00:00:04.340How you guys doing? Welcome to Unlearned 16 Classes in Session. And I am super honored to
00:00:09.760have the Honorable Tony Clement back in my, well, my podcast room, but he's in his podcast room.
00:00:16.100And today we're going to jump in and we're going to talk about some big sort of ideological issues.
00:00:22.920We're going to talk about democracy. We're going to talk a little bit about the trucker convoy
00:00:27.600and those protests and what that meant we're not going to spend a lot of time on mandates and things
00:00:31.280like that but democratically what that looked like um what should the limits be if any and then we're
00:00:38.560going to roll into obviously what's going on right now in ukraine what canada's role has been thus
00:00:45.760far what it should be what should the international community be doing so i'm incredibly excited to
00:00:51.760to have you back thank you so much no thanks for the opportunity joanna i we i love our chats i
00:00:58.160know i i tend to ramble with you so i'll try to keep it reasonable today i can't it's hard when
00:01:04.580you get somebody look it's few and far in between that you get an intelligent individual i know it
00:01:10.520sounds horribly uh not humble but an intelligent individual that we don't always see the same
00:01:17.400picture in the same way but can have a good conversation sure you know i think it's really
00:01:22.720really hard so first let's talk with the we'll start with the trucker convoy again we're gonna
00:01:27.180put mandates all over here in your you know you spent obviously a very long time in both
00:01:33.160provincial and federal politics in your opinion that protest not what it was about because it
00:01:39.640shouldn't matter what the goal i don't know if it should matter what the protest whether you agree
00:01:44.700or disagree with their goals, whether ending mandates or not ending mandates, but what
00:01:49.340do you think the parameters should be of peaceful protest in a democracy?
00:01:54.260Yeah, and that's such an important question.
00:01:58.080And as I think you were alluding to, it shouldn't matter what the goal of the protest is.
00:02:05.560The rules should be the same for everybody who wishes to dissent.
00:02:09.880So let me start off by saying, I think that that particular protest went too far.
00:02:16.480It went on for far too long and it became, it started out as a protest and became a blockade.
00:02:28.120And so, you know, I think that there have to be lines drawn and they went over the line.
00:02:32.940And I think it was reasonable for law enforcement to be involved at some point.
00:02:38.640So I wouldn't have said that at day one of the protest, but certainly after three weeks, I would agree with that.
00:02:46.180So there's the interesting question. What's the line? Is it a time amount? Is it the fact like I joke all the time in my tech talks? Is it the fact that they set up hot tubs and like had child care services that sort of showed a level of permanence to to their protest?
00:03:02.380is it the fact that they the constant honking and noise what where would you have drawn the line if
00:03:09.120you were yeah you know yeah i think the honking and the noise was a mistake on their part i think
00:03:14.540that really galvanized local residents against them uh and was just disturbing the peace right
00:03:21.400and you know sometimes look protests are going to be loud and noisy we get that they're going to
00:03:26.320have megaphones they're going to have chanting they're going to have you know people getting
00:03:30.420riled up that's that's a normal protest but honking your horn constantly at 3 a.m that's
00:03:37.060most canadians consider that rather impolite at the at the very least so yeah i i don't i don't
00:03:44.360know what the i don't know where the line exactly is i can i can tell you that uh in
00:03:53.500my time in ottawa there was always lots of protests some of them were for days and days
00:04:00.000I think of Idle No More, which was about Indigenous rights.
00:04:06.940But I also think people forget about the Occupy Wall Street protest.
00:04:12.580Yeah, I was just going to bring that up.
00:04:13.960Yeah, because they did have an Occupy in Ottawa, too.
00:04:18.440And they took over a park next to the Lord Elgin Hotel, and they were there for weeks and weeks.
00:04:25.540Now, it wasn't right in front of the Parliament, but it was still there for a long time. So I'm not sure. Obviously, when you're disturbing public peace and when you've blocked off the main road in front of the Parliament building, I think at some point that does cross a line.
00:04:45.400But but I think that, you know, obviously, because this was such a political act, there were voices amongst us that didn't feel they had to write a right to be there at all.
00:05:00.940And I would I would have to disagree with that.
00:05:03.860I think that even if you don't like what they're saying, oh, one other thing, you know, whoever was using a symbol of hate amongst those people, whether it's a Nazi flag or a Confederate flag, that's, you know, I'm sorry, but that's not acceptable in our society.
00:05:24.340But, you know, let's assume for the sake of argument, not everybody on the protest was a Nazi. Not everybody in the protest was a Confederate in the U.S. Civil War, obviously.
00:05:35.640Such a weird flag. Like, what are you doing up here?
00:05:37.460I've never understood that, you know, well, I understand the historical continuity of the Confederate flag, but that that's a flag.
00:05:46.860Well, the both flags are flags of losers who inflicted a lot of pain on the world and should be assigned to historical, historical study, but nothing else.
00:06:00.880Uh, but, uh, anyway, aside from that, let's assume that there were legit people who let
00:06:09.980this, this all started because the federal government was imposing a, um, a, a vaccine
00:06:20.360I know it went from there and all these hangers on got involved and all these people with
00:06:24.940other ulterior motives got involved, but that was the essence of it to begin with.
00:06:28.900And then it did gain steam amongst the public. And I do have, you know, polling data that says this, that people who agreed that it was time for the federal government to end their mandates, who disagree, you know, 80-20 disagreed with the tactics of the trucking convoy, but agreed with the main intention, which was, look, we got to move on from this.
00:06:53.000you know, COVID is with us. We've got to be as safe as possible. We can't keep shutting down
00:06:59.940society. And so I think that that was a message that did deserve to be heard. But I'm with the
00:07:06.58080% of Canadians who eventually disagreed with the way it was conveyed. Right. So really,0.55
00:07:13.880it wasn't the permanence that you necessarily object to. It was the implications for residents
00:07:21.220downtown ottawa it was the blockade to get to parliament because i know a lot of parliamentarians
00:07:25.760just didn't go to work because it was too dangerous it was too risky and it was impeding
00:07:29.960upon you know actual functional government now even though a lot of them were doing it over zoom
00:07:35.500or whatever at that point yeah i just think three weeks is is a long time to shut down a main road
00:07:42.120in front of the parliament building in a g7 country i just don't think that that's appropriate
00:07:46.440it clearly did violate uh the law and that the police had a right to enforce the law i i do0.92
00:07:54.860believe that they have a right to do that and they did it in a let's face it uh i think i think the
00:08:00.740police activity when it occurred was was smart it uh did not uh endanger anyone uh and it was
00:08:12.140done incrementally over a couple of days and and it worked right so i don't yeah i don't go to a
00:08:18.180lot of pro only for sheer fact where if you're in the middle of the protest sometimes it goes
00:08:22.640sideways and i like my job so which is a sad reality in a democracy but nonetheless that's
00:08:28.400a different debate um but i mean these were incredibly nice police officers i mean they
00:08:34.360were giving them warning they were giving them nice warning they were putting flyers on their
00:08:38.820car. I have never seen such a lovely presentation of authority at any protest, to be honest with
00:08:48.860you. The way that they handled it, I think was incredible. Now, what about the Emergency Act?
00:08:54.580Yeah. Well, that's the other, I was going to raise that. So that's the other side of the story.
00:08:58.420And I'm with all the commentators, including the international commentators who felt that
00:09:06.740that was overkill it was not necessary the police had the authorities they needed to deal with the
00:09:12.900protest without emergencies powers they were broad powers and I don't think that the federal
00:09:21.360government made the case to parliament that they were necessary in this instance the the protests
00:09:28.400at the borders were already over by the time the emergencies act was invoked yeah so all it was
00:09:33.980about was the you know these ragtag truckers in front of parliament hill uh and i just think it
00:09:40.740sets a dangerous precedent uh when you're freezing bank accounts that's the interesting thing too
00:09:47.260because of course the war measures act was invoked by trudeau's father pierre elliott
00:09:51.580famously during the october crisis and the flq crisis in quebec and they unless they 19 october
00:09:59.7801970 they arrested a whole whack of people uh yeah yeah and but this time yeah yeah you know
00:10:08.660and but i guess my point is this time they arrested fewer people but you were in virtual jail
00:10:17.380when they froze your bank account you can't do anything in our society now if you don't have
00:10:23.220online ability to pay your bills or to, you know, to do whatever. And so that's a very interesting
00:10:30.780thing that we have to be, we have to be cognizant of the ability of the state, the government
00:10:36.880to ruin people's lives without ever putting them in jail. They can do that now. And so I just
00:15:19.800So it's the classical definition of terrorism. And so there were a bunch of letter bombs that they would put bombs in letterboxes. There was a kid who died when one of the bombs exploded. And there were two major kidnappings of political figures. One was Pierre Laporte, who was the Minister of Labor and Deputy Premier of Quebec. He was eventually assassinated by the FLQ. He turned up dead.
00:15:46.520They also kidnapped the British High Commissioner, James Cross, obviously a diplomat.
00:18:05.480And the reason why I say that, you know,
00:18:07.720a lot of people think that just because I don't necessarily
00:18:11.840ally with the truckers, that I'm automatically on Trudeau's side.
00:18:15.460I think it was incredibly poor leadership.
00:18:17.580There wasn't a lot of statements and politicization coming from Trudeau himself, whereas Pierre Trudeau, who is his father, was front and center of that whole thing.
00:18:41.440Right. Whereas Trudeau Jr., sorry, Justin Trudeau, sort of receded into the background of that. And I think that it felt like an absence of leadership with all of these harsh measures being then put upon.
00:18:56.720I also think when I think about the money, because everybody talks about the freezing of the accounts, because initially, because this isn't how it played out, but initially it was thought there was a lot of foreign money, right?
00:19:09.720There was a lot of money coming from the US funneling into here through things like GoFundMes and things like that. And it was through the Wexit party of Alberta. And it was all this hyper politicization of what was actually going on here.
00:19:24.040And I think at times, it almost, a coup is a very strong word, but it felt at times like they were going to sit there until he resigned. And in a, you know what I mean? Like, no, there's no, he's storming the castle, but they were going to sit there until he resigned. And there was going to be this onslaught of money coming towards them to enable to do so.
00:19:45.500And then I started thinking, wow, what a fascinating challenge to democracy in a country, and this is happening everywhere, because it didn't pan out that way.
00:20:05.440But when nobody knew, and that was all sort of heightened, a lot of my thoughts were, wow, because a lot of this has come up about a whole bunch of different political movements, because heaven knows we do this other places.
00:20:19.320How much money you can infuse into a system before you are purposefully, you know, creating a lack of democracy in that system to make decisions for itself because of the money you can push into it, right?
00:20:35.440And I find that concept fascinating. Everybody who's talking about we have to fight the world economic form, we have to fight globalization, we have to, you know, all of these supranational things shouldn't exist. And I'm like, yeah, but they do. They already do exist. Like, we're not fighting about whether they should, they do.
00:21:18.280There's, you know, this may surprise you about how much I agree with you, but I do.
00:21:24.800And obviously, billionaires and money has a lot of play in our political system.
00:21:32.260And I do think that it always surprises me how people are, because that's the status quo, how people are willing to abide by the status quo, which clearly doesn't work in their favor.
00:21:46.400You know, a system that has so much money and all this influence of these global organizations, let's say, I don't know, I wonder why you would, I think that there's, here's my observation.
00:22:04.500There's a lot of people that protect the global elites because they actually think they're part of the global elite, but they're not.
00:22:14.560Like any Canadian who actually thinks they're part of the global elite is really not part of the global elite because it's so much bigger and more powerful than anything from Canada.
00:22:30.160I'm sorry, but that's the truth. But that's that's how some people are.
00:22:34.940So, yes, I mean, all of that was floating around. And, you know, I think part of it is the desire by some, or maybe it's just their reflex. They thought this was another January 6th, that these people were going to storm the parliament building. They weren't going to storm the parliament building. Well, you know, they wanted to change the government. Yeah, well, people protest in front of Parliament Hill. Most of them want to change the government.
00:23:01.940I mean, but there was no capability of doing that by force. There were some idiots in that protest umbrella that probably, and I think did, enunciate that, but it really wasn't serious.0.99
00:23:18.980And I think that it was just a desire to conflate that with January 6th on Capitol Hill that kind of drove that narrative. And I don't think that was a fair narrative.0.99
00:23:31.060And it certainly didn't reflect the majority of people in Canada who had sympathy for part of the message of the protest, which was, please, let's move on, get our restrictions out of the way like they're doing in the U.S., like they're doing in the U.K., like they're doing everywhere else in the world.
00:23:50.740I think that's the part of it that I had some sympathy with.
00:23:54.820But in terms of democracy, it really was not a threat to our democracy in my estimation.
00:24:01.060any more so than any other protest, a long or large protest that we've had on Parliament Hill
00:24:07.000over the years, which I think is natural. And you've got to have those. They're unpleasant
00:24:12.900for the government. And I take your point that Trudeau kind of hid from this protest and was
00:24:17.280not from the center. I felt like. Maybe I'm wrong. I don't know. I don't know. Yeah, I felt like.
00:24:22.300Yeah. And I think that was a bad move on his part. But I think that generally,
00:24:28.720uh you know you got to take your lumps when you're in government there's going to be people that are
00:24:32.240not going to like what you're doing and they're going to protest it and that's that's the the
00:24:36.160beauty of our democracy that you can do that and i i think it raised such cool i i did a podcast
00:24:41.920a few ago talking about sort of the full picture of democracy a lot of people when they talk about
00:24:45.840democracy they just think of elections and it's just such a such a sliver right and and i had a
00:24:51.600lot of people coming up to me or through whatever social media saying things like well joanna the
00:24:56.560the government shouldn't ignore this and therefore things should change. And I'm like,
00:25:01.640okay, but let's just slow it down for a second. Let's assume 50,000 people were on parliament's
00:25:07.020doorstep. I don't know how many, but let's- I think that's high. That's high. But anyway,
00:25:11.160go on in. Let's give them 50. Okay. So if 50,000 people want the mandates to end tomorrow,
00:25:17.180That demand is still not reflective of a democratic country because there's 36 or 37 million Canadians out there. So until you figure out what the 37 million want, that 50,000, just because they're heightened and they're willing to sit in their trunk and honk, truck and honk on their horn, just because they're more active participants in that moment, doesn't give them any more power than the 37 million that didn't decide to protest or counter protest for that.
00:25:47.180right right um and i think that's also interesting right just because you're really loud
00:25:53.500and there's a lot of and there was a lot doesn't mean you have more power because my my end result
00:25:59.420was listen whether i agree or disagree they made their statement i think it's going to have impact
00:26:06.540let it have impact but you don't have to have impact while still sitting in your truck in the
00:26:11.340hot tub doing whatever it is you're doing that now let it have the impact right um but then ukraine
00:26:20.380right yeah then ukraine and i think it just knocked everybody was here talking about freedom
00:26:27.980and everybody's misusing the word in my opinion i can barely hear the word freedom anymore without
00:26:33.100getting agitated because everybody was talking about freedom and what these mandates you know
00:26:38.700mask is taking away from my freedom i'm like okay this is a lot and then we get this horrific
00:26:45.820example of what taking away freedom looks like and i think we also get this very unfortunate
00:26:54.540but connective example of what it's like when we involve ourselves because everybody has in
00:27:01.660other countries foreign policy how our money gets involved how our weaponry gets involved
00:27:08.700and all of a sudden here we are so maybe give your i don't know give your synopsis or give your
00:27:16.300seven cents on yeah yeah i i do i get my back up a little bit when there's a conflating of well
00:27:25.660you know all these people who uh were saying that that this protest is about freedom should hang
00:27:31.740their heads in shame because you look at look at the real freedom issue uh in in ukraine and and i
00:27:39.740i think that is a little bit of apples and oranges uh and uh absolutely you know i think that you've
00:27:46.220got to give people the right to define freedom in canada in a way it's not enough to say because we
00:27:53.180have more freedom than russian occupied ukraine we should shut up sorry don't buy that that's fair
00:28:01.340a hundred percent but i also but i also have a problem with people putting a mask over their
00:28:06.460faces saying comparing themselves and again because it went the other way right that's why
00:28:11.100lovely flags were being thrown around comparing themselves to auschwitz so no no that's that's
00:28:16.700completely inappropriate i i get that yeah yeah very inappropriate and uh you know i i think there
00:28:24.300There is a, I can't remember the phraseology, but there's a point that whoever uses Hitler
00:28:31.200first in an argument automatically loses the argument.0.92
00:28:50.840And there's a lot of, let's just tackle one at a time. First of all, there are those who are self-blaming, that are blaming that this never would have happened if NATO hadn't expanded and that Putin was reacting to the expansion of NATO closer and closer and closer to his borders. Therefore, his reaction was predictable and it's all laid at the feet of NATO.
00:29:18.020well let me explain that let me explain that just not everybody gets nato you know what i mean like
00:29:23.680not everybody so just to give a five second history lesson you have the cold war you have
00:29:29.740and i'm going to very simplify i'm going to simplify this you have two teams you have the
00:29:33.520warsaw pact on one side you have nato on the other side everybody chooses their team and we sit well
00:29:40.900they don't choose it with warsaw pact they didn't get to choose that's that's the major difference
00:29:44.500Okay, fine. Soviets told them. So you have these two alliances, basically, right? And with the
00:29:50.620collapse of the Soviet Union, the Warsaw Pact obviously collapses. And NATO does something
00:29:55.520very interesting. And I do like to point to this. NATO, because just thereafter is when I was in
00:30:01.740university, and NATO rebrands itself. So originally, it was there to fight communism, protect
00:30:07.660democratic capitalist nations, right? And then there was no communism, or no Soviet Union anyways.
00:30:14.500And they rebrand themselves to be, for the most part, an anti-terrorist kind of entity.
00:30:21.340Well, they were searching for a new mission.
00:31:14.500There's another 10 countries included in that, and a lot of them are shifting closer and closer to Russia's border.
00:31:21.040So why would Putin and Russia, if they're not communist anymore, if they no longer have that side, why are they so terrified, annoyed, whatever word you want to use, of that expansion?
00:31:39.260Yeah. And I used to work in Russia actually 30 years ago. The loss of empire, it is a thing. It is a thing. It's not just made up. Russians were humiliated by the fact that these bits of their empire wanted to get the hell away from them, right?
00:32:05.040Uh, and, and so there, and Putin knows that.0.83
00:32:09.120And, uh, he made a very famous speech in Munich about 15 years ago where he said, uh,
00:32:15.860where he said the, he said the greatest tragedy of the 20th century was the dissolution of
00:34:47.180and if we'd only stopped and hadn't added these countries to NATO
00:34:51.000or allowed them to be part of NATO, he would just go away. It's a lie. It's not true. He is an
00:34:57.620aggressive expansionist, and he's a liar, and he's a brutal authoritarian. And so he is doing1.00
00:35:04.200what he will do until he comes up against a force that is equal to or stronger than himself.
00:35:15.120100%. It's so funny. We talk about these things, and we say, then he took a little bit of this,
00:35:20.480And then he took a little bit of this. And I know we just said, we're not going to bring Hitler into anything. But it's like, unfortunately, he's a more intelligent Hitler in the sense that he's not going to do it all at once, right? He's not going to have these big pushes. He's going to bite off a chunk. He's going to wait a few years. He's going to bite off another chunk and he's going to wait.0.59
00:35:41.180And the policy of appeasement, because I do think this is why it's happening. The policy of appeasement on our side of the fence, and I mean NATO, and I mean Canada, I mean the Western world, has allowed it to go on. And that's why I worry about where we're at, because you let him take Crimea. And I do say let him take Crimea.
00:36:04.920yeah yeah and nothing happened nothing happened was showed a totalitarian dictator that he could
00:36:12.520take a bigger chunk and that's just proving to him what he can do next time right and somebody said
00:36:18.920you know he can't just lose putin can't just lose he can't just organize a peace agreement
00:36:24.840putin needs to know he lost and it kind of goes along with what you said it's like
00:36:29.720he needs to come up against that force. So what would you, I'm going to give you all the power
00:36:36.960right now. What would your next step be if you're sitting in that magical, whatever,
00:36:45.060with all those billionaires we talked about, what would be your move?
00:36:50.040Well, World War III is bad for business as well as bad for humanity. Nobody wants that.
00:36:57.560uh and and so i think that you have to know what the red lines are and unfortunately and i if i
00:37:05.300were if i were the president of ukraine i'd be saying exactly as he is saying you know you've
00:37:10.880got to enforce a no-fly zone you've got to give give us more troops you've got to do this you've
00:37:15.480got to do that this war is going to become your war anyway anyway sure i would say that if i were
00:37:21.300the president of Ukraine, but he's not a member of NATO.
00:38:33.940And I believe that there's a whole lot more going on behind the scenes that we're not even privy to.
00:38:38.840That the security forces and the militaries are sharing information about where the Russian targets are.
00:38:45.700They're assisting in the air defense of Ukraine, which has held up relatively well, even though they've got these hypersonic bombs now. And so there's a lot going on, I think, under the surface that is helping Ukraine.
00:39:00.460But there is a limit to what we can do without having a wider conflagration.0.84
00:39:06.660The second he incurs into Polish territory or the Baltic territory, different story.
00:39:13.380You know, we have to we have to fight if that happens, because those are NATO countries and we have to live up to our our promises.
00:39:21.740But absent that, it's going to be a fight here.
00:39:26.720Now, now, what's the most likely result?
00:39:28.900Well, I guess there's one of three results. The Russians could go home, not likely to happen. The Russians could roll into Kiev, not in my view now, not likely to happen anytime soon.
00:39:41.020We have, I think, the start of what is called a frozen conflict where the Russian troops stay in place.
00:42:37.860So I'm not sure how much of a NATO operation it was, although it did involve some NATO-affiliated
00:42:44.840countries. But I think ultimately, you're right. The big difference is Iraq wasn't armed to the
00:42:52.960teeth with nuclear weapons. That's the difference. So in that sense, there's a different conversation
00:42:59.440now, right? I think a lot of people are super, because I remember when this whole thing started,
00:43:04.340now it's very naive of me, I know, and very like, whatever. But I'm like, oh, he lined up 150,000
00:43:10.620soldiers great somebody get me 300 000 soldiers and line them at the other border and we'll wait
00:43:15.740we'll just wait because that was my definitely after crimea i thought that was the best way i
00:43:23.100thought line them up right now because i think everything else is about what to avoid and it
00:43:29.660and it's really starting to feel very uh like very cuban missile crisis who's going to turn their ship
00:43:38.300around right who's gonna blink first and and we're already in it i i think we're already in it
00:43:47.740yeah i mean enough players on the board you know i i guess that's a question of uh the role of
00:43:53.740intelligence too because you know um putin lined up 160 000 soldiers usually when you're invading
00:44:04.060a country you want to have at least a three to one margin of your soldiers versus their soldiers
00:44:10.240but putin lined up 0.8 soldiers to ukrainian soldiers did he think he just take it easy do
00:44:17.940you think that's it i think he just figured that i think he figured he was going to roll in he was0.65
00:44:22.240going to that that the ukrainians were going to greet him as a savior because it was a nazi
00:44:26.600government that he was over overtaking the jewish nazi yeah exactly and uh and so therefore he
00:44:35.620didn't need a lot of troops because uh it was gonna he was gonna mop it up in 48 hours i i
00:44:40.560honestly think that's what he believed and that was that you know you talk you talked about putin
00:44:46.280because his strategy has been take a little bit here take a little bit there crimea donbass
00:44:51.000south ossetia blah blah blah uh but here he took a you know he took a functioning country of
00:44:58.88044 million people and decided to impose his will on that and that has so far been a huge mistake
00:45:06.580that he has made because they're not they're not ever going to uh willingly come under the soviet
00:45:13.640rule again, Russian rule. So I think that Putin did miscalculate. He's already fired a couple of
00:45:23.280generals. He's already fired a couple of security personnel from the FSB, which is the successor to
00:45:29.440the KGB. Different acronyms, same modus operandi. So one has to assume that he was not happy with
00:45:41.280advice he got. Very interesting. You look at a guy like that and you look at what he's accomplished
00:45:50.080and then you also get a little bit, because 15 years ago is a long time to be throwing out your
00:45:57.840manifesto and that's what he did 15 years ago. He did it and then over 15 years he's proven it
00:46:06.640with action a b c all the way to this and i don't think look i don't think a lot of people could
00:46:14.160have even picked ukraine out on a map before this but what's i mean outside of the president of
00:46:22.800ukraine being as charismatic and impressive as he as he's been and i don't just mean the fake
00:46:28.080charismatic i mean the guys on the ground with a whatever kind of weapon in his hand um i i think0.99
00:46:35.840I think the fortitude of Ukrainian people has just knocked everybody on. You know what I mean? Like just everybody is just dumbstruck. And I'm assuming he just feels the same way. I'm assuming, you know, you see pictures of that, you know, that picture of the, like the 65 year old woman learning how to shoot.1.00
00:46:58.620yeah yeah it puts everything in perspective in a sense it does put everything in perspective
00:47:05.200because uh our generations for a while now haven't been used to that kind of existential threat and
00:47:11.700here here's a country that faces an existential threat and they're willing to fight for it they're
00:47:16.600willing to die for it and they're willing to for their sons and daughters to die for it
00:47:19.960and we're just not used to that and you know i'm not saying we're a soft society or anything but
00:47:26.100uh it's just a different uh a different level of intensity let's put it that way so it's reality
00:47:34.980how do you first like you think stalemate we're just going to sit like this for a while
00:47:40.500and then what because i really think if he doesn't lose the land he's taken
00:47:45.460it's just going to be a matter of time before we're right back here yeah i mean a lot depends
00:48:19.680of their propaganda. And the Russians have their propaganda. But, you know, we had at the beginning0.53
00:48:25.660of the war, this ghost jet of Ukraine that was taking down Russian jets. Remember that? And it
00:48:32.760was just like complete fiction, right? It's a secret jet. Yeah. Yeah. You know, so we just have to be
00:48:38.020careful. But I think most military experts that I've been listening to have indicated that Putin
00:48:45.360does have a problem with logistics and supply and getting that it's difficult for him to do0.97
00:48:53.380more than he's doing, which explains his current tactic, which is to bomb the crap out of urban0.95
00:48:58.520centers because they can't get their troops in there without a whole lot of them dying.0.97
00:49:04.880And so that explains that. But yeah, I mean, he's trying to get a land bridge to Crimea.
00:49:13.140He still hasn't even – a month in, he hasn't even accomplished that, let alone any other one of his major objectives.
00:49:20.020So right now, unless I'm missing something, he's had a big fat failure on his hands.
00:49:26.980The other interesting thing is, of course, this all happened with the overlay of the Beijing Olympics because Putin and Xi Jinping met at the Olympics just as the Olympics were starting.
00:49:38.720and they they created their friendship treaty you know bffs to the end treaty and uh but uh
00:49:47.220she says to putin look if you're going to invade ukraine wait till after the olympics can you
00:49:53.160please he said yeah sure sure i'll wait till a day after the olympics which is what he did
00:49:57.200again same as the sochi olympics in crimea he does the same deal again people were asking me
00:50:03.520when do you think putin's going to invade i said the day after the olympics uh that's what he did
00:50:08.340last time anyway so he he does that a day after the olympics i'm sure he assured the president of
00:50:14.580china that it was he's going to mop it up in 48 to 72 hours and so china their number one strategic0.63
00:50:22.820and military ally in the world right now is a complete mess up when it comes to invading a0.95
00:50:31.100country successfully so if i were china i'd not be very happy right now yeah and that's and here's
00:50:38.100and here's the piece on the board that everybody talks about, right? What is China going to do?
00:50:42.720And I'm thinking nothing. China's not going to step outside of China. People's mentality
00:50:50.660surrounding China, they can ally themselves with whoever they want to ally themselves,
00:50:54.680whoever's going to serve their foreign policy at that time in that region.
00:50:59.960But let's be, they're not an expansionist state. Well, except for Taiwan, but yes.
00:51:05.160Yeah. But that's, I mean, well, we can go back to that, but they still haven't invaded.
00:51:12.020China could have taken Taiwan about 37 seconds, or they could have blown it out the ocean,0.82
00:51:17.220but they haven't. And they haven't because even when it comes to land they deem theirs.0.94
00:51:23.220Now, granted, Tibet, different story. But even when it comes to land they claim is theirs,0.55
00:51:28.740they they don't step out militarily they're not that kind of expansionist state so i can see them
00:51:36.780not wanting to take a side i can see them saying you do you we're gonna but for people who think
00:51:43.360they're actually going to step in militarily and side with russia how likely do you think that is
00:51:49.720yeah i don't think very likely i think biden had a call with uh president xi uh just earlier a few
00:51:56.660days ago, and he laid down a red line saying, look, we know you're an ally of Russia, but
00:52:02.960the minute you start funneling arms and other items to the conflict, we will treat you as
00:52:11.200a combatant, is basically what he said to China.
00:52:13.860So I think the readout I got on that, it's actually quite hilarious, the readout, because
00:52:19.220the readout is what both sides say the conversation was about.
00:52:23.680So the readout on the U.S. side was we told the Chinese they really can't do a lot of support for Russia, otherwise we can treat them as another ally combatant. And the Chinese readout was all allegorical. Is that the right word?
00:52:43.680it was it was all metaphor it was fascinating it was uh you know it takes two hands to clap
00:52:53.340was one of the metaphors they used uh and another one was uh when you when you put the bread in the
00:53:00.540toaster both sides get burnt it's like what the hell you know you know anyway i think their point
00:53:07.960was you got yourself into this mess we're not going to get you out of it but we're not going
00:53:12.140to help the other guys get out of it. I think that's what I got. I think that's their genuine
00:53:17.480foreign policy plan in most situations. So what would you be watching for? I know I've taken up
00:53:23.640a lot of your time once again, but what would you be watching for in the coming days? Or is there
00:53:28.960any big things that you anticipate happening? Yeah, Biden's going to be in Poland. Biden's
00:53:37.520to be in poland the end of the week that'll be interesting uh to see uh what his language is
00:53:42.800there uh and uh i uh again i think there's a lot happening that we don't know about joanna i'll be
00:53:50.000honest with you uh in terms of arms and other types of support for ukraine um and so i think
00:53:57.360that that will continue the vote in the u.s congress to strip russia of its uh most most
00:54:03.920favored nation status was, it was 400 to eight or something like that. Yeah, there was only eight
00:54:12.420members of Congress who voted against it. Those eight are real winners, by the way.
00:54:16.720Yeah, yeah, I know, I know. But I think that you're seeing, there's a couple of things that
00:54:21.160are very interesting. Let's forget about Russia per se right now. So in the US, there really is
00:54:29.740a reconnection of the two political parties having a bipartisan consensus now both on china
00:54:37.500and russia okay 98 of the republican party is anti-putin and 100 of the democratic party is
00:54:47.260anti-putin so that's pretty good that's pretty good yes absolutely more unified even his
00:54:54.940His orangeness, Donald Trump, is now saying, well, that's not the Putin I knew.
01:01:05.220But the people, they're long-suffering people, and you can say, well, they have only themselves to blame, but not all of them have themselves to blame.
01:01:18.420And when I see the protests and I see the footage coming out of Russia, and I know what those people are risking by protesting there and what they will face or what they could, and very, very real probability of facing.
01:01:35.220I find that incredibly brave, incredibly powerful. And it should be, the more that we should embrace
01:01:44.280that and magnify that as being heroes in their own right. There have been soldiers that have
01:01:51.460put down their weapons. There have been so many opportunities where they know what going home to
01:01:59.040Putin looks like, and they're doing it anyways. And that, I mean, I don't know a lot of soldiers
01:02:06.200and a lot of people do that when their government is doing the wrong thing, but they are that
01:02:12.820powerful. Well, they think of the cosmonauts of the International Space Station who had the
01:02:18.060Ukrainian jumpsuits on. I mean, they're up there for the next six months. They better hope something
01:02:24.060changes by the time they have to go back or they'll just stay we're just gonna wait here
01:02:29.660just for a little longer exactly you guys sort it out we'll see it from up here yeah well thank you
01:02:36.380so much for again talking about such important things and giving you know all of your years of
01:02:41.500experience and and impressive intellect to the subject matter no it's my honor thanks joanna
01:02:48.060thank you so much and again this was the honorable tony clement i will put all of his links in the
01:02:52.780bio so you can go check out his amazing podcast and all of your social media.