Harper Wants His Donkeys to Lead Our Lions. What Next, Uniforms?

From the day that Stephen Harper first took office, he has made Afghanistan his war. He was the general leading our troops into battle.

Nothing was said or done without his approval.

A man with no military background, other than partisan ankle biting and cheap shots across the room, thought he knew how to conduct an army in battle.

It was a disaster.

His first decision was to move Canadian troops from Kabul and reposition them in southern Kandahar province, where they were at a greater danger of being killed by roadside bombs. (1) Our death toll immediately escalated.

He then said that the media would be barred from photographing flag draped coffins (he later changed his mind after public outcry, that included the voices of the families of fallen soldiers)

"Look, don't bring the Airbus in, or if you bring the plane in, turn it away from the cameras so that people can't see the bodies coming off, or do it after dark, or do it down behind the hangars, or just bar everybody from it," Hillier quotes the PMO staffers as saying. "They clearly didn't want that picture of the flag-draped coffin on the news."It is Canadian military policy that every Canadian soldier killed in Afghanistan will be honoured as a war hero. Harper's disrespect for soldiers was the last straw for Hillier and prompted his early retirement at the age of 53. (2)

When the first reports of detainee abuse began to get back to Canada, Harper personally controlled the spin:

Prime Minister Stephen Harper's office used a "6,000-mile screwdriver" to oversee the denial of reports of Afghan detainee abuse when the scandal first erupted in 2007, according to a former senior NATO public affairs official who was then based in Kabul. The former official, speaking on condition his name not be used, told the Toronto Star that Harper's office in Ottawa "scripted ad fed" the precise wording NATO officials in Kabul used to repudiate allegations of abuse "at a time when it was privately and generally acknowledged in our office that the chances of good treatment at the hands of Afghan security forces were almost zero." (3)

All press had to be vetted through the PMO. We were the only country without an independent media on the ground.

Now we learn from Rick Hillier, that Harper wants to have an even deeper involvement in military maneuvers. Hillier believes that this will put our men and women in uniform, at great risk. They will be led by bureaucrats instead of trained military personnel.

Canada's former top soldier is warning that "field marshal wannabes" are angling to take a bigger role in directing the day-to-day operations of military forces in the field. Retired general Rick Hillier says a policy paper is circulating around senior levels of the Harper government that suggests the Clerk of the Privy Council and the deputy minister of defence take a greater role to "guide" the military.

The former chief of defence staff writes, in a new postscript for the softcover edition of his memoirs, that there is a growing movement within the federal government to establish a system of micro-management that could extend from the highest reaches of Ottawa all the way down to individual combat units.

...The notion that the military needs greater guidance on how to conduct operations irked Hillier. "What crap!" Hillier writes in the new edition of A Soldier First, an advance copy of which was obtained by The Canadian Press. (4)

Our dictatorship is almost complete. I guess we can next expect our government to start wearing military uniforms. We knew it was only a matter of time.

Sources:

1. A Soldier First: Bullets, Bureaucrats and the Politics of War, By Rick Hillier, Harper- Collins, 2009, ISBN-10: 1554684919

2. General Rick Hillier criticizes Stephen Harper, Lilith News, October 3, 2009

3. PMO issued instructions on denying abuse in '07: Former NATO official says response to reports was 'scripted' in Ottawa, By Mitch Potter, Washington Bureau, November 22, 2009

4. Hillier slams 'field marshal wannabes' in revised edition of his memoir, By: Murray Brewster, The Canadian Press, October 11, 2010.

An Attempt to Remove All Reminders of Stephen Harper's War

A CULTURE OF DEFIANCE: History of the Reform-Conservative Party of Canada

On June 3, 2008; Canada's then Ambassador to Afghanistan, Arif Lalani, was interviewed on a U.S. radio program via telephone.

What the morning talk show host, Renee Montagne, wanted to know was why Canada was suffering a disproportionate number of losses in the war. The highest ratio of all NATO forces.

Whenever you hear that a NATO soldier has been killed in the Taliban heartland of Kandahar, it's probably a Canadian soldier. Canada only has 2,500 troops in Afghanistan but they are fighting in one of the most dangerous regions of the country. So while Canadian troops make up only a small fraction of NATO forces, they've suffered the highest number of fatalities proportionately. (1)

Soon after being elected in January of 2006, Stephen Harper made Afghanistan his first official visit anywhere as prime minister. There he gave his now infamous "cut and run" speech, which was simply a scaled down version of one that George Bush had presented at the U.S. Naval Academy* a year before.

"You can't lead from the bleachers. I want Canada to be a leader," Harper told about 1,000 troops at the Kandahar airfield base the day after he arrived on an unannounced visit to Afghanistan. "Your work is about more than just defending Canada's national interests. Your work is also about demonstrating an international leadership role for our country."

"There will be some who want to cut and run, but cutting and running is not my way and it's not the Canadian way," he said, to a round of applause. "We don't make a commitment and then run away at the first sign of trouble. We don't and we will not, as long as I'm leading this country." (2)

Up to that time, 10 Canadian soldiers and a diplomat had been killed, and 26 Canadian soldiers had been injured. But that was about to change. To impress George Bush, Stephen Harper sent our men and women into the most dangerous areas of battle. According to Rick Hillier: "It was Stephen Harper's decision to move Canadian troops from Kabul and reposition them in southern Kandahar province, where they are now at much more danger of being killed by roadside bombs." (3)

And speeches were not the only thing Harper borrowed from his mentor. He also made the decision to discontinue flying the flag at half mast as a show of respect to fallen soldiers, and forbid the media from capturing for history, the images of flag draped coffins.

"Look, don't bring the Airbus in, or if you bring the plane in, turn it away from the cameras so that people can't see the bodies coming off, or do it after dark, or do it down behind the hangars, or just bar everybody from it," Hillier quotes the PMO staffers as saying. "They clearly didn't want that picture of the flag-draped coffin on the news."It is Canadian military policy that every Canadian soldier killed in Afghanistan will be honoured as a war hero. Harper's disrespect for soldiers was the last straw for Hillier and prompted his early retirement at the age of 53. (4)

Harper expected backlash for this decision, from the media that he had already silenced, but was unprepared for the reaction of Canadians, especially from military families.

Nothing "casual" About Our Losses

Last week Canada revealed itself once again as a truly unique nation. In a world where dead warriors are commonplace and taken for granted, this country stopped, paid attention, lowered the flags and gave full military honours to four soldiers, who died inexplicably and tragically at the hands of our allies. (Lesley Hughes, April 2002)

Hughes was referring to the "friendly fire" deaths of four Canadian soldiers, the first reports of our country's losses in this war. And a nation mourned. Bill Leger, the father of Sgt. Marc Leger, spoke in reference to Stephen Harper's 2006 decision to ban the media from covering the flag draped coffins of fallen soldiers:

"... in 2002 it was a great thing for us to have the media there. It was something that we felt at that time, and still feel the same way, that it was a Canadian thing. It was something that we wanted to show all Canadians what the cost of their liberty is. It's nothing else but that. And it's still heart-warming to see the faces and everything else when people were lined up on the 401, in 2002, all the way from Trenton to Toronto. They wanted to be there. They had to be there. I was told that often, over and over again. And those are the memories that I have, and those are the things that I carry with me all my life." (5)

And Leger's mother was interviewed more recently:

Ask Claire Leger what the past decade has meant to her, and she'll tell you a story of abiding sorrow ... After the tragedy, Leger and her husband Richard planted four small Canadian flags in the garden of their home near Ottawa, in memory of Marc and his comrades, Cpl. Ainsworth Dyer, 24; Pte. Richard Green, 21 and Pte. Nathan Smith, 26.

Seven years later, the Legers haven't sought ''closure'' from their grief. As the war years have ticked by they've maintained a steady vigil, dutifully marking the death of every Canadian soldier in Afghanistan. ''Every time I have to go put a little flag in our garden, it feels like I'm burying our son all over again,'' she says. ''I send a card to every family that loses a soldier and I often get a card back, with a picture of their son or daughter.''''There's less and less attention paid to those who are killed and it's heartbreaking to me,'' says Leger. ''I wish I could share with other families the support we had when Marc died. We were embraced by Canadians. That's what kept me going - I felt people actually cared.''Leger is a fierce critic of what she considers an unwinnable war, and says Canada's participation has made us ''puppets'' of the Americans. (6)

Stephen Harper then did an about face, finding a way to make himself look good, and with the help of the ad firm Hill and Knowlton, quickly turned the war into a giant photo-op. Canada had not witnessed a propaganda campaign of this magnitude since the last world war. But it was not about "King and Country" this time, it was about Stephen Harper and ... well ... Stephen Harper.

His first defense minister, Gordon O'Connor had been an employee of H&K, lobbying for military contracts. In the United States, the ad firm was well known for using dirty tricks to sell wars:

Hill & Knowlton, then the world's largest PR firm, served as mastermind for the Kuwaiti campaign. Its activities alone would have constituted the largest foreign-funded campaign ever aimed at manipulating American public opinion. By law, the Foreign Agents Registration Act should have exposed this propaganda campaign to the American people, but the Justice Department chose not to enforce it. Nine days after Saddam's army marched into Kuwait, the Emir's government agreed to fund a contract under which Hill & Knowlton would represent "Citizens for a Free Kuwait," a classic PR front group designed to hide the real role of the Kuwaiti government and its collusion with the Bush administration. (7)

Canadians were no longer going to oppose the war. Belligerent nationalism would reign supreme, and they were going to instead cheer from the bleachers. Rah, rah, rah!

And what did they use to whip us into a frenzy?

Hill & Knowlton's yellow ribbon campaign [my emphasis] to whip up support for "our" troops, which followed their orchestration of Nayirah's phony "incubator" testimony, was a public relations masterpiece. The claim that satellite photos revealed that Iraq had troops poised to strike Saudi Arabia was also fabricated by the PR firm. Hill & Knowlton was paid between $12 million (as reported two years later on "60 Minutes") and $20 million (as reported on "20/20") for "services rendered." The group fronting the money? Citizens for a Free Kuwait, a phony "human rights agency" set up and funded entirely by Kuwait's emirocracy to promote its interests in the U.S. (8)

So in Canada, H & K not only had one of their own (O'Connor) as Minister of Defense, deciding which of their clients got what military contracts; they were also able to sell a yellow ribbon campaign that had been mothballed, to a country not known for outward displays of such aggression.

And to make sure that everyone stayed on message, Stephen Harper completely controlled the media, by completely controlling that message.

The Harper government used a pervasive message-control tool to persuade Canadians their foremost purpose in Afghanistan was building schools and fostering democracy rather than waging a war that was turning bloodier by the day.

An investigation by The Canadian Press shows the Conservatives systematically drafted “Message Event Proposals” as part of a quiet campaign to persuade Canadians their country was primarily engaged in development work to rebuild a shattered nation rather than hunting down and killing an emboldened insurgency.The government used MEPs literally to script the words it wanted to hear from the mouths of its top diplomats, aid workers and cabinet ministers in 2007-2008 to divert public attention from the soaring double-digit death toll of Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan. (9)

And when reports began to surface as early as 2007, that Canadians could be charged with war crimes:

WASHINGTON–Prime Minister Stephen Harper's office used a "6,000-mile screwdriver" to oversee the denial of reports of Afghan detainee abuse when the scandal first erupted in 2007, according to a former senior NATO public affairs official who was then based in Kabul. The former official, speaking on condition his name not be used, told the Toronto Star that Harper's office in Ottawa "scripted and fed" the precise wording NATO officials in Kabul used to repudiate allegations of abuse "at a time when it was privately and generally acknowledged in our office that the chances of good treatment at the hands of Afghan security forces were almost zero."

"It was highly unusual. I was told this was the titanic issue for Prime Minister Harper and that every single statement that went out needed to be cleared by him personally ... [my emphasis]" (10)

In February, the Hill Times reported on the suffering of our men and women who saw service in Afghanistan:

More than 6,000 Canadian Forces members and discharged veterans who are receiving physical or psychiatric disability benefits from Veterans Affairs Canada have either served in Afghanistan or have a disability that has been related to their service in Afghanistan, the department says. The majority of the soldiers receiving benefits are likely suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder or war-related psychiatric conditions, according to global figures the department and the Canadian Forces provided The Hill Times. They also do not appear to be included in Afghanistan combat or non-combat casualty figures the Canadian Forces compiled, even though the veterans and serving members who have psychiatric conditions likely have them as a result of serving in the Afghan war. (11)

And when this report came out, Harper's head media cheerleader, Jane Taber, turned it into a hyper-partisan sideshow. I have never been so ashamed.

So given Stephen Harper's callous disregard for human life, and anal control of the media, should we be surprised to learn that he is now attacking our veterans? Should we be surprised to learn that he has fired the man advocating for them? Or should we be surprised to learn that he has forbidden our broken soldiers from telling their stories?

A half dozen Afghan war veterans who wanted to talk about how their injuries affected their lives were told by senior military staff they were not to attend a press conference held earlier this week by Veterans Ombudsman Pat Stogran. The instructions come as the debate over how injured veterans are being treated reached a highpoint in Ottawa earlier this week, when Stogran held a news conference and criticized Veterans Affairs Canada and the government for not doing enough for the country's injured military personnel. Other veterans, no longer serving in the Canadian Forces, also spoke out at the conference about the failure of government to provide for them. (12)

Are you mad yet? Are you ashamed? Are you Canadian?

This may have been Stephen Harper's War when he changed our direction from Peacekeepers to Peacemakers, but this is now our war, as we go into battle against a government who would allow our veterans to be treated like this.

Are you in?

Footnotes:

George Bush (April 2005): "Some are calling for a deadline for withdrawal. Many advocating an artificial timetable for withdrawing our troops are sincere — but I believe they're sincerely wrong. Pulling our troops out before they've achieved their purpose is not a plan for victory. Setting an artificial deadline to withdraw would send a signal to our enemies — that if they wait long enough, America will cut and run and abandon its friends... To all who wear the uniform, I make you this pledge: America will not run in the face of car bombers and assassins so long as I am your Commander-in-Chief. (Applause.)"

Sources:

1. Canada Bears Brunt of Fighting in South Afghanistan, Interview with Arif Lalani, National Public Radio, June 3, 2008

2. Canada committed to Afghan mission, Harper tells troops, CBC News, March 13, 2006

3. A Soldier First, By Rick Hillier, Harper Collins Publishers, 2009, ISBN - 13:9781554684915

4. General Rick Hillier criticizes Stephen Harper, Lilith News, October 20, 2009

5. Canadian Government Imitates Bush Regime: Dishonors Their War Dead Too, Afraid To Let The Public See The Cost Of Empire, Associated Press, April 26, 2006

6. Afghanistan war: Canada's defining event of past decade, By Richard Foot, Canwest News, 2009

7. How PR Sold the War in the Persian Gulf, Center for Media and Democracy

8. How Bush Sr. Sold The Bombing Of Iraq, by Mitchel Cohen, December 28, 2002

9. Ottawa’s Afghanistan message: It’s development, not war, Government scripts told top diplomats how to frame the mission, Mike Blanchfield and Jim Bronskill, The Canadian Press, June 7, 2010

10. PMO issued instructions on denying abuse in '07: Former NATO official says response to reports was 'scripted' in Ottawa, By Mitch Potter Washington Bureau, November 22, 2009

11. Afghanistan veterans on disability now 6,000 Forces, Veterans Affairs reluctant to disclose casualty records after eight years of war, By Tim Naumetz, the Hill Times, February 8, 2010

12. Wounded vets claim they were muzzled by brass: Soldiers were willing to discuss injuries, but steered away from ombudsman's press conference, By David Pugliese, The Ottawa Citizen, August 21, 2010

I Hate to Say I Told You So ... But

The Globe and Mail has published an excellent article about how Stephen Harper finely crafted the messaging of Canada at war, with unprecedented media control.

The Globe and the Star have actually been fairly good at attempting to sound the alarm but few people really wanted to believe it, so for the most part they simply went along.

As a result, Canada was the only country with no independent media, only embedded journalists who wrote what they were told to write.

The Harper government used a pervasive message-control tool to persuade Canadians their foremost purpose in Afghanistan was building schools and fostering democracy rather than waging a war that was turning bloodier by the day.

An investigation by The Canadian Press shows the Conservatives systematically drafted “Message Event Proposals” as part of a quiet campaign to persuade Canadians their country was primarily engaged in development work to rebuild a shattered nation rather than hunting down and killing an emboldened insurgency.
The government used MEPs literally to script the words it wanted to hear from the mouths of its top diplomats, aid workers and cabinet ministers in 2007-2008 to divert public attention from the soaring double-digit death toll of Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan.

Harper's claim that he never got the memos about Detainee torture becomes even more suspect, because he controlled every aspect of this mission.

When Canadian soldiers brought in the usually hooded and tightly bound detainee, our military police on the spot would first inform the colonels and generals in the Kandahar mission control centre.But instead of alerting the Red Cross right away, like the Dutch and British, these commanders, following orders, sent the information to CEFCOM, the Canadian Expeditionary Force Command in Ottawa. This information would then be passed over to Defence Headquarters and to Foreign Affairs.

There have been alarms about this several times in the past but again ignored:

"What we're seeing here is a degree of control within the government, within the caucus ... that we haven't seen for a very long time .... That control extends to every corner of government.

And that whole yellow ribbon campaign was stolen from Desert Storm. Our defense minister at the time, Gordon O'Connor, came straight from the PR firm, Hill & Knowlton, to run our defense department:

Hill & Knowlton's yellow ribbon campaign to whip up support for "our" troops, which followed their orchestration of Nayirah's phony "incubator" testimony, was a public relations masterpiece. The claim that satellite photos revealed that Iraq had troops poised to strike Saudi Arabia was also fabricated by the PR firm. Hill & Knowlton was paid between $12 million (as reported two years later on "60 Minutes") and $20 million (as reported on "20/20") for "services rendered." The group fronting the money? Citizens for a Free Kuwait, a phony "human rights agency" set up and funded entirely by Kuwait's emirocracy to promote its interests in the U.S.

Be sure to read the entire Globe piece, though long. If we had learned of this years ago it might have saved lives.

The Opposition Must Not Back Down Without a List of Demands

The Hill Times is reporting today that the Liberals may back down from their demand for uncensored documents, provided that the Conservatives allow a full public inquiry.

BUT THAT IS NOT GOOD ENOUGH!

We now know that the Reformers have been working behind the scenes to tie the hands of the committee, adding a few pages to their book on how to obstruct progress.

But if they do drop the order to produce documents, it must be with conditions.

This is a list from WE the people of Canada who are sick to death of Harper's nonsense:

1. WE want the committee to be able to pick up where they left off, and not have to start from scratch.

2. WE want unredacted memos pertaining to what our government knew and when, handed over. When we voted for our Member of Parliament, we trusted them with our secrets.

3. WE want all of Richard Colvin's legal bills to be paid for past and future appearances.

4. WE want Peter Tinsley to be reinstated, because as he says ' ... pushing him out of the job will effectively kneecap the already crippled inquiry into claims that Afghans tortured prisoners.'

5. WE want Jason Kenney to stop his rampage on our NGOs (and maybe see a shrink because that's guys got a few too many bats in the belfry)

6. WE want Ari Fleisher to be fired and not given anymore 'secret' contracts, that we only learn about by reading U.S. newspapers.

7. WE want the Conservatives to start taking this seriously. No more lies and no more nonsense.

8. WE want an end to the ridiculous photo-ops with our military. They are just as ashamed of our government as we are over this issue. Fight your own damn battles and leave them out of this.

9. WE want an end to the ridiculous ten per centers, especially the ones suggesting that the opposition believes that our soldiers are guilty of war crimes. It's a lie and the Reformers know it.

10. WE want a public apology to everyone who has been hurt by this government's decisions. That includes the people of Afghanistan, the opposition and our troops who have been forced to wear the shame because Stephen Harper refuses to.

So the Conservative government will meet all of these demands, or WE will want an election, no matter what Tim Naumetz of the Hill Times says.

Because if this ends up in the International Courts, and Canada is charged with war crimes, our protests over the abuse of prorogation will be nothing compared to the grief WE will give you over that!

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?

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

It's interesting the information that turns up on the CAPP live feed.

This posting was from last October, just before the detainee issue hit the fan.

But former commander, General Rick Hillier, reveals a few things about Stephen Harper, that would certainly dispute his claims that he didn't know that the prisoners, being handed over by our troops, were being tortured.

He also states that it was Harper 's personal decision to move our soldiers into dangerous zones and that his actions put our soldiers "at more danger of being killed by roadside bombs."

From an International Blogger:

General Rick Hillier criticizes Stephen Harper
October 3, 2009

CANADA - Canada's former top general who retired in 2008 after serving Canada in Afghanistan has written an autobiography and its shining a light on corruption and mismanagement within Stephen Harper's office. Hillier has had a distinguished military career.

He also discovered Stephen Harper liked to meddle in military affairs...

1. Like trying to prevent the flag-draped coffins of soldiers from being seen when they are brought back to Canadian soil and the military eremonies associated with that. Harper wanted those images censored. This was apparently Hillier's "line in the sand" because it meant Harper had no respect for fallen soldiers.

"Look, don't bring the Airbus in, or if you bring the plane in, turn it away from the cameras so that people can't see the bodies coming off, or do it after dark, or do it down behind the hangars, or just bar everybody from it," Hillier quotes the PMO staffers as saying. "They clearly didn't want that picture of the flag-draped coffin on the news."It is Canadian military policy that every Canadian soldier killed in Afghanistan will be honoured as a war hero. Harper's disrespect for soldiers was the last straw for Hillier and prompted his early retirement at the age of 53.

2. Bureaucratic interference risking the lives of soldiers in an effort to make Stephen Harper look good.

3. That Stephen Harper knew about torture allegations but chose to simply ignore them because he was too worried about bad press and his image.

4. It was Stephen Harper's decision to move Canadian troops from Kabul and reposition them in southern Kandahar province, where they are now at much more danger of being killed by roadside bombs. "It had already been largely decided that the Canadian presence in Afghanistan was shifting to the southern half of the country," Hillier writes.

5. Hillier also has tough criticism for NATO, saying the military alliance is rife with political posturing and corruption, including Canadians from the Prime Minister's staff who are more worried about making a name for themselves and schmoozing than actually fighting/winning the war.

6. Hillier also said it was "embarrassing" that Canada has to beg for equipment from other countries because Harper's approach to the war is all for show and he isn't willing to spend anything on equipment that will save the lives of Canadian soldiers.The book "A Soldier First: Bullets, Bureaucrats and the Politics of War" is scheduled to be released next week.

Afghanistan and Detainee Abuse up to and Including 2006

When Canada joined in the invasion of Afghanistan in 2002, it was determined that all prisoners, or detainees, would be handed over to the Americans. This seemed like the most logical thing to do, since they were running the show.

However, when 15 US soldiers were charged under the criminal code for horrendous torture, including deaths, at Bagram in Afghanistan; we clearly needed a change in plans.

But it was in the middle of an election campaign, so then prime minister, Paul Martin; signed off on the deal suggested by Rick Hillier, to hand over the detainees to the Afghan authorities.

According to Amnesty International, General Hillier indicated that he didn't care what happened to them once he caught them, so long as he was privy to any information obtained. As such he made Canada the only NATO country that did not demand to know what happened to it's captures.

"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)

I'm trying to archive my posts, making them easier to access, so will use this page to link stories related to the Afghan Detainee prior to and including 2006. By laying everything out chronologically, we can see that this government has been spinning a yarn for several years. They lied to us then and they're lying to us now.

Afghan Detainee Stories up to and Including 2006

Related Postings on Afghanistan up to and Including 2006

A Background to Afghanistan. A Nation of Perpetual Conflict

The Shah of Iran and the Birth of Terrorists

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

Truth May be the First Casualty of War, But in 2002 There Was Nothing Casual About Afghanistan

Paul Martin, Rick Hillier and a New Direction For Afghanistan

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

Instead of just brandishing terms like 'freedom' and 'democracy', why do we not accept that maybe the Afghan people would like 'freedom' from war?

In Harper's last throne speech, he listed as one of his priorities; "Contributing to global security by ensuring that our foreign policy is based on Canadian values, rebuilding the Canadian Forces with the best possible equipment, and transforming the Canada’s engagement in Afghanistan to focus more on reconstruction and development."

Canadian values? Since when were Canadian values about blowing things up and killing people?

We invaded this country and are now occupying it. You can see from the music video, that before we did this, Afghan was a vibrant country. Maybe they weren't as technologically advanced as we are, but they somehow got by.

What right did we have to suggest to them that they must be more like us?

When Rick Hillier first convinced Paul Martin to change our direction in 2005, he said "We're not the public service of Canada ... Our job is to be able to kill people," and then described the Taliban as "detestable murderers and scumbags."

These are Canadian values? "Our job is to be able to kill people." What's your job - being hit men for aggressive American foreign policy? I thought we invaded "to help". I thought our job was to stabilize and promote peace?

But of course with Harper keeping such a tight control on the messaging, we can see how easy it was for him to bypass that whole 'Canadian values' thing, and throw us headlong into an illegal and unwinnable war. We were just told to 'support the troops' and he would take care of the rest.

Well, that's no longer good enough. The Afghan people are now speaking out, because they're tired of burying their children. The rebuilding is not working. They were promised peace and did not get it. Instead we have thrown in our lot with the worst of the worst in that country, making us clearly the enemy, and not their friends.

Afghan Civilian Casualties Mount: UN
By Jeff Davis
Embassy (Canada's foreign policy newsletter),
August 6th, 2008

Bolstering signs that the security situation in Afghanistan is deteriorating, UN reports indicate there have been 62 per cent more civilians killed during the first five months of this year compared to the same period last year, putting the death toll on track to top the more than 1,500 Afghan civilians killed in 2007.

And while Western officials maintain they are making efforts to reduce civilian casualties, and the UN numbers indicate that may be the case, an Afghan reporter tells Embassy that the countryside is seething with anger over deadly airstrikes based on faulty intelligence.

According to the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) officials in Kabul, there were 1,500 civilian casualties in 2007. Of these, 46 per cent were caused by insurgents and other anti-government forces, 41 per cent were inflicted by coalition and pro-government forces, while 13 per cent were "un-attributable" and the result of land mines or crossfire ....

It is definitely time to RETHINK AFGHANISTAN!

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

International law, as set out in the United Nations Charter, is very specific in defining scenarios under which war can legally be waged .... There are basically only two scenarios that legitimize war.

First, if a country is directly attacked, and there is no non-violent remedy, it can respond with military force in self-defence. The only other scenario—when the collective interest of international peace and security is at stake—requires the authorization of the UN Security Council. [Michael] Mandel, author of How America Gets Away with Murder, notes that self-defence does not apply in the case of the U.S. attack on Afghanistan, since the U.S. launched wars against both Iraq and Afghanistan, even though it was not attacked by either country.

Washington also failed to secure UN Security Council authorization. In the case of Iraq, Washington tried to get such authorization but failed, and so decided to proceed with its invasion anyway. In the case of Afghanistan, Washington never even tried for Security Council authorization.' Thus, says Mandel, both the Afghanistan and Iraq invasions were illegal under international law.

The illegality of the invasion of Iraq was more clear-cut and obvious, since no connection has ever been established between the 9/11 attack and Iraq ... But the war in Afghanistan has long been considered more complicated and nuanced, since the ruling Taliban apparently allowed the al Qaeda terrorists who carried out 9/11 to use Afghanistan as a base. It might seem then, that the U.S. could reasonably argue that it was attacking Afghanistan in self-defence, since Afghanistan had harboured a group that had attacked America.

No matter how compelling the U.S. case against bin Laden was, Washington did not have the right under international law to invade Afghanistan in order to pursue him. "One is not allowed to invade a country to effect an arrest," notes Mandel.' (HOLDING THE BULLY'S COAT, Canada and the U.S. Empire, Linda McQuaig, Doubleday Canada, ISBN 978-0-385-66012-9, Pg. 89-90)

Once the Karzai government was elected, the war did become legitimized, but that still leaves the question, was it legitimate to invade a country without actual proof that they were behind the terrorist attacks? Recent videos apparently from Bin Laden with an admission of guilt, are believed to be forgeries, and it's seems more plausible that he has been dead for several years.

He was suffering from acute kidney failure and could not have roamed around in the mountains for long undetected.

But this isn't about conspiracy theories, or who was behind the attacks, but our own involvement in the Afghan war. I'm using this page as a starting point for postings to show the chronology of 'the mission' and why I think we need to get out now. We can go back when the fighting stops and help rebuild, since we helped to destroy, but no more killing.

Former Prime Minister Jean Chrétien announced on October 7, 2001; that 'Canada would contribute forces to the international force being formed to conduct a campaign against terrorism', but the original commitment was only to last to October 2003.

So why are we still there and what are we doing exactly? We're not fighting for democracy. Hell, we don't even have that here.

*************************************************

A Background to Afghanistan. A Nation in Perpetual Conflict

The Shah of Iran and the Birth of Terrorists

Truth May be the First Casualty of War, But in 2002 There Was Nothing Casual About Afghanistan

Paul Martin, Rick Hillier and a New Direction For Afghanistan

Military Spending and Other Costs Associated With the Invasion

More on the Financial Burdens of This Damn War

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

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

The Conservatives Do Poor Job of Supporting Troops

When Canada Was a Democracy we Were Able to Ask Questions

Dawson Bayliss Gives us One More Reason to Rethink Afghanistan

*************************************************

Paul Martin, Rick Hillier and a New Direction For Afghanistan

I don't as a rule read Jonathan Kay's column (or for that matter, the National Post). He's far too right-wing, and when I say right-wing, I mean that he would probably be more at home inking copy for Glen Beck or Rush Limbaugh.

But it was Christmas Eve, and I suppose Mr. Kay was feeling a little festive, so in a gesture of peace and goodwill, he launched a full frontal attack on an op-ed piece written by former NDP campaign director Gerald Caplan, that had appeared in the Globe several weeks before.

Why did he wait until Christmas eve? Who knows?

Coal in his stocking? A bit too much eggnog? Waiting for Jacob Marley? It's any one's guess.

But our Jonathan was quite upset that Mr. Caplan was lamenting "My country seems to be slipping away in front of my very eyes..." I can relate, as can a great many Canadians. We have definitely taken a sharp right turn.

Now the National Post column was pretty much the same old, same old: Stephen Harper good, Jason Kenney new Messiah, where's my gun? ... ugh!

But then it took a kind of strange twist as Kay started toasting former Liberal prime minister Paul Martin. (Did I mention it was Christmas Eve and there may have been eggnog involved?)

Paul Martin will forever be known primarily as the guy who fumbled Jean Chrétien's dynasty away to Stephen Harper. But if there were more justice in the world — or at least among pundits — he would get his due for making the single most momentous prime ministerial decision of the decade: sending a Canadian combat mission to Kandahar in 2005.

At the time, it hardly seemed epic: Most Canadians didn't know Kandahar from Kunduz. But the military wonks immediately could tell this was a game-changer. Putting our troops in Kandahar, at the ideological and political center of Taliban territory, meant the Liberals were shedding decades of peacekeeper posturing, and were putting the country on a very real war footing.

"We're not the public service of Canada ... Our job is to be able to kill people," said Rick Hillier, another man who deserves credit for changing this country. The then-Chief of the Defence Staff described the Taliban as "detestable murderers and scumbags" — words that made men like Caplan whimper and run around in little circles. In the old Canada, one didn't say such things. To speak plainly about evil wasn't — what was Caplan's word? — sufficiently "restrained."


I remember feeling a similar alarm when I heard Hillier's words and especially his tone, but he seemed like a decent guy; so I just put it down to some kind of bravado. And besides, when Jack Layton called his remarks "disconcerting", he was accused of trying to "bestow the most ennobled status on the Taliban---that of victim", which of course is sheer nonsense.

But back to Paul Martin.

Now I never voted for the man. I didn't care for his campaign strategy, and as prime minister, he was too indecisive. I thought he was a great finance minister though and is making an excellent statesman.

In Jean Chretien's new book, he is suggesting that it was just that kind of indecisiveness that first put our soldiers at greater risk. After writing of his decision to keep us out of Iraq, and only agreeing to go to Afghanistan, so long as they were in a safer region, he continues: "Later, unfortunately, when my successor took too long to make up his mind about whether Canada should extend our term with the ISAF, our soldiers were moved out of Kabul and sent south to battle the Taliban in the killing fields around Kandahar."

In Paul Martin's book, however, he states that he was considering a change in our role, and did not just drop the ball. He still wanted a Peacekeeping force, but thought that Canada should be better trained and better equipped for combat, so he put money into the military and on the advice of his defense minister, Bill Graham; in February of 2005, appointed General Rick Hillier as chief of the defense staff.

As journalist and author Linda McQuaig puts in:

It was the Martin government that appointed Hillier chief of defence staff and began pumping large amounts of new money into military spending. Soon after his appointment, Hillier began pressuring Martin to agree to U.S. requests to increase and intensify Canadian involvement in the Afghan war. Martin was initially hesitant, but agreed to the deeper commitment in Afghanistan, only after extracting from Hillier a promise that the Canadian military would also have sufficient troops available to participate in vital UN peacekeeping missions.

At a meeting with Hillier and the defence and foreign affairs ministers on March 21, 2005, Martin stressed the importance of the Canadian Forces being prepared to help the UN intervene, particularly in the brutal fighting in Darfur, where hundreds of thousands of people had been killed. Despite Hillier's assurances that troops would be available for peacekeeping, the general argued the following spring—with the support of the newly elected Harper government—that the military was so overworked by the Afghan deployment that it lacked the soldiers to contribute to a UN mission to Darfur.'

Under Harper, the military's desire to transform itself into an adjunct of the U.S. "war on terror" was now perfectly in sync ... (HOLDING THE BULLY'S COAT, Canada and the U.S. Empire, Linda McQuaig, Doubleday Canada, ISBN 978-0-385-66012-9, pg. 73-74)

We were Peacekeepers no more.

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

This short documentary was made two years ago, and offers a good introduction to my post on the enormous public relations campaign used to sell Canadians on the War in Afghanistan.

Rick Hillier certainly changed the way we saw our military and our new combat role. When he first showed up on Paul Martin's doorstep with maps and a plan, he was a man ... literally ... on a mission.

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.

We were no longer peacekeepers. We were fighters, or as Hillier put it 'killers.'

And he made no secret of how he felt about the people he was determined to kill. They were "detestable murderers" and "scumbags." When Jack Layton called his remarks "disconcerting", he was accused of trying to "bestow the most ennobled status on the Taliban---that of victim."

You were with him or against him. Now where have we heard that before?

It's no accident that the Support the Troops campaign was such a success though. Those three words had a proven track record, and that's because of another three words: Hill and Knowlton.

I remember when Stephen Harper introduced his first cabinet, feeling some alarm at who he named as his minister of defense. Gordon O'Connor was a career military man, but he was also a lobbyist. And not just any lobbyist, but a lobbyist for military contracts with the ad agency Hill & Knowlton.

I wrote a letter to the editor of my local paper at the time, questioning this appointment. Hill & Knowlton did not have the best reputation of it's handling of wars. Although I suppose, the word 'best' would depend on who you asked. If you were the CEO of a company that wanted military contracts, they absolutely were. And in terms of falsely legitimizing war, they were also the best.

But promoting peace, good governance or the rule of law? Nope. There is one reason and one reason only to go to war . Money. And if you need a firm who could increase your fortunes through war; H & K was that firm.

How PR Sold the War in the Persian Gulf

Hill & Knowlton, then the world's largest PR firm, served as mastermind for the Kuwaiti campaign. Its activities alone would have constituted the largest foreign-funded campaign ever aimed at manipulating American public opinion. By law, the Foreign Agents Registration Act should have exposed this propaganda campaign to the American people, but the Justice Department chose not to enforce it. Nine days after Saddam's army marched into Kuwait, the Emir's government agreed to fund a contract under which Hill & Knowlton would represent "Citizens for a Free Kuwait," a classic PR front group designed to hide the real role of the Kuwaiti government and its collusion with the Bush administration. Over the next six months, the Kuwaiti government channeled $11.9 million dollars to Citizens for a Free Kuwait, whose only other funding totalled $17,861 from 78 individuals. Virtually all of CFK's budget - $10.8 million - went to Hill & Knowlton in the form of fees.

The man running Hill & Knowlton's Washington office was Craig Fuller, one of Bush's closest friends and inside political advisors. The news media never bothered to examine Fuller's role until after the war had ended, but if America's editors had read the PR trade press, they might have noticed this announcement, published in O'Dwyer's PR Services before the fighting began: "Craig L. Fuller, chief of staff to Bush when he was vice-president, has been on the Kuwaiti account at Hill & Knowlton since the first day.

... "Hill & Knowlton . . . has assumed a role in world affairs unprecedented for a PR firm. H&K has employed a stunning variety of opinion-forming devices and techniques to help keep US opinion on the side of the Kuwaitis. . . . The techniques range from full-scale press conferences showing torture and other abuses by the Iraqis to the distribution of tens of thousands of 'Free Kuwait' T-shirts and bumper stickers at college campuses across the US."

Documents filed with the US Department of Justice showed that 119 H&K executives in 12 offices across the US were overseeing the Kuwait account. "The firm's activities, as listed in its report to the Justice Department, included arranging media interviews for visiting Kuwaitis, setting up observances such as National Free Kuwait Day, National Prayer Day (for Kuwait), and National Student Information Day, organizing public rallies, releasing hostage letters to the media, distributing news releases and information kits, contacting politicians at all levels, and producing a nightly radio show in Arabic from Saudi Arabia,"

Oh and that yellow ribbon campaign?

How Bush Sr. Sold The Bombing Of Iraq

Hill & Knowlton's yellow ribbon campaign to whip up support for "our" troops, which followed their orchestration of Nayirah's phony "incubator" testimony, was a public relations masterpiece. The claim that satellite photos revealed that Iraq had troops poised to strike Saudi Arabia was also fabricated by the PR firm. Hill & Knowlton was paid between $12 million (as reported two years later on "60 Minutes") and $20 million (as reported on "20/20") for "services rendered." The group fronting the money? Citizens for a Free Kuwait, a phony "human rights agency" set up and funded entirely by Kuwait's emirocracy to promote its interests in the U.S.

So while the narrator of the video above may have fancied that General Rick Hiller was a public relations guru; it was not without the help of a highly successful yellow ribbon campaign that made a lot of money for a lot of people.

This doesn't mean that I don't support our troops, but remember when Hillier was going around waving the flag, attracting his throngs? He was not acting honourably in Afghanistan. If the reports from the Wall Street Journal are true, he may already be named in an international investigation into war crimes.

Will that be his legacy? Will it be ours? If our prime minister and some members of his cabinet don't smarten up and allow an investigation into the Afghan Detainee issue, it very well could be.

Because that's how they support the troops, by hiding behind them.

Stephen Harper is in Contempt of Parliament and the Canadian People

With the Reformers still denying knowledge of detainee abuse, the Canadian people and the Canadian troops, are being violated. We will wear this shame, so if the memos in their possession reveal something different than what Richard Colvin, the U.S. State Department, Amnesty International, NATO and others are suggesting, then they need to release them.

Otherwise, we can only assume that our government was well aware of what was happening and decided to follow George Bush's lead, and simply dismiss the charges. These prisoners were Taliban. They were terrorists.

But what if they weren't?

According to many people who have spent anytime in Afghanistan, we are now mostly fighting against villagers who see themselves in the same way that the Resistance did in WWII. We are an invading army propping up a tyrannical and corrupt government, and most of the people we captured were in the wrong place at the wrong time.

The Harper government has access to the truth. Now we need to also have access to that truth before this ends up in an international court.

Afghan denials denied
December 17, 2009

What should Prime Minister Stephen Harper have known when he assured Parliament on April 24, 2007, that "we have no evidence that supports the allegations" that Canadian-transferred Afghan detainees were abused or tortured?

Harper should have known that Richard Colvin and other Canadian diplomats, police and military had by that time sent no fewer than six separate reports in 2006 expressing concern about detainees, some of which explicitly warned that "torture" was rife in Afghan jails, along with "extrajudicial executions and disappearances."

He should have known that Colvin directly warned Ottawa officials in March 2007 that "the NDS (Afghanistan's National Directorate of Security) tortures people, that's what they do, and if we don't want our detainees tortured, we shouldn't give them to the NDS."

He should have known that the United Nations had said "reports of the use of torture and other forms of ill-treatment by the NDS are frequent." And that Washington, too, blamed Afghan security services and others for extrajudicial killings, torture and abuse.

All this is spelled out in a rebuttal Colvin filed yesterday with the Commons Afghan committee to refute ministers, generals and officials who alleged that Colvin never explicitly warned of torture.

Of course, Harper should also have known that there was proof positive that Canadian troops handed over a detainee on June 19, 2006, who was then so badly beaten they had to rescue him. Chief of Defence Staff Gen. Walter Natynczyk on Dec. 9 confirmed as much.

But the Prime Minister and his cabinet preferred to turn a blind eye, in 2006 and part of 2007, to the risk that detainees would be abused. Now the government is resisting a Commons resolution ordering it to produce documents that detail who knew what, and when. It has hampered a military police probe. And it has shut down a bid by a Commons committee to hold hearings on the subject during the holidays.

This is contempt for Parliament and the public. Harper had no business telling Canadians, wrongly, that all was well. He was wrong to try to discredit Colvin. His claim that those who question his policy are casting Canada's troops as "war criminals" is beneath contempt. And he is wrong to hobble every effort to set the record straight.

He should stop stonewalling, release all relevant documents, and let the Commons committee and the military police dig for the truth.

Harper Will Not Ride Out This Storm on a Magic Marker

The Reformers are making a big mistake if they think they can just shun the committee and this whole thing will go away.

These are very serious allegations, that get more damning every day.

I can understand the mindset in 2006 and 2007. George Bush was in power and he had already given the finger to the Geneva Convention. This empowered Stephen Harper, who had aligned himself with the Bush Administration.

But they are gone now and there is a new sheriff in town. I suspect this is one of the reasons why Obama kept Harper out of the loop in his new strategy for this conflict. He is already trying to live down the war crimes of Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld. He doesn't need more trouble.

Foot-dragging and fudging
Globe and Mail
December 17, 2009

It is an odd strategy that Conservative MPs have chosen in boycotting, and thereby shutting down, a House committee examining the alleged torture of Afghan detainees. That strategy only reinforces the impression that the government is trying to obstruct efforts to get at the truth.

And the reports keep getting worse. Canada propped up a notorious Kandahar governor, Asadullah Khalid, diplomat Richard Colvin alleged yesterday in a letter to that House committee. The fudging of the truth went beyond the detainee issue, he said. Officials in Ottawa tried to conceal the deterioration of the security situation. The senior bureaucrat David Mulroney told Canada's ambassador to Afghanistan, Arif Lalani, not to mention the deterioration of security in his reports to Ottawa. “The ambassador accordingly sent a report in which he said security was improving,” Mr. Colvin says ....

Why James Travers Has The Detainee Issue All Wrong

When we first went into Afghanistan, it was soon after 9/11, and I supported the initiative. We were going after the guys who did this horrible thing, and like most people at the time, I really wanted to make someone pay.

However, the glow soon wore off for me, and I began to question our real purpose. By then the US had invaded Iraq, and knowing that was wrong, I quickly became opposed to the so-called "War on Terror".

I never voted for Jean Chretien, but applauded his decision to keep Canada out of it. Afghanistan continued but was put on the back burner.

However, soon after the 2006 election, Stephen Harper brought the war to the forefront again. He was going to make this his and was determined to put his signature on it. His first official visit was to Afghanistan, and even though he recited a watered down George Bush "cut and run" speech, he seemed to earn the respect of the troops. He was going to lead an army (figuratively). Afghanistan was his.

Almost immediately it was no longer a war, but a 'mission'. He would hear no protests, but demand that we 'support the troops'. That became the nation's battle cry, and despite increasing casualties he soldiered on.

But soon after the realities of being a 'war prime minister' took hold. Things he hadn't anticipated began to arise that threatened to put a damper on our renewed patriotism. Suggestions that Canada may be complicit in the torture of detainees.

However, fueled by George Bush's proclamations and borrowing from his rhetoric, he would not falter. They were all terrorists who got what they deserved. If you questioned his judgement you supported the Taliban. There was no grey area. You were with our troops or against them. End of.

So instead of dealing with the allegations, he swept them under the rug. Taking control of all press releases, Canadians were put on a need to know basis, and according to the Harper government, we didn't need to know much. Just wear our yellow ribbons and shut our mouths and they would handle the rest.

And when the Globe and Mail first broke the story in 2007, the PMO went into overdrive. Deny, bully, intimidate and accuse the opposition of demonizing our men and women in uniform. When Gordon O'Connor was forced to admit that he had erred in judgement, Harper demoted him and the whole thing went away. Not a dead issue, but barely breathing.

Then along came Richard Colvin, who blew the whole thing wide open. How this will end is any one's guess. Hopefully, the Harper government will do the right thing and allow a full public inquiry this time, but I'm not holding my breath.

In the video above, we can see our soldiers doing their best to engage the Afghan people. In their minds they are doing a noble thing, and regardless of how I feel about the war as a whole, I have the utmost respect for these people. They are handling themselves with dignity and honour. When they saw a prisoner being beaten they took him back. Fearing that others were being tortured they took pictures before handing them over.

They know about the Geneva Convention and would not compromise their integrity as soldiers. We need to do the right thing for them.

I think many in the media are starting to see this. I got a little angry with Craig Oliver on CTV news tonight, focusing on the political, rather than the criminal, and suggesting that Harper was still well ahead in the polls so it wouldn't hurt him. Of course he was wrong. The latest EKOS had him at 33% and he is losing the battle of public opinion.

I was also annoyed, after reading James Travers column on the subject. (Greg Weston spun the same nonsense) Most of it was factual and on the money, but I took exception with his statement that "Conservatives who inherited the detainee transfer problem from Liberals are now struggling to control the damage from the original miscalculations... "

You don't inherit the Geneva Convention. Every single soldier in the field knows what it is. Their honour depends on knowing what it is and living by it. You don't control the damage, you make sure that the damage does not occur. The military is responsible for this and while they know that a change in government can affect things for them, the war continues.

It is not a Liberal war or a Conservative war, it is a Canadian war.

The Canadian military originally signed a deal to hand over prisoners to the Americans in 2002. This seemed like the most logical thing to do, since they were running the show. However, when 15 US soldiers were charged under the criminal code for horrendous torture, including deaths, at Bagram in Afghanistan; Hillier needed a change of plans.

It was in the middle of an election campaign, and Paul Martin signed off on his deal to hand detainees over to the Afghan authorities. According to Amnesty International, General Hillier indicated that he didn't care what happened to them once he caught them, so long as he was privy to any information obtained. As such he made Canada the only NATO country that did not demand to know what happened to it's captures.

Not long after, the reports started to arrive and the rest is making history.

Mr. Travers does redeem himself, somewhat. However, we have to remember that this is not a partisan issue. Mr. Ignatieff wants all reports from day one, including those from when the Liberals were in government, though I suspect if there was anything damning there, Harper would have already 'leaked' them.

Travers concludes;

Soldiers did their duty when those shortcomings became obvious on the ground; Colvin did his job by reporting what he saw and learned, mostly from the Red Cross. After that, the trail disappears in documents that bureaucrats say privately are being blacked out more to protect political skins than national security and are now at the centre of the constitutional conflict between hide-all Conservatives and show-all opposition parties.

There's a certain symmetry in that confrontation – a year after Harper successfully saved his government by suspending Parliament, MPs are pushing back in an effort to re-establish the principle that elected representatives, not the executive, are supreme. Important, complex and perhaps headed for the Supreme Court, that struggle also marks the transition of a controversy about the treatment of prisoners into a much more politically fraught debate over the shattered Conservative election promise to be open, transparent and accountable.

What began as a military effort to manage an inconvenience is now a priority problem for Conservatives trying to control inconvenient truths.

More from our Canadian soldiers, who are doing an incredible job. I salute them.

But it is still a war. And we need to bring our soldiers home.