Today, we explore a far more insidious lie from the website:
The site reiterates claims that Harper and the Conservative Party were complicit in the torture of detainees in Afghanistan, and repreats the sensational claims of former Diplomat Richard Colvin.
Moreover, they had even been warned about the prevalence of torture in Afghan prisons by former diplomat Eileen Olexiuk. They ignored her.
This is very different from how Prime Minister Stephen Harper handled reports of torture. When revelations that Afghan prisoners transferred by Canadian soldiers were being tortured reached Harper, his government immediately re-negotiated the PTA.
But don't expect to hear that from the people behind Shit Harper Did. They're too busy lying to the Canadian public.
There's a brazen Cold War character to the film: set in Afghanistan, it was filmed while the Soviet occupation was still ongoing. The production of the film amounted to Americans rubbing salt in wounds that the Soviets were still suffering -- it's tantamount to the Soviet Film Ministry producing a film about the Vietnam war during the early 1970s.
Rambo III finds John Rambo (Sylvester Stallone) completely adrift, reduced to using skills, honed fighting the Vietnamese, as a pit fighter in Thailand.
Colonel Samuel Trautman (Richard Crenna) approaches Rambo with another mission: to travel into Soviet-occupied Afghanistan and help the Mujahideen drive out the Soviet occupiers.
At first Rambo declines until Trautman is captured by the Soviets. Rambo must reprise his mission to rescue his last remaining friend.
Rambo travels alone to Peshawar where he makes contact with the Muhajideen and leads them in their fight against the brutal Colonel Zaysen (Marc de Jonge). At first the Mujahideen doubt him, but his skills help them put the Soviets on their heels.
By the film's end, Rambo has rescued Trautman and returns with him to the United States, leaving the Afghans to continue their fight. History knows how the war ended -- with the Soviet Union retreating from Afghanistan. However, the film ends with a tributary message to the people of Afghanistan.
Many have looked to Rambo III as evidentiary either of western naivete toward Afghanistan now, or western naivete toward Afghanistan in the 1980s. Take your pick.
Of course, the argument that American support for the Mujahideen helped create the Taliban is categorically false. The Taliban didn't exist as a political or paramilitary force until later in the 1990s. Moreover, the Taliban originated in Pakistan, not Afghanistan.
This isn't to say that the abandonment of Afghanistan after the Soviet withdrawal -- leaving the country destitute and desperate -- didn't help foster an environment that allowed the Taliban to come to power, and Al Qaeda to flourish.
So did the United States create the monster of Talib Afghanistan? It seems that the answer is a combination of yes and no.
This doesn't necessarily provide the answer as to whether or not western troops belong in Afghanistan right now. However, it does point to important considerations moving forward.
NATO must not lose its appetite to help defeat the Taliban. Equally important is not to slack off on nation-building after the Taliban is finally gone.
Otherwise, we simply risk creating another monster.
With Medal of Honor set for release in less than two months, the most recent edition of the game is becoming more and more controversial -- and for good reason.
The game is set in the ongoing war in Afghanistan. More shockingly, the game's multi-player mode allows players to assume the role of the Taliban and fight NATO troops.
It's a provocative and challenging element of the game, and has naturally elicited some strong reactions from political leaders in countries currently involved in the war.
"The men and women of the Canadian Forces, our allies, aid workers, and innocent Afghans are being shot at, and sometimes killed, by the Taliban," fumed Defence Minister Peter MacKay. "This is reality. I find it wrong to have anyone, children in particular, playing the role of the Taliban. I'm sure most Canadians are uncomfortable and angry about this."
Britain's Minsiter of Defence, Liam Fox, took an even stronger stand; he wants the game banned, or at least boycotted.
"At the hands of the Taliban, children have lost fathers and wives have lost husbands," Fox spat. "I am disgusted and angry. It's hard to believe any citizen of our country would wish to buy such a thoroughly un-British game.
"I would urge retailers to show their support for our armed forces and ban this tasteless product," he concluded.
A certain level of disgust with Medal of Honor may well be warranted.
Call of Duty: Worlds at War has already taken the nearly-unprecedented step of allowing players to play as Nazi Germany during its multi-player mode. It goes without saying, however, that it's no longer the 1940s, and that Canada is no longer at war with Nazi Germany.
(Thanks to Canada and its World War II allies, Nazi Germany no longer exists.)
In an electronic medium that has already allowed players to play as the most evil regime of the 20th century, it was only a matter of time before they had the opportunity to fill the shoes of the some of the runners-up.
Banning or boycotting Medal of Honour isn't really the answer.
For one thing, if the game presents an honest depiction of the Taliban and its tactics, the game could remind those who play it of exactly what is currently being fought in Afghanistan: theocratic tyranny at its most savage.
A suitably honest depiction of the Taliban will make it difficult for even today's tuned-out generation of video gamers to turn a blind eye to their true nature.
It's worth repeating that in the storyline mode of gameplay, the Taliban will remain the villain. Left-wing peacenik fantasies don't translate very profitably into combat-oriented video games.
Playing as the Taliban in multi-player mode wouldn't symbolize any sympathy for the Taliban or its goals. And for the prospect of turning video gamers on to the resolute evil of the Taliban, it's well worth the perversity.
As the Labour Party prepares vote for its next leader, longshot Diane Abbott has set about her last-ditch effort to stem the tide away from a choice between the Miliband brothers:
She's courting the soft-peacenik vote.
Abbott admitted that if there was a war for Britain to fight, she may commit British forces to it -- provided that it's a legal war. Abbott merely can't seem to find any currently ongoing that she deems to be legal.
"If it was a legal war I might do," she explained. "The problem with the Iraq War, it was widely judged to be illegal."
Moreover, Abbott questions the legality of thw war in Afghanistan.
"It might have been legal, a legal invasion, in the very first place, but 10 years on, where is the legality for it?" Abbott asked.
Simple: NATO's mission in Afghanistan was mandated by the United Nations. The United Nations has not withdrawn its mandate, nor did it ever attach an expiry date for that mandate.
None of the conditions affecting the legality of the war have changed.
In fact, the most elaborate explanation of Abbott's sentiments is that she regards the war to be counter-productive.
"I think what is perceived as a western occupation of Afghanistan is becoming counter-productive," Abbott mused.
Moreover, Abbott believes she has the answer: UN Peacekeeping.
"I think there should be a phased withdrawal," Abbott asserted. "We should give way to a UN peacekeeping force, ideally led by troops from an Islamic nation. But you will not win, you will not bring stability to the region with a war."
THe problem for Abbott is that a handover of Afghanistan from NATO combat forces to UN peacekeepers is that there is currently little peace to keep. But a handover to UN peacekeepers wouldn't merely require a pace: it would require a just peace.
The Taliban is extremely unlikely to agree to a just peace accord -- particularly not one hastily-negotiated.
Moreover, the Taliban is not interested in negotiating: they merely want to re-take power.
Some of the other insurgent groups fighting NATO forces -- just as Gulbuddin Hekmatyar's Hisb-i-Islami could be negotiated with. But the historical experience negotiating with Hekmatyar -- in which Hekmatyar stabs his earstwhile-allies in the back in order to seize more power -- tells any informed individual that you simply do not bother.
At the end of the day, however, Abbott is clearly just blowing smoke. She asks the question about the legality of the war in Afghanistan, but attempts to offer no substantive answer.
Diane Abbott is merely fishing for votes among the soft-peacenik crowd. If this crowd falls for her empty platitudes and give her their vote, then they and Abbott deserve each other.
In the blogpost, Wherry notes that Defense Minister Peter MacKay has declared that the government is examining all the options in terms of a possible extension of Canada's mission in Afghanistan beyond 2011. Wherry asks a simple question "what options?"
The response, in terms of comment voting, is rather puzzling:
As of the time of this writing, the idea that Canada would protect its own aid workers in Afghanistan had been voted down a minimum of three times.
By the time the denizens of the denizens of the Macleans comment forums are finished with it, one only knows where it will wind up.
Which brings one to a startling conclusion: either the far-left denizens of the Macleans comment forums are voting down comments from individuals they judge to be too conservative, or they actually oppose the idea of Canadian troops being used to protect Canadian aid workers in a combat zone.
Neither choice seems particularly flattering. Whether the response of Macleans commenters to this notion is born of knee-jerk anti-conservatism or irresponsible foreign policy views is nearly anyone's guess.
British Prime Minister David Cameron has been under diplomatic fire from Pakistan of late over some "frank" comments about Pakistan's relationship with terrorism.
"We cannot tolerate in any sense the idea that this country is allowed to look both ways and is able, in any way, to promote the export of terror, whether to India or whether to Afghanistan or anywhere else in the world," Cameron asserted. "Democratic states that want to be part of the developed world cannot do that. The message to Pakistan from the US and the UK is very clear on that point."
Unfortunately for Zardani, if coalition forces are losing the war against the Taliban it's largely because of the support elements within his country's military provide to both the Taliban specifically, and to Islamic militancy in general.
The anti-India agenda pursued by many of those within Pakistan's military is particularly problematic.
According to OneIndia, Kayani has, in the past, told President Karzai that he could negotiate peace with the Taliban if only he would expel Pakistan's diplomats from the country and close their embassy and consolates.
General Kayani is said to be dedicated to fighting Islamic militancy. But his evident obsession with India only takes much-needed focus away from that problem.
David Cameron needs to remind Asif Zardani that he has two options: the first is to address the problems within his country that contribute aid and comfort to the Taliban, or he can decide to not do so.
Should he decide not to do so, he has no place complaining about any criticisms he may face for that decision.
David Cameron, on the other hand, needs to continue to focus international pressure on Pakistan to address these problems. If this means confronting Pakistan with the prospects of diplomatic and economic isolation, this is what simply has to be done.
It's called "tough love". Until it starts living up to its international responsibilities, Pakistan needs to get used to it.
Following Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele's recent comments on Afghanistan, a storm is brewing within the Republican Party that could well blow him right out the door.
In a clear and blatant effort to cast Afghanistan as Barack Obama's war, Steele mischaracterized the United States' involvement in the region, treating them as if it was actually Obama's doing.
"This was a war of Obama's choosing," Steele insisted. "This is not something the United States had actively prosecuted or wanted to engage in."
"During the 2008 Presidential campaign, Barack Obama made clear his belief that we should not fight in Iraq, but instead concentrate on Afghanistan," Steele later explained. "Now, as President, he has indeed shifted his focus to this region. That means this is his strategy."
"I supported the decision to increase our troop force and, like the entire United States Senate, I support General Petraeus' confirmation," he continued. "The stakes are too high for us to accept anything but success in Afghanistan."
If Steele is really in such agreement with the war in Afghanistan, one may wonder what, precisely, the problem for him was -- aside from Obama's plans to shift US attentions away from Iraq.
The truth is that, following 9/11, the United States made an effort to get involved in Afghanistan. Later, at the request of the UN, the rest of NATO did as well. It goes without saying that George W Bush, a Republican President, led the US to depose the Taliban.
It was a just act the responsibility for which Steele, as RNC chairman, should not be deflecting onto Barack Obama. If not for the increasing unpopularity of the Afghan engagement, there's little question that Steele wouldn't be.
But the increasingly unpopularity of the war lends itself toward its use as a political football -- it's clear that this was Steele's full intent in his comments. It's utterly unacceptable.
Senator John McCain is among the many Republicans who won't stand for it, and have all but called for Steele's resignation as RNC chairman.
"I think those statements are wildly inaccurate and there is no excuse for them," McCain said. "I think that Mr. Steele is going to have to assess as to whether he can still lead the Republican Party as chairman of the Republican National Committee."
Of course, with less than four months to go until the midterm elections, it may be fair to question if teh Republican Party can afford to oust Steele as RNC chairman at this point, for fear of disrupting ongoing campaigns.
One thing is for certain: Michael Steele would clearly be better served to keep politically-motivated comment on foreign policy to himself, at least until the midterm elections are over.
At that point, the Republican will have to make a decision on whether or not they can continue to the key confrontation with Barack Obama in 2012 with Steele in place.
"The agreement reached at the 11th hour on the uncensored Afghan torture documents is hardly a victory for democracy," Dobbin pouts. "It is precisely the opposite and it is the Liberals we have to thank for it. We have come to expect nothing better from the Harper Conservatives -- the most dishonest, anti-democratic and arrogant government in living memory."
The irony of Dobbin -- who continues to push his Liberal/NDP/Bloc coalition government despite Canadian rejection of it -- labelling anyone as "dishonest, anti-democratic and arrogant" needs no further comment.
After all, NDP leader Jack Layton also hailed the agreement as a triumph for democracy.
"This is a victory for parliamentary democracy," Layton announced via written statement. "The Speaker's ruling made it clear that members of Parliament have the right to review all the information about the treatment of Afghan detainees, and not just what the government thinks MPs should see."
Apparently, the Bloc -- who Dobbin loves well enough to include as party to a coalition government despite their separatist goals -- should also escape any blame for this all-party deal.
Dobbin insists that the change in Liberal Party attitude toward the documents should be attributed to a lack of will to "face down the bully Stephen Harper".
But the fact that the Liberal Party has changed their position is more likely attributable to the prospect that MPs will now be able to actually view these documents, and that they will be able to view them for the entire timeframe of the mission.
This has evidently deflated Liberal enthusiasm for the release of the documents, and with good reason. After all, it was the Liberal Party that negotiated the orginal prisoner transfer agreement under which all the problems actually took place. They approved a weak agreement that provided them with insufficient oversight of the treatment of transferred prisoners despite receiving numerous warnings about the prevalence of torture in Afghan prisons.
It was the Conservative Party that recognized the problem, investigated, and concluded an improved PTA to help quash the problem.
While the bellicose attitude of the opposition parties offered the Conservatives little incentive to release the documents, the national security issues raised by the Conservatives seemed to have been recognized by Speaker of the House Peter Miliken when he admonished the government and opposition to decide a manner of viewing for the documents that will respect the sensitivity of them.
The alternative offered by the most fervent anti-Conservatives has been rather striking: let us have the documents now, so we can use them to smear you now.
The Liberal Party, however, having spent so much time in government, seems to know differently: that there are legitimate security concerns complicating the prompt release of the documents. Knowing that the Conservatives couldn't release them without taking measures to prevent sensitive information from being leaked -- and thus knowing the documented extent of their negligence was safe from public disclosure -- the Liberals demanded the release of the documents, knowing they could cast the Conservatives as evasive.
Now that the table has been set for the release of the documents, Liberal feet have grown colder, and the agreement the opposition parties have reached is essentially the same as the one offered: examination by an expert panel, and release based on their recommendations.
When opposition parties play these kinds of political games, it's just the way the cookie crumbles. One would have expected that Murray Dobbin would be used to that by now.
As the 2010 British election prepares to turn its attention toward foreign policy in the next leaders' debate, many Britons are speculating about the role Britain should play on the global stage.
A study conducted by the Royal United Services Institute suggested that a majority of Britons believe that Afghanistan is crucial to the United Kingdom's security. A similar number -- 58% -- believed that a special strategic relationship with the United States is necessary. A strong nuclear deterrent was also highly favoured.
But Britain cannot move forward with a revitalized foreign policy based on a strategic relationship with the United States alone. If Britain is to play a stronger role on the global stage, it must also look to its other allies.
In order to take on such a hefty role, Britain would need to look toward a special relationship it has not with the United States, but with another country:
Canada.
And also Australia and New Zealand.
Of all the countries that currently hold membership in the Commonwealth of States, four are uniquely poised to lead: Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
India, Pakistan and South Africa each face unique challenges that currently prevent them from realistically being able to aspire to leadership. But these are challenges that can be overcome in time, with help from the rest of the Commonwealth.
With Afghanistan central to the national security of Britain, whichever party takes the offices of government after May 6 need to understand that Afghanistan is not an issue that can be solved within the borders of that country.
Rather, continuing tensions between India and Pakistan, and nuclear proliferation between the two countries, must be addressed.
Afghanistan's border with Pakistan -- one that remains largely unrecognized by Afghanistan -- must be stabilized and secured in order for stability to be brought to Afghanistan. But in order for this border to be secured, Pakistan must come to view itself as secure enough from an Indian incursion to move troops away from its border with India.
This requires that the issue of Kashmir somehow be settled -- certainly no short order for any one country. But if Canada, Britain, India and Pakistan were able to come together with a broad coalition of Commonwealth allies, a peacekeeping mission in Kashmir may be possible. This mission would serve the purpose of stabilizing the entire region, allowing for greater security and stability in Afghanistan.
In a world where the United States is over-engaged on the global stage, and the United Nations far too weak to address key challenges -- such as the Sudan -- a revitalized Commonwealth of States could prove to be key to British and Canadian leadership on the global stage.
For both countries it would prove to be an excellent supplementary strategy to simply snuggling up to the USA.
Wherry seems to think that he has the answer to what seems to him to be a horrible dilemma: simply ignore the revelation at hand, and shift attention back to 2007.
After an ever-so-brief mention of the La Presse revelation, Wherry directs his attention to an April 25, 2007 Globe and Mail article in which it was stated that the government had received warnings about "extrajudicial executions, disappearances, torture and detention without trial" of Afghan prisoners.
In skating over the La Presse story, Wherry demonstrates precisely where he thinks the readers' attention should be: after 2006, so long as they only pay attention to developments before April 28, 2007.
Under the stewardship of reporters like Wherry, the pre-2006 portion of the torture chronicles becomes an orphan timeline: disowned by those who are presenting this issue in the public eye. Along with that portion of the timeline, the truth is orphaned as well.
This helps Liberal MPs like John McCallum ignore their party's uncomfortable responsibility for torture and pretend that the Conservative Party didn't approach the issue properly: by investigating and fixing the problem.
But McCallum isn't the only Liberal MP enjoying this orphaning of the truth.
Speaking in a column written for Vancouver's Georgia Straight, Liberal MP Dr Hedy Fry -- who has a history of lying in the House of Commons -- has the temerity to invoke the memory of George W Bush to try to score some cheap points.
"What is it that George Bush used to say?" she asked. "'You can fool some of the people all the time, and those are the ones you want to concentrate on.' It seems to me that Stephen Harper is taking that advice. Or at least one has to wonder."
It seems that this is exactly the the strategy being used by Fry -- whose previous highlight was raising comical allegations of a Conservative Party/HBC conspiracy -- and Wherry. In Dr Fry's case, the hypocrisy of it remains as astounding as it was in McCallum's -- she served in the government that is directly responsible for the torture as Secretary of State for Women and Multiculturalism.
Wherry, Fry and McCallum seem to think they're working it to perfection.
But when truly pressed on the Liberal Party's direct complicity in the torture of detainees handed over by Canadian soldiers, they seem to recognize the key defect in their strategy -- that it will stop working when Canadians realize that the scandal is their fault in the first place.
And while Aaron Wherry, Hedy Fry and John McCallum seem to think they can distract Canadians from that fact by severing the entire pre-2006 period from the torture timeline, they'll find out in time that they can't.
Recently appearing on CBC news, Liberal Finance Critic John McCallum openly accused the Conservative government of war crimes.
"I think proroguing adds to the total character picture of Mr Harper, and the fact that they may have been committing war crimes, handing over detainees knowing that they were very likely to be tortured, that is a war crime," McCallum insisted. "And the fact that they're covering it up, I think many Canadians do care about those things as well as caring about economic issues."
When asked to clarify who he was accusing of war crimes -- the Conservative government or Canadian soldiers, McCallum answered quite clearly. "It's the government."
But as it turns out, there may be even more to this story than McCallum is telling -- one that undermines his party's clear efforts to mine this issue for partisan gain.
Prior to 2005, Canadian forces in Afghanistan transferred their detainees to American forces operating in Afghanistan. In response to the abuses taking place at Guantanamo Bay, however, the Liberal government decided to instead transfer prisoners to Afghan authorities.
Despite these reports, then-Minister of National Defense Bill Graham negotiated a prisoner transfer agreement and instructed General Rick Hillier to sign it on Canada's behalf. This prisoner transfer agreement became a notorious point of contention in Canadian politics, as it didn't allow Canadian soldiers with sufficient levels of oversight for the treatment of any prisoners they transferred.
In other words, it's the prisoner transfer agreement that Paul Martin's Liberal government signed with Afghanistan that was responsible for these abuses in the first place -- an error the Conservative government corrected by negotiating a new prison transfer agreement.
The Liberal Party cannot claim it wasn't warned about this state of affairs in Afghan prisons. They were warned by Canadian diplomats, just as the sitting Conservative government was.
The difference, of course, being that the pre-2006 Liberal government signed a shoddy prisoner transfer agreement that put Canadian soldiers at risk of complicity in war crimes -- as so defined by John McCallum.
At this point, the fairest question may be how, precisely, so many media outlets have overlooked this particular story amidst the partisan rush to brand the sitting government as war criminals, even as the Liberal Party knew full well the hand it had played in this affair.
In part two of The Power of Nightmares, Adam Curtis digs a little deeper into the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the United States' move to fund and support the Mujahideen groups resisting them, and the aftermath of the war.
In the aftermath of the Soviet expulsion from Afghanistan, Curtis notes that both the United States and the Mujahideen believed they had defeated the Soviet Union. When the Berlin wall fell, each side rushed to claim credit for what would, in time, be the end of the Eastern bloc and the USSR.
No real peace emerged from the Afghan-Soviet War, despite the fact that many considered it to be an entirely just war.
Much like a just war has to be fought for just purposes, a just peace has to be maintained for just purposes.
But in order for a just war to lead to a just peace, it requires one important element: a just victory.
In this case, a just victory shouldn't necessarily be defined solely by whether the side whose violence was justified wins. It should also take into account the means by which they won.
For example, the Second World War is considered to be the most just war ever fought. It was a war to prevent Nazi dominion over the continent of Europe, and Japanese dominion over Asia and the Pacific ocean. In time, the world even came to learn of Adolph Hitler's genocidal enterprise in Europe. Stopping the Holocaust is often referred to as the fundamental justification for the war.
Yet winning the war for the allies -- the justified party -- required some acts that would be considered unthinkable today. The firebombing of Hamburg and Dresden, as well as the use of nuclear weapons against Hiroshima and Nagasaki consistute acts which some historians argue were war crimes. While the nature of the total war fought by both sides the war calls into question whether or not modern notions should be considered truly applicable to the acts, they have led many to wonder if the victory won by the allies in WWII was truly a just victory.
In the end, perhaps the definitive element of a just victory is whether or not it results in a just peace.
The general criteria for defining a just peace, as defined by Pierre Allan and Alexis Keller, require that each side recognize the autonomy of the other, that each side needs to recognize the identity of the other, that concessions need to be made by each side, and that rules need to be in place to ensure that such a peace is sustainable.
In Afghanistan, the Soviet Union simply withdrew when the cost of occupying the country became too high. No peace was mediated between the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan government led by Mohammad Najibullah and the Mujahideen who had driven the Soviet Union from Afghanistan. A civil war ensued, and Najibullah was eventually executed after the Taliban took control of Kabul.
Not only had no peace process taken place, no peace process had taken place involving all of the parties involved. One oc the consequences for this is that no one could agree precisely who had won the conflict, leaving each of the victorious paries -- the United States and the diffuse collection Mujahideen -- with no agreement regarding who had won, and who was responsible for that victory.
As Curtis notes, the Islamist movement that had spawned the Mujahideen claimed credit for the victory went on to declare its right to dictate the course of Muslim society as a whole. The actions that they undertook were fundamentally unjust.
Meanwhile, the United States -- particularly the small ideological cohort that had worked so hard to promote the American role in the conflict -- also claimed credit for the victory, and went on to assert its right to dictate American foreign policy. The actions that they undertook are more reasonably debatable.
Either way, the lack of a just peace led each side -- benefactor and client -- back into conflict with one another, as figures such as Osama Bin Laden began to target the United States as a method of intimidating its allies among the governments of coutnries such as Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.
The United States and the Mujahideen failed to win a just victory in Afghanistan because they had never agreed on what the purpose of their victory would be. Whether or not both sides could ever have agreed on the purpose of that victory, considering the course each followed after, is probably unlikely.
For many Canadians, the ongoing controversy surrounding the treatment of Afghan detainees has been an irritating issue.
It shouldn't be said that there's no cause for any outrage. Proper-thinking Canadians of all political stripes recognize that torture is a barbarous act, and aren't prepared to tolerate it.
But by the same token, the issue -- alleging that Afghan detainees transferred to Afghan custody by Canadian soldiers were later tortured -- has, in many senses, proven to be utterly insipid.
Canada's opposition parties -- and various left-wing commentators and bloggers -- have attempted to use the issue to tar the Conservative government, and accuse them of being guilty of war crimes.
But to those Canadians who have seen this issue for what it really is, the matter at hand is utterly, crystal clear. This isn't really an issue about what Canadian soldiers have done, it's about what another country's soldiers have done.
It actually makes the drive to use the issue to portray Prime Minister Stephen Harper as George W Bush seem even more comical.
Bush was declared to be a war criminal because he had authorized the US military to use "coercive interrogation techniques" (torture) -- so, in point of fact, George W Bush is a war criminal.
But in the case of Stephen Harper, he's accused of war crimes because the soldiers of another country tortured detainees, after Canadian soldiers had transferred them under an agreement negotiated by his governmental predecessor.
In the rush to paint Stephen Harper as George W Bush, even as it pertains to torture, the best these people can do is to establish Harper as Bush-tres-lite.
But it's against the partisan abuse of the issue that Paul Champ, a lawyer for Amnesty International and the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association, has entered the fray. And he has a message for these people:
Stop politicizing the issue.
“My clients believe this is an issue that should be totally depoliticized,” Champ recently insisted, and noted that it's actually the lack of a standing military policy on detainee handling that is at the heart of this issue.
Champ notes that part of what led to this sorry state of affairs is a poor approach to the issue of detainee treatment in the first place, one that waited for proof as opposed to assessing risk.
“Basically [the politicians] are saying they want absolute proof in some way that someone has been tortured when it should be about what is the risk of torture,” Champ continued. “We think this has broader implications, not simply for the Afghan theatre but a judicial inquiry could provide guidance to the military for any future deployments that we’re engaged in.”
Champ will testify before a hastily-called meeting of Canada's special committee on the mission in Afghanistan, and plans to tell opposition MPs to stop trying to profit politically off the matter.
Paul Champ's stand on the matter is long overdue. So long as Canada's opposition parties continue to find any way to use this matter as a political club against the government, many of the answers will continue to be elusive.
Needless to say, there is no incentive for the government to help uncover facts that will unfairly be used to attack it. De-politicizing the issue will go a long way toward solving that problem.
Tony Blair's campaign for the soon-to-be-created office of the President of the European Union received a significant boost today, as Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi endorsed him for the job.
"Tony Blair has all the right credentials for becoming the first president of the European Council in the terms enshrined in the Lisbon Treaty, and to be appointed to that post as soon as it is legally and politically possible to give the go-ahead to the implementation of the clause renewing the union's governance," Berlusconi wrote in a letter to Il Foglio.
But this is one endorsement that Blair may want to distance himself from.
The French are understandably disappointed in their erstwhile allies. As Benedict Brogan notes, they'll likely get even with the Italians in their own time.
But considering the judgement of Berlusconi's government on how to discharge its duties to NATO -- an organization that Italy honestly ought to be expelled from over this episode -- Silvio Berlusconi's endorsement is one that Tony Blair should actually reject.
After all, Blair committed British troops to Afghanistan. It very well could have been British troops that came to harm over Italian duplicity.
Accepting Berlusconi's endorsement ought to be utterly toxic to Blair's Presidential campaign.
As much as they are said to be a symbol of peace, the Olympics have actually had an uneasy relationship with war for much of the past century.
In 1936, the Summer Olympics were held in Berlin. At the time it was widely known that Nazi Germany was preparing for war. In 1980, the Soviet Union hosted the Summer Games while attempting to stamp out an Islamic uprising in Afghanistan. In 2002, Salt Lake City hosted the Winter Olympics while the United States was already fighting in Afghanistan, and preparing to invade Iraq.
In 1972, terrorists murdered Israeli athletes at the Summer Olympics in Munich. In 1996, the Atlanta games were marred by a bomb explosion that killed two people in Centennial Olympic Park.
Yet despite this uncomfortable relationship with various forms of armed conflict, the Olympic Ceasefire has become something of an Olympic tradition.
The organizers of the 2010 Vancouver Olympics seem to have embraced this particular notion, as an Olympic ceasfire resolution is set to be presented before the United Nations.
Certainly, nobody expects Canadian soldiers to lay down their arms so Taliban insurgents can have their way with them. But this is one time when Canada actually may be better off following the example of former US President George W Bush, who refused to seriously entertain the notion of an Olympic ceasefire in 2002.
In fact, Canadians can expect the Taliban to redouble their efforts to harm NATO soldiers (and Canadians in particular) during the 2010 Olympics, just as they did during the recent Afghan elections.
To cast a dark cloud over the Olympics would be nothing short of a propaganda triumph for the Taliban.
Some may recall the story of Mehboba Ahdyar, the Afghan sprinter who was scheduled to participate in the Beijing games. Despite the numerous social obstacles she had to overcome in order to compete in the Olympics -- obstacles not limited to the Taliban alone -- Ahdyar promised to be a powerful symbol of the progress being made in Afghanistan on issues such as women's rights.
Even though the Afghan Parliament frequently kowtows to the regressive attitudes of many Afghans -- various outrageous pieces of legislation have threatened to legalize rape within marriage, among other atrocities -- Ahdyar was already a symbol of how far Afghan women had come since the removal of the Taliban from power, as she had participated in and won several competitions in Afghanistan. Such competitions were entirely unheard of under the Taliban, who forbade women from participating in athletic competition.
Ahdyar's story, however, took a disappointing turn when she fled to Norway to seek asylum.
Ahdyar's story failed to turn out to be the feel-good tale about the advancement of women's rights in Afghanistan that it could have been. However, it continues to teach lessons about precisely how regressive the Taliban truly is, and why it cannot be allowed to re-assume power in Afghanistan.
Having already marred one Olympic story with death threats and intimidation, the Taliban will certainly be eager to seize the opportunity to further marr an event that stands for everything they stand against.
But as powerful as the symbolism of killing a mass of Canadian soldiers during the Vancouver Olympics could be for the Taliban, continuing to fight the Taliban in the name of democratic freedom and human rights would be a much, much stronger symbol for Canadians.
That alone makes the idea of an Olympic ceasefire a little absurd. As nice as the idea is, one simply doesn't extent courtesies to an enemy that they know the enemy will not return.
"Basically, I think it's ridiculous - if there were any sense of self-respect or realism, [Defence Minister Peter MacKay] would say, 'Don't be absurd,'" says University of Calgary Political Scientist Barry Cooper. "It's the sort of thing that only a bureaucrat would think was meaningful."
It's a nice enough idea in practice. But Canada stands to gain too much by continuing to fight the Taliban during the Olympics, and stands to lose too much by relenting.
Michael Ignatieff wanted him. Michael Ignatieff didn't get him.
In what comes as close to a blockbuster announcement in Canadian politics as any, Chris Alexander, Canada's former Ambassador to Afghanistan, has rejected an offer to run for the Liberal party in favour of joining the Conservative party and contesting the Tory nomination in Ajax-Pickering.
Should he successfully secure that riding's nomination he will face off against Liberal MP Mark Holland -- an individual who, for a time, seemed to aspire to claim the long-dormant mantle of Jack Pickersgill.
In other words, that riding is within striking distance for the Conservative party -- particularly for a dynamic young man who, at age 34, was named Canada's Ambassador to Afghanistan (by a Liberal government nonetheless, which must be adding some sting to Alexander's rebuff) where he reputedly decided Canadian policy while touring in an open Jeep.
If that sounds disimilar from Stephen Harper bunkering down in the Afghan hills with Canadian special forces during his visit to Afghanistan, it shouldn't.
Considering that policy on Afghanistan seemed to be the sticking point between Alexander and Ignatieff -- Ignatieff is said to have concluded his meeting with Alexander by declaring that the Liberal party would end Canada's combat mission in 2011 -- one may think that Alexander's decision is a little odd, considering that the Conservatives are also committed to ending Canada's combat mission in that year.
"Our Canada will play a role in Afghanistan after 2011," Ignatieff told the Canadian Club. "A different role focusing on a humanitarian commitment to help rebuild the country and strengthen hard-won gains."
McParland notes that perhaps Ignatieff's seeming insistence that Canadian humanitarian workers would remain in Afghanistan without Canadian military protection worried Alexander -- as well it should.
Which leads one to wonder if Alexander knows something about the Conservative party's plans for Afghanistan than the Canadian public does.
Either way, Alexander's decision is great news for the Conservative party. Foreign policy is sorely lacking in the Conservative party, and with Dr Eric Hoskins settling into a new role in Ontario's Queen's Park, the foreign policy-star candidate field in the next election has just made some room for him.
Then again, as Sue-Ann Levy's experience shows, being a star candidate isn't necessarily enough in urban Ontario.
In the meantime, Michael Ignatieff will have to contend with an influential new rival in regards to foreign policy and, in particular, Afghanistan.
The Koran and the Kalashnikov chronicles the history of American involvement in the Indo-Pakistani region, particularly in Afghanistan, from the American involvement in the Soviet-Afghanistan war and onward.
Dr Charles Cogan described the policy of supporting the mujahideen in Afghanistan as "pay back" for the Russians, who had supported the North Vietnamese during the Vietnam war -- effectively as revenge for the deaths of American servicemen during that conflict.
If revenge was truly the aim of American policy, it worked spectacularly. The Soviet Union reported that 15,000 of its troops were killed and 37,000 wounded. It remains far short of the more than 58,000 American servicemen killed and 303,000 wounded in Vietnam, but the defeat was every bit as humiliating for the Soviet Union as the American defeat in Vietnam had been.
Yet if the Soviet Union had reaped in Afghanistan what they had sowed in Vietnam, the United States would yet reap on its own soil what it had sowed in Afghanistan.
Just as Soviet intervention in Vietnam would give rise to a state with an atrocious human rights record and thus prove to be rather irresponsible, American involvement in the Soviet-Afghanistan war proved to be irresponsible in that it lent material support to individuals such as Osama Bin Laden, an individual so committed to a warped concept of Islamic jihad that he would eventually turn on his own suppliers after being rebuffed in his native Saudi Arabia.
But what the United States reaped it didn't reap alone. Osama Bin Laden parlayed the reputation he had earned as a leader into tremendous influence among fundamentalist Islamic circles, and used the presence of foreign troops on Muslim holy lands to ratchet up ideological support for his terrorist tactics, and draw more disenfranchised Muslims to act in favour of his cause.
The Taliban regime in Afghanistan provided Bin Laden with safe haven to plan his activities and to establish training camps for Muslim terrorists.
As The Koran and the Kalashnikov reminds us, much of this could have been headed off if re-building efforts had been continued in Afghanistan after the Soviet withdrawal, as opposed to simply abandoning the country to material poverty and civil war.
How many so-called "peace" activists imagine a similar situation can be avoided by withdrawing from Afghanistan and leaving it to the devices of extremist political organizations such as the Taliban and Hisb-i-Islami remains uncertain.
In the "Saving Private Brian" episode of Family Guy, Brian and Stewie are trying to get out of enlisted service in Iraq -- an enlistment that is actually illegal, as Stewie is a baby and Brian is a dog -- by intentionally shooting each other in the foot and calling it an accident.
Even after Stewie and Brian are told that they're out of luck, as being wounded isn't enough to be sent home, their fortune drastically turns. Democracy kicks in.
Suddenly, a human pyramid of Iraqi prisoners collapses into a laughing pile of identical fratboys. Terrorists filming the beheading an American prisoner become barbers instead administering a shave. Burka wearing women transform into trampy women working a bikini carwash, spraying each others' chests while they make out.
Seth MacFarlane's message is a simple one: the notion that democracy will magically and automatically heal all the ills of Iraq is a silly notion.
Meanwhile, in an op/ed column appearing in both The Tyee and the ideologically parochial Rabble.ca, Murray Dobbin insists that the outcome of the Afghan election is actually meaningless. He insists that American aid provided to the Mujahideen during the Soviet occupation of the country rendered democracy impossible, and that the United States has undermined Afghan democracy because an independant and secular democracy in Afghanistan would surely thwart American imperialist ambitions.
In a particularly revelatory turn, Dobbin even goes so far as to open his column with a quote from Karl Marx.
The complaints of people like Dobbin -- that a perfect democracy has, as yet, failed to emerge in Afghanistan -- are every bit as silly as the rosy visions of a post-democratic Iraqi miracle that MacFarlane critiques.
Dobbin trots out numerous polls -- suggesting that, among other things, Americans don't agree that they're winning the war in Afghanistan, that Americans want a troop decrease, and that Americans do not believe that the Afghan election will produce an "effective government" -- to support his argument that introducing democracy in Afghanistan is a lost cause.
But for someone who clearly fancies himself a historian, Dobbin is uniquely ignorant to history.
Nowhere in the world, in all of history, has a functional and vibrant democracy popped up overnight. Ever.
Even in the United States -- if one were to take that to be a rough model for democracy -- the early years of the union were marred by an ineffective federal government. At one point in early American history, the state of Maryland threatened to secede from the Union because the other states refused to help them quell various militia uprisings.
Even the establishment of British democracy was marked by civil war between King Charles I and Oliver Cromwell. History speaks for itself -- even Cromwell's victory, on behalf of Parliament and at the head of the new model army resulted in what was actually a military dictatorship under Cromwell. A fully-developed British democracy was still centuries of incremental change away.
Likewise, a fully-developed, fully-functioning democracy in the western model is a long way -- likely a very long way -- away in Afghanistan. That there is not yet such a democracy in Afghanistan is not a failure, and it doesn't mean we should abandon Afghans to their own devices and to the tender mercies of the Taliban.
Rather, it means that the western world needs to afford Afghan democracy time and space in which to grow.
In Fear's Empire, Benjamin Barber reminds us that a democracy imposed by an outside power -- at least, as this author would add, without domestic support for it -- is not truly a democracy. The same goes for a democracy in which the form of that democracy is imposed.
The democracy in Afghanistan may not resemble a western democracy as closely as we would like. But nearly every western democracy in existence today has grown and taken form over a matter of literally centuries. The slow development of the Afghan state is not sufficient excuse to abandon it.
One should recall that Americans once wrote off Iraq as a lost cause as well. But improvements over the past two years in Iraqi stability show that insurgencies -- even insurgencies as determined as the Taliban and their allies -- can be fought, contained and, given the right mixture of time and determination, defeated.
As Hugh Segal would remind us, the costs of abandoning Afghanistan are great, and would expand beyond Afghanistan into Pakistan and even India. It cannot be allowed to happen, no matter how utterly indifferent individuals like Dobbin seem to be in regards to whether or not it does.
The defeatism of Dobbin and his contemporaries requires that we ignore successes and pay attention only to the challenges and setbacks in Afghanistan. But considering that they don't have a credible frame of reference from the very beginning of their critique, there is very little reason to give their criticisms any more credit than their thinly-veiled conspiracy theories are due.
Democracy is not a magical panacea that will solve every problem Afghanistan faces. Nor should defeatists like Murray Dobbin be allowed to denigrate efforts there on the basis that it hasn't sprung up overnight.
In the post, Raphael renews the call for the trial of Omar Khadr to begin:
"Seven years in prison without trial is certainly a lengthy incarceration without due process, and I am concerned that we may never get to see Omar Khadr’s day in court."
What emerges as so distasteful however, is the notion that Alexander would think that Khadr is likely guilty:"
...This is still a man 22 years of age who, if released in the next few years, would still have his entire life to make amends with his fellow Canadian citizens, to whom he has brought shame and embarrassment"
"Seven years without trial -- and still guilty," Baglow complains.
Which leads one to ask themselves this question:
What, precisely, do John Baglow and company think Omar Khadr was doing in Afghanistan in the first place? Enjoying tea and crumpets?
"Raph does not even entertain the possibility that Omar is not guilty of the crime his is accused of and is the victim of his circumstances - brought to Afghanistan by his father at a young age and brought up in that environment.
Its simple: if he is guilty of an actual crime, produce the evidence and convict him. Now. Otherwise, bring him home and let him go. Now."
Apparently, in the mind of Mike -- and one wonders how many share his particularly fevered and hazardous way of thinking -- a "not guilty" verdict in a trial means that Omar Khadr walks free immediately.
And if a judge were particularly reckless with Canadian national security, that very well may be the case.
After all, Canadians know full well what Omar Khadr was doing in Afghanistan -- or, rather, what Ahmed Said Khadr was doing on the many occasions when he had his family overseas. In 2003, Ahmed, a known Al Qaida financier, was killed in a firefight in Pakistan.
He was continuing to indoctrinate his children in his militant Islamic religious beliefs, and involving them in militant Islamic groups. In 2002, Ahmed Khadr sent Omar with a band of Arab Muslims who associated Abu Laith al-Libi, a senior Al Qaida leader.
Ahmed Khadr had a habit of putting his sons into warzones that should disquiet even the most unscrupulous "peace" activist -- the kind of "peace" activist that have often been willing to participate in rallies with the Khadrs. Not only did Ahmed Khadr expose Omar to the rigours of warfare, but his son Abdul Karim Khadr was paralyzed during the same firefight in which Ahmed himself was killed.
Omar Khadr is a child soldier -- not simply a child soldier, but a child terrorist soldier. And that makes his prospect of immediate release far cloudier than Mike is giving it credit for.
Demobilizing child soldiers is a long and arduous process. Child soldiers need to be provided with education and psychiatric care. The rehabilitation of Omar Khadr would only be further complicated by the fact that his enlistment as a child soldier was also a gross act of child abuse -- even though he and his family may not recognize it.
To turn Khadr loose into the public would be allowing a ticking time bomb to go free. While Mike is close to spot-on when he notes the resentment that comes with seven years of imprisonment without trial -- only another reason why said detention is a miscarriage of justice -- but to credit that with any militancy is to ignore his family history, and ignore what his father indoctrinated him in, and subjected him to.
That he can't conceive of the very real possibility -- even likelihood -- that a child soldier indoctrinated in Islamic militancy could be dangerous is just another example of the burning stupidity of Canada's far left.
With the 2011 date for withdrawal of Canada's forces in Afghanistan approaching, the newly-elected Secretary General of NATO, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, has called on Canada to continue its mission in the war-torn country.
"Of course I'm not going to interfere with domestic politics in individual allied nations, but seen from an alliance point of view, I would strongly regret if that became the final outcome of the Canadian considerations," said Rasmussen. "At the end of the day it is a question of our own security -- we cannot allow Afghanistan once again to become a safe haven for terrorists -- and I also think it is in Canada's interest to ensure a peaceful and stable Afghanistan."
As has become the general policy when Canadian forces are called upon to remain in Afghanistan beyond 2011, Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon has already rebuked Rasmussen's appeal.
"However, our government is abiding by the motion passed in Parliament in 2008. That is: our combat forces will leave by 2011. We're staying the course," Cannon announced.
Defense Minister Peter MacKay has previously responded to suggestions that US President Barack Obama would like Canadian forces to remain in Afghanistan past 2011 as his own country prepares to commit additional troops to the crucial mission.
While it is true that Parliament decided in 2008 to end the Afghanistan mission in 2011, the persistent call from international leaders for Canada to stay committed to the combat mission very much does present a dilemma for Canadian foreign policy -- particularly in the minds of those who favour multi-lateralism.
The Afghanistan mission has long posed a challenge to NATO in regards to its ability to function effectively as an internationalist institution -- wherein various countries pool their political, economic, strategic and military capabilities in order to act constructively in regards to global challenges.
While Canada has long carried a disproportionate burden in Afghanistan. While other NATO countries have loafed by refusing to commit their troops to the combat mission against the Taliban, Canada has paid in blood and treasure for its commitment to international security.
But by the same token, Canada retreating from the field of battle at a time at which its troops may be needed most doesn't solve this particular problem. If anything, it likely makes it worse.
If the rest of NATO is prepared to match Canada's commitment to Afghanistan moving forward, the right thing to do may be to stay.
Parliament should, at the very least, reexamine its commitment to withdraw from Afghanistan in 2011 based on the international appeals for our forces to stay. Not even taking the time to reexamine our commitment to the mission could represent a fatal blow to internationalism as a central tenet of Canadian foreign policy.
