Afghan Detainee Mega Thread

[Edward Campbell]

Here, reproduced under the fair Dealing provisions (§29) of the Copyright Act from today’s Globe and Mail, is a cogent analysis of the politics of this situation:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/mackay-may-be-indefensible-but-his-job-is-safe/article1395273/

MacKay may be indefensible, but his job is safe
Harper would never fire his minister over the treatment of Afghan detainees, because it's not a ballot question and never will be

John Ibbitson

Thursday, Dec. 10, 2009

In a different time, over a different issue, with a different minister, a resignation might be in the offing. But in these times, when the issue is Afghanistan, and when the minister is Peter MacKay - not likely.

"Ministerial responsibility" is an anachronistic phrase that used to hold cabinet ministers responsible for whatever goes on in their department. It lost any meaning back in 1991, when then-foreign minister Joe Clark refused to resign over the al Mashat affair, blaming his staff for the arrival of Iraq's former U.S. ambassador as an immigrant, with inside help.

Today, a minister is as responsible as a prime minister says he is. Defence Minister Peter MacKay should never have openly attacked the credibility of a senior public servant, Richard Colvin, who had warned back in 2006 that Afghans captured by Canadian troops were being tortured by Afghan jailors.

The Defence Minister absolutely should not still have his job, after insisting that there was no credible evidence of such torture in 2006, only for evidence to emerge this week so compelling that even Chief of Defence Staff Walter Natynczyk admitted yesterday it proves abuse occurred.

But while Stephen Harper did not explicitly confirm his confidence in Mr. MacKay in the House yesterday, it is somewhere past unlikely that he will ask his Defence Minister to step down. The reasons for this are threefold:

First, Afghan detainees, even innocent ones, are not sympathetic people. And this government's popularity hasn't suffered even though there is compelling evidence that our mission in Afghanistan is a failure - for all the bravery of our troops, there were too few of them to secure their sector from Taliban infiltration, which is why the Americans now plan to flood that sector with their own forces.

Most voters appear to have concluded that the effort was noble, even if the results have been disappointing. Detainee abuse is not, and never will be, a ballot question.

Second, the timing is starting to work in the government's favour. Parliament rises for its Christmas break at the end of the week, and doesn't return until late January. Some convenient votes in the House short-circuited the efforts of a parliamentary committee to grill Mr. MacKay along with Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon. The opposition majority may be able to keep the committee functioning, but the truth is the holiday season and the January break are the government's best friends right now.

Third, and most important, Peter MacKay is a partner in the Conservative coalition. Don't forget that this government is in office only because Mr. MacKay agreed to merge his Progressive Conservatives with Mr. Harper's Canadian Alliance back in 2003. Firing Mr. MacKay would split the party. And with his deep Atlantic roots, the Conservatives wouldn't have a safe seat in Atlantic Canada if the member for Central Nova were forced out of cabinet.

So unless something new and very large comes to light, Mr. MacKay is safe.

A public inquiry is also highly unlikely, despite opposition demands for one. Not only would it prolong a story that the government believes will eventually go away, such an inquiry would vindicate opposition accusations of incompetence and covering up.

The Conservatives might, instead, revive the Military Police Complaints Commission investigation of the charges, which they have previously tried to stymie.

Something has to be done about these charges of abuse. The MPCC is arguably the best forum for investigating them.

This government's best asset is its own cussedness. Liberals want to be seen as virtuous; they want people to think they believe in human rights - even the rights of those who quite possibly tried to kill our own soldiers.

But nobody believes Stephen Harper or Peter MacKay has ever lost an hour's sleep over what might have been going on in Afghan prisons. Anyway, it was three years ago. We fixed it in 2007. Move along.

Objectively, the abuse of Afghan detainees is hugely important. Canadian soldiers and officials might have been complicit in violating the Geneva Conventions. Their political masters were cavalier, at best, or negligent, at worst, in how they handled the matter. Heads should roll.

But politically, this is an issue that doesn't resonate outside Ottawa. The revelations haven't moved the polls. The Liberals are in what is turning into typical disarray. Firing Mr. MacKay is the one thing Mr. Harper could do that would undermine his own party while helping to unify his opponents.

You think Stephen Harper is nuts?

“Something has to be done” ... Yes, indeed! But Ibbitson doesn’t go far enough.

There needs to be some formal, legal answers to the questions:

    1. Why were the provisions for detainee handling and transfer so weak until 2007?

    2. What were the options, from 2002 until 2006? The Americans? NATO? A Canadian “cage?” The Afghans?

    3. Who made these decisions?

    4. Why were detainees handed over to the Afghans, at all? It appears that there was a well founded knowledge, within the Government of Canada, that the Afghans were quite unable
        to exercise their responsibilities under international law?

The issue is much, much deeper than “who knew what and when?” That’s a very local, inside the Queensway, question that means nothing to most Canadians. But Paul Dewar and Ujal Dosanjh have both suggested that ministers and officials and generals are war criminals. If something is not done to put those charges to rest then we may know, for certain, that someone like Amir Attaran or Michael Byers*will try to move the issue to the International Criminal Court on the basis that, under Article 17 of the ICC’s charter (The Rome Statute), Canada has not investigated the matter.

To date, the ICC has done nothing to suggest that it intends to deviate from its legal mandate, but that has not prevented a mob of disparate groups and individuals from using the ICC as a backdrop for political theatre. Threats are continuously made, by these mobs, against countries and leaders. That the threats are groundless and meaningless does not stop the media from trumpeting them and, in the process, blackening names, tarnishing reputations and reducing a country’s global political capital.

I don’t know what level of investigation is sufficient; the ICC will, I guess, be satisfied with almost anything; folks like Attaran, Byers* et al are unlikely to be satisfied with anything except a full blown judicial inquiry into detainees, the entire Afghan mission, Conservative foreign policy and the evil USA.

But: I think Ibbitson has the politics right: this is issue will compel neither MacKay’s resignation nor a judicial inquiry and the timing (Xmas) works in the government’s favour.

But: sooner or later Canada will have to find a way to answer some fundamental questions about how we, any nation, for that matter, prosecutes 21st century wars (à la Afghanistan) within the constraint of 19th century ideals.


---------------
* I have no idea what Profs. Attaran and Byers might do but they have been, publicly, active and vocal on this issue so they provide a useful example of the sorts of qualified, credible people who might want to use tools like the ICC to advance their views.

 

[Rifleman62]

ERC

I enjoyed reading your points to the G & M column.

Anyway we know from what soapbox Ibbitson will be writing from (and the rest of the media in Canada):

"A public inquiry is also highly unlikely, despite opposition demands for one. Not only would it prolong a story that the government believes will eventually go away, such an inquiry would vindicate opposition accusations of incompetence and covering up".

Ibbitson, knows everything. Instead of an inquiry, he and his highly experienced, intelligent, insightful elk should just tells us the results of their knowledge. Oh wait they are. Maybe they should govern Canada. No more election costs.

 

[Edward Campbell]

ERC

I enjoyed reading your points to the G & M column.

Anyway we know from what soapbox Ibbitson will be writing from (and the rest of the media in Canada):

"A public inquiry is also highly unlikely, despite opposition demands for one. Not only would it prolong a story that the government believes will eventually go away, such an inquiry would vindicate opposition accusations of incompetence and covering up".

Ibbitson, knows everything. Instead of an inquiry, he and his highly experienced, intelligent, insightful elk should just tells us the results of their knowledge. Oh wait they are. Maybe they should govern Canada. No more election costs.

Actually, a properly mandated inquiry would look back at everything from 2001 until the present - to the grave discomfort of the Liberal Party of Canada who:

1. Sent us to Afghanistan and, specifically, into combat in Kandahar; and

2. Were the government of the day when -

a. the decisions to transfer Afghan detainees to the Afghan government was made (rather than transfer them to the US or to build a Canadian facility), and

b. the (inadequate) 2006 agreement was signed.

The current government can and should argue, with considerable merit, that Canada was dumped into the shit by a series of incompetent Liberal administrations that were careless, even cavalier about our international requirements and agreement (Kyoto anyone?) and the Conservatives (too slowly, to be sure) identified and, eventually, corrected the major problem.

 

[Rifleman62]

So why does the media in Canada think that history started with the election of the CPC? Why do they not state facts as you presented?
Why? We all know why. What I find interesting is reading some of the comments to various media items made by our fellow citizens. I read as many as I can stomach. I hope the LPC has an army of idiots who write (flood) comments to every media column. If not......

 

[Edward Campbell]

...
The issue is much, much deeper than “who knew what and when?” That’s a very local, inside the Queensway, question that means nothing to most Canadians. But Paul Dewar and Ujal Dosanjh have both suggested that ministers and officials and generals are war criminals. If something is not done to put those charges to rest then we may know, for certain, that someone like Amir Attaran or Michael Byers*will try to move the issue to the International Criminal Court on the basis that, under Article 17 of the ICC’s charter (The Rome Statute), Canada has not investigated the matter.

To date, the ICC has done nothing to suggest that it intends to deviate from its legal mandate, but that has not prevented a mob of disparate groups and individuals from using the ICC as a backdrop for political theatre. Threats are continuously made, by these mobs, against countries and leaders. That the threats are groundless and meaningless does not stop the media from trumpeting them and, in the process, blackening names, tarnishing reputations and reducing a country’s global political capital.

I don’t know what level of investigation is sufficient; the ICC will, I guess, be satisfied with almost anything; folks like Attaran, Byers* et al are unlikely to be satisfied with anything except a full blown judicial inquiry into detainees, the entire Afghan mission, Conservative foreign policy and the evil USA.

But: I think Ibbitson has the politics right: this is issue will compel neither MacKay’s resignation nor a judicial inquiry and the timing (Xmas) works in the government’s favour.

But: sooner or later Canada will have to find a way to answer some fundamental questions about how we, any nation, for that matter, prosecutes 21st century wars (à la Afghanistan) within the constraint of 19th century ideals.


---------------
* I have no idea what Profs. Attaran and Byers might do but they have been, publicly, active and vocal on this issue so they provide a useful example of the sorts of qualified, credible people who might want to use tools like the ICC to advance their views.

Here, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions (§29) of the Copyright Act from today’s National Post, is an example of why something needs to be done to defuse the “war crimes” allegations:

http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=2324790

Knowledge of torture abets war crime, professor says

Allison Cross, Canwest News Service

Thursday, December 10, 2009

OTTAWA - There is significant evidence to indicate the Canadian government knew in 2006 that Afghan detainees were being tortured and abused, says a Canadian professor of international law, who adds if detainees were handed over to Afghan forces, that would likely constitute a war crime.

"The law is clear. Where there are substantial grounds for the risk of torture ... there is an absolute obligation to stop that transfer," said Errol Mendes, of the University of Ottawa, yesterday. "[The law] doesn't say, as [Defence Minister] Peter MacKay keeps on saying in Parliament, that you have to have proven allegations."

The international law indicates there need only be substantial grounds for the risk of torture, he said.

The law in question is aiding and abetting a war crime, which is outlined in the Geneva Conventions, and has also been incorporated into the Criminal Code of Canada.

General Walter Natynczyk yesterday said that Canadians troops did take an Afghan detainee into custody before the man was turned over to local authorities. The detainee was beaten and eventually rescued by Canadian troops.

"If there is knowledge or foreseeability that by handing someone over, that person is going to be subject to torture or inhumane treatment, then that could likely constitute aiding and abetting a war crime," said Payam Akhavan, a McGill University law professor.

Professors Mendes and Akhavan are not fruitcakes – not, at least, as far as I know. But both are suggesting, pretty explicitly, that war crimes were committed and that Canadians, in Afghanistan and in Ottawa, were complicit.

Thus, somehow, the government must investigate - if only to allow people like Generals Michel Gauthier and David Fraser can clear their names.

There must be no question that the Geneva Conventions exist and that we are bound by them. But George W Bush recognized the problem of applying the Geneva Conventions to modern unconventional war – even if his conclusions were inherently flawed. We must recognize the difficulty, too. We must find ways to make fighting and winning and obeying the law possible in places like Afghanistan (or worse than Afghanistan (as Africa will be)).

 

[Bruce Monkhouse]

So I guess I am to assume the first thing that we should have expected "over there" to move into the 21st century was prisons??
I thought we all understood things take time but now, AFTER THE FACT, we are looking for scrapegoats?


I think we should be using this as a measure of success ie., "four years ago the conditions prisoners could expect from the local forces was abysmal, but with our continuing help and foresight........"

 

[Edward Campbell]

...
I think we should be using this as a measure of success ie., "four years ago the conditions prisoners could expect from the local forces was abysmal, but with our continuing help and foresight........"

Indeed we should, but some will argue, with legal merit, that: since we are signatories of the Geneva Convention; and since the Convention must apply everywhere, all the time, or it will be useless when we want it used to protect our people; and that since we knew (in 2002 and 2005/06) that the Afghans were incapable of detaining people according to the standards we know are applicable; then "we" - the government and, especially, the military, had a duty to do something "better" than we did.

 

[Bruce Monkhouse]

Even though I know you are correct I do believe sometimes all we can do is all we can do............and then try and make it better.

 

[The Bread Guy]

E.R., as usual, well summed up...

In have to admit I'm still wrestling with this one, but it appears to be somewhat similar to the alleged sexual abuse of children discussed at passionate length elsewhere here:

• With so many things to fix, what do we fix first?
• WE'RE not the biggest thing needing fixing in the situation, but we don't have direct control over what does.
• Given that, even if we can't do EVERYTHING needed to fix the problem, we have to do SOMETHING in order to stand for what we stand for.
• Doing SOMETHING is far from a perfect and complete solution, though, so not everyone's going to be satisified in the end.
• Since MSM/opposition politicians/anti-military groups tend to focus on the sizzle than the meat, expect focus on the fact that it's not a complete answer, not on the fact that it's all we can really do.

 

[Edward Campbell]

I addressed part of this, via PM, with another member and I’ll repeat some of what I said (with a few edits) here, in public. I trust my correspondent will not mind.
--------------------
Sometime between 2001 and 2006 "we" (whoever "we" was, then – and there were several ‘thens’) decided that it would be best, maybe just least worst, to hand "detained" Afghans over to the Afghan authorities on the (sensible) grounds that it's their war and we are there to help, only.

As I see it, there is a case, maybe not a very good one, that Afghan insurgents are not covered by the Geneva Conventions - but I doubt anyone will try to argue that.

Given that they are covered, as civilians, we had options:

1. 'Catch and release' - not militarily sound;

2. Detain them in a NATO managed "cage" - the best idea, except that none existed, none exists now and NATO appears disinterested in the subject;

3. Hand them over to the US, who have a "cage" at Bagrham (sp?) - but in 2005/06, in the wake of abu  Ghraib (sp?), our cabinet did not want to do that because of bad political optics and real concerns about whether or not the US was acting in accordance with the Geneva Conventions;

4. Build a Canadian POW cage/camp in Kandahar and maybe even a camp in Canada - that was (still is, I think) a practical impossibility; or

5. Hand them over to the Afghans - despite the fact that we must have understood that the Afghans had no capability, even if they had the inclination, to run a prison system to our standards.

So, I reiterate, we picked the least worst choice and now we have a problem.
--------------------


Again, this is a problem of 21st century warfare being conducted against a backdrop of 19th century morality. The mechanization or industrialization of war, seen especially harshly in the US Civil War and then in the Boer War, prompted men and women of ‘goodwill’ to demand that war return to a more ‘civilized’ mode – when uniformed soldiers fought well away from towns and civilians. The lessons of the Boer War were fresh and real: the Boers on commando, like the Mahdi’s Army (Khartoum, 1885), eschewed most of the trappings of conventional military operations but they were, clearly, an organized, military force conducting operations against conventional military forces. But unconventional operations were not the exclusive province of ‘others’ – consider T.E. Lawrence’s Arab forces and the SOE in Yugoslavia and France. (SAS and the like are not good examples: they were, and are, normally, uniformed and are, often, engaged against an identifiable enemy.) But modern armies, especially their special forces, countering insurgencies, often fight for the loyalty (hearts and minds) of the people – as Templer et al suggested. We take 'war' to the people; as Gen (ret'd) Sir Rupert Smith suggested (in The Utility of Force, London, 2005) we make "war amongst the people." But: we (Canada) have agreed that all this must be done while adhering to the Geneva Conventions.

It’s called squaring the circle and, as in mathematics, it might be impossible because one is trying to do something rational with tools that are, essentially, transcendental – related to e.g. ‘virtue.’

If you think Afghanistan is bad, wait until we start to operate, and e.g. take prisoners detainees, in Africa. That will be a nightmare.

 

[Edward Campbell]

Here, reproduced under the Fair Dealing  provisions (§29) of the Copyright Act from today’s Globe and Mail is a very slightly off topic aspect of the detainee imbroglio:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/mps-join-forces-to-order-release-of-afghan-records/article1396446/

MPs join forces to order release of Afghan records
Rare motion orders Tories to release confidential documents on detainees, a scenario that could call rights of Parliament into question

Steven Chase and John Ibbitson

Ottawa
Friday, Dec. 11, 2009

Opposition parties have set the stage for a confrontation pitting the rights of Parliament against national security concerns by forcing through an extremely rare Commons motion ordering the Harper government to release confidential records on detainees captured in Afghanistan.
The Liberals, NDP and Bloc Québécois, which together outnumber the Harper Conservatives in Parliament, passed a motion by a 145-143 vote that seeks to compel the release of thousands of uncensored documents on Afghan prisoners.

If the Conservatives ignore the order, as expected, opposition parties could vote to find the government in contempt, sparking a battle that might result in the courts being asked to weigh the limits of parliamentary privilege.

Ministers or other MPs found in contempt could be admonished and embarrassed by being compelled to appear before the Bar of the House – the floor of the Commons – to face a grilling from MPs.

But this House order-to-produce is a rarely used power and one that is in potential conflict with laws – such as those concerning privacy and national security – that Parliament itself has passed.

The Commons adjourned Thursday night and the debate will continue outside the House until it reconvenes in January.

The Tories have been on the hot seat since Nov. 18, when diplomat Richard Colvin alleged that likely all detainees captured by Canadian soldiers were tortured after being transferred to Afghan hands in 2006 and early 2007. But the Conservatives have resisted all demands to release uncensored copies of the documents on detainees.

However, the opposition is now emboldened after stunning military revelations on Wednesday that a Canadian-captured detainee was abused in June, 2006, after being handed over to the Afghans – contrary to Tory government assurances that there was no evidence prisoners were tortured.
The Harper government responded to Mr. Colvin's testimony with a series of attacks on his credibility, an onslaught that this week brought a letter of protest from former ambassadors against the diplomat's treatment.

On Thursday, the number of former ambassadors putting their names to the letter climbed to 95. The open letter castigates Ottawa for dismissing Mr. Colvin's 2006 and 2007 torture warnings as irrelevant and suspect – a move ex-ambassadors fear casts a chill over the foreign service's ability to report frankly from abroad.

“I have never seen foreign-service officers come together like this before in my life,” ex-ambassador Gar Pardy, an organizer, said of the effort.

The list, now approaching 30 per cent of all retired Canadian ambassadors, in the last day signed up ex-heads of mission such as former Liberal cabinet minister Allan Rock and James Bartleman, who once served as Ontario's lieutenant-governor.

During a debate on the opposition motion to produce documents, Defence Minister Peter MacKay warned divulging confidential records would jeopardize Canada's troops by revealing things that “could be helpful to the enemy.”

But Liberal MP Ujjal Dosanjh said opposition parties are prepared to take steps to safeguard the documents and protect the information.

“The government can't act like a dictatorship where Parliament is not supreme any more,” the Liberal MP said.

The motion the opposition parties passed says they are relying on what they call the “undisputed privileges of Parliament under Canada's constitution, including the absolute power to require the government to produce uncensored documents when requested.”

Ned Franks, a constitutional expert and professor emeritus at Queen's University, warned that Parliament might lose out if the dispute ever reaches the courts because judges could rule that MPs have to respect secrecy laws. He said he'd like to see “one side or the other back down” instead of the Tories being forced into a corner.

“My guess is the government will say no and then you get into something that the House of Commons has really tried to avoid for many, many years – that somebody might want to refer this to the courts,” Prof. Franks said. “And then courts would be ruling on parliamentary privilege.”

Bloc Québécois Leader Gilles Duceppe vowed to use Parliament's power to force the government to release records.

“We will push this for as long as it is possible,” he said.

But Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon maintained the government is bound to respect those parts of the Canada Evidence Act that safeguard national security.

“That's the law, and we abide by the law,” he said.

The dispute is reflected in duelling legal opinions between Parliament, whose officers are independent of the government, and the Justice Department, over whether Parliament itself is bound by the statutes – such as the evidence act – that it passes.

The Justice Department is arguing in a letter circulated by the Tories that there are legislated limits to what can be released under privacy and security laws that politicians must respect. But Robert Walsh, Commons law clerk, has countered that MPs in parliamentary committees have the power to read uncensored documents.

Canadian courts traditionally have been wary of wading into disputes over the rights and powers of Parliament. Unless a political resolution can be found, however, they may have no choice.

Separately, the opposition plans to keep the pressure on the Tories by restarting parliamentary hearings on the Colvin affair early in January, far before the House resumes sitting. And a military watchdog agency plans to resume separate hearings into the detainee issue next March. But critics fear that a new chair the Tories plan to appoint for the Military Police Complaints Commission will not be as keen to probe the matter as was the departing head, Peter Tinsley. His tenure ends today and the Tories have declined to extend it.

Now, my understanding – which may be deeply flawed – is that Canadian parliamentarians do not, automatically, get any security clearance just because they are elected. (Can one of our resident lawyers confirm or deny that for me, please?)

(Parenthetically: I suspect the US has some formal mechanism to provide (nearly?) the highest clearances to some (most? all?) legislators. When Canadian MPs are sworn in to the Privy Council, as ministers, they do have clearances for some information. Hasty security clearances are done at the behest of the PCO. Note: I am pretty nearly absolutely certain that, here in Canada, the highest security ‘clearances’ (there are levels above Top Secret) are rarely shared by more than a tiny handful of people and never with politicians or senior bureaucrats who never have a “need to know.” I will guarantee that a few decades ago it was normal for the CDS (and most admirals and generals) to have no ‘need to know’ about great masses of very, very highly classified stuff. I am pretty sure they were 99.99% disinterested, too.)

But this is important because parliament has enacted laws about security – some with pretty stiff penalties. Now parliamentarians demand that the government disobey parliament’s own laws. What fun.

I hope, in a slightly perverse way, that the Conservatives ‘surrender’ and provide the uncensored documents because then one of two things could happen:

1. The senior officials or military officer who actually sends the documents can be afrrested and charged with a very serious offence – releasing classified information to people who are not allowed to receive it. The resulting court case would, eventually, I think, tell parliamentarians that being elected still makes them nobodies – unless they are ministers; or

2. I am absolutely certain, Ujal Dosanjh will be proved wrong – someone, maybe a Bloquiste, maybe a Liberal, maybe a Dipper – they are all equally irresponsible – will leak the documents and Canada’s national security and global trustworthiness will be badly damaged and once again the inherent worthlessness of parliamentarians will be proven. It may then be possible to try some (several) parliamentarians with some pretty serious crimes and, once again, let the courts deal with a key issue.

In either case the rules governing parliamentary privilege will be clarified.

 

[Edward Campbell]

...
I am absolutely certain, Ujal Dosanjh will be proved wrong – someone, maybe a Bloquiste, maybe a Liberal, maybe a Dipper – they are all equally irresponsible – will leak the documents and Canada’s national security and global trustworthiness will be badly damaged and once again the inherent worthlessness of parliamentarians will be proven. It may then be possible to try some (several) parliamentarians with some pretty serious crimes and, once again, let the courts deal with a key issue.
...

As a follow up: just a few minutes ago, on CBC Radio's The Current stand-in host Linden MacIntyre said to Conservative MP Laurie Hawn (Parliamentary Secretary to the MND) something like "the opposition wants the uncensored documents so we can all see what happened." The media knows, with absolute certainty that whatever is given, in confidence, to parliamentarians WILL be leaked to the media.

 

[Old Sweat]

Edward

It is in the nature of the beast to leak information, no matter how highly classified, and the media will see nothing wrong in publishing it. Certainly it is not an exclusively Canadian trait, even if our MPs and journalists have even less sense of the implications than just about anybody else on the planet.

A few months back I was watching CNN and Wolf Blitzer was arguing with interviewing a senior Pentagon official. At one point Blitzer said words to the effect, we can't understand how you reached that conclusion, we have all the information you do. The reply was simply, "No, you don't."

 

[MarkOttawa]

Letter of mine in the Globe and Mail today (no idea how they go the title):

Oh-oh, it's about trust
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/letters-to-the-editor/oh-oh-its-about-trust/article1396617/

The Conservative government is being criticized mercilessly for not realizing in 2006 that detainees faced a risk of torture when transferred to Afghan authorities.

But surely the Liberal government that authorized the signing of the detainee transfer agreement in December, 2005, with the Afghan government must equally have known of that risk. It is highlighted in the U.S. State Department 2004 and 2003 reports on human rights in Afghanistan (the latest available in 2005), and in a similar 2004 report by Human Rights Watch. Why aren't the Liberals being asked what they knew and when they knew it?

Mark Collins
Ottawa

Related Torch post, with links to the documents:

Afghan detainees: Surely the Liberals showed contempt for international law...
http://toyoufromfailinghands.blogspot.com/2009/12/afghan-detainees-surely-liberals-showed.html

Mark
Ottawa

 

[Edward Campbell]

I wish the communications people in the party offices of the Conservatives, Liberals and New Democrats would all read Christie Blatchford’s latest column, which is reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions (§29) of the Copyright Act from today’s Globe and Mail, because I think her views are in the Canadian national mainstream:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/our-soldiers-could-teach-mps-a-thing-or-two-about-duty-and-honour/article1398233/

Our soldiers could teach MPs a thing or two about duty and honour

CHRISTIE BLATCHFORD

Saturday, Dec. 12, 2009

cblatchford@globeandmail.com

I am not one of those smart Ottawa reporters who, having suffered through too many Question Periods, know what constitutes torture better than anyone else. Nor am I a mandarin, politician or aide, all of whom have endured the same, plus the practice of jackal journalism, which is what the modern game has become.

So perhaps, when such good people raise their voices, as they did this week, and cry "Torture! Cover-up! Bombshell!", I should simply defer to their greater collective wisdom and yield the floor.

Alas, I am constitutionally unable. Also, for the most part, I think they're blowing smoke out their bums. Besides, since Parliament has now ordered the government to produce thousands of uncensored documents on Afghan detainees, it seems clear that whether officially or through leaks, many of these documents over the coming weeks and months will one way or another be making a public appearance.

I confess my biases right now.

I spent a good part of 2006 in Kandahar - three tours of between four to six weeks each in about 10 months, with another tour in '07 - as an embedded reporter, which means I travelled with Canadian troops. I counted on them to keep my ass safe, and they did. I liked them hugely. The experience was one of the most significant of my life (if not on a par with the drama of being, say, in a budget lockup) and I treasure every minute of it. I made some lifelong friends, and I love some of these men.

In all that time, I never saw Canadian soldiers behave less than honourably. I saw them treat with kindness a wounded Taliban soldier, and a dead one with respect. I might have seen them detain some Taliban too, but that particular day, I was sitting, too scared to move, inside a light armoured vehicle, left witless by the fighting the night before.

I hold no particular brief for the Stephen Harper government, or any of its ministers, or the institution that is the military. I think they have all handled the detainee file clumsily, and that what they needed to say, ages ago, was that the detainee agreement wasn't very good to start with, and that they muddled along for the first year, finally fixing it in 2007.

If they wanted to be partisan about it - and Mr. Harper's government is said by its critics to be fiercely partisan about everything - they could have pointed out that the agreement was the result of the great wide streak of anti-Americanism that ran through the Jean Chrétien government circa 2005, when detainee policy was first fixed.

Canada should have agreed to hand over prisoners to the Americans, where they could have been ably monitored by embedded Canadian Military Police; such arrangements are common among allies.

Instead, to avoid that hideous spectacle, the government of the day opted for handing over prisoners to the barely functional institutions of a country that had been pulverized during decades of war and whose culture is demonstrably punitive, physical and primitive. It made no sense then, and not much more now.

All of which is to say, perhaps the coming release of documents, whether by trickle or flood, will reveal government or high-level military duplicity. I haven't a clue.

My faith begins and ends with the Canadian soldier and goes as far up the chain as his commanding officer, with a couple of generals, whom I have come to know a little, above them thrown in for good measure.

With that in mind, I offer the following observations.

The first is that the hysteria of this week to the contrary, there is still no evidence that any prisoners taken by Canadian soldiers and handed over to Afghan authorities were tortured.

What there is, after General Walt Natynczyk's clarification late this week - this was the "bombshell," though I prefer the French as per the Liberal Party's news release, "La bombe lancée par Natynczyk" - is one case of an Afghan who was sort of and only briefly in Canadian custody, handed over to Afghan authorities, and then rescued by Canadian soldiers, though not from torture.

What happened, I have been told by an army source, is this.

On June 14, 2006, a Canadian Military Police officer who was working with the Afghan National Police was on the scene when the ANP stopped a van leaving a battle. The ANP said one of the three men inside was definitely a Taliban. The MP photographed the man and wrote his name down, but agreed to let him travel with the ANP back to Patrol Base Wilson. It was a 15-minute trip. Back at the base, the MP dutifully checked on the fellow and found the ANP beating him with their shoes. The MP then took the man back and made him an official detainee.

The event was reported, but was considered by everyone to be a minor, low-level battlefield incident. The ANP unit in question had had one of their own killed just the day before. This is not to justify what they did to the fellow, but torture, to my mind, it was not.

So that's one thing.

Secondly, the MP didn't photograph the man purely to show he was in good condition when he got into the ANP truck. Canadians were routinely photographing every prisoner they detained, in part because most Afghans don't carry identification and sometimes have only one given name, but also so that international monitors, such as the International Committee of the Red Cross, had solid evidence of who was who.

Thirdly, it would be helpful if politicians on all sides of the House remembered to make the distinction between the conduct of Canadian soldiers - who by every account behaved exactly as Canadians would want them to behave - and the detainee issue.

The Conservatives can't deflect every question by pointing to the yellow support-the-troops pins on their lapels; they have no patent on patriotism. If I were a member of that government, I'd release every document I could, protecting only names and information that must be protected.

But neither can Opposition members casually toss around words like torture and phrases like complicity in torture and expect to be simultaneously seen as defenders of the troops: After all who, if not the Canadian Forces, would have been complicit in the torture they allege?

Finally, I remind everyone who wants to comment upon all of this to be aware that what they are doing is parsing, reviewing and assigning nuance to decisions that were made on the battlefield, in the warmth and sometimes the heat of battle. I have every confidence in those decisions, and the soldiers who made them, and very little in anyone else.

Let me be clear: I think Blatchford is, intentionally, understating the problem, just as much as e.g. Paul Dewar and Ujal Dosanjh are, also intentionally, overstating it. Dewar and Dosanjh and their colleagues from the BQ are, recklessly, tossing about terms like ‘complicit in torture’ and ‘complicit in war crimes’ – one cannot blame many (most?) Canadians for wondering if there is something ‘wrong.’ Equally damaging – to the ‘truth’ – is the government’s contention that asking fair, albeit partisan, questions = dissing the troops: what arrant nonsense!

I agree with Ibbitson and others that this is not a ballot question but, interestingly the combined opposition parties could find themselves facing an election on the issue because if, as it likely will, the government refuses to provide the unredacted documents Parliament has demanded then Parliament may bring the government – the whole cabinet – to the “bar of parliament” and may then vote on finding the government in contempt of parliament. Such a vote must, I believe, be a vote of confidence and the government should fall on it – if all members of all parties show up to vote. That’s not something the Liberals want right now – an election in which government secrecy and misinformation is an issue is not in the Liberals’ best interests; there is no clear distinction between them and the Conservatives. Additionally the Conservatives will wrap themselves in the flag and so on – an issue on which (most?) Canadians trust them more than they trust the Liberals.

The bad rap the Conservatives are getting, from the media and from Canadians, broadly, if the polls are to be believed, is a self inflicted wound. Conservative communications remain weak and inept. Some, actually many, too many Conservatives eschew the simple, helpful truth when a partisan cheap-shot is available.

But the simple, helpful ‘truth’ no longer matters very much – not when people like Generals Michel Gauthier and David Fraser have been, publicly, called liars and, in effect, war criminals. It is too late to ‘tell the truth.’ The media have made up their tiny minds; their only fear is that this easy story, so full of sound and fury, might die during a long Xmas recess and they (journalists) might have to find a new flame of controversy to fan. Too bad.

But, Blatchford misses the main question: how do we prosecute a 21st century war, a war amongst the people, with 19th century rules? Until we start to address that question this issue should matter to us: military folk, bureaucrats, politicians and citizens.

 

[old fart]

Sick of the Detainee Bullshit and the likes of Paul Dewar, Dosanjh etc.

At his last news conference which ended minutes ago Dewar offered, “does anyone in this country not think this is important”....well Dewar and co, I for one don’t.

Colvin just wanted to make a name for himself and this was his issue.  In his defence, it is written he had one maybe six trips outside the wire;  so what to that.  What a joke!  Colvin knows nothing about anything.

Dewar’s latest, Afghans can’t read so they could not have read or used the Al Qaeda tactic of offering to any Westerner after capture a claim that they have been abused.  Is  Dewar et al that naive that these folks can only learn a Tactic if they have seen it in print.  What garbage!

The NDP and others are playing into the hands of the murdering scum, they know this but just don’t care how they make their political hay...

So Dewar, to answer your question “does anyone in this country not think this is important”....Up yours.

As for Colvin, words fail me.....so on that note.  :christmas happy:  It's off to my anger management class.

 

[leroi]

Sick of the Detainee Bullshit and the likes of Paul Dewar, Dosanjh etc.

At his last news conference which ended minutes ago Dewar offered, “does anyone in this country not think this is important”....well Dewar and co, I for one don’t.

Colvin just wanted to make a name for himself and this was his issue.  In his defence, it is written he had one maybe six trips outside the wire;  so what to that.  What a joke!  Colvin knows nothing about anything.

Dewar’s latest, Afghans can’t read so they could not have read or used the Al Qaeda tactic of offering to any Westerner after capture a claim that they have been abused.  Is  Dewar et al that naive that these folks can only learn a Tactic if they have seen it in print.  What garbage!

The NDP and others are playing into the hands of the murdering scum, they know this but just don’t care how they make their political hay...

So Dewar, to answer your question “does anyone in this country not think this is important”....Up yours.

As for Colvin, words fail me.....so on that note.  :christmas happy:  It's off to my anger management class.

:2c:
Can't speak for all Canadians but in my neck of the woods, other than a few activists who'll jump on any 'down-with-Canada-bandwagon' Canadians ARE sick of it and are ignoring it, are dismissing it, as nothing more than a political pie-throwing contest. I talked to someone yesterday commenting on the opposition's stance, saying, "big deal ... Canada found a problem and they fixed it."

Afghanistan is a country where the mere accident of being a woman married to a man practicing sharia law is torture; therefore, Dewar, Colvin et. al. would be more credible opponents if they challenged Harper's pre-mature pull-out plans in light of the true victims in Afghanistan--females, children, education, dams, water, agriculture, SECURITY, females, children, hope.

I don't understand why Colvin's advancing this now--Canadians have already had two years of it--thanks to the G&M. It's getting to be like eating too much turkey--tiresome.

 

[Edward Campbell]

...
I don't understand why Colvin's advancing this now--Canadians have already had two years of it--thanks to the G&M. It's getting to be like eating too much turkey--tiresome.

We need to be really careful with this one. The media, in general, thrive on controversy and when none exists they have to find ways to create it.  There is just enough legitimate news in this issue to play it out for a long time.  It's easier to understand than Copenhagen.

The Globe and Mail, especially, has a dog in this fight: they 'broke' the story and it has been suggested, in the Globe and Mail] that Colvin only got active after the G&M's Graeme Smith told him (and other officials) that the story was coming. This is, very much, the Globe and Mail's story and they want to keep it alive.

 

[The Bread Guy]

We need to be really careful with this one. The media, in general, thrive on controversy and when none exists they have to find ways to create it.  There is just enough legitimate news in this issue to play it out for a long time....

Not to mention the opposition feeding the frenzy for all it's worth as a way to make the Tories look bad, further keeping the fires stoked.

 

[Edward Campbell]

Now we have something with a ring of truth, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions (§29) of the Copyright Act from today’s Globe and Mail:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/the-buck-stopped-nowhere-at-foreign-affairs-on-colvins-warnings/article1404797/

The buck stopped nowhere' at Foreign Affairs on Colvin's warnings
No one was in charge in the early part of the Afghan mission, Canada's biggest overseas commitment since the Korean War

Campbell Clark

Ottawa

Friday, Dec. 18, 2009

As Richard Colvin fired off warnings about the treatment of detainees in Afghanistan in 2006, the diplomat's missives bounced into the computers of Foreign Affairs without ever really landing.
Inside the Department of Foreign Affairs, the biggest Canadian overseas commitment since the Korean War was organized like any other file. Diplomats in Kabul and Kandahar had different supervisors. In separate corners of the department's Sussex Drive headquarters in the Pearson building, the peacekeeping desk would handle one memo, the human rights desk another, defence relations a third.

Mr. Colvin sparked a firestorm at the highest levels in Ottawa when he told a parliamentary committee that he warned for a full year that detainees Canadian troops handed over to Afghan forces faced torture before the government began to monitor them.

But behind that furor is another story: outside the combat-focused military, no one was in charge in the early part of the Afghan mission.

A scattered batch of mid-level officials, lacking the incontrovertible proof that Canadians had no means to find, didn't have the overall responsibility or weight to push for big change.

“The buck stopped nowhere,” said one official involved in the Afghan mission.

In early 2007, the Conservative government charged senior official David Mulroney with bringing together generals, diplomats and aid workers to create a broad Afghanistan strategy.

But the new crew clashed with the old: frustrated Afghanistan hands felt they'd gone from being leaderless to having their views dismissed.

In November, Mr. Colvin told the parliamentary committee that everyone knew, or should have known, Afghan detainees were being tortured. For that he was excoriated by cabinet ministers and generals.

Both sides spoke with the indignant tone of people who were convinced they were telling the truth. Some hinted at dysfunction, but what they didn't fully admit was this: that Mr. Colvin was a voice in the wilderness when no one was in charge, and an irritant once someone was.

From the first plans for the deployment to troubled Kandahar province in 2005, how to deal with detainees was a vexing question.

U.S. allies were tainted by the treatment of detainees in Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison; Canadian generals said the Forces were too stretched to operate their own jail.

So prisoners were transferred to Afghan authorities, quickly, even as the military insisted soldiers were not trained to monitor what happened to them. No one really thought the half-dozen diplomats in Afghanistan could do it. The death of diplomat Glyn Berry in January, 2006, made Foreign Affairs reluctant to send more.

The military treated the few civilians there with disdain. When ambassador David Sproule visited the Kandahar base, he was assigned a corporal's quarters, not a major's. “He was the ambassador for all of Afghanistan except Kandahar,” said one official.

Back in Ottawa, Afghanistan diplomats had no chain of command. The Kabul embassy reported to an Afghanistan desk officer, but the Canadian diplomat in Kandahar reported to a peacekeeping branch; mid-level officials scattered through Foreign Affairs headquarters had charge of issues related to human rights, justice, detainees, or defence relations in Afghanistan and several other countries.

Mr. Colvin's warnings about possible abuses worried some – they knew Afghan justice had a bad reputation – but mid-level officials didn't have the weight to make it a priority with top officials or the military, and responded by tinkering. Several officials insisted in testimony at the committee that Mr. Colvin's warnings, until mid-2007, were never the alarm that would have triggered action: specific, verified evidence that a Canadian-transferred detainee was tortured.

“If they'd seen that, somebody would have reacted,” one official with knowledge of the mission said. But he admitted that since no one monitored detainees, Mr. Colvin couldn't provide it: “It was a chicken and egg thing.”

Not until January, 2007, more than a year after the mission began, was a civilian, Mr. Mulroney, given the power to pull Afghanistan's strands together, and to demand action.

But Mr. Harper's new point man would alienate old Afghanistan hands, and the man who had been acting like a Cassandra for so many months. To Mr. Mulroney, the old school were endlessly harping freelancers who needed discipline and direction; to the veterans, Mr. Mulroney was there to issue orders to put the Harper stamp on Afghanistan strategy, not discuss their views about problems.

“The few people … in Foreign Affairs that had been working on the file up until that point were basically told, there's a new regime in town, and it's going to be top-down. We're not looking so much for advice,” said one person close to the events.

Mr. Mulroney recruited a big new task force, many with no Afghanistan experience, replacing the scattered experts, and had to bring officials from other warring departments together. Mr. Mulroney told the parliamentary committee that officials struggled in March and April of 2007 to plan a monitoring system amid many complex issues. One official insisted Mr. Mulroney listened to Mr. Colvin's warnings, but didn't want “the same memo over and over.”

Mr. Mulroney needed the co-operation of generals, who hated having a diplomat vet their plans. The military had long viewed Mr. Colvin as a nuisance because he persistently pushed different views on issues such as limiting civilian casualties and removing Kandahar's governor, and interrupted during officers' briefings.

“It became easy to discount Richard because he's a pain in the ass,” recalled an official. “David could go to senior military people and say, ‘I understand. People like Colvin, they're part of the old mentality, and I'm going to rein them in.' It threw them an olive branch.”

But at the end of April, 2007, Mr. Harper's government was under fire in Parliament over the treatment of detainees after The Globe and Mail published prisoners' accounts of torture.

Mr. Mulroney issued orders for diplomatic pressure. Mr. Colvin replied that Canada needed a new transfer arrangement with Afghanistan – and Mr. Mulroney curtly told him to follow his orders.

Despite the clash, a new transfer agreement was drafted within days and signed immediately by Afghanistan's government.

But the breach between Mr. Colvin and Mr. Mulroney, between old hand and new regime, was entrenched, although hidden from public view. It would take almost three years before that breach was revealed, still raw, before the Parliamentary committee.

This passes my smell test; the stench of stupidity is all too evident.

Our colleague dapaterson like to remind us that we should ” never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence." My impression of DFAIT in the ‘90s was of a once proud institution stripped of its special status and staffed, too often, with lazy, second raters, there to fill a quota rather than develop and implement the best foreign policy for Canada. Other government departments, including e.g. DND and Industry Canada, had cherry picked authority as they felt necessary – necessary to get their jobs done because they (the other departments) understood that DFAIT wasn’t up to the job.