For years I have been openly mocking our prime minister. He believes he’s the combined reincarnation of General Douglas MacArthur and Winston Churchill, often touting things like the Canadian victory in the War of 1812, even though Canada wouldn’t exist for another 55 years. Pish posh.

In reality, I have criticized Harper for being an international relations buffoon, something more like Ian McKellen’s Richard III.

But despite having criticized war-mongering Harper [who nevertheless abuses and neglects military veterans and their mental health disabilities] for deciding to buy a bunch of F-35 fighter jets, I shouldn’t have.

I criticized the ill-informed decision. Then when it turned out that he announced the procurement cost while neglecting to include the cost of…the engines…I criticized him for lying to the public.

But as it turns out, Harper has bested me. His commitment to buying these planes without the engines was very smarterer than any of us gave him credit for.

Because the engines are dangerous, don’t you know. Well, we didn’t know. But Harper probably did. The Pentagon has had to ground their whole fleet twice [see below].

So, next time you see me criticizing our Commander in Chief for a moronic military or international relations misstep [like skipping/missing G8 leader photo ops because he’s in the can], please remind me that I misjudged him on the F-35s. Buying them without engines was likely the greatest military decision of this new, young century.

The U.S. military said it had grounded the entire fleet of 97 Lockheed Martin Corp F-35 fighter jets until completion of additional inspections of the warplane’s single engine built by Pratt & Whitney, a unit of United Technologies Corp.

The Pentagon’s F-35 program office, Air Force and Navy issued directives on Thursday ordering the suspension of all F-35 flights after a June 23 fire on an Air Force F-35A jet at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida.

The Pentagon said U.S. and industry officials had not pinpointed the cause of the fire, which occurred as a pilot was preparing for takeoff. The pilot was not injured.

The incident is the latest to hit the Pentagon’s costliest weapons program, the $398.6 billion F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. It followed an in-flight oil leak that triggered mandatory fleetwide inspections of the jets last month.

– from U.S. grounds entire F-35 fleet pending engine inspections