So Michael Ignatieff Destroyed Our UN Bid. Why Not Paul Heinbecker? Or Are They Afraid We'll Read His Book?

There was a letter to the editor in the Kingston Whig Standard, by Roy Kenny of Napanee, in response to Canada losing it's bid for a seat on the UN Security Council.

It wasn't unlike others I've read from Harper's supporters. Things like "freedom", "human rights", "democracy" and "the rule of law", thrown around.

Michael Ignatieff suggesting that "we didn't deserve a seat on the Security Council", tilting the vote, though it was erroneously stipulated that he had been saying that for months, when in fact it's been more like days.

But there is something very important that is being missed here. Partisan jabbering aside, this is a significant snub. And while I'm sure Ignatieff is flattered that anyone thinks he has that much power, it's other voices we should be listening to, because those are the voices that made the difference.

Like that of the Secretary General of the Commonwealth of Nations, Kamalesh Sharma, who in November of 2009, joined others in a movement to have Canada kicked out of the Commonwealth, because of our inaction on climate change. Or the voices at Copenhagen who awarded us the 'Colossal Fossil', not just for our "do nothing" stance, but for the fact that the Harper government actually sabotaged the negotiations.

Or Julio Montaner, president of the International AIDS Society, who lambasted Stephen Harper for snubbing organizers of a major international conference because he was “afraid” to show his face after his lack of leadership on health at the recent G8 summit.

Or maybe the voice of Robert Fowler, Canada's former top diplomat who was kidnapped and held for ransom last year, while on a special mission for the UN. He recently commented: “I’m not sure that Canada deserves to win this election, for we no longer represent the qualities which we Canadians have long insisted that candidates for the council should bring to such responsibilities."

Or perhaps the voices of Mr. Fowler's colleagues, the 100 former senior diplomats and ambassadors who signed a letter, along with Fowler, in support of Richard Colvin, the man who was being vilified by the Harper government because he spoke out against Afghan detainee abuse.

Or how about Paul Heinbecker, our UN Ambassador the last time we had a seat on the council. Heinbecker has written a book which offers a scathing assessment of the Harper government's international performance. He criticizes our UN peacekeeping missions, where we are now ranked 53rd, and reveals that Canadian diplomats are discouraged from taking part in UN human rights negotiations. They are also forbid from using terms such as "gender equality" and "international humanitarian law", even though these terms come from treaties Canada has ratified; simply "because the words offended the sensibilities of the party's social conservative base."

And we can also add the voices of Canadian foreign aid workers who understand the significance of the "secret" changes to our foreign policy. Like Adrian Bradbury in Northern Uganda, who got his "list" of things he's no longer allowed to say. "When speaking of the war, where upwards of 3 million people have been killed, and rape is widely used as a tool of war, the terms "impunity" and "justice" can no longer be used when calling for an end to, and punishment for, sexual violence."

And Bradbury reminds us that Canada had fought hard to have those things included in the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, making them part of the human rights language. Now we have abandoned them with no input or debate.

So Mr. Kenney while you might not respect the United Nations, the fact is that the United Nations used to respect us. And it was not only African or Arab nations voting against us, but many former allies, including India.

And while most Canadians do stand with Israel, we prefer that it not be at the expense of our relationship with the rest of the Arab world, or mean that we have to marginalize one million Muslim Canadians. It was that kind of narrow minded attitude and xenophobia that caused the Holocaust.

But maybe Robert Fowler says it best, when he aptly remarked recently: "The world does not need more of the kind of Canada they’ve been getting.”

I'm so proud.

Harper's Hit List is Much Longer Than the Media Suggests

I must admit that when I first opened this article and saw Jane Taber's name on the top of a piece criticizing the Harper government, I had a bit of a dizzy spell.

Jane Taber and critical of the Harper government are two things that never go together. I'm sure even seeing her name on top of this had her on the phone with the Big H and Double G assuring them that she was still lead singer in their Hallelujah chorus.

I don't know what her penance will be but expect Janie to be walking behind the men, holding up their celestial robes for awhile.

However, Janie didn't write the article, so we can rest assured that the sky has not fallen. It was written by Jill Mahoney, and is by no means complete.

Mahoney mentions:

Marty Cheliak: The RCMP Chief Superintendent who was head of the Canadian Firearms Program, because he is a strong proponent of the long-gun registry.

Pat Stogran: Because he supports veterans and is exposing the Harper government's mistreatment of these men and women in uniform.

Munir Sheikh: StatsCan chief who revealed that Tony Clement lied about his endorsement re: the census. Thud. (Don't worry about that thud. It was just little Janie. She passed out when I said that Tony Clement had lied. Expect an in depth article by Taber on Clement and his taste in glasses.)

Peter Tinsley: For investigating the alleged torture of detainees in Afghanistan

Linda Keen: The former head of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission for refusing to reopen the nuclear reactor in Chalk River, Ont. until safety upgrades were made.

Mahoney also mentions Helena Guergis, but that girl should never have been given a cabinet position in the first place. Leave her with the manual How to Dress Yourself in the Morning. It'll keep her busy for years. ("Is this the left sock, or the right sock?" )

These are some of the people the article missed:

Louis Ranger: Was pushed out of the job and told, “We don’t want your advice” regarding the spending projects [infrastructure]. Indeed, the woman who is the ADM in charge of the file has been specifically told by the Minster’s [John Baird] office, “We don’t want your advice; we want you to do as you’re told.”) Ranger said of Baird:

As a long time bureaucrat, I am used to dealing with politicians who revel in self-interest. Baird however, is the nastiest, most partisan creature to have ever run a large department. What is best for Canada isn’t even remotely of interest to him - what is best for his party and his own political ambitions drives his agenda entirely.

Kevin Lynch: For locking horns with lobbyist and Harper chief of staff Guy Giorno.

Mr. Lynch has fallen foul of the toxic partisanship emanating from the Prime Minister’s Office that inflicts damage on everyone with whom it comes into contact ... the ground has shifted from under the big-brained economist, who is said to have a particularly difficult relationship with Mr. Giorno.

Dan Veniez: For wanting to save taxpayers millions of dollars by ensuring that multi-national corporations would pay appropriate prices for use of Ridley terminals, by removing them from the public sector. But Rob Merrifield and Jay Hill stepped in:

Veniez's sin is that he and his board did exactly what the then-minister of transport, Lawrence Cannon, asked them to when he gave them the reins of the Crown's faltering coal terminal. They turned it around. They put the $250-million chronic money-loser on a solid business footing for the first time since it was built in the 1980s ...Merrifield, who, like Hill, represents a coal-mining region, has met several times with lobbyists from the big coal companies, and it has been obvious for months that an orchestrated assault on Veniez and his board has been underway.

Kevin Page: Not fired but had his budget slashed because he reported the truth about government spending and rewrote their fairy tales.

Stinging from Page's report last October that put an $18 billion price tag on the Afghanistan war, among other embarrassing revelations, the government slashed his budget for this fiscal year from $2.8 million to $1.8 million. "Our budget is cut and I am in an almost impossible situation. ... I cannot carry out my mandate," Page said, adding that while funding is crucial, transparency is equally important.

Richard Colvin: Attacked on every front by the Reformers for telling the truth about the abuse of Afghan Detainees.

The Canadian government's attack on the credibility of a man whom several colleagues described as a consummate professional, and ministerial suggestions he is spouting Taliban "lies" about the treatment of detainees, have shocked those who worked alongside Colvin in Afghanistan.

Luc Pomerleau: Who blew the whistle on the fact that the government was now going to allow meat packers to do their own inspections. He tried to warn the public that this could result in deaths. It did. 20 to be exact. And he was fired for his efforts.

"Confidential documents insecurely posted on the Canadian Food Inspection Agency's computer network laid out sensitive plans to turn over food inspections and labelling to industry and also led to the firing of the scientist who stumbled upon them." The confidential papers "appear to involve a re-organizing of food inspection that will shift more of the onus for food safety to the suppliers that manufacture and distribute food and other products.

Jeff Monaghan: The temp at Environment Canada who first revealed that John Baird was abandoning Kyoto. According to Greg Weston:

In the latest chapter of Stevie in Wonderland, the Conservative promise of open and accountable government is fulfilled by RCMP goons slapping handcuffs on a young federal temp and hauling him off in front of his co-workers, all over a leaked piece of Tory propaganda.

If nothing else, the incident befitting any friendly police state should certainly help Stephen Harper convince voters that the Conservatives have no hidden agenda... But an RCMP raid, handcuffs, and the threat of prison time are, as Monghan said, "without precedent in their disproportionality; they are vengeful; and they are an extension of a government-wide communications strategy pinned on secrecy, intimidation and centralization."

Mark Tushingham: Had his book launch for a sci-fi Hotter Than Hell cancelled by Rona Ambrose because there was an element of truth to it. Heaven forbid a civil servant should try to tell the truth.

Tushingham was just about to give a presentation on the science behind his novel Hotter Than Hell at the National Press Club. Released last November with little fanfare, it's about the Earth becoming so hot from climate change that America and Canada are at war over water. "I was entering the elevator 15 minutes before the event when I got a call on my cellphone," says Tushingham's publisher, Elizabeth Margaris at DreamCatcher Publishing. "[Tushingham] said, 'I've got bad news. I can't go.' He was told [by the Environment Minister's office] not to appear." While Tushingham himself was not available for comment, Margaris told Hour, "This is just outrageous. Mark can't talk but I can. They can't fire me. They can't gag me."

I'm sure there are a great deal more, and had Mahoney done her homework, she might have had a real story, that speaks of a government that does not allow dissent of any kind. And this is very alarming, especially when we add those in the private sector, who have been attacked and ruined by this government. Another growing list.

"May we never confuse honest dissent with disloyal subversion. History does not long entrust the care of freedom to the weak or the timid." Dwight D. Eisenhower

Bad News For Harper on Detainee Issue

More bad news on the detainee issue, and this time our troops may be involved.

This just keeps getting uglier.

Of course again, Mackay is sticking to his old lines and Harper is ordering more magic markers.

Give it up guys.

Chilling Afghan claims

Did Canadian troops use Afghanistan’s notorious security services as “subcontractors for abuse and torture?” That’s what the Commons committee on Afghanistan heard this week from Ahmadshah Malgarai, an Afghan-Canadian who worked as an interpreter in Kandahar.

It is the most damaging allegation yet in the Afghan detainee saga, and it challenges Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s repeated assurances that “the Canadian Forces ... have always acted responsibly.”

And: Ottawa accused of withholding military letters on detainees

The military watchdog probing Canada’s record on Afghan detainees says Ottawa has been withholding documents that go to the heart of its inquiry.

The Military Police Complaints Commission says the federal government’s refusal to release key letters written by Canadian Forces commanders raises troubling concerns about Ottawa’s approach to divulging information in this matter.

This is not going to go away no matter how much Harper hopes it will.

Rabble's Not Rex Murphy Contest and Lalo Espejo

So I already highlighted Muriel Wiens and her entry for Rabble's not Rex Murphy contest.

The above video is from Lalo Espejo. His bio says that he is a writer, monologist and political satirist whose work has appeared on CBC radio, campuses across Canada, and most recently as a regular contributor to the Vancouver Review.

He also has a great satirical blog that you can visit here. And be sure to go to Rabble to vote. They have the five finalists' videos all posted there.

Contests like this are a great way to get people engaged in the political process, and Mr. Espejo nicely summarizes the Afghan Detainee issue and Rex Murphy's ridiculous diatribe suggesting that Canadians have blown this entire thing out of proportion.

Chretien had a majority and prorogued when the legislative business was taken care, except once; when he wanted to give Paul Martin an opportunity to get his feet wet before the next election.

Of course, it meant that Martin had to wear the Sponsorship Scandal, while Brian Mulroney and Jean Chretien were able to wash their hands of it.

And Espejo is right. The way the Reformers treated Richard Colvin was criminal. Now they are trying to claim that it's the lawyers who won't release the memos, like they couldn't have said that 2 1/2 months ago.

Of course the whole thing is bunk, and they really need to find a new line of defense, not that I believe there really is one.

Even before the Globe and Mail broke the story in 2007; Linda McQuaig wrote in her book "Holding the Bully's Coat", that:

...Amir Attaran, a law professor at the University of Ottawa, describes the Canadian arrangement as a "detainee laundering agreement" that "has no adequate safeguards to prevent torture from occurring. In an interview, Lieutenant Carole Brown, a spokesperson for Canada's Department of National Defence, acknowledged that Canada doesn't follow up on what happens to its detainees. "It would not be our mandate to track them in any way." She also refused to reveal any information about Canada's detainees, including even how many there have been.'In fact, Canada has left its detainees in a particularly dangerous situation.

Attaran notes that, by refusing to reveal any information about these people, Canada is actually making their situation even more perilous than those held by the U.S. at Guantanamo Bay. The Pentagon at least lists the names of Guantanamo prisoners on its website. By not revealing the names of those it hands over to Afghanistan, Ottawa makes it impossible for lawyers or human rights organizations to contact them or their relatives or to in any way take up their cause, thereby denying them any hope of access to the courts.

They simply disappear into a black hole, beyond any possible legal protection. Says Attaran: -We are doing something [denying them access to the courts] that has not been done in the common law in centuries."This alone should make our involvement in Afghanistan intolerable. (HOLDING THE BULLY'S COAT, Canada and the U.S. Empire, Linda McQuaig, Doubleday Canada, ISBN 978-0-385-66012-9, Pg. 20-21)

IS THIS REALLY YOUR CANADA?

Rick Hillier and Stephen Harper Have Some 'Splainin' to Do!

Stephen Harper may have put the brakes on the Afghan Detainee issue when he prorogued Parliament, but with the House set to resume next week, the issue will definitely be back in the news.

And despite the fact that he has been working behind the scenes to stall the process, I don't think even he can simply make this go away.

Nor should he be able to. Canada's honour is at stake here, and if we don't start taking this seriously, the International Courts, who have already opened a file, will step in; and no amount of gold medal victories at the Olympics, will erase our shame.

This is what will define the mission, and our troops will wear this.

In his column yesterday, James Travers reminds us that Rick Hillier has some explaining to do.

As chief of defence staff, Rick Hillier was a hero to the troops and an irrepressible force Liberals and then Conservatives struggled to contain. Now in his second retirement year, Hillier still casts a long shadow over a military worried about its future and a federal government desperate to control Afghan prisoner-abuse damage.

For better and worse, Hillier remains synonymous with the Armed Forces. On his watch, it regained lost stature as a national icon and became a fountainhead of public pride. On his watch, it also slipped into a controversy so politically threatening that the Prime Minister suspended Parliament rather than answer questions or release documents.

I've been going over some of my old postings and putting things together to try to make some sense of this. As a person who was against getting into this war, I was lulled into a sense of complacency by both Rick Hillier and the PR campaign that sold it as a noble mission.

But looking back now, I believe I was duped, as many people were. The warning signs were there all along and I chose to ignore them. I never trusted Stephen Harper's military fervour, especially since he fought against defense spending when he was in opposition; but thought Hillier was a stand up guy. Now, not so much.

"Our Job is to Kill People"

When Rick Hillier showed up on Parliament Hill to convince then prime minister Paul Martin to intensify our involvement in Afghanistan; he was armed with maps, charts and an excitement that was infectious.

According to Billy Schiller in the Toronto Star, Hillier used this March 21, 2005 meeting with then prime minister Martin and his 12-person inner circle, to convince his government to send "a battle group of at least 1,000 soldiers" to the Taliban stronghold of Kandahar. He saw it as a way to improve Canada's armed forces and their reputation worldwide.

Hillier had been trained at Fort Hood, under Lt. General Thomas Metz, and had no patience for anyone not ready to climb on board. He stated that the military was not the public service. "Our job is to kill people."

And when Jack Layton called his remarks "disconcerting", he was accused of trying to "bestow the most ennobled status on the Taliban---that of victim".

From that time on, everything changed. We were no longer on a mission ... we were at war!

Mind you Paul Martin was adamant that all of our resources not go into this, and that we maintain enough Peacekeepers for other duties. But when Stephen Harper took over, he aligned himself with George Bush, and those silly notions were thrown out the window.

Demonizing the Enemy

A group that supports the criticism of Israeli aggression, being deemed antisemitism, used a 3-D approach in defining the Palestinian position : Delegitimize, Double Standard and Demonize.

On July 15, 2005; just three months after his meeting with Paul Martin, Rick Hillier was quoted by CBC, in an article entitled Helping Afghanistan will protect Canada, says top soldier:

"It doesn't matter whether we are in Afghanistan or anywhere else in the world. They want to break our society. I actually believe that," he said.

If Canada is attacked, he says, it will be only because it is a free country. "They detest our freedoms. They detest our society. They detest our liberties," he said.

By sending troops to Afghanistan, Canada is actually protecting itself, at least in the long run .... In time, Hillier said, Afghanistan will develop into a fully functioning country that's not a haven for people like al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden, the man believed to be responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks in the U.S.

He would also refer to the Taliban as "detestable murderers and scumbags."

It's certainly not a new concept during war time to demonize an enemy, so you can convince yourself that their deaths are justifiable, but "They detest our freedoms. They detest our society. They detest our liberties," where have we heard that before? Fort Hood Texas trained him well.

Delegitimize

They say that a picture is worth a thousand words, but sometimes one word in a thousand can paint a very vivid picture.

When General Metz, (who was the commander of Fort Hood when Hillier took his training there), spoke to an audience of senior Canadian military officers, soldiers, defence analysts and lobbyists; on a Saturday morning in Toronto, he laid it all out.

The general notes that there are almost a billion people in the Islamic world, and that if only one per cent of them are radical, "that's ten million radicals." He then shows a chart depicting the military challenges America faces, measured in terms of level of danger and level of likelihood. At the very apex—the most dangerous and the most likely—sits just one: radical Islamic terrorism. "Radical Islam wants to reestablish the Caliphate," says Metz. "Just as Hitler wrote Mein Kampf, you can read what they want to do." (Holding the Bully's Coat, Canada and the U.S. Empire, Linda McQuaig, Doubleday Canada, ISBN 978-0-385-66012-9, pg. 67-68)

And there's that word in a thousand - Caliphate. Funny he should bring that up.

Much like the proposals of a North American Union, so revered by those free marketeers; a Caliphate simply put, is a union of the Muslim world.

However, there are two words that describe this initiative, that scare the west, or more specifically neocons, the most. No they are not "Islamic Terrorists", but "Welfare State".

Remember the scene in the Wizard of Oz when they throw water on the witch and she melts? Next time you see a neoconservative, look them in the eye and mutter those two words: 'welfare state', and I swear they'll be reduced to a puddle of sweat.

The Caliphate was the first political philosophy that adopted the notion of using their natural resources to look after their people. It wasn't communism, or socialism, it was just a belief in something bigger than they were. God or Allah, and they believed that this is what he wanted them to do. Historically, it is a continuation of political authority, first introduced by Muhammad's disciples.

Most Christians who share the same God, but a different prophet; agree. So why not western governments?

In the midst of his talk about the dangers of Islamic terrorism, Lt.-Gen. Metz abruptly shifts gears and starts talking about America's dependence on oil. In his southern drawl, the general notes how much oil the U.S. consumes—roughly 25 per cent of the world's consumption, even though Americans make up only 5 per cent of the world's population—and how central this is to the country's high standard of living.

He then tells the story of a big strong man not being able to cut as much wood as a chainsaw with a bit of gasoline. Point taken.

The general's little discourse on the importance of energy to America is certainly interesting. But what is it doing in a speech about military threats to the United States', The connection between America's voracious oil consumption and the dangers of radical Islamic terrorism are never explicitly stated by Lt.-Gen. Metz; he simply notes that the Islamic world has a lot of oil and what happens there has an impact on energy markets. (McQuaig, Doubleday, Pg. 68-69)

George Bush once asked, when he was criticized for using so many soldiers to guard Iraq's oilfields, "can you imagine what would happen if the terrorists got their hands on all that oil"? Loosely translated that means, can you imagine what would happen if we allowed the Iraqi people to keep their oil?

They can't risk having the Arab world unite on any level, not necessarily because they would pose a united front in battle, but because they would nationalize their resources, and then they would decide who gets to buy them.

Double Standard

In Warrior's honour, Michael Ignatieff says that 'War is always at the most unrestrained when religion vests it with holy purpose.'

Many will associate that to a Jihad or a holy war, but that's a double standard.

According to Jason Kenney's buddy, John Hagee; America is at war with radical Islam ... Jihad has come to America. If we lose the war to Islamic fascism, it will change the world as we know it .... They hate us because we are free. They hate us because it is their religious duty to hate us."

Stephen Harper's buddy Link Byfield suggests that the future will be dark if "Islam Prevails because although Muslims share the Christian notion of family, Islam also demands submission. Democracy is a Christian philosophy and, therefore, does not exist or, at best, is only a peripheral force in most Muslim countries."

And Rick Hillier's buddy, Thomas Metz says: "The Islamic faith is not evil but it's been hijacked by thugs ... there are almost a billion people in the Islamic world, and that if only one per cent of them are radical, that's ten million radicals."

Yet there are between two and three billion Christians in the world, so if only 1% are fundamentalists, that's twenty to thirty million Christian extremists. But the general doesn't mention that.

So maybe they don't hate us because we're free. Maybe if they hate us, it's because we want their stuff, and they fear we also want their souls.

We Were Warned

In December of 2005, while Canada was in the middle of the election campaign that brought Stephen Harper to power, then-Chief of Defence Staff General Rick Hillier signed a deal establishing our detainee transfer protocol — an arrangement that did not provide for Canadians to monitor their prisoners (Stephen Maher, Chronicle Herald)

Before the Globe and Mail picked up the story, and before Richard Colvin revealed what our government knew of the torture of detainees, Linda McQuaig wrote:

... the likelihood of torture is actually higher for detainees who are not transferred but who remain in the custody of Afghanistan, which has a notorious human rights record. Even the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission—an agency of the Afghan government—reports that Afghanistan routinely tortures its prisoners. There have been bone-chilling reports of Afghanistan housing prisoners in steel shipping containers, with only a hole cut in the bottom for them to defecate. Yet, despite widespread reports of horrendous abuses in Afghan prisons, Ottawa's arrangement with the Afghan government contains only the most minimal protections. [quoting Michael Byers]

...Amir Attaran, a law professor at the University of Ottawa, describes the Canadian arrangement as a "detainee laundering agreement" that "has no adequate safeguards to prevent torture from occurring. In an interview, Lieutenant Carole Brown, a spokesperson for Canada's Department of National Defence, acknowledged that Canada doesn't follow up on what happens to its detainees. "It would not be our mandate to track them in any way." She also refused to reveal any information about Canada's detainees, including even how many there have been.'In fact, Canada has left its detainees in a particularly dangerous situation.

Attaran notes that, by refusing to reveal any information about these people, Canada is actually making their situation even more perilous than those held by the U.S. at Guantanamo Bay. The Pentagon at least lists the names of Guantanamo prisoners on its website. By not revealing the names of those it hands over to Afghanistan, Ottawa makes it impossible for lawyers or human rights organizations to contact them or their relatives or to in any way take up their cause, thereby denying them any hope of access to the courts. They simply disappear into a black hole, beyond any possible legal protection. Says Attaran: -We are doing something [denying them access to the courts] that has not been done in the common law in centuries."This alone should make our involvement in Afghanistan intolerable. (HOLDING THE BULLY'S COAT, Canada and the U.S. Empire, Linda McQuaig, Doubleday Canada, ISBN 978-0-385-66012-9, Pg. 20-21)

I don't know how this is going to play out. Stephen Harper has already fired the head of the Military Police and cut off Richard Colvin's funding, making it almost impossible for a committee to start this up again.

He has also been distributing taxpayer funded attack ads suggesting that the opposition Liberals are accusing our soldiers of war crimes.

Of course that's not rue. The only one who has tried to pass this off on our troops, is Stephen Harper himself.

IS THIS REALLY YOUR CANADA?

A Few Related Stories

Harper's Meddling in Military Affairs Reveals That He Knew About Detainee Abuse

Stephen Harper's Cowardice Has Reached New Heights

The Conservatives Are Not at War, They are on a Crusade

Afghanistan and Detainee Abuse up to and Including 2006

By 2009 Harper's Spin on Detainees Was Stopped in it's Tracks

Why Do We Never Include Peace as a Strategy for Afghanistan?

Luis Moreno Ocampo of the International Criminal Court Could Charge Canada With War Crimes
Military Spending and Other Costs Associated With the Invasion

The Shah of Iran and the Birth of Terrorists

Peacekeeping is Not For Wimps and Canadians Are Not Wimps

The Manley Report Gave New Direction But Failed to Answer the Question: Why Are We There?

A Country's Shame and a Nation's Heartache

How Did we Get Here From There? The Afghanistan Call to Arms

Paul Martin, Rick Hillier and a New Direction For Afghanistan

Selling the War Invoked a Buying Frenzy But Was the Product Shoddy?

Detainees, Prisoners of War and the Geneva Convention

"He was involved in construction projects for the Japanese: for the war effort, against his will, and against the Geneva Convention. His body, gradually weakened through beatings, forced exercise, bitter cold, poor diet and debilitating disease, could no longer take it, and he succumbed, like many others before him, and many others after him."

The above story is about an American soldier held in a Japanese POW camp during WWII; a camp from which he never returned.

Stories like this were all too familiar, and while most wartime prisoners were treated fairly, there were a great many who were not, from both sides of the conflict.

Similar tales arose from the Vietnam prisoner camps, as senator and former presidential candidate, John McCain, can attest to. After the news broke about the atrocities at Bagram prison in Afghanistan, he introduced the McCain Amendment 1977, which prohibited the inhumane treatment of prisoners. It was at about that time that Rick Hillier signed a new deal with regards to Afghan detainees ... a deal with little or no oversight.

It was inked during an election campaign, so no one was really paying attention.

When the Globe and Mail first broke the story of prisoner abuse in Afghanistan, and Canada's role in handing over prisoners for such abuse, in 2007; there was immediate outrage. But the Reformers stood their ground, and an aggressive PR campaign deflected the criticisms. Defense Minister Gordon O'Connor was replaced with Peter Mackay, and the whole thing was put on the back burner.

Enter Richard Colvin. A well respected diplomat, who blew the lid off the whole nasty affair.

In an attempt to clean up my blog and organize archived posts, I'm using this page to link articles and show a chronology of Canada's role in the Detainee issue. Remember, I am not criticizing our soldiers. They are doing a job and doing it well. But some military leaders and members of our current government, must be held accountable, because they did this in our name.

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What we Knew and When

Timeline of Harper Government War Crimes in Afghanistan

2006 and Before

2007

2008

2009

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More Postings on Detainees and Torture

A Country's Shame and a Nation's Heartache

Luis Moreno Ocampo of the International Criminal Court Could Charge Canada With War Crimes

Harper's Control of the Message Kept us in the Dark About Afghanistan

Military Conducting Their Own Investigantion into Torture, But Will it be Enough?

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My Latest Joe Canadian Award Goes to Richard Colvin

Despite the fact that the Reformers are using every trick in the book to avoid having to share what they knew and when, about the allegations of torture; Diplomat Richard Colvin is holding strong.

He cares about the Geneva Convention and he cares about Canada's honour.

It was unprecedented for so many former ambassadors to come to his aid, suggesting that he is indeed a man to be respected and admired.

He took a lot of abuse from the Harper government, especially from Peter Mackay, but has never wavered.

So for standing up for Canada and the Canadian people, he wins my 'Joe Canadian Award'.

His name is Richard, and HE IS CANADIAN!

Diplomat fires back on Afghan prisoner abuse
Richard Colvin offers new revelations in letter to Parliamentary committee
Tonda MacCharles Ottawa Bureau
December 16, 2009

OTTAWA – The diplomat has dropped the diplomacy.

Foreign services officer Richard Colvin provided new details Wednesday in a letter to Parliament outlining the specifics of his warnings to Ottawa about the risks of torture facing detainees handed over to Afghan authorities by Canadian soldiers.

In a written submission to a parliamentary committee probing allegations of abuse, Colvin confirms that he — and his military and RCMP colleagues in Kandahar — passed on warnings from the International Red Cross Committee that it could not track Canada's transferred detainees early in the spring of 2006, a full year before the government acted to improve protections.

Details in Colvin's letter stand in sharp contrast to the version of events given by three cabinet ministers, three generals and senior bureaucrats like David Mulroney who steered the Afghan task force in Ottawa.

Contrary to the government's claims that Colvin's was a lone voice, and did not provide specific evidence or explicitly warn that "torture" was an issue, Colvin's letter spells out that his concerns were shared by other Kandahar-based personnel, as well as by Canada's military allies in the International Security Assistance Force or ISAF.

As first reported by the Star, Colvin's earliest warning came in May 2006 and specified that it was none other than the Red Cross, the global humanitarian agency charged with monitoring detainees and reporting directly to the Afghan government, which transmitted in no uncertain terms its concerns to Canada through Colvin.

"As a result of lengthy delays and inadequate information, detainees were in some cases getting lost and therefore could not be monitored," Colvin's letter says, citing that memo which still remains largely censored from public view.

Colvin's letter refers to a June 2, 2006 memo that went further, containing "verbatim comments that spelled out the nature of the concerns."

"We were sufficiently concerned that the whole-of-government leadership of the PRT (provincial reconstruction team) — from the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFAIT), the Canadian Forces and the RCMP — not only reported the warnings to Ottawa but also promptly took steps in the field to try to address them," Colvin's letter states.

Colvin's letter reveals that in June 2007 after a new prisoner transfer deal was finally struck, and Canadian embassy officials reported on cases of suspected torture of four detainees, the Canadian embassy asked the NDS to investigate. The Afghan intelligence service sent such a flimsy response, and denial of any wrongdoing, that then-ambassador Arif Lalani "refused even to accept the report. He sent it back."

Colvin's letter says that assertions to the committee by other witnesses that the first "credible claims of torture" only arose in November 2007 "are therefore inaccurate."

It sets out a chronology of increasingly sharper warnings.

By September 2006, when Colvin was at the embassy in Kabul, he reported "even blunter complaints from ISAF about Canada's detainee transfers."

By Dec. 4, 2006, Colvin's letter cites an embassy report that conveyed "allies' concerns that detainees may 'vanish from sight' after being transferred to Afghan custody as well as the risk that they were 'tortured.'"

By the end of December 2006, Colvin's letter states the embassy's annual human rights report warned "torture" is rife in Afghan jails, as are "extrajudicial executions and disappearances."

The report used the word "torture" repeatedly, according to Colvin's letter.

Colvin also says delivered verbal warnings too, particularly in March 2007.

At an inter-departmental meeting a month before a Globe and Mail article detailed first-hand interviews with Afghans detainees who claimed they'd been tortured after transfer by the Canadians, Colvin writes he told Ottawa officials that the Afghan National Directorate of Security — its intelligence service — "tortures" its captives.

"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," Colvin quotes himself at the meeting.

The letter cites two 2006 reports by the U.S. State Department report (March 8, 2006) and a UN report by Secretary General Kofi Annan of March 7, 2006.

Both explicitly cited torture as documented practice in Afghan prisons. The U.S. reported secret or unofficial prisons to which the International Red Cross had no access.

Colvin's letter says Canada's decision not to directly monitor its detainees — unlike its NATO allies like the Dutch — and its slow system of notifying Red Cross field investigators was a real problem.

"Because of notification delays the Red Cross was also unable to monitor (transferred detainees) during the first days or weeks of detention, when the risk of torture is highest," Colvin writes.

Colvin says despite a new deal that was struck in May 2007, it wasn't until five months later that a Canadian monitor was sent into the Afghan prisons.

In late October 2007, he says, a monitor "quickly found conclusive evidence of torture" and only then were transfers halted — a 17-month period since the earliest warnings from the Kandahar PRT personnel.

Colvin's letter recaps and fills in some of the blanks in censored documents already filed with the committee and with the Military Police Complaints Commission that is also probing the treatment of Afghan detainees.

Colvin defends his specific claim that "all detainees were tortured," and denies it was mere speculation that Gen. Rick Hillier dismissed as "ludicrous."

He does not reveal the "highly credible source" of his information, but says he warned Ottawa of it in May or June 2007. "Detainees were not a source," of the claim, he says.

And as for the suggestion by Defence Minister Peter MacKay that Colvin in general accepted unsubstantiated claims of abuse by "the Taliban," Colvin's letter says his sources while in Afghanistan were Afghan and foreign intelligence services and reports, other NATO embassies, ISAF, the United Nations and European Union missions and "relevant human rights organizations," although he does not identify the International Red Cross Committee as a source of information about "torture."

Colvin also refutes David Mulroney's denial that officials like Colvin were urged not to put damaging information in writing.

His letter says that although Mulroney claimed he was only encouraging "fact-based" reporting, "embassy staffers were told that they should not report information, however accurate, that conflicted with the government's public messaging."

Colvin points to a sanitized memo by ambassador Arif Lalani that said security was improving but deleted references to an opinion expressed by Afghan's own defence minister that the security situation was actually deteriorating.

He also points to a September 2007 report by an unnamed embassy staffer that said security had gotten worse — which earned a written rebuke by Mulroney.

NDP critic Jack Harris said Wednesday after Colvin's letter was released that it proves that there should be an independent "fact-finding" inquiry into the whole affair.

"This is not going away."

It's a Shame That it Had to Come to This But Harper Left the Opposition no Choice

When reading the news today, regarding the new motion brought forward by Mr, Ignatieff; we have to remember this: We elected 308 Members of Parliament. We did not elect this government.

When we cast our ballot there is no guarantee that the party we vote for will lead. We accept that they may oppose. But we trust them to represent us and we entrust them WITH OUR SECRETS.

This is not a partisan issue, it is a national one. If we don't do the right thing and launch a full public inquiry, the international courts will take the matter out of our hands. I can't imagine anyone wanting that to happen.

The Liberals are willing to put their own record on the line, because the honour of our country and our troops is at stake.

MPs order release of Afghan torture documents
Harper loses showdown over Afghanistan files
Richard J. Brennan
Susan Delacourt Ottawa Bureau
December 11, 2009

OTTAWA–Prime Minister Stephen Harper's government has lost its iron grip on information about detainee treatment in Afghanistan after a showdown that pitted the power of the ruling party against the power of Parliament.

The Liberals narrowly pushed through a motion in the Commons on Thursday that forces Harper's government to release waves of unedited documents so that Parliament can examine whether Afghan prisoners detained by Canadian forces were subject to torture when handed over to local authorities, and what the government knew about the issue.

The motion passed with a vote of 145-143.

It is not clear how that information will be released, or whether the government will continue to resist the documents' release.

Failure to hand over the material, however, could result in the Conservative government being found in contempt of Parliament and could see the Commons asking the police to step in and obtain the information that has now been formally ordered released.

Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff's motion was supported by the New Democrats and the Bloc Québécois.

The government fought hard Thursday against the release of information, arguing that the Taliban would profit from the data (Give me a break. The Taliban are profiting from this government's decision to ignore the concerns of the people of Afghanistan), while soldiers and Canada's partners abroad could be compromised.

Information about when and how Canadian officials visit particular prisons, for instance, "would be of great value to the insurgents, and to the terrorists," said Justice Minister Rob Nicholson.

Ignatieff said such arguments were "ridiculous."

"The risk of putting anybody in operational danger is about zero, but even if there was a case of operational risk, a parliamentary committee could find a way to get the documents," Ignatieff said.

He said the Liberals were forced to take this measure because of the way the Conservatives have been releasing documents surrounding the detainee-transfer issue for the past few years – either with significant portions blacked out, or indiscriminately, sharing more documents with friendly sources outside Parliament than with MPs.

The issue has become more contentious in the wake of recent testimony to a committee of MPs by senior Canadian diplomat Richard Colvin that he had warned of potential detainee torture while he served in Afghanistan, but that his warnings were ignored.

Then on Wednesday, chief of defence staff Gen. Walter Natynczyk produced evidence that a prisoner detained by Canadians and transferred to Afghan police in June 2006 was abused – only a day after he had given contrary testimony to a Commons committee.

Natynczyk also cited a report that said soldiers photographed the detainee before the transfer to ensure that if Afghan police abused him "as had happened in the past," they would have a record of his condition. Intelligence specialist Wesley Wark said the heavy censorship of the documents supplied to the parliamentary committee probing the handling of prisoners has turned the hearings into a "farce."

"I think a much more liberal approach to provision of documents would be the way to go so that the public at large doesn't feel that the government is simply trying to stiff the parliamentary committee, which is very much the impression one gets at the moment," said Wark, a visiting professor at the University of Ottawa.

Thursday's debate provoked a battle of legal letters between the justice department and the law clerk of the House of Commons about whether Parliament reigns supreme over other laws of the land, such as laws to protect evidence and national security.

Carolyn Kobernick, an assistant deputy justice minister, argued the department and federal government are bound to "ensure respect for the national interest in accordance with the rule of law."

But Robert Walsh, law clerk of the Commons, replied that view "fails to recognize the constitutional function of the House of Commons to hold the government to account and does not adequately address parliamentary privilege as part of the constitutional law of Canada."

When asked about Afghanistan during the Commons question period on Thursday, Harper argued there's nothing new in the opposition's attack.

"People have been operating in extremely difficult conditions in Afghanistan. Whenever they have been faced with difficulties, they have taken the appropriate action," Harper said.

Systems have been changed two, three, four years ago. This issue has long since been dealt with."

NDP Leader Jack Layton warned that if Canada doesn't call a public inquiry to probe allegations of prisoner tortured by Afghan officials then some international body will do it instead.

Meanwhile, Liberal, NDP and Bloc MPs have asked for an emergency meeting of the special committee on the Canadian mission in Afghanistan to discuss holding meetings during Parliament's recess, which lasts until Jan. 25.

Among other things, they want to get another crack at Defence Minister Peter MacKay, whose appearance Thursday was cut short.

John Baird is The Latest Weapon But Richard Colvin is Still Winning

You always know when the Reformers are in serious trouble, because they unleash pitbull Baird. Baird is not actually a purebred pitbull though. He is a mixed breed. Actually the result of an experiment that went terribly wrong.

I guess that's what happens when you try to cross a pitbull with an alligator. Nothing but a big floppy mouth.

However, despite the fact that Harper and his crew are trying to suggest that Richard Colvin had little to do with the Afghan mission, suggesting that he was only out of the compound once; evidence contradicts this, and not even Baird can bark his way out of this one.

Colvin portrayal not fitting the bill
Embattled diplomat far from lone voice on detainee abuse
By David Pugliese
The Ottawa Citizen
December 5, 2009

He's been portrayed by Defence Minister Peter MacKay as a Taliban dupe and other Conservative ministers have criticized how he did his job in Afghanistan.

But as government documents regarding Afghan detainees continue to be released, the picture emerging of Foreign Affairs official Richard Colvin appears far different.

In those records, obtained by the Citizen, Colvin is shown trying to push National Defence and Foreign Affairs to fix a flawed detainee process as Red Cross representatives in Afghanistan complained several times about how Canada was handling prisoners.

And contrary to the government's portrayal of Colvin as a lone voice of dissent, records show he consulted with other diplomats and military officers about his reports and e-mails before they were sent to Ottawa.

In addition, the documents contradict claims by the Harper government and retired general Rick Hillier that there was solid evidence to prove all the Afghans captured were insurgents.

Hiller has dismissed Colvin's claims that many Afghans taken captive were innocent.

But the records indicate it was the Afghan National Directorate of Security, or NDS, that was complaining Canada wasn't providing proof those being captured were involved with the insurgency. As a result the NDS was having to release many of those individuals captured by Canadians.

Newly leaked government documents bolster Colvin's concerns and indicate such problems continue. An NDS commander "was refusing to accept Canadian-transferred detainees due to NDS claims of insufficient evidence being provided," says a Sept. 19, 2009 memo, shown to The Canadian Press. Canada's ambassador to Afghanistan, William Crosbie, "indicated that the subsequent release of detainees is having a profound and demoralizing affect on our soldiers," the document says.

On Friday, MacKay's parliamentary secretary, Conservative MP Laurie Hawn, acknowledged in the House of Commons for the first time that the Afghans had declined to take prisoners from the Canadian military because of a "lack of information or confusing information on detainees' personal information."

There have also been allegations about the extent of Colvin's travels in Afghanistan. Retired general Lewis MacKenzie said recently on CTV that based on information "from a very reliable source, (Colvin) was not permitted outside the wire in Kandahar probably once and maybe not more than once, and so was the victim of having to talk to a number of other people, diplomats, military, intelligence, et cetera, to send his opinion out on his now infamous e-mails, doing the very best he could with restrictions that were placed on him."

The claim that Colvin went off the base only once was also repeated by Globe and Mail columnist Christie Blatchford.

It surfaced again on Tuesday, with the Conservatives using it to try to undercut Colvin's reputation. "Here is a man, Mr. Colvin, who spent about a day out of his entire tour outside of the wire and had these few interviews," said Treasury Board president Vic Toews.

The Citizen has confirmed, however, that Colvin left the base at least six times to travel into Kandahar, in addition to travelling to other locations in Afghanistan.

Opposition MPs have tried to defend Colvin's reputation, questioning why the diplomat was promoted to his current Washington job if his reports from the field were not credible. The MPs also point out that MacKay has acknowledged Colvin's concerns about prisoner abuse led to changes being made as to how detainees were being treated.

It now appears the Harper government is now refocusing its public relations strategy.

Transport Minister John Baird accused opposition MPs on Friday of insulting Canadian troops because of their continued questions about the detainee issue.

But opposition MPs note they have not blamed the soldiers for the problems with the detainee process. They argue they have instead focused on MacKay, Gordon O'Connor, Prime Minister Stephen Harper and the Conservative government.

Harper Playing Dangerous Games in Afghanistan. It's Time to Get Out.

I'm afraid like many Canadians I had become an armchair warrior. I fed into the rhetoric that we were on a noble mission. We were fighting for the people of Afghanistan so that children could go to school and women could be free.

But all of that came crashing down, when I learned that we were in fact engaging in war crimes by being complicit in torture. And discovering that our inaction on this may have put our soldiers at even greater risk, just makes me even angrier.

As a result, I have decided to learn everything I can about this so-called "mission", and the more I learn the more convinced I am that we need to pull out NOW!

The above video is part two in a series by filmmaker Robert Greenwald, entitled Rethink Afghanistan. In it he discusses the situation with Pakistan and what is really going on there.

We hear all too often about how insurgents are crossing at the border, but if you look at the video, there is no border; at least not one recognized by the people living there. And according to the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace; "The mere presence of foreign soldiers fighting a war in Afghanistan is probably the single most important factor in the resurgence of the Taliban."

This fits with what Human Rights activist and former Afghan member of parliament, Malalai Joya, has been trying to tell us. Her country will never be stable until the foreign invaders leave.

But what is of utmost importance now is stabilizing Pakistan. The country feels threatened by India and the fact that both have nuclear weapons and there is an apparent arms race between the two nations, is very troubling. However, if Pakistan feels that Afghanistan is also a threat, and that westerners are siding with their enemies, this could be a recipe for disaster.

It also sheds a new light on Harper's recent visit to India. He wouldn't allow reporters to ask him any questions while there, and it created quite a disturbance in the country. But it also worried Pakistan yet again, because he didn't take even a moment to visit that country's leaders, and instead signed a nuclear deal with their enemy.

How will this affect the safety of Canadian soldiers, who already have a bad reputation with the Afghan people? Are we now an even bigger target? And what about here at home? Is our safety assured if Harper continues on this dangerous path?

Another thing that continues to haunt me are our PM's words when speaking to the extreme right 'Civitas Club'. He told them that he couldn't simply rely on the the support of the neo-cons, but must tap into the theo-cons for money and votes. He continued that this might mean putting a little muscle into our foreign policy.

Sadly, the ultimate goal for these people is the annihilation of the middle east so they can feel the rapture. Groups like Christians United for Israel and the Council for National Policy are feeding into the hype, and for Harper he just loves the power. Canadians are on the bottom of his list of priorities.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper alienates Pakistan
November 19, 2009
Canada International Affairs Examiner
Zeb Qureshi

Prime Minister Stephen Harper did not take full advantage of his visit to the Indian subcontinent.

With a fruitful visit to India that revolved around nuclear cooperation, discussions of increased trade and awkward Bollywood moments (another in an ongoing effort to brand Harper as anything other than a robot and win the Indo-Canadian vote through planned photo-ops), Harper missed a crucial chance to build links with India's neighbour to the west.

War-ridden Pakistan, a state that has suffered from more terror attacks than any country in the western world, deserved at least some mention and support from Canada.

With both countries embroiled in an unending conflict around Afghanistan, Pakistan's success or failure fighting the Taliban on its side of the border will have direct implications on Canada's war effort. Would it not have been prudent for the government to have spent even a couple of hours in Islamabad to discuss new strategies or build renewed support?

Canada's decision to ignore India's historical rival does not echo smart politics.

It is also notable that Harper paid visits to the world's largest Hindu temple in New Delhi and the Sikh Golden Temple in Amritsar, yet did not acknowledge India's large Muslim minority - the third largest Muslim contingent in the world.

In a climate where dialogue with Muslim states and Muslims is so important, Harper missed the boat in the Indian subcontinent.

Colvin is Just Trying to do His Job. When Will the Government do Theirs?

There is a great op-ed piece in the Ottawa Citizen co-written by Amir Attaran, a professor in the faculties of law and medicine at the University of Ottawa and Gar Pardy, a retired Canadian diplomat. These two men come to the aid of Richard Colvin as he is being smeared by our government.

Colvin is just doing his job
Contrary to the whistle-blower hype, the embattled diplomat is merely carrying out -- with honour -- his duty to the Crown and people of Canada
By Amir Attaran and Gar Pardy, Citizen Special
November 28, 2009

Poor Richard Colvin. Swiftboated by Defence Minister Peter MacKay as "not credible" and a mouthpiece of the Taliban, now the Attorney General of Canada is on his back, threatening prosecution if he dares to answer a parliamentary committee's request to see documents he wrote about detainee abuse and torture in Afghanistan.

The character assassination and bullying are nonsense of course -- the same government that slandered Colvin also promoted him to an intelligence job with top-secret clearance in Canada's Washington embassy -- but if one can set aside the revulsion, what does the Colvin affair teach about the duties of public servants to tell the truth? As a law professor and retired diplomat (who once held Colvin's job in Washington), there are four lessons we think every civil servant in Ottawa should know.

One lesson is that the conventional wisdom -- that Colvin is a whistleblower, who is now being punished -- is an attractive Hollywood story, but a distant relative of the truth. Colvin was sent to Afghanistan with a job to do, which was to gather observations on political issues related to Canada's mission. His notes are the focus of everyone's interest not because he did his job poorly, but because he did it well. He also did well when, sensing imminent government interference because he was summoned as a witness before the Military Police Complaints Commission, he invoked a Treasury Board policy that entitles civil servants to an independent lawyer on request.

Nor did he transgress his job by accepting Parliament's invitation to testify last week, even if it infuriated the Harper government and sycophantic civil servants above him. For like all civil servants, Colvin owes a duty of loyalty to the Government of Canada -- including Parliament.
That explains why, for all their loathing of Colvin, Peter MacKay and other cabinet ministers mutter he won't be fired -- because he can't be. Since they can't fire, they bully; it's all they have.

The second lesson is that many, perhaps most, civil servants do not truly understand the duty of loyalty upon them. Ignorance suits the Harper government; it relishes control, and the uninformed err safely on the side of excess loyalty. Too much loyalty, however, means too little innovation or constructive criticism at best, or exploitation and job dissatisfaction at worst. It is better, for Canada and for civil servants themselves, to know truly where the limits of loyalty lie.

The Supreme Court of Canada wrote the final word on the duty of loyalty in 1985:

"The loyalty owed is to the Government of Canada, not the political party in power at any one time. A public servant need not vote for the governing party. Nor need he or she publicly espouse its policies. And indeed, in some circumstances a public servant may actively and publicly express opposition to the policies of a government. This would be appropriate if, for example, the Government were engaged in illegal acts, or if its policies jeopardized the life, health or safety of the public servant or others, or if the public servant's criticism had no impact on his or her ability to perform effectively the duties of a public servant or on the public perception of that ability."

Note what the Supreme Court's analysis does not require. Civil servants owe loyalty to the government of Canada -- the Crown, if you will -- but not the governing party. In public, no civil servant need agree with party policy. Civil servants can dissent from Government of Canada policy in public, within limits, such as when the government is "engaged in illegal acts, or if its policies jeopardized the life, health or safety of ... others."

Seen that way -- the legally correct way, because the Supreme Court says so -- Colvin did not violate his duty of loyalty to the government of Canada. Complicity in torture is highly illegal -- a war crime. Government policies or mistakes that lead to torture are ruinous to life, health or safety. Colvin was not just legally correct, but supremely ethical, to disclose about torture and the detainee transfer policy, no matter what political aftershocks. That he did so with dignity in Parliament, after notifying his superiors, gives him additional protections under the Public Servants Disclosure Protection Act.

The third lesson is that dissent has to be done carefully. Going directly to the media with a counterpunch or leaked document is not as safe as it should be. That is not because journalists are dishonourable -- only the rarest scoundrels don't protect sources -- but because the lower courts seem resistant to the Supreme Court's direction when disclosures are journalistic. The lower courts are probably wrong, but their error is reality.

The best way for would-be disclosers is to see a lawyer. This is because confidential information and instructions given to a lawyer are protected by the iron rule of solicitor-client privilege. The information normally cannot be forcibly discovered, not even by police, and is inadmissible in court. Whether the information is unprotected or top secret is immaterial, and the privilege exists to foster free, frank discussion with the lawyer.

Thus Colvin disclosed to his lawyer, and his lawyer cleverly arranged disclosing to the world. The lawyer proved her worth by picking a path through hazards both real and imagined -- for a favourite government tactic is to intimidate civil servants into secrecy without actually having a legal basis. Section 38 of the Canada Evidence Act, which the Attorney General overuses to gag persons who possess national security or international relations information, is one such questionable threat, because the law does not provide any criminal penalty for ignoring section 38 secrecy per se. The government also exaggerates the Security of Information Act: much of that law was struck down as unconstitutional by the courts three years ago.

In short, the tigers the government uses to enforce secrecy often are toothless, or can be safely defanged by a lawyer, particularly if he or she is an expert in public law.

Technology also makes safe disclosure possible without a lawyer. Wikileaks (wikileaks.org) is an ultra-secure, totally anonymous website that accepts documents from around the world. No source has ever been exposed through Wikileaks, though it has been used over a million times. Think of it as the web's brown envelope, which not even China's notorious Internet spies have cracked.

The final lesson is of course one of ethics. When Peter MacKay taunted and laughed at reporters questioning how retired general Rick Hillier saw secret documents ahead of testifying in Parliament -- the very same secret documents that the government has threatened Colvin not to let Parliament see -- he demonstrated reprehensible ethics (search for it at cbc.ca/video).

Making ethical disclosure means never personally sinking to his level; it means lifting the full weight of Canada's democracy above it. The Canadians who lost their lives in Afghanistan, and the many more maimed, sacrificed in defence of ideals -- including transparency and parliamentary democracy. Civil servants let them down when assisting a government that, confronted with its responsibilities under Canadian and international law such as to avoid torture, ducks, bobs, weaves and shoots messengers in its tortuous path.

They even let down their fellow civil servants, like Colvin. Of the many bureaucrats he copied on his reports, not one has disclosed those documents, so Canadians might independently decide whether Colvin or the government is the more truthful. They have left him undefended -- even when as just explained, disclosure can be lawful, safe and ethical. It is a course, frankly, chosen of fear and ignorance.

We recommend this course: Civil servants and diplomats are privileged to be some of the best educated Canadians, and have an ethical responsibility to help other Canadians understand government's complexity. Techniques exist to disclose safely, without becoming an unemployed martyr. Our government's involvement in Afghanistan is tremendously complex, and the civic interest depends on Canadians understanding it, even -- perhaps especially -- when the truth is hard, such as torture. The same is true for other complex subjects ringed in secrecy when the Supreme Court's criteria come into play: the H1N1 flu, for example.

If civil servants comport themselves with such honour in Canada, as is more often done in America (think Daniel Ellsberg) or Britain (think Katharine Gun), Canada will be a stronger country. Never doubt it.

(Amir Attaran is professor in the faculties of law and medicine at the University of Ottawa. Gar Pardy is a retired Canadian diplomat.)

We Need to Open Our Eyes to Harper's Blindness on Torture of Afghan Detainees

Since it's become painfully clear that our government and our military brass care nothing for our soldiers or the Afghan people, only saving their own skins, it's time to rethink the "mission" and bring our troops home.

We no longer have moral authority in the region. This puts our men and women in uniform, in even more peril, as the people of Afghanistan no longer believe we are fighting for them. It's become obvious that the only winners are the warlords, the drug lords and the corporations cashing in on military contracts.

Stephen Harper has made it painfully clear who he supports, so it's up to us to show that we really do support our troops and want them brought safely home .... immediately.

Country known for its noble deeds now bears a stain on its reputation
By James Travers National Affairs Columnist
November 28, 2009

OTTAWA - It's been a long march into twilight. A country that gave the world Lester Pearson's peacekeeping and Brian Mulroney's stand against apartheid is now struggling with Stephen Harper's apparent blindness to compelling evidence of Afghanistan prisoner abuse.

For all its sound and fury, the counter-attack that politicians, bureaucrats and generals mounted this week was morally weak and legally flimsy. In struggling to sway public opinion, finely parsed denials skidded around the looming conclusion that Canada transferred prisoners into probable torture after being warned by the pre-eminent and most credible victims-of-violence organization, the International Committee of the Red Cross.

By June 2006, the federal government had a clear and urgent responsibility to halt the transfers. Instead, it waited until the following May, and after allegations made headlines, before signing a new pact with stronger safeguards.

Under international and Canadian law, that's not nearly good enough.

Accountability begins before detainees are transferred and continues after they are in Afghan control, a point the Red Cross testily made to diplomat Richard Colvin and he reported to then-foreign affairs minister Peter MacKay's office.

Errol Mendes, a University of Ottawa law professor and international criminal court expert, insists those responsibilities expose holes in explanations and testimony aired this week.

Political and military leaders along with mandarins don't require the hard evidence they claim was missing; they only need circumstantial evidence to be duty-bound to protect prisoners.

Afghanistan in 2006 was wallowing in that evidence. Apart from Colvin's serial memos, NATO allies and local as well as global rights groups were waving caution flags. Even though the Red Cross didn't apply the torture label – its mandate, understood by all governments, restricts such explosive language to reports filed to those directly involved in mistreatment – the danger was so obvious then that it changes the question Canadians need answered now. It's no longer just what the Prime Minister, ministers, generals and bureaucrats knew; it's why they took so long to act?

Solving that mystery is one persuasive argument for an independent inquiry. Another is the Conservative contention that fully disclosing relevant information would jeopardize national security.

Often the last refuge of those tossing restlessly at night, the secrecy obstacle now threatening the public right to know is best removed by appointing a judge to privately review classified documents during an otherwise open process. Justice Dennis O'Connor considered far more sensitive intelligence in probing the treatment of Maher Arar and still was able to reach conclusions while guarding national interest and informant safety.

It's important to explore the reasons for federal delay. By doing too little when so much was known, the government gambled too much. It added risk of reprisals and legal liability to the mortal hazards facing soldiers. By failing to uphold the law, it made nonsense of the mission purpose of exporting core Canadian values. Finally, it stained the reputation of a country that, along with pioneering peacekeeping and opposing South Africa's racism, took leading roles in banning land mines and entrenching the responsibility to protect the world's most vulnerable people.

If the prisoner problem is structural, it demands repair. If it's political, voters need to know the truth before casting another ballot.

If We Don't do the Right Thing We Will Not be Forgiven by History

The story of our role in Afghanistan has taken on a new meaning, as we listened to military brass and government officials try to deny what they know is going on in that country.

What are we fighting for? If we can't do better than this than I think it's time we pulled out and will start pushing for that objective. That is my Afghan mission.

Our soldiers deserve better and the people of Afghanistan deserve better. As former Afghan member of Parliament and human rights activist Malalai Joya stated, we will not be forgiven by history, and this is how we risk being defined; as war criminals.

So, what kind of people are we?
By Thomas Walkom National Affairs Columnist
Toronto Star
November 28, 2009

The Afghan prisoner scandal is not just about politics. It is not just about the infuriating tendency of Canadian governments – and particularly Prime Minister Stephen Harper's government – to withhold politically harmful information. Nor it is just about the blatant misuse of national security laws to protect federal bureaucrats and their political masters from embarrassment.

The Afghan prisoner scandal encompasses all of these. But at bottom it is about who Canadians are. Are we the kind of people who don't care when people are tortured? Or are we the kind of people who do?

If we don't care about torture, then we should have no trouble agreeing with the Conservative government and its bureaucratic establishment. Their approach toward the parliamentary committee looking into this matter follows three somewhat contradictory lines.

First, they say that the government acted when it saw evidence that prisoners who had been captured by Canadian soldiers were being tortured in Afghan prisons.

Second, they say there was no evidence of anyone being tortured in Afghan prisons.

Third, they suggest that anyone detained by Canadian troops is almost certainly a Taliban killer who doesn't deserve the benefit of the doubt. (Call this the scumbag argument.)

All government and military witnesses called to rebut the testimony of foreign service officer Richard Colvin, the diplomat who said his warnings of torture back in 2006 and 2007 were systematically ignored by Ottawa, have used one or more of these three lines of defence.

On Thursday, David Mulroney – at the time the senior civil servant in charge of the Afghan file – used the first two arguments (there was no evidence but we acted anyway).

On Wednesday, former chief of defence staff Rick Hillier emphasized the scumbag argument.

"We detained, under violent actions, people trying to kill our sons and daughters," he told the Commons special committee.

Added into the mix is a concerted and calculated attack by government figures on the credibility of whistleblower Colvin, now a senior Canadian intelligence official at Canada's embassy in Washington – an attack that implies he is a dupe, a naïf or worse.

At the committee, Hillier described as "ludicrous" Colvin's statement that all prisoners handed over to the Afghans by Canadian forces were likely to be tortured. "I have no idea what is motivating him (Colvin)," Conservative Senator Pam Wallin said this week on CBC Radio.

Defence Minister Peter MacKay makes the bizarre argument that unless Colvin had personally witnessed torture his claims should be discounted, dismissing the diplomat's concerns as "nothing short of hearsay, second- or third-hand information, or that which came directly from the Taliban."

In fact, what Colvin said – that in 2006 and 2007 torture was "standard operating procedure" in Afghan prisons – is far from ludicrous. Human Rights Watch came to a similar conclusion in its 2004 report. So did the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission (which the Conservative government relied upon briefly to monitor the prison situation) in 2009.

Indeed, in countries like Syria, Egypt or Afghanistan, those arrested on security charges are usually tortured immediately, under the theory that this is the most efficient way to elicit information. That's what a 2006 judicial inquiry found happened to Canadian Maher Arar when he was jailed in Syria.

Yet though neither MacKay nor any other independent Canadian witness was present when Arar was beaten with electrical cables, the Harper government thought his story credible enough to award him $10.5 million in compensation.

In a country that didn't care about torture, none of this would matter. Nor would the inconsistencies in the government line. (Hillier, for instance, slammed Colvin for relying on second-hand evidence, yet cited "a comment I heard from somebody in the International Committee of the Red Cross or read somewhere saying that there's no problem whatsoever with respect to detainees" to contradict him.)

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.

Such a country would insist that the memos on detainee ill-treatment that Colvin said he sent senior government officials be publicly and fully released.

And if these memos backed up his claims, then the voters of a country that refused to countenance torture would want those responsible to pay a political price.

It will be intriguing to find out which kind of country Canada chooses to be.