Maybe some former Liberal ministers should be worrying about their asses

Earlier:

Senior Liberal: CF "may have been committing war crimes"

Now, if war crimes were committed, Mr McCallum seems rather unconcerned about the possible consequences for some of his erstwhile Liberal cabinet colleagues. Any such crimes were the result of following the government's policy--in 2006 that set in place by the Liberals through the December 2005 detainee transfer agreement with the Afghan authorities. The Liberals themselves had been well warned about the possibility of detainee abuse before the agreement was signed.

Those who legally would have prime responsibility for war crimes would the members of the government (first the Liberals, then the Conservatives), the senior bureaucrats and the senior CF officers responsible for putting, and then keeping, that policy in place.

The guilt, if any, of field soldiers in theatre would be secondary to that of those who ordered them to follow the policy that resulted in crimes. "Befehl ist Befehl" is no defence but the legal responsibility is lesser.

Think Nuremberg. "Nacht und Nebel" might be a loose analogy, see here and here (Keitel). If any trials were ever to be held (which is absolutely improbable) they would need to start at the top. Which the Liberals should be thinking about, if they actually think anymore. Our media certainly do not seem to.

Update: Much more on what Liberal ministers were doing before their government agreed to the detainee transfer agreement here from Adrian MacNair, some excellent research.

Upperdate thought: Whatever happened to those Afghans JTF 2 turned over to the, gasp, Americans in 2002 when Art Eggleton was MND?

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Eggleton says the U.S. wants to bring terrorists to justice and Canada supports that.

Eggleton says he's confident any prisoner held by the U.S. will receive a fair trial.

Call the commission of enquiry, say I.

Uppestdate: Andrew Coyne on Mr Eggleton, early in 2002, time for our major media to do that research thing:

It is inexcusable for Art Eggleton to have misled the House of Commons, whether he meant to or not. It is hard to think why he would lie, or why, if he had lied, he would change his story the very next day. Yet it requires a quite amazing capacity for error to be mistaken on such a simple matter as when he was told that Canadian forces had taken prisoners in Afghanistan. As I say, dishonesty or incompetence, it is inexcusable either way.

But let's remember why this was an issue in the first place. Mr. Eggleton's startling revelation, that members of the Joint Task Force 2 commando unit had captured several enemy fighters nearly two weeks ago, was only newsworthy because it contradicted the Prime Minister, who had been saying publicly that no prisoners had as yet been taken...

What a gormless state our political discussions have reached. Via:

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Usual Suspect Says:
January 13, 2010 at 6:42 pm ...