Afghan prisoners: Prof. Attaran's agenda/Minister O'Connor
The good professor, in a piece in today's Globe and Mail, reveals what he's really up to.
1) He wants to smear the Canadian Afghanistan mission with the American Iraq brush:
2) He wants Canada to be judged racist:
First, the war will likely drag on and in any case will almost certainly not end with a formal surrender as WW II did. Second, given the admittedly poor human rights record of parts of the Afghan government, what Canadian court would permit the return of the prisoners should they go to court? No doubt as clients of the good professor, who is also a lawyer.
Minister O'Connor, for his part, has made a right fool of himself over the Red Cross aspect of the prisoner issue. He should resign if ministerial responsibility is to retain any semblance of meaning. He would not be much of a loss.
Whoever briefed him about the agreement with the Afghan authorities should be fired. And, if Gen. Hillier knowingly permitted the minister to make false statements, there is only one honourable thing to do: resign. Much as I hate to say it since he is the best CDS for lord knows how long.
Update: A statement by the minister that I do not think vindicates him. A very perceptive comment at Army.ca is here.
Upperdate: Ed Morrissey on responsibility:
1) He wants to smear the Canadian Afghanistan mission with the American Iraq brush:
Firing the general now would give useful distance, and thereby help safeguard the Canadian Forces' reputation. The alternative -- keeping him on, under a Rumsfeldian cloud [emphasis added - MC] -- would be unwise...Prof. Attaran has earlier called for the resignation of both the CDS and Minister of National Defence O'Connor.
2) He wants Canada to be judged racist:
The second option is controversial: Transport our detainees from Afghanistan to prisoner-of-war camps in Canada. This sounds awful, but that is a shrill and unhistorical analysis. Starting in June of 1940, Canada transported about 40,000 German and Italian enemy combatants to this country and held them in camps in Alberta, Ontario and Quebec. Those enemies were treated humanely...Since Canada is not in a declared war, I can see no legal basis for transferring prisoners to Canada (that's why the US uses Guantanamo in Cuba). Moreover, what are the odds any prisoners could ever be sent back?
...Canada's inability to treat European and Afghan enemies on equal terms indicates that our military and foreign-policy establishment may still be dominated by a Eurocentric ethos. The current detainee policy suggests a subterranean racism that lags decades behind Canada's contemporary reality as a multicultural state...
First, the war will likely drag on and in any case will almost certainly not end with a formal surrender as WW II did. Second, given the admittedly poor human rights record of parts of the Afghan government, what Canadian court would permit the return of the prisoners should they go to court? No doubt as clients of the good professor, who is also a lawyer.
Minister O'Connor, for his part, has made a right fool of himself over the Red Cross aspect of the prisoner issue. He should resign if ministerial responsibility is to retain any semblance of meaning. He would not be much of a loss.
Whoever briefed him about the agreement with the Afghan authorities should be fired. And, if Gen. Hillier knowingly permitted the minister to make false statements, there is only one honourable thing to do: resign. Much as I hate to say it since he is the best CDS for lord knows how long.
Update: A statement by the minister that I do not think vindicates him. A very perceptive comment at Army.ca is here.
Upperdate: Ed Morrissey on responsibility:
...unless [FBI Director] Mueller submits his resignation, he's not really taking responsibility for anything. He did right yesterday by admitting the errors his agency made, and he can assume responsibility for cleaning up the mess and ensuring that the FBI stops violating the law in regards to data collection and national-security letters. If he wants to take responsibility for the violations themselves, a statement that implies that the entire organization is responsible for them, then Mueller really should resign and allow a new director to lead the FBI in a new direction. Otherwise, he should let those who violated the law assume individual responsibility -- and fire them...
posted by Mark, Ottawa at 9:26 a.m.
4 Comments:
I find it interesting that, once again, you go after the professor instead of having the grace to concede that he was right all along about the fate of at least some of the prisoners handed over to the Afghan authorities. That must really sting.
Some of the top dogs in the Afghan government today (like Abdul Rasul Sayyat) committed unspeakable atrocities only a few years ago. As I've said before, this is a war between rival gangs of hard men. Now we're caught in the middle of it. What is happening to these prisoners is hardly surprising--and all your ad hominem attacks on Attaran won't change a thing.
Can't please anyone this time.
Mark
Ottawa
Oh, come on, Dawg. Attaran's calling Canadian policy racist fer gawdsake, because we're not importing these detainees into POW camps in Canada like we did in WWII for white Europeans! The man deserves to be pilloried in commentary.
Besides which during WW II there was considerable "racism" regarding Italians--wops, Eyeties, etc.
http://www.allwords.com/word-Eyeties.html
But one would not expect the good professor to know such details or, if he did, let them get in the way of a cheap shot.
Mark
Ottawa
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