Dear editor,Winston Churchill, no stranger to folly himself, nevertheless had occasional fits of wisdom.Churchill once said that most men stumble across the truth but then pick themselves up and walk away.Complaining, the English call it whinging, whining, is what we call someone else's concern. A baby for a bottle, a citizen for some sanity, a taxpayer for accountability, history is replete with humanities inability to empathize, to consider another's point of view. To compare eagles with hornets, jet planes with a bird, to put to much stake in our need to prepare for an aeronautic Armageddon is hyperbolic and a little absurd. To juxtapose loopy jets against cutting services for vets, as an argument 鈥� it's not very a strong one.Nine pretty Snowbirds flying in formation, is it unpatriotic to ask what this operation is costing our nation? Nine pilots (at least), nine ground crew, winter storage, and summer billets, fuel at least triple the price of 2002. I bet the cost is more than a pension or two.I may be wrong but I believe we have just come through the kind of financial crisis that occurs about as regularly as world wars do, and that almost all our governments are struggling with deficit, too. The federal government is cutting the Department of Veteran Affairs staff at the end of Canada's longest war; isn't the end of a war when veterans might be most numerous and most in need? Why would they do this, why would they cut short, shoot down the support of our service people? Could the motive be as base as money? That's right, the generals and the ministers, in pursuit of the sinister, thought it was a good idea for our forces to invade Kandahar driving the Iltis, a glorified Volkswagen Thing. They think that risking pilots' lives in decrepit, after-burning barnstormers makes our nation strong.Is it at all possible that the generals might be wrong?If I said that the Snowbirds cost $20 million a year, is that a wild speculation? Multiply it by a decade and it becomes $200 million. And the price goes up every year.Just to get this straight this is not about noise and I'm not whining, just wondering, pondering, and perhaps baffled enough to pose the question. Just what are these demonstration teams worth?And to the neo-lemming chorus that calls almost any question seditious, I find your jolly justifications comically delicious. Attacking the messenger is as old as time; it seems to tickle us humans like the rush of rhyme.I'm only asking as a proud taxpayer, I've put my money on Canada almost since I've had any worth. If reluctant sometimes, it's only because I suspect the governments' appetite for my money.It's hard to get figures from the Department of National Defence because as usual our government employs stealth when they are spending our taxed wealth.For instance, how much do they pay to train a cadet glider pilot? Isn't this something private flight schools could do, and perhaps cheaper? Why does our anti-HST populace buy it?In a century where we have drones that fly themselves 24/7 in the skies over Afghanistan, kill Al-Qaeda leaders in Pakistan, with a tap on a keyboard; drones can be bought at the Source with a credit card, unless your credit is due.Steve Hodge,Comox
