As I'm sure you remember, during the early years of the war in Afghanistan there was no greater chicken hawk than Stephen Harper. Until he realized it wasn't winning him enough votes, and he decided to cut and run. But while he has been able to run away from a lot of things, like the state of the economy. He can't run away from his precious war, because we're still reaping its bloody harvest.
Well today is the National Day of Honour. The day Stephen Harper proclaimed should honour all those who served in Afghanistan. But as I explained the other night, is an unseemly debacle mainly intended to honour HIMSELF. Even if that means elbowing the Governor General out of the way, and posing as the commander-in-chief.
It couldn't have been a more welcome sight. The last Canadian soldiers returning from Afghanistan. If I had been watching them coming in to land, I would have been waving my arms in the air, and shouting "Glory Hallelujah, we are free at last." And this couldn't have been a happier sight.
There were tears, smiles and warm embraces as loved ones greeted the final homecoming flight from Kabul – the last soldiers to return from a costly military mission that spanned more than a decade and claimed the lives of 162 Canadians.
But then there was the ghastly sight of our shabby leader Stephen Harper.
The other day Obama, in his favourite role as Commander in Chief of The Great War on Terror, claimed that his Darth Vader fleet of deadly drones was on a "tight leash."
Mr. Obama, in an unusually candid public discussion of the Central Intelligence Agency’s covert program, said the drone strikes had not inflicted huge civilian casualties. “We are very careful in terms of how it’s been applied,” he said. “It is important for everybody to understand that this thing is kept on a very tight leash.”
But now we find out that the drones may be on a tight leash, but the people who fly them while sitting in an air conditioned trailer near Las Vegas, are apparently out of control.
Bruce Carson was the Prime Minister’s point man on Canada’s mission in Afghanistan and was provided sensitive information about the military mission despite his criminal record, the Star has learned.
“He was the point of contact . . . He was Harper’s guy,” the source said.
Can you believe that? No wonder we lost the war eh?
But what will our faithful allies think?
News of the added criminal charges are raising red flags among those involved in the Afghanistan file, as they question how a man with such a past could have obtained the security clearances needed to participate in the calls — and gain access to their secrets.
Those on the call typically required a “top secret” clearance since the sensitive information being discussed involved not only Canada’s military but also those of other nations too.
Now they won't tell us ANYTHING.
Oh well. Look at it on the bright side. Try to forget about all the dead people, or all the tortured ones, or all the lies, or even how the former escort feels violated.
Although that's difficult.
Just think of it as an excellent way to link one sordid scandal with another.
In the middle of an election campaign.
And then I think you'll agree with me, these Con scandals are gifts that keep on giving.
As the Wikileaks truth guerrillas threaten to strike back at the Dark Empire.
I still want to know who in the Con regime is going to be arrested for leaking this memo?
Was the leak really a breach of security in a department that rarely gives up its diplomatic secrets?
Or was the document slipped to the National Post this week as part of an elaborate government damage-control strategy to pre-empt an even more damaging leak on the WikiLeaks website?
In an obvious attempt to try to distract Canadians from the devastating impact of this one.
In Karzai's view, the extra 7,000 troops promised by Nato allies as part of this year's troop surge were more trouble than they were worth.
The president joked that it would be better if the countries announced extra troops but did not send them, as their contributions were more of a "headache" than a help.
"Admiral Mullen noted the political significance of these troop commitments, despite the challenges they might entail."
Canada's real Wikileak bombshell.
Where after 153 lives lost, thousands wounded, and billions wasted. After handing over adults and children to be tortured. After killing people and destroying villages in order to save them. And getting nowhere.
Leaked memos show European Union President Herman Van Rompuy told the U.S. ambassador to Belgium, Howard Gutman, that the EU no longer believes in the success of the military mission in Afghanistan.
Van Rompuy, a former Belgian prime minister, suggested European troops are still being deployed only to bow to what the United States wants.
Oh no. This is THE END. Rosie DiManno thinks our new mission in Kabul is going to turn our macho military into latte-sipping metrosexuals.
For Canadian combat troops and their support divisions in Kandahar, these past six years, Kabul was that mile-high mirage in the distant rear, redoubt of bureaucrats, la-la DMZ for pretend soldiers. Not one I ever met pined to be posted there. Even those sickened of life outside-the-wire, the perilous patrols and wearying village shuras, had no stomach for a politically massaged Kabul assignment.
In the pecking order of combat virility, even deployment as force protection for Canada's Provincial Reconstruction Team in Kandahar city was viewed dimly: that place with the pool, surf and turf dinners and circle-the-wagon ramparts.
As for Canadian soldiers turned into military metrosexuals: They make a nice latte in Kabul, guys.
OMG.Can you believe it? Rosie the Riveter? Once she celebrated the smell of musk in the morning. And all that sweaty manly manliness. Now she's calling them wimps. Golly. If that doesn't demoralize the troops, I don't know what will.
How could she? Does she really think that teaching Afghans to kill is easy ????
Doesn't she understand how easy it is to break a nail on a blackboard?
Doesn't she know that just getting to the office surf and turf restaurant in Kabul can be really challenging ????
Oh well. At least now we're getting a vote in Parliament.
And maybe we might have a debate. And maybe someone might ask why are we going to be spending $500-million a year, sipping lattes, and teaching Afghans to kill?
When we could be in a place much closer to home, helping these desperate people.
But then I guess Rosie would find that even less manly manly.
Now that Canadian troops will remain in Afghanistan until 20112014forever.
"We might be pressured obviously, but I think the prime minister has made this perfectly clear. March of 2014 is when we will be leaving," Cannon said at a news conference.
Because we've heard that one before.
And since many Canadians think that we're going back to being the boy scouts. Training people to kill others, instead of killing them ourselves.
Maybe it's time Canadians took a closer look at what's going on in Afghanistan these days.
The US is escalating its assault on the Taliban with a sharp rise in bombing and missile raids, more relaxed rules on the destruction of civilian property and the deployment of heavily armoured M1 Abrams tanks to Afghanistan for the first time.
Nato planes dropped about 1,000 bombs and missiles last month, more than at any time since the early stages of the war in 2001.
Because now we're lost in General Petraeus' Afghanistan. And the man is acting like a maniac.
In the most fiercely contested areas, especially in Zhare District, but also in parts of neighboring Panjwai and Arghandab Districts, American troops have been routinely destroying almost every unoccupied home or unused farm building in areas where they are operating.
Killing more civilians in order to liberate them? Destroying villages in order to save them? In a war that's supposed to be about winning hearts and minds? Why does that sound so familiar?
The horror. The horror.
But at least Colonel Kurtz was insane. Petraeus is just ambitious. All hail the American Caesar.
Any Canadian who thinks our boy scouts aren't going to get caught up in this military and moral nightmare, must be delusional.
But then so many don't want to know what's really going on in Afghanistan. It's too depressing. The Afghans don't know why we're there.
And neither do we.That's why the Cons and the Liberals can get away with not holding a vote in Parliament.
And Afghanistan is just a bad movie that nobody wants to watch.
Although this one is excellent...
Because it's got everything eh? They march them up the hill. They don't know what they're doing there. They fight, they kill, they die, they go half crazy. And then they march them down again.
Except that now it's even darker. It's General Petraeus' Afghanistan. He's a man in a hurry. And who knows into what moral abyss his ambition could lead our soldiers?
Oh well, as Kurtz said:
We must kill them. We must incinerate them. Pig after pig... cow after cow... village after village... army after army...
You have to have men who are moral... and at the same time who are able to utilize their primordial instincts to kill without feeling... without passion... without judgment... without judgment! Because it's judgment that defeats us.
Well now that Great Warrior Weather Vane Leader has made it it official. Our troops will remain in Afghanistan until 2014.
“I do this with some reluctance, but I think it is the best decision when one looks at the options,” Harper told reporters at a press conference before the opening of the G20 summit in Seoul, South Korea. “I don’t want to risk the gains that Canadian soldiers have fought for and they have sacrificed for in such significant numbers for by pulling out too early if we can avoid that.”
Now that he has caved in to American pressure, disregarded the wishes of Parliament and the views of the Canadian people. And is blowing hot air out of every orifice.
He added that he believes there are “minimal risks” involved with this type of training mission. Both the U.S. and Britain have urged Canada to stay on in a combat role, but Harper has refused. “I’ve been very clear, that’s not an option Canada will consider,” the Prime Minister said.
In other words, the Harper government is trying to paint a picture of Canadian troops staying in Afghanistan three years longer than expected but doing things where no one gets hurt.
In practice, the Harper plan may simply lead to three more years of Canadian troops dying in combat disguised as training.
(2) Why is he asking the soldiers in our small army to sacrifice themselves further, when his government is betraying those who have already paid a heavy price?
"What they're trying to do is tantamount to putting a whole bunch of crappy patches on a leaky tire. Those of us who are severely disabled are still looking at about a 40-per-cent reduction in our income, compared to the old pension system. Does that seem like a good deal for a guy who's got no legs?"
(3) Why are we training even more Afghan soldiers to kill the Taliban when most Afghans want to negotiate with them ?
(4) What exactly are we doing there? When Al Qaeda is in Pakistan, Iraq, Somalia, and Yemen. But NOT in Afghanistan. And what are we realistically hoping to accomplish? Beyond giving NATO a reason to exist. And propping profiting up the military-industrial complex.
Now look, on the question of Afghanistan, I don't claim to own the truth. I respect the opinions of those who disagree with me. The plight of the desperately poor people in that country moves me deeply. I want to help them, especially the women.
And if I thought that by fighting there longer, we could help stop this.
I'd sign up myself TOMORROW.
But since I know we can't. And I believe that the longer the war goes on the worse the situation will get in that country. And will only fuel terrorist threats all over the world.
All I'm asking for is a serious, honest, non-partisan debate in Parliament. Like the one we should have had long ago.
The troops will do as they are told. But Parliament should decide whether they stay or go. Not Stephen Harper
In the darkness that is Afghanistan the truth comes out slowly.
Three years ago, Canadian troops built a temporary post near Lora. When they immediately came under fire from insurgents, they bulldozed much of the hamlet, flattening houses, water pumps and surrounding orchards, the villagers and local elders say.
“There were 10 families who had houses there that were totally destroyed, and mulberry trees were taken out by their roots,” Mr. Hamid said in a recent interview in Kandahar city. “They destroyed all these things, and we are unable to replace them.”
Mr. Hamid, the grape farmer, said his wheat harvest was burned in the fighting. He and other villagers filed for compensation through the district administration. He was told the foreigners had accepted the claim, but said he never got any money.
A month later the Canadians moved in the bulldozers and demolished his farm and more than 600 of his vines, he said. “I did not make a complaint for the houses because no one can hear my voice,” he said.
We had to destroy the village to save it. Why does that sound so familiar? Oh yeah, I remember.
So what else don't we know? How is that Afghan detainees and torture investigation going?
Almost four months after a special committee of MPs was created to examine 40,000 sensitive Afghan detainee documents, not a single page has been cleared for public release.
Wilfert declined to guess when the first documents might finally be tabled in Parliament for public consumption. But he said committee members are seized with a sense of urgency, well aware that the process could be disrupted by a possible spring election.
Right. So when can we expect Stephen Harper to tell us what he knew about all of the above?
I don't know, because in the moral darkness that is Con Canada the truth is the ENEMY...
But what I do know, now beyond all doubt, is that when it is finally revealed.
War is always like that eh? They tell you you're dying to make others safer. They tell you it's a noble mission and that God is on your side. But sooner or later out of the bloody mist the ugly truth emerges.
The horror.
Bloody errors at civilians' expense, as recorded in the logs, include the day French troops strafed a bus full of children in 2008, wounding eight. A US patrol similarly machine-gunned a bus, wounding or killing 15 of its passengers, and in 2007 Polish troops mortared a village, killing a wedding party including a pregnant woman, in an apparent revenge attack.
The former director general of Britain’s domestic intelligence agency said Tuesday that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan had greatly increased the terrorist threat to Britain and that intelligence available before the Iraq war had not been sufficient to justify the invasion of that country.
And I feel about that like Steve Bell does...
Why did it take so long to figure it all out when it was so OBVIOUS?
I wonder what historians will say about the war most Canadians preferred not to think about.
I'm sorry we didn't make a movie like this one...
Because that way we might have figured it out for ourselves.
But then how could we when the Harper Cons turned the conflict into cheap politics?
“Is it next going to be tea with Osama Bin Laden?” asked Peter MacKay. A Globe and Mail columnist indignantly wrote “Would he pull out the chairs for their representatives? Would he pour tea for those who have killed 23 Canadian soldiers this year?”
Independent bloggers –rarely known for putting the “B” in subtle — went even further one insisting that Layton “loves dead Canadian soldiers”.
And tried to hide the truth about torture.
And most Canadians didn't care one way or the other.
I see the Afghanistan committee met today without the Cons, who would rather sabotage our democracy or slurp eggnog.
Than allow the truth about how we treated our prisoners to come out. But there's one thing about this Torture and Rape Scandal. Just when you think it can't get any worse it does.
More horror stories.
A transcript of one of the interviews with the Military Police Complaints Commission investigators reveals the army police compound in Kandahar could do nothing as the detainee baked in 140-degree heat in a detention centre designed to hold a handful of prisoners for a maximum of 96 hours.
The man, later released to his family with gifts intended to make amends, was suffering to the point his screams prompted soldiers in a nearby compound to ask the police if they were keeping a dog in the detention centre.
More evidence the war was being micromanaged from Ottawa.
A military police officer told the commission investigators that commanders in Ottawa repeatedly denied pleas to release the man, and his plight became a "nightmare."
"They could not release him," Sgt. Utton said. "They wanted to release him but we got orders from CEFCOM (Canadian Expeditionary Force Command in Ottawa), the task force commander, that we could not release ... I mean, we did everything we could, it was just our hands were tied between, it was the political stuff in Canada...
More evidence that the generals didn't care about the fate of our prisoners.
Military police Maj. Rowcliffe suggested to the commission investigators he did not get a positive response from Lt.-Gen. Gauthier when he raised concern over the lack of information about detainees after Canadians transferred them to Afghan forces. He likened Lt.-Gen. Gauthier's response to the lack of interest he received from the Kandahar base police commander.
And neither did the Cons.
"As his [Lt.-Gen. Gauthier's] adviser, I was making him aware of these concerns as well, that we're handing them over but we don't know what happens afterwards, and the message I was getting back, that we need to hand them over, I think it's in 72 hours, that's the maximum and basically (censored). I was a little bit skeptical of that whole scenario, but that was the position of the Government of Canada and that was the position I was getting from the military." Even though they knew what was going on.
Officially, the Red Cross would only say the talks focused on topics including Afghanistan, humanitarian law in modern conflicts and co-operation with Canada.
Unofficially, sources in Geneva said the international agency, whose functions include monitoring the treatment of prisoners, was growing frustrated over Canada's tardy notification of its handover of captured suspected Taliban to Afghan authorities. The delay could often be as much as 34 days, making it difficult to track the detainees.
And easier for the Afghans to torture them or KILL them.
Oh boy. You know the other day on my way home from work I came across this sign.
And I couldn't help thinking that if Stephen Harper was prepared to allow a badly wounded Canadian kid like Omar Khadr to be tortured in a place like Guantanamo.
Would anyone really be surprised if it turns out he was a torture enabler in Afghanistan? I realize a lot of Canadians probably wish this story would just go away. And from what we know now, I also understand why the Cons are doing their best to stop the truth from coming out.
But they must not be allowed to get away with it. Because some stories are a measure of the kind of Canadian values most of us still love and believe in.
And this story is one of them. Which is why now more than ever, for the sake of our soldiers, for the sake of our country. We need a public inquiry. ------------------------------------------------ P.S. And Omar Khadr does live here. So bring him home TOMORROW..
He was a reluctant whistleblower. Just a quiet, professional doing his job, and telling the truth about torture. The Cons tried to silence him, and when they couldn't do that anymore they smeared him and tried to destroy his career. But today that quiet Canadian came back at them, and blew their dirty criminal cover-up to pieces. Former Afghanistan diplomat Richard Colvin slammed back at some of the testimony heard from witnesses at the committee investigating the Afghan detainee affair, insisting that he had warned Canadian officials that prisoners were being abused. In his letter, Colvin highlights six reports sent to Ottawa in 2006, including one he said noted that "torture is rife" in Afghan jails. My hero Richard Colvin. There are so many stunning revelations it's hard to know where to begin. But this is what we now know: We handed over all kinds of prisoners to the Afghan authorities, including many on the battlefield so they wouldn't be classified as our detainees, and we could wash their hands of them. Even though the Generals should have known they might be tortured. It was generally known that prisoners in Afghanistan are routinely tortured or abused. In Kandahar, the risk is even higher than in the average province. Kandahar is on the front lines of the insurgency. Each side treats the other with brutality, and NDS officers and their families are regularly targeted and killed. About half the NDS's staff formerly served in KhAD, the KGB‐trained Soviet‐era intelligence service, which also had a well‐deserved reputation for ferocity. Lieutenant‐General Gauthier commanded Canadian troops in Kandahar in 2002, and General Hillier commanded ISAF in Kabul in 2004. It is implausible that they would not have known how Afghans treat their prisoners.
But still we rushed these prisoners into the hands of the NDS and then took as long as possible until we notified the Red Cross. According to testimony to the Military Police Complaints Commission, it was CEFCOM in Ottawa, not military officers in the field, that made decisions about each detainee, and urged the field commanders to transfer them to NDS as fast as possible. It was also CEFCOM that created the artificial delays that kept out ICRC monitors during the critical first days when detainees were being interrogated by the NDS.
So the NDS could have more time to torture or rape them.
And how did CEFCOM respond to Colvin's warnings? I informed an interagency meeting of some 12 to 15 officials in Ottawa that, "The NDS tortures people, that's what they do, and if we don't want our detainees tortured, we shouldn't give them to the NDS." (The NDS, or National Directorate of Security, is Afghanistan's intelligence service.) The response from the Canadian Expeditionary Force Command (CEFCOM) note‐taker was to stop writing and put down her pen. And how did the Cons react? Interdepartmental Coordinator for Afghanistan David Mulroney suggested that the only reason reports were edited was to remove 'opinion' or 'non‐fact based' information. This is not correct. Instead, embassy staffers were told that they should not report information, however accurate, that conflicted with the government's public messaging. By turning truth into propaganda. And by trying to smear the messenger. On the question of credibility, some officials have suggested that I only left the PRT once and was mostly confined to compounds. For the record, I went "outside the wire" in Kandahar at least eleven times, including attending a shura of 300 elders in northern Kandahar (which was widely covered by the media), visiting villages in Arghandab, and spending the night at a forward operating base in Panjwayi. In Kabul, I left the protected embassy zone (presumably "the wire") an average of twice a day ‐‐ probably 500 times in total. Which is more than those Cons, or those Generals, or that chickenhawk Christie Blatchford ever did. So how are the Cons reacting to Richard Colvins's demolition of their cover-up?
By parroting the Big Lie, and trying to hide behind our soldiers. The miserable sleazy COWARDS. Enough of this criminal charade. We need a public inquiry NOW...
Well cock a doodle do me. I see the Cons have chickened out, and are cut and running from the Afghanistan torture and rape scandal. And no wonder.
Canada was faulted by military allies in Afghanistan over the secretive manner with which it handled detainees in the early months of its Kandahar mission, The Globe and Mail has learned.
One of the complainants was British Colonel Dudley Giles, a senior military police officer with NATO's International Security Assistance Force the 40-plus nation coalition fighting insurgents in Afghanistan. In August of 2006 he brought his concerns to the Canadian embassy in Kabul, saying Canada was stonewalling on providing basic information on the Afghans it was capturing.
"According to Giles, when he contacts Canadian [officials] in Kandahar, 'their first response to requests is 'Why do you want to know?' followed by 'We know what you want, but we won't give it to you.' "
It just keeps getting worse every day, and if the chickens lose any more feathers they won't be able to fly lie anymore.
For more on why we need a public inquiry, and why we should be outraged, you should really read Dave. And Boris. As I've said so many times before, the Cons can run but they can't hide. And the truth will set us FREE...
Explain their chummy relationship with this well known torturer, the infamous former Governor of Kandahar Asadullah Khalid.
A former governor of Kandahar who is accused of personally torturing Afghans might have been removed from office as far back as 2006 if Canadian officials hadn't defended him, according to diplomatic memos that have never been made public by the Canadian government. "As far as I know, Canada has never suggested to (President Hamid) Karzai that Asadullah be replaced," says the memo, dated Oct. 24, 2007.
"In the one meeting where the subject was discussed, in July 2006, it was the president who raised the issue; Canada defended the governor, thereby ensuring his continued tenure." Defended him despite the fact he was known to beat and electrocute prisoners in his own private torture chamber. Defended him even though his brutality would lead to disaster. The warnings about Khalid - whose brazen decision as governor to display the battered dead body of a revered Taliban leader Mullah Dadullah to local Afghan media, before refusing to return it for a proper burial, triggered a massive bombing campaign in Kandahar city in the spring of 2007 - were heard loud and clear in Ottawa.
But still they did NOTHING. Oh boy. The other night I looked at some of the things the Harper Cons might be trying to hide.
Now add this sordid episode to the list, and ask yourself what kind of pattern is beginning to emerge.
They knew that torture was going on, but they buried Richard Colvin's warnings, and lied over and over again to Parliament. They kept a governor in office who was a well known human rights abuser. They insisted that prisoners should be handed over to Afghan intelligence agents, trained by the KGB, as SOON as possible. The moment a detainee was captured, Fraser said, he had to notify his boss in Ottawa, Lt.-Gen. Michel Gauthier.
"As soon as I got a detainee, I would phone him," Fraser said, adding the question he got back was: "How fast could we get them to hand over to the Afghan authorities?"
While making sure that the Red Cross would not get to see those prisoners for as LONG as possible. Then ask yourself if this doesn't sound like a conspiracy to enable torture. And could this be what the Cons are so desperately trying to cover-up? Because they know they could be charged with WAR CRIMES. You know like most people in this country I can't be sure what's going on. But I think I see the shape of something monstrous out there in the darkness. Something that needs to be lit up by a flash light ...or a flare. So I agree with this editorial. Canadians did not elect a politburo in last year's federal election. They elected a minority Parliament that can survive only as long as it commands a degree of opposition support. Harper is squandering that support with his reflexive secrecy, abrasive partisanship and compulsive stonewalling.
Because some things I do know: Richard Colvin is my kind of Canadian. Stephen Harper is not my kind of Prime Minister. And for the sake of our country's soul, now more than ever. We need a public inquiry...
I knew the Cons were trying to hide something even bigger than what they knew about torture. But who knew it would be so monstrous? Canada's top two commanders in Afghanistan in spring 2006 told investigators the government pressured them to transfer detainees to Afghan authorities faster than they felt was appropriate, CBC News has learned. As soon as I got a detainee, I would phone him," Fraser said, adding the question he got back was: "How fast could we get them to hand over to the Afghan authorities?" I knew that General Hillier's claim that our prisoners were all battle hardened Taliban was nonsense. Putt's testimony also suggests Canadian troops frequently weren't capturing high-value Taliban targets — an assertion Colvin first raised two weeks ago.
"I mean, we were basically capturing a local yokel, " Putt said. "Detaining the local yokels and handing them off." Now I can't help but wonder how many of those local yokels...a.k.a. poor farmers... joined the Taliban after experiencing the horror of an Afghan prison? How many Canadian soldiers paid the ultimate price for this immoral and insane policy? And why if we were in such a HURRY to hand over prisoners to the Afghans, were we so SLOW to inform the Red Cross? Or is it all part of the same story, and the REAL reason for the cover up?
Was it just a case of bureaucratic hyper-caution, flowing possibly from the micro-managing style of the Harper government? Or was there something more sinister at play?
If you wanted to ensure your detainee was grilled to the hilt over days, weeks, or months, would this not be the kind of play-for-time system that you would devise? Because if it was that would be a war crime. And how can you trust the Cons when they are STILL lying?
Afghanistan's intelligence service refused to accept Canadian-captured prisoners over the summer because the military was providing "insufficient evidence" of wrongdoing, The Canadian Press has learned.
The Afghan-imposed halt in transfers is at odds with claims by the federal government that the Canadian military refused to turn over detainees because local authorities were not living up to obligations to allow unfettered access to prisoners.
When you don't do anything unless Obama does it first. Or you try to hide behind him, just like you try to hide behind our soldiers to conceal your actions on the Con Torture and Rape Scandal.
Our colleague Susan Bonner in Washington is reporting that although Obama is speaking personally with leaders from Germany, France, Britain, Italy, Denmark, China, India, Russia, Afghanistan and Pakistan... he will not be making a personal call to Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
Vice-President Joe Biden will be phoning Canada's prime minister.
OMG. Not Biden? Not Italy before Canada? So much for Great Warrior Leader. So much for his "special relationship" with Obama. So much for punching above our weight.
Now will somebody please explain that to the absurd chickenhawk Rosie DiManno?
Who after detailing a million horrifying reasons Canadian troops shouldn't have handed any prisoners over to the Afghan torturers, attacks Richard Colvin for raising the alarm.
I am dubious, however, of a diplomat relying on journalists and embassy compound chatter for information and using that, in part, as a basis for copy-all email memos. Nor does there appear to be, in any of that voluminous correspondence, an eyes-on grasp of the chaos on the ground in Kandahar in 2006 and 2007, when Taliban units engaged in traditional combat – standing and fighting, as they did during Operation Medusa – with Canadian troops taking into custody an unexpectedly huge number of prisoners.
What were they to do with them?
Golly that's a tough one. How about building our own prison compound? Oh we thought of that but decided we couldn't afford it. So what were we doing there in the first place? Or should I ask Rosie's fellow chickenhawk Christie Blatchford that question instead? Because she's now accusing Colvin of being a Richard Johnny come lately. By his own records, he was seized with the Afghan-detainee issue only after a series on alleged prisoner abuse appeared in The Globe and Mail in the spring of 2007. When even she admits that the e-mails, so outrageously leaked to her by the Cons...the e-mails that Richard Colvin and members of the Canadian Parliament can't see but she can...show this: The sixth (June 2), at five pages the lengthiest, revisited what he saw at the prison in May, and devoted all of four paragraphs, mostly un-redacted, in which Mr. Colvin's source described detainees being held in "unsavoury" or "unsatisfactory" conditions, though his description of what the e-mail actually said was considerably more florid in the précis in his affidavit, where he told the MPCC it dealt with "the risk of torture and/or actual torture of Afghan detainees." Almost a year before the Globe story. And never asks herself the question why SHE didn't break the story first. Or explain why she spent all her time in Afghanistan writing about our glorious mission, and all those hunky young men, and all that manly manly musk. And not a word about TORTURE. Oh boy. So much for our Warrior Nation. Oh what a lovely war...
I have no idea why Stephen Harper is such a classless lout. "Let me just say this: living as we do, in a time when some in the political arena do not hesitate before throwing the most serious of allegations at our men and women in uniform, based on the most flimsy of evidence, remember that Canadians from coast to coast to coast are proud of you and stand behind you, and I am proud of you, and I stand beside you." Only his psychiatrist can answer that one. What I do know is that our troops are NOT responsible for the torture and rape scandal. Only Harper is suggesting they are, so he can try to conceal his role in this sinister cover-up. And that by smearing the opposition, like he tried to smear Richard Colvin, he has once again demonstrated why he is unfit to be Prime Minister. But then he is an apostle of the Neo Con Philosopher God Leo Strauss. Who believed in the concept of the so-called "noble lie."The right of a small Con elite to lie to the masses. For THEIR good.
And what worries me is that the fascist nutbar Strauss also said it was necessary to replace a "deadly truth" with a "life giving delusion". By fabricating a new national myth...to keep those masses happy and ignorant. Which sounds awfully familiar. Historians and sociologists agree that there has been a profound cultural shift, that Canadians now have reimagined themselves as a military nation, lauding their army, navy and air force as never before in the country's history. The question is, how did we get here?
At the heart of the change, says Frank Graves, president of the Ottawa-based social research firm EKOS, is the continued stranglehold that the baby boomers have on Canadian society. As the boomers now age in large numbers, Mr. Graves says, they're growing more conservative and trading in their one-time open cosmopolitanism for visions of a darker world and the need for a more secure society... Which is unfortunate because there are more and more aging boomers, and a Warrior Nation won't make us safer, only more Amerikan. Wherever their warriors go torture is sure to follow. And when Stephen Harper started posing as a warrior...
We should have known that might lead us to a very DARK place. But who knew it would force us ALL to decide what kind of country we really are?
A country that didn't mind if people were tortured in its name would yawn and go back to business as usual.
But a country that did view torture as a crime and abomination would not accept government stonewalling.
For the sake of our troops who have been smeared by Harper and his thugs. For the sake of our democracy. For the sake of our country which needs a jingo bingo Warrior Nation like it needs a hole in the head. We need a full public inquiry and we need it NOW...
As the tissue of deception continues to be ripped off the Con Torture and Rape Scandal, like the flesh off the backs of Afghan detainees beaten with steel cables. And the sordid truth is slowly revealed.
Defence Minister Peter MacKay offered a dramatically different Tory narrative on the Afghan torture issue on Friday. This capped a week in which the government went from lampooning as Taliban "dupes" anyone who alleged prisoner abuse to claiming the government took such reports seriously from the start.
The Cons knew about the torture allegations but did nothing for over a year. Except deny it was happening. I'm surprised more in the media haven't picked up on a story by the excellent CBC journalist Brian Stewart. Who wonders why it took so long for Canada to notify the Red Cross about detainees it had handed over to Afghan jailers. The Dutch were concerned enough to report immediately any handover to the local Red Cross officials. Britain acted within 24 hours. But Canada? In stark contrast it created what the whistle-blowing Colvin calls "a very peculiar six-step process."
It was peculiar especially in that it initiated a slow dance of bureaucrats that seemed almost designed to leave detainees in the maws of Afghan interrogators for weeks and even months at time before the Red Cross intervened. And asks this extremely troubling question: Was it just a case of bureaucratic hyper-caution, flowing possibly from the micro-managing style of the Harper government? Or was there something more sinister at play? If you wanted to ensure your detainee was grilled to the hilt over days, weeks, or months, would this not be the kind of play-for-time system that you would devise? Which screams out like a torture victim to be answered. Because I suspect that when we find out who came up with this strange play-for-time scheme, and WHY. We will finally find out why the Cons are going to such extreme lengths to try to cover-up this scandal.
Do you understand what I mean? The e-mails are important to establish that the Cons were aware that torture was going on. But if they knew...and now we know they did... and they set up a scheme to allow the torturers enough time to torture, that would be a WAR CRIME.
And some people in this country could end in the Hague. Enough of this criminal un-Canadian farce. We need a full public inquiry. And we need it NOW...
