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Friday, December 31, 2004
The Mission of DART
With all of the talk about deploying DART or not I thought I would see what DART says about themselves and why they exist. The following is (selectively) taken from their website: (emphasis added and I suggest you read the whole thing)
Operational criteria
The DART is a military organization designed to deploy rapidly anywhere in the world to crises ranging from natural disasters to complex humanitarian emergencies. The DART:
responds rapidly, in conjunction with national and regional governments and non-governmental agencies, to stabilize the primary effects of an emergency or disaster;
provides potable water and medical aid to help prevent the rapid onset of secondary effects of a disaster; and
gains time for the deployment of national and international humanitarian aid to facilitate long-term recovery in a disaster-struck community.
Mission capabilities
Comprising about 200 CF personnel ready to deploy quickly to conduct emergency relief operations for up to 40 days, the DART can bridge the gap until members of the international community arrive to provide long-term help. The DART is designed to deploy only to permissive environments — that is, locations where it will not encounter any organized resistance or threat.
Conclusion
Canada is an important provider of international humanitarian assistance and emergency relief. The creation of the DART enhanced the federal government's ability to meet both domestic and international requests for aid, and it demonstrates Canada's resolve to support disaster victims anywhere in the world.
Posted by Greg Staples on December 31, 2004 | Permalink
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Comments
I'm beginning to think that the typical Canadian Government response can be characterized by all self important talk and zero action.
Posted by: Boudica | 2004-12-31 11:18:03 AM
Exactly. Another sterling example of "soft power" at work. Thank you, Lloyd Axworthy.
Posted by: JR | 2004-12-31 11:53:42 AM
Don't be too discouraged by the lack of action ... remember when Canada still had 'hard power' and gave millions and millions in aid to Italy when there was a big earthquake back in the 80s? And didn't the aid turn out to be mostly ineffectual, as the people were still living in pre-fab houses many years after the quake?
Moral of the story: a socialist basket case will remain a socialist basket case, not least because of the efforts of all the other socialist basket case countries to "help out". Mainly because for socialist politicians and bureaucrats and their cronies, "helping out" means "helping yourself", to inflated salaries, contracts, grants, loans, subsidies, etc.
The last thing they need is another Marshall Plan:
"... the countries that received the most Marshall Plan money (allies Britain, Sweden, and Greece) grew the slowest between 1947 and 1955, while those that received the least money (axis powers Germany, Austria, and Italy) grew the most ... the real upshot of the Marshall Plan was a political maneuver to loot American taxpayers to keep influential American corporations on the government dole." http://www.mises.org/freemarket_detail.asp?control=120
God bless the people of southeast Asia - who will overcome this disaster on their own terms, and in their own time. And God bless the NGOs which are small enough, dedicated enough, and uncorrupted enough to deliver what these people need and not a single penny or grain of rice more.
Posted by: Justzumgai | 2004-12-31 3:47:37 PM
I would suggest that the Government(Liberals) wanted to put DART into the north end of Sri Lanka, in Tamil country. Why, there are one or two ridings in Toronto with a very large Tamil populations. It would seem the Sri Lankan Government delayed the descision until there were no large charter aircraft available for the airlift. Remember how Paul Martin was front and centre at Tamil gatherings? How many of the attendees were Tamil Tigers? I would think that this is another reminder that Liberal politicians don't deal in dollars, but rather in votes,. There are exceptions of course, when the pickings are easy, ADSCAM, Gun Registry, HRDC, Shanwinigate, and the list goes on. DKT, who is ashamed to admit he's a Canadian.
Posted by: Keith Thomson | 2004-12-31 10:25:04 PM
There was one very viable option for the Canadian government if they truly wanted to deploy their DART team. Ask the US Air Force for a ride to wherever they thought they needed to go.
Would the Pentagon or White House have turned down such a request? Of course not. Criminy, we're flying so many flights right now into the disaster zone that one extra flight of 200 soldiers and their equipment would've been nothing.
Oh, that's right, that would of have required Paul Martin to ask a favor of that evil George BusHitler. Better to let the DART team sit in barracks than do that, right?
Posted by: David Crawford | 2005-01-01 3:43:57 AM
Keith
Perhaps you shouldn't ascribe to nefariousness what may better be explained by inertia.
Posted by: surly | 2005-01-01 4:30:35 AM
"... this is another reminder that Liberal politicians don't deal in dollars, but rather in votes,. There are exceptions of course, when the pickings are easy, ADSCAM, Gun Registry, HRDC, Shanwinigate, and the list goes on."
I think that Liberals deal in votes *and* dollars. The reason why one deals in votes, is to get control of dollars. They play hanky-panky with terrorists in order to lock in a sector of the ethnic vote, and once the vote is secured, they and their friends can rob the taxpayer with spending programs like the ones you named. It's the perfect crime.
Posted by: Justzumgai | 2005-01-02 5:31:29 PM
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