Gotta go with the pack on this one — this is just trash:
Let me just say this: living as we do, in a time when some in the political arena do not hesitate before throwing the most serious of allegations at our men and women in uniform, based on the most flimsy of evidence, remember that Canadians from coast to coast to coast are proud of you and stand behind you, and I am proud of you, and I stand beside you.
That’s your prime minister talking, folks, accusing members of Parliament who raise legitimate questions about Canada’s policy on the transfer of prisoners in Afghanistan of smearing “our men and women in uniform.” There is no sense in which this is true. There is no interpretation you can give it that draws it near to the truth. It is not even close.
There are many points of uncertainty in the detainee issue, and some members of the opposition may have leapt to some conclusions about it. But not about the soldiers on the ground. No one that I am aware of has made any criticism of the soldiers who handed over the prisoners to the Afghan security services — only of those who issued the orders to do so.
Coupled with the continuing refusal to release the Colvin memos and other relevant documents — or rather their selective release, to some but not others — it makes it very hard to give the government the benefit of the doubt in this affair. Their story has become more believable, but their every action suggests that they themselves don’t believe it.
