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.
 

Canadian News Roundup: Popcorn Edition!

- We, on the left, have been waiting for this headline for a long time: Tory headquarters raided.

OTTAWA- The RCMP is raiding Conservative party headquarters in Ottawa at the request of Elections Canada, confirmed an investigator.

Police officers in civilian clothes, but wearing flak jackets and one wearing a holster, entered and left the offices at 130 Albert Street, but refused further comment. They were searching suites on the 12th and 17th floors of the downtown building where senior Conservative party officials work.

Elections Canada officer Andre Thouin left the headquarters carrying a box of what he said were "documents that concern me," but he declined further comment, other than to say the RCMP was helping to carry out "an order."

The Cons, acting like true maroons during question period today, kept insisting that they had turned over all relevant documents to Elections Canada related to this investigation:

Elections Canada and the Conservative party have been engaged in a protracted legal battle over $1.2 million in alleged campaign spending irregularities from the 2006 election.

The party allowed Tory candidates to claim expenses for TV commercials that were produced for the national campaign.

The Conservatives insist the transactions were legal but Elections Canada disagrees and rival parties have labeled the scheme outright fraud.

Peter Van Loan called this an "imaginary scandal". It's not so "imaginary" when you have the RCMP raiding your offices, is it Van Loan? I guess your "imaginary" lawyers will have to defend this "imaginary scandal" in "imaginary" court.

- Bonus news of the day: General Rick Hillier has resigned, effective July 1, 2008. About damn time. Hillier has been serving as a political mouthpiece for the Afghanistan war for years. He's been nasty, explosive, arrogant, and cocky towards anyone who's challenged him. I guess he'll have ample time now to prepare his defence against war crimes charges filed against him. Good riddance.

- Speaking of Afghanistan, the tories have yet another scandal to deal with:

KANDAHAR, AFGHANISTAN -- A quiet campaign by Canadian diplomats, who have been working to ease the governor of Kandahar out of his job, was thrown into chaos yesterday as Canada's Foreign Minister, Maxime Bernier, shattered months of secrecy and spoke out against the governor in public.

Canadian officials initially believed that Mr. Bernier had taken an important step in advancing their agenda over the weekend, when he met privately with President Hamid Karzai and asked him to replace Governor Asadullah Khalid, who has been dogged by accusations of torture and corruption. Calls for the governor's removal have grown louder this year, after The Globe and Mail's Paul Koring reported on Ottawa's attempts to conceal allegations that Mr. Khalid was personally involved in the torture of detainees.

Afghanistan's President told the Canadian delegation that a new governor would be appointed for Kandahar "within weeks," said a senior official who attended the meeting.

That promise is now more difficult for Mr. Karzai to keep, according to Canadian and Afghan sources, because Mr. Bernier's comments yesterday gave the impression of Canadian pressure on a President who is often satirized as a puppet of foreign masters.

"In light of this, it's much less clear what will happen next," a Canadian official said.

"There's a bit of scrambling now."

Whoops!

This is the same Harper government that was recently accused of providing cover for Kandahar's governor. I guess he's become disposable since then.

- Speaking of coverups: Ottawa tries to halt military probe of Afghan prisoners. What is the Harper government so afraid of? The truth, obviously. They've mishandled this detainee file from the start. If they actually had any integrity, they'd expose exactly what happened. That's a huge "if" though and they're proven time and time again that they'll run from any threat of being held accountable for their actions.

- And, in another blow to the government, "Terror charges stayed". Looks like a really bad week for the tories. What goes around, comes around.

Update:

- I forgot to add one item. Wondering what's driving the Immigration minister's power grab? How about this headline? "Alberta pursues 41,000 foreign workers"
 

Kandahar's Governor Blasts the Canadian Military After Suicide Bombing

On the heels of the second suicide bombing in Afghanistan in two days, the death tolls from both attacks currently standing at 136, the notorious governor of Kandahar accused the Canadian military of ignoring 6 warnings that such an attack might happen in the area, concluding it had put Afghan civilians in danger.

The military's response was this:

...a military spokesman said the Canadian Forces make the decisions on where its soldiers will patrol.

"We regularly receive threat warnings and obviously we go where we want to, when we want to in our area of operation," said Lt.-Cmdr. Pierre Babinsky.

"We obviously take notice of these warnings but our aim is to operate freely within our area of operation despite those."

Shorter Babinsky: you're not the boss of me.

Fine. But at what cost?

NATO troops have repeatedly been slammed by Karzai over civilian deaths and in a country where our soldiers are supposed to be winning hearts and minds as part of the counter-insurgency tactics, that arrogant statement by Babinsky certainly won't help the mission. There's a difference between being in charge of military maneuvers and writing off Afghan intel efforts that another suicide bombing is being planned. 4 of our soldiers were also wounded as a result. Was it absolutely necessary that Canadian troops be in Spin Boldak on Monday to the point where the commanders decided to move through despite the warnings?

Meanwhile, our utterly clueless defence minister, Peter MacKay, said these bombings don't signal an "escalation" in violence. Well, when 136 people are killed in 2 days, I certainly don't know what else you can call it. Just how many more people have to die in record numbers before MacKay acknowledges reality?

Update: The death toll from today's bombing has reached 38, with 30 Afghans critically wounded.
 

Is the Harper Government Providing Cover for a Torturer?

The Globe & Mail lays out the case:

The Harper government knew, but tried to keep secret since last spring, allegations that the governor of Kandahar was personally involved in torture and abuse of detainees.

The allegations against Governor Asadullah Khalid, appointed directly by President Hamid Karzai and a key political partner to Canada's nation-building efforts in southern Afghanistan, were regarded as sufficiently credible that senior officials in Ottawa were immediately informed and Canadian diplomats secretly reported them to the International Red Cross and Afghanistan's main human-rights group.

Government documents detailing the accusations were heavily censored by the government which, claiming national security, blacked out the references to “the governor.” But multiple sources, both inside and outside the government, confirm that the words “the governor” have been censored as have whole passages referring to secret cells allegedly run by Mr. Khalid outside the official prison system.

Last spring was the time that Harper et al were very busy trying to convince Canadians that any torture allegations coming out of Afghanistan were just Taliban propaganda. Today, even after the government finally had to admit that there might be credible cases of detainees being tortured, the Cons' pit bull on the issue - Peter van Loan - called the allegations against Khalid and the obvious cover up "histrionics and hyperbole." We didn't believe them the last time they used such a weak, ad hominem defence and there's certainly no reason to believe them this time either since documents confirm that there were concerns raised about Khalid and his secret prisons.

Rumours have long linked Mr. Khalid to secret prisons. That he had close ties with U.S. intelligence agents and special forces had been known since Canadian troops arrived in southern Afghanistan in early 2006. But Ottawa didn't confront an accusation of the governor's direct involvement in the interrogation and torture of prisoners until it sent diplomats to inspect the main secret police prison in Kandahar on April 25, 2007.

“Another prisoner beckoned to us,” begins the crucial passages describing the first inspection of the secret National Directorate of Security police prison in Kandahar city.

The detainee, like others in the secret police jail, was in leg irons, according to the documents. He told the Canadians his name and described how he initially had been imprisoned for nearly a year, most of the time shackled alone in a room in one of the governor's private prisons. “He went on to state he had been interrogated by foreigners and the governor,” said the report by Gavin Buchan, a Canadian diplomat and Linda Garwood-Filbert, the head of the Canadian Corrections team in Afghanistan.

“He alleged that the governor beat him and gave him electric shocks,” Ms. Garwood-Filbert wrote in her inspection report. Eventually the prisoner was moved to the NDS prison where he gave his account to Canadian officials.

Within days, senior Canadian diplomats had passed on the reports to both the International Committee of the Red Cross and the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission.

It also looks like government lawyers attempted to obstruct justice by not fully releasing the information concerning Khalid:

One meeting was with the International Committee of the Red Cross; the other with the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission. When the briefing note was finally made public late last year as part of the government's delivery of documents in the Federal Court case brought by Amnesty International Canada and the B.C. Civil Liberties Association, it also had the words “the governor” blacked out, multiple sources have confirmed.

Despite sharing the allegations with the Afghan government and outside agencies, Ottawa kept them from a Canadian Federal Court judge hearing a case brought by Canadian rights groups. It claimed the national security exemption.

Why would Khalid be protected by claiming the release of his possible involvement in torture would be a "national security" risk? That's a handy Bush-like excuse for not revealing the truth about torture allegations. It's the same reason Maher Arar's case against Rumsfeld and the US government has had to go through appeals.

The G&M notes that we, the lowly peasants, have no way of knowing if the accusations against Khalid were investigated and it's important to keep in mind that he is a darling of the Bush administration and now, apparently, of the Harper government as well.

In other news on the torture front:

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - The Afghan human rights agency charged with investigating the condition of arrested insurgents says it wants to reopen talks with Canada about turning detainees back over to Afghan authorities.

A spokesman for the Afghan Independent Human Rights Agency says they weren't told by Canadian officials that they'd stopped transferring detainees to Afghan authorities in November.

Farid Hamidi says the agency learned of the policy change from the media last week and only after that were they informed that the Canadians have arrested between 18 to 20 people since that time.

He says the assumption is that they are being held at the Kandahar Airfield, but he doesn't know that for sure because his agency isn't being kept in the loop.

Yet another secret.

This entire detainee debacle is a classic display of the incompetence of this government and its ferocious need for secrecy. What possible excuse could it have for not telling Afghanistan's Human Rights Agency that it had supposedly suspended transfers? I'm sure they'll shout "operational security" about this major whopper too.

Meanwhile, Rick Hillier is saying that if Canadian troops remain in Kandahar past February 2009, they will have to be in a combat role.

Oh....and...wait for it... :

Hillier also refused to comment on the number of detainees currently being held by Canadian Forces at their military base in Kandahar, citing the need for operational security.

Either I'm psychic or this government is way too predictable.

Related:

German troops to stay in Afghan north (despite Gates' "strongly worded letter")

Senators Challenge White House Approach on Afghanistan

Taliban shifts tactics in Afghanistan

Australian troops 'still needed in Afghanistan in 15 years'

Rice heads for London as Afghan crisis looms