ONLY IN CANADA
It certainly isn’t news that Canada’s aging leopard tanks arn’t going to be of much use to our troops in Afghanistan’s hot summer. Their lack of air conditioning turns them into metal ovens in the blazing Afghan desert, which can reach temperatures of over 50 degrees Celsius in the summer.
Unfortunately for us the tanks aren’t too much good in the winter either. Enemy troop movement in the winter drops dramatically, because freezing nighttime temperatures make it too cold for the nomadic Taliban troops to sleep outside.
So the Canadian military has come out with a distinctly Canadian solution. We are going to ‘borrow’ - or more accurately lease - better tanks from Germany. While this proposition has a ridiculous ring to it, it actually isn’t quite as stupid as it sounds.
The German tanks are just to replace our existing fleet until we can deploy some of the 100 used tanks that we plan to buy from the Netherlands, new tanks being clearly out of the question. All in all, the entire deal should cost us $650 million - and what little is left of our pride.