Telling it like it is

Rosie DiManno hits it out of the park again, demonstrating why she is one of the best scribes on the Afghanistan file. She's accurate, honest and thoughtful. A rare commodity these days, both in government and the MSM.

Afghanistan is a sovereign nation. We cannot impose our values, our Charter of Rights and our international covenants on them. Canadians are there as a primary NATO element, in support of a United Nations mandate, at the invitation of a Kabul government struggling to assert its authority. If that government falls in the next election – Afghans infuriated by corruption and incompetence – that will be their choice. But it won't be because some suspected Taliban detainees have been maybe tortured.

That plays only to a Canadian audience and nowhere as much as the headlines would suggest. This is about pounding away at the government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper, which has so dreadfully botched its duty to inform the public and explain the merits of the mission beyond platitudes, a failure underscored by John Manley's recent report.

It is profoundly naïve and inexcusably paternalistic, however, to pretend that Canada can reinvent Afghan culture by exporting our precious ethics when that country is still very much under siege.

This allegedly tortured prisoner never passed through Canadian hands. Further, the whole detainee scandal would never have arisen had not Ottawa winced at the optics of handing over prisoners to U.S. authorities. We picked Afghans over our greatest ally knowing full well what might happen.

That's domestic politics. It was foolhardy policy.

Complete story at the Toronto Star