No doubt Canada needs to grow up.
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While we are debating the finer points of principle Ukrainians are dying and losing ground. They most certainly are not reclaiming lost ground.
We are no better than the Republicans and Democrats in the States.
If it makes some of you feel better then spend the shortfall with the South Koreans, the Japanese. Spend it with the Norwegians and the Swedes and the Brits (if they have anything to sell you). Spend it with the South Africans, the Israelis, Turks, Indians. I would even buy from the Chinese and the Russians. Why not? The Russians are still selling oil and gas to countries supplying Ukraine. Buy from anybody but the Yanks.
Then donate what you have bought to the Ukrainians.
Or you could just make the cheque out to the Ukrainians directly and let them buy from wherever they choose. That is probably the best course of action overall.
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Buying supplies from the Yanks says nothing about national sovereignty or vassalage. Vassalage would be forswearing a national foreign policy and restricting ourselves to only fighting in places the US fights.
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NATO is a cooperative.
A
cooperative (also known as
co-operative,
co-op, or
coop) is "an
autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly owned and democratically-controlled
enterprise".
[1] Cooperatives are democratically controlled by their members, with each member having one vote in electing the board of directors.
The US may be the biggest member of the co-op but the dues that are owed to the co-op are to the benefit of the co-op. When Canada, Germany, France, and damnear everybody else doesn't contribute to the kitty then the co-ops benefits dry up.
If Canada had been contributing, in cash or kind, had been stocking warehouses, had been maintaining its machines, been maintaining its foundries and lathes as well as its tanks and guns and planes and ships and radios and satellites and a million other things then the co-op would have been in a place to feed supplies to the Ukrainians.
Or the Latvians, Estonians and Poles.... members of the co-op who are expecting to be supplied under the terms of the co-op because they are feeling real and present danger.
They don't want another company of Canadians with a couple of dozen LAVs. They have people. They need things to throw at the people threatening them. And they would like it if those throwable things could be supplied to people that are already killing the people threatening them.
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This is not about vassalage to the US. This is about meeting our co-op obligations. This is about eliminating a threat to the co-op as speedily as possible.
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The reason Trump is beating up on NATO is precisely because he doesn't see a net benefit in continued membership. Much as I shop at Safeway rather than the Calgary Co-Op. There is no net benefit.