A hero stands up to cowboys

In an inaugural address to 2,000 soldiers in the Ottawa Congress Centre in February 2005, Gen. Rick Hillier declared: "When Canadian troops go overseas, they expect sex." Within a split second, he corrected himself: "success."

It was clearly a slip of the tongue. But, according to someone who was there, it also fit the mood of the room. After years of feeling like an emasculated army of peacekeepers, Canadian soldiers finally had a real fighting man at their helm. No more girlie-man peacekeeping, boys! We're gonna make war!

The transformation of the Canadian military into a war-oriented force -- a partner in George W. Bush's freewheeling War on Terror -- was the product of the influential Hillier, with the backing of the Harper government.

Hillier's testimony last week before a parliamentary committee highlighted just how dangerous this transformation has been.

It's now clear that Ottawa ignored unmistakable warnings (including from its own diplomat on the scene, Richard Colvin) that the Canadian military was transferring detainees to situations in which they would likely be tortured.

Far from refuting Colvin's allegations that his warnings were ignored, Hillier essentially confirmed Colvin's point about the indifference of Canadian officials to the fate of Afghan detainees. Testifying that he hadn't read Colvin's emails until recently, Hillier insisted that he wouldn't have acted any differently if he had read them at the time, since nothing in them would have alerted him "to either the fact of torture or very high risk of torture."

If Hillier was unaware of the risk of torture, it was only because he wilfully ignored compelling evidence -- and not just from Colvin, who cited Red Cross officials in Afghanistan.

Even before Colvin sent his first warning, Louise Arbour, former justice of the Canadian Supreme Court and at the time UN high commissioner for human rights, wrote a March 2006 report on Afghanistan, noting "serious concerns" over reports of torture, which are "common."

That same month, the U.S. state department reported that Afghan authorities "routinely" torture detainees, "pulling out fingernails and toenails, burning with hot oil, sexual humiliation and sodomy."

Afghanistan's own government watchdog, the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission, reported in 2004: "Torture continues to take place as a routine part of police procedures."

These damning reports were summarized in an article entitled "Canada's role in torture," written by University of Ottawa law professor Amir Attaran, in the Ottawa Citizen in April 2006. When Colvin started sending his urgent warnings a month later, they should have simply confirmed what Hillier and other officials already knew from highly credible sources.

This suggests that the disregarding of Colvin's warnings is part of a larger problem -- the adoption of a Bush-like War on Terror mentality in the top ranks of our military and government. It seems that respect for international law was replaced with a lawless pursuit of bad guys -- "evildoers" to Bush, "detestable murderers and scumbags" to Hillier.

This cowboy mentality is further demonstrated in the Harper government's attempt to smear Colvin as a Taliban sympathizer.

Colvin has demonstrated a rare level of courage and integrity, risking his career to protect some of the world's most vulnerable people from torture and to bring Canada's leaders back into line with international law. He's the guy who reported the schoolyard bully.

Neither Taliban nor girlie man, Richard Colvin is a person with real guts -- indeed, in my books, something of a national hero.

Linda McQuaig is author of It's the Crude, Dude: War, Big Oil and the Fight for the Planet.

Comments

Submitted by sungura_tatu on December 25, 2009 - 7:41pm.

Oh come on! Regardless of Colvin's motives, Canada is a democracy, where freedom of speech (including Colvin's) is guaranteed. It does not take a lot of courage to 'stand up to' the government in power--not least of all when you know you have the herd-mentality MSM backing you all the way.

Colvin is not a hero.

To me the real hero is the Canadian soldier who has put himself in harm's way on our behalf--and who will give his life to protect the likes of dung-hill roosters like Colvin.

Canadian military presence is already stretched to the limit--at least, far beyond their capacity to guard detainees. If our Afghan 'allies' torture prisoners, we should take the matter up with the Afghan government (i.e. if we really cared about those poor detainees), not use them to make politics here at home.

Submitted by M. Spector on December 26, 2009 - 1:43am.

More lies and disinformation from the defenders of the Harpocons....

They like to pretend that the herd-mentality MSM is opposed to their illegitimate rule, when in fact the corporate media do everything in their power to keep the Conservatives in government.

They like to pretend that Canadian soldiers are killing Afghans in order to protect Canadians, when in fact Afghans were never a threat to Canada until our armed forces taught them to hate the very name of our country.

Colvin's freedom of speech is far from "guaranteed" - Harper will make sure Colvin's career is ended as soon as possible, for having dared to tell the truth.

And the only reason Harper doesn't take the matter of torture up with Hamid Karzai is that he doesn't care about human rights and is quite happy to let our wonderful allies in the Karzai regime (as well as our US allies, our Israeli allies, our Colombian allies, our Uzbekistan allies, our Egyptian allies, our Sri Lankan allies, etc.) torture detainees - even Canadian citizens - in violation of all the laws of the civilized world.

Submitted by sungura_tatu on December 27, 2009 - 3:04am.

So be it then. Canada is "in violation of all laws of the civilized world," whatever the hell that means. Needless to say, Hamid Karzai began torturing people only after Harper came to power. Before that, he ran a squeaky-clean government, was dedicated to democracy, decency and, of course, the correct treatment of prisoners. So much so, rabble columnists saw nothing wrong with the way the war was being conducted in Afghanistan because, according to Mr Spector's unique timeline, the Afghan people learned to 'hate' Canada only after Harper became PM.

People with divergent views are liars, purveyors of disinformation and oy vey!, harpocons. That's right. Label them, classify them and let's keep to the agenda: every country remotely linked with (pre-Obama) USA is bad, bad bad, and everyone other country that openly hates and despises the USA is good, good, good. This oversimplification is one ot the many templates pseudo-intellectuals use to appear more smart, deep-thinking and progressive. And I can see why these deep thinkers liked Saddam Hussein so much.

Bush is gone and we don't have anyone else to blame for the thing that have gone wrong in this world. The cliche, neocon, has been replaced with Harpocon. (I simply love how the English language evolves!). The horrid winter currently hitting Canada is a result of the failed talks at Copenhagen and therefore Harper's fault. This country's recession is Harper's doing. Earthquake in Indonesia? Harper's behind it. Sunnis murdering Shi'as in Pakistan? I suspect Harper. This Harper hombre must be mucho hombre--he's so omniscient. I'd love to meet him!

Colvin will, regardless of Harper, go on to write a book profiling his 'courage', perhaps make a movie with the help of tax-payer funded CBC and will always be a darling of this country's progressives. Everything he says and does reveals the signs and symptoms of a wannabe celebrity. I wouldn't worry too much about his future, Mr Spector.