Friday, April 08, 2022

Today's News: "Ukraine is fighting our fight, for democracy"

A fascinating "history" of the Russia Ukraine War: Here's some other interesting pieces today: 
Associated Press Russia’s failure to take down Kyiv was a defeat for the ages Today was Budget Day in Canada -- though you would hardly have known it if you only watched CBC and CTV, because neither broadcaster could resist the temptation to continually chop up Freeland's speech with their own hot takes and the gratuitous slams from the Opposition parties. It was so frustrating we finally switched to CPAC and I'm glad we did because I was just in time to hear her powerful remarks about Ukraine and democracy, and laying out the rationale for why Canada needs to help Ukraine. 
Every Canadian should listen to her words -- here is the National Post story where I found her speech text plus video - it was a very moving and inspiring speech, I thought: 
From the first day we started working on this Budget, this growth agenda was always going to be our focus. And then, Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine. 
On that dark morning of February 24, a day that will live in infamy, the world we woke up to was different from the one that had existed when we turned off the lights the night before. 
When Putin opened fire on the people of Ukraine, he also turned his guns on the unprecedented period of prosperity that the world’s democracies have worked so diligently to build over more than 76 years.
Our rules-based international order— built from the ashes of the Second World War — today confronts the greatest threat since its inception. And so our response has been swift and strong. 
Canada and our allies have imposed the toughest sanctions ever inflicted on a major economy. Russia has become an economic pariah. 
But the mutilated people of Bucha, shot with their hands tied behind their backs, have shown us that is not enough. Putin and his henchmen are war criminals. 
The world's democracies — including our own — can be safe only if the Russian tyrant and his criminal armies are entirely vanquished. 
And that is what we are counting on the brave people of Ukraine to do. Because they are fighting our fight — a fight for democracy — it is in our urgent national interest to ensure they have the missiles and the money they need to win. And that is what this Budget helps to provide. 
Russia's invasion of Ukraine has also reminded us that our own peaceful democracy — like all the democracies of the world — depends ultimately on the defence of hard power. 
The world’s dictators should never mistake our civility for pacifism. 
We know that freedom does not come for free, and that peace is guaranteed only by our readiness to fight for it. That is why we are making an an immediate, additional investment in our armed forces, and propose a swift defence policy review to equip Canada for a world that has become more dangerous.
This budget will help provide the fiscal and physical firepower we need to meet any threat that may confront us. 
 In her speech as presented in the Commons, I noted that Freeland next added this sentence to her text: 
We understand that security also includes energy security which Canada must work to ensure for ourselves and for our democratic partners. 
I'm not sure exactly what this sentence means, or why it was added, but considering I live in a part of the country where fossil fuels and pipelines are important, and considering how important it will be to Europe to achieve energy independence from Russia, this reference to energy security may be significant.
Freeland then continued: 
The convoys of Russian tanks rolling across Ukraine did not change the fundamental goal of this Budget. But Putin’s attack on Ukraine, and that country’s remarkable and valiant resistance, has reinforced our government’s deepest conviction — a line that runs through this Budget, and in each of the Budgets that have preceded it: That the strength of a country does not come solely from the vastness of the reserves of its central bank, or from the size of the force in its garrisons. Those do matter, to be sure. But they matter less than democracy itself. They can be defeated — they are being defeated — by a people who are united and free. Because it is the people who are every country's true source of strength here and in Ukraine... 
The brave people of Ukraine have shaken the world's older democracies out of our 21st century malaise ... there should be no greater priority than to build a country that we would all be willing to fight for.

And here's something amusing:
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