Cite? I know that this is a popular meme among those who oppose Bush, but I have yet to see one shred of actual proof.
I don’t know about that. In a way I can see the argument but there are international and domestic wars happening all the time. The genocide in Rwanda, the war between Ethiopia/Eritria, the massacres in Sudan, the Indonesian invasion of East Timor, the fact that Syria ran a puppet government in Lebanon until a year ago. Even if you only focus on governments invading each other there are still examples. Only one of those gross abuses of people involved Iraq controlling 20% of the world’s oil supply and that was the one where the UN security council got together and voted for a withdrawal. Iraq being in charge of too much oil meant he could screw up the world’s economy. Before the 1991 war the security council had only approved of war once, that was in 1950 in Korea.
I’m still not opposed to the war of 2003. True there were no current gross human rights abuses to my knowledge but it was a war to remove one of the most oppressive governments on earth. I wasn’t opposed to the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia irrelevant of whether it was accepted by international law or if Cambodia was a ‘helpless nation’ or not because it brought down the Khmer Rogue.
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Why did the US fight a $200 billion dollar war to save $0.10 on a gallon of gas and to make a few billion for oil companies?
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Where are these savings, gas prices are higher than ever
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Iraq was already at full production capacity before the war started
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http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2003/02/25/oil/index_np.html
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It has been 2 years, where is this major sell off of Iraq’s oil fields to american companies.
I wonder what the Russians would think about Canadian Nukes? Do Russia & Canada have any diputes going on in the Arctic region? The best way to get nukes pointed at you is to acquire them yourself.
No, there is no dispute between Canada and Russia, but there are a couple of disputes between Canada and the USA. One is the issue of who owns the oil under parts of the Beaufort Sea. The other is whether Canada has the right to control shipping (principally oil) through the Northwest Passage.
Bush Co. did not expect the war to go so badly, the neocons did not expect big oil to oppose privitazaiton of oil in Iraq, and the privitization of oil in Iraq at this time would cause even greater hostility by Iraquis against the USA.
Could we get back to the OP’s questions?
Oh, you’d like that.
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Should Canada have nuclear weapons? It doesn’t matter to me. They don’t need them due to NATO protection, but they can do what they want. However as someone else said they signed the NNPT so it’d be a violation for them to build them.
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Nothing. The US would invade Canada for having Nukes almost as quick as we’d invade Britian, Israel or France for them having nukes. There is a gigantic difference between a human rights abusing rogue regime (Iraq, North Korea) and developed liberal democracies having nuclear weapons. The response to Iran building nukes is economic sanctions. The response to South Africa building nukes was to do what is happening with Iran, to isolate and economically cripple them. The response to Pakistan & India is condemnation and not much else.
I see various claims made but no evidence.
The population of Canada, as of July, 2005, according to the CIA was 31,752,842, less than that of a single state, California, in 2003, at 35,934,000, according to that state’s census (PDF). So any war wouldn’t last longer than the time it would take by either side to declare it.
The size of the population also helps explain the point xtisme made about prices, the 85-cent dollar notwithstanding. (For that matter, the 10-times-smaller tax base helps explain why taxes are higher than in the United States.)
Perhaps a more realistic name for the country would be The United States of Canada, Ltd. Most of everything, from oil to the so-called national game of hockey, is controlled by U.S. interests, or conglomerates controlled by U.S. interests. The process never slows; it only grows.
Robert Heinlein described Canadians as Americans who figured out how not to pay taxes to Washington. Like it or not, that’s the way it is. Either country nuking the other would be nuking itself.
First off, you Canadians should relax. You guys are behind Iran, Syria, North Korea, Cuba, Venezuela, Peru, and France on the list. Chances are good we won’t get to you in the next three years.
Second, don’t tell us you’re building nukes until you’ve already built them. It leaves you with a window of vulnerability.
Third, it takes time to build up a good propaganda campaign. Especially when the only people being oppressed in your country are French. So you’ll have plenty of warning while we’re building ourselves up for the invasion.
The UK, Israel and France did not build nukes for the specific purpose of using them against the United States. The OP’s question is in specific reference to Canada building nuclear weapons that would be primarily for nuking Houston or Washington, not Cairo or Moscow.
In any future scenario - and we are talking about pretty far-off theoretical scenarios here - where you could envision Canada building nukes to defend itself against an aggressive USA, the USA would have an awfully good reason to try to stop it, because really, why else would Canada build nukes? The very act of constructing them woulkd be threatening, and threatening in the worst way. “Look, we’re building weapons to vaporize your civilians.” They didn’t have a good reason to stop the UK, France or Israel, because those countries built nuclear arsenals mainly to blow up, respectively, Communists, Communists, and Arabs. Anyway those places are harder to attack.
Perhaps you missed this part of the cite by a credible BBC journalist of a reputable and high level participant in the planning:
In any event, it does not matter why the USA is in Iraq. For the purposes of the OP, it does not matter whether it was a Republican invasion or a Democratic invasion, an invasion that is a conitnuation of the Great Game, an invasion over oil, an invasion over God, an invasion over democracy, an invasion over torture, or any number of other reasons that one might put forward for the invasion. The fact remains that for what ever reason, be it good or bad, the USA invaded Iraq, and the fact remains that for what ever reasons, be they good or bad, the USA has a history of involvement in regime change in several nations.
So let’s, for the sake of argument, assume that the USA involvment in Iraq is all goodness and light, for the most noble and self-sacrificing of reasons, with the best of intentions and the best of results, that will leave Iraq as a democratic land of milk and honey. With that in mind, how about getting back to the OP, which asks for opinions on Canada arming with nukes, and what the American reaction would be should we do so.
That’s central to my second question.
The Cuban missile crisis took place immediately before Kennedy was trying to get Dief to place American Nukes on Canadian Bases. I take this to illustrate two things: first, the Americans trusted Canada with nukes; second, the Americans were extremely opposed to an enemy nation having nukes in this hemisphere.
So where would that put us if Canada were to now develop nukes when the only forseeable use would be against the USA? Would we still be considered trustworthy allies, or would be be a significant threat?
Right now, certainly. I know I would dismiss out of hand the idea of Canada, especially Québec, joining with the United States. But just so you know, French-Canadian nationalists have a long tradition of admiring the United States. You people fought off an oppressive British régime and established a republic, which is what many nationalists in the 19th and 20th centuries wanted to do. I believe (although I don’t have any cites ready) that some French-Canadian nationalists, in the 19th century, would have welcomed the idea of joining the United States.
Even this very year, I saw a proposal for the constitution of an independent Québec, presented by a major political figure, that suggested a presidential government very obviously based on the American one (there was however no Electoral College). I guess that what I’m saying is that most of us aren’t anti-American, we just wouldn’t want to follow the United States in their current path.
The US wouldn’t invade Canada for that. We would try to deal with it diplomatically. If Canadians think the US is going to invade them then they are extremely paranoid and out of touch with political reality, and I think the US’s response would be to try to offer security guarantees to the Canadians, openly encourage Canadian military treaties with other countries (China, Russia, the EU) for them to come to Canada’s defense and proposing mutual disarmaments to deal with the Canadian paranoia and fear. War with Canada would be a last resort of last resorts, and only if Canada went totally nuts.
The only real dispute in the Arctic that I’m aware of is the issue of who has sovereignty over Hans Island, Canada or Denmark. I don’t believe that Denmark has any nukes.
Can I second the call for Canada to come and save us?
How about decriminalizing marijuana? Canadians did well for themselves selling booze to the US during prohibition, and some are doing well selling the demon weed.
No, I wasn’t really talking about Canadians being anti-American. Things may be that way there now, but when I was there it certainly wasn’t the case. I also understand what you are getting at about French-Canadian nationalists, though when I was there the issue was that they wanted to be independant from Canada…not join the US. Most of the French-Canadians I knew when I worked in Canada were nationalists and advocated independance from Canada (to one degree or another), while a few of the English-Canadians (I suppose, though I never heard them refered that way) talked about joining the US…though to be honest I think they were talking about it in the context of pissing off their French-Canadian brothers. 
I don’t think that Canada and the US will ever merge and that Canada will join the union…I’m not even sure how good an idea that would be. I do think our countries will have closer ties in the future due to things like NAFTA and its successors…maybe even something resembling the EU someday for North/South America. I certainly see a day when trade ties between Canada and America become even closer.
However, I highly doubt that Canada and the US will ever become enemies, nor do I feel Canada will ever need to build nukes in order to protect itself from US agression…the idea is outrageous and even mildly offensive. Even supposing that the US will one day become agressive towards Canada I think Canada arming with nukes would be short sighted and stupid. They’d get more bang for their buck by concentrating on designing a force that could harrass an invading US using conventional and irregular formations and all that wilderness they have in abundance.
-XT