Beyond The Commons

Aaron Wherry covers all the goings-on in and around Parliament Hill. Follow Aaron on Twitter: @aaronwherry

Categories: Beyond The Commons, Capital Read

Throwing a perfect game in a Third World prison

by Aaron Wherry on Thursday, April 22, 2010 8:14am - 9 Comments

While most everyone was paying attention to other matters across the hall, our former ambassador in Kabul appeared in Centre Block’s other grand committee room yesterday afternoon and neatly summed up Canada’s position on torture in Afghanistan.

“Our reports for several years indicated that there was a high likelihood that torture was going on in Afghanistan detention facilities. However, we were confident that, based on information we had, that no Canadian transfer detainees had been abused or mistreated,” said David Sproule, Canada’s ambassador in Kabul from October, 2005, to April, 2007.

Meanwhile, the Military Police Complaints Commission has decided upon a novel response to the delayed delivery of detainee documents: it’s called the officials responsible for such documents to testify.

Tags: afghan detainee docs, Afghanistan, Afghanistan committee, David Sproule, detainees, documents, Military Police Complaints Commission, MPCC, special committee on Afghanistan, torture, transfers

More by Aaron Wherry

http://intensedebate.com/people/auntie_em_m auntie_em_m

Canada's gov't and Military Command are in deep doodoo; credibility shot. Sad, really.

http://intensedebate.com/people/avr avr

credibility shot

Only with fine, upstanding folks like yourself who never believed they had any credibility in the first place.

http://intensedebate.com/people/tedbetts tedbetts

Do you really think the government has any credibility left on this file?

They badgered witnesses, blocked Colvin from testifying, fought the MPCC in court over his testimony and then attacked him and his credibility. When more witnesses have come forward, they too have been viciously attacked.

They said there was no torture. When documents showed there was, they said there was no credible allegation of torture. When documents showed many on the ground found them credible, they said that whenever they received credible allegations (the ones they denied receiving), they acted. When documents showed they were given lots of warnings of the "high likelihood" of torture, theygsaid let's look at more documents. When the MPCC and Parliament asked for these documents, they efused or provided them heavily redacted for "security" reasons. When unredacted versions of some of those documents showed the redaction was primarily for political and not security reasons, the government stopped cooperating altogether.

At the same time Mr Accountable is getting "Red Alerts" and failing grades from the Information Commissioner.
http://intensedebate.com/people/Jenn_ Jenn_

What is your personal opinion, avr, on why it is that a retired Justice is capable of more "credible" top secret clearance than are the panelists of the MPCC, whose entire purpose is to delve into such possible top secret stuff. I mean to say, while Iacobucci is, I'm sure, very capable of keeping top secrets secret, what have you heard about these MPCC Commissioners that leads you to believe they are not?

http://intensedebate.com/people/NorthernPoV NorthernPoV

paraphrase:
sure they torture prisoners, but they didn't torture our prisoners, we're Canadian! eh? Want a Timbit?

gotta wonder about the big picture:
Both our Afghan and US allies cannot be trusted with prisoners. Why are we spilling Canadian blood, money and honour on behalf of, and along with war criminals?
Oh Canada, indeed.
http://intensedebate.com/people/tobyornotoby tobyornotoby

It's a pandemic of contempt in Ottawa these days. Time for some transparency vaccine.
http://intensedebate.com/people/janicemaerose Janice Rose

Calling upon the officials responsible for the documents to testify should be interesting, considering the unredacted versions should be available some time in the near future; so they can't hide behind the PMO's skirt when testifying.
http://intensedebate.com/people/LynnTO LynnTO

Adjuvinated or unajuvinated? And do we have to line up for it? This transparency thing is a conspiracy by the drug companies to allow them to sell more product. </glib>

Or, for another metaphor, it may be time to throw the baby out with the bathwater.
http://intensedebate.com/people/danby danby

It is indeed a sad, sad spectacle.
I personally cannot understand how anyone can find Stephen Harper credible