Afstan: It's not really about detainee abuse, stupid

Excerpts from an Ottawa Citizen piece by Paul Chapin that gets nicely to the root of the matter:

End the inquisition
A committee that should be monitoring our role in Afghanistan has been hijacked for political ends by wild accusations of torture and nothing in the way of proof
...
The special committee

In March 2008, the House of Commons approved a government motion that set parameters for Canada's future engagement in Afghanistan, including ending Canada's presence in Kandahar in July 2011 [see second part of this post]. In addition, the motion proposed the establishment of a special committee to meet with ministers and officials, travel to the region, and "make frequent recommendations on the conduct and progress of our efforts in Afghanistan."

Instead, for many months now, the special committee on the Canadian mission in Afghanistan has been conducting hearings intended to uncover evidence that government officials and Canadian Forces personnel have been guilty of war crimes in Afghanistan. First came the denunciations, then the hunt for proof. An inquisition by any definition.

The hue and cry has become so loud and insistent, the public hears only from the accusers. Some of Canada's most distinguished citizens have been called war criminals, those who have dissented have been called liars or dupes -- and normally responsible politicians and media outlets, whether out of fear or expediency, have allowed outlandish claims to go unchallenged [more here]...

Detainee myths

First myth: It's about detainees in Afghanistan. Wrong, it's about politics in Canada [more here, and the government for its part has hardly been frank and forthright about the matter] . The priority for the opposition parties is winning seats in the next Parliament, and to do so they need to drive down the government's public approval numbers before an election is called. The detainee issue offers a convenient stick with which to beat the government. It's a thin stick, but special interests, partisan academics [one particularly usual suspect here] and much of the media have been supportive and the government has not fought back well.

Second myth: It's about doing what's best for Afghans. Wrong, it's about getting Canada out of Afghanistan as soon as possible -- and no later than July 2011...

...opponents of Canada's engagement in Afghanistan are putting maximum pressure on the government to ensure there is no backtracking on the decision that Canada leave next summer -- and leave Afghans to their fate...

Paul Chapin is a former director general for international security at the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade. He is an adjunct professor in the School of Policy Studies at Queen's University and a director of the Conference of Defence Associations Institute.

Note especially how our government has dealt publicly with its legal obligations regarding detainees compared to the British government (near the end of Mr Chapin's article).

Eaarlier from Terry Glavin:

I Bet You Thought It's Just The Combat Mission That's Coming To End Next Year, Right? [more here]
...
The March 2008 House of Commons resolution that extended Canada's "combat mission" in Kandahar to 2011 also delegated the work of addressing Canada’s engagements in Afghanistan to a new House of Commons committee. The Special Committee on the Canadian Mission in Afghanistan was established to make “frequent recommendations on the conduct and progress of our efforts in Afghanistan.” The Committee was supposed to travel to Afghanistan and the surrounding region, meet regularly with Canada’s ministers of foreign affairs, international cooperation and defence, and other senior officials. The Committee was also tasked with reviewing laws and procedures related to the thorny matter of Afghanistan-related operational and national security exceptions to the disclosure of information to Parliament, the Courts and the public.

Here's the real scandal: The Committee has done none of these things.

Instead, it has rendered itself irrelevant to the central question of Canada’s current and future engagements in Afghanistan. It has become paralyzed by the very operational and national security exceptions it was originally intended to review...