NYT -
"By MONICA DAVEY
Published: October 16, 2006
GRAND HAVEN, Mich., Oct. 10 — Even in autumn, the cold, silent expanse of Lake Michigan defines this town, where pleasure boats glide into harbor, fishermen wait patiently for salmon and tourists peer up at the lighthouse.
But the United States Coast Guard has a new mission for the waters off of these quiet shores. For the first time, Coast Guard officials want to mount machine guns routinely on their cutters and small boats here and around all five of the Great Lakes as part of a program addressing the threats of terrorism after Sept. 11.
And, for the first time in memory, Coast Guard members plan to use a stretch of water at least five miles off this Michigan shore — and 33 other offshore spots near cities like Cleveland; Rochester; Milwaukee; Duluth, Minn.; and Gary, Ind. — as permanent, live fire shooting zones for training on their new 7.62 mm weapons, which can blast as many as 650 rounds a minute and send fire more than 4,000 yards.
The notion is so unusual that it prompted United States diplomats to negotiate with Canadian authorities in order to agree that it would not violate a 189-year-old treaty, signed after the War of 1812, limiting arms on the Great Lakes...
...Despite complaints from some charter boat captains, environmental groups and city leaders around the Great Lakes, the Coast Guard defended the need to mount M-240B machine guns on its boats and to test fire them two or three times a year in “safety zones,” about 70 square miles each.
“The Coast Guard has looked at an increased terrorist threat since 2001,” Rear Adm. John E. Crowley Jr., commander of the Coast Guard district that oversees the Great Lakes, said in a telephone interview. “I don’t know when or if something might happen on the Great Lakes, but I don’t want to learn the hard way.”
Some members of the Coast Guard assigned to law enforcement duties always carried weapons, but most of those were personal semiautomatic pistols. Since the arrival of the boat-mounted machine guns, the Coast Guard has conducted 24 training sessions on the lakes this year, although it has halted the exercises temporarily after news of the program seeped out last month and, with it, a barrage of objection..."
R
Did anyone ever watch that show on Fox called "Millenium"? The more I see stories like this, the Iraq war, post-9/11 actions, and everything else, it makes me wonder if Chris Carter knew something about this new century that we didn't. Interesting! 
Indeed, U.S. forces have alread killed a number of Canadians in Afghanistan. CBC article from September 4, 2006.
QUOTE
Two U.S. aircraft mistakenly fired on a Canadian platoon taking part in NATO's massive anti-Taliban operation in southern Afghanistan on Monday, killing one soldier and injuring dozens of others.
* * *
It isn't the first time that Canadian troops have died in so-called friendly-fire incidents in Afghanistan.
* * *
. . .the friendly-fire case that created the greatest controversy and outrage in Canada came in 2002, when a U.S. fighter jet mistakenly dropped a bomb on Canadian forces as they conducted a training exercise.
The bomb killed four Canadians from the Edmonton-based Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry and wounded eight others.
* * *
It isn't the first time that Canadian troops have died in so-called friendly-fire incidents in Afghanistan.
* * *
. . .the friendly-fire case that created the greatest controversy and outrage in Canada came in 2002, when a U.S. fighter jet mistakenly dropped a bomb on Canadian forces as they conducted a training exercise.
The bomb killed four Canadians from the Edmonton-based Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry and wounded eight others.
QUOTE
. . .the friendly-fire case that created the greatest controversy and outrage in Canada came in 2002, when a U.S. fighter jet mistakenly dropped a bomb on Canadian forces as they conducted a training exercise.
The bomb killed four Canadians from the Edmonton-based Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry and wounded eight others.
And where were those pilots based? The bomb killed four Canadians from the Edmonton-based Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry and wounded eight others.
*drum roll*
Springfield, Illinois. Trust me, this issue did not go about lightly in Canada or central Illinois. It was big news for a few years.
UCLA: I loved Millenium.
They want to start shooting up my beloved beach in Gary Indiana? Sorry guys, we have plenty of gunfire in Gary, Indiana without any help from the Coast Guard. We don't need your stinkin' bullets! I know the list is growing shorter, but is there any country on this planet that we have yet to piss off? What a foreign policy! What a winner of an administration!
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