Politics & Power Quote by Paul Cellucci

The phrase "outstanding co-operation" is diplomatic praise with a tactical purpose: to make cross-border security feel not just necessary, but seamless. Paul Cellucci, speaking as a politician in a post-9/11 climate of heightened anxiety and accelerated policy-making, isn’t merely complimenting Canada. He’s reassuring an American audience that the northern border isn’t a vulnerability, and nudging a Canadian one that intensified collaboration is being noticed, validated, and quietly expected.

The construction does a lot of work. "I can tell you" signals privileged access, the insider’s assurance meant to settle public nerves. The repetition of "intelligence and law enforcement agencies" fuses two spheres that normally raise different alarms - covert surveillance and domestic policing - into one unified, morally uncomplicated machine. Even the geography matters: "here in North America" expands the battlefield from a nation to a region, making terrorism a continental problem that justifies continental coordination.

Then comes the blunt, mechanical finish: "put them out of commission". It’s a euphemism that avoids the legal and ethical messiness of arrest, detention, deportation, or lethal force. The language keeps the action decisive while sidestepping accountability. Cellucci’s intent is less about describing operations than about legitimizing a security posture: harmonized agencies, shared threat framing, and a public primed to accept that extraordinary cooperation - and the extraordinary powers it implies - is simply the price of safety.