According to documents made available to The Globe and Mail, the Strategic Joint Staff, a newly created group that advises Gen. Hillier, has been reviewing all Access to Information requests about detainees since March, shortly after the detainee controversy first erupted.
The Strategic Joint Staff has given strict guidance to National Defence's director of Access to Information, Julie Jansen, on what documents should be withheld. The result is that the flow of documents about detainees has virtually dried up and the department has summarily rejected requests for the same kind of documents it released earlier.
If this doesn't reek of politicking, I don't know what does. Typical of this government, if they can't stand the heat generated by an issue, they try to bury it, stifle discussion of it, etc.
The argument that releasing numbers of detainees and other basic statistical information to Canadians is going to "endanger" the troops doesn't hold water. Even the United States doesn't make such an asinine claim.
Remember, as voters and taxpayers, it's our dollar$ that are financing PMSH's little ego-inflating expedition to Afghanistan. It's also our nation's youth that are being killed by IEDs and other hazards of warfare - and the reasons for our presence are becoming increasingly dubious. Do we not have a right to know just what it is our troops are being ordered to do? Do we not have a right to know what it is our troops are actually doing?
It's time for Hillier to resign and run for public office. If he's going to be a shill for this bunch of bastards in Ottawa, he can damned well be directly accountable to the voters too! (and the sooner we get rid of this bunch of Con$, the better!)
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