Like the unpopular girl who shows up in a fancy dress to the party where everyone else is wearing jeans, Harper's summit is as embarrassingly overdressed as a trout in a top hat, a turkey in a tuxedo, a toad in a tiara.
Consider this: Canada is spending close to $1 billion in security this year and bringing in 4,500 police. Just last year, Pittsburg's security bill was $12.2 million and used 1,000 police. London spent $30 million the same year.
Meanwhile, the head of CSIS has said that terrorism is unlikely, so there goes the "in this post 9/11 world" canard. You have to wonder, how much property damage are the protesters likely to do? Could it be a billion bucks worth? But wait, there will be no compensation for property damage. Oh well.
So, while Harper overcompensates with a massive show of force to impress his G20 "friends" the city has been transformed into what looks like giant prison camp, with helicopters blackening the sky, groups of police at every street corner, and Zodiacs patrolling the harbour. (I hope no one has any ideas of starting a freedom flotilla to bring food to the residents of Toronto Island.)
And will world leaders be impressed? Or will they see it for what it is - an ugly little man trying too hard to look big.
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Corruption and Military Spending
ReplyDeletehttp://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=879367
Anecdotal evidence relates corruption with high levels of military "security" spending. ..... The empirical analysis is based on data from four different sources for up to 120 countries in the period 1985-98, .... The results suggest that corruption is indeed associated with higher military spending
There is a very strong correlation between corruption and excessive military and security spending.
1.2 billion of unaccounted security spending is truly excessive.