The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - Trained Seals on Parade

Episode Date: January 10, 2020

and hello there I'm Peter Mansbridge this is the bridge well if you caught the promotion for this latest episode and I promotion this little one-man band, it's very simple. I put something on Instagram, at the Peter Mansbridge. Okay, that's my Instagram. And sometimes it goes on Twitter as well, Peter Mansbridge, at Peter Mansbridge. Anyway, if you caught the promotion, it was very simple. It was just a picture, a freeze frame actually, out of the statement that Donald Trump gave earlier this week

after all the goings-on in Iraq and Iran. He was in the White House. He was giving a statement, this time just a statement, no taking of any questions. And if you saw it, you know, it started with him kind of walking out of the sunlight. Purely accidental, I'm sure. Sure, it wasn't staged.

But out of the sunlight, down a corridor, through some doors which were closed, Purely accidental, I'm sure. I'm sure it wasn't staged. But out of the sunlight, down a corridor, through some doors which were closed, and then he stood there surrounded by what I called in the promotion the train seals. And they really were. And it's really, you know, I got to tell you, I find it so disheartening to see how these people are used. In this case, all men, no women from the senior ranks of the American government,

all men, the vice president, secretary of state, secretary of Defense, a couple of military chiefs, you know, the various top brass from the U.S. Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force. They're standing there. Surrounding Donald Trump, they might as well have been clapping. They did nothing else. They simply stood there. The two military chiefs, I got to say, you see them in the shot I put on the promotion, they look like they're in a hostage video. They look like they've been told you have to be there, you have to be standing behind the president, and you have to be looking agreeable to some of the outrageous lies

that he told during that statement. But nevertheless, they were there, and they were performing their trained SEAL function. Now, is this something new? No, of course it's not something new. This has been going on for decades. I think the first U.S. president to use it effectively was Ronald Reagan, where he'd give

statements in front of various different groups. And it's nothing peculiar to Canadian politicians either. You see it often during the election campaigns. They use all these people as props behind them. And sometimes they perform the train seal function as well. But what was interesting on Wednesday when Trump did his statement is that in Ottawa, Justin Trudeau did his statement as well. Now, he is not someone who has been shy to use that kind of a setup himself, but it was different this time. In Ottawa, Justin Trudeau was surrounded by his chief of the defense staff,

his minister of defense, his minister of the Defence Staff, his Minister of Defence, his Minister of Transport, because they were also talking about that awful, terrible plane crash in Tehran that happened right around the same time as everything else, which has led to all kinds of suspicions, as you can imagine. And various other members, including Deputy Minister of, I think it was Deputy Minister of Defense, or Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs. I can't remember which.

She was there and she took part. And that was the thing, taking part. Because, first of all, Trudeau gave a statement, like Trump had given a statement. He'd used these people as props, although they weren't directly behind him, so they weren't in the shot. But then he threw the floor open to questions,

and some of those questions, he felt, were properly answered by the ministers or chief of defense staff or, in the case of the top bureaucrat, that she should answer the questions. So there's a very different way of using them. You couldn't call them trained SEALs. They were actually active participants in the discussion that was going on and in answering the questions that came up. And there were lots of questions, lots of very good questions, pointed questions,

just as there would have been in Washington if questions had been allowed, but they were not allowed. Not on that day. Trump loves questions. He can take off for 10, 15, 20 minutes, sometimes an hour, taking questions, rarely answering them, also talking them with his own kind of truth.

But on this day, there was two very different things but here's something else that that bothered me and it bothered me quite a bit as a Canadian and once again this is nothing peculiar to Trump although it seems to be more evident in the Trump years than in past ones. But the lack of any sense of knowledge on the part of the President of the United States,

either knowledge or an ability to admit, that there are other countries involved in all of this too? You know, when he talked about the Iraqi strike on the air base at Erbil, he kept calling it the U.S. base. It's actually an Iraqi base where the U.S. has buildings and logistics on that base. And the strike from Iran targeted more. You know, I'm not sure what it targeted,

but it hit more than a couple of hangars the Americans used. It hit some of the areas that the Iraqis used as well. Now, fortunately, nobody was hurt, or at least that's what they say, that nobody was hurt. There were no casualties of any kind, wounded or killed. But do you think he might have mentioned the fact that there were other coalition forces there as well who were also, as a result, targeted,

including Canadians, who have a significant number of people in Erbil, including members of our, I believe, members of our commando force, who, if you talk to anybody other than the U.S. President on the part of the Americans, they love those guys. And I'll tell you a little more about that in a moment. Anyway, no mention of Canada.

No mention of the other coalition forces. Just a kind of implicit demand that the NATO coalition partners get more involved in the situation in the Middle East and in propping up Iraq in particular. Hello? Does he not realize the other coalition partners who are there, who have been very much a part of the post-9-11 era in terms of propping up regimes in Afghanistan and now in the Iraq, but also, you know, not just doing administrative stuff,

doing real stuff in terms of the military. That's why we have 159 names associated with our time in Afghanistan. 159 dead. We have hundreds of wounded who are still dealing with those wounds. As do many other coalition countries, the British, a number of European countries, more than a few, who have contributed not only in defense dollars, but in human blood.

Because they believed it was the right thing to do, to come to the aid of their partner, who was under attack in 2001. Come to the aid of the United States. That's the NATO Charter. One's attacked, we're all attacked. And in that case, NATO has delivered for how many years now? We're out of Afghanistan.

I might have slipped up last week in the podcast saying we were still in Afghanistan. I was talking about we're still in Iraq is what I meant to say. We are in Iraq and we're still in Iraq, is what I meant to say. We are in Iraq, and we're still in Iraq, although they moved some of the troops out this week, moved them to Kuwait, south of Iraq, concerned about what this latest round of conflict has done in terms of putting the safety of certain coalition forces up for question. But we're there. We're both in Erbil and we're in Baghdad,

where it's a Canadian general who is leading the NATO training mission in Baghdad for Iraqi forces. A Canadian general is leading that group. And it's worth recognizing and remembering that fact. And, you know, if the American president knows that, perhaps he might want to mention that on occasion. But, you know, listen, I love our American friends, and I'll tell you

just how much in a moment, but I want to tell you a little anecdote from 2003 when the Americans invaded Iraq and they did not have the support of the Canadian government on that one, on that invasion in 2003. Jean Chrétien said, no, Canadian troops not going. Well, I can remember being asked on a, I'm pretty sure it was PBS,

it was their morning television phone-in show. They asked me on the program to answer questions and talk about the situation because we were obviously partners in Afghanistan, but here we'd made a decision not to go to Iraq. Well, most of the calls were really good, thoughtful and questioning, but some of them were really not too happy with Canada. You know, all but calling us cowards for not being in Iraq in 2003,

when the invasion took place. Sort of leaving your American friends behind. What are you doing? I can't believe you would abandon us like this in our time of need. I said, look, you know, let's remember some history here. We are great friends. We are great neighbors. And we support each other on any number of different fronts. But occasionally, we have differences of opinion. We had a difference over Vietnam. We didn't go there with you. A lot of Canadians went on their own. but we didn't go as a country, as a nation.

And the government of Canada, a sovereign nation, has decided it doesn't want to be in Iraq at this time. Once again, it's 2003. And I said, you know what? You've made the same kind of decisions in not propping us up. You know, the First World War didn't start in 1917 when the U.S. joined. It actually started in 1914 when we joined, when we started in that war. And I said, and the Second World War didn't start in 1941 after Pearl Harbor.

It started in 1939 after Poland. And that's when Canada went in. So we had a good discussion back and forth on that. But sometimes, you know, even in friendship, you can kind of explain that you're allowed to be different, have different views, but you're also allowed to be recognized when, in fact, you're there arm in arm, shoulder to shoulder. So that's my point on that.

But here's my point about how, in fact, at the ground level, the relationship is 100%. About a month ago, I think it was either in late November or early December, I was at an event that was being very supportive of our veterans. And especially our veterans who are in the latter stages of their life. and at that event were a number of former Canadian soldiers, the men and women of our forces, but also some Americans had come up because they wanted to be there.

They wanted to recognize Canada's contribution and role, and not just mainstream U.S. forces, but CIA, intelligence officers as well. And I got into talking with one of whom, whose name I won't share with you, but a very senior high-ranking former CIA officer who's still in the intelligence field. And, you know, without being provoked, he started talking to me about some of the Canadian officers who he had worked with, both in intelligence and in the military,

over the years, and especially in the early years after the Afghan conflict started, after 9-11, and saying, these are some of the best people I've ever been with. I would go to the field, into the field, with a Canadian commando any day. Any day. I liked hearing that because, here's a little thing exclusive to the bridge. I've got another book coming out later this year. Probably be out just before Christmas. And it is telling the story of, we haven't closed in on exactly how many,

but somewhere between 15 and 20 extraordinary Canadians from all different walks of life, from all different parts of the country. And one of them is a Canadian commando. And you rarely hear their stories because they don't talk. And in some cases, they're not allowed to talk. This will reveal some of the things that were going on and the bravery and the incredible stories

that some of these people have to tell. But this is one in particular. But as I said, the book is a mixture of a lot of different Canadians from very different walks of life. And I think you'll find it fascinating. I'm writing it with Mark Bulguch, who is a great friend of mine and a great former colleague of mine. We both worked at the CBC for decades together.

So we've seen a lot of things. We've seen a lot of people, and we've met a lot of things. We've seen a lot of people, and we've met a lot of people. And so some of the stories from that time and from this time will be in the book, and I think you'll find it interesting. But obviously, I'm not supposed to talk about it yet, so I won't say anything more than that. But hopefully in a few months, we'll be able to give you some more details. But the book won't be coming out until much later this year.

Anyway, so the bottom line is, we have a great relationship with our American neighbors. And part of that relationship is being able to challenge each other at different times, as we do, on different issues. But the bottom line is we're still the greatest of friends. We still have an incredible, for the most part, unprotected border. And we have great stories of how we look after each other. I always loved the story about the Halifax explosion during the First World War.

Terrible. Almost wiped out the city, causing thousands of deaths. Who were the first people there to help? First people. People of Boston. They sent up help right away to Halifax. And how do we remember that every year still to this day? More than 100 years later, how do we remember that every year still to this day? More than 100 years later, how do we remember that?

People of Halifax send a Christmas tree to Boston, a huge Christmas tree that is placed in the middle of Boston as a signal of our relationship and a remembrance of difficult times and a difficult period, how we were there for each other and how today, all these years later, we're still there for each other.

All right? So that's my rant. That's my rant about trained SEALs and everything that led from it. Listen, I've gone on long enough, so we're going to pass up on the letter for this week. So the mailbag will be back in operation next week. Drop me a line. And once again, don't be shy. Talk about anything you want to talk about. You talk about something I might have said, agree or disagree with me. Or, you know, if you want to bring some other topic in for discussion, something that's on your mind, write it down.

Send it to me. TheMansBridgePodcast at gmail.com. TheMansBridgePodcast at gmail.com. I love reading your letters, and I will, as I do, I pick one, and away we go. Giving it some prominence and some discussion. We've had some great ones. Anyway, that's it

for now. Hope you're enjoying early January. It's actually not been bad weather-wise in this part of the country, at least so far. Southern Ontario. It's been tough out west the last few days. And I'm sure it's going to get tough here as well.

It is, after all, only early January. So for The Bridge, I'm Peter Mansbridge. Thanks for listening. Thank you.