The request for a probe into the treatment of Afghan prisoners comes from Michael Byers, a political science professor at the University of British Columbia, and William Schabas, another Canadian professor who is director of the Irish Centre for Human Rights in Galway.
Byers said he and Schabas sent a letter to the court’s chief prosecutor on Wednesday outlining media reports of “serious allegations of misconduct by Canadian soldiers and Canadian decision-makers in terms of transferring detainees into an apparent risk of torture.”
The Torch has more on the man NDP defense “critic” Dawn Black calls to ask “what she needs to know”;
According to the Canadian news media, Michael Byers is nothing more than a “human rights activist,” a “political science professor,” and an expert on international law. Somehow or other, on a file so politically charged that it has dominated the news columns and airwaves for weeks, so politically dangerous that it threatens to sack the Minister of National Defence, it has been deemed irrelevant by the Canadian journalistic establishment that one of the key instigators of this drama is a declared partisan for one of the parties in opposition to our effort in Afghanistan.
We now know where the she gained her military expertise on huge scary guns.
The real NDP defence critic . . . Dawn is just the sock puppet.
http://quadra-ndp.ca/clarion/Clarion200511digital.pdf
page 2 ” He is a member of the NDP”
‘splains everything . . . .
break out the rose colored glasses.
Thanks for the info. I was listening to Prof. Byers on the Bill Good show on CKNW just last week and thought he sounded somewhat biased. But then I thought it was just because his thoughts were contrary to my own.
I’ve written to Mr. Good, quoting from ‘The Torch’ and providing the link. Hopefully, if he interviews Mr. Byers again, he’ll feel compelled to provide a disclaimer.
Little did I know the e-mail I sent to Charles Adler would result in his ‘smackdown interview’ with NDP defense critic Dawn Black. The Canada wide derision they’ve taken because of it made me feel very, very good.
Original interview here: http://www.cjob.com/shows/adler.aspx?mc=70840
Follow-up Adler Smack Down, here:
http://www.cjob.com/shows/adler.aspx?mc=70905
Thanks for the info. I was listening to Prof. Byers on the Bill Good show on CKNW just last week and thought he sounded somewhat biased. But then I thought it was just because his thoughts were contrary to my own.
I’ve written to Mr. Good, quoting from ‘The Torch’ and providing the link. Hopefully, if he interviews Mr. Byers again, he’ll feel compelled to provide a disclaimer.
Little did I know the e-mail I sent to Charles Adler would result in his ‘smackdown interview’ with NDP defense critic Dawn Black. The Canada wide derision they’ve taken because of it made me feel very, very good.
Original interview here: http://www.cjob.com/shows/adler.aspx?mc=70840
Follow-up Adler Smack Down, here:
http://www.cjob.com/shows/adler.aspx?mc=70905
The far left seem to be in an alternate reality. They just don’t seem to get it.
They want CDA to help Afghans. They want us to rebuild. They want order and a better life for Afghans but they don’t seem to realize that to give it to them we need to prevent the taliban from wrecking it all and that the only way to do this is by force. As in fighting the taliban because the taliban are not willing to stop killing willingly.
I don’t know why the left doesn’t understand the obvious.
he’s a favorite of Bill Good’s . . . Bill is trying to be ‘progressive” these days.
He’s also a regular at the Tyee . . . the sewer of west coast NDP “progressive thought” on-line.
“it has been deemed irrelevant by the Canadian journalistic establishment that one of the key instigators of this drama is a declared partisan for one of the parties in opposition to our effort in Afghanistan.”
Well, seeing as the Canadian journalistic establishment in effectively an annex of one of the opposition parties, this isn’t what you’d call a huge surprise.
Actually, they’re starting ot get it:
http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2007/05/02/hillier-abuse.html
Maybe Libs have overeached again. Have to smear troops to get at Hillier, govt. Public will side with military on this one. Coderre too busy stalking hockey player to have much to say on this of course, Harper et al are liars (actionable?).
Goldstein also nails Lib hypocrisy this – all started on their watch. Election, now; too many rats scurrying around.
The opposition just keeps smashing it’s head. It is not very pretty. Most Canadians respect their military and to openly assume that Canadians are involved in breaches to the Geneva conventions in a time of war, is something that will raise Canadian’s eyebrows.
The more it gets talked about the more “wrong headed” the opposition’s response will seem.
Insulting the honour of Afganistan, insulting the honour of Canada’s military without knowing the whole story is just a bit premature for most Canucks.We don’t like those who go off half cocked.
Everytime the opposition goes off half cocked they create an event that can be brought up time after time they also re-enforce the image of unstable.
Back in Lethbridge, where we both grew up, everybody thought he was pretty arrogant. NO excuse. I’ve got another friend from Lethbridge who has better academic credentials, PHD from Yale, and a law degree from Oxford, a great athelete, but still remains humble.
quadra NDP —thats Dr. Bono Suzukis riding. who needs an MP
quadra NDP —thats Dr. Bono Suzukis riding. who needs an MP
Isn’t this Bters whack job the same commie pud-puller that wanted to have Bush arrested when he entered Canada for “war crimes”.
I see the rabid 5th column still hides its identity and intent in the seemingly sanitizing effect of questionable academic tenure.
Well, if you know someone who is politically neutral, they are probably dead. Whether someone is a declared partisan of a party or not, everyone has political views and the effect is the same.
Yeah Byers is the guy…he tried to get a Canadian court to accept the “information: he filed to have Bush arrested for “war” crimes and he blongs to this crypto-marxist outfit “Lawyers against war”….the write up was in “the Tyee” (do a google).
What’s with Lotusland being a crucable for paleo-communists??
“Well, if you know someone who is politically neutral, they are probably dead. Whether someone is a declared partisan of a party or not, everyone has political views and the effect is the same.”
What in the hell type of wishy washy apologist pap is this? This abstract logic would hold that every one is criminal it’s just a matter of degree….relativist shite!
Byers is an EXREMIST!! and what he effects is NOT the same as someone non partisan like myself who simply wants to be left alone by EXTREMISTS and ACTIVISTS to live my life as I see fit free from obnoxious utopians who want to enslave me in their perfect ant colony society…..like Byers and his degenerate paleo-commie cabal.
Shamrock of course Hillier is telling you they are pissed off
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20070502.wdetainee02/BNStory/Front
Unfortunately they should be pissed off at him for creating this mess. It sounds like the military is controlling the information the soldiers get.
Both Hillier and O’Connor need to go, followed by Day, MacKay and Harper and the rest of the C.R.A.P.
Oh yes Shamrock, are you going to back up your statements this time?
Oh, cripes, alby, substantiate something for once instead of these ridiculous drive-by smears.
Now you’re claiming that the brass is censoring the news the soldiers recieve?!
For once, alby, prove something or shut up. I used to think you just naive, but more and more, I’m realizing you’re dishonest and despicable. (I really came around to this way of thinking when you claimed Canadian soldiers are commiting war crimes, despite providing NO proof nor even any anecdotal evidence.)
Again, I’ll say it: Prove something, or shut the hell up.
Go back to class, get an education, and then smack yourself for wasting it.
Ah, the smell of the brain dead in the morning. albatros39a in all your glory.
Perhaps Robert at mybalhg would be a better venue for you. I must also say you have a distinctive writing ability that would get better coverage and approval from Kevin Potvin at The Republic of East Vancouver. I am certain there is a job resume on his site for you to fill out.
http://www.republic-news.org/
albatros39a thanks for dropping by and have fun with your new friends.
Any possible future Conservative majority has evaporated. Day, O’Connor and Harper have screwed themselves on the Afghan prisoner issue.
Yukon Gold do you have any idea how brainwashed the army is?
Attack the argument not the person.
Good on them, I’d much rather things like this kick off at the instigation of private citizens than politicians.
“Globe guns for Gen. Hillier”
http://toyoufromfailinghands.blogspot.com/2007/05/globe-guns-for-gen-hillier.html
Mark
Ottawa
At thse risk of offending all the “tolerant progressives”, there are days when despite the LOVE of my country, I don’t like my country. Today is one of those days.As a parent, I fully understand the difference.
Today we have Hockey Canada being called upon the carpet because they had the audacity to name an Anglophone who allegedley slighted a Francophone. At the same time Hiller is accused of using the Stanley Cup as a prop to distract from the prisoner abuse “scandal”.
All I can say is WTF. We have soldiers laying their life on the line everyday on the instructions of their political masters(both Liberal and Conservative) who are allowed a brief respite by playing a game of hockey for the greatest trophy in sports and the best our politicians can come up with is Shane Doan may or may not have 17 months ago offended some Francophones.
My middle daughter has to debate current events in her Grade 12 social studies class as part of her final mark. She asked for a relevant topic, here I was trying to come up with something of significance only to read that our “Leaders” and elected represntatives have nothing better to do than take Hockey Canada to task. Give a ******** break.
That an the “obejctive” opinion of a polisci. professor from UBC telling us all what is going wrong from the comforts of his armchair ( as are all of us).
albatross “Yukon Gold do you have any idea how brainwashed the army is?”
I’ll have to call bullshit on that. Back when I last lived with Toronto I lived with a reservist and I went on hiking trips with a lot of army folks who I still keep in touch with.
There are a few “jarhead” outfits but a lot of them are highly educated, intelligent people. The members of the Canadian armed forces have the highest percentage of degree holders of any in the world (or it used to).
There’s no shortage of idiots in the forces but a lot of smart folk to, as you would find in any other walk of life.
They deserve respect and love but shouldn’t be mythologized either (which is what most SDAers do).
don’t take prisoners.
albatros39a have you ever served in the Canadian Armed Forces or any forces, from any country? If so please give us your wisdom about your “Brain washing” and how it effects the members of the Canadian Armed Forces now.
Please tell me how your extensive lectures on prisoner treatment, following the Geneva Conventions and disobeying an unlawful order differed from the one’s I learned and lectured to my trooper’s in the Canadian Forces? Prey tell, we are all ears.
Please no smoke, there is already to much of it being blown around by the NDP/Liberals.
And there we have it.
Alby, I know exactly how brainwashed the Canadian Forces are: Percentage-wise, it’d put it somewhere at, oh zero. Zero is a percent, right?
I’ve never served, but I work on the same airfield as pilots, air crews, ground crews, support crews, leadership and others. I also have a brother-in-law who served with the PPCLI in Af’stan in 2002. I also have a friend who is former PPCLI in the 80’s, and a pal who was RAF in the 80’s as well.
Your classification of the troops is crap, alby. Venture outside your sheltered world of placard-wavers and hand-wringers for once.
By Oct 2009 everyone will have forgotten the detainee bs the libs are putting out there. And, did anyone catch Neman on Politics today, discussing the financial problems the liberals have and will continue to have to fight an election. In the next 2 yrs the conservatives can put out many ads whenever they feel the need. Also it was stated that there are still some organizers of other leadership hopefuls who know the next election will be their last kick at the cat, so might not be too excited about working for dion. They want to win, just not the PMship.
I couldn’t believe the cbc did this topic. But, with only 4500 donors compared to 45,000 things are bad in watermelon land.
Will dion vote on sunday.
One thing the MSM and the leftards haven’t clued into yet.. is that despite all of the teeth-gnashing and hand-wringing the lib’s, dip’s and “journalists” are doing about those poor taliban prisoners, the majority of the canadian public doesn’t really give a flying f*ck about how taliban prisoners are treated.
Simple as that
Brainwashed Military!!
A myth of the simple minded who formed their opinions by watching reruns of *MASH*.
Thanks YG and Glen for smackin’ these libcomsimp bozos. Not that it will repair their defective cognition.
FYI – I’ve been a member of reserves Royal Highland Fusiliers. Our Commander was one of the most intelligent gentlemen ever met! Happened to be an outstanding highschool teacher as well.
My Brother – Royal Canadian Navy
Brother in law – same
Dozens of friends current and past military all intelligent and articulate. All discerning and thoughtful. Come in all political stripes and NONE of them would every say anything as outright stupid as some of our politicians have been doing.
Let alone know nothing blog posters who’s only interaction with society is through a keyboard and monitor in the safety of their (parent’s ?) basements.
As for this tool Byers … What kind of fool thinks that these ridiculous legal actions are to be taken seriously?
Pure MOONBATERY!
Alby, when are you going to demand war criminal charges for Paul Martin, Coderre and Bill Graham? That’s where your factoids are should be taking you.
Your so-called arguments are so easy to refute. Let’s not forget your earler Stockwell Day is a criminal argument (right, RCMP is Tory prop). All the while you back the most incompetent and corrupt administration in the history of this country – over a decade of the Lib maladministration.
When you actually back allegations with credible evidence, not some idiot who wanted to arrest George Bush as a war criminal, maybe somebody will listen to you.
It’s rich to hear you call Tories bobbleheds, as you you nod away to “war criminal” chants of left-wing wackos like Michael Byers, Noam Chomsky and Georges Monbiot.
Scandal? Election issue? Works for me. Good luck with that.
Instead of Canadian troops being in Afghanistan busily creating more Taliban, Michael Byers thinks they should be in Darfur. He writes (on center for policy alternatives site):
“Darfur is another place where Canadian peacekeepers could gainfully be deployed. Since 2003, more than 200,000 people there have been killed, countless women have been raped, and millions of people have been driven from their homes. The agents of this destruction—the Janjaweed (who ride camels and horses) and the Sudanese military (which pushes crude barrel-bombs out of the back of cargo planes)—would be no match for a well-trained, well-equipped Western military force.”
http://policyalternatives.ca/MonitorIssues/2007/02/MonitorIssue1595/
I’m confused Michael; we’re being far too aggressive in Afghanistan, but you expect us to just waltz into the south of Sudan protected by blue helmets and without the huge scary guns that have no place in peacekeeping and scold the camel riding bandits and shame them into going home instead of looting and raping.
No mention of minor matters like the Sudanese government may not like it’s territory being violated and would consider this an invasion and respond appropriately. The Sudanese government is probably quite happy to put on the act that it is powerless to do anything in Darfur as the more people that die there, the less of a problem they have in the future.
So we have a prof who thinks Bush is a war criminal for invading Iraq, but is proposing to invade Sudan (that’s the only way that one is going to get troops to Darfur) and that requires the US military as we don’t have the military manpower or transport capability to even consider such a mission. The US happens to be a little busy in Iraq dealing with the fallout from another murderous dictator. Invading Sudan would be easy for the US, but maintaining order there would be even more difficult than in Iraq since Sudan is almost 1 million square miles in area.
Puke alert: Here come da judges.
“whether the detainees transferred into Afghan custody are subject to a substantial risk of torture or other forms of cruel, degrading or inhuman treatment,””
Federal Court to weigh in on Afghan detainee affair
[…]
“Amnesty International Canada and the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association are to ask the Federal Court to impose an injunction that would temporarily suspend the transfer of detainees from the Forces to the Afghans until a full-blown trial could determine whether this violates not only the charter, but also Canada’s international treaty obligations under the Geneva Convention.” […]
“In their court filings, the Amnesty and civil liberties associations argue the Forces should build their own detention facility in Afghanistan,” …-
http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/story.html?id=975adc56-3c27-4412-8670-8ea15f879c42&k=41044
“In their court filings, the Amnesty and civil liberties associations argue the Forces should build their own detention facility in Afghanistan,” …-
Oh just flippin great maz2. Guess what? As soon as the first adobe brick is laid, these same leftards/moonbats will be screaming that we are building a torture factory, ala Gitmo, AND using local slave labor to do it! I hope the court punts these a**holes back to the cesspool called B.C….but I ain’t holding my breath.
Ever since the Liberals have been caught onside with the Taliban and were exposed for doing nothing from 2002-2005 and creating the current agreement that critize Harper for having , they now are trying to take the credit for the disaster by saying that Harper is in charge and Hellier had no authority to sign the Agreement.
Sounds like another AdScam to approve something while having no paper trail back to the PM Office when Chretien and Martin were in power.
But , I can tell you for a fact that if I was in the battlefield in WW2 and the NDP and Liberals supported the Nazis Human Rights under the Geneva Convention once I captured them fleeing from a Death-Camp in civilian clothes , I’d exercise the same Rights the Nazis had to execute soldiers in Civilian clothes as Spies under the Geneva Convention that Jack laton and Dawn Black are so worried about upholding.
Canadian troops sent flyers to a Taliban hamlet to warn them to leave or get ready to meet Allah, the hamlet was empty and canada is the only Military there to take a village without one shot being fired or soldier being injured.
But Dawn Black and Taliban Jack want our soldier to kill as many Taliban as they can even if civilains get killed as long as the captured
Taliban have their Geneva Convention Rights protected.
But as a soldier over there I would now start a No-Prisoner policy to avoid War-crimes charges by the NDP and Islamists in canada wanting the Al-Qaeda camps back in Afghanistan or Terrorist shipped to canadian Enternment Camps to make a regfugee claim as the NDP advocates for every Jihadist that gets to canada, I would call in the snipers with night-vision to take them out so they are dead at dawn and the Taliban can’t blame our troops that they never saw .
Plus , isolated cells of taliban in civilians clothes will find a air attack from the sky and no witnesses left to cry to the NDP and Liberals about War-crimes.
Too bad Liberals didn’t care this much when Bill Graham allowed William Sampson to rot in a Saudi prison while Graham told the media he knew Torture was going on but offending the saudis might force them to behead the Christian canadain , all this outrage started in the Jiahdist friendly camps in Ottawa that have ties to the Arar’s and CAIR who is a Sharia law Islamic Org and confessed to ties to Hams and Hezbollah.
I’ve got it! The reason alby knows so much about the Canadian military is because his mommy is NDP Defense Critic Dawn Black … This explains so very much 😉
WTF does the oxymoronically named “BC Civil liberties association” have to do with Afghanistan? This group refused to get involved in the fight against C-68 which represents the most egregious loss of civil liberties in Canadian history yet they claim the Canadian charter applies around the world. You’d think they might be a little more upset over the widespread charter violations that are happening in Darfur, but they just have this thing about Afghanistan. We do have the most potent weed in the world here on the left-coast and this might explain some of the muddled thinking that’s going on here.
My impression was that under the Geneva convention Canadian troops in Afghanistan were under no obligation to take Taliban prisoners. Also, doesn’t the Canadian military have it’s own laws that apply when it is in a war zone?
“albatros39a have you ever served in the Canadian Armed Forces”
Yes Glen I have, 25 years reg force. The air force, navy and support trades are completely different from the combat arms types.
Posted by: Yukon Gold at May 2, 2007 5:49 PM-“I’ve never served, but I work on the same airfield as pilots, air crews, ground crews”
That’s nice Yukon, I was aircrew.
And yes the army brainwashes their people, or they couldn’t get people to do the job that they do.
The US Marines don’t even hide the fact they brainwash their people and they have it down pat right from the time the recruits are driven the causeway onto Paris Island
The army doesn’t want people to think too much, so they have to be programmed to respond on demand. It’s a fact of being army.
What do you think drill is, and why they put so much emphasis on it during training? It’s form of brainwashing that dates back to the Romans?
So the product of the training is someone who will follow and do what the commander tells him without question, all while some other joker is throwing bullets and dropping bombs on them. So of course the troops are going to back the CDS, they all think with one mind. That’s not a slur against the army either; it’s the way they do business.
“So we have a prof who thinks Bush is a war criminal for invading Iraq, but is proposing to invade Sudan”
There’s actually quite a bit of daylight between finding a specific use of military force objectionable and finding *any* use of force objectionable. Your reasoing implodes at that point.
albatross – the fact that you are brainwashed, and I’d agree with that, doesn’t mean that all military are brainwashed. In fact, what you consider a military brainwashing is not, in a clinical sense, even close to brainwashing. Incultating a sense of group loyalty, and an automatic reliance on trained skills, isn’t clinical brainwashing.
I don’t see you as brainwashed within a military ideology, for you don’t support your country or its mode of life.
Instead, your loyalty is to a romanticized utopian dreamworld of communism, which you consider The Answer to almost all of the world’s problems.
You also suggest that the reason for Islamic fascism, is because Afghanistan wasn’t allowed to be communist, because the US helped repel the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. That’s the most ‘far-out’ explanation for Islamic fascism that I’ve ever heard.
So, you have indeed been brainwashed, but within the communist ideology.
Stories like this live on and on and on . . . when the opposition and the media have nothing better to focus on. It’s true, this is not an issue that most Canadians are particularly engaged in. Conservatives have responded appropriately (we’re looking into it) and the whole deal was originally established by the Libs, so it is not even clear to me why Liberals would want to make an issue of this one, as they could get smeared in the backsplash . . . but . . . they appear not to have much else to attack. The rationale they have provided — this is for the safety of our soldiers should they get captured — is not very convincing, given the Libs/NDP’s more typical indifference to our soldiers.
Hmm, Alby has 25 years under his belt? And is a “fourth year university student studying Environmental Earth Sciences and paleoanthropology.
I am a member of Amnesty International, I believe in equal rights and freedoms for all people. I am a committed socialist and a proud athiest.”
Not altogether impossible, but I’m calling not bloody likely.
What did you fly alby, and where?
ET you take a young person who is likely leaving home for the first time in their life and place them in the most alien environment they have ever experienced. You strip them of their identity, their self-esteem and their personality (that hair cut is more than a simple haircut) you yell, belittle and threaten in order to reduce them into submitting into doing anything you throw at them. Then you keep a person under sleep deprivation, constant physical / mental stress and in the most chaotic unnatural environment you can manufacture for three months. That is not a simple indoctrination that’s brainwashing and that is just basic training. The infantry continues the brainwashing after that.
It’s all here Yukon
http://www.geocities.com/albatros39a/Albatross39aPage2.html?1172305340781
You strip them of their identity, their self-esteem and their personality
You must have had a different Basic Training experience than I did. I was always taught that the CF didn’t want to eliminate my individuality, it just wanted to use it in pursuit of a common goal. My self-esteem grew in the CF, I wasn’t stripped of it. My identity and personality? They changed in the CF, absolutely. They also changed when I got married, and when I became a dad. Life experiences, especially intense ones, tend to have that sort of an effect. I like to think my service actually improved me some.
Brainwashed though? Not the soldiers I know, and I know more than a few.
Brainwashing is much too strong a word for basic training. However, the whole point of basic is to take away individuality and replace it to a large degree with conformity. “Individuals” don’t hang around the military for too long.
Guys, there’s no point in debating albatros39a as he just doesn’t get it and probably never will. All the things he views as “brainwashing” are ways of training people to work as a unit and to really learn a particular set of skills.
I’ve never been in the military, but I have gone through internship and residency and I went through sleep deprivation in a very chaotic environment for years. Some of my group went into the military after internship and when I asked them about basic training later, they found it far less intense than internship.
Looking back now at internship I remember it as probably one of the best times in my life even though there were a lot of times where I desperately wanted to be somewhere else. I wondered how I’d be able to go for sleep without days and practice medicine but I learned to sleep anywhere but most often there just wasn’t time for sleep. I can’t think of many places more chaotic than an inner city hospital ER the day that welfare checks come out and it is neat to look back and see the process of being totally overwhelmed at the start to developing a techniques to make order of the chaos and finally feeling totally at home in it. Working with people who have been sleep deprived for weeks for 36 hours straight lets you really know them and their strengths and weaknesses. Having shared the very intense experience of internship bonds people in a way that can’t really be appreciated by someone who hasn’t gone through it. The skills I learned during that time are so deeply embedded that I can do them in my sleep.
This type of training seems to be essential to allow people to function effectively in an environment that is totally unpredictable and one has to learn to quickly prioritize things and deal with the most important medical problem first. As far as medical training goes, I had it easy since my call was only 1 in 4, but surgeons would do 1 in 2 call for months at a time and the only sleep they got on a busy call night (if any) was a few minutes between cases in the OR lounge. There was a standing joke among surgeons that 1 in 2 call was far too lenient as one missed half of the interesting cases by working so little.
Damian
“I was always taught that the CF didn’t want to eliminate my individuality “
Yet when you get there you are all made the same. Same haircut, same cloths. You all were made to walk the same way and ended up thinking the same.
“My self-esteem grew in the CF, I wasn’t stripped of it.”
Grew in the CF but, was first torn down and rebuilt.
I went through Cornwallis in 1978 and the program then was modeled after the US Marine system when the M/CPL could still threaten to jam his pace stick “up yer arse” or threaten to take you out back and simply beat the crap out of you if he found another dust bunny within a mile of your locker. I understand St Jean is a kinder gentler training system.
You’re going to have to elaborate a bit more Jose:
“There’s actually quite a bit of daylight between finding a specific use of military force objectionable and finding *any* use of force objectionable. Your reasoing implodes at that point.”
Let’s saw that the Iraq invasion never happened and GWB instead decided that the plight of the people in Darfur justified military intervention. This would likely be done without the approval of the UN as China is a strong believer in not interfering in the “internal affairs” of countries (ie don’t bother us while we eliminate the Tibetans). So once the US had decided to invade Darfur, they would be acting on their own. This would make the US leadership war criminals if Michael Byers was consistent in his reasoning.
The next problem would be getting there. It’s a long way from the red sea to Darfur and even longer from the Atlantic. Obviously Libya isn’t going to let US troops across its territory, Ethiopia might, but it would be possible that the only way to Darfur would be straight across Sudan from the red sea. Logistically, this would probably be much more involved than the Iraq invasion and the consequences would probably be the same as in Iraq.
Sudan is another cobbled together country that is trying to tear itself apart and it seems the only way to hold such countries together is to have a homicidal dictator who has no inhibitions when it comes to using force to put down regional insurrections. It the US invaded Sudan to stop the ongoing genocide in Darfur, it would probably have a situation on its hands very similar to what is happening in Iraq right now. If the country simple chose to break into smaller chunks this would be great, but unfortunately the people in every subunit have lots of score to settle with people in other subunits and one wonders whether it is even worth trying to keep the sides apart.
Michael Byers can write all he wants about how it would be appropriate for Canada to intervene in Darfur knowing full well it will never happen. Unfortunately for the people of Darfur, their region is situated at a very bad spot close to the center of the African continent. The best thing to do would be to airdrop rifles and ammunition and let nature take its course.
OMMAG: “A myth of the simple minded who formed their opinions by watching reruns of *MASH*.”
HEY! What’s wrong with watching reruns of MASH? I loved that show (and still do).
Which doesn’t mean that I don’t think we should be in Af’stan, or that I don’t think we are doing a damn good job, or that I don’t think the absolute nonsense spewing from the mouths of the Opposition requires a WHOLE ROLL, call the Environmentalists!
Me, I’m with the Hammer at 6:14 PM.