The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - Remembering D-Day While Waiting For The War To End In Iran

Episode Date: June 1, 2026

We start our weekly Monday conversation with Dr. Janice Stein of the Munk School at the University of Toronto, with another segment on the war in Iran - will it ever end?  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here. You're just moments away from the latest episode of the bridge. It's June 1st. It's a Monday. That means Dr. Janice Stein is here. Lots to discuss. Iran, Russia, the Caribbean, and D-Day. It's all coming right up June 1st.

Feels good. Do you do anything special on a first day of each month? I try to remember to say white rabbits was supposed to give you good luck. It's got to be the first thing you say. Technically, it's supposed to be the first thing you even think. But at least if when the words come out of your mouth, they're white rabbits, then you're supposed to get good luck. Seems to work for me on the months I remember, which aren't a lot.

But there are some, and I did remember today, so that's all good. Dr. Janice Stein coming your way in a few minutes' time, but as always on Mondays, we'd like to do a little housekeeping first, on that housekeeping usually revolves as it does today around giving you the question for Thursday's your turn. And I think this one might prove to be interesting.

We'll see how you feel. There's a lot of discussion these days about Canadian identity, right? It's in the news because of, well, because of the referendum situation in Alberta, because of talk of another referendum in Quebec, and because a lot of other places in the country are interested in both those stories.

So Canadian identity is going to be our issue of the week, and the question is this, how do you identify yourself first? Do you identify yourself as a Canadian? Or do you go with your province? Are you an islander? Are you a Quebecer? Are you, uh, Albertan first?

Or perhaps you identify regionally. I'm a Western Canadian. I'm a Maritimer. Or is it your city? I'm a Vancouverite. I'm a Torontoian. I'm a Montrealer. A Calgarian.

Or perhaps you think of yourself in terms of your heritage. Chinese Canadian, African or Caribbean Canadian, Scottish Canadian, or some other way entirely. You may think of yourself in many different categories, but how do you think of yourself first and why? Okay. So that's the question. How do you identify yourself first and why do you do it that way? That's your question for this week? you have until Wednesday, Wednesday at 6 p.m. Eastern time to get your answers in.

Oh, actually, we're going to move it up. 3 p.m. Eastern time, because, you know, the hour difference and everything over here where I am in Scotland this week. So 3 p.m. Eastern time on Wednesday is the cutoff time. And here are the conditions you have to follow. 75 words or fewer, send it to the Mansbridge Podcast at gmail.com, include your name and the location you're writing from. You have to make all those categories, all those conditions. And we'll have a look and we'll see whether we can make a show out of this.

There's your question for this week. All right, let's get to the program. there's a lot of interesting stuff in this program today in this discussion, as there always is with Dr. Janice Stein. But I like this one because it's an interesting week to have this discussion. So let's get at it. Here she is this Monday with Dr. Janice Stein. So I want to start on Iran again.

You know, they say it's really interesting. They say the ceasefire is whole. This at the same time, you got the Americans dropping bombs in Iran. You've got the Iranians sending drone strikes into Kuwait. You've got Israel still pounding Lebanon, taking territory in southern Lebanon. Seasfires holding, but people are dying. What are we supposed to make of this? So when people say this all the time, and these ceasefires have this history,

that they're almost always violated. Right before they're signs, it's usually the worst period. And then you get this up and down like an erratic heartbeat. If you think about one of those graphs, there's more, there's less. And so they say this because what they mean as, well, the parties to the ceasefire are using some force, some coercion, to get better terms at the table. but as soon as we get the final deal done, this will stop.

But when you see a consistent pattern of the acts of force are actually growing, it's really difficult to argue that there's a meaningful ceasefire. Does this pattern of, and we're seeing, you know, increasing acts of violence. But what we're not seeing yet is a return by the United States or Iran. Less true, by the way, on the Lebanese between Hezbollah and Israel, that's turning into a continuous pattern. You really be stretched to say there's any ceasefire there at all, Peter, it's not holding. But between Iran and the United States, nobody said we're going back to war.

and after each incident you get a low. So that's the other measure that people look at. You have an incident. Does it immediately lead to a spiral up or is there a pause between incidents? This is gray zone talk, frankly, all of it. And decision makers, policy makers tend to say it when they really don't want to go back to war. But why isn't a real? Iran, you know, racing to a deal?

It's, you know, Iran believes there's no question about it. When you read the statements by people like their speaker, Ghalibha and others who are speaking out more often now, they believe they've won this war. They believe they've humiliated the United States. They believe they've withstood and not only have. they withstood the pounding, but they come out with an enormous strategic asset, which is they can block at any time in the future, they can blockade the straight of hormones.

And so for them this is, it's very clear. They feel this is a victory. They have momentum. And they do not believe that Donald Trump will await them, that he has the patience. to do it. They think the midterms are going to push him to make concessions at the table. And they're absolutely convinced that the longer they delay this,

Peter, the better the terms that they're going to get. And they have a history of being able to wait. There's a term for this called strategic patience. They have strategic patience, the Iranians. Even though I think, frankly, that's not accurate, their assessment. It's not accurate. On the other side, Donald Trump just toughen the terms. The leaks were what we have an agreement,

and Mushda Bahamini has signed off on it, which is one of the things that Donald Trump insisted on. He was going to be the first to sign. who knows if that's true or not. But there was a deal. It came to the White House. There was a national security meeting and a cabinet meeting. He toughened the terms, which tells me he's under domestic political pressure.

Because in that first round, there was no specific commitment by Iran to giving up the highly enriched joanna, which is now for him. Because he said it so often. Now for him, the minimum. And so he sent it back. It's gone back now. But he's doing it for a second reason. And he's saying this all the time,

you believe I can't wait you out. You believe that I care about the midterms? No, I don't care about the midterms. He's saying this publicly all the time. Now, you're reading me wrong. I don't care about the midterms. terms, I will weigh you out. That's what the competition is now between the two of them.

Who, alas, who can outweigh the other is what we're seeing? You know, I, you know, I've heard that Trump saying that I don't care about the midterms, but I heard John Bolton, John Bolton over the weekend and, you know, you only take a certain amount of what John Bolton says, but nevertheless he didn't say that's all he cares about is the midterms. You know, he cares about the midterms, and he cares about the price of gas and how those two issues are linked. Just getting back to Iran in its positioning, you know, I get what you're saying. I also, you know, I can appreciate some of those arguments the Iranians are making about how they've actually bettered the U.S. on this. But there are countries in ruins.

you know, they've got to rebuild their country at a certain point. They can't do that without this war kind of officially ending. I think that's, you know, that's why I said, Peter, I don't think that they're reading it, or I don't think what they're saying

is actually reflective of the pressure they're under. And I think the pressure is much, much greater on them than they're willing to. to acknowledge in public. First of all, there is huge pressure on them because they're going to run out of oil storage. They're really, what does that mean? They're pumping oil from their wells.

Normally that would go out the strait. They can't get it out now. Where they store the oil. They're storing it on old tankers near Carg Island. they only have a limited number of those and then you really face a serious dilemma when you shut the wells down you do a lot of damage,

a lot of damage to the infrastructure and it can take years afterwards to restart the pumping of the oil from the wells. They are really weeks a month, six weeks, depending on how many tankers they can find to store away from that. So there's pressure on the Iranians as well. There's really immediate issue of what are they going to do with their oil without damaging their infrastructure.

And they need oil exports. That is the only way they can earn hard currency in the near future. Because as you just said, everything else is in ruins. They're a petrochemical industry. your steel industry. They've got agricultural exports that they can put on trucks, which is what they're doing, but that's not going to be enough.

So I think there is a lot of, there is a lot of, you know, this is high noon. This is what it is. It's high noon theater that we're watching if it weren't so serious. You know, two gunslingers in the main street of a town and everybody else. Heights and it's it's not who draws first. It's who can say standing longest.

But they're both under terrible pressure here. You know, I saw a really interesting map over the weekend. It was put out by the BBC. And it deals, you know, on the one hand, the Americans say they've hit 30,000 targets in Iran since they started a few months ago. Now, I don't believe anything the Americans say, and I don't believe anything the Iranians particularly say. That's a really good place to start.

But, I mean, there's no question that there have been more hits against the Iranians than there have been against the Americans, wherever the Americans happen to be or their partners or allies. But this map that the BBC put out was really interesting because it's, and they've verified this, They say that during the war, that's up to and including this past weekend with that hit in Kuwait. But during the war, there have been 20 different confirmed hits against American military bases in the Gulf region. And when you look at the map, that means every single country in the Gulf region.

Oman, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Bahrain, Kuwait, Iraq, and Jordan as well. Now, that has never been conceded by the Americans about damage to their operations. I mean, we knew as a result of the death toll in one of them, and I can't remember which of those countries it was in. But 13 Americans were killed on an American base in the Gulf. in the first day, yeah. On the very, you're right, on the first day. But that, it's a pretty amazing map because it shows what the Iranians are capable of doing

to reach out and not just hit across the waters of the Gulf, but deep into Jordan, deep in and north into Iraq, into Saudi Arabia, and over on the Arabian Sea and Oman. You know, that's that, along the straight of Farmuz, those are the two what, again,

what the military experts, we call us asymmetrical deterrence, right? Iran is the weaker party. There's no question about it. But what did it do during this war leveraged two assets, hitting every U.S.

base in the region in Gulf states and beyond, as you said, Jordan and of course Israel or you know during those first six weeks but the real impact came from hitting those U.S. bases not because the damage is so great although there's considerable damage PR I've seen reports U.S. military infrastructure in Gulf Arab states there's considerable damage these are not just random pinpricks these are real hits that took place but that's not so much the issue as it has driven home to U.S. allies. There's a cost to hosting a U.S. base.

We thought that hosting a U.S. base would provide security. In fact, it's made us targets. Because most of the strikes, not all, but most of the strikes against Saudi Arabia, the Emirates, Dubai, were against bases. they went but you know again if you're in Dubai and the hotels were hit which they were those are not basic civilian infrastructure was hit it it's hard to draw the lesson that being an American online makes you more vulnerable but that's the that was the purpose of those hits and there is there is you know the the big losers in all of this so far are the smaller Gulf states, whose economy totally dependent on attracting investors because it was so safe.

And it was attractive because they were energy rich. They were safe. They had relationships with the royal families. All that's gone, frankly, as this continues. So I don't think Donald Trump is thinking much about that. But that is a real loss for the United States. that it's most important allies in this part of the world, you know, along a waterway that still exports 20 to 25% of the world's energy,

depending on what you're counting, that they're now looking at this, they're standing back, and they're saying, what's the future for us? It's not with Iran, given that Iran did this to it. Robert Kagan, whom you brought up last week, you know, said this weekend, Iran is the new regional power in this part of the world. These smaller states have no choice now but to make a deal with Iran. I'm dubious because there's all kinds of rifts there.

There's religious risks. They're furious that they're attacked. But it's not clear any longer that the United States is their most valuable ally, either given that Trump has not been able to stop these attacks. That's what you have a bigger brother for, to show up. You know, it's amazing that we would even discuss that possibility. You know, if you thought that first weekend that that was possible, that we'd end up discussing it this way, never would have.

You see, and never would. And that's why the Iranians say they want. Because that's the conversation now. So they were able to weaponize these two assets. Everybody knows now Iran can walk in and blockade that straight. Now, would they do it again short of an absolutely existential threat? It's costly to them. They can't get their wallet.

It's costly to the Iranians, to have antagonized, you know, everybody in the Gulf, everybody who are looking at the Iranians and saying, God save us from neighbors like this, because that's what you hear. So there are cause to what the Iranians have done, but mostly their economy is close to collapse, Peter. And that's why this huge effort in the talks, what are the talks really?

What's the back and forth about between Iran and the United States when you really strip away. They're arguing about a, you know, five-page document. They're arguing about the words. What is it? First of all, the Iranians want assets, financial assets, that have been frozen, their money that has been frozen for the last umpteen years under a sanctions regime.

Return now because they're so desperate for hard currency. That's why that's demand. number one, because the economy is, as you readily put it, shattered. And Donald Trump wants a commitment that the highly enriched uranium will leave Iran so that he can say we want. Those are the two things. I still think the Iranians are playing with Trump on the nuclear stuff. well

you know the prediction you know I think he he overstated the situation when he eventually got around to using it as the excuse for attacking Iran because it wasn't at the beginning but when he decided that's the only thing that's actually working

with the American people they get it on nuclear then I think he overstated what they had and they're playing him on it the predictions are predictions are. Now again, you know, never take an expert prediction to the bank is all I can say. Or mine, anything that I predict. Don't take it anywhere.

But that we're going to get some framework agreement in the next week or so. And then the negotiations, Iran will drag out once those assets are unprosen, those nuclear negotiations will take not a month, not two months, they'll take years. So that is entirely consistent with what you just said. You know, two people spoke out over the weekend on kind of where we are and all this. Two people who we listen to, I mean, John Bolton, who I mentioned earlier, who has his own particular history. And your old friend Jake Sullivan, Biden's advisor and was a,

instrumental in the 2014 deal. Yeah. Along with Wendy Sherman. Wendy Sherman. Wendy Sherwin. Anyway, I found it really interesting because Bolton, who has always been, his positioning on Iran has always been crush him. You know, you've got to crush him. Yeah. Bolton slammed the deal that we kind of looking at now, the shape of the deal.

And he called it a big defeat for the United States. that there's nothing in this that works for the U.S. That this whole thing has been... A disaster. Yeah, has been a disaster. Sullivan's a little different. He's saying what we're looking at now, because of the disasters of the last three months,

maybe the best deal of a series of very bad outcomes. And I think deep down, he doesn't think that the deal they're going to get is as good as the deal he had for Biden with Wendy Sherman. So what do we make of these two extremes? Is there anything similar in what these two guys, where real opposites are saying? So, Peter, I don't know what crushed the memes. I've never known what crushed them. the needs. I think we're John Bolton and there are a lot of others like him in the United States

miss the point. You cannot get any kind of deal around the nuclear issue in Iran. You cannot unless there's a political agreement. And that's where John Kerry and Jake Selt and Wendy Sherman were completely right. What, you know, the people who stand, on the sidelines in Snipe. And John Bolton was a critic of that deal from the moment it was signed. He's not new to this. And there was criticism

because there were assets, financial assets, returned to Iran under that deal as well. And one of the reasons the Iranian signed it was because they were hoping that an investment would come to Iran. Even then their economy was an issue. And that's what people like Donald

Trump slammed and John Bolton, you know, and John Bolton was saying even then, crush them. You can't crush a country of 90 million people. It is a very, look at that map on the other side. All of that is Iran. You know, we have a small state on the Gulf, the big one of Saudi Arabia and Iraq, but on the other side, it's only one big country with 100 million people in it. What does it mean? them. You only crush

if you're willing to go to all out war and occupy. We've seen how well that works in Iraq, right? We've seen that movie. And that was never on the table here. Donald Trump would not put one American military fighter on the ground

in all of this. Not one. So it's a meaningful, it's absolutely meaningless to say crush them. Well, if you're not going to crush them, then the only reason you use force is to negotiate a political deal at the end of it. So it is worse, just politics by other means. It's all about the negotiation that comes at the end of it. And that's where all these mistakes were made, frankly.

And what does Donald Trump want to walk away from the table here? One thing, I got a better deal than Obama. That's what I really believe he cares about. He's got to get a better deal. And that's why Jake Sullivan, who was a big part of that first deal, is probably saying under his breath, he's not going to get it.

That's not, he's not going to get it. There is a competition. Even there between the people who did the first deal, painstaking, took tremendous criticism from Donald Trump and others like him and now are looking at this and saying he's not going to get a better deal. Now, I think there's a slim chance they might, but it depends on one thing. And that's not in this framework agreement, Peter.

It's not there. And the one thing that could enable Donald Trump to Alquine's hair got a better deal, if Iran agrees to pause enrichment activities. Again, I mean, they paused it under Obama. But that pause was ending, right? They didn't pause. You see, they always enriched up to 3.6. Right, right?

So they all, they never stopped. And the agreement and any constraints on enrichment, any constraints at all were going to stop in 2030, three and a half years from now. The pause, that 3.8, that 3.8 thing, the whole idea behind that was they couldn't build. a bomb with that amount of enrichment. That's right.

That's right. And inspectors were in there. Exactly. Inspectors miss things when governments are trying to hide, but it's still better to have eyes on the ground than no ice on the ground, right? Right. It's better.

It's not perfect, but it's better. So all of this. I like the quote of, Sullivan over the weekend talking about Trump. He tried to bomb Iran. He tried to blockade Iran. He tried to bully Iran.

And he is stuck. So this may be the best of the very bad outcomes available to him. And it just shows you what a misbegotten war this was from the beginning. So I guess if there's one, the only place Sullivan and Bolton actually agree is this was a

misbegotten war. Yes. Yeah. poorly handled, poorly thought out, poorly executed. Yeah. I think there's nobody's going to challenge that except the people around Donald Trump, Frank. You have to have, this is the biggest failing by people who use military force, Peter. It's the biggest failing.

You have to have a clear understanding of what the purpose is and what your goal is at the end. If it's World War II, where it's all out war, then it's surrender. right? And that's what it was. So you demanded unconditional surrender of the Germans and the Japanese. It was all at war. But short of all at war, when you use force and you go to war and it's not surrender and it's not occupation, you have to have a goal. The United States had none.

Changed every day. Okay. Missed begotten. Missed. Okay. We're going to take our break. Come back to talk about something totally different. Do that right after this.

Russia. Let's talk about Russia for a minute. We can come back. Okay, we're going to talk about some more stuff with Janice Stein from the University of Toronto, the Monk School. It's your Monday morning and Monday afternoon, depending on where you are in the country. I'm Peter Mansbridge, along with Dr. Stein. You're listening on Sirius XM, Channel 167, Canada Talks, or on your favorite podcast, platform. Thanks for joining us. Okay, then we've got three things I want to talk about.

We could hear you whispering Russia, Russia there during the break. So what do you want to say about Russia this week? Well, you know, Peter, you and I talked a lot about how difficult it is to get to the table and what would have to happen. Well, there's no question over the last six weeks. we are finally seeing Donald, we're finally seeing Vladimir Putin signal

and interest in coming to the table. And why is that? Because the Ukrainians now have a domestic capacity with their own stuff that does they make to target the oil industry deep, deep inside Russia,

to inflict casualties inside Russia, to take the war home inside Russia. It's not about equipment they're getting from the United States or from anybody else so they can do this. The sign was that

made a parade where essentially Vladimir Putin proposed a ceasefire so that the Ukrainians would not be able to target the parade. That told you everything. And over the last few days, Vladimir Putin

has finally signaled he's tired of visits from Jared Kushner. He wants a process with working groups, staffed with diplomats, and he wants to come to the table. So it does happen. It does happen at some point. And that's because, for all the good reasons,

the Russian economy is slumping. There's very bad inflation. he can't keep spending in order to keep the economy going. And he needs a face saving way out now. He's finally there. The other reason is the one you mentioned initially, which is the Ukrainians have changed the face of war in our time. Yes.

Like in the last couple of years, everything's different now. and it's forcing countries around the world to reconsider exactly what their own plan is. It's an astonishing story. It is, and it's a great story. And, you know, good for them. I mean, nobody gave them a chance that weekend the war started, that it would be all over in a couple of days or a week at the most. And here we are years later, and they've changed the face of war.

Yeah. Okay. Now, you know, this is the dance. Okay, this is the dance. Rush is finally at the table. What does Olenski do? There's momentum now. Yeah.

And this is the issue. And that's why these things can often be agonizingly slow. Is Olenski going to toughen the terms now? That's the trap always. Yeah. Well, listen, there's pressure on him to end it all. this too. Yes. You know, that country needs to be, you know, rebuild.

We built as well. Okay, topic two in this second segment of the program is, you know, six months ago, we talked almost every week about these drug boats that the Americans were blowing up in the waters off of South America and in the Caribbean. in. Well, the totals are out now. It's really quite interesting. They've blown up and they're still doing it. They did another one just the other day. 60 boats. 200 people have been killed. They've offered no evidence ever that these had anything to do with the drug operation. You know, people are assuming they did, but they never gave any evidence. Some of these people say the local country, involved or just fishermen, what have you.

If it was a big operation to stop the drug flow into the United States, well, it doesn't seem to have worked. The latest figures on cocaine going into the U.S. show that in the eight months since these, you know, blowing up these boats has been going on, there is more drugs, cocaine, going into the states than the eight months previous when they weren't blowing up any boats. So nothing on the face of this looks very good. And there are, you know, the president of Columbia says these are extrajudicial killings and somebody should be held accountable. Somebody should be going to jail.

Like what the Americans say they're going to do to the former leader of Cuba. and the guy they hold out of Venezuela. What do you make of this? You know, we're to start in a story like this. They are extrajudicial killings. You don't bomb. You don't, you know, hit boats unless, first, unless you have legitimate military reason to sink their threat,

if you have a legitimate military reason to think they're a threat, you reveal the evidence and there's some kind of process that follows after you hit these boats. We have 200 people died, Peter. How have they died? Were they blown up in their boats in the water? Did the boats capsize and was there a failure to rescue people? where's what we call the after incident investigation, right? It's the typical sanitized, you know, world that you,

I only hear it in two places. One in the military, when they talk about issues that happen, they're doing an after incident investigation. You hear it also in hospitals when there's an unexpected death. They do an after incident investigation. But it really means we're going to look back at this. to see whether we had evidence. We're going to see what purpose was achieved. And we're going to look at the status of the people who are involved, where they civilians or not, or they drug carriers.

How much cocaine was on or fentanyl or was on any of those boats, not a shred of evidence. And then when you look at the big picture, the amount of cocaine that's flowing in, I mean, that is the damning result. You do this outside the law with no process, no transparency, no nothing, frankly, and then the flow of cocaine is higher at the end of it all? Why are you continuing to do it? And so it's a practical failure. It's a legal failure. And frankly, there's no justification for any of it. If you want to read more about this situation, those numbers, that I gave you were from a New York Times piece in today's New York Times. So it's, you know, it's an interesting read, and it does leave you really wondering about the issue of accountability on this situation.

And by the way, as an aside, Peter, thank goodness for journalists who write these stories, because how else would we know anything, frankly? Yeah. Well, here's a story that journalists have been writing about for, you know, more than 80 years. years. You know, it's June 1st today, which means we're five days away from June 6, D-Day. And I, you know, I didn't warn you about this, but I wanted to throw it at you anyway. You know, you've been to Normandy. I've been there many times.

Walked the beach where those beaches where the Canadians landed. There's yet another movie coming out now on D-Day. which is still, Hollywood's made some great movies about D-Day. And this one's basically, it's called pressure, and it's really, it's the story of the weather guy who convinced Eisenhower under great pressure, not to go on June 5, but to wait 24 hours because the weather looked bad.

Not only to look bad, it was bad. It would have been horrendous, as it turns out, if they'd gone ahead on the 5th. But when you think of D-Day, we all have our thoughts, and this week will be one where a lot of people will be thinking about it as we head towards Saturday. What do you think about? You ask the question, Peter, and you ask me if I'd been to Normandy. Every time I go, I look at those cliffs. And you ask yourself, you know, how do these soldiers, wave after wave of soldiers with German guns at the top of the cliffs?

You know, the courage to climb those cliffs under heavy, heavy, heavy gunfire. And you see your comrades dying all around you and you keep going. it's just astonishing when you you've talked to veterans who did that who were there that day I'm just astonished

it's astonishing it's astonishing where you know how you you find a fortitude inside to do it I'm I couldn't do it I couldn't do it

It is remarkable. It's astonishing. You can't help but think about it when you're there. I mean, there were five beaches, two of the American beaches, one, the Canadian beach, Juneau Beach, and two, the British beaches. And the landscape was a little different on all of them. But it all came down to these guys who were, you know, more than 100,000 of them who went across the English Channel

and all the paratroopers who had come in a couple of out. hours before them. You know, they were all told the same thing. When you hit those beaches, you've got to keep moving. You can't stop. You can't stop no matter what happens around you. And then some of these guys, you know, the troops from Saskatchewan and New Brunswick and Quebec, you know, there were a lot of different Canadians on those beaches that day.

And some of them had been, you know, buddies. since school. They didn't list it together. And then they were hitting the beach together. And you try to imagine in your head they've been told, don't stop for anything. Yeah. And their buddy from a lifelong buddy drops beside them.

And they can't stop. They've got to keep moving. I don't know. It's, you know, that's what I took. That's always to me, the most overpower. Yeah.

thought, right, that you're a friend, somebody that you've trained with, and they were in England together, and they knew, and that person's head, and they have to keep going, because if you don't get over in that first wave, in that first big push, they knew, you know, and Oswald Housen knew that he knew how hard this was going to be. Yeah. And it was. And it was the, I mean, look, it changed. That's the, D-Day was what, you know, changed them.

That's when the Allies won the war, frankly. That's right. The rest, that was the moment they won that war. If they hadn't succeeded on that day, it would have been a very, could have been a very different outcome of that war. You know, the second thought, it's interesting when you say, what do I think about it? What's war like now? you fire missiles

you know a short range or long range or drones you never see the face of the enemy you you stand you put keep your forces back as far back as possible to limit casualties now if you're the commanding general

the commanding officer that's that's that's a good thing to do because you're protecting your own forces. But if you can fight Peter from standing far back, and you don't experience that horror, it makes war too easy. Yeah. Yeah, no, I hear you.

I hear you on that. Well, on that day, on those beaches, more than 300 Canadians lost their lives. I was 340 something like that, which is more than double the number of Canadians who died over a decade in over a decade in Afghanistan. So it's definitely worth remembering this weekend. And if you see the new movie, you'll remember it.

And if you watch, you know, saving private Ryan, although that's an entirely American, it's like the Americans did it all on TV. there's nobody else involved, it's just them. But it's a brilliant movie. Spielberg had his absolute best, capturing what happened on Omaha Beach that day. All right, we're out of time. Janice, thanks so much for this.

We'll do it all again in seven days. And we will. We'll do it all again in seven days. Janice Stein from the Mug School. at the University of Toronto. That's going to wrap it up for today. Sorry, just, you know, I was caught up in my thoughts, too,

about D-Day and as a result of being along those Normandy beaches, all of them, the British, the Canadian and the American beaches. And, you know, caught up in the feelings that I had when I walked those beaches. As I did when I walked on the stony beach at, Dieppe, which was a couple of years before D-Day, but was a disastrous outing for the Canadians

who fought with bravery, but were against all odds. And Vimy Ridge and, you know, so many other places where Canadians showed their courage and showed

to their you know, their fighting ability and so many were lost in all of those battles and we cannot forget them and we will not. All right, that's going to do it for this week on this Monday. We'll be back tomorrow, of course. It's Raj Russo tomorrow. Reporter's Notebook, the latest from those two.

Wednesday will be some form of N-bit show. Thursday is your turn. heard the question, how do you describe your own identity? That question was given at the beginning of the program. And then Friday, of course, is good talk. I'm Peter Mansbridge. Thanks so much for listening. Look forward to talking to you again, as we always do, in about 24 hours.