SpankyMcFarland

I guess what I’m saying is that drawing a line and saying those on one side were good and those on the other were evil when they were assisting the same country sounds highly arbitrary. And if we’re going to give the Finns a pass then I presume we will not dream of ever criticizing a country that was merely neutral in that conflict?

By the time irrefutable evidence comes out the debate will have moved on.

The Soviet conquest of Eastern Europe involved countless war crimes but of course Nuremberg had nothing to say about them.

I’d be slow to condemn anybody facing the Soviet threat but why does having your own army make you less complicit? Finland chose to fight alongside Germany in Operation Barbarossa and only changed sides when it was clear the Germans were heading for defeat.

People in wartime Eastern Europe faced ghastly moral dilemmas we have been spared.

People get so excited about this topic. Is one of the fears here that kids are going to be ‘turned gay’ or something? That’s unlikely.

I don’t think any mention of Tamil Tiger savagery is fair without including the decades of injustice faced by Tamils in Sri Lanka. Quite apart from the war, there’s another reason so many left. They were punished relentlessly for their success in business and academics. What is utterly disgraceful but not surprising is the fact that Canada treated such migrants far better than India, their ancestral home: https://jrs.net/en/story/after-40-years-sri-lankan-tamil-refugees-in-india-need-durable-solutions/

We’re focused on our issues here, what we did wrong, but an emerging superpower will change that. Modi’s illiberal regime targets Christians, Muslims, Dalits and secular Hindus, both at home and abroad. The campaign is not as centrally directed as the one from our friends in Beijing but there’s no doubt the government approves. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/academics-harassed-criticism-india-politics-1.6402486

While you certainly don’t have to agree with him, Ujjal Dosanjh should always be listened to on issues relating to the Indian subcontinent. He paid a serious personal price, almost his life, for criticizing Sikh extremism in Canada and has just written a novel that features India’s original sin, casteism, in England. https://thewire.in/books/the-obstinacy-of-caste-followed-sikh-immigrants-to-britain-too

Suddenly, we’ve all those Hindutva Modi fans about the place. Just because a foreign thug doesn’t like JT, that doesn’t make him a good guy.

There’s our own failure to curb violent Sikh extremism over the years (which, thankfully, is much less serious in India than it was) and then there’s a bigger issue - an emerging superpower lurching towards an institutionalized form of hysterical Hindu bigotry. The second threatens any South Asian critic of Modi in our country: Christian, Muslim, Dalit, secular Hindu, you name it. Like our chubby friend in China, this boy sees dissent anywhere as something he must stamp out. Let’s at least be clear about that.

I’m not sure how concrete you expect the evidence to be if we didn’t apprehend the assassins themselves. The Indian govt isn’t really making the noises of a horribly defamed party at this stage. Why not give Canada, our country, the benefit of the doubt and forget JT is at the helm for a second?

At this stage many Canadians are denying Indian involvement more indignantly than the Indian government itself is managing which says something. The signals from New Delhi are ambiguous, along the lines of ‘prove we did it and if you do we don’t care’ that we’ve often heard from other countries over the years. As regards evidence, I hope everybody knows we are not going to get a signed and notarized confession from the assassins any time soon.

Corruption isn’t a particular vice of the MAGA movement. They have just as much as any other faction. It’s their approach to America’s problems that pose the difficulty. That level of tribalism, paranoia and irrationality are incompatible with a modern pluralistic state. BTW the person at the centre of last corruption trial Menendez went through, Dr. Salomon Melgen, was pardoned by Trump. https://www.palmbeachpost.com/story/news/politics/2021/01/20/trump-commutes-sentence-dr-salomon-melgen-after-medicare-fraud-conviction/4221638001/

I get the impression that Sikh extremism ain’t what it was in India. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_terrorist_incidents_in_Punjab,_India The country has more serious problems elsewhere. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Separatist_movements_of_India

It’s hard to believe in Bob Menendez. His story is so garish. Look at the gold bars this time and the exporter of halal meat (really) who wasn’t even a Muslim. For a politician, he showed little skill at the vital game of brown envelopes and should have been deselected by his own party after the last brush with justice: Another mystery: how such an ugly mutt fathered easy-on-the-eye MSNBC star Alicia Menendez. The first wife must have been a looker: https://www.politico.com/states/florida/story/2017/09/06/shut-up-judge-tells-menendez-lawyer-114317

No question Sikhs are on the macho side of the ledger, if I may generalize more than a little bit. It’s a martial faith like Islam. My wife’s people were Biharis, also quick to anger. I think I’m more comfortable with Southern Indians, an easier-going crowd.

For forty years we’ve had a problem with Sikh extremism. Now we’re in a tough spot. If we jump on it pronto what sort of message does that send to other governments unhappy with the activities of diaspora Canadians here? That they have to shoot a few on Canadian streets to get our attention? The world is shifting. Authoritarian regimes are bringing their brand of justice to our door. The dismemberment of a US resident in Istanbul had no serious consequences for Saudi psychopath MBS and you can bet your bottom dollar that many leaders accustomed to killing their own at home took note of that.

The govt should ensure it doesn’t help Modi and other adversaries in the details released. We don’t want them back doing a better job any time soon.

And that’s not a good way to start, is it? The Khalistan movement has many critics within Canada’s Sikh community and some have paid a price for speaking out.

Your comments also apply to governments in these other countries. Modi’s government is imposing its extreme version of Hinduism on the country and doesn’t hesitate to use violence against peaceful critics.

Advocating for new countries on this planet should not be a crime in and of itself. It’s certainly not a crime in Canada. Holding ‘referendums’ to support such claims should not be a crime either and certainly not a capital crime. Only the maniacs of the PRC and their fellow travellers get outraged by that kind of thing. However, as I have already explained, once people start testing bombs in forests, as Sikh terrorists did before Air India, a definite line has been crossed. That should have been nipped in the bud.

So how are we to change borders peacefully in this world? Say it became the settled wish of Punjabis to leave, what then? Must they stay in India until the country disappears under an asteroid or what? And does that apply everywhere? I think the Scottish referendum offers the way forward: a clear question and a simple vote. Borders should not become eternal prison walls obstructing the march of a nation. Yes, borders are good but they are not good for the next million years. They have to be adjusted as people change and that shouldn’t require a war every time. This isn’t the 19’th century.

If you gathered that from what I have said, then I have not said it clearly enough. I deplore unreservedly any violence in Canada in the furtherance of terrorist movements abroad and I have already criticized the pusillanimity of successive Canadian governments in tackling violent Sikh extremism. I reminisce merely to point out that I’ve been following this story most of my adult life and even before I immigrated to Canada. We were ready to do some of those cases.

I remember that day. As far as I know the Cork pathologists did all the subsequent autopsies.