Generally Speaking - About Afghanistan

There's obviously no need to rehash what was written about General Stanley McChrystal and his aids in the now infamous Rolling Stone article that shook DC more than the very real earthquake that rattled Ontario and Quebec today.

McChrystal is out. A political no-brainer for Obama.

The other shoe that dropped, however, is that Petraeus is in.

And what did candidate Obama have to say about the man he just nominated to head the ISAF surge?

Obama Gives Petraeus Remarks Low Marks

By ELI LAKE, Staff Reporter of the Sun | September 11, 2007

WASHINGTON — Senator Obama, the Democrat from Illinois seeking his party’s nomination for the presidency, is giving the Iraq progress report of General David Petraeus low marks, going so far as to claim the one clear success in Iraq in recent months — the rout of Al Qaeda in Anbar — has nothing to do with the military surge the general in Washington is defending.

“I’m not sure that the success in Anbar has anything to do with the surge,” Mr. Obama said today at the first of two hearings featuring General Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker. “You yourself said it was political.”

And yet president Obama bowed to McChrystal when he publicly shamed him to send tens of thousands more troops to Afghanistan for yet another military surge that's bound to end in failure - something even McChrystal now acknowledges.

Obama today:

He urged the Senate to confirm Petraeus swiftly and emphasized the Afghanistan strategy he announced in December was not shifting with McChrystal's departure.

"This is a change in personnel, but it is not a change in policy," Obama said.

That policy is killing record numbers of soldiers.

That policy may well slow down the withdrawal of US troops while painting a rosy picture that counts on collective amnesia about just how "successful" Petraeus' surge strategy was in Iraq.

Same war. Different commander. Same policy. Different outcome?

Not likely.

It wasn't McChrystal's policy implementation that Obama had a problem with. It was his insubordination.

Candidate Obama would have told president Obama not to have nominated McChrystal in the first place considering his track record. But candidate Obama and president Obama are two very different people - as we all know by now.
 

The Detainee Document Dump: Explosive Allegations

The Canadian Press has begun reviewing the 2,000+ heavily censored pages that the Cons unceremoniously dumped on parliament on Wednesday and have already discovered startling new allegations - including reports of summary executions of transferred detainees.

You can read what they've found so far here.

Further proof that a public inquiry is the only legitimate vehicle for uncovering the truth.
 

Afghanistan: Obama Wants Canadian Troops to Stay

Via the Globe and Mail:

The U.S. government will ask Canada to keep as many as 500 to 600 troops in Afghanistan after this country’s military deployment in Kandahar ends in 2011.

Sources inside and outside the government say the formal request is expected toward the end of this year through NATO. The troops would act as military trainers and would most likely be located in Kabul. The deployment would not involve putting Canadian troops in harm’s way, but could nonetheless set off a rancorous national debate among Canadians and especially within the Liberal Party.

If Obama thinks he needs a few hundred troops to train the Afghans, let him send Americans.

We should not be responsible for fixing the United States' government's perpetual training mistakes.

Canadians need to make it crystal clear to the Liberals that we will not support this extension.
 

While Canadians die...

The audacity of Stephen Harper to shut down parliament, not once - but twice - while this country is at war ought to send a very clear message to Canadian voters that this Conservative government is simply irrelevant and that its' "leadership" is nothing but an empty shell.

Holed up in his political bunker on the same day that 4 Canadian soldiers and 1 journalist from his adopted hometown of Calgary were killed by an IED in Afghanistan, the best Harper could do was to release a statement extolling their "courage" while he exhibits absolutely none of his own. He couldn't even be bothered enough to show his face in public.

It's time for the opposition parties to band together and vote 'no confidence' in this Conservative minority government when it presents its next budget in March after its latest self-imposed holiday from accountability and responsibility.

Related:

8 US CIA Agents, 5 Canadians Killed in Afghanistan

Lang first Canadian journalist to die in Afghan mission

Michelle Lang's Afghanistan blog


 

McChrystal on Torture in Afghanistan

US General Stanley McChrystal, speaking to reporters in Ottawa today had this to say about torture allegations:

The commander of the International Security Assistance Force said he was aware of allegations that some detainees may have been tortured, but he said he wasn't aware of any "specific incidents" in which Afghan detainees were tortured or abused by Afghan interrogators.

Pehraps because the ongoing reports of torture by US forces in Bagram prison are keeping him too busy.

On Saturday, the New York Times published interviews with three former inmates who also spoke of the black prison near Bagram. Each informant “was interviewed separately and described similar conditions,” the Times notes, and “[t]heir descriptions also matched those obtained by two human rights workers who had interviewed other former detainees at the site.” One of the three men was arrested months after Obama’s inauguration as US president, as were the two teenage boys interviewed by the Post.

All of those interviewed by the Times and the Post maintained that they were not “Taliban.” Without being charged with a crime, they were seized by US soldiers, then bound, gagged, and hooded, and taken to the “black prison.”

The jail, according to the Times’ sources, “consists of individual windowless concrete cells, each illuminated by a single light bulb glowing 24 hours a day.” The cells are small; one prisoner said his was only slightly longer than the length of his body. US soldiers throw food into the cells through slots in the door.

Prisoners are exposed to extreme cold and sleep deprivation. The teenage boys told the Post that when they attempted to sleep on the hard floor, US soldiers “shouted at them and hammered on their cells.” Prisoners’ only respite from this extreme solitary confinement are twice-a-day interrogations, during which some are beaten or humiliated.

Or maybe he's denying the claims because, well, he has a history of lying.

I must say that I was quite surprised to hear Liberal MP Ujjal Dosanjh say on CBC's Power and Politics show today that he'd never heard of 'black sites' in Afghanistan. He definitely needs to get up to speed about what's happening there.

(I'll be putting up a separate post about Richard Colvin's rebuttal letter to the Special Committee on Afghanistan once I've had a chance to read through it.)
 

How the Cons Enabled Torture in Kandahar

Back in February, 2008 when the Con government was faced with allegations it had covered up the torture being meted out by Kandahar governor Asadullah Khalid, their Pit Bull du Jour, Peter van Loan, called those charges "histrionics and hyperbole".

Enter Richard Colvin, the former ambassador the Cons have been so busy demonizing, again:

OTTAWA–A former governor of Kandahar who is accused of personally torturing Afghans might have been removed from office as far back as 2006 if Canadian officials hadn't defended him, according to diplomatic memos that have never been made public by the Canadian government.

Not only did they defend him, they did nothing at the highest levels, including the PMO's national security adviser. They can't feign ignorance anymore in the face of this proof.

Yet another nail in the coffin of this lying government.
 

The Torture Coverup: Today's Developments

- The military police complaints commission hearings are scheduled to resume in March, 2010, "but whether the federal government actually lets it proceed is uncertain." Meanwhile:

The Liberals turned up the heat on the Tories Thursday by using their opposition day to introduce a Commons motion to force the government to release documents on the detainee issue.

Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff accused the government of censoring with "Soviet zeal" and demanded to see all records related to incident referred to by Natynczyk.

- I really don't know why Ottawa-centered journalists think this issue has no legs outside of their little bubble. The latest EKOS poll shows that the majority think Afghan detainees were tortured and that this government knew about it.

Only Conservative supporters are slightly less likely to believe that the government was aware that prisoners might be tortured. Even so, nearly 68 per cent of Conservative supporters think the government was aware of that possibility.

That is definitely significant. And the fact that parliament will go on hiatus tonite for its holiday break does not ensure that this scandal won't come back with even more force in the new year - especially since Richard Colvin is drafting a rebuttal to the testimony of the government-friendly witnesses.

The fact that the one 2006 incident that we know of (and which alludes to others), thanks to the affidavit of Noonan in 2007, is front and center again 2 years of being shelved shows that the Conservatives can't run away from reality or accountability.

When that incident came to light in May, 2007, Peter Van Loan was the government's bully-boy who tried endlessly to make it go away. He called it "roughhousing". More recently, General Lewis MacKenzie, appearing on the right-wing talk radio David Rutherford Show in Calgary this week said he wasn't all that concerned about some guy being beaten up. Shit happens. It's a war. Rick Hillier recently minimized the incident as well. These generals don't seem to care that Canadian soldiers were so concerned about the fate of their transferred detainees that they resorted to taking before and after pictures because they knew abuse was happening. They weren't listened to. Their reports were dismissed and censored.

When Peter MacKay gave his opening statement to the special committee on Wednesday, he said that torture was "abhorrent". But it obviously was not "abhorrent" enough for him to pay attention to as foreign minister since he then went on to pathetically justify his inaction by droning on repeatedly about how "complex" the Afghanistan situation was. He should have just admitted that he was too incompetent to handle all of the duties he was responsible for at that time.

On top of all of that, and this is perhaps one of the most shocking revelations about this government's disdain for the law considering it's coming from our current Foreign Affairs minister, Lawrence Cannon, in his opening statement he wondered why people were "fixated on the well-being of individuals who are suspected of being our enemies". (h/t BCCLA blog) He obviously refuses to even acknowledge the Geneva Conventions. This is the same man who banned the phrase "child soldiers" from the department's vocabulary and took "humanitarian" out of the phrase "international humanitarian law".

Typical of this Conservative party - thinking they can make issues of justice disappear by simply censoring them.

That obviously hasn't worked. And Cannon's performance has been despicable.

...this April [2009], when Cannon blamed Omar Khadr, a former child recruit of Al Qaeda held since 2002 at the U.S. detention centre in Guantanamo Bay, for making bombs that killed Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan.

"We saw this man apparently making the same bombs that have taken the life of a certain number of our soldiers," he said, referring to TV footage of Khadr making bombs. The comments were false.

Khadr was not in the vicinity where Canadians were operating at the time. A retraction followed.

It's clear that the Conservative agenda is to fearmonger and paint their critics as enemies of the military as long as they think they can get away with it. The problem is that actual evidence is corroding what little shred of credibility there was that they thought they had in the first place. They are their own worst enemies. If they truly believed in their collective innocence, they would release all of the documents they have - unredacted - in order to prove it. Instead, they are fighting their release every step of the way using the tired "national security" excuse.

And, in case you're keeping score, it's now:

Former Canadian ambassadors: 71

Conservatives: 0
 

The Cons vs 23 Former Ambassadors

You know your attack style of governing sucks when...Former ambassadors condemn Ottawa's attack on diplomat

Twenty-three former ambassadors are speaking out against the Conservative government's attacks on the credibility of diplomat Richard Colvin, saying Ottawa's response to his Afghan detainee abuse testimony threatens to cast a chill over Canada's foreign service.

The ex-heads of Canadian diplomatic missions say in a letter released to the media that they're worried the treatment of Mr. Colvin will discourage diplomats from reporting frankly to Ottawa from their foreign postings.

War is Still a Racket

As US Major General Smedley Butler said in 1933, 'War is a racket'. And the obscenties of corporate war profits continue. Harley Davidson dealerships on US bases in Afghanistan? What's wrong with this picture?

It's quite something to reflect on the numbers as Butler did - in the millions of dollars at the beginning of the last century - involved in waging war at that time. Today, it seems that we barely bat an eye at the idea that billions are being wasted while the uber-rich get richer thanks to the spilling of blood on foreign soil. Perhaps because that amount is just too much for the average citizen to even fathom. And certainly because we, who seem to believe that our so-called democracies are really about what "we the people" actually want, refuse to admit that we really live in oligarchies in which we are more than willing to cede control of our affairs to those who know what's best for us. It isn't only the right that believes in the type of authoritarian, Father Knows Best form of government that we on the left often chastise them for. Just take a look at the rationalizations for Obama's surge emanating from so-called progressives this week. The pro-war propaganda coming from people who would have roasted Bush on a stick for the same decisions is quite frightening.

In recognition of the popularity of National Exploding Head Day held on Wednesday - a day in which both the right and the left (and those in between) reacted hysterically to Obama's surge (as if it was some sort of surprise since, for so many Americans, "War is Freedom") - Exploding Head festivities will now continue throughout the week (and probably the month and into next year).

We certainly live in an upside-down world in which western governments strain at the idea of providing humanitarian aid in relatively paltry amounts while endlessly funding the military industrial complex based on overblown and logically irrational justifications - as just the cost of "keeping us safe" or "protecting our national security interests" or "fighting them over there so we don't have to fight them over here" or "protecting our way of life". No matter how you dress it up, it is obscene.

And the fact that Obama invoked 9/11 as one of those justifications is a reminder of how quickly history is forgotten and how eager Obama's war-supporters are to believe the talking points du jour. As Pepe Escobar writes in the Asia Times today:

Obama still says Afghanistan is a "war of necessity" - because of the September 11, 2001 attacks. Wrong. The Bush administration had planned to attack Afghanistan even before 9/11. See Get Osama! Now! Or else ... Asia Times Online, August 30, 2001.)

So, as Robert Scheer writes, Here We Go Again...:

The current president’s military point man, Defense Secretary Robert Gates, served in Carter’s National Security Council and knows that Obama is speaking falsely when he asserts it was the Soviet occupation that gave rise to the Muslim insurgency that we abetted. Gates wrote a memoir in 1996 which, as his publisher proclaimed, exposed “Carter’s never-before-revealed covert support to Afghan mujahedeen—six months before the Soviets invaded.”

Carter’s national security adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski, was asked in a 1998 interview with the French magazine Le Nouvel Observateur if he regretted “having given arms and advice to future terrorists,” and he answered, “What is most important to the history of the world? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Muslims or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the Cold War?” Brzezinski made that statement three years before the 9/11 attack by those “stirred-up Muslims.”

So here we go again, selling firewater to the natives and calling it salvation.

But the selling of that firewater in modern times is one of the most lucrative business ventures ever. It doesn't matter now, any more than it mattered back during Smedley Butler's day, who pays the price.

Related:

Fafblog! - Victory Science

You're A Good Man, Barack Obama: Afghanistan War Meets Classic Animation

FAIR: In Afghan Debate, Few Antiwar Op-Eds - Elite papers marginalize public opposition (sound familiar?)
 

Actually Cons, Colvin WAS Muzzled

The Conservatives are living in their own twisted version of Through the Looking Glass.

Last week, when David Mulroney testified in front of the special committee on Afghanistan, he attempted to rebut Richard Colvin's allegations that he was "muzzled" when he tried to report on detainee abuse allegations. Mulroney admitted that he told his officials that he preferred that they communicate by phone first - because all of those e-mails (which could be tracked later) were just too confusing to those in charge. No paper trail. How convenient.

Now we learn, via the Globe and Mail that parts of Colvin's reports were "edited":

Canada's former ambassador to Afghanistan asked a diplomat to erase two bluntly worded sections from an April, 2007, report on how Ottawa's delays in notifying the Red Cross of prisoner transfers to Afghan authorities left these detainees vulnerable to abuse.

The Globe and Mail has learned that Arif Lalani asked for the edits from Richard Colvin, a diplomat at the centre of an unfolding controversy over whether Canada turned a blind eye when handing prisoners to Afghanistan's torture-prone authorities.

This editing took place in April, 2007, only days after a Globe investigation revealed disturbing allegations of abuse and torture among prisoners transferred by Canadians to Afghan detention - stories that kicked off a stormy debate in Ottawa.

In one of the sections he was requested to delete, Mr. Colvin remarked on a pattern observed by the Red Cross: that abuse took place almost immediately after prisoners were transferred to the Afghans - timing that meant Canada's tardiness made it very hard for the human-rights monitor to guard against torture.

"[A Red Cross official], who had read The Globe and Mail's reporting, said that the allegations of abuse made by those Afghans interviewed by [reporter] Graeme Smith fit a common pattern," Mr. Colvin wrote in text that was cut out.

"In the International Committee of the Red Cross's experience, 'a lot of abuse happens in the first days,' " he wrote, adding that the human-rights monitor argued this was cause for "more rapid notification" that "would offer better protection to the detainees."

[...]

In another section he was asked by Mr. Lalani to erase, Mr. Colvin reminded Ottawa that it had been warned about 10 months earlier of these dangerous delays in notifying the Red Cross of detainees.

In the deleted text, Mr. Colvin even acknowledged that Ottawa's own internal statistics on notification delays corroborated the Red Cross's estimates. "Our own records substantiate ICRC's comments about continued delays in notification," the diplomat wrote. "For the four-month period of December 1, 2006, to March 30, 2007, the gap from detention by Canadian Forces to ICRC being informed was as long as 34 days," he wrote.

Somebody in Steve's government needs to look up the word "muzzled" in the dictionary.
 

Liveblogging Obama's 'Get your war on' Speech

I've already written about what I think about this surge. In summary, there is nothing Obama can say that can convince me that it's necessary or that this war is winnable - in any sense of the word.

The Washington Post reports that he is sending an additional 30,000 troops and that he has chosen July 2011 as the date to begin his withdrawal. That process is bound to take a long time though - as we've seen with the process of leaving Iraq. (Although the US never really completely withdraws from any war/occupation that it's been engaged in.)

I'll post speech highlights as they come in...

Sept 11th...history..blah blah blah...justifying the war...

Talking about the withdrawal of troops from Iraq...no mention of the contractors though...and that HUGE honking embassy...

5 minutes in and I think he's said 'Taliban' about 59 times already...

Said that although the Afghan government was produced by fraud, it's legitimate according to their constitution...like that means ANYTHING...

30,000 troops - it's official...says he opposed the Iraq war because he believes in using "restraint" with military forces...that's funny...I thought he said it was a "dumb" war...

'our security is at stake'...9/11 (drink!)...

here comes the push for more NATO troops...yeah...good luck with that...

Pakistan has nukes (drink!)

all of those cadets in their identical grey uniforms in the West Point remind me of a scene from 1984...

as reported, start withdrawing in July 2011...

now he's looking onto the camera and speaking to the Afghan people...because so many of them actually have teevees and are watching this at whatever time it is there now...

yay! more drone attacks in Pakistan (that was paraphrased)

trying to rebut the Afghanistan=Vietnam analogy...it's not working...

zzzzz...are we there yet?

Cake, anyone?

obligatory shots of Hillary looking adoringly at her commander-in-chief...

pontificating about how the yanks are going to protect human rights of 'the world' when he's still allowing renditions and hiding torture pictures...yeah...that was convincing...not...

oh...now his voice is racheting up...stay tuned for 'amens' and 'praise the lord' from the audience...okay...maybe not that reaction but he did get his first moment of applause for saying that America isn't into world domination..(haha, now where's that quote I have of him saying during the campaign that he wants to "remake the world" in America's image? I kid you not.)

oh, cutesyness..."right makes might"

Hoo-ah, it's over.
 

Torture in Afghanistan: There WILL be a Public Inquiry

The house has voted on the NDP's motion to hold a public inquiry into the fate of Afghan detainees amid allegations that some may have been tortured after they were transferred to Afghan authorities.

The vote, with the support of all of the opposition parties, has passed.

There's no more hiding the truth, Cons. You have lost.

By the numbers:

Yea: 146

Nay: 129
 

Quote du Jour: How Low Can Steve Go?

Via The TO Star:

PORT OF SPAIN–Prime Minister Stephen Harper took a partisan shot at his opposition critics while touring the HMCS Quebec in Trinidad-Tobago Sunday.

The Canadian ship and navy officers are helping with security for the Commonwealth summit. Harper, in brief comments to the Canadians, was addressing allegations that Canadian civilian and military leaders ignored warnings of a risk of torture in Afghan prisons.

"Let me just say this: living as we do, in a time when some in the political arena do not hesitate before throwing the most serious of allegations at our men and women in uniform, based on the most flimsy of evidence, remember that Canadians from coast to coast to coast are proud of you and stand behind you, and I am proud of you, and I stand beside you."

What Jeff Jedras said.

And, let me just add: Peter MacKay is a Terminally Confused Man.

First there were no allegations. Then there were "credible" allegations so they changed the transfer agreement. Then Richard Colvin was lying because he said there were allegations. Then David Mulroney said there were no allegations (but he could not vouch 100% that Canadian soldiers did not, in fact, hand over detainees who were then abused). Then Peter MacKay said there were no allegations - credible or otherwise - but they changed the agreement apparently just for the hell of it.

2 questions remain:

1. Will there be a public inquiry?

2. Will MacKay lose his job?

The answer to both is: doubtful.

The Cons are running scared from an inquiry - looking as guilty as the cat that ate the canary. And MacKay, the Con who allowed Harper to take the lead when the old Reform and Progressive Conservative parties merged, isn't likely to go down easily. Steve owes him. That's why he's held the high-ranking government positions he's had since that mismatched marriage.

When this scandal came up a couple of years ago, then incompetent Defence minister Gordon O'Connor was turfed - having become a political liability once his inconsistencies and lies began to emerge. He was expendable. MacKay is following the same path of untruthfulness. But he is being heavily protected at every turn. If he does fall on his sword, the resulting ripples that would run through the party could cause a major mess for the Harperites. I could be wrong about the current state of the inside baseball. But that's the way I see it.

The Cons are struggling to contain this scandal and the opposition parties have to keep pushing as hard as they can. This cannot be one of those issues over which the Cons are given another pass - especially since the ICC has now injected itself into the affair.

The ICC's chief prosecutor, though, has no intention of waiting for Washington to submit to the court's authority. Luis Moreno Ocampo says he already has jurisdiction—at least with respect to Afghanistan.

Because Kabul in 2003 ratified the Rome Statute—the ICC's founding treaty—all soldiers on Afghan territory, even those from nontreaty countries, fall under the ICC's oversight, Mr. Ocampo told me. And the chief prosecutor says he is already conducting a "preliminary examination" into whether NATO troops, including American soldiers, fighting the Taliban may have to be put in the dock.

"We have to check if crimes against humanity, war crimes or genocide have been committed in Afghanistan," Mr. Ocampo told me. "There are serious allegations against the Taliban and al Qaeda and serious allegations about warlords, even against some who are connected with members of the government." Taking up his inquiry of Allied soldiers, he added, "there are different reports about problems with bombings and there are also allegations about torture."

Wait a minute there: did he just impugn the might military? Quick. Someone alert Steve and his bully buddies so they can jump all over Mr Ocampo too.

And, if you need more proof of our western exceptionalist attitude, check out this bit by the author of that same WSJ article:

I asked the obvious follow-up. "If this is the 'new world,' why do you bother collecting information about NATO and U.S. troops in Afghanistan?" Why, in other words, when his task is to end the impunity for the worst war crimes, does he spend his limited resources on the most advanced democracies in the world—which operate under strict rules of engagement, have their own chain-of-command investigations and swift prosecution of criminals? Mr. Ocampo got slightly irritated.

No doubt. The arrogance of that reporter is astounding. But it's only symbolic of how we view ourselves and our conduct in these so-called wars of "necessity" despite the fact that we have failed miserably to be anything near accountable for the horrors we are responsible for.
 

How to hide torture: Obama-style

Oh Yes We Can!, so oh yes he did.

WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court has thrown out an appeals court ruling ordering the disclosure of photographs of detainees being abused by their U.S. captors.

In doing so Monday, the high court cited a recent change in federal law that allows the pictures to be withheld.

The justices issued a brief, and expected, order Monday directing the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York to take another look at a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union to obtain the photos of detainee abuse. President Barack Obama at first didn't oppose the release, but he changed his mind, saying they could whip up anti-American sentiment overseas and endanger U.S. troops.

The administration appealed the matter to the Supreme Court, but also worked with Congress to give Defense Secretary Robert Gates the power to keep from the public all pictures of foreign detainees being abused.

Gates invoked his new authority in mid-November, saying widespread distribution of the pictures would endanger American soldiers.

Just substitute the names "Obama" and "Gates" with "Bush" and "Rumsfeld" and you'll see just how much has changed.

In case you weren't paying attention (and who could blame you with all of those shiny photo ops Obama and Michelle have been hiding behind), back in June the US senate passed a law [the Detainee Photographic Records Protection Act] barring the release of those photos.

The bill, sponsored by Sens. Joe Lieberman, a Connecticut Independent, and Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican, had originally been part of the war funding supplemental bill passed Tuesday by the House.

But House Democrats stripped that part of the measure from the bill, and the senators proposed it as stand-alone legislation.

Earlier Wednesday, Graham said at a Judiciary Committee hearing that he had received assurance from White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel "that the president will not let these photos see the light of day."

Yes, Obama sided with those progressive beacons of light: Lieberman, Graham and Emanuel using the same fearmongering tactics that the Bush administration was quite fond of. In October, the provision passed when it was included in a homeland security appropriations bill.

The photos have been at the center of a years-long lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union. Congress last month gave the Obama administration specific authority to prevent any release of the 44 photos. Afterward, Gates signed a certificate of authorization, or order, to prevent the photos' release, saying their disclosure would endanger U.S. troops serving abroad.

The order covers all photographs taken of people captured or detained in overseas military operations between September 11, 2001, the day of the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, and January 22, 2009, shortly after President Obama took office.

Obama: Fear you can believe in! while hope is fading fast
 

Flashback: How to derail a committee

Frustrated about how things are going in the Special Committee on the Canadian Mission in Afghanistan?

Let's take a trip down dirty tricks lane:

Opposition demands release of alleged Tory 'dirty tricks' manual

Last Updated: Friday, May 18, 2007 | 2:28 PM ET
CBC News

Opposition parties on Friday demanded the Conservative government make public a reported 200-page guidebook on how to create chaos in parliamentary committees.

MPs from all three opposition parties used question period to call on the government to table the alleged document, which was reported in the National Post.

The guidebook, reportedly handed out to selected Conservative MPs, offers advice on how to favour government agendas, select party-friendly witnesses, coach favourable testimony, obstruct debate and, if needed, storm out of committee meetings.

"Table this playbook so Canadians can see how petty, vindictive and undemocratic this government is," said NDP MP Libby Davies.

Bloc Québécois MP Monique Guay said the document shows a "flagrant lack of respect for government," alleging it was being "deliberately guided by the Prime Minister's Office."

"Table the manual of dirty tricks. It's a contempt for democracy akin to Richard Nixon," said Liberal MP Ralph Goodale, referring to the former American president forced out of office by the Watergate scandal.

Mulroney Contradicts MacKay

Ever since Peter MacKay has been under fire about allegations of torture in Afghanistan during the period of 2006-2007, he has repeatedly said in the house that the transfer agreement was changed once the government had credible evidence to back up those claims.

From November 25, 2009, Hansard:

Hon. Peter MacKay (Minister of National Defence and Minister for the Atlantic Gateway, CPC):

Mr. Speaker, when officials at Foreign Affairs and officials at the Department of National Defence were in possession of credible allegations, they acted. Going back two and a half years the action began. The action began to clean up the mess that we had inherited from the party opposite. The action began to rewrite the transfer arrangement, to arrange for more prison visits and to train officials inside the prison.

But, here's what David Mulroney said during his opening statement when he testified in front of the special committee today.

From the video (approximately 7 minutes in)

When I took up my responsibilities at Foreign Affairs in February, 2007, the department was already exploring ways of engaging in monitoring and tracking detainees. At the same time, we had an exchange of letters with the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, an organization for which we are a major funder, in which the AIHRC agreed to notify Canada should it learn of any mistreatment of Canadian-transferred detainees. In mid-March, we began detailed work to create a detailed contingency plan, a standard operating procedure in the event of well-founded allegations of mistreatment. We did this not because of confirmed instances of real and substantial risk of torture or mistreatment of Canadian-transferred detainees but because it was clear that what we had in place at the time could and should be further reinforced.

One of these men is lying.
 

This So-called "War of Necessity"

With Obama reportedly set to announce an increase of US troop levels in Afghanistan by tens of thousands next week - for this "war of necessity", as he calls it - we need to be reminded that the public has been repeatedly told that if that war is a failure (and actually "winning" it has been questionable since Day One) NATO's credibility is on the line.

So, what is this really about? "Democracy promotion"? Been there - done that. Ended up with corrupted election results once again propping up Karzai and his corrupt government.

Improving human rights? Well, the Canadian government would like you to believe that that's what we're they for and they've proven that they'll lie about that - shortchanging humanitarian spending while boosting the military budget.

Defeating al Qaeda? According to General McChrystal, the architect of the proposed troop surge in Afghanistan, he does not "see indications of a large al-Qaida presence in Afghanistan now".

And the Taliban? First of all, we need to be reminded of who they are since "the Taliban" is too often referred to as some monolithic, organized threat. We also need to admit that the Afghans blame poverty for [the] war, making corruption a very lucrative business for those with regional power aka those lumped together as "the Taliban" so we can have a conveniently-named enemy. We also need to question why it is that the US is using [extremely irresponsible and anti-Pakistani sovereignty] drone attacks in Pakistan to go after "the Taliban" there but feels it needs to put tens of thousands more boots on the ground in Afghanistan to achieve the same end. The answer surely can't be about concern for civilians being struck down in Afghanistan since scores of civilians have been wantonly killed by drones in Pakistan.

Obama stated this week that he intends to "finish the job" in Afghanistan - to "dismantle and destroy" al-Qaida terrorists and extremist allies. If that is truly his goal, he and the military will have to be there for decades no matter what his new strategy might entail.

"I feel very confident that when the American people hear a clear rationale for what we're doing there and how we intend to achieve our goals, that they will be supportive," he said, speaking at a White House news conference with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

Recent polls show that his confidence is misplaced.

If the full expansion that U.S. military planners anticipate does happen, it would take up to two years to get all the additional U.S. forces into the landlocked country.

The United States is quietly pressing NATO and other allies to increase forces as well, with a goal of between 5,000 and 7,000 additional non-U.S. troops.

NATO countries involved in the war have been begging for years for more troops from the US in order to hang on to that NATO credibility.

In the meantime, due to the lack of proper oversight, the US doesn't even know how many contractors it has in country.

The Commission on Wartime Contracting, a bipartisan, independent commission mandated by Congress, presented data at a hearing showing major discrepancies in different accounting methods used to determine the number of U.S. contractors.

A traditional manual count by the U.S. military's Central Command turned up nearly 74,000 U.S. Defense Department contractors in Afghanistan as of June 30 -- more than twice the number shown in another survey by the Pentagon.

"I kind of want to scream.... Why if it's so important, are we failing to do something so basic?" said Christopher Shays, a former Republican lawmaker and a co-chair of the bipartisan committee.

Gary Motsek, an assistant deputy undersecretary of defense, acknowledged in testimony that U.S. efforts to create a system to better count the number of contractors in Afghanistan had so far come up short.

"We failed," Motsek said, calling for better funding and regulations to require all U.S. agencies to report figures for contractors. "You should be concerned about the gap, because we are concerned about the gap."

Yet we're supposed to trust these guys to run a war?

Let's not fool ourselves. The fact that Obama is now the US commander-in-chief does not mean that this will suddenly morph into some new and better war. There are only limited war strategies to choose from. More troops does not necessarily equal mission accomplished. That was certainly the lesson from Vietnam. And if we're supposed to be comforted by the so-called success of the "clear, hold and build" strategy employed in Iraq, we have to ask why - if that was indeed a victory - the coalition of the shilling is still at war in that country.

The only honest answer we need to hear from Obama when he addresses his nation next week is that to the question of, "Why is the military still in Afghanistan?" And any answer that includes "national security concerns" must be forcefully challenged.
 

It's Hillier Time

General Rick Hillier, who has already told the press that he doesn't recall reading any reports about Afghan detainee torture from Richard Colvin, testifies at the Special Committee on the Canadian Mission in Afghanistan this afternoon along with two of his military colleagues. (Watch online at CPAC.)

The denials by Harper et al continued today during QP even in the face of media reports that the Red Cross [was] told late about prisoner transfers and a revelation in Le Devoir that supports Colvin's testimony:

...the lead story in Le Devoir, “Torture: Ottawa should have acted sooner," which has a senior official reporting that the prisoner transfer issue finally appeared on Ottawa’s radar screen around Christmas 2006. By then, “it was increasingly apparent to everyone that there were big holes in the Protocol and that there was a real possibility that inmates were being abused.” While not criticizing the Army, which was doing "difficult work in a difficult environment" our source says that they "did not take this issue [of torture] seriously".

The Cons are betting the farm on Canadians lapping up every word of David Mulroney, who is hurriedly flying back from China this week to contradict Colvin's testimony when he appears before the committee on Thursday. Mulroney, without offering up any documentation, is more credible you see because Stephen Harper and Peter MacKay say he is. Case closed.

Except that it isn't. Not by a longshot.

During Hillier's opening statement, he said that he didn't receive any reports of torture in 2006. If that's true, why was it necessary to change the detainee transfer agreement? He even contradicted himself about who the detainees were. They weren't just "farmers", he maintained - then saying that, okay, maybe some of them were farmers but the military let them go. Or they were "farmers by day, Taliban by nite".

Between Harper and his various denialists, there are holes big enough to drive a truck through.

Related:

Colvin says he sent torture reports to minister's office

and...

Canadians tend to believe Colvin: poll

A Canadian Press-Harris/Decima survey released Wednesday suggests twice as many Canadians believe Colvin's testimony than believe, as the government states, that he lacks credibility.

The survey found 51 per cent of respondents believed Colvin's statement that prisoners handed over by Canadian soldiers to Afghan authorities were likely abused and that the government knew of the problem.

Twenty-five per cent said they believed the Harper government's assertion that Colvin's claims are flimsy.

Update:

Colvin testimony on detainee torture 'ludicrous': Hillier

Feds bar whistleblower diplomat from handing over torture documents to MPs

but...

Evan Solomon on CBC this afternoon reports that Colvin's lawyer said today that Colvin will give the documents he has to the committee - obviously risking the legal sanctions the Harper government has threatened him with.
 

Torture: Layton Takes a Swipe at Ignatieff

From Monday's Question Period:

Hon. Jack Layton (Toronto—Danforth, NDP):
Mr. Speaker, when it comes to this whole question of torture, unlike other party leaders, we are not going to stand for denying of the evidence. We are not going to cover up the truth. We are not going to write books justifying torture in any way, shape or form. Nothing can justify torture and nothing can justify the full-scale denial mode that we see from the Conservatives right now.

Why will the government not do the right thing and launch a public inquiry, as we have called for, so that we will have all the facts on the table?

Torture in Afghanistan: The Coverup Continues

This is all very simple: if Peter MacKay wants to be believed when he says that no Afghan detainees handed over to Afghan authorities by the Canadian military were victims of torture, he needs to release all of the relevant documents to prove his assertion. As long as he refuses to do so, he and his Conservative government don't deserve the benefit of the doubt.

(And they certainly don't deserve to be cut any slack, no matter what Chantal Hebert thinks. Is anybody out there denying that this "mess" started with the Liberals? No. I didn't think so.)

Peter MacKay can't have it both ways - but he'll definitely keep trying. He and his Con buddies have spent days smearing Richard Colvin and insisting that he couldn't prove that there were any "credible" allegations of detainee abuse. Yet, here's what MacKay admitted today when his back was against the wall because of General Natynczyk's weekend revelations:

"Most recently the reason that the transfers stopped was that the Afghan officials were not living up to ... expectations," MacKay said during question period in the House of Commons.

He told Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff that the government acted as soon as "credible allegations came to our attention."

Meanwhile, Colvin is unable to properly defend himself.

As he stated during his opening statement last week:

In October 2007, I left Afghanistan and started a new job in Washington, D.C. In April 2009, I was subpoenaed by the Military Police Complaints Commission. In response, DFAIT, in collaboration with the Department of Justice, took three significant steps.

First, they’ve made it very difficult for me to access legal counsel. This ongoing problem has still not been resolved.

Second, DFAIT and the Department of Justice, again working together, blocked my access to my own reports from Afghanistan. I was told, “We will decide which of your reports you require.” I was given none of them.

Third, government lawyers have threatened me under section 38 of the Canada Evidence Act. This had the effect of placing me in an impossible position. If I refuse to co-operate with the MPCC subpoena, I could be jailed for up to six months, but I did co-operate under section 38 I could be jailed for up to five years.

When this warning was sent, DFAIT and the Department of Justice, again acting together, were still withholding approval for legal counsel, depriving me of legal advice and protections.

So, MacKay is free to strut and crow while Colvin remains under threat from a government that absolutely refuses to allow the man to back up his testimony with actual evidence.

This is democracy? This is Canada?

With General Hillier set to invoke the Alberto Gonzales "I don't recall" defense when he testifies this Wednesday, followed by an emergency damage control effort by David Mulroney who has requested to appear as well, the Cons will continue to dig in their obstructionist heels as they attempt to hide the truth.

The lingering question is why?

And the only obvious answer is that they can't afford to let that truth be known. And not for Canada's sake - as they continue to insist. This is all about politics. Human rights be damned.