What...Us? Nah!
Who knew that Ottawa had a prime-time comedian in our foreign diplomatic community? But there he is, larger than life, Ambassador Georgly Mamedov, making like a Russian Damon Runyon. The wrong comics are making headlines. This man's dead-pan delivery, incredible send-up of a haplessly misunderstood mission is not to be believed.Ambassador Mamedov has a rare talent, and it must be seen/heard to be truly appreciated. This jewel of a man, this incredible spokesperson for his country has honed an obviously superb ability to project the image of hurt innocence representing a country whose single most vital purpose on this earth is to ensure human dignity prevails over human rights abusers - both true champions of virtue, ethics and moral imperatives.
Canada's CSIS agents have unveiled the presence within this country of a Russian agent, an embedded agent whose purpose here is to engage in surveillance of the country and to report back to his political handlers in Russia. And here we silly old things thought that with the dissolution of the USSR, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the end of the Cold War, surreptitious spying on friendly countries would remain a dead image of the unfortunate past with all of its misgivings and misunderstandings. Friends now, friends forever.
Old habits die hard. But what are we talking about, anyway? All these charges are unsubstantiated, mere figments of charged imaginations within our own spy agency. Ahah! Canada has a spy agency, so it's clear, we're at fault here, fabricating the existence of a foreign spy answerable to a vast network within Russia controlling the activities of thousands of foreign spies on Canada's soil. Much like the charges against China controlling countless spies here as well. We're pathologically neurotic!
After all, Mr. Mamedov should know; he suggests the suspect in custody could conceivably be a mobster, since Canada has also lately arrested numberless suspects in a Mafia crackdown. It's his considered opinion that the current situation resembles a failed attempt to do Casino Royale one better. "I don't run a spy shop here", he rumbled. He knows nothing of the named Paul William Hampel, a decade-long resident of Canada long under suspicion and found in possession of quite incriminating materials.
The Canadian Security Intelligence Service may believe that Mr. Hampel is an undercover intelligence officer instructed by and reporting to Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), but ha-ha, the joke's on you, he isn't, we'd know, says Mr. Mamedov, and quit trying to pin things on us: the case, he says, is not a "slam dunk".
Nor, needless to say, is Russian intrigue involved in the death yesterday of a former Russian intelligence officer, Alexander Litvinenko who defected to the West. The chemical agent in his untimely demise has not yet been identified but the lethal agent did its job well; notwithstanding the effects exerted to save his life by a team of doctors at University College Hospital in London. "The bastards got me," Mr. Litvinenko whispered before finally expiring, "But they won't get everybody".
Mr. Mamedov's performance equals skilful satire at its most exquisite; reducing savage cold war techniques of spying and the performance of assassinations against turncoats to mere skulduggery. At a time of international tension - comedy!
(No Kramer, doesn't work that well in reverse; check yourself into a mood-disorder clinic. All will be forgiven...)
posted by Pieface @ Friday, November 24, 2006
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