Detainees - now that its clear as mud

[eyeball]

Suddenly, within an hour of the (Generals) testimony, two Colvin e-mails, sent to foreign minister Peter MacKay's office in 2006, were leaked. They didn't use the words “torture” or “abuse,” but warned that the Red Cross – the global authority on treatment of prisoners in war zones – was gravely worried about Canadian handovers. Everyone who knows about these things knows the Red Cross doesn't express explicit charges except to parties directly involved; it's the precondition of their unique access. But for the Red Cross, this went pretty far. “All kinds of things are going on,” an official had said.

It became possible to try to square the circle; perhaps those contradictions weren't absolute. The generals might be “parsing” their words in a Clintonesque way (“I did not have sexual relations …”). They weren't told that torture was going on but would have known what was implied. And Mr. Colvin, with the délicatesse of a diplomat and the care of a spook – he usually seems to hold “security” roles in his postings – had cloaked his words, but not his meaning.

Rick Salutin

The only real clue in the 30-item e-mail and report trail (received by the G&M) to Mr. Colvin's increasing urgency is that – after The Globe series – his impatient pleas for swift change and better prisoner monitoring won him no friends in the Ottawa bureaucracy. In these demands, he was proven right, and in his anger about being muzzled by a hyper-secret government, which he made most strongly in an end-of-assignment report he never sent his superiors, he was hardly alone.

With these e-mails now, finally, in the public domain, albeit in a redacted form, Canadians may have more information but they know less.

In condemning with the same brush highly professional Canadian soldiers, and to complain that they were complicit in breaches of the law of armed conflict and knowingly buried his reports, it is Mr. Colvin who has some explaining left to do.

Christie Blatchford

Between the Red Cross' need to protect their unique access to both sides of the conflicts they find themselves in and the délicatesse that diplomats are trained to use it becomes easier to understand how the fog settling around this is whole issue would become so thick you could cut it with a knife. At first glance it appears to be a deliberately obfuscatory monitoring process, as Christie Blatchford points out the more info we get from our hyper-secret government the foggier things get.

Andrew Coyne pointed out on this week's At Issue panel how disgracefully poor Canada's accountability institutions really are. I would agree but there is more going on here as well. The importance of the Red Cross' need to be discreet is only matched by the need for their reports to be expertly and discerningly scrutinized for the cloaked meaning they may contain.

When required, the importance of explicitly leaving the word torture out is just as important as implicitly making sure its there, the only reason for not noticing, reporting or acting on the difference is political, which is probably the most shameful and disgraceful reason I can think of.

I get the real sense that the Generals and Harpers's government are playing dumb and are hoping we're too dumb to notice, hence my last poll question and why I've chosen to make the poll public. Imply what you will if you dare.

[Riverwind]

It is a tempest in a teapot. The problem is, at best, a bureaucratic failure because the Canadian forces did not notify the Red Cross fast enough when detainees were transferred and were too trusting if the people they handed detainees over to. It is not as if the Canadian forces actually tortured anyone or knowingly gave them to someone with the expectation that they would be tortured.

Edited November 29, 2009 by Riverwind

[Canadian Blue]

I've actually heard some people call Gen. Rick Hillier a war criminal. Then again those people are usually confined to the usual quacks who have no clue where Afghanistan is on a map.

[Keepitsimple]

It would have been informative to include this part of Christy's article:

It seems to have been Mr. Colvin's visit to the provincial prison in Kandahar city on May 16, 2006, that first triggered his concern. But that inspection and an earlier one upon which he relied, made in December of 2005 by the International Committee of the Red Cross, were, in the Afghan context, practically sunny about their findings.

The ICRC rated the Kandahar prison the best of the four it inspected; it was not that bad and not the worst in Afghanistan, that honour going to the facility in Uruzgan, the Dutch area of control. Even to Mr. Colvin, the Kandahar prison seemed to be in reasonably good condition, inmates got enough food and, he said, most were through the courts within 15 days (unlikely, as the courts in Afghanistan were at that time almost non-existent).

And though Mr. Colvin was careful to note that his guide at the prison was guarded and speaking in code, the guide's harshest characterization of detainee treatment was that some were being held in unsavoury or unsatisfactory conditions.

It is a long way from that mild pronouncement to Mr. Colvin's testimony last week before a special parliamentary committee, where he said unequivocally that most of the Afghans detained by Canadian soldiers weren't “high-value targets” but rather “just local people, farmers, truck drivers, tailors, peasants, random human beings in the wrong place at the wrong time” and that Canadian troops had “retained and handed over for severe torture a lot of innocent people.”

How he got from one polar extreme to the other isn't much clarified by the dozens of e-mails he sent in the interim.

Edited November 29, 2009 by Keepitsimple

[eyeball]

It would have been informative to include this part of Christy's article:

Feel free to point anything and everything out that doesn't ring true. Getting as close to the truth as possible should be the point of a proper investigation, no matter which way it causes the chips to fall.

[myata]

We do know some things for certain though:

1) The government went out of its way viciously attacking Mr Colvin's credibility.

and

2) That same government is refusing to release full information pertaining to the case, or call a public inquiry.

That's a start, and should tell us quite a bit already. Only imagine the same strategy used by prosecution in a court of law (as it was not uncommon some generations back).

[Alta4ever]

We do know some things for certain though:

1) The government went out of its way viciously attacking Mr Colvin's credibility.

and

2) That same government is refusing to release full information pertaining to the case, or call a public inquiry.

That's a start, and should tell us quite a bit already. Only imagine the same strategy used by prosecution in a court of law (as it was not uncommon some generations back).

So what, the government doesn'r openly display all data to the public and in many cases it has good reason not to. I never even complained about this when the liberals were in power. It will all come out in the end, just not on the time frame of those who wish to use ever scrap for a political agenda rather then a true humanitarian one.

[eyeball]

So what, the government doesn'r openly display all data to the public and in many cases it has good reason not to. I never even complained about this when the liberals were in power. It will all come out in the end, just not on the time frame of those who wish to use ever scrap for a political agenda rather then a true humanitarian one.

A truly humanitarian generation would ensure its kids and grand-kids are better equipped to deal with the troubles they inherit than the generations who created the trouble in the first place.

[myata]

So what, the government doesn'r openly display all data to the public and in many cases it has good reason not to. I never even complained about this when the liberals were in power. It will all come out in the end, just not on the time frame of those who wish to use ever scrap for a political agenda rather then a true humanitarian one.

And so, unlike us, lowly and humble regular citizens, government officials can accuse anybody of virtually anything, and then hide behind their privilege to not release information that could confirm (or deny) their accusations.

Sounds very democratic, open and transparent indeed.

[myata]

And this is the new face of our democracy:

"The documents are so heavily redacted by government censors, it's difficult to know what Covin was actually reporting or what his bosses in Ottawa thought of those reports. "

(from CBC: http://news.ca.msn.com/top-stories/cbc-article.aspx?cp-documentid=22782231)

Perhaps, we shouldn't be so rush condemning others' records on democracy and human rights, etc as nobody knows where will this path take us a few years down the road.

Edited December 3, 2009 by myata

[wyly]

And this is the new face of our democracy:

"The documents are so heavily redacted by government censors, it's difficult to know what Covin was actually reporting or what his bosses in Ottawa thought of those reports. "

(from CBC: http://news.ca.msn.com/top-stories/cbc-article.aspx?cp-documentid=22782231)

Perhaps, we shouldn't be so rush condemning others' records on democracy and human rights, etc as nobody knows where will this path take us a few years down the road.

from what I understand some of the censored documents have low level clearance "Canadian eyes only" but are still being withheld, and the MPs have the security clearance to see those and many more...the more government hides the more it appears there is a coverup going on...I don't believe Canadians are active in torture we learned our lesson after the Somalia incidents but this concealment makes it appear that Canadian officials knew that those people our troops handed over to the Afghans were being tortured...

[Army Guy]

"The documents are so heavily redacted by government censors, it's difficult to know what Covin was actually reporting or what his bosses in Ottawa thought of those reports. "

Perhaps, we shouldn't be so rush condemning others' records on democracy and human rights, etc as nobody knows where will this path take us a few years down the road.

All this confusion is based on what exactly.... Do you honestly believe that our Nations Military would risk everything it's reputation, just so a few prisoners of War could be tortured, sorry i forgot a few famers, truck drivers, tailors, peasants, random human beings, when in reality most of the prisoners we take are off the battlefield...(even the media prints on each op we are on how many killed, taken prisoner...all available on line...) where just seconds before were shooting at us...so while he may be partially right they might not be High pri targets....but they are targets now the less......

I think there is a lack of trust between mr covin and the military....Our military does not have a quota that is set, and we take prisoners accordily, Most if not all prisoners we take are taken off the battlefield...you know guys with guns whom just seconds before were trying to put a bullet into a Canadians face....Farmers , truck drivers, tailors, peasents all must have a second job....And yet we are reading what in the media, all painting that picture or disent amoung Canadians....Canadians take the most prisoners....But we also run the most OP's and we are in a very target rich enviroment...but thats not mentioned, because that would put things into context...would it not...

And somehow our prison that we hand over prisoners to is rank as one of the best Mr covin visted, the worst being the dutch's ....anything in the dutch papers...i wonder why that is.... I hope they do run an inquiry into all this bullshit...but i also hope they take action of some sort when it is proven false...and end this frigging prisoner treatment once and for all...

This is not just about the top military personal, nor the government in charge....the genva convention spells out exactly how a prisoner is to be treated, and who is responsable and that runs right down to the pte that captured the poor prick......and Mr Covins statement, we are all to blame...including the Grunts on the ground....Once again we are left to explain accusations about prisoners abuse to the Canadian public, some soldiers have asked, where are our helo's, and other life saving equipment and go unheard... mention anything about some scumbag in cells, and you get peoples attention...maybe it should be us behind bars....

[wyly]

All this confusion is based on what exactly.... Do you honestly believe that our Nations Military would risk everything it's reputation, just so a few prisoners of War could be tortured, sorry i forgot a few famers, truck drivers, tailors, peasants, random human beings, when in reality most of the prisoners we take are off the battlefield...(even the media prints on each op we are on how many killed, taken prisoner...all available on line...) where just seconds before were shooting at us...so while he may be partially right they might not be High pri targets....but they are targets now the less......

I think there is a lack of trust between mr covin and the military....Our military does not have a quota that is set, and we take prisoners accordily, Most if not all prisoners we take are taken off the battlefield...you know guys with guns whom just seconds before were trying to put a bullet into a Canadians face....Farmers , truck drivers, tailors, peasents all must have a second job....And yet we are reading what in the media, all painting that picture or disent amoung Canadians....Canadians take the most prisoners....But we also run the most OP's and we are in a very target rich enviroment...but thats not mentioned, because that would put things into context...would it not...

And somehow our prison that we hand over prisoners to is rank as one of the best Mr covin visted, the worst being the dutch's ....anything in the dutch papers...i wonder why that is.... I hope they do run an inquiry into all this bullshit...but i also hope they take action of some sort when it is proven false...and end this frigging prisoner treatment once and for all...

This is not just about the top military personal, nor the government in charge....the genva convention spells out exactly how a prisoner is to be treated, and who is responsable and that runs right down to the pte that captured the poor prick......and Mr Covins statement, we are all to blame...including the Grunts on the ground....Once again we are left to explain accusations about prisoners abuse to the Canadian public, some soldiers have asked, where are our helo's, and other life saving equipment and go unheard... mention anything about some scumbag in cells, and you get peoples attention...maybe it should be us behind bars....

if innocent people are being tortured and killed and we turn a blind eye to it we are aiding a government hardly different from the one that was removed...

[Army Guy]

So what your really saying is thier is doubt in your mind, Canadian soldiers and the few Canadian officials in Afghan are capable of doing this...Capable of throwing everything we have worked so hard in building. For what exactly ?

I'm not saying you don't support the troops or anything like that, what i'm asking is what placed this doubt or lack of trust in your mind ?

[Keepitsimple]

Funny how throughout this tempest in a teapot, the media have made no references to the Dutch.....who were also "accused" of complicity in torture and criticized by their political opposition. Are we to call the Dutch war criminals as well. Reading this article, you'd think it was a carbon-copy of what's going on right here:

Dutch accused of complicity in torture in Afghanistan

13-11-2007

Dutch forces in Afghanistan have been accused of exposing their detainees to torture and flouting international obligations. Amnesty International says troops from NATO's ISAF mission in the country are handing over detainees to Afghan authorities, despite consistent reports that these are using methods such as whipping and beatings against inmates.

"There is evidence that torture takes place within the Afghan detention system," says Susi Dennison of Amnesty's Europen Union office, adding:

"There is no way that ISAF troops - including those of the Dutch government - can know that torture will not take place when they transfer detainees to Afghan authorities."

Worthless safeguards

The Dutch, British and Belgian and other ISAF contingents have signed a deal with Afghan authorities to ensure that inmates are treated in accordance with international standards. This 'Memorandum of Understanding' should guarantee these forces and the International Committee of the Red Cross full access to the detainees.

But in all these cases, Ms Dennison insists that this Memorandum "is not being fulfilled and independent human rights monitors are not getting full access."

Key problems

•Concerns about the treatment of over 30 detainees captured by ISAF forces, including 10 captured by Dutch troops;

•British and Dutch forces encountering difficulties in ensuring independent monitoring of detainees in Afghan custody;

•Belgian government losing track of transferred detainees, and

•Severe cases of abuse and ill-treatment in Afghan jails, says the United Nations.

Neither the United Nations nor the Red Cross are able to completely monitor inmates held by the National Directorate of Security (NDS), says Amnesty.

The Red Cross, however, is disputing these findings. Red Cross officials say they have full access to detainees which are being transferred by the Dutch and British military.

The United Nations says the NDS uses various methods of ill treatment, including:

•beatings, exposure to extreme cold and food deprivation

•not respecting the due judicial process leading to trial of detainees

'No proof' in report

Amnesty is now calling on all governments involved in the ISAF mission to stop handing over detainees to Afghans until these shortcomings have been resolved.

But the government in The Hague has rejected this appeal. Out of seventy people captured by Dutch forces so far, it says ten are currently in detention and it insists that it does have full access to them. The safeguards are sufficient, according to Dutch Foreign Minister Maxime Verhagen:

"The ten people who are still in jail have been visited by the International Red Cross, by the independent human rights commission of Afghanistan and by representatives from the embassy. From those visits we can do nothing but concluded that - including the local circumstance at the Afghan jail - they are being treated decently and are not being exposed to torture." [translation]

Amnesty's demands

•Suspension of the transfer of detainees to Afghan authorities;

•Development of a code of conduct regarding detainee transfers for member states operating in Afghanistan, and

•Greater EU role to improve the training of Afghan detention officials.

Some Dutch parliamentarians have also rejected the Amnesty report out of hand, including Arend-Jan Boekenstijn from the conservative VVD party:

"The wording of these allegations is extremely general. I don't even know if they apply to Uruzgan or some other province. I don't like that, I want concrete information."

To be taken seriously

But Socialist parliamentarian Harry van Bommel said he wants a full response from the defence ministry.

"If Amnesty learned of this by way of the Red Cross for instance or other organisations that have access to prisoners, then its something we have to take seriously. This strikes at the core of the agreements the Dutch government made with the Afghans."

Whatever further steps are taken, these latest allegations will not help the reputation of the struggling ISAF mission, which is meant to be restoring peace and rule of law in Afghanistan.

Link: http://static.rnw.nl/migratie/www.radionetherlands.nl/currentaffairs/071113-torture-afghanistan-mc-redirected

[noahbody]

They didn't use the words “torture” or “abuse,” but warned that the Red Cross – the global authority on treatment of prisoners in war zones – was gravely worried about Canadian handovers.

Much ado about nothing.

[myata]

Of course. Whitewashing a friendly installed regime, closing eyes on its little cute problems and ways of doing things, is nothing the public should know nor be interested about. The price of beer is a totally different story. As said, the taste of democracy to come...

[Sir Bandelot]

Proof of detainee abuse exists, despite MacKay's denials

Globe and Mail Dec. 06, 2009

Sworn testimony by senior Canadian officers and rare uncensored documentary evidence contradict Defence Minister Peter MacKay's repeated assertions that no proof exists of even a single case of a Canadian-transferred detainee abused by Afghan security forces.

In one well-documented case in the summer of 2006, Canadian soldiers captured and handed over a detainee who was so severely beaten by Afghan police that the Canadians intervened and took the detainee back. Canadian medics then treated the man's injuries. The incident is documented in the field notes of Canadian troops, recounted in a sworn affidavit by a senior officer and confirmed in cross-examination by a general.

The incident, which was previously known, takes on new and greater significance given the chorus of denials from Mr. MacKay.

Peter MacKay's legacy will be that of a bald-faced liar. How do we know when Mr. MacKay is lying? His tiny little mouth is moving, but thats too hard to see sometimes. No my friends, we know that he is lying by the fact that he is a neo-con. The party was built on lies and betrayals, and this is what we have now running this country.

[Topaz]

mackay is a lawyer he knows how to say the right things, even if they aren't true.It only makes sense that IF abuse was out there that the some of the troops would know about and since the military and the government made sure nothing was written down, there's only the soldiers words and pictures as truth. Now, the Tories are saying that the pictures are not of Taliban soldiers, they were of Afghanis! Common sense says if the Afghanis abuse their own what, do they do with war prisoners??? Mackay said today, they the Tories has to clean up the mess with the detainees from the Libs. Since Canada was giving the detainees to the US, is Mackay saying the US were abusing? It was the Tories, if I'm not mistaken, that changed the exchange to the Afghanis. I say both, the military brass and the Tories are trying to stop the truth coming out, they have a lot more to lose than anyone else.

[eyeball]

So what your really saying is thier is doubt in your mind, Canadian soldiers and the few Canadian officials in Afghan are capable of doing this...Capable of throwing everything we have worked so hard in building. For what exactly ?

Camaraderie, going with the flow? Lets face it, cultivating a disdain for the enemy is part of being a soldier, its why soldiers use dehumanizing terms like scum-bag, animal, and extermination when talking about the enemy.

I'm not saying you don't support the troops or anything like that, what i'm asking is what placed this doubt or lack of trust in your mind ?

Speaking for myself, I've never been in closer communication with soldiers and hard-core mission supporters than in this forum. I have to say its been the often nasty comments and attitudes of some of these have certainly added a fair bit of weight to my doubts.

[dapatriot]

Camaraderie, going with the flow? Lets face it, cultivating a disdain for the enemy is part of being a soldier, its why soldiers use dehumanizing terms like scum-bag, animal, and extermination when talking about the enemy.

Speaking for myself, I've never been in closer communication with soldiers and hard-core mission supporters than in this forum. I have to say its been the often nasty comments and attitudes of some of these have certainly added a fair bit of weight to my doubts.

I'm a former militia member, infantryman, who served this country for two years.

If I were 30 years younger, I would be over in Afghanistan.

What would I (hypothetically) do If I caught a Taliban or Al Qaeda POW?

I would certainly obey orders and hand them over to the Afghans.

What about torture?

What about it?

What's your definition of torture? Is it variable?

Is rough house, physical bruises, a definition of torture?

And what is the priority in Afghanistan for Canada and others in NATO?

(1) Is it to keep the Taliban from regaining power and tyranny (especially over women)?

(2) Is to prevent the Al Qaeda (and their ilk) from reaquiring bases to launch terror internationally?

(3) Is it to babysit the Afghan peoples and government and teach them and impose upon them our 'superior' human rights values?

(4) Cutting down opium fields?

OK! For the sake of arguement, let's use the Amnesty International definition for 'torture'.

That being the case, should Canadian soldiers refuse to turn over Taliban prisoners because we suspect or know that they will be tortured?

What's the alternative?

1) Leave Afghanistan and leave the Afghan women to their Taliban fate?

2) Take Taliban POWs and bring them to Canada? What would we do with them here? Turn them into model

Canadian citizens?

[wyly]

So what your really saying is thier is doubt in your mind, Canadian soldiers and the few Canadian officials in Afghan are capable of doing this...Capable of throwing everything we have worked so hard in building. For what exactly ?

I'm not saying you don't support the troops or anything like that, what i'm asking is what placed this doubt or lack of trust in your mind ?

if your directing the question at me...I haven't blamed the troops for anything, I'm more concerned with the government hiding the truth, these government promised openess but they're giving us nothing close to that...

[wyly]

OK! For the sake of arguement, let's use the Amnesty International definition for 'torture'.

That being the case, should Canadian soldiers refuse to turn over Taliban prisoners because we suspect or know that they will be tortured?

What's the alternative?

1) Leave Afghanistan and leave the Afghan women to their Taliban fate?

yes, it's an Afghan problem they have to solve it...do we invade Saudi Arabia or Iran for similar treatment of their women? no it's their society their problem...

2) Take Taliban POWs and bring them to Canada? What would we do with them here? Turn them into model

Canadian citizens?

either we hold them or leave, if we can't trust the government of afghanistan to behave better than the government we removed then we shouldn't be there...

[eyeball]

OK! For the sake of arguement, let's use the Amnesty International definition for 'torture'.

That being the case, should Canadian soldiers refuse to turn over Taliban prisoners because we suspect or know that they will be tortured?

What's the alternative?

1) Leave Afghanistan and leave the Afghan women to their Taliban fate?

2) Take Taliban POWs and bring them to Canada? What would we do with them here? Turn them into model

Canadian citizens?

1) We will be leaving Afghanistan in any case, so you better prepare yourself for what will likely happen, that life will carry on the much the way it did there before we went in.

2) We've done this in the past with other enemy POW's, but if that's just not on and there is no other choice but to hand them over to people who will torture them, we should leave immediately.

Afghans will simply have to fight for their own rights the hard way like we did.

[dapatriot]

1) We will be leaving Afghanistan in any case, so you better prepare yourself for what will likely happen, that life will carry on the much the way it did there before we went in.

2) We've done this in the past with other enemy POW's,

(Not with Waffen SS; Canadian soldiers gave no quarter to them in WW2)

but if that's just not on and there is no other choice but to hand them over to people who will torture them, we should leave immediately.

Afghans will simply have to fight for their own rights the hard way like we did.

With that attitude don't expect anyone to come to Canada's help in this increasing troubled and overpopulated world, especially if the USA becomes isolationist & continues its decline as a world power.

And do we wait until another 9/11, right?

Maybe one in Toronto, as well as in a few US cities, carried out with dirty bombs or cannisters full of KCN or Sarin assembled and smuggled out of Afghanistan free of NATO troops?

I hope you don't live in Toronto then.

To make this personal; Did you know the Taliban care nothing about your life, and they would have no

qualms about taking your life?