# Canadians work for change inside Afghanistan's prisons



## GAP (24 Mar 2007)

Canadians work for change inside Afghanistan's prisons
Graham Thomson CanWest News Service; Edmonton Journal Saturday, March 24, 2007
Article Link

SARPOZA PRISON, Afghanistan - To step inside the Kandahar penitentiary that holds Taliban prisoners is to stumble backwards into the Middle Ages.

This is a dark place of open pit fires and heavy stone walls where inmates hang dried meat from hooks and grope their way by candlelight.

If you have ever toured the dungeons of an ancient English castle then you have visited an Afghan prison.

The conditions are appalling and would, at first glance, seem to lend credence to allegations back in Canada that Taliban prisoners suffer abuse at the hands of Afghan authorities.

However, these prisoners are not being singled out for special punishment. This is how prisoners live in Afghanistan whether they staged an ambush against a NATO convoy or knifed someone in a fight.

Next door to the Taliban wing is the section holding the common criminals. The two are identical. Teenage boys live in slightly better conditions in the segregated juvenile section.

Then there is the women's wing which echoes with the heartbreaking sound of children. There are 22 children here, the youngest five months old, incarcerated with their mothers because they have nowhere else to go. This prison doesn't know whether it's medieval or Dickensian.

What's just as shocking to Western sensibilities is learning women are jailed here for simply disobeying their husbands or rejecting an arranged marriage.

It is into this world two guards from Canada's Correctional Service have stepped, hoping to improve life not only for the prisoners but also the prison guards whose living conditions are as dreadful as the inmates'.

This, after all, is a Third World prison.
More on link


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## FastEddy (25 Mar 2007)

GAP said:
			
		

> Canadians work for change inside Afghanistan's prisons
> Graham Thomson CanWest News Service; Edmonton Journal Saturday, March 24, 2007
> Article Link
> 
> ...




I had a 2000 word Rant written !, but just decided to say,    "SO WHAT"


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## Steel Badger (25 Mar 2007)

Are the SME's Line officers....Or COR CAN Managers?


<<Edited for Spelling   SB>>


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## Gardiners1 (25 Mar 2007)

This is how Afghanistan's prisoners lived long before we (meaning the allied troops) got there and long after this is over they will still live this way.  Perhaps the bleeding hearts would prefer Taliban style public executions in the soccer stadium again?


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## westie47 (25 Mar 2007)

They sent a Correctional Supervisor and a Unit Manager. Knowing the CSC as wellas I do, I am sure they sent the very best people for the job :


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## TCBF (25 Mar 2007)

westie47 said:
			
		

> They sent a Correctional Supervisor and a Unit Manager. Knowing the CSC as wellas I do, I am sure they sent the very best people for the job :



- Wait until they try explaining to the Afghan guards, that when a prisoner takes a guard - your friend and comrade - hostage, you can't just shoot the prisoner in the head: you have to stand by and watch him tortured while you negotiate with the prisoner's commitee.

- Watch us lose credibility real fast.  Perhaps they should be teaching us how to run a jail.


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## GAP (25 Mar 2007)

> Perhaps they should be teaching us how to run a jail.



Boy, watch our crime rate drop if that were to happen.....


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## westie47 (25 Mar 2007)

Wait until they try explaining to the Afghan guards, that when a prisoner takes a guard - your friend and comrade - hostage, you can't just shoot the prisoner in the head: you have to stand by and watch him tortured while you negotiate with the prisoner's commitee.

- Watch us lose credibility real fast.  Perhaps they should be teaching us how to run a jail.

Aaahhh, someone who knows what the real story is behind our prison walls. I'm sure they willt rain the Afghans to encourage and assist the inmates......


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## KwaiLo (25 Mar 2007)

I think this is a great thing.  To me it means that someone who knows way more than I do thinks the security situation is well enough at hand to provide this type of service.  It also means that the weakest members of the Afghan population will perhaps get treated as people.


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## geo (25 Mar 2007)

TCBF said:
			
		

> - Wait until they try explaining to the Afghan guards, that when a prisoner takes a guard - your friend and comrade - hostage, you can't just shoot the prisoner in the head: you have to stand by and watch him tortured while you negotiate with the prisoner's commitee.
> 
> - Watch us lose credibility real fast.  Perhaps they should be teaching us how to run a jail.


TCBF
Uhh.... did you read the article ?
your comments would suggest that you have not..............


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## FastEddy (26 Mar 2007)

geo said:
			
		

> TCBF
> Uhh.... did you read the article ?
> your comments would suggest that you have not..............




Ahhhhhhh! Pink "geo" Strikes again.  ;D


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## TCBF (26 Mar 2007)

geo said:
			
		

> TCBF
> Uhh.... did you read the article ?
> your comments would suggest that you have not..............



- My comments suggest I read the article and applied my well deserved reputation for skepticism regarding pinko do-gooder policies and programs.  

- When we won WW2, we got to put the Nazi's in Re-education camps.  Well, we won the cold war - when do we lock up all of the ComSymps who think these things up?

- As I stated before (elsewhere): We didn't tell the Dutch they couldn't abuse the 'collaborators' in 1945, why the panic now over how the Afghans run their jails?

- Bet if this was CUBA, lotta people be shuttin' they's pie-holes...


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## manhole (26 Mar 2007)

Perhaps we should have an exchange program of prisoners........they could send some of their prisoners over here and we could send them....oh, let me see....Clifford Olsen, Allan Legere, and a few others of their ilk.. Let's include some of the "do-gooders" who hang around prisons, and a civil rights lawyer or two and some members of a prisoners committee........maybe they will see how good they have it here in Canada.

End of rant........over


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## geo (26 Mar 2007)

FastEddy said:
			
		

> Ahhhhhhh! Pink "geo" Strikes again.  ;D


Uhhh.... What?
Mind elaborating on your last?

I have very specific ideas of what is wrong & what is right.
I have some very set views on how things should be... and soft is certainly not one of them.
From the article, the Afghans have a certain way of running their prisons.  It isn't how we'd do things (women dissobaying their husbands ?!?!) but, in a feudal kind of society, even the prisonners know their place & stay within their lines.

Conditions are 3rd world standard.... you betcha - Afghanistan IS 3rd world.

I find the article pertinent in that it lets people on the street know that prisons in Cdn terms does not equal prisons in Afghan terms.  If some Afghan have the odd scratch & bump, it isn't necessarily the vilaineous Cdn serviceman's handywork.


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## FastEddy (26 Mar 2007)

geo said:
			
		

> Uhhh.... What?
> Mind elaborating on your last?
> 
> I have very specific ideas of what is wrong & what is right.
> ...




We have all voiced just about the same opinion, oneway or the other." BASICALLY WE COULD'NT CARE LESS" with the exception of the "DO GOODERS".

We all agree CF's should never had been involved with the turning over of Prisoners affair. (so what if the Afghanistan Authorities even Executed them).

As for the "Uhhh.... What?", TCBF answered that quite appropriately.


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## geo (26 Mar 2007)

For Canadians to be in Afghanistan, we have to be do gooders.... all of us

still haven't got a clue about the pink thing though.....


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## TCBF (26 Mar 2007)

Why do we continually set exacting and impossible standards for ourselves?
The POLICY has to be on target - the troops can be expected to have the same pecentage of drug crazed psychopathic pederasts that the general population of Canada has.  No big deal.  You want equality in hiring? That's us!

We do not psych test our recruits DELIBERATELY - it's not just something we forgot to do.  Just ask Clayton Matchee!


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## geo (27 Mar 2007)

TCBF
FWIW, I tought the article was pointing out just that.
Standards of incarceration were, for the most part, decent by 3rd world standards
The could use a few material things - but really didn't need any instruction from us on how to run the jails.

The cultural thing of incarcerating women for having dissobeyed their fathers & / or husbands... it's a cultural thing that we will not be able to modify anytime soon... so it's MYOB.

WRT MCpl Matchee... let's not bring his name into this, the press are hanging around here & the CF has moved forward since then.


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## TCBF (29 Mar 2007)

"Moved forward"?  

Do we now psych test every recruit?


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## geo (29 Mar 2007)

Nope.... but do you remember the guy who "did" Dawson recently..............
Kimver Gill......guess what?


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## TCBF (30 Mar 2007)

Agree.  Trouble is, it's not about the ones you catch, it's about the ones you don't.  Me - I say, we should MMPI-2 every applicant.


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## safeboy43 (30 Mar 2007)

I have never been to A-stan but it is widely known that Middle Eastern countries have always been like this. It's the way it's done there and always will. Iraq was the same under Saddam. If the people didn't do what he wanted, he killed them. Sadly, violence and imprisonment is the only known solution in places like Astan and Iraq. 

Our soldiers are doing a great job of rebuilding the country and establishing a democracy but unfortunately, they have centuries of damage to undo. I'm not so sure we will see places like Afghan prisons closed down on our lifetimes. I certainly hope so.....

Thanks troops  

Twitch


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