And Then There's Reality

As if to further demonstrate the extent of the HarperCon$ lies to Canadians, the following turd falls from the sky and lands on Mackay's shoulder:

Three federal cabinet ministers and a senior government official met the head of the International Red Cross in the fall of 2006 as the humantarian organization tried to focus Canada's attention on alleged abuses in Afghan prisons, The Canadian Press has learned.

Precisely what Jakob Kellenberger told Peter MacKay, Gordon O'Connor, Stockwell Day and Robert Greenhill, then the president of the Canadian International Development Agency, in the Sept. 26, 2006 meetings is blanketed by diplomatic secrecy.

McKay was then Foreign Affairs minister, O'Connor was at Defence and Day was Public Safety minister overseeing Corrections Canada officers in Kandahar.

From my point of view, this is no surprise. Harper and his band of thugs have been so intellectually dishonest since they were elected, no amount of lies is really shocking. However, this Afghanistan prisoner transfer issue is a serious black eye for Canada on the world stage.

Along with Harper's obstructionist approach to the discussions in Copenhagen this past week, it can leave little doubt that under Harper, Canada's credibility as a significant, sincere player on the world stage has been seriously undermined...and it will only get worse the longer Harper is allowed to reside at 24 Sussex Dr.

Replacing Lie #1 With Lie #2

Having been soundly beaten about for lying about prisoner transfers, we now find Harper spewing more BS:

The Prime Minister said the facts have been clear for several years. He said in 2006 the military suspected abuse of an Afghan prisoner and steps were taken to correct it.

This bunch changes their stories more often than their underwear. A few days ago, they were swearing up and down that there was "no credible" evidence to Mr. Colvin's allegations. Yesterday, they had the good General spouting the party line - even when there was evidence to the contrary in the public sphere. Today, Harper's trying to claim that they did the right thing?

I don't know how anybody can possibly believe the lies coming out of this government - lies that are being told at the expense not just of Canadian soldiers, but at the price of Canada's reputation abroad.

Credibility Test

Who are you going to believe? The soldiers that were on the ground and recorded the events at the time they happened, or a General who wasn't anywhere near the scene?

Gen. Walter Natynczyk, Canada's chief of defence staff, told a parliamentary committee on Tuesday that Canadian troops questioned the man who was picked up during operations in Zangabad. But it was the Afghans who took him into custody, Natynczyk said.

"We didn't take this person under custody," he said.

Funny, that's not what the soldiers who were present claim happened:

In one well-documented case in the summer of 2006, Canadian soldiers captured and handed over a detainee who was so severely beaten by Afghan police that the Canadians intervened and took the detainee back. Canadian medics then treated the man's injuries. The incident is documented in the field notes of Canadian troops, recounted in a sworn affidavit by a senior officer and confirmed in cross-examination by a general.

I'll take the troopers on the ground for credible evidence, thank you. Natynczyk wasn't there, so he's working from a politicized, sanitized version of the situation, and was no doubt ordered to make his statements to lend credibility to the crumbling façade of Peter Mackay's lies on this subject.

So, not only is the government lying to Canadians about this situation, they are failing to explain the lack of action when it was clear that there was evidence of Afghan officials mistreating prisoners - regardless of who captured them.

Last Week's Lies Are Inoperative

Remember Harper & Co. swearing up and down that there was absolutely no evidence to support allegations of prisoner abuse?

Not so much.

So ... I wonder what this week's lie will be to cover up last week's that has been disproven?

Dear Mr. Adler: PFO

Charles Adler published a particularly noxious screed in the National Post the other day - presumably at the behest of the knuckle-draggers in the PMO that want to silence critics of the government's handling of of Afghan prisoners.

The fundamentals of Adler's tirade are nothing more than the usual "you don't support the troops" line.

This is incorrect. The issue isn't the troops. It's the orders that they have been given - and those come from command and the politicians. Let's be absolutely clear on that matter. The decisions about the handling of individual detainees happens on the ground, in the context of the moment and the standing orders the troops operate under. The orders they are given come from the command structure, and ultimately are directed substantially by the politicians.

So ... the issue here is the orders that told troops to turn over prisoners to a questionable regime. We already know that Mr. Colvin's e-mails made it to the Department of Foreign Affairs ministerial offices (then occupied by Peter Mackay).

It's apparent that at several points in time the military's command hierarchy put the brakes on those transfers over the course of 2006-2007, but subsequently resumed them.

The politicians involved did nothing to correct the situation - or if they did, it was so slowly as to be meaningless in terms of dealing with the issues.

The issue today is simple - why were our politicians so slow to address the issues of prisoner handling? AND - why are the Conservatives being so obstructive about getting the facts out?

Make no mistake, the war in Afghanistan is a war of occupation. We (NATO forces) are the invaders, and what is happening on the ground there has happened repeatedly in the past - not just the Soviet occupation, but every attempt to control that region over the millenia of recorded history. Canada is paying a high price in 'blood and treasure' to prosecute this war of occupation, and nobody has ever put forward a convincing case that Canada's security is truly benefiting from our presence over there. (Lots of jingoism, no substantive facts)

The issue is not about "supporting the troops" - it's about a government that doesn't understand why we are there in the first place, and has clearly lost its moral compass.

Inquiry Time

With the partisan nonsense that has been bouncing around this week regarding Afghan prisoner/detainee transfers, it's past time to call a public inquiry - one that isn't bounded by arbitrary rules that the HarperCon$ have come up with.

Harper has tried very hard to muzzle, or render ineffectual, the current parliamentary investigation, and I think in this case Amnesty International has it right:

We are, however, shocked, that at least 12 of his reports were not disclosed by the government during the course of Federal Court proceedings in 2007 and 2008, despite the fact that they were obviously of direct relevance to the issues before the Court and were certainly covered by requests for disclosure of documents that had been made by our legal team. Equally troubling has been Richard Colvin’s testimony as to the ways in which he indicates his reports were dismissed and ignored by senior officials. That your government has responded primarily by seeking to discredit and impugn Mr. Colvin’s credibility has been, frankly, wholly unacceptable.
...
In our view, therefore, there is no other option open other than to immediately convene a full, public Commission of Inquiry into all aspects of the laws, policy and practice that has governed Canada’s approach to handling prisoners in Afghanistan. We call on you to do so without delay.

The real issue here is what is the Harper Government trying to cover up? I can think of a few possibilities.