Globe & Mail treats readers to massive dose of war propaganda

Chris Alexander had an entirely unremarkable career as a diplomat and politician. However, his three year posting at the Canadian embassy in Moscow as “Third Secretary,” long before Putin arrived on the scene, makes him one of this country’s foremost experts on all things Russian, especially the current war in Ukraine. As a Putin expert, he recently weighed in with this effort which appeared in the Globe a few days ago; The world needs to win in Ukraine. You know which “world” he’s talking about; the roughly 15% of the world firmly in Uncle Sam’s pocket. The “golden billion” as some writers refer to it. The other seven billion denizens of Planet Earth couldn’t care less about Ukraine. Outside of Canada, USA, and NATO/EU countries, virtually nobody has so much as joined sanctions against Russia, let alone provided military support to Ukraine. They don’t buy the bullshit about this existential battle between “democracy” and “authoritarianism.” Alexander claims, “Defeating Russia’s invasion in Ukraine is the pivotal fight of our time – one that will determine whether our children grow up amid crumbling institutions and besieged democracies, or with renewed opportunity.” How silly is that? If Putin prevails, our children will grow up amid crumbling institutions? What does he think they’re growing up with now? He bemoans the fact that NATO have been acting like fraidy-cats. We can’t save democracy with the half-assed efforts we’ve been making for the first two and a half years of this war. No siree! We must put our economies on war footings! We gotta scale up missile production and 155mm shell production etc to ensure Ukraine’s victory! How stupid is that? What democratically elected leader in the West is going to campaign on that? Outside of a few Baltic pipsqueaks, none. Certainly not ours. But it gets even sillier; “Canada should lead. In the Second World War, a town like Ajax, Ont., rose to be the largest shell factory in the British Commonwealth. We could make such extraordinary efforts again.” We could? I don’t think so. That’s the problem with Canadians of Alexander’s pedigree; they can’t stop fantasizing about a global leadership role for Canada, and thereby for themselves. Just because we could do stuff in the past doesn’t mean we can today. During WWII we built 4,000 ships. Now? Almost 150 years ago, we built a railroad clear across the nation in ten years. Today, ten years might get us ten kilometres of subway, if we’re lucky. The only thing Canada leads the world in today is health warnings on tobacco products. Canadian taxpayers have already sunk at least $10 billions into propping up Ukraine. Our “democracy” will no doubt plod along business-as-usual if we never spend one more dollar propping up Zelensky’s kleptocracy. It’s time to cut out the war propaganda and focus our efforts on the many urgent needs experienced by our own population.