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Harperites do payback like experienced bullies – quickly, bluntly and seemingly out of nowhere. They even sometimes outsource their retribution to reliable guns for hire, the kind of folks who know how to keep their mouths shut. That way, the Harperites keep their hands clean but the dirty deed gets done.

Dollars to donuts, that’s what happened Tuesday when the RCMP – a.k.a. The Royal Conservative Mounted Police – suddenly pulled the plug on its support for a handbook produced by the National Council of Canadian Muslims (NCCM) and the Islamic Social Services Association (ISSA) that was designed to stop young Muslim Canadians from joining extremist terror groups that behead people in Syria, Iraq and possibly even in Canada – if you listen to the fear-industrial complex.

My goodness, the Mounties were once so keen on the laudable campaign to reach troubled, impressionable kids before they become machete- and Kalashnikov-wielding terrorists, that the police force was listed as a contributor to the handbook, called United Against Terrorism: A Collaborative Effort Towards a Secure, Inclusive and Just Canada.

A smart move, right? Get the police to work with established and well-respected Canadian Muslim advocacy groups to try to prevent so-called “homegrown terrorism.”

Well, no so fast.

Just hours after the NCCM officially released the booklet at a press conference held at a Winnipeg mosque Monday, the Mounties got cold feet.

Late Tuesday, the Winnipeg RCMP made the abrupt break-up official via a press release which, in effect, announced that Canada’s federal police force was no longer interested in ‘collaborating’ with the NCCM and ISSA to establish a “secure, inclusive and just Canada.”

How’s that for enlightened, modern day police work?

The RCMP’s top brass has turned its back not only on the NCCM and ISSA, but every Canadian that has been scared you-know-whatless by a paranoid government that wants us all to be convinced that there are extremists lurking under all our beds. Harper’s fear-first agenda has been amplified by his willing media conduits, who have been shrieking like alley cats that Canada is now a breeding ground for terrorists intent on killing us and destroying our democratic way of life.

So what accounts for the Mounties’ volte-face?

In their short, Swiss-cheese-like press release – which, not surprisingly, has all the hallmarks of a rushed effort by a group of ass-covering bureaucrats masquerading as policemen – the Mounties claim that they only read the document carefully yesterday and, lo and behold, they discovered they didn’t like it’s “adversarial tone.”

That’s it. The Mounties, of course, don’t provide so much as a line of text from the handbook to back up this ambiguous and transparently silly charge.

I’m not making any of this crap up.

In a joint press release also issued late Tuesday, the NCCM and ISSA diplomatically hit back, making it crystal clear that “the content of the handbook was shared with all contributors for constructive feedback throughout the 14-month development process. All feedback received was incorporated. The handbook also contains a clear disclaimer on page 1 that states: “Contributors are only responsible for their respective contributions and do not necessarily endorse other material contained in this publication.”

Both groups acknowledge that the handbook, which includes some inflammatory language, does indeed take on an “adversarial stance against violent extremists and those who seek to recruit and radicalize Canadian youth towards criminal violence.”

Here’s the real deal, as they like to say in the police business. The RCMP ditched the NCCM and ISSA because it likely got its big, red serge horse’s rear kicked. The RCMP’s brain trust, such as it is, probably got the pointed message not to play footsie with the NCCM since the Muslim-Canadian NGO is in the process of suing the PM and his press flak for defamation.

In May, the NCCM slapped Harper and his director of communications, Jason MacDonald, with a libel suit after MacDonald went on the Conservative Party’s house organ, Sun News, and claimed that the NCCM had known ties to terror, namely Hamas.

To its credit, the NCCM fought back, demanding an apology and retraction.

But the Harperites, given their petty, vindictive DNA, were never going to back down let alone apologize for their smear of an entire group.

Last week, iPolitics gave big play – including a column from yours truly – to news that Harper’s lawyers had quietly filed a 22-page statement of defence insisting, among other things, that every word MacDonald said on Sun Media was true. If it were true, do you think the NCCM would be foolish enough to subject themselves to the media’s klieg lights?

It looks like iPolitics’ unflattering coverage of Harper’s statement of defence got the attention of the kids in short pants inside the Langevin Block. It’s not hard to envision Harper and his loyal disciples getting hot and bothered that the NCCM were in good standing with RCMP Commissioner Bob Paulson and his police force. They had to be mighty concerned about how that would to play in a courtroom if and when the libel case comes to trial? After all, if they were known to have terror links, why would the RCMP have ever agreed to work with the NCCM?

No, it would appear the RCMP is more interested in shielding Stephen Harper and his minions from pesky lawsuits than protecting Canadians from would-be terrorists.

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Andrew Mitrovica is a writer and journalism instructor. For much of his career, Andrew was an investigative reporter for a variety of news organizations and publications including the CBC’s fifth estate, CTV’s W5, CTV National News — where he was the network’s chief investigative producer — the Walrus magazine and the Globe and Mail, where he was a member of the newspaper’s investigative unit. During the course of his 23-year career, Andrew has won numerous national and international awards for his investigative work.

The views, opinions and positions expressed by all iPolitics columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of iPolitics.