Afghan Detainees - A More Complete Story

[Keepitsimple]

There has been a lot of reported "secrecy" around the Afghan Detainee issue - all of it reported in a negative light....but a report this morning in the Toronto Star casts a completely new light on this sensitive story. It appears that Canada was the first NATO country to pull the plug on transfers and this has lifted the veil for all NATO partners. In doing so, foreign officials are accusing Canada of undermining their NATO partners - so I guess these "partners" have all tried to keep the "abuse" genie in the bottle - and it was Canada who popped the cork. In addition, Canada has been actively working through the United Nations to develop an overall strategy for these types of detainees. Canada's current policy - an upgrade on the original one - should also be given more credit for actually uncovering a case of abuse - that's what the policy was designed to do - and that's what it did...thus we stopped the transfers until we can be confident that the abuse will stop. Here are some supporting quotes from the article but I encourage people to read it in its entirety.

OTTAWA–Canada has been quietly working to establish a new international policy for handling battlefield detainees, even while the Conservative government defends the way prisoners are transferred to Afghan jails.

The Star has learned that last October in Denmark, Canadian officials joined counterparts from the United States, Pakistan, Britain and a number of other European and African countries to establish a common platform for the handling of detainees that all countries can use in foreign military campaigns.

Foreign officials say Canada's decision to suspend transfers risks undermining the efforts of all NATO partners who have signed detainee transfer agreements with the Afghan government. Now that Canada has recognized there is a credible risk that detainees will be abused in Afghan jails, none of the NATO allies can claim ignorance of the risk of mistreatment.

Canada has signed two agreements with the Afghan government outlining how to handle prisoner transfers. The first was signed in December 2005, under a Liberal government. The Conservatives signed a new agreement last May that allows Canadian officials to visit Afghan prisoners, monitor their conditions and interview detainees.

It was this procedure that unearthed a "credible allegation of abuse" – the electrical wire and rubber hose used in the abuse of one prisoner – and led to the suspension of transfers. Still, the Tories say they intend to resume handing over prisoners once they consider that risk of abuse to have abated.

Link: http://www.thestar.com/printArticle/299109

Edited January 31, 2008 by Keepitsimple

[eyeball]

Now that Canada has recognized there is a credible risk that detainees will be abused in Afghan jails, none of the NATO allies can claim ignorance of the risk of mistreatment.

This is precisely why I think Canada should declare the international trade in arms to be a crime against humanity, start linking the spread of insecurity in the world to the export of arms and begin sanctioning those country's that sell, give or provide funding for arms to dictatorial country's, people, groups etc.

This story proves that if Canada expresses reservations about the morality of its allies actions and the way they directly undermine our efforts to reduce conflict and war, the world will pay attention.

[eyeball]

none of the NATO allies can claim ignorance of the risk of mistreatment

Why would they want to do that? To keep their citizens misinformed about what they're being asked to support. This should make it a lot more difficult to find people willing to support sending another 1000 troops into a military quagmire.

The moral quagmire the west is floundering around in is getting awfully hard to ignore.

[MontyBurns]

Maybe we should bring all the detainees to Canada so they can benefit from our social programs and vote for the Liberals.

[Topaz]

I've read that the US has a agreement with the Afghanistan government as far as turning them over to them. I also know the US is/has built a large detention centre in Bagram military base where the transfers from Cuba will go. It will hold up to 650 prisoners.

[DogOnPorch]

Detainees?? lol....let's call 'em ice cream, shall we?

Political Corectness. It's literally going to be the end of us...the word is 'enemy'....try it. Flows off of the tongue the same way as detainee, but, it actually describes folks who shoot at/blow-up our troops.

--------------------------------------------

The two pillars of 'political correctness' are:

a] willful ignorance

b] a steadfast refusal to face the truth

---George MacDonald

Edited February 1, 2008 by DogOnPorch

[guyser]

Detainees?? lol....let's call 'em ice cream, shall we?

Political Corectness. It's literally going to be the end of us...the word is 'enemy'....try it. Flows off of the tongue the same way as detainee, but, it actually describes folks who shoot at/blow-up our troops.

Except that for many they seem not to be enemies and are/have been released.

An enemy is indentifiable, a detainee is one they are unsure of . Whats so wrong with that?

[MontyBurns]

These people that the Liberals are defending kill Canadian soldiers on a regular basis. This makes the Liberals traitors in my books.

[capricorn]

These people that the Liberals are defending kill Canadian soldiers on a regular basis. This makes the Liberals traitors in my books.

I wonder if other NATO countries are as obsessed with ensuring that enemies captured in a war zone are treated well.

Is this obsession due to Liberal and NDP political partisanship or ideological principle? It's difficult to differentiate the two since the detainee question seemed to be a non-issue when the Liberals were in government. Why the hype now?

[bush_cheney2004]

....Is this obsession due to Liberal and NDP political partisanship or ideological principle? It's difficult to differentiate the two since the detainee question seemed to be a non-issue when the Liberals were in government. Why the hype now?

Perhaps, but I suspect it has more to do with the historical collective guilt from such incidents like the Somalia Affair (Airborne Regiment).

[capricorn]

Perhaps, but I suspect it has more to do with the historical collective guilt from such incidents like the Somalia Affair (Airborne Regiment).

Good point. I had forgotten about that angle. The Liberals, who were in government at the time, disbanded the Somali inquiry before it was completed.

"The inquiry ran until 1997 when it was cut short by the government in the months before the 1997 election. The government was critical of the direction of the inquiry, noting that it was far exceeding its mandate, as it continued to focus on political and administrative aspects of Armed Forces overall management. Indeed, the conduct of the new government after the Somalia affair and the search for documents now absorbed much of the inquiry's attention, as reflected in its report. The inquiry had run long over its allotted timeframe and budget. The decision to end the inquiry received visible media attention and may have contributed to the defeat of the new Defence Minister Doug Young in the 1997 election. The inquiry was never able to examine top level governmental decision-making, nor did it actually examine the alleged events in Somalia."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somalia_Affair#Somalia_Inquiry

Very interesting.....It appears this new crop of Liberals have taken a change in direction and want to get to the bottom of all things military.

[rbacon]

Canada should get out of Afghanistan. Who cares what these people do to each other. I don't see any Multi-Cults over there. It is a NATO thing with UN sanction, so what get out and let them go at each other.

[Keepitsimple]

I wonder if other NATO countries are as obsessed with ensuring that enemies captured in a war zone are treated well.

Is this obsession due to Liberal and NDP political partisanship or ideological principle? It's difficult to differentiate the two since the detainee question seemed to be a non-issue when the Liberals were in government. Why the hype now?

That was the point of posting this thread. It appears that Canada was the first country to stop transferring detainees. All the other countries had a similar policy to Canada where their Human Rights Officers could visit detainees at a moment's notice - any time.....but Canada was the only one who "found" abuse and we stopped the transfers. In retrospect, the article implies that Canada's "secrecy" was so that we did not put our NATO partners "on the spot". It's an awkward situation because while Afghanistan is working hard with their fledgeling democracy, how can one expect them to run prisons during a war in a manner that we in Canada run our prisons? Does anyone really think that if Canada's prisons contained combatants that had killed and maimed Canadians - that there would be NO abuse towards the prisoners? This is the delemna that the NATO countries face. They do as much as they can to prevent outrageous abuse.....but here in Canada, political opportunists and friendly media rule the day.

[Army Guy]

Canada should get out of Afghanistan. Who cares what these people do to each other. I don't see any Multi-Cults over there. It is a NATO thing with UN sanction, so what get out and let them go at each other.

There's a typical Canadain solution to a problem, Screw them...who cares, or eyeballs favorite, let nature take it's course....Until that is it interfers with a hockey game broad cast, pogie check delivery, or liquor stores operations, then it's a matter of national security....Then the people of Canada stand up and take notice, and with one voice demand action be taken...

Mean while in a land far, far away a nation of people are being punished, tortured, terrorized, executed by a group of scumbags, and all we as Canadians are worried about, is how much money it costs us, is thier government corupt, and how are we treating those poor under feed, misguided, mistreated, prisoners....Damn my eyes swell up everytime i think of those poor bastards....

Not a second thought goes toward those victims of those brutal crimes these scumbags commit, you know of some of them , cutting off hands and limbs of children, skinning a man alive to slowly bake in the morning sun....beheading people for the terriable crime of sending his girl to school....But hey screw them right....we are worried about how we look at home, and our inter national reputation....we can't let some prisoners that our troops handled with kid gloves get mistreated by thier own people....screw that, were leaving....pack up all our toys were going home....we can't stand for that....

Lets not lose focus on what we are trying to accomplish here, to rebuild a nation from scratch, by trail and error...to give the Afgan people hope and dreams of a better life....Canadians have to get off thier high horse of double standards, and except that it's not Canada, and they do not have the same customs or beliefs as we do...And they are slowly coming around to seeing that perhaps kicking the shit of some bad guys is maybe not a good thing....

We should be focusing on the main problem, not spending all our time on these side issues....which we seemed to be consumed with....

There are those that want to use this as another excuse to leave, to quit, those are the ones that should have to explain it to those people we really help....Why we are going home ....but then again that would take balls would'nt it...that would take conviction of thier beliefs, that would mean looking those victims and Afganis people in the eyes and saying who cares...where letting nature take it's course....That would mean Canada as a nation would be taking another turn in our history....from being pioneers, to soldiers, to peacekeepers, to heartless bastards...

[White Doors]

Army guy, I agree that's it's a tragedy that people would dare voice that opinion seemingly appear in alarming numbers, I disagree that it is a 'typical' Canadian attitude. You must remember that the political leaning of those on a internet message board are not representative of the population as a whole.

[Army Guy]

Army guy, I agree that's it's a tragedy that people would dare voice that opinion seemingly appear in alarming numbers, I disagree that it is a 'typical' Canadian attitude. You must remember that the political leaning of those on a internet message board are not representative of the population as a whole.

I did give it some thought, at first i was going to use "majority" but thought it to strong...As it is the majority that does want this afgan issued dropped, or changed and most of those opinons can or will fit into those i mentioned...

Perhaps "typical" is to harsh as it includes the minority that don't deserve to be fitted or slotted in with the majority....

It's not just on the intranet, it's every where, alot of Canadians are losing focus on why we are there, and losing interest in the whole mission...they want change, and they want it now....

[eyeball]

or eyeballs favorite, let nature take it's course

[Keepitsimple]

or eyeballs favorite, let nature take it's course

Naive analogy. What you and others fail to understand is that we are trying to nip this in the bud - put out or manage your so-called fire before it starts to rage out of control. Imagine the Taiban and Al Quaeda with Afghanistan as their unchallenged "beach head". Do you think they'd stop there? They'd quickly start moving the other way through Waziristan and start the same process in Pakistan. Do you think they'd stop there? No, they won't. These midievil animals will stop at nothing to impose their will. This month's National Geographic showed pictures of the Budhas that were destroyed by the Taliban in Central Afghanistan. They fired rockets at them for several days and then put explosives in them to complete the obliteration of centuries-old peaceful monuments - there were dozens of them - what sad, sad pictures. They executed thousands who would not bend to their will. I'm sure that this has been mentioned before but leaving afghanistan harkens back to Neville Chamberlain - hoping that by leaving the Nazis alone, England and others would be spared. The Taliban mentality is worse than that of Nazi Germany - they lack any conscience short of total submission to their distorted and perverted form of Islam.

[eyeball]

You really believe the fourth poorest country on the planet will quickly over-run the Earth if its left to its own devices?

[Oleg Bach]

You really believe the fourth poorest country on the planet will quickly over-run the Earth if its left to its own devices?

What right has some Canadian got - that he thinks he can go to Afghanistan and capture a local that belongs to in effect a mafia - and then take that "detainee" and hand him over to the competeing mafia ? That's what it really is all about. It creeps me out that we do not realize that they are not interested in democracy in Afghanistan or Iraq of that matter - these are tribal nation - and have been for a thousand years - they are interested as groups in being the top dog---materially - and as far as status - we will not change this system..in 200 years they will still be having turf wars over opium production...and we will have wasted our time resourses and the lives of our military for no good reason. I would say that the mission will fail - as it did for a dozen other invading nations that meddled in this area over the last few centuries - this is a mafia war _Afghani style - and once it's over...we will leave and they will get right back to their traditions ----I know I would never let some interlopers spoil my wealth.....why would the factions there feel different than myself?

[Keepitsimple]

You really believe the fourth poorest country on the planet will quickly over-run the Earth if its left to its own devices?

You seem to forget how the attack of 9/11 affected the world - stock markets crashed and every Western country was put on guard against terrorism - with billions upon billions of dollars being spent. That was accomplished by a small number of hate-filled idealogues, who were trained and harboured in Afghanistan. They won't "quickly" over-run the Earth. They will peck away at the soft underbelly of Western society. Extremist Islam has all the time in the world - while we measure progress in media sound-bytes. Aided by a Leftist media and partisan political opportunism, they'll try to continually try to weaken our resolve - as shown by the insane disproportion of coverage given to prisoner abuse. The naive continue to believe that if we leave them alone, they won't bother us, or it's not our war. If NATO pulls out of Afghanistan, not only will we be dis-respecting those who have already given their lives - but we will have to go back in there in the future and it will be 5 times as hard to resolve the situation.

Edited February 2, 2008 by Keepitsimple

[eyeball]

I haven't forgotten anything. The world should have been put on guard against the root causes of terrorism.

The 9/11 hijackers actually trained themselves in the US and none of them were from Afghanistan. The worst that can be said about Afghanistan is that some of them may have received some indoctrination there but so what? You could just as easily get all the indoctrination you need off the Internet. It'll take a lot more than a few minutes of video images of people running through a rudimentary obstacle course to ever justify killing who knows how many innocent people in response to 9/11.

Western society's soft-underbelly is its propensity for subscribing to unreasoning fear and loathing. Its real Achille's Heel however is its continuing support of dictatorships and interference in the Muslim world. This will ensure the supply of hate-filled ideologues that have plenty of justification for retaliating which is the unstated but all too apparent goal of our military-industrial complex. Why? Because conflict "creates" wealth.

...the five years since the 9/11 attacks have seen the fastest global growth in per capita real GDP ever....Real GDP growth in the US did not slip into negative territory at all, and while there was a significant slowdown in growth in 2001, a large part of the slowdown was a consequence not of the terrorist attacks, but the meltdown of technology stocks the year before.

Source

I see Exxon also just posted more than a 40 billion dollar profit last year, which broke the record 30 odd billion they made the year before that.

This can clearly only go on for only so long though. Perhaps the next 9/11-like event that happens or perhaps the one after will increase the number of people who are able to put these events into their proper context and more will come to realize that the west actually does deserve its comeuppance and that's its actually cutting its own throat.

Edited February 2, 2008 by eyeball

[M.Dancer]

The 9/11 hijackers actually trained themselves in the US and none of them were from Afghanistan..

Irrelevant half truth.

They got their flight training in the USA, their terrorism training in Afghanistan.

[Oleg Bach]

Irrelevant half truth.

They got their flight training in the USA, their terrorism training in Afghanistan.

The stupid Americans inadvertantly trained the highjackers - and the failed CIA and FBI - inadvertantly facilitated the disaster.....ineptness was the problem and self service of agents that were not doing their duty was the problem. As far as Afghanistan - it's a joke and a waste every time I see in our multi-cultural society - dead white Christian boys on the front page...maybe when it comes to sacrafice or human sacrafice - other races are not of high enough quality to be tossed into the fire that is Afghanistan...so what the hell - besides the immigrant populace of Canada are just to smart to partake in war fare that they know from experience back home is always a scam to amuze the powerful and the rich at the expence of the dupe young loyalist citizens. Funny when you see a picture of a dead Canadian soldier - they always have this stunned look like a deer peering into the headlights - and like deer they become road kill - eventually someone will pay legally for destroying this valuable anglo breeding stock --- what a mess - and what a bunch of fools - and the idiots that salute caskets as if this is some noble cause are dellusional.

[eyeball]

Irrelevant half truth.

Irrelevant? Okay. At least you've provided your own clue as to why you've been unable to learn anything from the past.

History

Edited February 4, 2008 by eyeball