You want a 'conversation'? You got my half of it...

The Globe and Mail's Paul Koring - aka Amir Attaran's press marionette - will supposedly be responding to questions live online at noon today. I decided to submit some:

Mr. Koring, why does the "working hypothesis" (Prof. Attaran's words, not mine) of an activist vehemently opposed to Canada's detainee policies merit front-page coverage in Canada's National Newspaper for three days running now? If the allegations of abuse by CF members prove false, will your paper continue to milk the story by switching to the detainee transfer agreement between Canada and the Afghan government, the issue Prof. Attaran has been raising for at least a year now with almost no publicity? Why does Professor Attaran's account of a phone spat with a CF Public Affairs officer merit an entire story of its own in the G&M, and is this article not itself an attempt to intimidate the CF and anyone else who would question your motives or those of Prof. Attaran? Why have you and Prof. Attaran not publicly posted the documents obtained under Access to Information for the public to review, instead insisting on interpreting them for us yourselves? Do you not feel it important to advise the public of your own opinion of Canadian detainee policy so that we can understand the perspective from which you are presenting this information? Do you know why Prof. Attaran, as a lawyer who first made the official complaint that sparked the DND investigations would be calling the Provost Marshal (the CF's own "police chief") late at night in the first place? Do you feel that call by a complainant lawyer involved in any other internal investigation would be appropriate? Given that Prof. Attaran has stated publicly both that "It is inexcusable that they [the CF] have not investigated" and "In light of what happened a decade ago in Somalia, I very much doubt that [the military] should investigate internally," do you not worry that he won't be satisfied by any answer from DND? And if so, why do you feel his intransigent and extreme point of view deserves national attention and a combative and confrontational journalistic approach from you?

You get cut off at 2000 characters, so that's all I was able to wedge into my submission. I'll be quite interested to see what, if anything, makes it through the Globe's editorial filter.

Watch and shoot.

Update: Here's what made it through the censor:

Damian Brooks from Canada writes: Mr. Koring, why does the "working hypothesis" (Prof. Attaran's words, not mine) of an activist vehemently opposed to Canada's detainee policies merit front-page coverage in Canada's national newspaper for three days running now? Why does Professor Attaran's account of a phone spat with a CF Public Affairs officer merit an entire story of its own in the G&M, and is this article not itself an attempt to intimidate the CF and anyone else who would question your motives or those of Prof. Attaran? Why have you and Prof. Attaran not publicly posted the documents obtained under Access to Information for the public to review, instead insisting on interpreting them for us yourselves? Do you not feel it important to advise the public of your own opinion of Canadian detainee policy so that we can understand the perspective from which you are presenting this information?

Paul Koring: Mr. Brooks, I think your questions about story placement are perfectly valid. But I can't answer them. Senior editors make those calls. Sometimes I agree, sometimes I don't. But I will try and get you an answer from one of them before this session is over.

As for your suggestion that the documents be posted. I think it is a good one and I raise it with The Globe's senior management. I do know that all documents released under Access to Information are publicly available but a reading room in Ottawa is hardly accessible.

Lastly, I do have personal opinions about Canada's detainee policy, just I have views about most things that I am assigned to write about. I try and keep them out of my coverage and I will respectfully decline to say too much about them as I don't think they are the issue. At least they shouldn't be. What I will say is that I believe that the treatment and transfer and tracking of detainees — including whether they are ever charged with a crime or released — should be made public on an ongoing basis. That applies to captives in Guantanamo as well as prisons in Afghanistan or anywhere else.

That last sentence was just in case any readers hadn't connected Guantanamo with the CF yet. In fact, I'm surprised Koring didn't simply say "Good questions, Mr. Brooks. In reply, I'd point out GUANTANAMO, and furthermore ABU GHRAIB SOMALIA AIRBORNE DOGS GENITALS CIGARETTE BURNS HUMILIATION. I hope that answers your questions."

Noooooo, Koring's own point of view has no bearing on how this story is being reported at all. None whatsoever. I'm sure Dan Rather, Mary Mapes and Eason Jordan didn't think their personal biases were the issue either.

Numpty.

Let's look at what Koring and his editors chose not to address:

• No mention was allowed of their 'bait and switch' between the unproven abuse allegations and the detainee transfer agreement that is the real bee under at least Prof. Attaran's bonnet. Conflating the two issues is slight-of-hand journalistic misdirection at its most pernicious.


• No response to my suggestion that one of Koring's stories yesterday, and another about public reaction to Attaran's witch-hunt today, are both an attempt to stifle any questioning of the motives of the CF's accusers by making the activist lawyer out to be a victim. Given his brazen manipulation of the media here, that characterization of Attaran makes me nauseous.


• No answer as to why Attaran called the Provost Marshal late Tuesday night, or what was said that would make Cdr LaViolette call back with a witness present - in fact, they wouldn't even post the question. It raises inconvenient questions about the narrative Koring and Attaran are pushing, I guess.


• No mention allowed of Attaran's 'damned if you do, damned if you don't' public comments about the CF's investigations. Again, it seems that the fact that Professor Attaran has admitted he won't be satisfied by any course of action the CF takes isn't relevant to the point of view Koring has decided to push.

But here's the money quote from Koring, the one that says all you really need to know:

But doubts will exist as long as the Canadian policy (and this isn't the responsibility of ordinary soldiers in the field) is so murky. Scores, maybe hundreds, of people captured by the Canadian Forces in Afghanistan and the Persian Gulf since 2001 have disappeared. They have been handed over to either the United States or the Afghans and there is no accounting for what has happened to any of them. Not even the Canadian government or the highest-ranking general knows whether they have been released, charged, tortured, killed, or are just languishing in some prison.

Here's a shorter, more concise paraphrase of Koring: "I agree with Attaran that the Canadian detainee transfer policy is wrong, and so I'm going to use these allegations by Attaran of abuse to push our agenda into the limelight."

Up-yours-date: Here's what one of Koring's editors had to say about one of my questions:

Stephen Northfield, Foreign Editor: While the telephone spat itself may appear to be inconsequential on the surface, there's a vested public interest in the conduct of all parties involved in the story. I think it is significant if the view of the military is that Mr. Attaran is acting unprofessionally and believes he may have an unstated agenda. It speaks, possibly, to an instutional view ahead of what is supposed to be an impartial exploration of the facts. It's a fair question if in fact the comments made during the call do represent the view of the military -- which is why we asked the question of them on that, and subsequent days. We are still awaiting a reply.

Surprisingly enough, I tend to agree with Mr. Northfield on one point in particular: there most definitely is "a vested public interest in the conduct of all parties involved in the story." Emphasis on the word "all." That is to say, the public interest includes the conduct of Professor Attaran. And so, while the Globe & Mail awaits a reply from the military on whether suspicion of the activist's agenda is an institutional mindset, I await a reply from the Globe & Mail as to why they don't feel the content and tone of Mr. Attaran's voice-mail to the CF Provost Marshall is equally newsworthy.