We Demand a Public Inquiry into Torture
November 24, 2009 · By Jonathan McLeod
ThePolitic‘s favourite Ordinary Gentleman, Scott H. Payne, has decided he’s had enough of just writing about the Afghan torture/Richard Colvin affair. He doesn’t like what’s going on, and he wants to see a public inquiry into the matter. Accordingly, he has started an online petition:
Whereas, on November 18 former senior Canadian diplomat to Afghanistan Richard Colvin testified in front a House of Commons committee stating that most if not all Afghans handed over to Afghan authorities by Canadian forces in Afghanistan were subject to torture; and
Whereas, Colvin wrote as many as 17 memos via the appropriate channels attempting to alert the appropriate authorities reaching as far up as one of Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s senior security advisers to the likelihood of Canada’s complicity in enabling the torture of Afghans via the appropriate channels of communications that have been heretofore ignored; and
Whereas, despite a long and distinguished career of service to his country, the Harper government has responded to Colvin’s testimony in a dismissive and cavalier fashion and has explicitly questioned Colvin’s credibility instead of addressing his concerns; and
Whereas, the government of Canada has not only failed to adequately address Colvin’s testimony, but has also acted in a questionable and potentially obstructionist manner towards a Military Complaints Commission whose purpose was to address those concerns; and
Whereas, the Canadian government has a history of failing to notify the Red Cross of any prisoner transfers in Afghanistan in a timely fashion; and
Whereas, the use of torture techniques by Afghan authorities in places like Kandahar is understood to be standard operating procedure; and
Whereas, the use of torture techniques on prisoners is morally abhorrent and anathema to the values of Canadian society and government;
Therefore, we the undersigned citizens of Canada demand that the government of Canada submit to and coordinate a full public inquiry into the serious allegations and concerns that have recently come to light around Canada’s involvement in delivering Afghan prisoners into conditions of torture by Afghan authorities.
We’ve had our own little debate about the matter, so I thought I’d let all our readers know in case they wanted to sign the petition. Normally, I don’t bother with online petitions, but, considering that I decided to stir things up the other day, I thought I would, pace Scott, put my money where my mouth is. So I signed his petition.
The folks that sign the petition can pay the expenses of the public inquiry because I do not want my tax dollars going to see if some SOB who was/is trying to kill our soldiers is comfy cozy in the slammer.
So put your money where your mouth is and hire an investigative team, why do you need to spend tax payer dollars trying to embarrass Canada?
If there is proof put it forward, why should we pay for a witch hunt ?
It’s a war not a baby sitting service and we are short manned.
PS. The Red Cross has lost all credibility yrs ago, wise up.
Take a look around, every nation in the world is behaving in an insane fashion except Canada, and you want to use resources chasing Ghosts for the Liberal party of Canada and their stooges?
Has Canada not suffered these fools enough?
Perhaps you have forgotten these scum gave up their rights under the Geneva convention when they attacked civilians and hid amongst them.
Terrorist Ambulance chasers.
Absolutely NOT!
Pay for it indeed and while they are at it, perhaps they could give as much of themselves to the pride and defense of our Canadian military as they are to some allegations of torture to enemy combatants.
These people make me so angry it is indescribable. They would rather believe the worst of their fellow Canadians and military than a few alleged, Taliban terrorists that presented as farmers.
What’s going to happen in the inquiry, find the Taliban farmers?
It’s WAR! We have lost our men and women, sons and daughters, fathers and mothers……friends.
Grow up, lawmakers!
I agree with Rob C.
Why should the Canadian tax payers pay so that a bunch of lawyers and bureaucrats can collect cheques while Parliamentarians are led around by a bunch of terrorists and their bleeding heart lackeys? Why? To find out that it was all for nothing? I’ll take the word of General Rick Hillier and Peter MacKay over that of a terrorist.
If the Liberals, the NDP, the Bloc and all these amnesty groups want an inquiry, let them pay up, let them put their money where their mouth is!
Where were they after the 9/11 and London attacks? They weren’t calling for answers from the aggressors! No where did I see this! Where were they when terrorists were arrested in Toronto, and when Omar Khadr killed that soldier with a hand grenade? Defending THEIR rights! What about the rights of CANADIANS? The Canadian Forces defend Canadians (by the grace of God) and now they are coming under fire by those who defend terrorists rather than their victims?!?
Not on my dime they won’t! I will NOT support anything like that, at least not on the word of terrorist prisoners!
The General’s interrogations tomorrow will go a long way at bringing everyone back to reality.
The Opps will look like the witch hunters they are.
There will be no inquiry.
But it a good opportunity to remind Canadians that Iffy is ok with a little torture and a few targetted assassinations.
And an equally good opportunity to illustrate how the new Harper government, handled situtations in a far far superior way than did the chretien/martin governments.
Chretien had been in government 8 years when we went to war in Afghanistan.
And it took the Libs 3 years and 11 months to draft a handover agreement, from the time the first prisoner was captured Jan 2002 to Dec 2005, there was no agreement, zip, free for all, take these prisons, walk away.
If we are to complain about costs, why aren’t we complaining about the costs of the war?
If we are to complain about the costs of investigating criminal activity, why are we focused on this rather than the “war on drugs”? What about insider trading?
If we are to be so concerned about the costs of enforcing Canadian law, why have any legislation at all?
If we are concerned about our troops, why should we not be concerned that officials may have made them unwitting facilitators of torture?
If we are to support our troops, we should support their attempts to do the right thing.
Maher Arar got $12 million of OUR tax dollars for “Alleged” harm by his homeland of Syria , the weasel didin’t even have the guts to appear at the Inquiry named after him.
But , just go over the list of pro-Islamists at the Arar inquiry and see the same bunch of Anti-west CAIR friendly Whahhabi org.s that Sheem Khan was tied to when she and CAIR crusaded for Shariah law in canada.
Too bad all these Human Rights idiots don’t focus on the Homour killings in canada of Female Muslims rather than their Misogynistic leftist tripe to care more about Muslim males in Afghanistan.
Since Afghanistan is 99.9% Muslim and they freely murder gays and Unionists, let do what Amnesty wants and pull-out to let them slaughter each other for Allah to sort out the REAL muslims.
Hams,Hezboallh and Tamil Tiger supporters are free to use children as Human Shields in Toronto during protests while even Olivia Chow and David Miller refuse to condemn this child abuse.
The Legal-War deniers keep spewing out vague Allegations based on forcing people to prove a negative that it didn’t happen.
Hey wait, Martin and Chretien have never denied that 9/11 was an inside job, and McGuinty has never denied the Roswell crash where Aliens are held in area 51.
Ergo….it must be true since they won’t hold an Inquiry to prove it is false.
I’m searching through the ranting and raving above for a coherent argument against an inquiry, and I have to say there isn’t a single point worth addressing.
A Canadian diplomat with a sound reputation has made two allegations: that Canadian forces handed over detainees into custody where torture was probable, and that his attempts to inform his superiors and others responsible for decision making were ignored.
The first is at least a violation of Canadian policy, and at worst a war crime. The second is evidence of incompetence or dishonesty.
The Conservative defense against these accusations has been that the data is unreliable, plus some pretty appalling attacks on a professional diplomat.
Obviously the accusations are unproven. But (a) they matter, and (b), they are provable. That’s why an inquiry is needed. When you call 911 to report an incident, they don’t refuse to investigate because you have no evidence. Their job is do investigate what happened.
Oddly, none of the opponents have actually disputed the fact that torture occurs in Afghan custody, that Canadians most likely knew about it, or that the diplomat in question was (until McKay started sliming him) a respected professional. Instead we’re hearing rants about Tamils and Taliban and loving our country and Olivia Chow – the kind of defensive rage that usually signals the absence of a real defense.
Do it.
Put Iggnatieff in as sitting Judge.
Have a tome of his pro-G.W. Bush writings supporting torture serve as The Book used for the swearing in f witnesses.
Otherwise, admit that most of this hue and cry is primarily nothing more than just another attempt at “gotcha!” politics by the libranos, in yet another attempt to diminish the present government carried out under the guise of what we are to believe is true concern.
Tears? The libs crank ‘em out on demand.
My crocodile is most envious.
“I’m searching through the ranting and raving above for a coherent argument against an inquiry, and I have to say there isn’t a single point worth addressing.”
So sign the petition, balbulican. That’s democracy. The same thing that our soldiers are giving up their lives to enable the Afghans to embrace, experience and enjoy.
While you’re at it, remove yourself from your soap box suggesting that only you, provide a ‘coherent argument’.
You, like every other poster at this site, simply provided an opinion and position, nothing less and nothing more.
no more prisoners. shot first bury second.
So Bec…in this democracy that we both value, you don’t feel that should governments are accountable for their actions? Interesting interpretation.
“admit that most of this hue and cry is primarily nothing more than just another attempt at “gotcha!” politics by the libranos, in yet another attempt to diminish the present government carried out under the guise of what we are to believe is true concern.”
Since this statement can and has been used by Conservative supporters to dismiss all criticism on any issue (as it was used by the Liberals before that), it doesn’t carry much force in this instance.
For the military stuff, use the military police investigators. If they find grounds for prosecution or further investigation then perhaps uncork an inquiry. If the MP finds no evidence that information was hidden or truncated or otherwise then this cuts the allegations off at the knees and saves taxpayers millions.
As for the war of words currently going on, General Rick Hillier carries MUCH more weight with me than Richard Colvin.
I don’t think that’s correct, Mark. The allegation is that information was communicated by a diplomat to political superiors, not members of the Armed Forces.