Having used MILES gear, I don't find it to be at all superior to paintballs for infantry exercises, except at long ranges.

Mr. Herdegen;

Well, speaking as someone who played paintball, we regulars would have a field day against someone who had had real military training if we played outdoors. Their instincts were all wrong. For example, at more than 20 or 30 feet you can see the incoming rounds and dodge them. That means you can get away with doing things that would be suicidal in real combat.

On the other hand, for building interiors they are probably reasonably good for training. You can set up interiors that are just framed and then put garbage sack style plastic in place of drywall. It blocks vision but you can still shoot through it. That adds a little intensity to the game.

Of course, paintballs are probably more lethal than anything the UN will let these guys use in the field.

You guys just won't let up, will you. You laughed at us two years ago for being so dated and old-fashioned in our pasttimes, so we knuckled under and invested millions in upgrading our forces to take on modern games. When we succeed, you still laugh. I don't understand why.

Looks as though we may want to move up that 1812 bicentennial. Do paintball guns have any sharp edges which may become snagged in one's hairnet?

paint ball "weapons" are entirely fitting for the minions of the Little Satan.

Our big problem with MILES gear was getting the Army guys not to cheat. They'd have one guy take his batteries out & run around drawing fire, we'd go nuts trying to get him and would completely ignore the rest of them. Needless to say we didn't fare too well.

The following is an email forwarded to me a few months ago by a friend, who received it from another friend who is a Canadian military historian. It argues that things have gotten so bad in Canada that the only possible solution is an attempted Canadian invasion of Canada, followed by a swift and sure American victory that would leave Canada enjoying the healthy fruits of American occupation. It's very long but very funny:

[This message was written with full apologies to those friends of mine so unfortunate as to be serving in what is left of the Canadian armed forces]

To My American Friends

Preamble
Further to my note on Canadian politics of last week, recent government decisions leave me shaking my head in despair. More and more, I feel like the Jack Nicholson character in "Easy Rider" who mutters: "this used to be a hell of a good country once, what happened?"

Okay, we have the worst political scandal in Canadian history in full sway, the Liberal minority government is teetering on the edge and there is certain to be an election soon. The last bastion of Liberal support is the greater Toronto area in which about 25-30% of the Canadian population lives. This area is notable for two things: a large immigrant population (60% of the people in Canada's largest city were not born in this country) and North America's second largest gay community (after San Francisco).

These elements are strong Liberal supporters, the immigrants support them because the Liberals have loosened our immigration laws in the last 30 years and the gays support them because the Liberals are pushing gay marriage (although two thirds of Canadians are against it). It should be noted, however, that the two groups dislike each other.

Our immigration laws are so lax and the funding for policing illegal immigrants is so low that we have a real problem in this country -- there are 33,000 persons under deportation orders who have simply disappeared although many are collecting welfare, which immigrants can do, relatively easily.

This has become a matter of concern south of the border, as the United States is at war and has tightened security. An American initiative to declare a common security perimeter (meaning stricter American policies toward visitors or immigrants would be adopted in Canada) was turned down. The result is that the US has, quite reasonably, started to tighten up border controls to the point that, by 2008, Canadians will probably have to have a passport to enter the USA, an unheard of thing and the source of much complaint among the many Canadians who feel that their ability to move freely into the United States is a right, not a prvilege.

This is bad enough, but in the last 30 or so years, the various Liberal governments have gone out of their way to annoy the USA, Canada's largest trading partner and the foundation of 90% of the Canadian economy. The North America Free Trade Agreement was negotiated by a Conservative government in the 1980s, not the Liberals.

At this point, I can say with some justification, that US-Canadian relations are at their lowest point since the signing of the Treaty of Washington in 1871. The divide started under Trudeau in the late 1960s and has continued on with various Liberal governments since then. However, the Liberal response to the 9/11 attack and the war on Iraq and, more recently, the Missile Defence Program, have been nothing short of insulting to the USA. It is not that Canada had to join any of these initiatives, but it did not have to couch its response in anti-American rhetoric that played to Liberal supporters in Canada.

However, to get back to today. The Liberals are desperately trying to cling to power and as part of their platform for the next election have stated that they will actually loosen up our already generous immigration laws. Older people, who cannot work nor contribute nor pay taxes, will be admitted to the country under family unification programs. They will be able to receive medical care (a government responsibility in Canada) and even some form of old age pension (aka Social Security). Younger persons will be permitted in, if they bring money and the time restriction for applying for citizenship is to be lowered from 10 to 3 years. What this means is that more people are going to enter this country who have money (often acquired illegally), or are too old to contribute and will only be a burden on the taxpayer.

Concomitant with this, both the federal and Ontario provincial governments have just embarked on a taxpayer funded new tourism program to promote Canada's wilderness scenery to the gay community in the states. Ads will shortly be run in the states featuring clearly gay couples gazing at the scenery of Lake Louise as the sun goes down. Well, maybe that's okay, because many gays have money.

However, the Ontario government has just announced today that its medical program will fund sex change operations at taxpayer's expense. This was after it removed treatment for autistic children and chiropractic services from the list of medical, etc. programs that would be funded.

Okay, put this all together and what do you get -- an influx of wealthy or not so wealthy gays into Canada, almost certainly to Toronto, attracted by a clearly lenient social atmosphere who will be able to get cheap and easy sex change operations. Along with this influx will come immigrants who are either questionable or too old to be nothing but a burden on the taxpayer who is already burdened enough.

Don't laugh, this mess is just to the north of you and we may infltrate during the night.


The Perfect Solution: War
Things are so bad and seemed to be getting worse that, the more I think about, the more I am convinced that it is time to implement "The Mouse that Roared Scenario" and declare war on the United States with the sole intent of losing and enjoying the benefits of American occupation -- look what the USA did for Japan and Germany -- and look what is happening in Iraq. If the USA occupies Canada, their troops will have to eat Canadian beef (currently banned from import to the USA) and they will have to live in barracks constructed by local labour (which will ameliorate the soft wood lumber dispute) and, since most American service personnel are, to the best of my knowledge, straight, this will bring an influx into Canada of healthy young heterosexuals and the inevitable result will be not only a natural increase in population but closer relations (literally) between the two countries. There may be some problems af first ("Mom, I know she looks like a moose but its only because she's Canadian -- try to get used to her and welcome her to the family") but these can be got around.

We Have a Plan
In actual fact, there does exist in the National Archives of Canada in Record Group 24, a copy of the offensive plan for an attack on the United States and I have seen a copy. Titled Defence Scheme No. 1 and dated April 1921, it calls for fast, lightly armed but highly mobile colums to move across the border and seize key points (Seattle, Portland, Spokane, Syracuse and Fargo, North Dakota?) to set the Americans off guard and then to conduct a fighting retreat back to Canada to buy time until the Royal Navy would be able to threaten the eastern seaboard. Okay, so we have to make some modifications to take into account modern realities but where there is a will, there is a way even if there are no weapons or funds.

Declaring War
The reasons for war need not concern us as the whole point is to go war and lose. I think the American failure to compensate the Loyalists (Tories to you) property losses after the Revolutionary War will serve just as well as any other. Whether it is correct or not, is immaterial.

The best thing to do would be to take a leaf from the Japanese book and launch a surprise air, sea and land attack. We would declare war first, of course, but the actual declaration could be delayed long enough for our armed forces to go into action. The best way to do this would be appoint a French-Canadian special ambassador to go to Washington deliver an ultimatum to the State Department, just in time, but if we choose one who cannot speak either English or French well enough to be readily understood (and our former prime minister, Jean Chretien, springs to mind if he avoids a jail sentence), it would confuse the Americans long enough for the attack to commence but still be strictly legal according ot international law. In the alternate, we could send an email message to the White House which would say, in effect, phone this 1-800 number before a certain time. The number would be an automated Canadian federal government switchboard and anyone who has tried to use one knows that they are in for days of frustration.

By Air
The first step would be an air attack but, since few of our military aircraft or choppers are safe to fly any more and we do not possess any kind of strategic air force, air cover for an invasion is going to be difficult. Also there are almost no stocks of iron bombs in this country but, on a good day, at least 5-6 of our 31 1970s vintage Hecules transports can fly up to 300 miles before being forced to land for emergency repairs. That means we can attack any American city 300 miles from the border.

Since we have a taxpayer supported national airline which does have flyable planes, we might use those. But anyone who has ever flown on Air Canada knows that it is very much like being hijacked by muslim fundamentalists, such is the attitude of the cabin crew. Since our the personnel of our armed forces have a right to be treated with respect, we cannot subject them to Air Canada, that form of torture is reserved for masochistic civilians who pay big bucks to receive it.

However, the point has to be made that we do not want to kill or wound any American citizen so the air attack would commence with our 6 (whoops one just went down so now we only have 5) flyable Hercules bombarding selected American cities with red and white balloons carrying the slogan: "If this was a bomb, you would be dead. Bienvenue au Canada"

By Sea
Meanwhile, two naval task groups (a Canadian naval task group is two warships sailing together) would move down both coasts. We have 12 modern frigates good for anti-submarine work and four air defence destroyers although, nominally, 4-6 ships are in dock for repairs and personnel shortages mean that, at any given time, 4-6 cannot put to sea. However, we should be able to get at least 2-3 on the Pacific Coast and 4-5 on the Atlantic coast. Four of these warships would tow one of our recently-acquired four surplus ex-British submarines which cannot move under their own power and are unsafe to submerge. Under the pretext of a goodwill tour to American ports these naval task forces would enter various major cities prior to the declaration of war and be ready for action.

The problem is what are they going to use as weapons, with the proviso always in mind that we do not really want to hurt anybody as fighting, according to the Liberal regime, is not a recognized Canadian value and the whole point of this war is to lose it.

If we think in terms of paintball technology, the ships would bombard large buildings in American cities with red and white paint shells and trained gunners should be able to splash out a maple leaf emblem on various skyscrapers before they are arrested. I am not sure what the submarines could do but we must not overlook a chance to actually get these shaky vessels into action. Since no Canadian submarine has ever fired a torpedo in anger (and I am not sure we even have a torpedo in stock), I suggest that they could be used as firing platforms for fireworks that would cover the night sky with maple leaves, moose and mountie figures. This, of course, indicates that the perfect time for the attack would be the evening of the 4th of July when the republic is relaxed and many military and police personnel are on leave.

By Land
Here, we have a real problem because most of our military vehicles cannot move more than 30 miles (in fact, I think that is the upward movement restriction on them) and most large scale Canadian troop movements are carried out by bus with the vehicles being shipped by rail. Another problem is that THE TANK is not usually available for combat as it is on a more or less permanent cross-country journey by rail to impress Muslim terrorist intelligence agents. Okay, we do have good rail connections so what we do is load all our military vehicles on trains and cover them with tarps and provide paperwork indicating that they are Canadian-built SUVs entering the US as part of the Auto-Pact between the two countries.

Once across the border, the tarps are removed and the troops go into action. The land attack will oriented toward "Hearts and Minds" so those vehicles capable of firing something (always dicey) will fire either red and white balloon bombs (see naval above) or red and white paintballs against buildings. As the trains (I would figure 6 trains, each with about 30 rail cars which will pretty well carry the entire regular force and all its guns and vehicles) move through American towns and cities, the troops will hand out (or, more likely, throw out as the campaign has to be quick and aggressive) attractive Canadian items (Celine Dion and Shania Twain disks, touques, small bottles of Newfoundland screech, beaver tails (a hot dog in pastry), hockey pucks, Wayne Gretzky bubble gum cards, mountie and moose figuries, t-shirts printed like lumberjack shirts and so on), each with a note attached saying something like: "We apologize for the inconvenience but you have just been conquered by the Canadian army. Merci. Bienvenue au Canada" with a 1-800 number explaining why Canada had to do this, how sorry it is, but assuring everyone that killing is not a Canadian value and urging them to stay calm, to go about their business and not to worry. This message would be repeated in English, French, Spanish and Inuit.

As war is not a Canadian value and is certainly frowned on by the governing Liberal government, we must try and emphasize humanitarian activities. Public Affairs Officers will try and get some of those nifty shots showing tough young Canadian soldiers (the men of JTF 2, the Canadian SAS, would be ideal in this role as they are trained to carry loads of 50 lbs more than a mile) helping elderly persons across crowded intersections. Also, as many Americans do not have health care, we must try and set up some of those cheerful photo-op articles, vizt:

Casualty of War?
Little 6-year-old Tracey Sbrnovitch of Gump's Stump, Oklahoma, smiles bravely through her tears as Canadian Medical Corporal Serge Chartrand from Shawinigan applies a field dressing or bandaid to her skinned knee. Tracey and her parents are happy to be under Canadian occupation as now they can get free medical treatment. Advance elements of the Canadian Army were reported yesterday as having reached the rail yards of Kansas City.

With any luck, if we attack on 4 July, the six assault divisions (or trains) should be able to reach the sun belt states before winter sets in. At which point they can surrender and will therefore be imprisoned in sunny climes -- they might even get a free vacation in Cuba (rather than having to pay for it, as most Canadians have to) and they would not need a special diet as many of the more or less permanent residents of Guantanamo do..

And in the End
We lose the war and immediately surrender (by telephone as long distance is cheaper in Canada). Elements of the Canadian militia (army reserve) which did not have a big role in the actual non-fight can still be mobilized to meet the advance elements of the US army at all major border crossings to offer navigational and translation assistance, particularly in Quebec where French predominates and Toronto where every language but English and French predominates. The Highland units with their pipe bands, always a stirring sight, would be very useful in this connection. Also since the militia personnel can ride on American vehicles we do not have to worry about the problem of not having running military vehicles. Each column could be led by a scarlet-clad mountie on a horse to re-as assure the conquered peoples.

Volumes of intelligence on a selected list of targets and objectives -- known to be frequented by the Muslamic-Chinese-Socialist-Marxist-North Korean-Liberal terrorist coalition that took over Canada by a coup and created this war -- would be furnished to the US forces and they will be tactfully guided toward the head offices of Air Canada, Canada Post Corporation, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and the Liberal Party of Canada -- and told that the inhabitants will never surrender, so don't bother trying to ask them. Then we evacuate a 12 block radius around each building and let the Yanks do what they like to do best. Or we could turn over the CBC building to Fox News as part of our war reparations, that way we get Fox News into Canada and we no longer have to put up with the CBC, arguably the most left wing, most boring television in the English-speaking world, all supported by Canadian taxpayers to the tune of 10 billion US per year.

This being done, Canada will settle down to a lengthy and profitable occupation, the economy will improve, the Liberals will be gone, immigration laws will be tightened up and what's left of this country will be able to get back on its feet, thanks to American greenbacks.

Too Good to be True?
I have this one nagging fear, suppose we declare war on the USA and win? It would be a nightmare not worth thinking about.

Cheers
DG

Whoops, in my preface above, meant to say "attempted Canadian invasion of America." Sorry.

I think Michael Moore already made that movie.

Peter Sellers

I am all for not waiting until Canada makes the first move.

Robert:

Sleep well tonight. Eh?

Robert Schwartz:

Thanks for the link. I had no idea the author was referring to a movie when he said that. I'll have to see the film now.

Matt, as good a scenario as any for my 1812 bicentenniel.

They couldn't storm a sandbox, let alone the beaches of JUNO.

Lou Gots:

The guy who forwarded this to me has written what is widely acknowledged as the leading full-scale account (i.e. covering both the foreign and domestic fronts) of the War of 1812. I'll let him know you approve. He should figure prominently in the bicentennial when it comes around. Maybe he'll get to whisper something in the president's ear...

In cold weather, those suckers sting.

Matt - My nightmare is we go to war with the Canadians, win, and have to let them vote.

Matt:

Thanks for sharing that email! It was quite funny. I like this 'roaring moose' story.

Have you ever been up this way (Michigan/Ohio) to see the sights related to the War of 1812? I would recommend you do some day. It would be worth the trip.

Willis Dunbar's 1965 "Michigan-A History of the Wolverine State" give an excellent account of the war's ebb & flow.

Do you think we would have prevailed had the British not also been fighting Napoleon in 1812/13?

Would the Queen approve of her nation going to war? Oh silly me, she's Queen of Canada in name only. Is a dominion an independent nation or a vassel state?

Dave W. :

I've never been to either Ohio or Michigan but I'd certainly love to go. I'll definitely have to take a look at that stuff whenever I come on up. An old college professor of mine is an expert on the War of 1812 and should be able to provide a great list of sights for me to see whenever I'm in the area.

It's interesting that you ask whether we would have prevailed without the British fighting Napoleon (who was, of course, beaten before the conflict ended). An old professor of mine who wrote the leading account of the war (see above), figures America actually lost because we did not achieve the objectives we set out with. We were not successful in overtaking Canada and although the British stopped impressment, this was a result of Napoleon's demise and not of our own actions. I would guess, though, that we would have been in serious trouble if the British could have focused all their troops on us at the war's beginning. I should ask my old professor what he thinks of that.

pj:

Who said anything about letting them vote? ;-)

pj,

There is no reason if we were to conquer Canada, and this could be done by the Brownies of Staten Island, we would need to keep all of it. Quebec and Acadie could be split off into a kind of France for the slow-witted. The industrial belt from Windsor to Toronto to Ottawa and the Nickel Belt could be split off into a kind of Rust Belt Themepark Nation. The part of BC west of the Cascades could be attached to everything in the US west of the Cascades north from the Bay Area and forcibly separated from the rest of the US.

Everything else could be attached to the US with little muss or fuss, and virtually no change in the American political balance.

why not move all the american lefties north, and any decent canadians south, then seal the border ? it shouldn't be too hard to lure them up there, maybe announce a (bogus) Beatles re-union/Grateful Dead mega-concert, as bait.