The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - Is a Full Scale Ground Invasion On Hold?

Episode Date: October 23, 2023

Israel has been saying a full scale ground invasion was imminent and while some elements have been underway “full scale” has yet to happen. Why? Janice Stein is with us again with a wide ranging discussion on the latest of what is happening in the Middle East.

And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here. You are just moments away from the latest episode of The Bridge. The latest from Israel and Gaza. What's happening and why, on what might happen. That's coming up with Janice Stein. And hello there, the Monday episode of The Bridge coming your way right now, right here on Sirius XM, channel 167. Canada Talks are on your favorite podcast platform. Well, it has been quite an eventful last couple of weeks in the Middle East, as we well know. And each week, we are now trying to check in with Middle East expert, conflict management expert,

founding director of the Munk School at the University of Toronto, Janice Stein. Janice will be with us in a moment. But I wanted to mention, first of all, you probably saw those images on the weekend of 17 huge semi-trailers, the big trucks going into Gaza, going through the Rafah crossing and thinking, phew, finally, we're getting some relief. Well, yes, that is true. Finally, some relief and more coming, we are told.

But you got to keep things in context on a story like this. 17 trucks. I heard a humanitarian aid worker describe this over the weekend. 17 big trucks like that will bring aid to approximately 3% of the Gaza population. 3% of the Gaza population. 3% for one day. All right?

So you kind of get a sense of just how many truckloads of aid need to come in to Gaza to have an impact. Three chucks is just, just very much a tiny start to that problem. All right. Time to check in with Janice, who has had a busy last week because she's been back and forth between Toronto and Washington. She's got close contact with a lot of the major players in this story. I don't want to overstate it. I mean, it's not like she's sitting down meeting with President Biden or Secretary of State Blinken, but she is down with the next layer below that and having meaningful discussions and talks on a continuing basis.

She is sought after by governments and companies around the world to talk to about various things. And one of her areas of expertise, as I've said before, is the Middle East. So let's get on with our conversation with Janice Stein and bring us up to date on just where we are on this story that has been dominating the news for more than two weeks now. Here she is, Dr. Janice Stein. So Janice, for the last 10 days, the Israelis have been saying a ground invasion is imminent, that it could happen literally within hours. Janice, for the last 10 days, the Israelis have been saying a ground invasion is imminent,

that it could happen literally within hours. For the last 10 days, we've been hearing international pleas for humanitarian aid. For the last 10 days, we've been hearing pleas for hostage release. A little bit of each seems to have been happening, but not a lot of any one of those three things. So I'm wondering, what is your sense? What are you hearing as to what is really going on in the background right now? You're quite right, Peter. The delay in the ground offensive is surprising. I myself thought 48 hours ago. And let me just say why. There are 350,000 mobilized men waiting now for 10 days. Think about an economy that has only 9 million people in it. So if that were the United States, 30 times 350, you would understand the size of the mobilizations pulled. Everybody, and everybody's interesting here too, not the Orthodox whose kids don't go to the army,

but the secular population that is in the high-tech sector and in the entrepreneurial sector, that's shut down functionally because there's nobody there. There's shortages of supermarkets, nobody to drive the trucks. So this is not sustainable. The fact that it's lasted this long is surprising. Why? I think there can only be one explanation, which is they have private information that they're getting from the hostage negotiators. There's always a sense another release is imminent. And once the ground invasion starts, that's a blow. So the two factors you identified, they are pushing in competing directions here. You know, it's not often in the many years that I've known you that I've had the opportunity, I think, to slip in a small correction on something Janice Stein said.

You said 350,000 men. Right. And with Israel, it ain't all men that are in that force, right? You're right. You're right. But, you know, women are mobile. I used to serve in the army, but they are not at the sharp end of the spear. Surprisingly, they're not.

They are, but they're in combat support operations. But if you can see in the pictures, right, even the ones that are sitting there in the tanks, the ones that are in the armored personnel carriers, the bulldozer drivers, not a lot has changed, Peter. Right. They're men. All right. Right behind them are the women. Let me get to this question of the hostage negotiations, because I find it fascinating. You've been warning me and us from the beginning of this

that there were discussions going on in the background. So, like, how does that work? Who are the negotiators? Who's doing the talking? Because the fascinating thing about all these hostages does that work who who are the negotiators who's doing the talking because the thing of the the fascinating thing about all these hostages is many are from different countries including canadians so do all the countries get involved in this or how does it work no no it part of the business is so complex there are over 200 um you know some from Nepal, not to mention Canada, the United States.

So it's tightly managed. So let me just set the scene for a minute about how difficult this is. It's run largely by the Qataris with the United States right behind on one side, the International Red Cross on the other. And the Qataris can do this because they have relationships with everybody. They talk to everybody. And Hamas leaders live partly in Qatar, as we all know. But you have to reach out to the people in Gaza right now, to Hamas leaders in Gaza. How do you do that, Peter?

You can't use a cell phone because no Hamas leader is going to have any electronic device that can then be geolocated and that person's location can be tracked. These are torturously slow negotiations, which have to be conducted almost by sending people who don't have any electronic equipment with them to send messages to people. And so they're very hard to do. And you really focus it in and concentrate it on a very experienced team of negotiators. Number two, it's only Hamas that is holding these hostages. It's also Islamic Jihad that came in behind Hamas that Saturday morning. They are more radical. They have, you know, Islamic Jihad is the group that often fired missiles after Hamas had already agreed to a ceasefire.

So they operate with a considerable degree of autonomy. And from everything we understand now, behind them came some variously described as individuals or criminal gangs that saw an opportunity here to make money by capturing people. It was not a tightly coordinated operation. So this is a nightmare, frankly. So firstly, what progress has been made? They now have a much better list of the people who are hostages. In other words, who were taken across the border and were not killed immediately on the other side of the border. How do they get that? Because they're just covering bodies. And so they're crossing people off the missing list whom they considered as

hostages. I don't think, honestly, despite all the rhetoric, there's a lot of tactical intelligence as to where any individual hostage is. I think there is a tremendous amount of uncertainty about that. And so there's no way to do this, except through Hamas leadership, starting in Qatar, able to send couriers in and exchange messages back and forth. Very interesting that Hamas released two. Because beyond the individual two that were released, that's a signal to everybody. This is possible. To Americans, not a coincidence. To people that were not injured in the attack, that's not a coincidence either. And there have been reports for at least four or five days, Peter, that the next stage will be release of women and children in exchange for Palestinian women prisoners in Israeli jails.

There are 36 and Palestinian teenagers who have been held in Israeli jails as well. You can understand why that is dividing the government in terms of a go forward, because as soon as that ground invasion stops, that's it. Those negotiations are over. You know, I find the way you've described the at least three different groups who could be holding hostages. I find this fascinating, especially that that third group, because they're not threatened to killing anybody because they want to make money. Right. So one assumes they're the most likely ones to make deals the soonest, right? That's right. Because they want the cash.

Yeah. These are valuable assets as long as they're alive. As long as these hostages are alive, they're valuable. How tight are the other two, the first two, Hamas and Islamic Jihad? Did they have a relationship? I mean, they seem to operate differently, as you've suggested, but do they have a relationship on issues like this? They all know each other.

Everyone knows each other. There are real political differences. And Hamas, in the past, has either failed to control Islamic Jihad, or has not tried to control Islamic Jihad and said, well, we can't control these people. It depends whether it's their purposes or not. But I think it's important to not to treat them just as two versions of the same group. Islamic Jihad has autonomy. There's no question they have some autonomy. And then the criminal gangs, who runs them? Where are they right now? How do you get in touch with them, they're the most motivated, but they're probably the hardest right now because they're not as structured. They just saw the opportunity came in. And we know that that happened, Peter.

How do we know that happened? It's interesting because it was looting in the villages where the murders occurred. So it was looting. That was not done by Hamas. That was done by independent groups that came in when the gates were open like that. Okay, before we move on, I just want to touch briefly

on the role of the Qataris, because this is not the first time the Qataris have popped up as a dealmaker in the Middle East. They were very involved in the agreement between the Taliban and the U.S. forces when it was Trump making the deals initially. But that all happened in Doha, the Qatari capital. Where do they fit in this complicated Middle East picture? Who talks with them? Who doesn't talk to them?

The Qataris. So, you know, again, Peter, just to take a step back, Qatar shows us, again, how important it is to have somebody that talks to everybody. You know, in the passions of the moment, countries get labeled. But without the Qataris and the Turkies, who have relationships with literally everybody. So who do the Qataris talk to?

Everybody. They talk to the Iranians. They are not very, very important in all of this. They talk to the Egyptians. They talk to the Saudians. They are not very, very important in all of this. They talk to the Egyptians. They talk to the Saudis. They talk to Hezbollah. They talk to Hamas. They've hosted Hamas leaders for years. You know, they are the Switzerland. They are the modern Switzerland, if we can think about them that way. And we know how important Switzerland was when Europe was at war 100 years. They were so important.

So the Qataris are really important. They are effective messengers. Everybody will talk to them. They can exchange information. They're trusted. They're discreet. They don't out anybody in these processes i call them the mailbox to use an old-fashioned analogy of the middle east but we need countries

that do that we need countries that have this capacity there is zero prospect of any release of the hostages without Qatar involved in this story. They talked to the U.S. Everybody values them. You know, there's a piece in the most current edition of The Atlantic just came out in the last day or so that talks about the Qataris. And their suggestion in this piece is that this is, Qatar playing this role right now on this issue is a huge gamble for them. That could backfire for Qatar.

I don't. You're a tiny. Yeah, go ahead. You know, it's interesting. Why, Peter? Because they're a tiny country, right? They're small. These are these are really small countries.

They're coming. I am. They're coming off a period where the Saudis and the Emiratis, both bigger, both richer than they are, made a decision about five years ago to really go after them. And they went after them because they were accused of supporting, you know, Houthis who fired those missiles this week and who previously had fired missiles against Saudi Arabia. But there was another issue with Qatar, which you're going to appreciate. They're the home to Al Jazeera. Al Jazeera, it was funded, started by the Emir of Qatar and still remains a largely Qatari-supported organization.

Al Jazeera is one of the few independent Arabic-speaking media in the world, and it has a huge audience in the region. And people watch Al Jazeera when they disbelieve their own government's media. And the Saudis had had enough. And they went all out. And they tried. They blockaded Qatar. They pulled out all the stops.

They failed. They failed. They failed, and they were forced into at least a cosmetic resolution of the differences between them, because it's precisely what Qatar does that drives the Saudis absolutely crazy. But for the United States, on the other hand, there's no alternative because the United States doesn't talk to Iran. We don't have an open embassy in Iran. We have no reach into this part of the world, which tells you something about why diplomats matter. Well, you know, this past week, you spent some time in Washington.

And, you know, this past week you've spent some time in Washington. I did. And I'm sure you had your ear to the ground and you were listening closely to the different things you were hearing. So I want to ask you, you know, and I'm not talking about the kind of political debate that goes on in that town that's crazy right now given the whole speaker thing, but among the kind of people you were talking to, what is the feeling on this issue and the feeling towards the position that Biden has put the United States in?

Is there any hesitation there by serious minded people, the kind that you talk to about what's going on and how Washington is involved right now? It's so, you know, Washington is a political town that, frankly, leaks much better than Ottawa. Much better. Yeah, much better place to be, right? Everybody talks. Mind you, they have something to leak. Sometimes you wonder what there is to leak in Ottawa. But sorry, go ahead.

So let's talk about the circle closest to the officials who are actually making the decisions. Right. And I was, again, surprised by what I would call a widespread acceptance that a ground invasion is inevitable. Many of them, there wasn't, now, some, most of these officials are Biden people. They are Biden appointees. And I would say, Peter, that there is a lot of respect for the professionalism of the Biden team itself, that it is very, very, very good. And even those who would not normally tend to be supportive say, look, this is a very, very effective team. You're not getting the sniping that you usually get around competence and execution. So from that perspective, less criticism. What surprised me was really two shifts,

I think, that I could see. One, a ground offensive is inevitable. And all the energy is going in toward moderating that offensive, and they are emphasizing the risks of civilian casualties, and they are pushing very hard on the morning after. What's going to happen in Gaza the morning after, even though that morning can be weeks and weeks long, frankly. So in a curious way, they've crossed the line already. And they are focused now on trying to understand what the next phase looks like. I'm surprised that they moved that fast and shifted the line and are already there. I think they feel Biden has, they're not worried about the immediate political consequences because they are convinced that both Blinken first and Biden have slowed this down.

And I think that's correct. The impulse, the rage, the fury and the fear in Israel is so intense. I've never felt it higher, frankly. And Blinken, there's no question about it. And there are leaks, by the way, by Ronan Bregman, who is, you probably know him, he is very hooked in, and he has a piece in the New York Times today about how Blinken stopped the discussion about a preemptive strike against his malign installations in Lebanon that was very hot three or four days later. So they feel that Biden and Blinken have played a really important role, that they built up political capital there as a result of the political risk they took by going. And in some ways, Peter, they're the indispensable United States again,

because we're all busy with talk of US decline and a multipolar world. But when this broke, there's only one country that could talk to Israel and actually be effective in slowing it down. And there seems to have been some success on the slowing it down aspect of it, that here we are, you know, more than two weeks after the fact, and there has not, I mean, there's been a pummeling of Gaza, let's not kid ourselves. But it hasn't been, you know, the full-scale ground invasion that was expected.

And another success, Peter, is that there has been no escalation in the north. Yes, there's low-level exchange of rockets, but they stopped Israel from going in preemptively. And the United States has also sent messages repeatedly. It sent messages through Qatar, particularly to Iran, over and over and over again. If you get involved, we can't predict where this would end. And you know, they have two big aircraft carriers there, and they have deployable troops. And that's part of the assets that they are using to slow Israel down. Now, how much longer this can go on? I think we're running out of time. But I said that to you three or four days ago. I think we're running out of time now. If there is another major hostage release, Hamas will buy time.

There's no question. But if there is not, I think it is impossible to sustain this level of mobilization for very much longer. And for many of the reasons you mentioned earlier, because it basically shuts down everything else in Israel. Okay, I've got two more questions, but we're going to take a quick break and come right back to deal with them right after this. And welcome back. You're listening to the Monday episode of The Bridge. Janice Stein is with us once again. And we're trying to talk about what's happening in the Middle East and talk to people in Washington and visit them, as you did last week, but you talk to people in the Middle East, you talk to people in Israel. What do you assume is happening around that

cabinet table, which was, as we know right now in Israel, Netanyahu has a coalition government in effect, andanyahu has a coalition government in effect. And it's not all yes, sir, yes, sir around that table, I imagine. So what do you think is happening around that table right now? I think this is a very badly divided government, Peter. There are five in the war cabinet, right? Two former chiefs of staff.

They are making the decisions about the war. And then there is the broader government, which is still in office, but excluded from all decision-making around the war. So think of it dysfunctional. That is. Secondly, I think they're... And why is this cabinet, the war cabinet, divided?

You have a badly wounded prime minister. You don't want to go to war with a badly wounded prime minister who was trying to save his own reputation, who still, from everything I understand, fantasizes that he, with a success, with a dramatic victory, he can deflect the blame for what happened. I think that is complete fantasy, but it doesn't matter. It's a very dysfunctional kind of leadership to have in war.

Take that down a level. This was a failure by the Army. It was an intelligence failure, but it was also a defensive failure. The Army did not get there for 10 to 12 hours that morning, and that's all you hear in the public. The army failed us. The army failed us. There's never been the level of criticism and shock and bewilderment among the general public. I've never seen anything comparable to that because of that big gap once the attack started and people were left

to fight for themselves. Now, chief of staff, the commanders, they know they failed. They've apologized. They've accepted responsibility, but they're motivated too to restore their reputation. And so that is part of what to me is an unhealthy situation because how do you restore your reputation? You do that in battle. So the push for battle is in part an emotional push as well as a strategic push. So my next comment is there's not a lot of discussion about what comes after.

That is being done by outside powers. I don't think this war, the ground invasion, when it comes, I don't think there's a set of strategic goals. There's tactical goals, but there's not a set of strategic goals. There's not the sense of what do we actually want to accomplish and how do we leave? Because if you start a war, it's all too easy to get into it, but it's very difficult to get out of it. And we saw this in Bush, I thought was very effective when he said this. The United States went into Iraq in 2003. Very easy to get in. Broke the Iraqi army.

Had no serious plan to stand up an alternative. And in fact, to be honest here, Peter, Israel cannot stand up an alternative in Gaza. It has no legitimacy. It has no legitimacy. It has no credibility. And the other interested countries, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, the United States are way behind. There's a huge lag because of these fast moving events to get the politics done, which we'll talk about what happens after. The United States in in a funny way, is furthest along here. And so what do I hear?

And I'm completely unpersuaded by what I hear. Let me just say that. But what do I hear? International trusteeship for Gaza. What does that mean? The United Nations? Well, they could declare it. You know, the funding is probably not a problem,

but there is a big gap in these arguments. Who's going to enforce it? Why do people assume there will not be Hamas insurgency when this is over? Who has legitimacy in Gaza? It would have to be a Palestinian, frankly. You know, a Palestinian leader. Where's the Palestinian leader that would have legitimacy in Gaza so that Hamas would not be able to gain traction afterwards in an insurgency.

There was a meeting in Cairo on Saturday. Our foreign minister was there. Many were. It ended without a communique. Okay, doesn't that tell you something? No agreement. A lot of the speeches were ritual. This is heavy lifting, huge risks for anybody that's going to put their hand up.

People talk about the Palestine Authority reasserting its control over Gaza. It lost that control in 2006. If you know a bus, Ha, has never submitted himself to an election since 2006, lost the confidence of West Bankers, that's not credible, frankly. So I see no credible plan in place, despite all the conversations for the morning after. And starting a war without a plan for the morning after is a recipe for failure. It sure is. And, you know, we've seen it before. But, you know, what is so difficult to accept

is that, you know, for basically all of our lifetimes, certainly for the lifetime of Israel, we've seen this movie play out over and over again in different versions, but it always ends the same way. There's no solution that seems acceptable to everybody. And it just leads to a path to yet another conflict at some other point down the road. It's very, very difficult to look at.

Just one thing on Netanyahu. Does he have any support in Israel? Like, is he the only one left who feels he should be prime minister? Yeah. Look, I think in his old party, right, which is the Likud, which is a, I think there's a recognition. This was an unprecedented failure. It's the biggest strategic failure.

You know, people talk about the war in 1973 when there was strategic surprise and 2,500 soldiers were killed and 10,000 wounded in that war. But where was it fought, Peter? It was fought along the canal and in the Golan Heights. It wasn't fought within the green line, the armistice borders, and it didn't target civilians. This is of a different order in terms of shaking confidence in him. So I think in his party, he has very limited support. The best indicator is ministers from his government, civilian ministers that went to visit people injured in the hospitals were chased out.

Literally chased out by families who are beyond anger at what happened and want this government gone. I think he, you know, he believes that he can rise above this. I think there's, I will go out on a limb, I think there's no way he survives this. It may take a commission of inquiry if he doesn't have the sense to go before. But I think he's finished and having a prime minister who's finished and struggling to redeem himself politically as a key decision maker in a war that has this much risk is frankly, it's a nightmare. You know, it's the,

the Middle East analyst graveyard is filled with people like you and I who figure he can't survive. And that's happened many times before, right? He's been prime minister off and on since the mid-1990s. There's always been some issue that comes up that you say he's finished. He'll never get back in the prime minister's office, and yet there he is. You know, Peter, what have been the issues, though? Corruption.

For sure, though? Corruption. That's for sure. Right. A huge scandal with respect to buying German submarines where it is alleged that there were bribes and payoffs. You know, versions of that. They're not of the same order of magnitude of this. You know, what do Israelis expect? What's the basic contract with the state? One thing, protect the civilians inside the country. They failed.

And then they didn't show up. And if you look now, there is, and this is the result of this last year where he, you know, enabled a process on judicial reform that served his own narrow political interests. The forensic investigation, which, you know, taking DNA from dead people and matching them to videos, it's being done by civil society organization. Medical care for people that are injured,

being done by volunteers. So you see this paradox that civil society has stepped up and taken over state functions. The collapse is not only in the army and that defensive field, the state collapsed. That's what happens when you polarize a country, when you try to eviscerate the fundamental institutions, courts that people understand as key to democratic process. There's a huge price to be paid. And the ultimate price, Peter,

was the misreading by Iran and Hezbollah. And I've seen those translated intercepts in which they saw democratic protest on the streets as weakness and the opportunity to do some version of what actually happened. Who's responsible for all of this? This is a prime minister that should go, frankly. Yeah. Well, remember in 1939, well, I guess it was 1940, when Chamberlain was still prime minister in Britain, and what did they yell from the one side of the opposition benches,

or it might have even been the government benches, go, just go. And that's when Chamberlain left and Churchill came in. That's a feeling in the country, right? I'll just say one last thing before we call it a day on this one. And it addresses your point that you were making earlier, how this just seems so unbelievable that this could have happened on October 7th. I don't know whether you watch the series Fauda,

which is an Israeli television program, and it's like one of my favorite programs ever. It's high drama. It's pretty brutal. But it's written and produced by two fellows. One guy was a journalist covering many conflicts between Israel and different Palestinian groups. And one of the Israeli commandos from that time.

He's the star of the show, and he's one of the fellow producers. They gave an interview in the last couple of days saying that in the last season, they had been submitted an idea for a script for a show that had Hamas members breaking out of gaza getting through the wall and taking over a kibbutz and and having you know you know a terrible situation unfold in front of them and they had to go and finish it they rejected the script because they said that had never happened couldn't't possibly happen. Not with our Army.

People wouldn't believe it. And so they didn't do it. And now they're looking at that tenfold in terms of what has happened. Janice, as always, I wish the topic was a more pleasant one of these days to talk about, but unfortunately it isn't right now. But your insight on this is really helpful to all of us, so we appreciate it, and we'll talk to you again next week. Dr. Janice Stein from the Munk School at the University of Toronto,

Middle East expert, conflict management. She does it all, and she's well regarded, well respected all over the world, not just inside our own country. So it's great to have Janice with us as we try to, you know, understand this story week by week. And here we are now, well into our third week of this situation. All right, enough on that. Janice will join us again next week for the latest in terms of her thoughts of where we are. Before we leave today, a couple of points I want to make out. I've mentioned a number of times that my new book, co-authored with my good friend Mark Boguch.

We did Extraordinary Canadians together, you may recall, about three or four years ago. And this year, the book that's coming out under our names is called, what's it called? Are you ready? What do I hear out there? How Canada Works, right? How Canada Works comes out November 21st. I will do a 10-day or so book tour in different parts of the country after that,

nearing the end of November and early December as we head into the holiday shopping season. And I'm not going to go everywhere in the country. I'm not going to visit every bookstore, but I am going to go to eight or ten different places as far east as Halifax and as far west as Calgary and many points in between. So that'll take place, and I'm going to put my on my Instagram account and my Twitter account in the next

couple of days where exactly the tour is going but also you can go to my website thepetermansbridge.com thepetermansbridge.com and you'll see information about the new book and also just where the tour is going so you can see information about the new book and also just where the tour is going. So you can find that on the website. Second point that I'd like to make, I've had a relationship for some time with National News Watch.

I don't know whether you are familiar with it. It's what they call a news aggregator, but it specializes in stories out of the nation's capital, out of Ottawa. It's very political in terms of its focus. Everything from the daily Ottawa news to columns and opinion pieces and polling information, it's all in there.

All right. I'm starting a weekly newsletter on National News Watch that is available to everybody free. It's just like this podcast. It's free. So you can get it that way. But you have to sign up. So if you go to nationalnewswatch.com, okay?

Nationalnewswatch, one word,.com, slash newsletter. You'll get all the information you need on it, and you can subscribe. It takes maybe 10 seconds. And then it will start popping up in your inbox Saturday mornings, first thing Saturday morning, it'll be there. And it's the whole idea is it's kind of a weekend read. It's pieces that I've seen in different periodicals and some of my own general thoughts on stories

that I think are worth reading. Everything from opinion pieces to analysis to, you know, straight-up news. So you can see that. I pick, each week I'll pick, you know, about a half a dozen different pieces that I think are worth reading, at least I've found worth reading. And as I said, some thoughts of my own. So there you go. That's where to go to find out the information on the new newsletter.

And I hope you enjoy it. So don't be shy. You can go there right now. The first one was just this past weekend. Nationalnewswatch.com slash newsletter. All right. Okay, that's it for this day. Tomorrow, another special program.

Samantha Nutt, the head of War Child Canada, right? Warchild.ca. She's just back from another trip to the Middle East. She was in Yemen, dangerous country, and Jordan, as this whole news was hitting from Israel and Gaza. Sam Nutt has lots to say

about all this, and I think you're going to want to hear it. So it's kind of a powerful one-two punch coming out of the gate this week. Janice Stein today and Sam Nutt tomorrow. Wednesday, Smoke Mirrors the Truth. Bruce will be by. Thursday, your turn.

Cards and letters, please. The Mansbridge Podcast at gmail.com. The Mansbridge Podcast at gmail.com. That's where to send your thoughts on whatever you're hearing on the bridge. And the Random Ranter will be by on Thursday as well, as he usually is. Friday is Good Talk with Chantel and Bruce. That's it for today. I'm Peter Mansbridge.

Thanks so much for listening. Talk to you again in 24 hours. Thank you.