| By Prof Michel Chossudovsky Global Research Click to read this article in your browser. This article addresses the alleged interference of unnamed “foreign powers” as well as the historical process of US interference, including an outright secret US Military Invasion of Canada formulated in the 1930s.***“In 1934, War Plan Red was amended to authorize the immediate first use of poison gas against Canadians and to use strategic bombing to destroy Halifax if it could not be captured. … “In August 1935, the US held its largest peacetime military manoeuvres in history, with 36,000 troops converging at the Canadian border south of Ottawa, and another 15,000 held in reserve in Pennsylvania. (February 11-13, 1935, hearings of the Committee on Military Affairs, House of Representatives, on Air Defense Bases (H.R. 6621 and H.R. 4130. This testimony was to have been secret but was published by mistake. See the New York Times, May 1, 1935, p. 1.Scroll down for details***Are the Russians coming to disrupt our elections scheduled for October 21st? Back in July, Canada’s Minister of Democratic Institutions Karina Gould intimated that Canada’s 2019 elections could be the target of interference by foreign powers.While Ottawa did not explicitly point its finger at the Kremlin, the official statement and media reports intimated that it could be Russia (and possibly China) because Vladimir Putin had allegedly interfered in favor of Donald Trump in the 2016 US presidential elections. And apparently Moscow had also intervened in the French elections. The Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) and the RCMP were said to be “monitoring foreign threat activity in Canada and around the world”.“At this time, we haven’t seen direct threats to the 2019 general election,” the official said.CSIS continues to observe hostile foreign actors “taking steps to position themselves to clandestinely influence, promote or discredit certain messages, candidates or groups during the campaign,” the official added. (CBC, July 09, 2019) Three months prior to the October 2019 Elections, the Trudeau government issued a “Cabinet Directive on the Critical Election Incident Public Protocol” (CEIPP) to “protect Canada’s Democratic Institutions” against unnamed foreign powers .The Cabinet Directive on the Critical Election Incident Public Protocol sets out the ministers’ expectations with respect to the general directions and the principles to guide the process for informing the public during the writ period of an incident that threatens Canada’s ability to have a free and fair election. Consult the document hereIn the event of a threat by a foreign power to disrupt the election, a top level national security panel “will inform the prime minister”, (see Global News, July 9, 2019)Russia Dirty Tricks? With some exceptions, Canada’s media has remained silent on the matter. According to a recent “authoritative” CTV report the Kremlin is once again up to “Dirty Tricks”, intent upon manipulating Canada’s elections. Which party are they going to support?In an attempt to stop foreign interference during the 2019 Canadian federal election, Canada’s top security agencies are monitoring the web 24/7. Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), works hand in hand with a largely secret organization, Communication Security Establishment (CSE), ……. Former Russian troll Vitaly Bespalov thinks the Russians have already come up with new ways to meddle with our political views. After being implicated for interfering in the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign, they have to be more creative as Canadians get ready to go to the polls.“So now I think they are going to invent some other schemes of influencing the audience. It will be done in a different way. No need to look for trolls on Facebook, they will find a new way.”Intervention of an Unnamed Foreign Power: The United States of AmericaThere is ample of evidence of foreign interference by an “unnamed foreign power”, which has barely been mentioned in the course of the election campaign.In Canada’s history, as well as during the mandate of the Justin Trudeau’s government, the United States of America has intervened in what is euphemistically called “America’s Backyard”, i.e. a nation state inside America’s sphere of influence.And I am not referring to former president Obama’s recent statement in support for Justin Trudeau. Washington is on record of having interfered in elections in 45 countries according to political scientist Dov H. Levin of Carnegie Mellon University. While Canada is not mentioned in Don H Levin’s study, the history of US interference in Canada’s internal affairs goes far beyond the process of meddling in Canadian elections.Canadian farmers are acutely aware of how the Trump administration in 2017 imposed without real negotiation, a complete overhaul of trade and investment relations leading to the formation of the so-call United States, Mexico, Canada USMCA trade agreement which is intended to replace NAFTA.Politicians in the Trudeau government were coopted. The economic impacts of this agreement on Canada’s economy are potentially devastating.But there is much more in our history which has a direct bearing on national sovereignty and democracy in Canada.Flashback to 1930…America’s Plan to Invade CanadaWhile the US plan to Annex Canada in 1866 (a de facto act of war formulated as a Bill by the US Congress) is on record, most Canadians are unaware that the US in the late 1920s had formulated a detailed plan to invade Canada, entitled “Joint Army and Navy Basic War Plan — Red”. The plan was approved by the US War Department under the presidency of Herbert Hoover in 1930.It was updated in 1934 and 1935 during the presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt. It was withdrawn in 1939 following the outbreak of the Second World War. (The full text of the 1935 Invasion Plan is in Annex)This insidious military agenda which was intent on ultimately annexing Canada to the US as well as disabling the British Empire, involved the planned bombings of four major cities: Vancouver, Montreal, Quebec City and Halifax.And guess who was assigned to oversee these bombings: General Douglas MacArthur (image left, 1940s), who was US Army chief of staff (1930-37). MacArthur’s mandate coincided with the release of the 1930 and 1935 invasion plan of Canada. As we recall MacArthur was subsequently put in charge of leading the bombing raids against Japan during World War II. (See Floyd Rudman)The 1935 plan to invade Canada consisted of a 94-page document “with the word SECRET stamped on the cover.” It had been formulated over a period of over five years (See full text in Annex).In February 1935, the [US] War Department arranged a Congressional appropriation of $57 million dollars to build three border air bases for the purposes of pre-emptive surprise attacks on Canadian air fields. The base in the Great Lakes region was to be camouflaged as a civilian airport and was to “be capable of dominating the industrial heart of Canada, the Ontario Peninsula” (from p. 61 of the February 11-13, 1935, hearings of the Committee on Military Affairs, House of Representatives, on Air Defense Bases (H.R. 6621 and H.R. 4130). This testimony was to have been secret but was published by mistake. See the New York Times, May 1, 1935, p. 1. In August 1935, the US held its largest peacetime military manoeuvres in history, with 36,000 troops converging at the Canadian border south of Ottawa, and another 15,000 held in reserve in Pennsylvania. The war game scenario was a US motorized invasion of Canada, with the defending forces initially repulsing the invading Blue forces, but eventually to lose “outnumbered and outgunned” when Blue reinforcements arrive. This according to the Army’s pamphlet “Souvenir of of the First Army Maneuvers: The Greatest Peace Time Event in US History” (p.2). ( Professor F.W. Rudmin Queen’s University Kingston, Ontario, Comments on “War Plan Red”,One of the updates to the 1930 invasion plan was the use of chemical weapons against civilians:“In 1934, War Plan Red was amended to authorize the immediate first use of poison gas against Canadians and to use strategic bombing to destroy Halifax if it could not be captured.” (Ibid) It is worth noting that in the course of World War II, a decision was taken by the War Department to retain the invasion plan on the books. War Plan Red was declassified in 1974.Raiding the Icebox. How the US Media Trivializes HistoryThe Washington Post, which casually dismissed the historical significance of “Joint Army and Navy Basic War Plan — Red”, nonetheless acknowledged the aggressive nature of the proposed military endeavor:“A bold plan, a bodacious plan, a step-by-step plan to invade, seize and annex our neighbor to the north. …First, we send a joint Army-Navy overseas force to capture the port city of Halifax, cutting the Canadians off from their British allies.Then we seize Canadian power plants near Niagara Falls, so they freeze in the dark.Then the U.S. Army invades on three fronts — marching from Vermont to take Montreal and Quebec, charging out of North Dakota to grab the railroad center at Winnipeg, and storming out of the Midwest to capture the strategic nickel mines of Ontario.Meanwhile, the U.S. Navy seizes the Great Lakes and blockades Canada’s Atlantic and Pacific ports. … “(Raiding the Icebox; Behind Its Warm Front, the United States Made Cold Calculations to Subdue Canada, by Peter Carlson, Washington Post, 30 December 2005, emphasis added)The original documents pertaining to the invasion of Canada including “War Plan Red” and “Defence Scheme No. 1.” are in the archives of the US Army War College in Carlisle, Pa. (url link no longer functional)The plan is detailed. It involves both military as well an intelligence components. According to historian John Major “War, Plan Red” also consisted in “a series of possible pre-emptive American campaigns to invade Canada in several areas and occupy key ports and railways before British troops could provide reinforcement to the Canadians…”Concluding Remarks Concerning US InterferenceWhile the 1935 invasion of Canada Plan was never carried out, historically “the military threat of an invasion plan served to oblige Canada to ultimately surrender to US political and economic pressures.”In recent history, this hegemonic objective was achieved in 2002 with the creation of US Northern Command (NorthCom).Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld announced unilaterally that US Northern Command would have jurisdiction over the entire North American region. US Northern Command’s jurisdiction as outlined by the US DoD includes, in addition to the continental US, all of Canada, Mexico, as well as portions of the Caribbean, contiguous waters in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans up to 500 miles off the Mexican, US and Canadian coastlines as well as the Canadian Arctic.Rumsfeld is said to have boasted that:“NORTHCOM – with all of North America as its geographic command – ‘is part of the greatest transformation of the Unified Command Plan [UCP] since its inception in 1947.’”NorthCom’s stated mandate is to “provide a necessary focus for [continental] aerospace, land and sea defenses, and critical support for [the] nation’s civil authorities in times of national need.” (Canada-US Relations – Defense Partnership – July 2003, Canadian American Strategic Review (CASR),ANNEXThe complete text of the 1935 Invasion of Canada can be consulted here (Introduction by Prof Floyd Rudmin, Queens University) See below See also Michel Chossudovsky, America’s Plan to Annex and Invade Canada and America’s Plan to Invade Canada US Invasion of Canada Plan Full-text reproduction of the 1935 plan for a US invasion of Canada prepared at the US Army War College, G-2 intelligence division, and submitted on December 18, 1935. The following is a full-text reproduction of the 1935 plan for a US invasion of Canada prepared at the US Army War College, G-2 intelligence division, and submitted on December 18, 1935. This is the most recent declassified invasion plan available from the US archival sources. Centered pagination is that of the original document. The spelling and punctuation of the original document are reproduced as in the original document, even when in error by present-day norms. This document was first identified by Richard Preston in his 1977 book, “The Defence of the Undefended Border: Planning for War in North America 1867-1939” (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press.) Preston’s reference citation (p. 277) identified this to be archived at the US Military History Collection, Carlisle Barracks, Pa., coded AWC 2-1936-8, G2, no. 19A. It was located by the US National Archives and supplied on microfilm. |
