Trudeau’s India crisis shows he has lost control of Canadian spies | Policy

To anyone with sight and functioning synapses, it becomes obvious that some rogue Canadian spies are actually responsible for Canada’s foreign policy.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau holds the title of the country’s top diplomat, while his Foreign Affairs Minister, Mélanie Joly, claims the nominal role of second-in-command.

But if the events of the last year have confirmed anything, it is this: Canada’s Prime Minister is forced to act at the mercy of what is likely just a handful of complicit and greedy members. leaks from the country’s irresponsible security services that Trudeau, the cabinet and his hapless national security advisers have lost control.

Rather than recognizing this disturbing fact, giddy editorialists and columnists have applauded the calculated conduct of nameless, badge-wearing bureaucrats determined to get what they want, regardless of the human and geopolitical consequences.

With their gullible and hand-picked relays in the press, for months, a band of legitimate spies have been behind the leak – drop by drop, drop by drop – of fragments of so-called “intelligence” handpicked regarding China’s alleged interference. in the internal affairs of Canada.

I think Trudeau and those close to him recognized early on that giving in to pressure would set a serious precedent. Trudeau therefore opted for an intermediate solution: appoint a special rapporteur to examine the allegations that are being prepared.

He botched it, then finally capitulated to the explicit demand of the spies, behind the domino-like series of hyperbolic and uncorroborated “revelations”: the establishment of a public inquiry.

Now full of confidence and certain of never being discovered, Canada’s scheming spies appear to have shifted their sights to the latest target: India.

A Globe and Mail correspondent, speaking on the national newspaper’s podcast, admitted that he had been informed by “sources” of the wavering accusation that India had assassinated Canadian Sikh separatist Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Canada.

Later, the newspaper’s editor was contacted, he said, by the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), asking him to delay publication of the article for at least a week to allow agencies Canadian intelligence agencies to continue their “work” – ostensibly to gather and substantiate information. still nebulous “evidence” linking India to the assassination plot.

The Globe refused. The counteroffer: Given the importance of the story, the newspaper was willing to wait a day or two.

Ultimately, the Globe published its article online just as Trudeau was preparing to make his rushed and nuanced speech to Parliament and the nation in which he claimed there was a “potential link” between the “agents.” Indians and the murder of Nijjar in the parking lot. from a Sikh temple in British Columbia in June.

From what I heard informally, the Prime Minister’s Office had discreetly contacted a few selected journalists to tell them that the Prime Minister planned to make a statement soon regarding India’s expected role in Nijjar’s death . The preemptive goal was to blunt questions and criticism over Canada’s aborted trade mission to New Delhi and Trudeau’s limp and awkward handshake with Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the G20 summit.

The fact that Trudeau was forced to “preempt” the Globe leak is further proof that emboldened spies are at the helm of what amounts to a parallel government determined to embarrass and coerce a sitting prime minister into carrying out their orders – or else.

This is an unacceptable affront to the will of Canadians and a blatant violation of the advisory role that security services are supposed to play in a constitutional democracy.

Instead of being severely censored for overstepping their authority and behaving recklessly, these shadowy scoundrels are being hailed as “whistleblowers” by starry-eyed pundits and writers who have lost sight of the facts. deep damage caused.

Here’s the other uncomfortable truth that journalists-turned-cheerleaders who have little, if any, understanding of the dirty, underground world of “espionage” fail to grasp: It is populated primarily by sinners, not of saints – whatever their country of origin.

Consider the “disclosure” that one of Canada’s partners in the Five Eyes group – a consortium of electronic spying services that also includes the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand – had spied on Indian diplomats and allegedly transmitted it to Ottawa to incriminate them. information about Nijjar’s murder.

In the black-and-white universe these naive apologists inhabit, the Five Eyes alliance is dedicated solely to spying on the “bad guys” because that’s what the “good guys” do – i.e. tell us – to protect you and me.

I have to tell the Jiminy-Cricket star-wishing crowd, but the Five Eyes spy on their dear friends and each other all the time too.

For what? Collect tons of classified diplomatic, military and trade secrets and all manner of intimate and salacious information for future leverage and influence.

Meanwhile, India – nudge nudge, wink wink – is probably busy spying on its “strategic allies” in the same way.

Where, oh where is all this outrage fueled by foreign interference? The lowest point of the West’s ever-convenient and infuriating hypocrisy regarding “extrajudicial” executions has been fully expressed in the pages of the champion of “foreign interference,” the New York Times.

And so the Times has recently provided predictable coverage for the “good guys” when they commit interference and “targeted killings” – the sterile euphemism for murder.

“The killing and the Indian government’s alleged involvement shocked officials in Washington. While democratic countries carry out targeted assassinations in unstable countries or regions and the spy services of more authoritarian governments – notably Russia – orchestrate assassinations wherever they wish, it is unusual for a democratic country to carry out a secret and murderous action in another democracy,” writes the Times. .

Simply put: yes, the “good guys” murder people, but they only do it in “unstable countries or regions.” This seems to constitute a large part of the turbulent planet these days. Either way, unlike the “good” Democrats, the “bad” authoritarians – like Putin – are murdering people everywhere.

The White House and the US State Department would be shocked and confused. After all, they don’t know whether their friend Modi is a “good guy” or a “bad guy.”

As for “orchestrating assassinations wherever they wish,” the Times has of course forgotten the long, murderous, not-so-distant and recent history of America choosing to encourage and assist in orchestrating coups of state against democratically elected governments in the Balkans, Central and Eastern European countries. South America, the Middle East, Africa and Asia – not to mention the catastrophic invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Apparently they don’t count.

Look, Trudeau needs to, if possible, lasso Canada’s independent spies and remind them – loud and clear – who their boss is.

He may also want to find out how they, along with their equally comatose colleagues in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, allowed – if true – a Canadian to be shot dead on Canadian soil by Indian agents intended to s get away with it with impunity.

This, dare I say it, deserves another public inquiry.

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Al Jazeera.

Addison Erickson

"Thinker. Hardcore web aficionado. Zombie evangelist. Pop culture trailblazer. Student. Passionate twitter maven."

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