Uncle Sam's protection racket

Here in Canada we pretty much take it as an article of faith that we and "our allies" represent the high point of achievement in human rights and democracy and all that good stuff.

I've been following the election campaign a little. All the wannabes are going around offering billions in freebies here, there, and everywhere. Immediately, the pundsters jump all over every promise made by every politician, and assure us that these billions in promises will bankrupt the Dominion, and therefore we need to give our heads a shake, and so forth...

But the same crowd has no compunction foisting F-35 fighter jets and 60 billions in warships on us! How can we not afford a few billions to follow through on some humane political promises, but we can afford tens and even hundreds of billions in "defence" spending?

That's where Uncle Sam's protection racket kicks in. We need all that military hardware so we can stand with "our allies." And who are "our allies?"

Well, not to put too fine a point on it, but "our allies" is a shrinking club of vassal nations who take direction from Washington. Being part of the club requires that one invest many billions in US military hardware, all for the sake of "interoperability."

Recent events in the Middle East suggest most of that expensive US military hardware is obsolete. Nobody spends more on American military junk than the Saudis, and look at what happened to them a couple of weeks ago. That's how much security you gain from being under Uncle Sam's security umbrella - none.


It's high time Canada develops an independent foreign policy. I'll vote for whatever candidate promises that. Whatever else they happen to promise can easily be paid for by the savings we'll realize when we opt out of Uncle Sam's protection racket.