How Canada Is Being Pulled into America’s War on “Narco-Terrorists” |
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How Canada Is Being Pulled into America’s War on “Narco-Terrorists”
Military exchanges and intelligence links mean Ottawa may be closer to the lethal strikes than it admits
The United States has killed more than 150 people in airstrikes across the Caribbean and eastern Pacific as part of Operation Southern Spear, the so-called counter-narco-terrorism campaign run by the US Southern Command (SOUTHCOM).
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The Donald Trump administration has insisted their actions are lawful and in compliance with the Law of Armed Conflict, with justification centred around “the United States’ inherent right of self-defence as a matter of international law.” The occupants targeted in the operation have been designated as “narco-terrorists” or members of “designated terrorist organizations,” as a justification for blowing them out of the water—except, to date, no evidence or intelligence to back up those claims has been presented by the US to the public.
The international community, legal experts, members of Congress, and the United Nations have said the strikes are “illegal extrajudicial killings,” as the US military is not allowed to deliberately target civilians—even if they are suspected of criminal activity—who don’t pose an immediate or imminent threat of violence to America.
Prior to Operation Southern Spear’s commencement in September 2025, US law enforcement agencies would intercept and arrest suspected drug smugglers, sometimes with Canada’s help. Now the US military is executing them—and Canada may again be implicated.
When Trump readied the 11th Airborne Division out of Alaska for potential deployment to Minneapolis to help Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and other federal agents in their immigration crackdown, I posted the big scoop: the operations leader for that unit was none other than Canadian Brigadier-General Robert McBride. I subsequently wrote about the intertwined nature of the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) and the US military for The Economist.
The ties detailed involved exchanges, secondments, embeds, task forces, and other joint operations, including training. At any time, there are hundreds of our service members sprinkled across the vast US military, with several more in NORAD or overseas serving with NATO, CENTCOM, and others.
That story rattled both Ottawa and Washington. The Department of National Defence was keen to separate themselves from the idea of a Canadian military member partaking in the brutality visited upon civilians in Minneapolis. They assured the public that there are safeguards in place to prevent a Canadian being “deployed” with an American unit, including that any such actions would have to be approved at the highest levels (but it does happen: see my previous coverage about the Iraq invasion).
But the DND was extremely skittish when it came to answering questions about intelligence sharing between Canada and the US and potential CAF involvement in Operation Southern Spear. Weeks of plugging away at sources in the US military, CAF, Ottawa, Washington, and the Open Source community brought me to the tipping point.
Here’s what I found out: by nature of our military relationship with the US, Canada is implicated in Operation Southern Spear. The question is to what degree.
Despite DND “working on” the questions I sent in on February 18, a high-level former military member confirmed there are Canadians serving in SOUTHCOM, which is running Operation Southern Spear, and in a “detection and monitoring” hub known as Joint Integrated Task Force South (JIATF South) in Key West, Florida.
What positions and clearances they hold are not public. What is known is that intelligence (by this I mean information, logistics, maps, targets, criminal and operational intelligence collected and analyzed for this operation) does flow from JIATF South and SOUTHCOM to the US........