Detainee Agreement

[Smallc]

I seriously doubt any Canadians are hanging around the sports bar, drinking a beer, watching the Leafs game and worrying about taliban prisoners, be serious. There are not 100K people marching through the streets demanding we be nice to talib prisoners, get real. Yes, dirty, smelly hippies and freaks in Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal care, because they don't have jobs and have nothing better to do but oppose everything their country does.

I just came home after 6 months there. If you actually saw them, and what they do up close, you would not give a rats ass what happens to them. You care because they are the enemy, you are opposed to us being there, want them to win and bloddy our noses.

Any sane person who met a talib, and saw their handy work up close would not give a damm about them once captured.

I understand where you are coming from, but let me ask you a question. If abandon our morality and values, do we become any better than them? It does not matter what they do to us, because that does no reflect on us, it does not speak to our morals. What matters is the way that we treat them in spite of the way that they are.

[jdobbin]

These detainees are either Afganis, or foreigners and they should be an afgan problem period...don't like that solution take it up with them...It seems more time and effort is spent on giving our enemies rights and comfort than what is being spent on our own troops...Do we really think that the Taliban has such a group worried about Coalition POW's or is cutting ones head off with a dull knife humane or not...ya right...

Something all Canadians should keep in the back of thier minds that not one of us would be afforded the same rights or expect the conventions to be followed by this group of scumbags.

who's only goal in life is to be killed in battle killing infidels....Thats me and you, your kids, your dog, your cat, and your pet fish willy....

So what is the agenda, and why are we pushing to get this all done.

If this is an Afghan problem, perhaps we should come home and leave it to them.

If they want our help, we don't want to be complicit in torturing people.

Canadians have shown they care about the conduct of our soldiers and our allies. It is probably why support for the troops remains high while support for continuing the mission past 2009 is low. In numerous polls, Canadians have expressed a lack of faith in our allies, both Afghan and NATO.

[Fortunata]

I seriously doubt any Canadians are hanging around the sports bar, drinking a beer, watching the Leafs game and worrying about taliban prisoners, be serious. There are not 100K people marching through the streets demanding we be nice to talib prisoners, get real. Yes, dirty, smelly hippies and freaks in Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal care, because they don't have jobs and have nothing better to do but oppose everything their country does.

I just came home after 6 months there. If you actually saw them, and what they do up close, you would not give a rats ass what happens to them. You care because they are the enemy, you are opposed to us being there, want them to win and bloddy our noses.

Any sane person who met a talib, and saw their handy work up close would not give a damm about them once captured.

Weaponeer, let me put it to you this way: We are no better than how we treat people. You want to be like them, fine. I don't.

Furthermore, I DO think we should be there.

And I don't want them to win. But they win when we lose our morality and become as bad as they are. If we can't win on our terms why are we there?

[Smallc]

Weaponeer, let me put it to you this way: We are no better than how we treat people. You want to be like them, fine. I don't.

Furthermore, I DO think we should be there.

And I don't want them to win. But they win when we lose our morality and become as bad as they are. If we can't win on our terms why are we there?

I completely agree with. How we treat them reflects on us as human beings and on Canada.

I also agree that we should be in Afghanistan. We need to help those people, and if we don't I don't know who will.

[Moxie]

I seriously doubt any Canadians are hanging around the sports bar, drinking a beer, watching the Leafs game and worrying about taliban prisoners, be serious. There are not 100K people marching through the streets demanding we be nice to talib prisoners, get real. Yes, dirty, smelly hippies and freaks in Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal care, because they don't have jobs and have nothing better to do but oppose everything their country does.

I just came home after 6 months there. If you actually saw them, and what they do up close, you would not give a rats ass what happens to them. You care because they are the enemy, you are opposed to us being there, want them to win and bloddy our noses.

Any sane person who met a talib, and saw their handy work up close would not give a damm about them once captured.

I concur, considering they abduct mentally ill children slap bombs on these kids place them in parked cars and use them as human bombs. Do I care if they get tortured, pluck NOOOOOOOOOOOO.

Regarding how we treat them as human beings, excuse moi but we don't "Treat them atall". They are enemy combatants, usually a foreigner on Afghanistan's soil to cause terror and wholesale slaughter of innocents. They are the sole responsibility of the Afghan Goverment, if Amnesty International is so concerned let them hit the ground and let them fund pandering and appeasing our enemy. If Canadians have a problem with the treatment of Afghanistans prisoners join a "Peacenik" organization and volunteer to build "Special" prisons that they can fund and monitor incase a Terrorist might get tortured based rumour and not an ounce of "Evidence" but a lot of media hype. Jesus it's a war zone not dollar days at Walmart, if Afghanistan is operating outside the Geneva Convention provide evidence to them. I don't want my tax dollars wasted by providing lodging and security for the scourge of the earth.

Cry me a river, I could carless what happens to this vermin.

[capricorn]

Something bothers me about this whole business of the Federal Court action by Amnesty International and the BC Civil Liberties Assc. One of Amnesty's advisors is Michael Byers, a BC university professor, who in April 2007, filed war crimes charges against then Defence Minister O'Connor and Rick Hillier in the International Criminal Court.

http://thetyee.ca/Views/2007/04/27/WarCrime/

On December 11, 2006 Michael Byers appeared before the standing Committee on National Defence where he said:

"..I would stress, whether it be Amnesty International or legal academics or through media coverage or the work of parliamentarians, these issues are in front of the government. The need to develop an approach to handling detainees in Afghanistan that doesn't lead to human rights violations has been in front of government in various forms for quite some time - since 2002, in fact."

Obviously, Amnesty has known since 2002 that there were problems in Afghan prisons. I'm curious as to why they never took the Liberals to court while they were in power but now they see fit to take the Conservatives to court.

It looks to me that Amnesty International will not quit until they succeed in completely discrediting Canada and our forces on the handling of Afghan detainees and they will stop at nothing to achieve their goal. They have found a sympathetic ear in the Federal Court. I would not be surprised if an injunction was granted and our forces could no longer transfer prisoners to the Afghan authorities.

[Army Guy]

It is important and we do give a rat's ass because we are only as good as our lowest act. If detainees are tortured by failing to act or, even worse, by general consent, it is we, the country, that believes in and condones the use of torture. You see, it really comes down to what do we as a society think is right or wrong. It matters not what others do; we cannot use that as a yardstick to our own beliefs and morality.

We as a nation have taken extreme measures to ensure that these POW's have been handled with kid gloves while in our care and control...where we have failed is ensuring that once these POW's are handed over to the US or Afgan authorities that we check to ensure they are held as per the genva convention....no torture, being feed and housed correctly, thier kids get off to collage etc etc...

We have made it clear as a nation that we do not condone torture, in fact we have stopped sending POW's to US prisons for just this fact. And in doing so we have stated that we do not trust you.

Even after the US investagated the matter and made changes to the way it handles POW's...Now we send our POW's to Afgan prisons not because they are better in thier treatment, but because Canadians just did not want the big bad US to get them...

So now this group cliams they have proof that prisoners are being tortured...have we seen this proof, can we honestly sit down and piont the finger at the Afganis government and shout you have failed ,you lied to us, you promised that these scumbags would be handled like the family jewels...

Or are they claiming they have talked to these POW's, they have heard stories and they are screaming "hell yes we've been tortured"...see the marks...get me out of here...I wonder what else they would say. I'm inocent, i've commited no crimes, i was framed...who's word are we going to believe there's "you know the ones that have vowed to die in battle while killing infidels".. or the government officals who have these scumbags locked up. Has the red cross verified these reports, that is part of thier job....

Why am i so sceptable, because i've seen how we treat these scumbags, how they are pampered, feed and clothed, every whim looked after...I've also seen how the Afganis police and army treats them, yes they are rough, but they are not tortured...but i can't talked for all of them all of the time...

I've also seen how the media and people of Canada feed off these kind of stories, much like the same professor making alligations that Canadian soldiers were mistreating POW's...how long did it take for the people to scream at the top of thier lungs..."them cruel bunch of bastards" we want an investagation...someone get out the rope...And yet it proved to be false...and all we heard in Afgan from the people was "OH really" like they were disappionted , put the rope away boys....disappionted the professor decided to go another angle...Can't have them muslim boys locked up by infidels being mistreated can we....How many soldiers lifes, and long did it take for the ilitis jeep to get replaced in afgan...how long did it take to get tanks over there...was there the same reaction by the people no there was not...

And while it is with every good intention that the people back home can say with confidance we conducted a clean war, adhere to all the conventions. it is not you on the recieveing end of the taliban and the happy band of merry terrorists , it is not you that lives with those images burnt into to many brain cells, and it's not me or you that has to live under constant threat of death by these scumbags...it's the Afganis people, thier the ones that have there families draged out in the middle of the night, beheaded, heads placed on pikes and placed in the center of town, as a reminder...or slowly skinned alive only to die in the cool night air...Yes it is them that lives with that...and as far as i'm concerned they want to torture a few of these scumbags "giver"...does that make me a bad man.... Does that mean that all our efforts in Afgan are wasted ...

Anyone that thinks that morality or values play a major role in combat is mistaken. War is anything but moral or full of values...Yes it is nice to read in our history books that we were the nice guys but those that were there know better.

[Topaz]

Maybe what alot of Canadians don't know is if prisoners being turned over are being tortured and know about it, then they can be held responsible under International law. Now how many would want Harper and McKay sent to the Hague??? Another reason if we allow the torture than what can Canada say if our troopers are tortured? Harper seems to think that he gov't of Afg. will always tell him what is happening right or wrong and that is just stupid because there are former warlords within the gov't that are doing their own thing and the President can't really do much about it. In other words , their gov't is corrupt and they NEED a honest election and get rid of the present gov't!

[Fortunata]

And while it is with every good intention that the people back home can say with confidance we conducted a clean war, adhere to all the conventions. it is not you on the recieveing end of the taliban and the happy band of merry terrorists , it is not you that lives with those images burnt into to many brain cells, and it's not me or you that has to live under constant threat of death by these scumbags...it's the Afganis people, thier the ones that have there families draged out in the middle of the night, beheaded, heads placed on pikes and placed in the center of town, as a reminder...or slowly skinned alive only to die in the cool night air...Yes it is them that lives with that...and as far as i'm concerned they want to torture a few of these scumbags "giver"...does that make me a bad man.... Does that mean that all our efforts in Afgan are wasted ...

Anyone that thinks that morality or values play a major role in combat is mistaken. War is anything but moral or full of values...Yes it is nice to read in our history books that we were the nice guys but those that were there know better.

We do have ideas on right and wrong - it is what made us what we are. Our ideologies may not work in every circumstance, I'll give you that. But I do have a question for you: If we act no better than the Taliban what gives the Afghan people the incentive to try democracy? Won't they see democracy as no better than what they had? Bottom line is what we want to sell and grow there.

[Moxie]

Quote from a peacnik: It is important and we do give a rat's ass because we are only as good as our lowest act.

So to turn your logic around, we are only as good as our lowest act. Hum now let me see the foreign terrorist in Afghanistan behead innocents on TV, they bomb innocents, they use children as human bombs the list is endless. This isn't an issue for you but the RUMOUR of supposed "Torture" gets you all atwitter with empathy. Kinda of twisted idiology there.

Great rebuttal Army Guy, it shall be lost on the "Sensitive Growd" tho. They spend so much worrying about the rumours that they are prostrate with grief from empathizing about the "Supposed Torture" of ferial animals that their minds are atwitter with grief.

Afghanistan isn't rural Ontario, this is a country that is culturally in the year 700. These males are so backwards that torture is part of their culture, their prison system isn't geared to pander and appease criminals (like Canadas) when someone is incarcerated they aren't even provided food, that's the family's responsibility CULTURALLY. A murderer's family can pay for his release if they have enough BLOOD money. I could blather on but the peaceniks and the emotionally charged leftest will never understand the barbarity that is part of the culture of Afghanistan. I guess when they stated that we shouldn't force "Western Culture" on this Society they LIED and what they really meant was do what we "Tell you to do" then it's empathy and wonderous tolerance

Canada has rules and regulations in Place regarding the handing over of Enemy Combatants and Criminal Prisoners, and a no torture clause is in place. If Afghanistan violates that without Canada's knowledge Canada CANNOT be held accountable in the World Courts period. I wish the empathizer could spend a few days with the Taliban and it's followers, specially the females their ethos, to me, is as twisted at the Taliban.They don't shroud their women for modesty they want females to disappear from society.

[guyser]

Moxie, how long were you in Afghanistan?

[weaponeer]

Weaponeer, let me put it to you this way: We are no better than how we treat people. You want to be like them, fine. I don't.

Furthermore, I DO think we should be there.

And I don't want them to win. But they win when we lose our morality and become as bad as they are. If we can't win on our terms why are we there?

No, I do not want to be like them. They are child killing shits, the scum of the earth. Frankly, I miss calling in air and wasting them. I have seen things you can not imagine, seen things you can not believe one human could do to another. I hope it is something none of you ever see.

What I am trying to say is stop worrying about them, worry about your military, Canadians. Worry about how we do not have any helos over there to transport our troops, we can't even evac our wounded or dead off the battlefield without asking someone to do it for us. We can't provide air cover for our troops, Holland can, Denmark can, we can not!!

I understand your point, we are supposed to be the good guys. When you have seen what I have seen, you have no pity for them. If these were SS officers would we feel the same??

[Smallc]

What I am trying to say is stop worrying about them, worry about your military, Canadians. Worry about how we do not have any helos over there to transport our troops, we can't even evac our wounded or dead off the battlefield without asking someone to do it for us. We can't provide air cover for our troops, Holland can, Denmark can, we can not!!

We do support you. your getting transport helicopters asap, and I'm not sure why they don't have the griffons there now with their belly mounted guns to give you cover.

[weaponeer]

We do support you. your getting transport helicopters asap, and I'm not sure why they don't have the griffons there now with their belly mounted guns to give you cover.

The Grifs cannot carry belly mounted guns, the armour required & a usable. The Grif is a cilivl pattern helo we bought & painted green. What we could do is take 4 Cormorants, armour them up and send them, but it is politics. Gov't cannnot announce more units going to afghanistan without causing a meltdown in Ottawa.

I have to try to get some sleep, have a good night all. Nice to be home!!

[weaponeer]

sorry, that was supposed to say "a usable payload". It is late:)

[Smallc]

The Grifs cannot carry belly mounted guns, the armour required & a usable. The Grif is a cilivl pattern helo we bought & painted green. What we could do is take 4 Cormorants, armour them up and send them, but it is politics. Gov't cannnot announce more units going to afghanistan without causing a meltdown in Ottawa.

I have to try to get some sleep, have a good night all. Nice to be home!!

It used to say that the griffons could on the site, it doesn't anymore. As for the cormorant, it can't be sent because of the problems with them and the fact that we don't have enough to start sending them to get blown up.

[capricorn]

Nice to be home!!

All the best to you and your family.

[Army Guy]

We do have ideas on right and wrong - it is what made us what we are. Our ideologies may not work in every circumstance, I'll give you that. But I do have a question for you: If we act no better than the Taliban what gives the Afghan people the incentive to try democracy? Won't they see democracy as no better than what they had? Bottom line is what we want to sell and grow there.

And everyone of those ideas of right and wrong are being followed by the soldiers on the ground. All we "might" and i say that again "might" be guilty is keeping track of each and every POW we've captured and that was handed over.

Has anyone seen hard evidance that this is even the case, not just accuasations, but hard evidance...and yet we as a nation are taking stop gap measures in our highest court....over accuasations...and over a fine detail like tracking POW's in someone elses care and control... my entire piont was "why" are we as a nation pressing this issue, what is the agenda of the professor and BC peace group...

And why is it so hard to swallow, over 8 of my comrads in arms have died while riding in Iltis jeeps, before someone took action, how many lifes could have been saved with tanks on the ground, our own air support , our own helo's the list goes on...and our military has been bitching about these problems for years.....One professor with a muslim back ground and "poof" we have action....Maybe we should be paying his salary, to work as a lobbist for us.

weaponeer:

welcome home. and good luck in re adjusting...

[Fortunata]

ArmyGuy, I have long been an advocate of a strong, well equipped military. When the Libs were slashing and burning to balance budgets I always thought that health care, education and the military should have been beefed up over the cuts elsewhere.

And, I agree that we should take allegations as allegations before jumping on any bandwagon, but it doesn't hurt to investigate to clear the air. What shouldn't happen though, is an investigation that takes months/years and have that cast over you guys there. Other than that I guess, I have no answers. There is never a clean war but I worry that getting too dirty will throw a damper on everything that has been done and everything that could be done in the future. Support for the military - moral, financial does rest on the general public believing we are keeping our mores. Rightly or wrongly. IMHO.

[M.Dancer]

The Grifs cannot carry belly mounted guns, the armour required & a usable. The Grif is a cilivl pattern helo we bought & painted green. What we could do is take 4 Cormorants, armour them up and send them, but it is politics. Gov't cannnot announce more units going to afghanistan without causing a meltdown in Ottawa.

I have to try to get some sleep, have a good night all. Nice to be home!!

I think this link came from either you or army guy....so good I booked marked it...

http://www.sfu.ca/casr/mp-ch146kandahar.htm

Talks about proposed mods to the Griffons to make the afghan serviceable.

[Smallc]

I think this link came from either you or army guy....so good I booked marked it...

http://www.sfu.ca/casr/mp-ch146kandahar.htm

Talks about proposed mods to the Griffons to make the afghan serviceable.

It has armor that can be added as well as door guns. I think it would do good as is. The rocket pods are nice though.

[Army Guy]

That armour they talk about is very minium, armour has been sacraficed for the wieght of the sensors and guns.......on top of that these would be gun ships only, would not be able to extract any wounded... what is needed is a heavy helo that can do both, or two separate helos one attack helo, and one medivac helo...

[jdobbin]

Globe and Mail editorial on detainees.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/sto...TPStory/Comment

On torture in Afghanistan, the Canadian government has told many falsehoods. It sees, hears and knows nothing - even after its own diplomats and inspectors have written reams of reports. But some of those reports have now been made public, by court order. Thus, what the government knew, the public knows.

"Until now, we did not have the information that is being reported today in the papers," Prime Minister Stephen Harper said in the House of Commons on April 24, a day on which The Globe and Mail published allegations of torture and abuse made by prisoners turned over by Canadian soldiers to Afghan security officials. When challenged by the opposition to ensure the prisoners were being monitored, Mr. Harper suggested the allegations were fabricated. "I think what is disgraceful is to simply accept the allegations of some Taliban suspects at face value. That is not appropriate for a Canadian member of Parliament."

Contrary to what Mr. Harper told the House, the government already had firsthand evidence from Canadian officials of the terrible conditions in Afghan jails. And Canadian diplomats had sent home reports of widespread allegations of torture and abuse.

Those allegations were so routine that in February, according to newly released documents with many portions blacked out, Linda Garwood-Filbert, the head of a Corrections Canada team inspecting Afghanistan's jails, asked for a pair of desert camel boots to ensure her staff's own safety in the horrid jails. "On a Health and Safety level we will be walking through blood and fecal matter when either on patrol or in the prison and should not be wearing our personal footwear as it will track into our personal quarters."

It is probably no wonder that the Canadian public wonders what our part is in handing over detainees.

The screams from the government benches that the Opposition and the media are supporting the Taliban ignore what their own people are telling them. The Globe is correct when they talk about falsehoods. The blacked out documents show that the government was aware of what was going on but didn't want the public to know.