I'm not going to address every part of your response because frankly I do not have the time to spend on debunking everything you've said here.
But yes, that sentence you quote was indeed why I suggested that another editing pass would have been good, but you've also taken it out of context; the previous sentence mentioned the U.S., so the author clearly was trying to not repeat the same country name.
Anyway the point is that this article is not merely a rephrasing of another one, and does in fact add additional context. I don't like PostMedia either, but this thought-terminating cliche of blanket mistrust is ridiculous. Grain of salt, absolutely. But I rarely hear people complain when an article aligns with their existing political bias.