Sent This Morning

To the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court:

I am writing to you as a last resort. I realize this is a very long shot, but I have no other recourse. The Canadian government has been hiding evidence of possible war crimes for 5 years, stemming from the handing over of Afghan prisoners to Afghan intelligence officers. The allegation is that our government knew, or should have known (since they were warned by diplomats in the field) that allowing such transfers were putting prisoners into the hands of torturers.

Yesterday, after five years of stalling, including some very undemocratic parliamentary maneuvers, the government released 10 percent of the documents requested by parliament and declared the matter "over". They have signaled (and since they have a parliamentary majority, are most capable of delivering) that they will block any further investigation into this matter.

I urge you to consider opening an investigation of this matter yourself. I am not a lawyer, I am only a citizen of Canada and I feel that I have nowhere to turn, here in Canada. Please take a look at the documents released (found here : http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2011/06/22/pol-afghan-detainee-docs-embed.html). I truly believe that if your organization does not begin an investigation, that there is a real possibility that people responsible for setting dangerous humans rights policies will feel emboldened to duplicate this model elsewhere.

As I said at the outset, I understand that the chances of you intervening are small, but I felt it was duty to do something.

I know this has a snowball's chance of succeeding, but I am just too tired of the games to care.

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Drip, Drip, Drip

Now CSIS has been implicated. No wonder the government is digging in for the final defense of Berlin. The opposition has no choice but to get those documents, now.

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The Reviews Are In

And it is very, very, bad news for anyone who thought Canadians give a shit about brown people. Regardless, Parliament has a moral duty to see this to the end. Canadians must be forced to look themselves in the face and see the ugliness. Political consequences be damned.

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Today In WTF Moments.

Shorter Laurie Hawn: I can't bother my pretty mind with something as awful as torture. It's Christmas! Get back to me sometime in 2010 (Unless it's sunny. I love sunny days. Oh, and don't bother me when it's cloudy. I get so depressed when it's cloudy.).

Kady has the text of what he wrote. Don't read it if you have a full stomach.

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The Next Domino

Former Canadian ambassador to Afghanistan, Arif Lalani. For what reason did he want Colvin's reports watered down and on a limited distribution list? These are simple questions and I am sure he has good explanations, but Canadians deserve to hear them from the man himself.

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Gerrry Nicholls: Raising The Level Of The Debate

From "intellectually infantile" to a respectable grade 3 level.

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Gunshot Residue Thought Experiment

Christie Blatchford, in her first missive on Saturday, wrote the following:

From the start, Canadian soldiers were using gunshot residue tests (this was mentioned by the former chief of defence staff Rick Hillier in his testimony to the committee this week, but the significance of the remark went unnoticed) to sift the wheat from the chaff.

Since Saturday, the GSR as proof that the people caught up in the sweeps by Canadian soldiers were not "simple farmers" line, has been taken up by others in comments in other places. I find this to be a fascinating argument. I mean, it's not as if farmers shoot guns, right? That's why Canadian farmers are such strong proponents of the long gun registry. I wonder how random GSR testing (with the threat of immediate arrest if positive) would go over in rural Canada?

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Connect The Dots

I wonder if this is why Harper is trying to shut the lid on torture investigations? If the folks back home start to realize that torture isn't a historical curiosity, perhaps they won't want to wait until 2011 to get the Hell out of Dodge.

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The Other Smear Sister Heard From

Rosie Dimano:

I am dubious, however, of a diplomat relying on journalists and embassy compound chatter for information and using that, in part, as a basis for copy-all email memos. Further, those emails – on the evidence of passages published to this point – do not support the degree of alarm that Colvin has retroactively claimed. Nor does there appear to be, in any of that voluminous correspondence, an eyes-on grasp of the chaos on the ground in Kandahar in 2006 and 2007, when Taliban units engaged in traditional combat – standing and fighting, as they did during Operation Medusa – with Canadian troops taking into custody an unexpectedly huge number of prisoners.

What were they to do with them?

Nobody has answered that question. And few, I suggest – beyond those with an agenda that has nothing to do with protecting detainees from abuse – give a damn about Afghans, whether in chains or under Taliban tyranny. (emphasis mine)

Got that? Anyone who ask questions about torture hates Afghans and wants the Taliban to win. You can't get any plainer than that. The Conservatives must be really, really worried, to go all out like this.

Oh and to answer her question, that is something the politicians and military brass should have thought of before they sent our forces into action. Otherwise, it is kind of like looking for the life jackets after the ship has sunk. I mean, in a war you are going to capture people. Aren't our leaders paid to think about what is to be done with them?

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I See Nothing, Nothing!

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