US thwarted plot to kill Sikh separatist on American soil
ft.com
ft.com
Even some Indian security official claimed that Gurpatwant Singh Pannun is an American asset in a public forum. That's why he can openly call for bombing Indian flights without any repercussions whatsoever, because he is protected by CIA (therefore by FBI/DOJ). 'It is not for any other reason that Indian intelligence chief told the CIA Director that the only reason they don’t take action against SFJ’s G.S Pannun, who holds dual citizenship of US and Canada, for openly calling for assassinations of Indian diplomats and burning of Indian flag could be because he is actually a CIA agent and batting on behalf of Langley.' [4]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_India_Flight_182
[2] https://espionage.substack.com/p/canadian-intelligences-dirt...
[3] https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/india/a-tale-of-tw...
[4] https://www.hindustantimes.com/analysis/view-how-trudeau-s-a...
See all these things in the recent Nijjar-Canada-India tussle. I believe both (b) and (c) are true. SIGINT(d) can hear the chatter that Indian diplomats talked about Pannun.
Given the media is the lapdog of security agencies, we need more than (a) and what Bloomberg/NYtimes/Wapo/AP/FT says. That’s why I consider this saga as a manufactured consent. BTW, I’m not saying that Indian media is sacrosanct.
There is a Punjabi gangs/politicians/khalistan/drug-trade/asylum-immigration-scam nexus.
The system is unfair, and I'm not acquitting the US of all responsibility here either. On a global stage though, it should be obvious that nobody cares about this surveillance. We all pay for it and use it every day, and upgrade to new surveillance phones when they come out. Trying to whip up an anti-FIVE EYES sentiment is an obvious ploy by incumbent Indian conservatives (that already control local media) to get things under the radar. America will never declassify the entire report because they never do; any "tip of the hand" would show the world how deep they run. Imagine the fallout if a supposedly "encrypted" channel like WhatsApp or iMessage was abused? It would be Armageddon on the market with the defense sector to blame. America never rolls like that.
There is not a single country on this planet without disdain for superior surveillance, but it the ends are not going to be worth the means in this situation. You just leveled some pretty damning accusations at America; now all you need is evidence and a living diplomat to prosecute and you could prove your point.
The best part was the continued assertions that Canada stood alone (courtesy of our navel gazing, self-critical media which is how it should be, but is a bit asymmetrical when countering fanatics), all the while the US continually stated that they backed Canada. Indeed, it is overwhelmingly likely that the intel for both incidents had a common source.
Another interesting revelation that flew under the radar-
https://techcrunch.com/2023/10/30/indian-opposition-leaders-...
The Modi government of India is basically acting like an autocracy now. All of the Indians who spent so much time attacking Canada might spend a little more time looking inwards.
But any government that delivers 8% growth is safe, and currently Modi is doing so.
Correct. This is actually a criticism of Cold War era U.S. foreign politics, where a short-term “win” was prioritised over strategic alignment, the lesson being it almost always backfired.
The only way we can build resilient alliances is by turning friends into allies, not those we’d like to ally with into “friends.” My concern is we’re doing the latter, again, with India.
The basic problem being the need for trust that things will last past the head of state.
For example, in Punjab the main Punjabi news channel (PTC) is owned by the Badal family - who used to control Punjab as leaders of SAD until 2018 when they lost elections to the INC and then the AAP in 2022.
The main Tamil language news media company Sun Group is owned by the grand-nephew of the founder of the ruling DMK.
The 2 main Telegu language media companies - ETV and Sakshi TV - are owned by businessmen related to the leaders of the BRS and YSRCP respectively.
The BJP will end up losing power at some point, but Indian media is already owned by political dynasties and that will never change.
Another disaster was his handling of Covid. People were literally begging on streets for oxygen cylinders. He can't put together a sentence to speak in front of media w\o reading from a prompter. He's winning elections by hyped-up narratives, playing with emotions, oppression, lies, religion and caste play cards.
https://www.indianpunchline.com/nijjar-affair-poses-an-exist...
”All in all, the Nijjar affair takes the lid off the acute contradictions in India’s foreign policies. The assumptions driving the foreign policy’s China-centric thrust turn out to be delusional; the “westernist” trajectory has landed in a cul-de-sac; the assiduously propagated larger-than-life global image of India turns out to be a mirage; foreign policy built on personality cult and opportunism rather than rational and consistent principles attuned to the world in transition got battered; and, most important, the hubris in India’s diplomacy boomeranged.
The Nijjar affair poses an existential dilemma. Surrendering to the US diktat will make India look a surrogate state and a laughing stock in the Global South. Indians won’t approve of it.
On the contrary, ignoring the diktat will be hugely consequential. Make no mistake, Five Eyes had a gory history against the Soviet Union; in the post-cold war era, it all but destabilised Hong Kong, and is today an active player in Myanmar and Thailand in India’s neighbourhood. Its entry in the subcontinent is ominous.“
And then (strangely more vigorous)
https://www.indianpunchline.com/india-wont-be-bullied-in-mul...
He leans pro-Russia and anti-American.
> He leans pro-Russia and anti-American
Good for him. It’s a free world and he’s entitled to his views and preferences. Regardless, he is intelligent, highly experienced, and provides a fresh (“oh no”) perspective on these matters.
When has germany deployed assassination?
If the West were trying to destabilize India I suspect it would be incredibly easy to achieve, which is exactly why there is that defensiveness and hitting at shadows. But the West isn't because India has long been a useful counter to regional powers.
What is absolutely true is that the Modi government is spectacularly corrupt. Every opponent of Modi is a "terrorist" -- even opponents in government. The government is falling further and further down the well towards fascism, all while proud Indians convince themselves that everyone else is actually the problem.
This is a common tendency for many Americans, read 10 uni-dimensional articles in your favorite newspaper on some topic, do not bother to read any history on said topic, then come to strong opinions and bully people who see things differently. Maybe it is you who should put down the "propaganda pipe" and consider this issue for the complicated nuanced thing it is.
The real issue is they wanted to kill someone who wasn't a criminal. Which, ultimately, is just plain old homicide.
In the short-term, maybe, but none of them are benefitting from an India who feels it can bully any of the other five
Same thing happens when Canada criticizes Saudi Arabia, etc.
This does track with the modus operandi I've been hearing about. The IB/RAW attaché has been placing hits on a couple of these people [1] (please find the Vancouver Sun article the ToI article is basing it on - ti Google fu is failing me but I remember reading it back in July).
In general, there is an ongoing gang war in Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, Delhi, and the US-Canada Diaspora after the AAP won Punjab elections.
In Punjabi politics there is often implicit coordination between specific gangs and parties. Some gangsters would align with SAD, and others with INC. After the AAP won in 2022, the entire system fell apart, as the AAP is the new kid in town, and plenty of older gangs and biradiris didn't have links with them. Add to that the ongoing gang war in Delhi NCR as development is speeding up, meant that there are new players entering the game and there's active consolidation both between parties and gangs.
I guess Lawrence Bishnoi has turned to a RAW asset based on all of this news.
[0] - https://theprint.in/diplomacy/after-ft-report-on-us-foiling-...
[1] - https://m.timesofindia.com/india/contract-for-nijjar-hit-was...
That said, Panun did also threaten to blow up an Air India flight by Nov 19th (clearly didn't happen).
That said, there won't be blowback between India and US relations as a whole. The US is too important to India and India is too important to the US.
The Indian method also sucks from an OpSec standpoint - Indian agencies transfer Senior Police from state level to RAW or IB and those state police departments might brag about it on their websites. This is a big issue with Punjab Police (who tend to manage the Khalistan issue)
Source?
The article says “Pannun angered Indian officials this month by issuing a video in which he warned Sikhs not to fly on Air India because it would be ‘life threatening’ and that “he told the FT he was not making a violent threat against the airline.
Given the context of Sikhs being murdered overseas by New Delhi, that statement seems to have multiple reasonable interpretations.
If this is the best source available, we’re probably best without it.
Not really? Threats require specificity and credibility. Using simply ethnicity or even cause as the sole qualifier for credibility isn’t something most people do.
This is a person with a history of provocations making an indirect threat. I’m not saying he deserves punishment, but I can see why the Indian government would take his threat very seriously.
It’s sort of like an Iranian student group saying American Airlines isn’t safe to fly anymore. Like, okay? Not nice. But not quite a threat. (Certainly not a credible one.)
Hell, we speak the same language (kinda, I know it's a lingua franca etc)! So why are we allies with Pakistan, a country that openly hates us, instead of India?
We increasingly are.
> why are we allies with Pakistan, a country that openly hates us, instead of India?
India openly allied with the Soviets, so we took the other side. Also, India was an immature democracy through the 70s, when it flirted with outright authoritarianism. It isn’t until recently that it has become a middle-income democracy with a high-income upper-middle class and cosmopolitan elite.
I’m afraid you have it backwards. India and the Soviet Union signed a treaty only after the US sent its seventh fleet towards India during the 1971 India-Pakistan conflict. US supported Pakistan in the war and India had no choice but to align with the Soviets to deter them.
New Delhi and Moscow were transferring technology in “steel, defense, railways, construction equipment, metal & mining [and] petrochemicals” by the time “Khrushchev announced that the Soviet Union supported India's stance on the Kashmir conflict against Pakistan and over Portuguese coastal enclaves such as Goa” in 1955 [1]. The MiG-21 was co-produced in India in the 1960s.
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/India–Soviet_Union_relations...
Co-producing warplanes is as good as a treaty. Right in front of leaders visiting each others’ capitals.
Bottom line is India never courted the West. Pakistan did. Neither drove the other into anyone’s arms; American relations in Pakistan were focussed on the Middle East, India’s in the Soviets with China. When the theatre shifted to India v Pakistan, the table was already set and everyone assumed their places.
Not really, no. One is a financial commitment, the other is a military commitment. They're very different.
India never courted the West because Pakistan already had close relations with them. The order matters since your argument is US aligned with Pakistan only because India aligned with Soviet Union. US had its own motivations (obviously) around curtailing Soviet influence in Afghanistan.
The U.S. co-producing nuclear submarines with Australia isn’t a military commitment?
> your argument is US aligned with Pakistan only because India aligned with Soviet Union
This was never said? We didn’t ally with India because it was allied with the Soviets. We have no problem allying with both sides of a regional spat e.g. Israel & Saudi Arabia, Turkey & Greece and Japan & Korea.
I mean troop commitment. Will the US send a naval fleet to Australia if the latter is attacked?
You’re kidding, right? Of course we would. (Unless it’s chickenshit business, like Indonesia and Oz getting into a coast guard squabble over migrant boats.)
When you co-produce weapons, you send high-ranking technical advisors and expensive kit that needs guarding. This is why e.g. deploying a ballistic missile radar isn’t just plopping down a radar. It involves deploying troops around it. We have defence treaties with countries whom we don’t trust enough to co-produce with. Co-production is a big deal.
India and Soviet Union had a different kind of co-production deal. It has always been, even to this day with Russia, technology transfer and licensing i.e. you help develop systems and then fully hand over to India. No troop deployment, you're only in it for the money. The BrahMos missile development is the best example of this.
No troops, but certainly Russians. When the “help develop systems” part is in effect, you’re as good as allies.
There are more broken defence treaties than cases of military technology coöperation betrayals. That is why those deals are so closely scrutinised. Treaties promise something in the future. Co-production delivers something today.
Maybe there was foreign policy naïveté in New Delhi at the time. I don’t think so, but perhaps. On the Soviet side, they certainly knew what they were doing.
Sure, I agree with that. But there are different degrees of being allies. "Help develop systems" is nowhere near "risk your own troops to defend another country" (a.k.a. NATO). That's the distinction I'm trying to make.
The Soviets didn’t put boots on the ground, so a similar risk wasn’t present. But one, that wasn’t knowable at the time. And two, there absolutely would have been Russian assets in the vicinity while everyone was learning how to do their jobs.
India and the US did court each other til the mid-1960s. IIT Kharagpur was built by UIUC and IIT Kanpur by UC Berkeley, along with JK Galbraith's strong lobbying for Indians rule industrialization in "Economic Development" and "The New Industrial State".
After JFK and Nehru died, the relationship tanked. Indira Gandhi leaned pro-Socialist economically with the 1969-73 nationalization drive that impacted American businesses, and LBJ and Nixon both detested Indira at a personal level (though to be fair the feeling was mutual). India supported the North Vietnamese during the war [0] and also began military tech transfers with the USSR and France during that time period [1] due to their mutual "Non Aligned" policy.
There was an actual chance that India would have become a global factory, but the nationalization drive in the 70s and 80s [2] lead to American enterprises in India shifting to newly open China
[0] - https://academic.oup.com/book/32264/chapter-abstract/2684597...
[1] - https://academic.oup.com/book/10629/chapter-abstract/1586347...
[2] - https://www.nytimes.com/1977/12/12/archives/reaction-is-mixe...
US took Pakistan's side first, we only made the Indo-Soviet friendship deal in 71 because we had no other choice, or just accept being obliterated by US Navy while intervening in Bangladesh. We were one of the founding members of the Non-Aligned movement of third world countries and one of the leaders of that group. We did not want to be involved in cold war between the west and USSR and took no sides until we were forced to for survival.
Can you imagine that? The world's strongest and second-strongest democracies aiming their guns at the world's largest on behalf of an Islamist-Military dictatorship that was committing a genocide.
As usual, Americans forget all of this or don't even bother to read about it in the first place.
The reason the US does not like China is not because of their economy but their politics and military ambitions. Both China and India have nukes so they can defend their territory against the US just fine. China wants to expand into taiwan, the south china see and even some west china territory India controls and who knows what else.
If you think about it, being wealtheir than the US does not affect the US much so long as the US is still a competing consumer economy and the dollar is the global currency (kind of like english being lingua franca, unless the world trusts China more than the US to pay its bills, RMB will never displace the dollar ) what changes for the US? So long as GDP is the same and the US does not rely on exports for survival it can still maintain the most powerful military. The problem is with China using their wealth to compete with the US military similar to USSR which might lead to a world war 3 situation.
India on the other hand, no doubt will improve its military but I don't see India spending 100B+ a year on military or foreign bases and multiple aircraft carrier strike force groups and all that. The only real conflict opportunity for India are pakistan and China but if India is allied with the US then the US and NATO countries will be a deterrent. Much of why India is neutral on ukraine and won't publicly be closer to the US is a result of economic dependencies such as oil and trade routes. A prosperous india might be able to break free from those shackles and equally compete with EU and the US as well as with China.
The EU is a society that is winding down.
Americans are sensible and realize the future of innovation and progress lies in countries that have young people.
A bunch of old Europeans are not a threat. Europe is utterly feckless anyway and is unlikely to ever be able to field a large enough army to actually be a threat
Reminds me of that attempted mass murder at yet another Winter Festival in France - doesn't make any sense that this would happen again and again by Islamists from a US perspective, but from a "fuck it, we're just giving up" perspective it makes perfect sense.
In a list of American geopolitical concerns, a traditional force on force land invasion wouldn't even make it into the top 100. Swap out "Europe" for any other political entity real or imagined and it would make no difference.
Have you watched our politics? We don’t want to run shit. Running shit is expensive.
Also, America did run the show. Twice. After WWII, when it held a global nuclear hegemony. And after the fall of the Soviet Union, when it was the sole superpower. Both times we basically did everything we could to slough off the responsibility.
Of course we want more influence. But we don't want to run things.
It's not because we're nice people or whatever. It's because we're a maritime and trade power while our competitors have historically been land powers. We want someone rich we can trade with who takes care of their own problems at home.
> Do you not understand these goals have been accomplished with only Russia and China pushing back?
A lot of the world is constantly pushing back against all kinds of hegemony. To add to your list, there is no love lost for America in Brazil, much of Africa, most of the Arab world nor in Central Asia.
> What US wants occurs
Have you seen how discordant our alliance talks are? They're multilateral and messy. The only reason Europe and America are in step with one another is because of Russia. The only reason the Quad exists is because of China.
Only in population, which is irrelevant, since nobody is contemplating a land war. Economically [1] and militarily [2], America has bigger allies.
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(no...
[2] https://power.lowyinstitute.org/data/military-capability/sig...
But India hates playing the second fiddle, so they don’t want be a traditional “ally” that the US can push around at will. They want to be more like “partners”.
Pakistan is okay with giving up sovereignty of American military bases. India is not. Thus the US nominally allies with Pakistan and India steers clear because of that.
Although as others have said, India clearly favors the US these days
It's also why the US was down with Cambodia (they, together with China opposed Vietnam, who the US opposed because it decided to intervene in the losing side of a failed French colonial conflict.)
Also, western governments pay very little attention to understanding India, it's all colonial era stereotypes for the most part. Even the largest and most well known newspapers rarely send anyone with a deep understanding of the country to cover it, and they give a very shallow lopsided, uni-dimensional impressions of the country to their audience.
Mind you, India hates Canada. We are stealing all their top talent as migrants.
On the subject of khalistan. You drive by a gurduwar here in Canada and they all seem to be pro-khalistan.
They have to do it now. India is about to become the Asian super power in China's collapse. When this shift happens, the sikhs will have no opportunity for independence for probably 200+ years.
Lol no. The USA is stealing India's top talent. Canada is just getting whatever residue remains at the bottom of the educational immigration barrel, filled with washouts who couldn't get a job back home so they decided to enroll at a fake degree mill (yes, there are exceptions, far and few).
I mean, it's not Canada's fault or lack of trying. It's very hard to be attractive to top talent when you're next to USA really, especially when most of us are in the tech industry.
Anecdotally, I have met many Indian people in IT and they have all been top talent.
I think the cardinal sin here is not trying to extradite the person, or asking the host country for permission or assistance via some backchannel.
Anyone advocating for violence and death is a no-no in my book.
Peaceful protests are perfectly fine but this was in gray area.
I don’t believe this is true, diplomatically or in warfare. Democracies don’t tend to go to war against each other, for example [1]. They also fight harder, and with more technological sophistication, when they wage war.
[1] https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Patrick-Mello/publicati...
Canada hasn’t even risked releasing any evidence months later. The issue seems DOA.
The investigation is progressing at a normal pace. It’s incorrect to suggest it’s DOA. It also had a multibillion-dollar impact on multiple Indian investments, so to suggest it had no consequences is also wrong. (On a fundamental level, the killings Streisand effected the Khalistan cause. I’m of Indian descent and had not heard of Operation Blue Star [1].)
> Canada hasn’t even risked releasing any evidence
If the intel was American SIGINT, Ottawa wouldn’t have the authority to unilaterally release it.
They havent released any details of how they knew, we learned it was US from journalism. If they violated our sovereignty we have a right to know the details. The Indian gov can figure out they were wiretapped already. If ever there was grounds for releasing sensitive Intel this was it.
When the Saudis killed that journalist it was revealed that Turkey had microphones inside their embassy. This is not some huge deal to reveal espionage of other agencies when the stakes are so high.
I’m not sure what sort of evidence you think they’ll suddenly discover 6 months later which justifies not explaining the details which cause them to make the accusation in the first place.
I don’t get how they can’t tell the public what the Indian gov specifically did but it was worth imposing the consequences of making the accusations public?
We do. But not immediately.
> Indian gov can figure out they were wiretapped already
But not how. Given how shadily they’re behaving, I wouldn’t want to declassify sources and methods too hastily either. If the rewards from keeping those methods live outweigh the gains from disclosure, that’s a valid foreign policy call.
> but it was worth imposing the consequences of making the accusations public
From all accounts, it going public was an accident. Ottawa was forced by the media getting a whiff of it. Washington made grunts and groans when necessary.
And I have no idea what Canada's purported "poker hand" was. The government revealed an incident when the media discovered it and it continues at its normal pace behind the scenes. India had an apocalyptic, absurdly over the top fit and Canada yawned. India has literally zero sway over Canada so it was all rather ridiculous.
And this US revelation clearly springs from exactly the same well (via exactly the same intelligence sharing). I mean, when the Canada revelation happened the US leaked that they were investigating something and has repeatedly announced their concern about this. If anything the outsized Indian reaction to Canada was precisely because they thought they could preempt this from the US.
Thank you for saying this. It's nice to know there are still reasonable people here.
This is diplomatic and precedent setting as much as it’s a pursuit of some specific criminal justice.
Obsessing about not disrupting the the economic/diplomatic/immigration status quo, not offending anybody even when they seriously violate your sovereignty, and just generally playing nice guy is not how you deal with this sort of situation.
Extrajudicial killings by governments have happened for time eternal. There is absolutely nothing new or precedent setting about this. The truth is that most of the time governments deal with it quietly and behind the scenes. It's actually incredibly odd for the US to have announced what they have, and it is almost certainly because of the Canada thing.
>a leader who clearly isn’t respected enough
You have partisan glasses on. What do you think any other leader would have done? Would Harper have declared war? Would PP in the future?
Given that India absolutely flipped their shit (they've backtracked on all of it, as an aside...so powerful), clearly Canada's announcement by itself was an enormous action.
But seriously, what do you think the US is going to do? The most powerful nation on the planet is going to...send some diplomatic cables and express their disatisfaction.
If Canada had any sway, they could prod US to delay or suspend military tech transfer to India to compel an investigation. But obviously Canada doesn't have that kind of leverage.
Canada is completing its investigation, at which point they'll name various Indian government agents and charge them with murder. India will declare diplomatic immunity. Do you really think the horrendously corrupt Modi government is going to investigate its own actions in any meaningful or viable way?
And just to be clear, the US announcing what they did is clearly putting its full weight behind Canada's findings.
I think US has the leverage to at least compel Modi to pretend to cooperate, or at least offer up fall guys like they did MBS over Khashoggi, if they were to put full weight behind Canada. Which they haven't, except to affirm Canadian findings, which they pretty much have to unless they want to blow up US/CAN relations. Current rhetorical support is meaningless.
I think the situation isn't as bad as it seems from the inside.
In defense of Trudeau: ask a number of people outside Canada to name any Canadian Prime Ministers, and I bet most of them will readily be able to name only Trudeau. I just looked at the Wikipedia list and I only recognized four names, one of them because I knew Justin Trudeau's dad had once been Prime Minister, and one of them because Nardwuar embarrassed him once. What I'm saying is, I don't think there's some golden age of Canadian global influence that Justin Trudeau has caused you to fall from, and if that's your measure, he's actually not doing too bad.
Regards,
Justin Trudeau
I'm interested in how some of these diplomacy decisions actually play out. I'm hoping some insider writes a book later.
Compare, for example, the case with Shireen Abu Akleh. It seems very clear she was deliberately killed by the IDF. She was an American citizen, wearing full press gear. As far as I can tell, the US never even gave a "stern warning" to Israel.
I agree with that, but I think it's fairly easy to assume they have a policy of deliberately targeting journalists, the citizenship probably didn't come into play in the decision.
Compare the number of journalists killed in combat for any past entire year globally, and journalists killed in the last 5 weeks in Gaza, the West Bank, and southern Lebanon.
Edit: I did mean "globally". Not compared to some single conflict. Compare to all journalists killed in combat, everywhere, for 2022, 2021, etc. As opposed to 6 weeks in small defined regions.
There was also a specific aerial bombing of a journalist's two story home that looks very targeted.[3]
Counting just face to face killings seems flawed. It really appears like they have some flow of intelligence to act on in many ways.
[1] https://news.sky.com/video/israeli-airstrike-on-south-lebano...
[2] https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/reuters-videograph...
[3] https://www.newarab.com/news/israel-strike-kills-family-repo...
Washington publicly demanded an independent investigation, in effect calling the Israeli investigation a sham. The FBI even got involved. That’s likely the reason Israel ever admitted that it was an Israeli bullet that killed her.
Also, as other mentioned, getting killed abroad is night and day from getting killed at home.
The Mossad is certainly capable of killing people in more low profile ways. There's no reason to believe this was ordered at a high level. Most likely, it was an individual soldier's fault.
And the fact that she had press gear on is really not the kind of guarantee one might hope.
Here's a video of a "medic" grabbing a downed Hamas fighter's AK47 to give it to another fighter so they can use it to try to kill IDF soldiers:
https://old.reddit.com/r/CombatFootage/comments/17rff07/west...
But who cares, right?
If Israel's goal was to kill civilians, they could kill millions of civilians any time they want. They go through effort not to kill civilians.
But I'm in total agreement with people arguing that the IDF should go much further in preventing civilian deaths, even if it results in more IDF deaths, which it likely would.
They used the normal playbook in this case (blame Palestinian terrorists) and when there was enough evidence to disprove that assertion they just threw up their hands and said "accident" and that was it.