|
|
Posted by Scott Tribe on December 10, 2009, at 2:46 pm |
Layton’s summary is that if the Government of Canada refuses to start a judicial public inquiry into the Afghan Detainee Issue, then an international body (ie. The International Criminal Court) will potentially do it instead. We don’t want that:
“It’s very important that we take control of this here in Canada because if we do not, then we’re going to find that international bodies are going to start asking questions and conducting their own investigations if we don’t take hold of that responsibility here,” Layton told reporters in Ottawa on Thursday.
The 2nd part of the good framing tactic – playing down that the NDP will ask the ICC [...]
Posted by Scott Tribe on December 9, 2009, at 5:52 pm |
This news report says it all:
In a major embarrassment for the government, Canada’s top soldier unexpectedly revealed on Wednesday that some Canadian troops had known detainees handed over to Afghan authorities could be abused. The announcement by General Walt Natynczyk effectively swept away the long-held official line that there was no credible evidence prisoners might be harmed. Legal experts say handing over detainees in the knowledge they could be abused is a war crime.
The key passage from these “just discovered” notes is the part I’ve highlighted, in my opinion:
A contrite Natynczyk said on Wednesday he had just received information about an incident in southern Afghanistan in [...]
Posted by Scott Tribe on December 8, 2009, at 10:33 am |
This is a very blunt and brutal editorial by the Globe and Mail slamming the Conservatives today, titled, “The Record and the Falsehoods” – an excerpt of it here:
The record speaks for itself on what the Canadian government knows, or should have known, about the torture of Afghan detainees. It speaks far louder than the falsehoods from the government that have by now become routine. At every breach of the walls of secrecy that the diplomat Richard Colvin has alleged existed within government and the military, the government fires off untruths (the above list is by no means complete). But they are laughably weak armaments against the truth. [...]
Posted by Scott Tribe on December 7, 2009, at 10:40 am |
I’m surprised, quite frankly, that the opposition parties haven’t already started demanding MacKay resign prior to the Globe’s latest revelations that proof does exist about detainee abuse, as accounted by Canadian soldiers/officials. All of MacKay’s claims in Parliament on this issue have so far been rebutted, and there are serious grounds for charging he hasn’t told Parliament what he and the government really knew or knows about this issue of Afghan detainees and whether there were grounds to suspect they would be tortured once turned over.
There are other Ministers all the way up to the Prime Minister that this could be said of, but MacKay has been the [...]
Posted by Scott Tribe on November 27, 2009, at 12:13 pm |
Hat tip to Steve V over at Far and Wide for seeing this poll, taken on November 24/25:
49% find Richard Colvin’s testimony credible; 10% side with federal government ministers.
As Steve said, that’s a ratio of 5-1 of people polled who believe Colvin’s testimony over the government’s official version of “no credible evidence”. That’s even higher then the 2-1 margin from the initial poll taken a few days ago on Canadians impressions of Colvin’s testimony.
We also see in the same polling that a majority of people want a public inquiry:
A majority of respondents (53%) support launching a public inquiry on what the government and the Canadian [...]
Posted by Scott Tribe on November 26, 2009, at 7:11 pm |
…and Peter MacKay has no idea how that happened. And pigs can fly.
Video supplied by CBC.
Posted by Scott Tribe on November 23, 2009, at 11:42 am |
I’m presuming that Peter MacKay and the rest of the Conservative government will claim since this agency didn’t actually, you know, see the torture first hand, it’s ‘not reliable’:
An Afghan agency, at one time entrusted to monitor Canadian-captured insurgents in Kandahar, says it has documented nearly 400 cases of torture across the war-ravaged country…The Conservative government has described Colvin’s allegation as hearsay, unsubstantiated and “simply not credible.” However, the Afghan commission said it uncovered 47 cases of abuse in Kandahar, which was ranked third in terms of the number of abuse claims in the country.
“Torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment are common in the majority [...]
Posted by Scott Tribe on November 21, 2009, at 12:33 pm |
A lot of professional diplomats and other credible persons are coming to Richard Colvin’s defence today. This Star column is an interview with Paul Cavalluzzo, the senior commission counsel at the Maher Arar inquiry. He says the Conservative government’s claims of needing “first hand evidence” to believe that torture was being committed in Afghanistan is not very credible and very similar to what Maher Arar faced:
…Cavalluzzo, a respected Toronto lawyer, cited similarities between the Conservative government’s hard-line position and Canada’s role in the torture of Arar in a Syrian prison.. “I saw many similarities because his (Defence Minister Peter MacKay’s) position seems to be that unless you see [...]
Posted by Scott Tribe on November 21, 2009, at 10:45 am |
Richard Colvin’s diplomatic equivalent in the EU says in the Saturday Toronto Star that Colvin knew what he was talking about when he tried to warn Canadian officials about torture:
EU diplomat backs claims on torture Canadian’s warnings on Afghan detainees reflected common view, says his European colleague
Richard Colvin’s repeated warnings to the Canadian government about detainee torture in Afghanistan were an expression of the common concerns of like-minded Western nations, not the baseless ramblings of a rogue diplomat, a European colleague says. Michael Semple, former deputy head of the European Union’s mission in Afghanistan when Colvin was second-in-command of the Canadian embassy, said his own records from [...]
Posted by Scott Tribe on September 3, 2009, at 10:36 am |
How do you “forget” that you were on the board of 2 of your father’s companies (And not just some low-level executive either)? That’s what Defence Minister Peter MacKay is claiming with the news today that he had violated conflict of interest guidelines for Cabinet Ministers:
Until Wednesday, Mr. MacKay was vice-president of Beaver Lumber and a director of Lorne Resources, both companies owned by his father, former federal minister Elmer MacKay…Peter MacKay resigned from the boards of both companies on Wednesday after he learned that he was in violation of the act. He said he had forgotten that he was an officer of either company…The Conflict of Interest [...]
|
|
