Topic: Afghan Detainee Mega Thread

[GAP]

CBC had excerpts from the PP presentation on this....this is nothing different than any issue where the government is telling everyone to stay on message....no big conspiracy here...but, CBC hasn't let this issue go. I wonder who is whispering in their collective ears?

[milnews.ca]

Que chirping Legacy media crickets......

Maybe this will gain traction in the blogosphere, though.

In spite of my cynicism, I've gotta give credit where due - it appears CBC is following up.  This, from CBC.ca:

The Liberal government of 2005 feared Canada's detention of Afghan prisoners would spark a controversy similar to Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib, according to a current government official who spoke with CBC News on condition of anonymity.

The official's claim comes just after Eileen Olexiuk, a former Canadian diplomat with extensive experience in Afghanistan, disclosed that in 2005, she raised the possibility detainees transferred from Canadian to Afghan custody were at risk of torture. Paul Martin's government ignored her concerns, she said.

The government official, who has been involved with the detainee issue for years, confirmed much of what Olexiuk said and added it's clear now Canada should have done more in 2005, when that first detainee transfer agreement was negotiated with the Afghan government.

He said the Liberal government looked at three options as it considered moving Canadian troops to the embattled Kandahar province from the relative stability of Kabul:

    * A "take and keep," which the official said raised fears of problems such as those the U.S. encountered with its control of the infamous Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq or its detention of terrorism suspects at its naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
    * Handing off detainees to U.S. forces for transfer to U.S. facilities like Guantanamo, which had already led to trouble for a previous Liberal defence minister, Art Eggleton.
    * Working with Afghans and the local system in place at the time.

In the end, the government opted for the third option, the official said, adding officials and politicians felt they had to trust that helping the Afghans improve their own prison system would be enough to protect Canada's detainees ....

Is it not illegal or, at least, highly improper, to suggest that Liberals might be responsible for anything, except sweetness an light, of course?

If so, I find CBC guilty as charged m'lord 

[Rifleman62]

"according to a current government official who spoke with CBC News on condition of anonymity" and "The government official, who has been involved with the detainee issue for years"

Why is this knowledgable offical only speaking up now when it is finally reported the the Liberals are where this all started? Where was he before if he knew the history?

[MarkOttawa]

From BruceR. at Flit with particular reference to Doubting Thomas Walkom of the Toronto Star:

God help me these people are morons
http://www.snappingturtle.net/flit/archives/2010_03_10.html#006683

Mark
Ottawa

[Shec]

The Soylent Green idea sounds like a workable solution to this non-issue,  not to mention addressing the problem of world hunger.   

[E.R. Campbell]

Here, according to an article reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions (§29) of the Copyright Act from the Globe and Mail, is another twist:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/ottawa-wanted-afghan-army-to-oversee-detainees-memos-show/article1497615/

Ottawa wanted Afghan army to oversee detainees, memos show
But attempts by Canadian officials to remove prisoner oversight duties from notorious intelligence service ‘went nowhere'

Murray Brewster

Ottawa — The Canadian Press

Thursday, Mar. 11, 2010

NATO allies lobbied Afghanistan's president for a separate legal framework to handle prisoners captured around Kandahar in late 2006 but those efforts “went nowhere,” say internal memos.

The records outline an early strategy of the Canadian government as it faced pressure from the International Red Cross and others to take more responsibility for captured Taliban fighters.

Opposition parties have accused the Conservative government of turning a blind eye to potential torture in Afghan jails, despite warnings from its own officials and international human-rights groups.

But uncensored documents shown to The Canadian Press by two confidential sources suggest Ottawa was in fact pressing for an arrangement to remove responsibility for prisoners from Afghanistan's notorious intelligence service and give it to the country's Ministry of Defence.

The idea was to let the fledgling Afghan army operate a detention facility built by the United States rather than rely on either the National Directorate of Security or the country's shaky correctional system.

The proposal included a demand that Afghanistan create a separate legal framework for terror suspects, similar to the U.S. system of military tribunals.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai was pressed to carve out “a new detainee policy that would have made the Afghan army responsible for prisoners and created a new class of detainees, but efforts have gone nowhere,” says a Dec. 4, 2006, memo.

The Afghan army is among the few institutions that enjoys a measure of respect among corruption-weary Afghans.

Canadian officials earlier rejected overtures from the Dutch and British to open their own detention facility.

At the time, Canada lacked the ability to monitor the condition of prisoners it captured, despite being responsible under international law, and was reluctant to institute a monitoring regime.

In 2005, Paul Martin's Liberal government decided to transfer prisoners to the Afghans to avoid handing them to the Americans, a politically explosive proposition.

The proposal to put Afghan soldiers in charge was resisted by the country's defence minister, General Abdul Rahim Wardak, who wanted to concentrate on building the army into a fighting force.

And the proposal was apparently rejected because of the insistence facilities be subject to a “U.S.-style system for trying those considered a threat to national security.”

A Nov. 24, 2006, Foreign Affairs cable shows that the International Red Cross had serious concerns that Mr. Karzai would issue such a decree.

The humanitarian agency asked Canada to “engage further” and insisted that any such designation for prisoners come in the form of “legislation, not decrees.”

The collapse of the proposal left Ottawa with no alternative for monitoring detainees until officials cobbled together a plan for the underfunded Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission to become the watchdog.

But that plan immediately went awry when Afghan intelligence prevented the commission's inspectors from visiting prisons. It was only with the publication of torture claims that the Conservative government relented and oversaw prisoners itself.

The United States, which has maintained a vast detention facility at the Bagram air base near Kabul, has revived the idea of Afghan troops overseeing prisoners.

Last September, Defence Secretary Robert Gates instituted a task force that would transfer prisoners to the Afghan ministry of defence within a year.

IF I am reading the correctly the current government, which came to power early in 2006, understood that the ”arrangement,” put in place by the previous (Liberal) government – the one signed on that government’s behalf by Gen. Hillier - was inadequate or, at least, unsatisfactory. They were, it appears to me, trying to effect change even as Colvin as was sounding his alarms.

It makes me wonder why the Tories are so resistant to a full blown public inquiry; it seems to me that more political blame must attach to the Liberals than to the Conservatives and an inquiry, now, in 2010, would remind Canadians that it was Liberals who committed Canada to Afghanistan and to Kandahar, too. Seems like a political win, to me: shut down the HoC Committee that is smearing all and sundry and let people start blaming the Liberals for the mess.

[Rifleman62]

http://network.nationalpost.com/NP/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2010/03/11/adrian-macnair-would-honesty-on-afghanistan-be-asking-too-much.aspx

Full Comment, National Post

Adrian MacNair: Asking for honesty is asking too much
Posted: March 11, 2010

Despite the myriad sources of information from which to draw in order to write a column that has a grain of truth to it, it would appear that the usual suspects from the usual media sources insist on getting it wrong. You can hardly blame them. Well, actually you can, but it will hardly help. At this point, people are merely going to believe what they want to believe, and truth be damned. When it comes to Afghanistan, has it ever been any different?

Thomas Walkom, in particular, seems to get it wrong the most frequently. This rather pathetic self-flagellation of Canadians throwing their hands up in the air and making excuses that nothing else could have been done, is as depressing as their inability to get basic facts correct. Journalists are treating this fluid battle with ever-changing dynamics as something static, as though everybody has morphed into Francis Fukuyama, mourning the end of history. Pakistan capturing half the Taliban leadership in the past month? Barely a whisper.

It’s certainly easier to report on a story if you have a prearranged view on what’s actually happening. The evolution of the detainee story is a prime example. What began as little more than hearsay from Amir Attaran in the CBC, became a report in the Canadian Press, which became a fact in the minds of the official opposition in the House of Commons, as Jack Layton and Ujjal Dosanjh asked ridiculous questions about secret spies, torture, and rendition. The latter word, as I mentioned before, being technically incorrect by definition alone.

The question is, what would make the critics of the treatment of captured detainees happy? It’s as though people actually expect that we can fight a battle against the Taliban, who abide by no rules of warfare, wear no uniforms, and respect no international laws, without ever making a mistake. It’s already disturbing enough that people seem more concerned about the treatment of men who are fighting for a way of life considered barbaric by just about everybody who isn’t an Islamic Fundamentalist, than they are for the women or children used as human meat shields in the Taliban quest to outlast our resolve. But to ignore these crimes, while sifting through every prison, poring through every report, to attempt to find one instance of injustice that might undermine our moral cause, is quite simply disgusting.

As Bruce writes on his blog:

So if we accept that the Afghan justice system was or is in no state to receive our detainees in anything like a just or efficient fashion, we are certainly justified in looking around for alternatives. The alternative the Americans came up with was American-run detention in Bagram, and we can see how well that’s worked out for them. I suppose a sort of Timurid approach of refusing to take any prisoners at all, ever, could be an option: not sure how well that would go over at home, though. Not really many other alternatives than those, though. Take them home in our kit bags? Soylent Green? What?

Good questions. What would make people happy? Take no prisoners? Inhuman. Hand prisoners over to their own legal authority? Inhumane. Build our own prisons? Well, then you get the complaints that it’s too expensive, or it’s an extra-judicial gulag, or it’s a sign of colonialism. And before long you can be sure Amir Attaran would find a document which proved that a detainee slipped in the shower and cut himself, and we’d be back in permanent scandal mode anyway.

The truth is that there’s probably nothing good enough for the critics of the Afghan war. Trying to appease people who are already dealing in bad faith is pointless. Trying to sanitize warfare is a comfortable illusion of a generation of Canadians who have been raised to believe that our military exists to “keep the peace”. They would be happy if we were deployed to sit in Kandahar Air Field with blue helmets and United Nations’ flags signifying the 1% of the province officially safe from the reach of the Taliban. That way, when the Taliban is massacring people 100 metres from the Air Field, we can cite our rules of engagement directive of non-interference, and never get our hands dirty. Sure, people will die. But at least we won’t run the risk of being the ones who handed over the Taliban fighter that wound up falling down in the shower.

Read more: http://network.nationalpost.com/NP/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2010/03/11/adrian-macnair-would-honesty-on-afghanistan-be-asking-too-much.aspx#ixzz0i1JU6rKO
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[Rifleman62]

To prove the point, one of the "usual suspects from the usual media sources ".

Toronto Star 10 Mar 10: http://www.thestar.com/opinion/article/777471--walkom-frank-iacobucci-s-appointment-diminishes-parliament

Walkom: Frank Iacobucci's appointment diminishes ParliamentPublished On Wed Mar 10 2010Email Print Republish Add to Favourites Report an error

By Thomas Walkom
National Affairs Columnist

Politically, Ottawa's decision to hand off the Afghan prisoner scandal to retired Supreme Court Justice Frank Iacobucci serves both Stephen Harper's Conservatives and Michael Ignatieff's Liberals.

Constitutionally, however, it is a disaster. It flies in the face of the bedrock Canadian principle that cabinet is responsible to Parliament and that a government – any government – must accede to the wishes of a majority of elected MPs.

Instead, it brings to the mix a peculiarly American notion, one that sees the executive and legislature as co-equals which, when they are deadlocked, must appeal to a judicial referee.

In this case, the referee is a former judge who – in the end – will merely make recommendations to government in a bitter dispute over Harper's refusal to give MPs documents that they have demanded.

But first, the politics.

For Harper, the advantages of the Iacobucci gambit are obvious. Politically, the imbroglio over Afghan prisoners has turned into a disaster for his Conservatives.

Ottawa's insistence that nothing untoward happened to Canadian-captured prisoners after they were handed over to Afghan authorities has been countered by its own diplomats and by the Red Cross.

Even Canada's top military brass is now trying to distance itself from the government's blanket denials.

Over the weekend, The Canadian Press reported that, in some cases, agents from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service recommended which prisoners should be handed over to the Afghans for possible torture.

In short, Canadian involvement in the mistreatment of Afghan prisoners may have been more deliberate than previously thought.

The government has tried everything to prevent any of this from coming to light. It stonewalled a quasi-judicial inquiry, publicly slagged one of its own diplomats, refused Commons demands to hand over documents to a parliamentary committee, accused critics of treason and finally suspended Parliament itself.

Last Friday, with the issue still refusing to die, it played the Iacobucci card – presumably under the hope that by the time the former judge reports the Afghan torture issue will have finally gone away.

For the Liberals, too, Iacobucci's appointment provides a respite. Scarborough Liberal MP Derek Lee had planned to bring the confrontation between government and Commons to a head Friday through a procedural manoeuvre that would have formally declared Harper in contempt of Parliament.

But this could have precipitated an immediate election, which low-in-the-polls Ignatieff is desperate to avoid.

Friday's Iacobucci announcement gave Lee the opportunity to back out gracefully and saved the Liberals from forcing an election they are too fearful to fight.

(For Ignatieff, this may a short-lived victory. Buoyed by an improving economy and backed by a feel-good budget, Harper could still call an early election.)

However, for Canadian democracy, all of this is terrible news. Here, there are few checks on the power of government. But the main one is that, within the broad confines of the Constitution, cabinet must do what elected MPs want.

If a majority of MPs want a bill passed, that bill becomes law. If, as in the Afghan prisoner case, a majority of MPs want to see government documents, these documents must be produced. In a parliamentary democracy, there is little executive privilege because the executive, in effect, serves at the pleasure of the Commons.

As for Iacobucci, he's no patsy. But that's not the point.

The point is that there is no room for a judge, retired or otherwise, in this fight. A firm majority of elected MPs, representing a solid majority of Canadians have demanded documents. Constitutionally, the government has no choice but to produce them.

And the link MarkOttawa posted said:

God help me these people are morons

I know no one writing or commenting publicly on the Afghan detainee issue these days reads this page, but they all seem so determined to crank up the stupid on this that I feel compelled to do what little I can to offset it.

Case in point today: the Star's Thomas Walkom.

Over the weekend, The Canadian Press reported that, in some cases, agents from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service recommended which prisoners should be handed over to the Afghans for possible torture.

There is no way to sugar coat this. That is not what the CP story actually said happened. That sentence is pure fiction. There is nothing remotely defensible about it. Clear enough?

[milnews.ca]

MINISTER OF JUSTICE RELEASES TERMS OF REFERENCE FOR INDEPENDENT ADVISER TO REVIEW NATIONAL SECURITY INFORMATION
Department of Justice news release, 13 Mar 10
News release link

The Honourable Rob Nicholson, P.C., Q.C., M.P. for Niagara Falls, Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada, today released the Terms of Reference for the appointment of the Honourable Frank Iacobucci, Q.C., LL.D., as an Independent Adviser. Mr. Iacobucci will conduct an independent review of documents related to the transfer of detainees by the Canadian Forces in Afghanistan.

"“As I stated in the House of Commons, the government acknowledges that it is appropriate that decisions on the disclosure of information in these circumstances be reviewed in an independent manner,”" stated Minister Nicholson. "“This will ensure that parliamentarians will have access to the relevant government information on the arrangements for the transfer of detainees in Afghanistan while ensuring there is no injury to Canada's national defence, international relations or national security.”"

On December 10, 2009, the House of Commons passed a motion seeking access to documents that contain information that would potentially be injurious to Canada’s international relations, national defence or national security if released.  Mr. Iacobucci will review the protected information included in those documents as well as all other relevant documents, including those from the period 2001 to 2005, so that parliamentarians have a fuller understanding of the transfer arrangements.

Mr. Iacobucci will provide recommendations to the Minister of Justice as to whether information would be injurious to Canada’s international relations, national defence or national security and whether any such information should nevertheless be released because the public interest in disclosure outweighs the public interest in non-disclosure.  He will prepare a report on his methodology and general findings for public release.

“As an independent and impartial adviser with significant expertise and experience in this area, Mr. Iacobucci will provide our Government with valuable advice for fulfilling our responsibilities to parliamentarians, Canadians and the Canadian Forces in Afghanistan,” added Minister Nicholson.

Terms of reference and biographical notes on Mr. Iacobucci are attached. Mr. Iacobucci will be unavailable for public comment until his report is completed.
-30-

Terms of Reference.

[GAP]

Canada broke pledges on Afghan jails, letters show
Article Link
 Paul Koring Wednesday's Globe and Mail, Mar. 17, 2010 6:59AM EDT

Canada and its allies have repeatedly promised – and failed – to build a new prison in Afghanistan where transferred detainees could be interned without risk of abuse, torture or ill-treatment and where Afghan guards could be mentored and trained in treating battlefield captives within the bounds of international law, according to Afghan secret police documents.

In an apologetic letter to Amrullah Saleh, head of Afghanistan’s National Security Directorate, Canadian, British and Dutch officials pledged “to assure you of our commitment to help build a new NDS detention facility in Kabul.”

The letter, signed by senior diplomats in Kabul representing Canada, Britain and the Netherlands – the three NATO countries doing most of the fighting and transferring most of the detainees to overcrowded and notorious Afghan prison – was hand-delivered to NDS headquarters on Feb 12, 2009. “We expect construction to start this summer,” the letter added, referring to last summer.

Whatever private assurances the government of Stephen Harper has given the Afghan regime, ministers have never publicly announced any interest in prison-building in Afghanistan, although billions have been earmarked for other infrastructure. And, since last February, no work on a new NDS prison has been started.

The placatory letter followed an angry confrontation in which Mr. Saleh upbraided allied diplomats for failing to make good on promises to build a prison, to train and mentor Afghan guards and for imposing random repeated inspections aimed at ferreting out allegations of torture and abuse. He also railed against Western intelligence agents interrogating detainees in Afghan jails and said he had been ordered by Afghan President Hamid Karzai to block further inspections unless the Western allies complied with a set of demands.

“We are told for a number of years now that a new detention facility will be build for us,” Mr. Saleh wrote in a follow-up letter, accusing the allies of dangling a modern, humane, secure facility that met international standards but failing to deliver. “There is no sign of real progress, it is still largely talk only,” Mr. Saleh wrote. The NDS letter is among a new tranche of previously undisclosed documents now in the possession of The Globe and Mail.
More on link

[GAP]

Liberal calls out Liberal Party on war crimes charges
March 21, 10:55 PMCanada Politics ExaminerBrian Lilley
Article Link

Dan Donovan says he is just writing what he and other Liberals have been thinking and speaking about in Ottawa over the past few months, his party has lost its way on the Afghanistan issue, specifically torture.

Donovan, the publisher of Ottawa Life Magazine and a long time Liberal was appearing on local radio in the capital when I first hear him going off on his own party. Normally, Donovan appears on CFRA in Ottawa as a Liberal pundit but last week was full of anger at his party for going too far in pursuing the Afghan detainee issue. In the eyes of this one-time Liberal staffer, foreign affairs critic Bob Rae and defence critic Ujjal Dosanjh are aligning the party of the centre with the left fringe of Canadian politics by accusing the Canadian military of war crimes.

Donovan uses his editorial column in the latest issue of his magazine to blast away at the two Liberal critics.

“Many lifelong Liberals, like me, are disgusted with Rae and Dosanjh and their antics. Their agenda is to do whatever they can to attack the Prime Minister and Defence Minister, even if it means tarring the reputation of Canada and the Canadian Forces. It’s odd, I’ve never heard Rae or Dosanjh expend the same amount of energy on matters related to the deaths of 136 soldiers and diplomats violently killed in Afghanistan”

Even more anger is directed at Dosanjh, given his position as health minister in the Martin government.

“I don’t recall Dosanjh expressing any concerns for detainees when he was a Liberal Minister in the Paul Martin Cabinet that expanded our Afghan mission. Actually, I don’t recall Dosanjh expressing any concern for our poorly armed troops who were killed in action in Afghanistan because he and his colleagues in Cabinet sent the troops to Afghanistan with equipment that did not provide them with enough protection. He must have done so … but in private with the same great flare, gusto and passion he articulates for the Taliban prisoners. Bravo Ujjal! Bravo!”

While I don’t share Donovan’s anger, it is interesting to me to see a Liberal, a well known one in this city, calling out his party for, to use the colloquial term, sucking and blowing at the same time. The Liberal party has for some months now been attempting to say that the government may be complicit in war crimes but fearing the accusation that they don’t stand with the troops, they say they are not accusing Canadian soldiers of war crimes.

They must think we have trained cats in Afghanistan handing over prisoners to the local authorities for torture.

The fact of the matter is that if Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Defence Minister Peter MacKay or General Rick Hillier are guilty of war crimes, then so are the soldiers that carried out those orders. It was established at Nuremberg that, “just following orders” was not a valid defence. The International Criminal Court also establishes in Article 33 of the Rome Statute that following orders is not a defence.

Article 33
Superior orders and prescription of law

1. The fact that a crime within the jurisdiction of the Court has been committed by a person pursuant to an order of a Government or of a superior, whether military or civilian, shall not relieve that person of criminal responsibility unless:

(a) The person was under a legal obligation to obey orders of the Government or the superior in question;

(b) The person did not know that the order was unlawful; and

(c) The order was not manifestly unlawful.

2. For the purposes of this article, orders to commit genocide or crimes against humanity are manifestly unlawful.

Just to make sure that everything is clear, Article 7 counts torture as a crime against humanity as well as “other inhumane acts.”

The Liberals have been warned by those inside the party and out that their strategy of claiming war crimes is risky, that it could see front line troops charged. Still they persist, while saying they are not in any way demeaning the work of the men and women on the ground. Such talk is patently false. If the people in leadership positions that ordered the transfers are guilty of war crimes, so are those that handed them over. During the many decades that the Liberals were in power, Canada deported men who were just following orders during the Second World War.

If the members of Her Majesty’s Official Opposition were so confident in their assertions that war crimes occurred, they would be joining Professor Michael Byers from UBC in asking the ICC to investigate Canada. They don’t for two reasons, firstly to do so would rob them of a weapon to beat the government over head with during question period, secondly, the Liberals are smart enough to realize that the Canadian public would not take kindly to our own politicians accusing our own soldiers of war crimes. A party that did so would not see power for some time.

Brian Lilley is the Ottawa Bureau Chief for radio stations Newstalk 1010 in Toronto and CJAD 800 in Montreal. Follow Brian on Twitter to get the latest as it happens.

Get more from Examiner.com's Canadian Politics Examiner
More on link

[E.R. Campbell]

Here is the piece. I especially like this bit:

"Meanwhile, Mr. Rae and Mr. Dosanjh prostitute themselves for media ratings, offering scarce objectivity and an absence of balance. They postulate that if
Canadian soldiers handed over even one prisoner who was then mistreated (or tortured) by Afghan authorities, both the Prime Minister and Defence Minister must be war criminals. There could not be any other explanation. Their conjecture is nothing but absurd."

That sums it up, neatly.

[leroi]

Great find, Gap!

Liberal blogger Scott Ross began doing the same regarding CBC using Attaran for sound bytes.

I wish the Loyal Opposition would focus more on THIS pervasive torture in Afghanistan:

'Shaming' Her In-Laws Cost 19-Year-Old Her Nose, Her Ears

I have a hard time being outraged about a detainee who MAY have been beaten by a shoe for a very
 short time until saved by Canadian Forces while women are STILL being tortured like livestock in Afghanistan.



 Photo Credit and Article CNN March 18, 2010: Afghanistan Crossroads

Her name is Bibi Aisha ...  her criminal-torturer fiancee was/is a Taliban bass-turd!!!!!

There's a video interview of Bibi here.

[Rifleman62]

Only a few questions in QP today. The LPC read the poll??

[GAP]

Hébert: Will Speaker's ruling on detainees spark election?
Article Link
By Chantal Hébert National Columnist

Over his nine years as Speaker of the House of Commons, Peter Milliken has ruled on hundreds of points of privilege but none of his many decisions falls in the same high-stakes category as the ruling he will soon have to render as part of the latest battle of wills between the opposition parties and Stephen Harper's minority government.

As Milliken – a lifelong student of Parliament – is well aware, his verdict on the handling of the documents pertaining to the Afghan detainees issue is bound for the history books.

It will almost certainly come to the attention of the Supreme Court and it also could set off an election campaign.

If he rules that the government is within its rights to ignore a House order to hand over the documents until they have been vetted by an outside party of its choice, Milliken will have clipped the wings of Parliament in a way that stands to accelerate its current decline into irrelevancy.

The executive powers of the government will have been reinforced for all time at the expense of Parliament.

But if he rules in favour of the opposition and orders the government to find a process that allows parliamentarians to be the judges of the balance between national security and accountability, the Speaker could set the ground for a spring election.

The opposition parties and, in particular, the Liberals are adamant that they are not seeking a snap campaign. But the matter is increasingly out of their hands and into those of the Speaker and, eventually, the Prime Minister.

No one who watched Harper in action over the time of the 2008 parliamentary crisis doubts that he would be sorely tempted to take his latest conflict with the minority Parliament to the people rather than bow to the opposition and the Speaker's will.
More on link

[leroi]

I like this one:

Afghan Detainees – The Real Issue
By Mischa Popoff: March 25, 2010

The Metropolitan

Reproduced in accordance with the Fair Dealing Provision of the Copyright Act.

http://ow.ly/16U0US

In politics there are issues you can bludgeon your enemies with, but every now and then an issue arises that through its repetition will turn against you because a deeper issue lies within it.

What the Liberals and NDP fail to appreciate as they attack the Conservatives over the Afghan detainee issue is that at a visceral level Canadians just don’t care about Afghan detainees because they’re the enemy. There, I said it.

 It would be different if Canadians were torturing Afghan detainees. Recall the national shame when photos of Somalian Shidane Arone came out in 1993. Bad things happen in war, but Chrétien survived that issue and Harper will survive this one.

 It’s alleged that there’s a possibility that detainees are being “mistreated” at the hands of our Afghan allies; you know, the people we’re over there to protect. If our Afghan allies were torturing detainees that again would be different, but what’s alleged is mere “mistreatment” based solely on the testimony of the detainees themselves. Big difference.

Of course Conservatives don’t dare point this out because they’ll seem callous. So they’re forced to pretend to share, at least somewhat, in the Liberals’ and NDP’s concerns for human rights until this blows over. And yes, it will blow over because the enemy in this case avows to subjugate, enslave and kill those who are, allegedly, now mistreating them. Think about that for a second.

It must be difficult to feign sustained indignation when an Afghan tribesman gives a fat lip to a terrorist who just last week was threatening to kill him and his entire family, but so far everyone in Ottawa and the national media is managing just fine.

Now here’s the deeper issue: combatants who face our soldiers in a war zone have only two choices: fight and die, or surrender and be treated well. No exceptions. The former isn’t considered “polite talk” in Ottawa; our soldiers have been assigned many peacekeeping missions over the years but Canadians know soldiers are trained to kill the enemy before the enemy kills them, and that our boys and girls in uniform have always been, and will always be, soldiers.

The enemy in Afghanistan intends to kill as many of our soldiers as they can. As such, they are human targets for our soldiers until such time as they become detainees. They’re not a building or a munitions dump; they’re human beings who must be killed. There, I said it again.

There’s a willful ignorance of the realities of war in Ottawa which has, so far at least, allowed the Opposition to pretend Conservatives condone the mistreatment of prisoners of war. If this was true then surely the same would have been true when the Liberals were in charge. It’s the same Allied soldiers on the ground, right? But much more to the point, who really cares? Haven’t these people heard of priorities?

If the Opposition doesn’t stop with the false indignation over fat lips being inflicted on Afghan detainees by Afghans, they will pay a heavy price. Canadians don’t want their government to waste time ensuring that the same rights we enjoy are afforded to the enemy when the lives of our own soldiers and 28 million innocent Afghanis are at stake. Every terrorist that our soldiers capture, no matter what happens to him, is just lucky to be alive. ‘Nuff said.

The Liberals knew our soldiers were in the business of killing the enemy when they got us into Afghanistan, and they knew our boys and girls were experts at this trade even when weighted down by bureaucratic rules of engagement. They still know this; they’re just having a hard time watching as their political enemies make the best of the bad situation the Liberals got us into.

And now another Canadian diplomat with experience in Afghanistan has come forth to say she raised concerns about detainee mistreatment back in 2005, but her concerns were ignored. Let me think now… who was running the country back then? Wasn’t the Conservatives…. Hmmm, who could it have been?

 Like I said, there are deeper issues at stake here.

Mischa Popoff is a freelance political writer with a degree in history. He can be heard on Kelowna’s AM 1150 on Friday mornings between 9 and 10.

[milnews.ca]

Interesting - when MSM do stories about documents they've obtained through Access to Information processes, they only VERY rarely share the material with readers who might see context by seeing the whole document.

Now, we see this - from the Toronto Star....:

On Thursday, the federal government released more than 500 heavily censored documents - totalling about 2,500 pages - comprised of handwritten investigators' notes, military reports and top-secret memos from 2006 to 2008 relating to Canada's mission in Afghanistan.

The release comes amid complaints by opposition parties that the government is violating the rights of MPs to see documents related to how Canadian soldiers handled Afghan detainees. It is unclear whether this release comprises all the documents sought by Parliament.

Also at issue is whether documents should be censored. The Conservatives have asked retired Justice Frank Iacobucci to review the file and decide what information, if any, should be censored on the grounds of national security.

Click on a links below to read a PDF of a document; the documents are listed as named in the government's release. (Files are less than 4MB in size; most are about 300KB).

See something interesting? Leave a comment below ....

...and more clearly put by CBC.ca - highlights mine:

As Colleague McGregor announced earlier today, we've posted the full collection of Afghan detainee-related documents that were tabled in the House yesterday morning.

Our not-so-secret agenda? Call it an experiment in distributed research. We want to make sure that the 2,688 pages of medium to heavily-redacted data get the most thorough going-over possible, so we're going to try to harness the collective power -- or, more specifically, eyeballs -- of the CBC.ca/politics readerverse, so head on over to the ad hoc Inside Politics reading club and share your observations!

Greeeeeeeeat....  Journalism carried out by folks who would normally leave comments - and we know the calibre of THAT effort, don't we?

The idea of many eyes catching different things is actually a good one, but funny which stories the media apply the principle to, eh?  Like when there's too much for them to do themselves?  Or can't they trust the public with only as few documents?

[leroi]

Tony, I've never seen the media do this before. I haven't looked at the documents yet but could this cut-and-paste comment below be an example of the kind of public reaction MSM is anticipating, hoping for:

"Hard to read black marker. I can't tell if it's French, English, or Arabic, or whatever. How juvenile can you be ? How condescending ? Here read this !! Two boxes full of black ink ? Not only contempt of Parliament, but contempt for every Canadian."

[milnews.ca]

It does happen from time to time, but only rarely:  a couple of examples here and here.

[burnaby]

I don't know if this problem have been talked about here on the forums but please bare with me.

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2010/04/01/afghan-documents.html

there is plenty more of these articles.

From what I read on the CBC all of there article doesn't give a straight answer but just a bunch of speculation for masses to imagine.

I want to hear what the soldiers on the ground have to say, without the political BS.

my questions:

1) What is consider a threat to national security? The reason I ask is because the government is saying that it does not have to release any information to the public base on the premise of national security reasons.

2) Does the parliament have the right to request information? The reason I ask is because the opposition party is demanding they have the right to look over the detainee documents.

3) Base on the premise that this detainee problem happened at the beginning of the war; what was the CF and government operation procedure for dealing with prisoners? I am extremely interested for answer from the people (CF personel)  on the ground at that time.

4) Did the CF did anything wrong? From news articles it seems that they are implying that the CF and government is running wild and try to hide everything.

5) Is Afghan officials (military and civilian) trust worthy? I know that can't be 100% perfect but are they competent enough to improve. From news forums the general feeling of the masses is that we (Canada) is doing everything wrong, we shouldn't be there, its for oil, NWO, and every other nut job theory.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[E.R. Campbell]

There are security regulations, honoured, I fear, most often in the breach, that define what is to be classified at certain levels and why. Potential embarrassment to the minister is not now, never was and never shall be, world without end, amen, an acceptable reason to classify anything. Stupid orders, questions and comments by the high and mighty are, properly, the public's business unless the subject of the order, question or comment is, legitimately, classified.

Parliament's rights and its duties are poorly defined - as they should be. Parliament is sovereign in its own place; there can be no question about that and it must be able to compel ministers to to give them any information they (the ministers) have "in that place," but it is not clear, to me anyway, that Parliament can compel ministers to bring information, normally resident in and the proper business of their departments, to parliament for review.

By convention, which is a much, much more powerful force than anything in any written document, including the Constitution itself, advice to cabinet by officials is absolutely sacrosanct; it cannot be shared with anyone except the ministry of the day, for 30 years.

It can, likely will be argued, that the information sought by parliament is, properly, the property of the government (the Queen's Privy Council, which is also sovereign) and the "Queen on the Bench" (our courts, including the Supremes) cannot allow the "Queen in Parliament" (Parliament itself) to compel the "Queen in Council" (the government) to break the law. Further, it can be argued (but I suspect no one wants to go there lest we make a mockery of the principle of public access), that many, even most classified government documents can be seen as extensions of the documents which are already, conventionally, 'protected' from any scrutiny because they constitute advice to cabinet.

[GAP]

From what I read on the CBC all of there article doesn't give a straight answer but just a bunch of speculation for masses to imagine.

I want to hear what the soldiers on the ground have to say, without the political BS.

my questions: etc. etc.

I don't know what you expect serving members that frequent these boards to say in  answer to your questions, but if it was me, I would touch it with a 10 foot pole.

You are on the internet, with a blank profile and expecting people to jump into a parliamentary hissy fit? not likely....especially if you don't want it showing up in the Kelowna herald or whatever....

ER has given as clear an answer as could be reasonably expected.

[E.R. Campbell]

Here is an explanation (my explanation, anyway) of the "Queen on the Bench," "Queen in Council" and "Queen in parliament" thingy.

[burnaby]

I don't know what you expect serving members that frequent these boards to say in  answer to your questions, but if it was me, I would touch it with a 10 foot pole.

You are on the internet, with a blank profile and expecting people to jump into a parliamentary hissy fit? not likely....especially if you don't want it showing up in the Kelowna herald or whatever....

ER has given as clear an answer as could be reasonably expected.

Well sorry I'm not trying to step on anyone toes but as a student studying history and political science and as a civilian it is frustrating to wake up in the morning and read an article that accuse our troops of deliberately and knowingly had a hand in torture. I support our troops ("soldiers carry out policy; while politicians make policy") all the way; I believe (maybe I'm too idealistic for the real world) in what our troops are doing for a good cause ( or abstract/achievable goal). From what I can read and hear, from books, articles, Internet, word of mouth and TV its a whole lot to take in, so many views and so many BS. In a historical point of view I try to take in both view/sides and to find "does these views/sides have merit?".

You can not deny that the general feeling of Canadians is that "the war in Afghanistan is a lost cause". A survey done by EKOS  in 2009 (I know surveys can be bias or mis-represent, but give it the benefit of the doubt for this argument) about 70% either did not believe in the mission or against the mission from the beginning. This data shows something is wrong with the connection between the perception of what the government is saying or doing to what ordinary Canadians are hearing and reading. With the detainee problem its another nail in the coffin.

When the Afghan detainee problem came up I did not really believe it. I am sure we all remember the Somali incident; I don't have to repeat that story. When the current detainee problem came up I was kind of shocked because I know from articles that I had read that the Canadian Forces really (or try some may say) implemented reforms in the code of conduct for soldiers on the battlefield. I remember someone said "education is key in prevention" I was solid in my belief that the CF  have risen above that and move onwards for the better. So when this detainee problem came up I want to hear the raw "data"  from people who was there a primary source, not some reporter who just want a story so he or she can sell for money, who got it through questionable source(s) sitting in some air conditioned cubical. For me a simple yes or no will do and if you don't want to give me a story or reason to why yes or no its ok. I just want to be assured that the CF is a professional, accountable and lethal force. Another reason why I want to know is maybe a little personal but I have grown up with this war; I remember in grade 7 when the planes hit the twin towers, the official reason given by the prime-minister (you know NATO Ariticle 5, etc...) and now I am in a post secondary education institution. Its been that long for me it is important, in my short existence on this earth (about two decades) this war was the largest event of all time that changed the world on the scale similar to WWII or the end of the Cold War.

I'm sorry if I went off topic and ramble off to someplace stupid.                 

ps: To be honest I haven't read all the post on this thread because simply it is too damn long and I just don't have the time to spare.

 

[burnaby]

There are security regulations, honoured, I fear, most often in the breach, that define what is to be classified at certain levels and why. Potential embarrassment to the minister is not now, never was and never shall be, world without end, amen, an acceptable reason to classify anything. Stupid orders, questions and comments by the high and mighty are, properly, the public's business unless the subject of the order, question or comment is, legitimately, classified.

Parliament's rights and its duties are poorly defined - as they should be. Parliament is sovereign in its own place; there can be no question about that and it must be able to compel ministers to to give them any information they (the ministers) have "in that place," but it is not clear, to me anyway, that Parliament can compel ministers to bring information, normally resident in and the proper business of their departments, to parliament for review.

By convention, which is a much, much more powerful force than anything in any written document, including the Constitution itself, advice to cabinet by officials is absolutely sacrosanct; it cannot be shared with anyone except the ministry of the day, for 30 years.

It can, likely will be argued, that the information sought by parliament is, properly, the property of the government (the Queen's Privy Council, which is also sovereign) and the "Queen on the Bench" (our courts, including the Supremes) cannot allow the "Queen in Parliament" (Parliament itself) to compel the "Queen in Council" (the government) to break the law. Further, it can be argued (but I suspect no one wants to go there lest we make a mockery of the principle of public access), that many, even most classified government documents can be seen as extensions of the documents which are already, conventionally, 'protected' from any scrutiny because they constitute advice to cabinet.

good answer very thoughtful and thanks. I saw the live feed this week given by the justice minister. Lets just say it was long very long and lists a bunch examples of other governments similar to our past actions. I may not understand all of it but what you said ties into what the minister said.