The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - The Deadly Concert Hall Attack in Moscow... What Happens Now?"

Episode Date: March 25, 2024

A horrific attack on concert goers in Moscow on Friday night has terrorized Russians and put some difficult decisions in front of Vladimir Putin. Who did it, why did they do it and why didn't he listen to the US who warned him weeks ago that something like this was being planned? Janice Stein joins us to talk about the impact this can have on the Ukraine war; also the latest on Israel-Hamas and some encouraging news about Guatemala. Plus we unveil the question of the week.

And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here. You are just moments away from the latest episode of The Bridge, the deadly concert hall attack in Moscow. What happens now? Hello there, Peter Mansbridge here in Toronto for this week. Janice Stein is going to be with us in a couple of moments time, and we're going to talk about the things we always talk about on Mondays with Janice. But we'll start off on that terrible, deadly attack in the concert hall in Russia on Friday, and the impact that's going to have, what happens now, who was to blame?

Did the Russians listen to the information the Americans had given them weeks ago that something was being planned? Anyway, we'll talk to Janice Stein about that. A couple of what we tend to call housekeeping notes, first of all. Last week, it was very successful, your turn, on the favorite Canadian book authors. And the list has been accessed by lots of people over the weekend. It's on my website at thepetermansbridge.com. People wanted a chance to find, to listen, hear those books again, not the reviews about them, but what were the books and the authors,

and perhaps I'll go and get some, which would be a good thing, obviously. But in the midst of all those books that were listed was one that probably, well, not probably, should not have been on the list. And we thank Austin Ziegler, who wrote in and said, you know, I think you've got a problem with one of those books. And the problem with the book, it's not that it's not a good book, it's just that it wasn't written by a Canadian. Fossil Future was the name of the book.

And the author, Alex Epstein, is an American, which is not a bad thing. It just doesn't fit with our contest. So that book and that name has been dropped from the list that's on the website. I just wanted to acknowledge that and to thank Alex for writing in and pointing that out to us. There is a vetting process, and we've gone through it, and somehow that one slipped through the cracks, and we're sorry about that.

So we're approaching Easter for many people, a major holiday, a religious moment during the annual calendar. And one of the things that often happens for many families during this break is they kind of plan their summer and make some decisions about what they're going to do and where they're going to go. And that's going to be the basis of the question for this week. Here's the question.

If you could name one place in Canada that you have visited outside your own province, what would the best place be? Okay? So what I'm looking for is the name of the best place in Canada that you have visited outside your own province. All right? So, I'll repeat the question in a moment, but here are the basic conditions, as always.

You must have your answer in before 6 p.m. Wednesday. All right? That is the cutoff. 6 p.m. Eastern Time on Wednesday. Include your name and the location you are writing from. Those are all important. The question, once again, what we're looking for is ideas, obviously,

for people to travel this summer. And we're looking for ideas to travel within Canada. And so those ideas are based on, you know, this question, which is to name the best place that you have visited in Canada outside your own province. And the one thing we've often talked about is how there are fantastic spots across this country. Every province and territory has them. So I'm looking for yours. One, you get one answer, not a series of answers, one answer. The best place in Canada you have visited outside your own province.

Okay, there's your question for the day. All right, it's Monday, and Mondays mean Janus Stein, foreign affairs analyst, Middle East expert, conflict management expert. She's the go-to person for the bridge, for me, for years. And she's the go-to person. Janice, what do you take from this attack in Russia, this terrible story? But tell me what you make of it all. You know, Peter, when i heard about it on friday my first immediate thought was this has

nothing to do with ukraine ukraine had no role in it but ukraine is likely to pay a price for it and then uh when isis k isis course, issued, made a claim that they had done it, I was initially dubious because ISIS has a history of making claims because they get the benefit, even though they didn't perpetrate the act. But when U.S. intelligence confirmed that, that was frankly decisive. And the story is so interesting from so many perspectives. First of all, ISIS-Khorasan is rooted in Afghanistan. And its primary enemy, believe it or not, is the Taliban, because they consider the Taliban apostates who are leading a government that is insufficiently Islamic. They have committed a suicide attack in Kandahar in the last month. They're an offshoot of the Pakistani Taliban. So these are the radicals of the radicals of the radicals, frankly. And why do they hate Russia?

They hate Russia because Russia intervened on behalf of Bashir al-Assad in Syria. So it is fascinating to think about how chickens come home to roost. Yeah. And that there are so many connections, right? Yeah. Let me back you up to something you said, and I know some people will leap on right away. You chose to believe it when U.S. intelligence weighed in. And so here's the question. Why do you place so much faith in u.s intelligence when you know they have spun stories before they have lied before oh yeah uh it's it why did i give

credence when they confirmed it uh because the interesting story uh side story that didn't get a lot of attention is that U.S. intelligence shared with Russia's FSB, their intelligence, that an attack was likely coming against a major event in Russia. And they do this now because there's something called the duty to warn. So when you're picking up, and this comes through signals intelligence, when you're picking up chatter that people are getting ready to attack, you're obligated, not by law, but by convention now, to tell even your adversary that a group was about or preparing to launch. Vladimir Putin, and then they went public in Russia and warned American citizens to stay home, not to go to any concerts or sporting events.

And Putin went public and raged, said it was false news, fake news, And the Americans were trying to weaken Russia. And that's how it got so much attention. He actually gave it way more attention than it otherwise would have received. So when they came out and said, yes, we also believe that it was ISIS-K, there was a trail behind here of warnings that they had delivered on time. Interesting that that makes two major governments right now who are the fingers being pointed at them for not acting on the intelligence they had, Israel and now Russia.

Yeah. You say that the original information seems to have come from signals intelligence, which is interesting because one of the countries in the world that is the best at signals intelligence is Canada. Yes. And you have to share stuff through five eyes. So you wonder whether it kind of comes back to Canada as well. Well, it certainly does.

It's inconceivable, Peter, inconceivable that CSE, which is our signals intelligence agency, the Canadian security establishment, didn't get that information from the United States on March the 7th. Now, I'm sure the U.S. told us that they were sharing with Russia. So there was no need for us to go public. But interesting, no warning to Canadians. Stay home.

It was the U.S. embassy in Moscow. Our embassy did not, to the best of my knowledge, issue a warning to Canadians who might have been in Moscow to stay home. But I'm sure we were 100% in the loop here and knew all about this. One of the, not unexpectedly, the Russians have, you know, launched a number of raids in the last 24, 48 hours on Ukraine, as they point the finger at Ukraine for all this. But here's what I found most interesting about these raids. We have often talked about how the smallest thing can set off much more than you expect it's going to set off. And one of the Russian missiles, or at least some of the Russian missiles,

took a kind of shortcut on their way to Ukraine, and they went over Polish territory. Not a lot of Polish territory, but some. Some. And, you know, the Poles have said, hey, you infringed on our territory. Yeah. So that's an example of exactly what we worry about. So here's why when I heard about the attack on Friday night,

I mean, horrific, horrific, horrific. You know, those videos are so tough to watch. And then they burn the building down and lock people in the building. So it really doesn't get a lot worse than this. But I thought, okay, here's the window Vladimir Putin has been looking for. And that's why I'm concerned. So the kind of incident you just mentioned, that he feels entitled now as a result of this to break some of the norms, which we've been, everybody on both sides has been very careful to observe since he invaded Ukraine. The second thing I think is now possible politically for him, and it wasn't possibly before, he needs to mobilize more men. He's put it off. He's put it off. Mobilization in Russia is no more popular than a draft is in the United States or anywhere else. He's up against it. He needs to mobilize more men.

Russian public opinion is so outraged now as a result of this attack. I'm sure they don't know quite who to believe. He never mentioned ISIS-K. Vladimir Putin, it was his first speech after the election, but he talked about a plan to escape over the Ukrainian border, which, of course, the Ukrainians have denied. There will be a receptivity now to mobilization for sure that there wouldn't have been before this attack happened. So this is a

gift to Vladimir Putin from ISIS-K, frankly. Yeah. Help me understand, before we leave this subject, help me understand why ISIS-K would do this. It's hard to explain the fanaticism of this group. They hate the Taliban because they are insufficiently observant of the Quran, but they have a special hatred on for Vladimir Putin, because he helped Bashir al-Assad. And together, they have bombed ISIS sites in Syria for years quietly. And frankly, this is still going on as Assad struggles to retain control of all of Syria. So he's squarely in their sights. And they use the phrase, Peter, Vladimir Putin has blood on his hands. But what a gift they gave him. Because they live in their own bubble, they don't understand the larger political consequences when they undertake this kind of action. Okay.

Let's move to Israel Hamas. I don't know whether you saw it, but it was a very interesting interview that was given by Major General Israel Ziv, who's the former head of IDF's operations directorate. And I'll just read you a part of it, because he was asked, he was quite outspoken in this interview, he was asked why Israel would,

you know, whether it was right for Israel to withdraw most of its troops, the IDF troops from Gaza. This is what he replied. In the absence of a policy, what is the IDF supposed to do? We're over five months into this war without any predictable political goal. Let's say we stayed until now. What's next? Even if we stayed and declared that we were occupying,

we would become the new government in Gaza. Israel would need to establish civil, police, and security systems and take care of the various services. What happened to us is not just the Hamas situation. The lack of decision-making on our part is the most serious thing. I'm sure you can guess, Peter, that I agree with him 1,000%. He's nailed it, frankly. There is no strategy there. And so, of course, you're going to run into the situation which they find themselves in, and it affects everything, right?

It affects the distribution of aid because there's no civil order. And you can push the aid right up across the border. But if you don't have civil order and you don't have distribution networks to deliver the aid, we see the unimaginable catastrophe, frankly, that we have in Gaza right now. And this week, just to underline how important what he said is, this week inside Gaza, there are old, relatively speaking, 75-year-old Palestinian families and clients that are very, very important in Gaza politics. What happened here is that the IDF reached out to these families to help set up an informal network to develop the aid. Well, two interesting developments.

One of these families, their head was assassinated this week. That's clearly got to be a Hamas operation, right? The second thing, the families all came together and made the following statement, which, boy, did I pay attention when I read it. And they said, we will not work with the occupier, that's Israel, nor will we work with Hamas. It has brought this kind of catastrophe to Gaza. We will only work with one legitimate authority, the Palestinian Authority. These people, these families that are deeply embedded in Palestinian society in Gaza are putting their lives at risk, frankly, here by saying this. This is what the United States has been saying since day one. You need a partner. The only possible partner here is the Palestinian Authority. Yeah,

it's been corrupt. Yeah, it doesn't have a record for execution. Yeah, he's not popular on the street, but you need a Palestinian partner. The frustration that any general, frankly, who understands the strategy inside the IDF and the frustration of everybody else that, that I think it's Netanyahu's worst error and it's politically driven. He won't go there because if he goes there, he acknowledges that there

have to be two states. And he's never wanted that, and he won't go there. And so, frankly, he's putting everything at risk, except his own coalition and himself. So, if I were these IDF generals right now, it would be a tough test whether to stay loyal or not. It's funny how it always comes back to the two-state. It does. Yeah, it really does. It really does. But you know, it comes back in this way, Peter, because that's an abstract thing, two states. And you can say, well, that's down the road. No, no, no. Acknowledging you need a Palestinian partner is today's issue. Because let's push this out just a little bit because the United States, the administration has to certify in the next 10 days, blink it,

that Israel is observing humanitarian law in order for military shipments to continue. They need those shipments. It's going to be tough to certify if they can't deliver the aid on the ground. They can't deliver the aid on the ground because they don't have a partner. And the two-state solution is right here, right now. It's not down the road. Because having the partner basically concedes the two-state solution point. Yes, that's right.

So the one piece that Ziv left out in that interview, he's right about everything. The one thing he left out, this is all politically driven. It's a function of a political ideology which refuses to see two people and two states in the same region.

That's been Netanyahu for 15 years. There's one other thing that Zeus said which impacts Canada. Let me just find it here. Yeah, here it is. He commented on Canada's decision to stop arms shipments to Israel,

which was announced last week. And he said, Israel is in the middle of a very serious international crisis. I don't remember one like this before. It is a result not only of the lack of advocacy, but also that Israel is in a deep crisis as a result of the lack of policy. Everything points to the fact that the government does not make policy decisions. Not only do we not know what the best decision is, but the world does not know either.

You know, again, I agree 250% of that's possible. Did you write this speech? No, but I could have, because it actually, so I, you know, that's why I really liked the interview when I heard it. But here's the second point that you, in your professional life, have probably come up against more times than I can count. And people will say, they address what they think is a marketing problem or hostile media or unbalanced media. And they say, we have to do something about improving the way we explain.

And every time I hear that from anybody, and I hear it in Canada from political parties, I say, hey, let's stop one minute. Do you think the problem might be that you don't have a policy? You think maybe it's not the media, maybe it's you folks who don't have a coherent, clear strategy and policy that you can actually explain? Well, let's 10x that in this case. Netanyahu deliberately, it's on purpose that he refrains, in fact, from articulating a strategy.

So, of course, nobody in the world understands. Of course, you have what this government would consider hostile media. Of course, you get the kind of result that you get in Ottawa, where Ottawa essentially reverses a longstanding policy. It's inevitable, but it's nobody's fault but the people who are refusing to make the decisions. Now, I can't help but add this, and this is taking us somewhere where you might otherwise go. I think Canadians looked at the way that decision was made and announced as a result of intense political jockeying between the NDP and our government and people running up and down the stairs, you know,

negotiating between the cabinet and a caucus. And I've had more than a few letters from people say is this how we make big policy decisions in canada is this considered reflection yeah yeah no of course it isn't and nor should it be that kind of last minute back room stuff rarely turns out well no sometimes it does sometimes it does but rarely does it um we're going to take our break and we come back and we're going to do a what are we missing story because and it's a good one it's going to make you feel better about life um when we come back and talk to Janice Stein about that right after this. And welcome back. You're listening to

Good Talk. No, you're not. This is not Good Talk. It is Good Talk, but it's our Monday session with Dr. Janice Stein, and we're looking at all things international. You're listening on Sirius XM, Channel 167, Canada Talks, or on your favorite podcast platform. Now, there's a country in Central America which I've actually visited a number of times on various documentaries and stories,

which you don't often hear a lot about but it's a very interesting kind of snapshot of the situation in in central america a lot of central america um the country's guatemala where it has a history of military dictatorships it has a history of um dictatorships in general it has a history of dictatorships in general, it has a history of companies, usually mining companies, some of which have been Canadian, which kind of run the place. And left in difficult straits have been the indigenous peoples of Guatemala. Well, this week something happened, or the last little while something happened,

which is worth noting because it's been a surprise to many. And Janice, you're going to tell us about it. Yeah, it really is a good news story in the midst of so many stories that are not. Peter, you put it exactly right. The latest phase of Guatemalan politics, the Guatemalans would describe as el pacto de corruptos. I mean, they were a corrupt regime. And the United States has a long and bad history in Guatemala. But more recently, it's now focused on Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, as you said, because a lot of drugs and a, who are corrupt, rule out almost every progressive candidate. And this is a story that we see in Iran and in other countries, you rule out every viable candidate. But one of them was so minor, Bernard Aravello, and worse than that a kind of

intellectual right so they wrote him off you know there's no way that this guy can get elected and in a field of 23 candidates Aravello gets 15% of the vote in the first run off oh my

too late now to rule him out and then a second astonishing Oh my, too late now to rule him out. And then a second astonishing thing really happens. The Indigenous community organizes behind Aravello, even though he's not Indigenous. indigenous. And the indigenous community, as you know, is a significant, significant numbers in Guatemala and also has begun to become really politically active. Well, in the run-up to the election, the indigenous are first out of the gate, big protest in which they swing their voters behind Aravello. The second group that gets involved, and this should be a recipe for disaster. If you and I were looking at this, when we saw this, we'd say, oh, my goodness,

the American embassy gets involved. And the diplomats, well, oh, wow, they actually helped to knit together a bigger coalition behind their develop. And there were some very capable people there, and they did. They reached out to the broader Latino community. community to rural. This was an all-party coalition. Indigenous, Latinos, rural Catholics, all with a little bit of help from the

U.S. diplomats. He wins the election. Nobody, nobody would have predicted that. He owes nothing to anyone. He's not corrupt. He's taking the mandate seriously. Democratic renewal and reform.

That's what he's, you know, he's committed to. We're six or seven months into this. And what caught my eye, he last week was walking down the street, talking to the constituencies who actually put him in office, and pushing hard to renew and reform the institutions. What a great story. It's a great story, but it's no easy task. No.

I mean, you're up against, you know, decades of corruption and, you know, dictatorship and the influence of international companies in that country to strip away the land. For sure. And a deep state, right? What we would call a deep state, you know, people inside the bureaucracy of a long history of cooperating with people who benefited enormously, as you just said, Peter. And, you know, we're seeing this story because the reason I like the story so much, because it is about an attempt to renew democratic institutions. There's one more country in the world that's doing this right now, Poland, when they changed their government. And they are, you know, when your justice system, when judges have been appointed for five or six years and embedded, when senior bureaucracies have been stripped of the people who are committed to democracy,

when the people in place are, frankly, hand in glove with those who benefit most from corruption, it's really hard to do. It's really hard to do, and it's a slow process. In Poland, even slower in Guatemala but the striking thing about Aravella, he's built a coalition who get that this is

an opportunity and he's managed we're nine months into this, he's managed to keep that coalition together. Well, we wish him and them luck, and we'll see how it continues to turn out. Before we sign off today, Janice, I want to get your thoughts. I talked briefly at the top of the show before you came on about being at the Mulroney funeral, the state funeral on Saturday, which was quite the moment.

But you watched it. You work with the Mulroney government, as you have with the governments that followed it. And so, I mean, you knew him. You knew how he operated. What did you think when you watched that on Saturday? I thought it was an absolutely spectacular moment, Peter, almost magical. So, first of all, this was probably one of our greatest prime ministers in foreign policy, Brian Morton. The achievements were real, they were significant, and they were tough.

They were hard. He took on hard things, whether it was apartheid in South Africa, free trade. These are really important achievements. But what struck me about the funeral, and funerals are often more about the living than they are about the dead, right? And you watch the Mulroney family, especially the boys, greet everybody. There was a

family member there the whole time Mulroney was lying in state. And every well-wisher who stood in line to pay their respects was greeted by the family. That's a sense of obligation to the public, which is inspiring to see, frankly.

Beyond that, this was a truly nonpartisan event. Canadians, you know, the people who delivered the eulogies, people left their partisan politics at the door, everybody, and came together as Canadians to celebrate someone who is undeniably a great Canadian. But why people found the funeral so moving, I think there's a desperate hunger in Canada for postpartisan or nonpartisan civility. The kind where you might disagree with somebody in the house, but then you went out and had a drink or beer with that person when the session was over. You had friends from across the aisle. Even we in our private lives had friends from across the political spectrum. I think it's fair to say, Peter, we've lost a lot of that.

And it impoverishes our politics in very bad ways. And I think that's why people, regardless of who it was said oh wow that's a moment we need to do better we need to do better than we're doing yeah i mean a lot of that is what's led to um polarized politics but polarized society too yeah yeah and so that was you know i couldn't help but think sitting there that um you know both of us knew knew him fairly well given our our various works but this was a guy who he loved to be loved right yeah but more than anything he wanted to be respected yeah and i couldn't help but think that if the if there was a way and depending on your belief i'm sure there is a way that he was watching all that on saturday

and he must have had a pretty big smile on his face at the end of it because there were so many so many moments and so for sure you know he would have said, and you know, there were some bumps in Brian's career, as we all know. And we're really tough. And I think for him and for his family were hard moments because he didn't meet his own standards. Let me put it that way. And that's really hard in public for everybody. But on Saturday, he would have said,

what a great show this is. He would have loved it. And he would have been right, but it was also great for Canada and for Canadians to watch this. And, you know, understand again that the more we can come together, partisan politics are an important part of life.

That's what democracy is. But you have to leave them at the door. And the more we can do that, the better a society we will be going forward. That's what we just talked about Arabella, right? And I thought it was so interesting. He built a big, wide tent. That's the challenge. You know, you talk about the tough moments that Mulroney had, and he did have tough moments.

But tough moments make you a better, can make you a better person depending on how you react to them, how you accept them, and how you acknowledge them, and how you accept them and how you acknowledge them and how you change because of them. And I think he showed that he could do that as well. All right. We'll leave that for today's program. As I always say, Janice, we learn so much when we talk to you. And we should probably, I should certainly wish everybody

Happy Easter because that will be before next Monday. We will. Talk to you then. Thanks, Janice. Pleasure. There we have it. Dr. Janice Stein for another week. Janice, of course, at the Munk School, University of Toronto.

And we always so enjoy the wide-ranging conversations that we have. We have time for an end bit. There was another thing that was on our minds, I think, a lot over the last few days. Whether you're a monarchist or not, whether you spend time thinking about the royal family or not, you probably did spend a few moments thinking about the situation for the Princess of Wales, Catherine, who announced on Friday that she has cancer. And there were a lot of prayers heading in their direction, the family, and to the Princess of Wales and her immediate family, for sure.

That image of her sitting alone on the park bench telling her story was quite something. It was emotional. But it was very direct. And after weeks, months of crazy stories around the family, this one came directly to us from her. It was like a one-on-one conversation. this one came directly to us from her. It was like a one-on-one conversation. Now, she did all the talking, but nevertheless, she hit it head-on.

She talked about her situation directly to the point, to the challenges that she faced. But as she said herself, and as many have said since, she's not alone. In a world where cancer diagnosis seems to happen all the time for a lot of people, every day there are hundreds, thousands more who are diagnosed with different forms of cancer. Part of that is due to the incredible research abilities that we have and the testing and all that. Some people worry that we spend more time on testing than we do on solving problems like cancer.

But nevertheless, it is something, as she acknowledged herself, that is more and more obvious every day. And, you know, on the weekend, that was backed up by the information about cancer rates and the clear indication that more young people are getting cancer today. When you look at the early onset cancer rates, they're up worldwide over the past three decades. Bladder cancer is up. Breast cancer is up almost 14%. Colorectal cancer up almost 6%.

Kidney rates 1.5%. Ovarian cancer 2%. Pancreatic cancer, almost 1%. Uterine cancer, 1.6%. Now, these are just some. And they're backed up by the scientific studies and research that's being done. So why is this happening? I'm getting this information from a column that was out over the weekend on Vox.com.

And you can find that by just going on Vox.com and searching cancer rates. No single factor is to blame, says the article, for the widespread uptick in numerous cancers among young people, particularly the rise in the gastrointestinal system. But scientists are starting to put together a picture of the reality behind one of the most important medical mysteries of our time. One review published in Frontiers in Nutrition in 2022 found several dietary factors were associated with early-onset colorectal cancer. Eating a lot of deep-fried and processed foods, foods high in fat and sugary drinks and desserts was a significant risk factor, as was having a diet low in fiber.

Other studies have found higher alcohol consumption is associated with an increased risk of developing cancer early. There are other reasons, and there are other findings in these different studies, but that seems to one that a lot of people are circling. So, all of that, something to keep in mind when we're listening to the stories of the royal family.

The king, of course, is also battling cancer at this time. No spring chicken. He is the same age as I am. He's 75. And that's what we normally associate, an age area where cancer is more obvious. But these younger rates are alarming. Let's say that. Okay. Tomorrow, somebody hasn't been with us for a while. Science Sam will be here. And we're going to talk about the upcoming eclipse.

You've seen lots of information around about the eclipse coming in early April. So we're going to do kind of like an eclipse 101 with Science Sam. Great to have her with us again. Last time she was here, it was that thing a couple of years ago. The pandemic. So we're looking forward to talking to Science Sam tomorrow.

Samantha Yedameen. Doctor. All right, that's it for this day. I'm Peter Mansbridge. Thanks so much for listening. We'll talk to you again in 24 hours.