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Taliban Capture Canadian Spy
February 27, 2011 - 12:54pm
'Canadian Spy Detained in Afghanistan'
http://www.presstv.com/detail/167307.html
"A Taliban spokesman said on Sunday that Rutherford Colin Mackenzie was arrested several days ago in Ghazni city while he was collecting secret information, a Press TV correspondant reported. According to the spokesperson, there are documents, photographs and footage that confirms his espionage activities..."
I hope the Taliban hold a proper trial of this spy as the NATO occupying forces could obviously use a lesson in jurisprudence. The Canadian and NATO storm troopers who have been handing prisoners over to be tortured, "rendered" and so on really need to learn a thing or two about the "rules of war".
He'll get a trial?
Why not? They've got evidence (so the story claims) and it would be great PR for their side. It certainly couldn't be any worse than the treatment of "enemy combatants" by the NATO forces.
I read the report in presstv, the Iranian government news website. Has it been reported elsewhere? I didn't see it in al Jazeera or anywhere else that I checked.
Canadian Tourist Missing in Afghanistan: Foreign Affairs
http://www.nationalpost.com/news/Canadian+tourist+missing+Afghanistan+Fo...
"Canadian Foreign Affairs officials confirmed Sunday that a Canadian tourist has gone missing in Afghanistan, after the Taliban issued a statement claiming that it had captured a Canadian 'spy' in the eastern province of Ghazni. 'Canadian officials are working with Afghan authorities to assist the family in securing the safe release of their loved one,' she said.
'He has been involved in some clandestine activities to get some information, especially to learn about the whereabouts of the Mujahideen,' according to the admission of the suspect,' the statement said. 'Mujahideen got some documents out of the suspect..."
Big fat ransom to be paid most likely. He probably doesn't have to worry about being tortured to death in Bagram or Guantanamo by one of our 'democracies', unlike their POWs.
I'm thinkin' our right wing fundamentalists are hoping those right wing fundamentalist will give him a speedy execution and nail a video of it up on al jazeera or youtube for full effect.
The Afghan Taliban's Pashto-language communique quotes the group's spokesman Zahibullah that the group plans to release video of the captive and that contact has been made with 'an official delegation' from the Canadian government.
Here's a difficult prediction to make (Not!) ; the Canadian regime will pay an enormous sum of cash for the "tourist" but will plead "national security" as a reason not to indicate the amount paid. lol. Logic was never a strong suit for these neo-cons. "We don't negotiate with terrorists," Minister Peter McFuckUp will be quoted as saying, "and furthermore we were able to find out a great deal about their logistics." nuk nuk. Stupid is as stupid does.
No.
The Taliban are far more practical and intelligent than that.
They will use him for propaganda purposes: Both "white" propaganda (to make them look good and increase their support) and "black" - to humiliate and make the U.S./NATO/ISAF look bad - as the North Vietnamese government did with U.S. PoWs.
To add further humiliation, they will hold him for ransom: To force "We don't negotiate with terrorists" Herr Harper to admit he was a spy (which will raise uncomfortable and embarrassing questions about when and how much the government knew and whether he was on the payroll) and pay the Taliban for his release (similar to Brenda Martin*) - money which will help fund the Taliban's fight against U.S./NATO/ISAF(!)
Or Herr Harper will refuse to negotiate and let him rot like Omar Khadr.
*Brenda Martin was the WASP (White Anglo-Saxon Protestant) who was sprung from a Mexican jail by the Harpo administration.
I'll bet Taliban mullah Abdul Salaam Zaeef and his friends in London won't even discuss the matter. This almost makes it seem like a real war with spies and everything. Meanwhile Hillary is talking tough against the Taliban. She's talking tough, and she's talking deal between the her own right wing extremist government and the right wing fundamentalist Taliban at some point. I think it's all tough talk to prepare Americans and Canadians to accept a power sharing deal in an all rightwing fundamentalist government in Kabul sans Afghan women's rights. Dealing away women's rights will effectively ensure that democracy is impossible in Afghanistan for a long time to come. That's been part of the game all along in the global war on democracy in general.
Yes, well women's rights was one of the things promised to Afghanistan, but the invaders' 'democratic' mass murdering psychos didn't produce anything but more violations of these - plus misery, death and destruction. They clearly have designs on the resources and are prepared to set up, protect and empower, a much hated puppet regime to facilitate this corrupt sellout. So the Afghan people, more and more choose the insurgency. Who can blame them. We continue to make nothing better and everything worse. It is more than past time for our forced occupation to end and for us to leave.
Even Western pro-occupation sources can't hide the obvious. This report is typical of many:
Justice, Politics and Insugency in Afghanistan - by Stephen Carter and Kate Clark
http://www.chathamhouse.org.uk/publications/papers/view/-/id/985/
"Government corruption and partisanship at provincial and district levels was consistently cited as a major reason for supporting the Taleban and Hizb-e-Islam in all field study areas..The government's record on corruption was deemed so extraordinarily unjust that the people even prefer bad Taliban when the alternative is government..."
Greame Smith reports that 'it is clear that civilian casualities inspire the insurgency. ' One Achakzai Talib told him ' the non-Muslims are unjust and have killed our people and children by bombing them, and that is why I started jihad against them.' The affront at having non-Muslim forces on Afghan soil is much cited as a significant concern for ordinary Afghans. Arbitrary detention, especially by foreign forces, also causes widespread anger..
House searches, (particularly at night) by Special Forces operations, sometimes pushes individuals towards outright support for insurgents. As one interviewee suggested, if someone is handcuffed in front of women, he would see no other way left but to head towards the mountains to fight with the insurgents. Each night raid that takes place reinforces these perceptions...
For many, staying at home became impossible after being harassed or arrested by their newly empowered US-allied, tribal or factional enemies or after threats of deportation to Guantanamo by Afghan government or Western forces.
As noted by the former Commander of ISAF General Stanley McChrystal, the Taliban 'consistently support weaker, disenfranchised, or threatened tribes or groups. This appears to be a factor in the growth of the insurgency in different provinces, especially Kandahar..
Ladbury found that the Taleban have held on to their reputation as better practitioners of justice than the state. Her respondents (who included 'ordinary people,' as well as some Taleban and Hizb-e-Islam combatants) tended to differentiate between 'good' or 'proper' (pious, non-corrupt) Taleban and 'bad' 'foreign' or 'American (criminal) Taleban: the latter were blamed for abuses while the former were considered the 'real' Taleban..
The general perception was that the Taleban were reasonably efficient and fair - at least when compared to the formal system which was neither. When women respondents in Kandahar mentioned the Taleban and justice it was to endorse the general message that ordinary people support the Taleban because they provided justice in contrast to the formal justice system and the courts...Under the current administration, it is controlled by foreigners and war criminals, only the rich and powerful have rights and there is insecurity and debauchery.."
The US, Saudis and Pakistan's army intelligence agency created the Taliban. They are no friends of the people.
Reports That Pentagon Funding of Taliban is "Unintentional" Are Wrong 2010
The USSA is funding the Taliban to the tune of millions of dollars every month. Unmarked helicopters continue dropping weapons to the Taliban and even spiriting them around the country as if NATO is a taxi service for right wing fundamentalists. They've admitted it. Taliban even have control of a power dam built by the Americanos. Afghans pay their utility bills to the Taliban. They are right wing extremists created by Uncle Sam for the purpose of destabilizing Central Asia. The Taliban are violent misogynists. The left should not be supporting the Taliban.
Spooks Galore
Or they could just find out where he is and bomb the location "accidently". He's Canadian, nobody cares about him, not even you guys.
The west has a notorious rep for disowning their spies captured in Asian countries during the cold war era. All those Hollywood movies about clandestine efforts to repatriate prisoners of cold war spying are bs for the most part. They've sacrificed a lot of lives in the name of freedom - freedom for the corporatocracy that is.
It's called being expendable... everyone did it (and still do). What do you think homicide bombers are?
But the Sovs weren't demanding hundreds of their pilots returned to them at the end of the cold war though. Apparently Yeltsin informed the States that there were hundreds of USAF and other countries pilots shot down over Asia and were sitting in Soviet gulags waiting for someone to negotiate their return. It never happened.
And none of Germany nor a number of Eastern European countries ever demanded that thousands of war criminals be returned to them from Canada or the States, even though Israel and Sovs pointed out to our corrupt stooges the real identities of hundreds of vicious war criminals living in our midst. It wasn't by accident - they were given sanctuary after the war and employed in various criminal activities under the noses of the feds. Some of them were employed to run the spy ops out of West Germany and even attack civilian population from time to time as their method for maintaining a strategy of tension.
Yes, spies weren't the only expendable ones then through today. Our modern day gladios committed mass mass murder against 3000 human beings on 9/11 in order to justify a Nazi style humanitarian-defensive war complete with blitzkrieg and marching into sovereign countries. They ripped off Himmler's SS for the Gleiwitz incident. The difference is there are no Nuremberg trials today. Mass murder is more manageable and easier to pull the wool over everyone's eyes in an age of advanced communications and tens of billions of dollars spent on black budgets and high tech subterfuge. Hitler was the biggest liar of the last century. Today we have a number of Hitlers on the loose.
He was located near Ghazni.
What value to the Taliban would bombing where he was located be?
None I can think of.
I think Bec is alluding to the famous 'friendly fire' accidental bombing of Canadians by US forces... going by the online comments about this dude sightseeing in a warzone, the primary concern of canucklheads seems to be the tax-dollars mis-spent ransoming his dumbass back. If only their parsimony extended to the cost of the Canuck Crusaders as well..
amazing what google can do - here's a little souveneir vid he left behind:
http://wn.com/review_by_colin_rutherford__newcapegrace_guest_house_hotel...
I was curious about this poor Canadian tourist in Afghanistan, and wondered: What do the travel agencies say about tourism there?
Turns out there's tonnes of good info about some great vacations, at the World Travel Guide site.
For example, here are some handy tips about scenic spots:
NOTE: the "..." is in the original text.
Need health care while on your excursion? No problemo!
One of my favourite sections is entitled "Holidays to Afghanistan":
I wonder which package Mr. Rutherford had selected?
Nope, sorry, you're incorrect.
Don't you think we should at least see the evidence before we pronounce him guilty?
Maybe he is, maybe he is a thrill seeker, maybe he is trying to make money, maybe he is a nutbar-- who knows but at least we can refrain from calling him a spy on an open website when there has been no proof of that.
Your logic proves that you're an Americanized CIA plant. Of course he is a spy, so sayeth the hive mind.
Personally I'm surprised the media blithely called him a "tourist" without ironclad proof. Did you see some of the packages I linked to above? They're brutal. And high-speed internet isn't included in the room rates.
I travelled to West Virgina when I was very young. Ostensibly it was to see a very old graveyard which has some very early remains of a variety of my ancestors. But no, the only reason we could've travelled there is that we're American gladio coal-lobbyists. But hey, there is no proof either way, so let's assume what will sell the most newspapers.
I wouldn't call him a tourist either -- that assumes he is innocent. Why do we have to assume anything?
He was there-- he was caught and the Taliban are charging him with spying.
There are a few reasons he could be there -- idiocy being one of them--
And yes there are tourists there-- from the same site Unionist linked to:
http://www.worldtravelguide.net/afghanistan/sightseeing
I think a person who goes sight-seeing in a war zone is foolish but there are people who like to see them. Sick yes, but not necessarily spying.
These people are stupid, just like the asses that travelled to Nepal during the civil war there - those moronic conservationists and scientists.
Well, it has a lot to do with whose permission he sought before going there. The invading murderers' permission? The puppet regime which will be liquidated five minutes after the invading murderers leave? Or the people who live there?
When you go sightseeing in an insurgency, and you haven't checked in with the insurgents, and you're carrying (say) travel documents issued by the enemy, and you're not in uniform... well, espionage doesn't sound like too harebrained of a charge to bring. Innocent until proven guilty, of course...
Let's see: The insurgents fighting to rid Afghanistan of foreign invaders and occupiers stand to gain a ransom to assist in their efforts.
Herr Harper stands to gain some embarrassment out of this.
What's not to like?
Don't look a gift horse in the mouth.
You're slipping... You forgot the cool beheading video in the end
Just this weekend CNN had a great documentary made by Norwegian journalist Paul Refsdal called "Taliban". This guy negotiated a deal where he was imbedded with a group of Taliban for a few weeks. It was a really reveling documentary. If you can download it please watch it. This is a trailer for it...
Taliban
In the end one of the Taliban leaders named Omar (Omar in the trailer) invites him to his village after the group was attacked and had to break up to continue his documentary. He gets to the village and Omar ends up accusing Refsdal of being a spy as a pretext for kidnapping him and demanding ransom. It would seem making accusations of spying is standard operating procedure for justifying holding someone for random or whatever for the Taliban. That could be what's happened to this guy.
If he is a "tourist" of sorts and he dies I say we put him in for a Darwin Award.
I wonder if he's a missionary? They seem to like wrapping themselves in the Holy Ghost and sticking their necks out anywhere the unconverted are fighting.
Or maybe travelling to a conflict zone is the new macho, like running with the bulls.