn't buy the F-35.
      What he said is he'd kill the sole-source, non-competition contract because it's the worst way to buy gear.
      The Auditor General agrees … and so, does DND.
      DND planned a competition from 2010-2012 so Canada could place orders in 2013.
      Moreover, the competition has as much to do with the terms and costs of the 20-year maintenance contract and the cost of future upgrades as it does with the selection and number of the fighter planes themselves.
      That contract will eclipse the cost of the planes.

      None of your bootlicking praise of Harper changes the fact that:
      1. Harper's done a bad deal cancelling in DND's competition, and
      2. Soudas is the lowest form of life in Ottawa.

  • http://scottdiatribe.canflag.com/ Scott_Tribe

    Dumb questions perhaps.. but can an F35 jet detect a bomb hidden inside a printer ink cartridge in the hold of a cargo plane better then a CF-18 or some other fighter plane? Can it escort it to an airport better.. or shoot it down better? Does it need stealth technology to sneak up on the passenger jet so it can shoot it down without anyone knowing?

    If so.. Soudas's hyperbole MIGHT make some sense.. but to me it looks like he contracted out his press statement speech writing to a couple of the Blogging Tories.

  • dave

    can an F35 jet detect a bomb hidden inside a printer ink cartridge in the hold of a cargo plane better then a CF-18 or some other fighter plane?
    Despite what KITT and Airwolf have taught you, I'm fairly certain the avionics on Fighter craft can't tell you the difference between explosives or dirty diapers. They can tell you that flying barn is to your left though.

    Can it escort it to an airport better or shoot it down better?
    No to the former, it's actually worse at the later. CF-18's are faster leading to better intercept times.

    Does it need stealth technology to sneak up on the passenger jet so it can shoot it down without anyone knowing?
    Most passenger craft run only with weather radar and rely on ground control and eyes for proximity issues related to detecting planes sooooo….

  • kcm

    ." They would rather use kites to defend Canada than fighter jets.”

    Would that be stealth kites Mr D?

  • Dot

    John Ibbitson of the G&M had a good while to think this over. So his column "Posted on Saturday, October 30, 2010 12:07PM EDT" is an embarrassment.
    http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/global-…

    CPC line, hook,line and sinker. Not the first time.

    • Emily

      Ibbitson is a true blue cult member

      • Dot

        He could learn to be more subtle, if he is.

        • Emily

          LOL after reading this about Soudras you think Cons know from subtle?

  • PeteTong

    Kites and lollipops.

  • chet

    According to our "progessive" media, Patrick Tower's sacrifice, is virtually worthless in terms of news, wholly unimportant to Canadians.

    No. Our ever-in-touch left leaning media, tells us that our thoughts should not be on the apparently trivial death of the likes of Patrick Tower, but on the well being of a avowed terrorist, who wanted nothing more than to see the likes of Patrick Tower dead.

    Khadr deserves a thousand fold more coverage (likely a conservative multiple) than the war heros who die for us.

    Now. Back to Khadr in your thoughts.

  • Richard_S_Argent

    The PMO is a part of the Canadian government, not the Conservative Party. It is paid for with Canadian tax dollars.

    Just thought it bears repeating.

    • Holly Stick

      Hey don't tell us, tell the people infesting the PMO.

      • Richard_S_Argent

        It sure would be nice to see some articles in the dailies about it too :)

        They do it 'cause they get away with it. If they were called out on it more, maybe they'd tone things down.

        • Holly Stick

          Yes indeed, we need to mock them relentlessly.

  • Holly Stick

    Hey chet, good news! Patrick Tower is alive, and is going to speak about sacrifice in Calgary on Nov 11.
    http://themilitarymuseums.ca/event-remembrance-da…

  • chet

    My mistake.

    It was the platoon commander that perished at the hands of the Taliban, Tower taking on the role, saved the platoon, survived and recieved the medal.

  • NorthernPoV

    What convenient timing.
    This little propaganda exercise got the expected headlines from the usual media dupes.
    Expect more such pithy examples of the need for advanced weaponry.
    But I would prefer George Lucas over Peter McKay, as producer from here on.

  • Geiseric

    Some one knows which side of the toast his butter is on.

  • Philanthropist

    CF-18's are more than a quarter century old, they need replacement. Canada needs to be able to intercept airliners and supersonic bombers, obviously. F-35 is a good choice, many countries are buying it so it will become cheaper for us.

  • Emily

    They can't 'intercept'. In fact they can't do anything beyond shooting it down. And shooting down a passenger plane over an inhabited area would be just as bad as an onboard explosion.

  • pdpd

    To be fair, if this is the standard, than any plane on the market would do.

  • Emily

    And….they quit making 'supersonic bombers' in the 60s.

  • Jenn_

    Agreed to the first two sentences, and even the third one, but that doesn't mean the F-35 is the BEST choice for Canada. I just want to be sure it is the best fit for us before we buy them.

    Well, I also want our Prime Minister to not take potshots at the opposition parties with every single communication from the Prime Minister's Office. This story, by the way, isn't actually about our airplane purchases or what the opposition thinks about it. You know, I'd like to pretend almost as if the Prime Minister's Office is not solely Conservative Party Headquarters.

  • Dave

    To the people aboard the plane, it would be just as bad over an uninhabited area.

  • Philanthropist

    This reply makes little sense, but anyhow, the passengers aboard a jihadist-hijacked airliner are going to die one way or another, it is better that a fighter intercepts the aircraft and shoots it down over an unpopulated area than to allow the jihadists to fly it into a building like the World Trade Center.

  • Dot

    The threat was a bomb stashed in cargo in a domestic airline.

    Nothing any interceptor plane could do, irrespective of type.

    Lame.

  • gottabesaid

    It's a bit ironic that, in the last Wherry posting, the discussion was about the role of political journalists in the degrading 'conversation' between Canadians. In the next posting, we see an example of a gross oversimplification of a very complicated and important issue on the part of the government. Are we sure the journalists covering politics are to blame? Seems to me the politicians and their spokespeople might have something to do with the problem, too. This isn't necessarily a criticism of the Conservatives in particular… just an observation.

  • Emily

    I would suggest that the govt puts out these fairy stories because they know the media won't call them on it…. they never have before, and there have been dillies.

  • Kyle

    Are we going to liberate Yemen now?

  • Philanthropist

    TU-160 'Blackjack' – look it up. To name just one. You don't seem to know very much, but enjoy commenting, a lot.

  • Emily

    Yup, no longer used …anymore than any other obsolete aircraft.

    Same as the American ones like the North American XB-70 Valkyrie

    'The introduction of effective high-altitude surface-to-air missiles, the program's high development costs, and changes in the technological environment with the introduction of ICBMs led to the cancellation of the B-70 program in 1961'

  • Greg

    Any data about how survivable this plane is in arctic conditions? Would you trust your kid's life to a single engine jet in the arctic?

  • Emily

    Find an unpopulated area. Try to force a highjacked plane anywhere in fact.

  • brooster2

    Then, I nominate you to be front and center to justify the decision (to shoot) to the families of the victims.

  • Mike T.

    Those choices are all ugly. Should we spend $16 billion to ensure we can accomplish one of them slightly more effectively?

  • Holly Stick

    The Harper PMO is not capable of widening its vision to encompass all of Canada.

  • Philanthropist

    A TU-160 Blackjack was recently intercepted by the Royal Air Force. Do you get your news by dogsled?

  • Emily

    Focus dude….there are no supersonic 'bombers'…..there are supersonic planes with missiles.

    The US wouldn't attack Russia with planes of any kind, and Russia wouldn't attack us with them either.

    There are ICBMs now

    And nobody 'intercepted' any Russian planes….the Brits used the same gimmick as Mackay did because they were up for cuts.

    The planes in question were actually Tupolev Tu95 'Bears' ….like this
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tupolev_Tu-95

    And here is the news report
    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1324147/R…

  • McC_

    I had wondered about this question too, and I was surprised to learn that the Swedes do: the Saab Gripen (one of the potential lower-cost alternatives) is a single-engine fighter too, and pretty much all of its flying in Swedish airspace would be north of 60…

  • Emily

    Sweden is, however, a very small country.

  • chet

    Guess that name:

    Patrick Tower

    Someone who hasn't been lionized by the CBC, TO Star, and the likes of Aaron Wherry, as the precious Khadr has.

    He's a Canadian war hero, recieving the Star of Military Valour, for giving his life to save those of his fellow soldiers.
    http://ultimatesacrificememorialsupportcenter.com…

    Sadly you'll have to go to that little webite to read about what he offered mankind.

    He didn't have the "politically correct" fate. One that couldn't be used for ideological grist.

    No, his suffering and death, his sacrifice at the hands of Khadr's compatriots, pales in comparison to the discomfort our little terrorist experienced while detained for killing another just like Patrick Tower, so says today's "progessive left".

  • brooster2

    The right to a fair trial and the presumption of innocence until/unless found guilty through due process is one of the rights people like Tower are, presumably, fighting and dying for.

    Think things through there before self-righteously lecturing others on the correctness of their values. Can you smell the hypocrisy? You're wallowing in it.

  • Holly Stick

    Nice website, but you should note that it does not say he is dead. Because he aint.

  • Matlock

    "Someone who hasn't been lionized by the CBC, TO Star, and the likes of Aaron Wherry, as the precious Khadr has."

    Probably because, as Holly Stick points out below, he's not dead.

  • chet

    I believe, that you believe that Khadr deserves 1000 times more coverage then Tower?

    And I believe you have a myriad of reasons to justify that.

  • chet

    And it would also stand to reason, that at a minimum, Tower's contribution to our democracy, would at least be equal in importance to the plight of Khadre, being as you suggest, the flip side of the Khadr coin.

    Except its not, is it.

    For reasons that are obvious Tower's herosim remains inconsequential. Indeed, daring to bring him up, draws rage from the leftist commenters on this site.

  • brooster2

    Kindly don't presume tell me what I believe. You haven't a clue.

  • brooster2

    Look, I have no more control over the weight that the media choose to give stories than you do. In any event, you continue to miss the point. Khadr's "story" would have disappeared from the attention of the media and the public years ago if the government had decided to do its part to ensure due process. The government's intransigence in the matter has contributed, to a large extent, to the fact that the story is still getting attention.

    And show me an example of "leftist commenters on this site" expressing outrage at Tower's heroism. That's ridiculous.

  • Holly Stick

    Also, if you search the cbc.ca site for Tower, you see him mentioned a number of times, and possibly would have seen him more often if he had died.

    But since he is not a child soldier who has been tortured and railroaded by the Americans and deserted at Gitmo by the Candian government which should have brought him home years ago, Tower might not receive as much attention as Omar Khadr has.

    I think it is a shame and a waste that any Canadian soldiers have had their lives wasted in this war in Afghanistan, where we are accomplishing nothing much, and certainly not protecting freedom and democracy for Canadians. The Harper government and the Liberal government before them have used the war on terror as an excuse to take away our democratic rights, not to protect them.

  • Holly Stick

    Speaking of protecting Canadians, let us remember the G20 attack upon our rights by the scummy governments of Ontario and of Canada; see how scummy Rathgeber does not understand that we have a right to protest:
    http://creekside1.blogspot.com/2010/10/finished-w…

  • Philanthropist

    Dear Emily Bunker: Both types of bombers have been sent on what Putin calls 'combat operations' recently, more Bears than Blackjacks but both in any case.

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