Canada Complicit in TORTURE

On 570 News

http://www.570news.com/news/national/more.jsp?content=n175675330

Canadian diplomats ordered to hold back information on Afghan prison torture: sources

November, 17, 2009 - 08:14 pm Brewster, Murray - (THE CANADIAN PRESS)

OTTAWA - Canadian diplomats in Afghanistan were ordered in 2007 to hold back information in their reports to Ottawa about the handling of the prisoners, say defence and foreign affairs sources.

The instruction - issued soon after allegations of torture by Afghan authorities began appearing in public - was aimed at defusing the explosive human-rights controversy, said sources who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

There was a fear that graphic reports, even in censored form, could be uncovered by opposition parties and the media through access-to-information laws, leading to revelations that would further erode already-tenuous public support.

The controversy was seen as "detracting from the narrative" the Harper government was trying to weave around the mission, said one official.

"It was meant to put on happy face," he added.

What is fascinating is the Canadian Ambassador in Kabul at the time is now in China and he was outted as a "turn a blind eye" participant.  I can just imagine how China will receive any holier than though "rights" talk from Harpo when he arrives on his latest political junket. 

This report implies that our PMO is complaisant in war crimes and if true it is a very very serious accusation that the NDP and Bloc need to not allow to disappear.

A high level civil servant [Colvin] raises an alert about prisoners of Canadian troops in Afghanistan being tortured after they are turned over to Afghan officials, and nothing is done.

Peter MacKay says it wasn't a credible alert, and that is why they didn't look into it. However, any alert from a respected civil servant should be taken seriously, especially where there might be torture occuring.

MacKay's stated defence for inaction has very little credibility.

That is, they were un-Canadian, counterproductive and probably illegal.

There should be calls to action going out about this to MP's......as a bolster to this:

"The only way to get to the bottom of this is a full public inquiry. The women and the men of the Canadian Forces deserve nothing less." [6]

List of MP's with email addresses [7]

I am charmed by the way the MSM, pretends they haven't heard the detainee torture story before and that this is "news".

That's good! Keep this story fresh in the minds of Canadians. Hopefully this will turn enough Canadian voters in the next federal election so that the Cons[ervatives] will be voted out of office!

CBC last night did not do this, Susan O, stated straight out that when rumblings of this were happening the Cons started to change actions, which indicates full well they knew what was happening, and indeed her and Peter stressed that the proof went well beyond the plausible denial meme. hey showed dlips of Sue's coverage about it back in the day....

The At Issue panel discussed this last night too, and Coyne was trying to share the blame with the Liberals, which really does not fully wash in my view as detainees and detainee transfers went way up under Harper's regime.

Also covered was Ignatieff's inability to  carry this into the public light given his approval of toruture in his book.

Gulbuddin Heymatyar was infamous for throwing acid in the faces of women at the University of Kabul! He was the recipient of billions in aid from the CIA and Saudis in the 1980's during their anticommunist jihad!

And now Pete Mackay's bosses in Warshington and London are offering Hekmatyar a power sharing role in Karzai's government!

Someone should tell Pete Mackay that his imperialist masters aided and abetted the throwing of acid in women's faces not so long ago.

This morning The Current interviewed Peter Desbarats, former commissioner of the Somalia Inquiry. His opinion was that Canadians didn't seem particularly interested, much less out-raged about that incident. And he wasn't confident we would be about this one. And if we aren't, no loss for the Conservatives.

"We have seen the enemy - and it is us"? Pogo, I think.

Not only that, but Peter MacKay makes the assumption that these prisoners were "Taliban". An assumption that has yet to be proven.

Gulbuddin Hekmatyar does not belong to a member organization of the Taliban. He is the commander of an insurgent group known as the Hezb-i-Islami Gulbuddin or the HIG Hekmatyar network. Hekmatyar and and his network usually operates on its own. Hekmatyar and his HIG network usually operates in northeast Afghanistan, not Kandahar province, south Afghanistan.

Chris Arsenault interviewed Malalai Joya recently:

The CIA is still funding warlords. Karzai's brother is a drug baron on the CIA's payroll, just as the CIA were funding drug barons and the most vicious of warlords and mercenaries in the 1980's. Gulbby, their coalition partner in crime in waiting, is still dealing drugs after all these years. What a mess. After 30 years of US meddling in Afghanistan, nothing has changed for ordinary Afghans living in grinding poverty and despair.

Many detainees were just local farmers

Overall, though, I'm guessing that the locals are overwhelmingly grateful to their Canadian saviours for building schools etc.

edit 

Sure it is. US-managed election results in Afghanada reveal as much. Democracy is the right's most hated institution and always will be.

The U.S. offers bounties to those who bring in "Al-Qaeda" and "Taliban" "terrorists". Anyone wanting to make a quick buck can either make a "citizen's arrest" or "finger" (along with two, or more, others who bear false witness) a totally innocent person to U.S. or Canadian or other NATO/ISAF troops (think Afghans can tell them apart, or care? They're all hated feringhees or foreigners or "Americans" to them.) Off to Bagram prison for them.

Anyone seen "Taxi to the Dark Side"?

The following Globe and Mail article paints a picture that the political storm that is about to break with extreme violence in Ottawa is only just brewing:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/tories-work-to-undermine-di...

Where's the petition to see charges laid against Hillier, Harper and MacKay? I want to sign.

Anyone remember the Euro classic movies "Battle of Algiers" and "Z"?

Yes.

But it does have a lot of upchuckability.

In Afghan tribal culture, revenge doesn't always involve direct violence. Many of the innocent victims of false terrorism charges are simply fingered due to domestic or financial disputes. 

Another example of culturally insensitive American expediency being utilised by Afghans to settle scores. As in Iraq, American policies have turned the population against them. The sad part is that Canada's feeble aid efforts are marginalised by a tribal culture that does not differentiate between occupying nationalities - they are all enemies.

Ah, tribal culture - so that's why those Afghans aren't thanking us...

Why stop there? The whole pack of 'I didn't see that email' jowly porkers in expensive suits should walk the plank.

What is the symbolism of the dude in the hoody?

In his book, (just out) A Soldier First: Bullets, Breaucrats and the Politics of War, tricky Rick attempts to cover his ass on the earlier controversy, and plows on in singularly insensitive fashion:

"Things had changed after spring 2006, however, when we moved south of Kandahar and our soldiers would often take prisoners after firefights with Taliban or in other operations...the decision was made...that the right thing to do was transfer prisoners to the Afghans and let the Afghan judicial system, fledgling though it may have been, handle them. After all, Afghanistan is a sovereign country and, almost without exception, it was Afghans that we were detaining."

Hillier writes - in classic Blimp fashion: "We thought we had a good process in place, although obviously it was not perfect. Eventually - no surprise - people back in Canada started squawking about the issue. Opposition politicians and several specific individuals were trying to spin the story for their own purposes, and the result was that screaming newspaper headline insinuating that Canadian soldiers were abusing detainees."

He continues: "This suggestion that Canadian soldiers were not abiding by the laws of war coincided with complaints that the Afghans were abusing some of those handed to them. Their judicial and prison systems were still somewhat nascent, and there was always some risk that abuse would occur. That, unfortunately, is not abnormal in failed states and occurs even in solid countries like Canada. After indications that some abuse might have occurred (ed. the Globe pointed out that it had) the CF felt it was a necessity to have Candian officials make regular, unannounced visits to Afghan prison to ensure the people we transferred were being treated humanely. "

He plows on, about the Manley Report of January 2008 and the "improvements in prison infrastructure and Afghan police training..." But, of course, the general's concerns came late, after admitting that, yes, shit happens.  Which makes the sounds from the government benches these days, expressions of pure flatulence.  

Ever hear of Abu Ghraib?

Whassamadda? Fish not biting? You run out of friends to chat with in your 'the Afghan people will win' fantasy world?

You're pushing it. 

How about some substantive comments instead of this trash. 

He's an Islamophobic troll, not worth responding to - I forgot for a moment, and I apologize for commenting on one of his posts.

On February 4 2005, he became Chief of the Defence Staff. At the change-of-command ceremony he repeated his call, more broadly, for increased military funding. "In this country, we could probably not give enough resources to the men and women to do all the things that we ask them to do," he said, with Prime Minister [36] Paul Martin [37] and Defence Minister [38] Bill Graham [39] looking on. "But we can give them too little, and that is what we are now doing. Remember them in your budgets."[5] [40] His willingness to speak openly and on the record about the Canadian Forces' financial resources, and about the Defence budget in particular, distinguishes Hillier from previous Chiefs of the Defence Staff.[citation needed [41]]

After his appointment, Hillier maintained a very high profile, frequently talking with the media and arguing his case for defence planning. He has been called the most prominent Chief of the Defence Staff in decades, with popularity not just in the military, but among a broad spectrum of Canadian civilians.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rick_Hillier [42]

An assassin murders someone. In the eyes of the law, the party that paid the hitman is just as guilty as the party that pulled the trigger. The Geneva Conventions are very specific about the handling of detainees. If a party hands detainees over to a third party where it is known or suspected the third party tortures and abuses prisoners, this is a war crime.

edit

Why would Canadians hand Afghans over to the ANP [Afghanistan National Police].

I'm going to throw this out there without causing a dogpile.
The basic idea theory plan hope design thought etc.. etc.. is to take the ANP and turn them into a semi-professional, credible and ethical police force. It's impossible to give them the feeling of authoruty responsibility and professional compitence if we [Be it Canada, NATO] hold their hand and don't let them do their job.
"You're all police officers BUT we don't want you arresting anyone or searching anyone, handling prisoners or giving people traffic tickets". Part of the process is to let them be their own keepers.

Therein lies the problem it seems like we faced in Afghanistan. We want the ANP to basically be police officers but there not "there" yet and by that I mean it's or it was common place for them to take a prisoner drive off somewhere and put the boots to him or even shoot him.

Where do Canadian soldiers fit in?
I'll explain a military wide problem in a moment but Canadian soldiers were basically told what i just said here right? If you get a prisoner hand them over to the ANP because they need to be seen by the locals doing their thing and not having NATO hold their hands OR do everything for them. [This was a same-issue in Bosnia. The search for illegal weapons went from a NATO lead effort to Bosnian police searching for weapons with NATO advisors to Bosnian police working without help or hinderence of NATO].
Canadian soldiers are not stupid though and lots of complains went up the chain of command saying NO we can't hand these prisoners over, their just getting executed. Then it turned into a big bun fight over what to do.

This is just my illinformed opinion but I suspect one major problem is something that is found throughout all militaries in the world. I am sure the military members of this forum current and otherwise will agree. The "troops" can be miserable, not getting paid not getting fed and all around pissed off. yet when a General comes to inspect the troops all he hears is SIR! Everything is great, troops are happy everyone is getting paid well there is plenty of food things are A-OKAY! It's not the privates talking to the generals...
Somehow from the "grunt level" to the general there is a big disconnection. I could not pinpoint it but taking a guess in my little example the middle management does not want to explain why soldiers are not getting fed to a very angry general.

In the case of what we are talking about here though I think the people on the bottom all over knew exactly what was happening and let people know but some how the people on top were told everything is fine the prisoners are being taken care of in a professional manner etc.. etc..
Disconnect somewhere along the way and the truth exactly where will come out and hopefully they will be brought to task over it.

Canada 's Guantanamo Canadian military's role in torture coverup in Afghanistan

 Uncle Sam's yes-men in Ottawa are always out of touch.  

There is a fundamental truth to the 'disconnect' when the issue is driven top-down such as a piece of kit that end users find poorly designed and useless but it is issued because some careerist refuses to acknowledge any error.

In the case of information driven from the bottom, the careerists only acknowledge the portions that have the potential to reflect well on themselves and, in the case of such damning information as presented by Richard Colvin, any attempt to communicate such info would be throttled to preserve "plausable deniability".

Plausable deniability - what an odious term for cover thine ass.

It's how US shadow government has operated for years at arm's length from cosmetic government. They are still hand in glove with Al CIA'duh and other militant groups working to create an arc of destabilized countries extending from Africa to Central Asia. And our political stooges are only following the general plan handed them from Warshington.

We Are All War Criminals

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article24043.htm

"And because these crimes are committed in all of our names, we are all war criminals..."

"And because these crimes are committed in all of our names, we are all war criminals..."

The crimes are not committed in our names, but in the name of democracy, freedom, modernism... The "war criminals" are those who use these fine principles for their own purposes (count the ways).

9/11, Nairobi and Dar es Salaam embassies, USS Cole, Bali, Madrid bombings, London subway, Pakistani suicide bombings, etc..are also atrocities. Radical islamic jihadists are an atrocity. Didn't see the author of your link mention any of that.

Our inability to be strong, united, and play hardball is our weakness in dealing with an enemy who lives and dies by it.

My oh my have the times changed since WW2.

Not so much.
We have brainwashed defenders of gratuitous torture of the innocent-- in the name of finally getting "strong, united, and play[ing] hardball".  The SS would be proud.

Yeah, "hardball" fails to explain pain of the victim, somehow, rationalize the old "tit for tat", "eye for an eye" stuff.

I do not take joy in the torture of a human being but I also will not call my country's soldiers war criminals.

How about the leadership, military and political? The soldier ("doughboy in WW11 American memory) has had to follow orders too, eh?  Always that way in uniform.

"My country's" soldiers, sailors and aircrews should be employed in defence of the motherlan...fatherl... er, place of peace, order and good government.

Politicians are ALL the same to me. Parliament is just a place for the high paid to shout at each other and achieve little most of the time. It doesn't matter the party, minor ideological differences is a very fine line that separates them. Whatever party is the ruler of the day, the opposition parties get up and try to accomplish what?...score points for the next election?...score better points for the leader? It would be the same if the cons were in opposition at the moment, they're all the same.

Does it make the job easier for the men and women who serve in our armed forces in Afghanistan?

Ignatieff isn't so moral himself, is he?....

http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2009/11/24/...

There is no comfort in your statement that you "don't take pleasure" in defending the gratuitous torture of the innocent,
since there are some therapies for hyper-Sadism.
Unfortunately, the "moral" jingoistic rationalizations for torture (for any state or group) is much more intractable and is not seen by the believer as a problem.

Well according to wiki, some of the Nazis welcomed to North America with operation paperclip were actually prosecuted as war crims at the time of the Nuremberg trials. Some of them went on to study torture under various US government sub-programs that rivalled the Manhatten project in scope. They  terrorized Latin American and other citizens of the thirdworld where them and their fascist friends waged war on democracy for many years.

Every November the eleventh, Americans and Canadians, and Brits, too, should remember that the Nazis were really our friends. Or at least it would appear that this was the case.

Who's innocent? The ones who place IED's and throw acid on school girls faces or the few that may be innocent?

Eastwinds, quit sitting on your laurels and enjoying the good life off the sacrifices of our sacred martyrs. Go to Afghanistan, save the people there from each other; show us how it's done. Go. Now. Git.

Gulbuddin Hekmatyar was infamous for throwing acid in the faces of women when he was a student at Kabul University. He was bosom pals with the west then in the late 70's and 1980's. And now Gulbby is our friend again, or at least, I'm not sure the west or NATO gangsters ever had a serious falling out with him. Mackay is full of Yanqui bullshit.

The means by which we have employed to combat our enemy have turned us into the very evil we are fighting against.

When you go up the chain of command, who is at the top?

The Canadian government.

Remember also, that former Gen. Rick Hillier (Chief of Defense Staff) signed the Afghan detainee transfer agreement with the Karzai government (something he had no authority to do without the backing of Prime Minister and Parliament) without the monitoring and safeguard provisions and, as of yet, I have heard of no occasion when Hillier subsequently stopped the transfers - he tows the (Cons[ervative]) party line.

To transfer detainees to a party where it is known or suspected that party tortures and abuses detainees is a violation of the Geneva Conventions and the Protocol on the Treatment of Prisoners and is thus a war crime.

The Geneva Conventions also stipulate that soldiers have the duty to disobey unlawful commands. The reason why few soldiers have spoken out publicly about this is because I believe they are too chickenshit over the prospect of a Court Martial and have been indoctrinated (brainwashed) to believe that the interests of the military and its commissioned officer class are the same as the interests of the non commissioned class. Thus criticizing the military and/or its commissioned officer class (falsely) goes against the interest of all soldiers.

This issue is being written about in newspapers in the U.S.A., in China, in India and in other countries. Our violation of the Geneva Conventions and thus our committing a war crime has tarnished the reputation of Canada internationally.

This has occurred under a Conservative administration's watch. And what have they done? Did they recognize this as an egregious violation of international law and universal morality and take immediate steps to stop this pernicious situation in a long term and definitive manner?

No, they acted the same way Nixon did when the Watergate story was unfolding: Covering up, lying, "deep sixing" and destroying information, making sure not to leave a paper trail or any physical evidence that would lead to the Office of the President (Nixon) or the Prime Minister's Office (Harper), obstructing justice, intimidating some witnesses while paying others hush money to keep their mouths shut and instructing still others to lie before Congress (Nixon) or Parliament (Harper).

Facing the prospect of impeachment forced Nixon to resign.

I hope facing the prospect of a war crimes trial at the World Court in the Hague, the prospect of a vote of non confidence in the House, the prospect of criminal charges being laid in Canada and the outrage of enough Canadians will either force Harper to resign or force an election.

Peter MacKay makes the charge that Richard Colvin's claims of detainee abuse "Lack one shred of credible evidence."

Then MacKay is guilty of the very thing he charges Colvin with when he makes an unsubstantiated statement by substituting the word "detainee" for the politically charged word "Taliban".

According to universal justice, one is innocent until proven guilty. That's the way it works. Have any of these detainees be been put on trial? Have any of these detainees been found guilty in a court of law of being "Taliban" and/or having committed acts of terrorism?

If not, then where's MacKay's credible evidence to substantiate his claim/political rhetoric/propaganda?

Fidel, you are right. Even as we speak, shadowy representatives of the U.S.A., the U.K. and the Karzai government are holding talks with Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, Jalaluddin Haqqani, Mullah Mohammed Omar and other Taliban and insurgent group commanders to lay down their arms and join the Afghan national government.

There have been some incidents of women and schoolgirls getting acid thrown in their faces after October 2001. These occurrences have largely taken place in eastern Afghanistan, opposite of the region of Pakistan where Gulbuddin is believed to be located, suggesting it is his HIG network that is responsible and not the Taliban or other insurgent groups.

Who does that idiot Hillier think he is kidding with his attempted drive-by smear today?

Damn that Paul Martin for elevating this GI Joe nutbar!

WHOA! The CBC is reporting today that the Red Cross was complaining that they were not notified of prisoners transferred by Canada to the Afghans for as many as eight days and were thus having difficulty tracking them. Eight days? Now, I admit I'm a suspicious type, but was this CF policy done with a nudge, nudge, wink, wink to enable torture of detainees without the concern of busybody NGOs? Is this why a former top general will argue he was negligent and entirely irresponsible in not reading reports?

Interestingly, Hillier argues that they may have transfered "Afghan farmers by day and Taliban by night". Has our "kill the scum" general just admitted the Afghan war is a popular war of liberation against foreign occupation? Doesn't all of this make him a war criminal?

What a day!

continued here

Hillier admitted that we (Canadian military) had substantive credible evidence that Afghan detainees were tortured and abused by Afghan authorities. This vindicates Richard Colvin's claims. Hillier, MacKay and Harper, it seems, lack the intellectual capacity to realize this.

It was reported that the halt of the transfer of detainees occurred four times. Thus, the corrupt Karzai government failed four times to stop the torture and abuse. This begs the question, does this torture and abuse still continue? Needless to say, these are yet more incidents where the Harper administration looks bad.

And the Liberals. They would have turned a blind eye. too. Liberals dragged us into crazy George's quagmire in the Stan, and they've supported the Harpers all along.

The Liberals and the Cons follow the same play book. What the cons are doing now, the Liberals have done in the past.

David Mulroneys testimony should be priceless

Whether the prisoners were guilty or innocent of anything is irrelevent.  As prisoners of war they are covered under the Geneva Conventions and subject to its protection.  Chain of command may be the right procedure at first but any subsequent order to continue turning prisoners over to Afghan authorities was an illegal order if soldiers knew that they were being executed or tortured.  This is the problem.  Do individual soldiers serving in Afghanistan at the time or today 'know' that prisoners were being tortured?  This goes to the nature of the complaints by individual soldiers which were sent up the command structure.  Will the inquiry here from those individual soldiers? 

Rape is a war crime.  Any Afghan soldier committing this offense is guilty of a war crime.  Any NATO soldier knowing or witnessing such a crime and does not report it is guilty of complicity. 

The USS Cole, Madrid, London, foreign embassies outside of Afghanistan, throwing acid in the face of girls and the abuse of women in general are not relevent and in fact 9/11 is no longer relevent in this specific case.  None of these prisoners were or have been charged with pariticipation in, planning or complicity in these past  or present crimes.  There is no evidence that Al Queda or those who consider themselves to be Taleban have any central command and are linked directly to any of these past events.  There is no clear distinction between a Taleban enemy soldier and a Taleban member of parliament, an 'insurgent' (whatever that is specifically) and an Afghan citizen legitimately fighting against a corrupt central Afghan government and NATO/ISAF members backing that government.  The Canadian and NATO allies continue to claim that the war has gone through several phases, missions etc. which is used to defend the original invasion and subsequent missions to restore government and order yet claim and work to continue the illusion that their opposition is one and the same from the beginning.  There is no difference in the abuse suffered by women by any of the warlord led clans or provinces in their control.  When it comes to the abuse of women, as we define this abuse for the purpose of continuing the war and occupation of Afghanistan, there simply is no good guy.  These are all the same emotional 'sales pitches' used by people like 'Eastwinds' above to either justify what is happening or deny any need for self-examination.  This is the same tactic used by Hillier and others in their testimony when they intentionally refuse to describe soldiers as soldiers but use the phrase "...killing our sons and daughters."  

The argument that the Afghan judicial system is in its infancy is a ludicrous excuse.  After almost ten years the Afghan authorities still need to be told that it is wrong to torture, be corrupt or deal in drugs?  The Afghan judicial system isn't going to change because there is no requirement for it to do so.  The argument that Canadian soldiers need to be seen handing over prisoners to the Afghan officials so that they can be 'seen' to do their job  is also ludicrous and has no credibility.  The Afghan officials don't deserve to be solely in charge until they prove they can be trusted.  Until that time the fate of soldiers, citizens or any others who are captured or dealt with by Canadian military and civilian personnel remains the the responsibility of the Canadian government.  This also creates the impression that there are no honest Afghans capable of taking on these civil society roles and this is a lie.  Corrupt people remain in positions of authority in Afghanistan either by design or lack of political will to change.     

This is a war where our sons and daughters are waging an illegal aggressive war and killing Afghan sons and daughters who are legitimately defending their country.

What (if any) meaning does the War of 1812 have to these four star clowns?

Good points Mimeguy.

  It could get things sidetracked to start talking about whether or not the tortured prisoners were "guilty" or not, or even if they were soldiers or not. Nobody gets tortured, thats the rule, period.

  The issue of rape: I read an article about how bad it is in Afghanistan right now, with rape being perpetrated left right and centre there.

   Reporting: YA!! There should be some soldiers out there who DID report it, but were turned away and told to mind their own business. Also, that every soldier has a duty to report war crimes, and every soldier should be reminded of that duty and given a chance to report it without risking sanctions from their superiors. Perhaps a method of reporting that goes to some outside agency, other than the military in the field, who can record and investigate the claims. Whadda ya think of that??

Pressure mounts for public inquiry on Afghan torture

“We're looking at what needs to be established in terms of what happened,” New Democrat MP Paul Dewar, who sponsored the motion, said during today's debate. “Is there any other option than a public inquiry in light of the fact that we have a government that refused to dispense all the documents?”

Even if the Commons passes the motion, it cannot force the government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper to launch the inquiry since that is a decision that rests with the executive branch of government. But it would increase pressure on the Conservative minority, which would then be forced to decide if it will reject the will of the Parliament.

MPs from all three opposition parties expressed support for the motion, with many citing the government's refusal to release information.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/pressure-mounts-for-public-inquiry-on-afghan-torture/article1384317/

What the Tories are doing with their militarization of the country, said Keith Martin, the Liberal MP who used to sit with the Alliance Party, is build the military men into heroes and then demolish anyone who dares breathe an unfavourable word.

On the detainees’ question we don’t know which side is correct. The Conservatives are hunkering down. They are not releasing results of Canadian military police investigations in Afghanistan. They’ve stonewalled the Canadian Military Police Complaints Commission on the issue. They declare important correspondence off limits because of national security.
This gives the impression that they have something to hide on this file. It may well be the reason why they are playing their demagogic patriot game. It’s the best card they’ve got.

http://www.metronews.ca/vancouver/comment/article/383929--tory-adds-patriot-game-to-torture-allegations-strategy

Richard Colvin isn't the latest public servant gutted for doing a job embarrassingly well. That dubious honour belongs to RCMP public complaints commissioner Paul Kennedy who is to be replaced later this month after publicly detailing snafus ranging from the force's still unexplained intervention in the 2006 federal election to the airport death of Robert Dziekanski.

Kennedy and Colvin are part of a pattern that overlays almost every controversy. Nuclear safety watchdog Linda Keen was wrongly collared for the medical isotope shortage. Chief Electoral Officer Marc Mayrand was savaged for probing suspicious Conservative campaign funding. Respected deputy minister Louis Ranger left his post after apparently applying too stringent taxpayer protection to billions in stimulus spending.

However varied the specific motivation, the result is universally predictable. Partisan spin twists debate until the public interest is lost in the din of diversionary bafflegab.

To follow the crazily bouncing "messaging" ball is to arrive empty-headed at false assumptions.

It's not, as the Prime Minister would have voters believe, about which political party stands shoulder-to-shoulder with the armed forces. It's not about Colvin's credibility. It's not even about the hard, unequivocal, blood-and-bruises evidence military leaders insist was missing from serial warnings.

Reduced to its essence, the Afghanistan prisoner storm is about political accountability. Canada had a problem with transfers when Liberals were the ruling party and it reached a tipping point just months after Conservatives came to power. Both governments applied situational Band-Aids, both ducked the tough, expensive actions needed to ensure this country was doing everything necessary to comply with the letter and spirit of domestic and international law.

Far from protecting the troops, that expediency ratcheted risks higher. It exposed them to local reprisals as well as to legal liability and made victory in a hearts-and-minds war all that more elusive.

Those failures are now compounded by what looks, feels and smells like yet another cover-up. Fast as stories are changing, there's now compelling evidence that more than enough was known in June 2006 to stop the transfers or add the safeguards that weren't put in place for more than a year.

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/afghanmission/article/732914--harper-using-soldiers-as-his-shield?bn=1

When the first Canadian soldiers said Hey Boss the Afghan police are killing the guys we hand over to them it should have went up the chain of command and something should have been done end of story.

I'm not sure what the fuck people up high were thinking. As if any of this shit would not come out.

News flash: They're still thinking this shit will not come out!!!

Closing for length

continued here

Jeeze remind, I was just doing that...

thanks though