Further to EBD's post below, "Night of the Living Public Broadcaster", there's another aspect to the Afghan detainee abuse matter that our media manage to ignore--willfully? Relevant posts at The Torch:
Maybe some former Liberal ministers should be worrying about their assesFacts: The previous Liberal government and Afghan detainees
"Torture in Afghanistan: The Liberals knew" redux
Afghan detainees and the former Liberal government/Human rights Update
(letter in Globe and Mail)
Remember that even back in early 2007 Prof. Attaran, source of the lastest attack on the government and CF (CBC video here), was trying to tie our troops to abuse. From Damian Brooks:
More spinning than a figure skating competition
Meanwhile, Bruce R. weighs in at Flit on the CSIS angle and other things:
Wrong-tree barking watchThis is an interesting story. Not sure why they're going with the CSIS involvement angle, though. The allegations about commanders putting orderly transfer to the Afghans ahead of intelligence-gathering would be more worth pursuing, I would have thought. Shows what I know.
And from the article, I'm not exactly clear what is is they're accusing CSIS of: all the witness appears to be saying is military police don't interrogate (they don't), that the Canadian Forces in 2007 had no interrogation capability of its own (they didn't) and so would have had to rely on CSIS personnel in theatre if it had done any, and that Afghan government's procedural time limits would have prevented anything more than tactical questioning to establish identity in any case. The upshot being any detainees would have been of limited intelligence value at the time. Anyone who was there surely knows all of this to be true...
...Prof. Wark's idea that Canadians were "outsourcing interrogation to the Afghans" at the time is ludicrous. In order to "outsource" we would actually have had to get something in the way of return or output, presumably. And if there was ever an item of intelligence that came from an Afghan NDS interrogation of a detainee taken on one of our ops, neither I nor my ANA counterpart ever saw it. The NDS weren't big on the whole info-sharing thing to start with, and in my conversations with them at the time were generally bitter that the dysfunctional court system was springing most of their detainees free before THEY could do any questioning, either [emphasis added, not much time for, er, abuse it would seem]...
Our current effort in Ashkhanistan is functionally equivalent to having fought the second world war by sharing airfields with the Luftwaffe, and using the same repair depots as the Panzers.
Unless and until someone stands up and admits we should be fighting militant Islam, not a bunch of peasants, we are wasting time, money, and most importantly Canadian lives.
Very interesting to see what Big City Lib blog is saying about Attaran.
Ian:
Vellcome to Germany gentlemen...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1rWvGSmOuo
Armstrong & Miller - WWII RAF Sketch 5
Enjoy...
Cheers
Hans-Christian Georg Rupprecht, Commander in Chief
1st Saint Nicolaas Army
Army Group “True North"
It is amazing how iffy pushes these issues with no thought as to how it will reflect on what his own party did. Rank amateurism! Before you cast aspersions you have to look at your own situation to make sure the mud doesn't come back at you. Somebody in that party has to wake up sometime. Meanwhile, it's fun watching them stuffing their feet in their mouths.
This is getting wwwwery interesting.
Just an idle thought. This Amir Attaran fellow who is so concerned about the detainees,he wouldn't be a member of the Islamic faith,would he? I know it would just be a coincidence and of no importance, our troops are fighting Islamic militants and this man is undermining their support and the gov't that most supports the troops. Nah,it would never happen in Canada.
The other half of this mess is the CBC and Milewski giving this guy air time on our money.
Prime Minister Harper: Cut funding to CBC.
Ian Vaughan is spot on. The problem is much bigger than any partisan issue, which makes trying to make political hay from it even more insulting.
I've been asking myself the same question Wally and I keep coming back to "Iranian Spy" or something akin perhaps?
"how iffy pushes these issues with no thought as to how it will reflect on what his own party did"
Well how is iffy supposed to know what the liberals did back then? Its not like he was in Canada at the time. What's more at that time he was cheerleading GWB.
C'est la guerre.
I have a friend who went to Nam. ('65-67) They'd (CIA operatives) throw the VC's in a Huey, go up to 2000 feet, throw one out, the rest sang like canaries.
Personally, I'd prefer a Hobart 440 amp DC welder hooked up to a Chrysler 6!
If only we had a government with balls.
I really am astounded that this transfer issue is getting as much play as it is.
Imagine that the RCMP asked the FBI to come to Canada and assist in the capture of a group of murderous thugs. Now say the Americans were able to capture said thugs but then, while standing firmly on Canadian soil, refused to hand the prisoners (Canadians all) over to the RCMP. After all, Mounties are ALL a bunch of "tazer wielding torturers" aren't they???? (tongue in cheek).
We are there to help these people, not to pass judgment on how they treat their own violent criminals. I served in the middle east myself and I can tell you, you have to leave your "liberal" Canadian values on the plane when you disembark. Anything else is extreme arrogance.