Not soon enough
This is the best thing I've read in while. Hopefully the government can make it happen quickly. Whatever it takes - beg, borrow, rent, or steal, the troops deployed in Afghanistan need this lift capacity.
Maybe that'll give them some incentive to make it happen quicker.
Forces look to U.S. for help with choppersAs far as I'm concerned they can cancel all government funded travel for MPs, park them in Ottawa and spend the money on whatever is required to get the choppers for Afghanistan.
Aircraft crucial to Afghan mission; Canada seeks deal to secure access
David Pugliese, The Ottawa Citizen
Published: Wednesday, August 30, 2006
Canada is negotiating with the Pentagon to obtain either priority access for transportation of troops on U.S. helicopters in Afghanistan or to lease American choppers in the south Asian country until the military can get its own there sometime in the next three years.
The discussions are designed to give Canadian soldiers in Kandahar assured access to Chinook helicopters, a capability military planners see as critical to move around the battlefield as well as to reduce the number of casualties.
The Harper government plans to purchase 16 Boeing Chinook choppers and a contract is expected to be signed sometime early next year. But it will take 30 to 36 months after that before the first helicopter is delivered.
Forces spokesman Capt. Jim Hutcheson said the talks between the U.S. and Canada are expected to be finished this fall. "The discussions underway are to acquire either a higher priority to such assets or to a certain degree our own independent use of those assets," he said.
Maybe that'll give them some incentive to make it happen quicker.
posted by WE Speak at 8:21 a.m.
8 Comments:
Were it so simple as money, but I think the American's want to use their assets themselves, and the Dutch, British and so on. Our problem is that we have had one government after another lack the foresight to plan and purchase. Sad fact is that the media crows over cost without considering the past ramifications, and future, of the needed items.
Yeah, because Quebec is just rolling about in the "socialist spending"...
every month I get my "socialist spending" cheque in the mail and I sing The International...
oh wait....
I have no problem paying taxes when I get services that I deem important. Taxation alone does not make one socialist, unless you're functioning with a different definition than, well everyone else.
As for transfer payments, I'll tell you what, when every province that has ever got federal money to develop, say, a natural resource, pays everyone else back, then we'll talk.
Umm.. Fred, a quick search shows research grants, subsidies, inclusion in trade shows under the Fed banner....
I get that lots of things happen in this country that I don't like because someone (or several someones) in other parts of the country do like it. That's life in a country like Canada. I'll tell you what people have been telling me as a Quebecer for years, don't like it? Leave. (god imagine if I wasn't anglo, the bullshit I would have had to hear...)
Just so you know fred, I noticed when you called me a liar.
Anyway, this exciting pissing match was brought to you by "I'm tired of people blaming everyone else in the country to score cheap political points".
I'm done.
Allow me to be one of the first to actually discuss the post at hand, lol. I think the problem with strategic airlift helos is that we haven't needed them in the past. We have always participated in multilateral, UN-sanctioned peackeeping ops and Chinooks just weren't necessary for those mission. If you asked me ten years ago if I thought Canada would be in charge of a NATO occupying force on an offensive mission in another country I'd have laughed at you. We need them now, I'm glad we're getting them but I'm not going to hold a grudge against anyone for not having them.
Nathan, I think John Donovan put it best:
Funny thing about lift, once the shooting starts, you never have enough. Once the shooting stops, you always have too much. Of course, the problem is, when the budget drives everything, the delta is covered by... blood.
I sell insurance for a living now - and you don't buy it after the building's on fire, you buy it before.
I understand that many in the Canadian public have thought of our CF as a peacekeeping force, but I expected our political leaders to educate themselves a little better than the rest of the Canadian public. Forethought is supposed to be part of the job, and it's not like the military leadership hasn't been talking about the need since we got rid of our old Chinooks almost twenty years ago.
That's why I'm not inclined to be as charitable towards those making the funding decisions as you might be.
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