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
 

Leaving the poor out in the cold - again...

Less than 1% of $1.9-billion social-housing fund spent so far

Less than 1 per cent of a $1.9-billion federal fund for social housing has actually been spent – more than a year after it was announced by the Harper government in the midst of the 2008 election campaign.

[...]

The figures released by Human Resources Minister Diane Finley show the three other funds are also moving slowly.

Only 4.6 per cent of a $1-billion fund to renovate existing social housing units has been spent, while 1.9 per cent of a $400-million fund for low-income seniors' housing is out the door. Only 0.1 per cent of a $75-million construction fund to house people with disabilities has been spent.

The percentages of money actually spent are dramatically lower than the 80- to 90-per-cent figures cited in government-funded Economic Action Plan ads that use terms like “already being implemented.”

Well, that last line is quite the dramatic understatement, isn't it?

These clowns are supposed to be held accountable by the Liberals and their useless report cards. But they know that, even if they get an F, the Libs are too scared to call an election.

So, who loses in the end - again? Certainly not all of those opposition MPs who have nice, cozy places to go home to.

Not to worry though, I'm sure Checky will be on his way soon.

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.
 

Diane Finley Lies About Child Poverty Rates

Faced with opposition questions during QP today about the abhorrent fact that child poverty is still a major problem in Canada, minister for HR and Skills Development, Diane Finley, stated that the child poverty rate is half of what it was under the Liberals.

Wrong.

OTTAWA — Some 637,000 Canadian children are still living in low-income families, 20 years after Ed Broadbent and other federal politicians unanimously agreed to end child poverty, according to a new report.

The rate of child and family poverty has gone down only slightly over the past 20 years, to 9.5 per cent in 2007 from 11.9 per cent in 1989 — a "national disgrace, " the former NDP leader says.

The 2009 Report Card on Child and Family Poverty in Canada, released by the national awareness group Campaign 2000, says the most recent figure is 637,000 Canadian children who live in a family where a majority of money is spent on necessities such as food, clothing and shelter.

Despite what anti-poverty advocates call an unprecedented period of growth since 1998, Canada has failed to make advances to alleviate a problem which affects one in 10 children in this country.

It seems Ms Finley needs to develop her math skills.
 

The 'no-good bastards' of Nova Scotia

Ouch.

OTTAWA — If anyone ever stops Nova Scotia farmers from hiring migrant labourers to harvest their crops, they would destroy a lot of businesses because unemployed Nova Scotians don’t want those jobs, says Gerald Keddy, the Conservative MP for South Shore-St. Margarets.

"Nova Scotians won’t do it — all those no-good bastards sitting on the sidewalk in Halifax that can’t get work," Mr. Keddy said Monday.

Queue the forced apology.
 

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.