Second verse, same as the first

Is it Groundhog Day and nobody told me?

Here we are yet again, dealing in sensational and uncorroborated second-hand allegations that Canadian Forces personnel have engaged in war crimes. Yet again, Amir Attaran is involved. And yet again, the real beef is the detainee transfer policy.

Malgarai Ahmadshah alleged to MPs in Ottawa that the Canadian military "panicked" and rounded up a half a dozen Afghans between the age of 10 and 90 after the shooting of a man sleeping on the roof of a compound in southern Afghanistan.

Ahmadshah, a Canadian citizen born in Afghanistan, admitted inside the committee room that he did not witness the alleged shooting, but said he was present for the interrogation of detained men afterward.

He said the soldier who allegedly shot the man in the back of the head mistakenly thought he had a pistol.

...

Ahmadshah testified he was not at the compound during the alleged incident, although he was allowed to see the intelligence report and took part in the interrogation of the detained men. He alleged a member of the military personally described it to him as "murder."

He also insisted he passed his allegations that the Canadian military was "subcontracting torture" to the NDS up the chain of command. He also said he "cannot believe" Defence Minister Peter MacKay doesn't know about his allegations.

"I want him to sit across from me look me in the eyes and say he doesn't know," the former translator said.

...

The witness was accompanied by Amir Attiran, a University of Ottawa law professor who has led legal efforts to get the government to release unredacted documents pertaining to the Afghanistan mission.

At one point, Attiran would not let Ahmadshah answer Hawn's question on whether has an ongoing legal action against the government, telling Hawn he could look it up in the court file.

You remember this from the first time, right?

Let me be perfectly clear: I believe that Attaran's entire motivation in pushing this story into the press was to get the CF on the ropes so he could hammer them over detainee transfer policy. That was the impetus for his initial Access to Information requests. I doubt that he particularly cares that the reputation of the CF is being unceremoniously dragged through the mud in order to facilitate his attack on a Government of Canada policy implemented by the CF. I don't know that it would even occur to him that he doesn't really want the military picking and choosing which government directives it will or will not follow.

What all this means is that even if the abuse by Canadian soldiers story is still-born after the investigations conclude there was no wrongdoing by CF members, he can still push the 'but you're turning prisoners over to known torturers' angle and keep the story above the fold on page one of the newspapers. It's a classic 'bait and switch': hook the public on the idea of soldiers abusing detainees, and even if that's proven false, feed them the completely separate issue of detainee transfers to the Afghan government.

No? Well at least you remember this game from the last time the usual suspects played it.

The very first questions a responsible journalist would have asked Attaran about his outrageous claim is: How do you know this? What evidence do you have? Where did you get it? Milewski asked none of these questions. He just went with what Attaran wanted. If some j-school grad on a summer internship had handed in a story like this to me on city desk, I would have spiked it and told him to find a new line of work.

As Yogi Berra once said, "This is deja vu all over again." The pattern is exceptionally simple to discern. Put some heinous hearsay out there, then when the reporters come knocking, segue smoothly to the issue you can't get anyone to care about no matter how hard you try: your fevered allegations that Canada is subcontracting torture to the Afghan government.

The CDS is far more polite about it than I am, but one part of his press release is particularly pointed:

The Canadian Forces operate on facts, not innuendo. Senior military officers have commented honestly, publicly and – perhaps most importantly – on the record – about their knowledge of the issues and the actions they took on the ground.

Narvey was less kind the last time around. His mockery remains the most relevant commentary on this contrived hand-wringing, this endless circumnavigation of the toilet bowl that I have yet to see.

We know how the bait and switch is done. But it seems to be like a car wreck on the side of the highway: we know we shouldn't pay attention, but we just can't help but slow down and gawk.

Move along, people.