Stephen Harper, Nobel Peace Prize nominee

Not content with awarding Stephen Harper their Gold Medallion human rights award and pledging to create a Stephen Harper Centre for Human Rights, B’nai Brith Canada announced yesterday they will be nominating him for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Frank Dimant from their statement :

“Moral clarity has been lost across much of the world, with terror, hatred and antisemitism filling the void,” said Frank Dimant, CEO, B’nai Brith Canada. “Throughout, there has been one leader which has demonstrated international leadership and a clear understanding of the differences between those who would seek to do evil, and their victims." 

Yeah, about victims ... one minute of aerial footage of Al-Shejaiya in Gaza



B'nai Brith was a successful advocate of Canada cutting off funding to UNRWA, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency - the only UN human relief agency willing to work in Gaza under fire. (Eight of their workers died in this last incursion). Last month B'nai Brith called for the disbanding of UNRWA altogether. Canada is no longer a donor country to UNRWA.

Back to Frank's presser, where he notes that as a 'professor' he is eligible to make a nomination to the Nobel Foundation : 

“In accordance with the rules of the Nobel Foundation it gives me great pleasure to nominate in my capacity as Professor of Modern Israel Studies at Canada Christian College, Prime Minister Stephen Harper for the Nobel Peace Prize in honour of the outstanding moral leadership he has demonstrated.”

Frank Dimant is a professor at Charles McVety's Canada Christian College because Charles McVety awarded him an honorary doctorate there in 2004 at a ceremony attended by Jason Kenney.
Texas millionaire televangelist and Christian Zionist Pastor John Hagee and his Christians United For Israel rents office space from McVety for his Canadian operations at Canada Christian College.

Dimant : "We [Jews] and Israel are not alone because of you and the tremendous leadership of Dr. McVety and Dr. Hagee." Dr. Hagee. Go on, click that last link.

Three years ago in this Christian College video at a Stand With Israel rally, Dimant, Jason Kenney (far left), and McVety (behind Dimant) , along with Nathan Jacobson (to the left of Kenney) shared the podium as Dimant courted his presumably mostly Christian audience. He praised Harper and the Cons as friends of Israel and called on God to protect Israel from the United Nations "as we await the messianic times which are just around the corner." 

In March 2014, in a more intimate setting in a synagogue, Dimant spoke about his relationship to Harper: 

" I happen to know Mr.Harper from the days he was in the opposition and the truth is we were on first name basis because the Jewish community was not in favor of Conservatives  - at that time they were called the Alliance Party and before that the Reform Party.  The Jewish community was traditionally liberals and the Jewish community was very much onside with the Liberal Party of the day.  When Mr. Harper and before him Mr. Stockwell Day wanted to get their message out to our community, all the doors were closed in their face.  It's very difficult to believe when today you see the world's premier friend of Israel - that when he wanted to speak about his attitude towards Israel, that door was shut. 

Only one organization at that time - and I was B'nai Brith and our publication The Jewish Tribune - gave them a forum, gave him a platform, gave them an opportunity to say : 'This is how we really stand on Israel; this is where we stand on anti-Semitism; and this is where we stand on the values that we share with you.'  

I've had the good fortune in my lifetime to work with many governments.  I've gone to Auschwitz with Prime Minister Chretien,  I've gone to Israel with Art Egglington, I've gone to Israel with Jean Chretien, and I went now with our Prime Minister again. [Note : Harper's visit this past January] 

And I saw the difference, saw the difference.  And the difference was that here you had a man like Harper who you can feel - FEEL - the love that he has for the State of Israel, the affection that he feels for the Jewish people. So you may ask why. Why? Good question. 

Mr. Harper is a religious Christian.  He believes. He believes when it says "Blessed are those who bless the Jewish people."  And he says Canada is blessed because we bless the Jewish people. He really deeply believes that. As does Jason Kenney, as do some of the other ministers - they are religious people. So they feel it."

As to the Nobel Peace Prize nomination, I'm blaming Michael Byers. 
Six weeks ago in The Harper Plan for unilateral Canadian disarmament , Byers suggested that despite all his tough military world stage talk, Harper might be eligible for one because he has "reduced defence spending to just 1% of GDP — the lowest level in Canadian history".  

Yeah, I know - you're still stuck back there at the idea of a Stephen Harper Centre for Human Rights.
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Ed Tanas' petition : Deny the Nomination of PM Stephen Harper for 2014 Nobel Peace Prize 
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Camelot Security Establishment: "It's only a model"

Michael Byers makes a good case that Canada's military procurement is like a Monty Python movie, akin to "a knight riding a make-believe horse while knocking two coconuts together."

Also rather like the dead parrot sketch but he missed the most obvious Python Holy Grail allusion of all  - that DND is building CSEC a massive new $1B home they've nicknamed Camelot.
The Camelot sketch from Holy Grail is one of my all time faves so here it is with updated Camelot Security Establishment lyrics below.  Sing 'em loud!



Knights, I bid you welcome to your new home - let us ride to Camelot.

We're Knights of the CSEC Table
We hack whene'er we're able
We snoop emails and "Search" details
On fibre optic cable.
We dine well here in Camelot
Coz a billion bucks buys quite a lot.

We're Knights of the CSEC Table
Our building's formidable, 
Catching Pierre Poutine is not our scene
That case is unbreakable.
Brazil is mad at Camelot
Coz we sing to NSA a lot.

As spooks we're tough and able
Quite indefatigable.
But Greenwald's leaks on our techniques
Have made things quite unstable.
It's a busy life in Camelot
Appeasing Uncle Sam a lot
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‘You, Me, and the S.P.P: Trading Democracy for Corporate Rule’

You'll remember Paul Manly as the guy who shot that video of CEP union President Dave Coles exposing the 3 rock-toting Quebec police provocateurs at the Montebello SPP protest in Aug. 2007. Paul has finally finished his full-length feature film : ‘You, Me, and the S.P.P: Trading Democracy for Corporate Rule’, exposing "the latest manifestation of a corporatist agenda that is undermining the democratic authority of the citizens of North America".

Here are a few quotes from the trailer :

Naomi Klein :

"… after the shock of Sept 11 … that crisis was expertly manipulated by our political leaders to push through a range of policies they actually had wanted to push through before Sept 11, but didn’t have the political conditions that made that possible."

Gordon Laxer, Director, The Parkland Institute, Alberta :

"…if we go along with the Americans on their military, on their human rights, on their Patriot Act, on immigration and refugee policy, on energy, on all kinds of regulations over pesticides or whatever, then they will allow us access to their markets."

Murray Dobbin, Canadian author, journalist :

"… what the SPP really represents is a parallel government, so that the important decisions are either made outside of parliament and outside of legislatures or they make it impossible for those kinds of decisions to be made in those legislative bodies, so that democracy is slowly being gutted."

with more from Peter Julian, Michael Byers, and Maude Barlow.

And here's a portion of the film I posted this morning. To purchase your own copy of the whole film - $20 well spent - and for listings of local screenings, visit Paul's website at manlymedia.com. If we want this quality of reporting from independent journalists, we're going to have to support it. If you can't afford the $20 for your own copy, get your local library to buy a copy, leave him a message of encouragement, and pass on the word. As Paul says : I made this film for all of you.

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Oct 2009 Update : Paul and his film are on a cross-country tour of 33 countries across Canada. You can see all the tour dates on the film website here Each confirmed screening date has a pdf poster, handbill and press release that can be downloaded and used to promote the screening. Please help out where you can. All of the screenings are either free or by donation.

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SPP - Canada Election 08

Paul Manley, the guy who shot this footage of police provocateurs attempting to start a riot at the Stop the SPP protests in Montebello Quebec, is working on a documentary about the SPP.
In the meantime he has produced this short vid about all the questions not being asked in this election about issues related to the Security and Prosperity Partnership and Canada-EU Free Trade Ageement. An excellent short history.

Why isn't this an election issue?

Go Nanaimo Blog!

Death by pudding or parking lot

George Monbiot : The US missile defence system is the magic pudding that will never run out

"It's a novel way to take your own life. Just as Russia demonstrates what happens to former minions that annoy it, Poland agrees to host a US missile defence base. The Russians, as Poland expected, respond to this proposal by offering to turn the country into a parking lot. This proves that the missile defence system is necessary after all: it will stop the missiles Russia will now aim at Poland, the Czech Republic and the UK in response to, er, their involvement in the missile defence system."

The missile defence system doesn't actually work of course, but to be fair, that isn't its job. Its real job, in Monbiot's happy phrase, is to keep the pudding production going. There's big bucks in pudding - $150B so far.

Meanwhile the Czech Republic is also gearing up to host a US pudding factory, pending approval from its parliament.


Linda McQuaig notes that "goal of eliminating nuclear weapons — arguably the most pressing issue humankind faces — has otherwise slipped so far off the political agenda it rarely merits a mention."

We're happy to pretend that installing a missile defence system in Poland has something or other to do with Iran, which doesn't have any nukes, but when it comes to the nuclear weapons of the U. S., Russia, China, Britain, France, Israel, India and Pakistan, we're oblivious.

McQuaig :

"Peace advocates Anatol Rapoport and Leonard Johnson (a retired Canadian general) compare our society to the cells of a body in the process of committing suicide. All the cells keep operating normally, each doing its own job, even as the person writes a suicide note, puts a gun in his mouth and prepares to pull the trigger."

Here's Canada's note:

In 2002, Canada became the first NATO country to vote for a pro-disarmament resolution, despite strong opposition from the United States, and called for "the complete elimination of nuclear weapons...through steadily advocating national, bilateral and multilateral steps."

Michael Byers noted that last year that the Foreign Affairs website had been amended to say that Canada's nuclear weapons policy is now "consistent with our membership in NATO and NORAD, and in a manner sensitive to the broader international security context."


Death by pudding or parking lot - take your pick. And don't forget to leave a note.

Torture - What Canada knew about our detainees

Here, let me help you with that :

"3. Of the ... detainees we interviewed ... said ... had been whipped with cables, shocked with electricity and/or otherwise "hurt" while in DNS custody in Kandahar. This period of alleged abuse lasted from between ... and ... days, and was carried out in ...... and .......... ........... detainees still had ........ on .... body; ..... seemed traumatized."

OK you get the idea.
These are the heavily redacted first-hand reports from Canadian government officials in Afghanistan, detailing the continued abuse and torture of detainees who are captured by Canadian soldiers and turned over to Afghan forces. None appear to have been charged or even properly identified; they just seem to get detained and tortured.

And the only reason, the only reason, we are seeing these reports, which effectively refute the continuous stream of lies and denials about torture in Afghanistan from Harper and Co, is because the BC Civil Liberties Association and Amnesty International Canada have brought a lawsuit against our government in Federal Court.


POGGE and Impolitical both have very good posts up on this already.

What caught my eye was who these reports were addressed to....


To :Vincent Rigby, Assistant Deputy Minister for Policy, Dept of National Defence
Rigby stood in the HoC on Dec 11, 2006 and said :
Hansard : "We've had absolutely no information passed to us directly by the ICRC or the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission or Afghan authorities themselves as to mistreatment of detainees passed on to Afghan authorities by Canadian Forces."
Rigby, you will recall, was also O'Connor's minder in the HoC, sitting to his left and answering all questions about detainees with the stunning bit of misdirection that as we hadn't heard anything about detainee torture from the Red Cross - with whom, he was always careful to add, we have an excellent relationship - well, then, we had nothing to worry about. This feint worked swimmingly until O'Connor was in the HoC sans minder one day and made the direct causal link between "no prisoner torture" and "no Red Cross reports about it" which Rigby himself had been so careful to avoid. After that it fell to Michael Byers to explain to us that it would contravene the Red Cross's mandate to report on torture to third parties, so we would not be hearing from them no matter how many of our prisoners were being tortured.

Creekside has held a grudge against Mr. Rigby ever since he appeared before the rightwing US Heritage Foundation and referred to Canada's refusal to help the US invade Iraq as "a glitch".


and to : David Mulroney, associate minister at the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade and head of the government's Afghanistan Task Force, he was also one of the six government minders assigned to "assist" Manley's farce of a five-stooge panel on the future of Canada's involvement in Afghanistan. Manley's much reviled report was released this week. The word "detainee" did not appear in it at all. Not even once.


You can see the rest of the DFAIT torture reports here.

The Jan 21 transcript of the testimony from Nicholas Gosselin, Canada's human-rights officer stationed in Kandahar, is here. Mr Gosselin personally took the statement from an Afghani detainee abused with an electrical cable in the interrogation room where the torture occurred. Mr Gosselin located the electrical cable in its hiding place and confirmed the detainee's wounds were consistant with his statement. Other detainees who complained of abuse could not be located upon subsequent visits by Canadian officials.


And I think we'll just pause here for a moment to recall that Harper and Stockwell Day have both stood up in our Parliament and insisted that the reason detainees - hell, let's just call them prisoners from now on, shall we? - claim to be tortured is because the Taleban trains them to do so to trick us.
One guy had no toenails left. That's really quite the trick.
Dion and Layton were slagged as traitors in the HoC for even suggesting that the allegations be looked into.

WED NIGHT DAMAGE CONTROL UPDATE : Yesterday on the eve of the hearing, the Department of Justice sent a letter to the groups' [BCCLU and Amnesty Int] lawyers, saying that soldiers had temporarily halted the transfers.
From CTV : "Canadian authorities were informed on November 5, 2007, by Canada's monitoring team, of a credible allegation of mistreatment pertaining to one Canadian-transferred detainee held in an Afghan detention facility," wrote senior counsel J. Sanderson Graham. "As a consequence there have been no transfers of detainees to Afghan authorities since that date. The allegation is under investigation by the Afghan authorities. Canada will resume transferring detainees when it believes it can do so in accordance with its international legal obligations."

This doesn't begin to explain why the Cons continued to slag Layton and Dion in the HoC after they knew the allegations - which btw have been documented all the way back to April 2006 - were credible, but it's a start.
The BCCLU and Amnesty Int., having succeeded in getting this much public but noting the prisoner transfer has only been halted temporarily, will continue with their lawsuit.

Ankle-deep in blood and shit

A request for desert camel boots from Stockwell Day's newly arrived leader of a Correctional Service Canada inspections team in Afghanistan in February, 2007:

"They afford the appropriate ankle support when getting in and out of the LAV/Coyote/Nyala vehicles. Additionally the colour is more appropriate in the summer heat. On a Health and Safety level we will be walking through blood and fecal matter when either on patrol or in the prison and should not be wearing our personal footwear as it will track into our personal quarters."

It's certainly tracking all over the carpets in Ottawa now.

G&M : Nov 19, 2007 "The government was forced to release the documents on detainee conditions after a federal judge ordered it to disclose them as part of a suit brought by Amnesty International Canada and the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association."

CP Nov 5, 2007 "The government had argued that the issues involved were political rather than judicial, that human rights advocates lacked any legal standing to mount a challenge, and that the case should be thrown out because it has no chance of succeeding."

Co-council to both human rights groups, Amir Attaran, has been trying to alert us and get some action on this since at least March 2006, when he and Michael Byers along with Louise Arbour, Canadian rep at the UN, all published papers on the abuse of Afghan detainees.
The Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission, in 2004 : "Torture continues to take place as a routine part of police procedures. The AIHRC has found torture to occur particularly at the investigation stage in order to extort confessions from detainees."

This is what Con House leader Peter Van Loan still airily refers to as "allegations by the Taliban".

Are we there yet? Could we get some grown-ups on this?
Look, we have a lot of serious issues to deal with in Canada : important stuff like fixing our debt to First Nations, stopping the sell-off of Canadian companies and the flow south of our resouces, getting serious on the environment, to name just a few.
Canada is already a signatory to the Geneva Conventions. We simply don't have time to go back and re-fight and re-argue all the battles for some semblance of civilization that we have already won. And we certainly don't have time for any government that hasn't figured this out yet.

Update : Mattt at bastard.logic links to skdadl's comment at Pogge :

"I think we call this the banality of evil. I have to walk through blood and fecal material, so I need better boots. This is the road to Nuremberg, folks. And this is being done in our name. Everyone happy to sit here quietly and be a "Good Canadian"? "

Is Canada still "No Nukes"? - Part II

Politics 'n Poetry noticed that Canada abstained on a UN vote on depleted uranium two days ago.

UN : "The Assembly, taking into consideration the potential harmful effects of the use of armaments and ammunitions containing depleted uranium on human health and the environment, would request the Secretary-General to seek the views of Member States and relevant international organizations on the subject and to submit a report to the Assembly at its next session."

Not a ban on the use of DU, mind you - just a resolution asking for further study.
It passed 122 in favour, with 6 against and 35 abstentions. Canada was one of those abstentions.

WTF? What could we possibly have against studying the 'potential' dangers of DU.......

UN : "The representative of the United States said that she would vote “no” on draft resolution “L.18/Rev.1”. That draft called for action by the Secretary-General, based on the harmful environmental and health effects of depleted uranium. The draft ignored scientific information on that subject. That subject had been investigated by the Defence Department, NATO and UNEP, among others, and none of those studies had documented environmental or health effects of those munitions."

So. The US Defense Dept investigated DU, didn't find any health or environmental problems, and so the rest of us should just shut up about it. DU is apparently the new AGW.

In all, there were 13 resolutions on nukes and the US voted against all of them.

Canada also abstained on a resolution to "recognize that the maintenance of nuclear weapons systems at a high level of readiness increased the risk of the use of such weapons, including the unintentional or accidental use" ~ 124 in favour to 3 against with 34 abstentions; and a "Vote on Indian Ocean as a Zone of Peace" ~ 120 in favour to 3 against with 45 abstentions

Is Canada still "No nukes!" Six weeks ago, UBC Prof. Michael Byers noted that the message on Canada's Foreign Affairs and Int Trade website calling for "the complete elimination of nuclear weapons...through steadily advocating national, bilateral and multilateral steps" had been amended to say that Canada's nuclear weapons policy is now "consistent with our membership in NATO and NORAD, and in a manner sensitive to the broader international security context."

Uh - oh.

Is Canada still "No Nukes"?

UBC Professor Michael Byers noticed a change in Canada's stated position on nuclear weapons at the government website, dfait.

Embassy Mag : Canada's Disturbing Change of Position :
"In January 2002, Canada's policy called for "the complete elimination of nuclear weapons...through steadily advocating national, bilateral and multilateral steps "

But recently, the same foreign affairs website has been amended to say that Canada's nuclear weapons policy is now "consistent with our membership in NATO and NORAD, and in a manner sensitive to the broader international security context." As Mr. Byers rightly points out, this clause strips Canada's policy of any real meaning."

Given NATO and the USA, yeah, it does.
In a search of dfait just now, I found the phrase "the complete elimination of " still in use up to Oct 2005.
After that, it only appears in archives. I guess the sixties really are over.

Rather touchingly, I see the moon is still off-limits though :
"The 1979 Moon Agreement – formally the Agreement Governing the Activities of States on the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies – reiterates the Outer Space Treaty's obligation that the Moon be used only for peaceful purposes."

Lucky moon. Maybe one day we can get something like that for Earth too.

"The Outer Space Treaty only explicitly forbids orbiting nuclear weapons or other WMD about the Earth, installing them on celestial bodies, or stationing in outer space in any other manner."

We're still good on that last one though, dfait, right? Right?

Water truckin'

You may remember Michael Byers as the UBC International Law prof who asked prior to the last election why extraordinary rendition wasn't an election issue and who also red-flagged our Afghan detainee transfer deal in the national press over a whole freakin year ago.

Byers has a book out - "Intent for a Nation : What is Canada for?" - and The Tyee has an excerpt :

"In 2004, the Canadian actor Paul Gross starred in a made-for-TV drama entitled H2O. Gross plays Tom McLaughlin, the charismatic son of a murdered Canadian prime minister, who takes over Canada at the behest of a group of international financiers eager to sell our fresh water to an increasingly thirsty United States."

Did you see this movie? I hadn't so I looked it up at IMDb. Some of the user comments about the unlikelihood of the plot's basic premise were kind of sad. At the time this movie aired, the GATT agricultural provisions regarding water were two decades old, and NAFTA, including the dreaded Annex Tariff Item 22.01: water: all natural water other than sea water, whether or not clarified or purified, had already passed its tenth birthday. Five years before this movie was even a twinkle in CBC's eye, the NDP were standing on the floor of the HoC demanding a clarification on water sovereignty under NAFTA - and it was denied.

While conceding that Canada's legal position on control of her water is at the very least muddy, Byer warns against setting any bulk water trading precedents:

"A single act of trading water on a bulk basis would arguably transform the resource into a tradable good that was legally indistinguishable from softwood lumber, potash or oil, rendering subsequent attempts to prevent or limit further exports illegal. For this reason, it is imperative that Canada takes water off the free trade table, quickly and decisively -- now, before it's too late."

Well another attempt was made two weeks ago, this time in the form of a motion asking the Cons to request a clarification from Mexico and the US on their position on Canada's water, and it was again denied.

Byers' excerpt concludes:

"On water, as on so many other issues, our conciliatory, don't-rock-the-boat approach to Canada-U.S. relations has failed. Unless we stand up for our own interests, Canadian fresh water could soon be irrigating crops, watering golf courses and filling backyard swimming pools in the south western United States.
It's time to dissuade Americans of the notion that we're going to rescue them from the consequences of their short-sighted, profligate ways by allowing them to mess with our environment, too. It's time to make it absolutely clear that bulk water exports are not covered by NAFTA."

In the meantime someone please let me know how that H2O movie turned out.

Tyee link from Jennifer at Runesmith's Canadian Content

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Resign now : Hillier and O'Connor

G&M : From Canadian custody into cruel hands
"Afghans detained by Canadian soldiers and sent to Kandahar's notorious jails say they were beaten, whipped, starved, frozen, choked and subjected to electric shocks during interrogation.
In 30 face-to-face interviews with men recently captured in Kandahar province, a Globe and Mail investigation has uncovered a litany of gruesome stories and a clear pattern of abuse by the Afghan authorities who work closely with Canadian troops, despite Canada's assurances that the rights of detainees are protected."

G&M : Calls for Defence Minister ouster over Afghani detainees
"Canada's opposition parties were demanding changes to the Afghanistan detainee transfer agreement and calling for the Defence Minister's resignation following accounts of gruesome torture of prisoners in Kandahar.
NDP Leader Jack Layton said the transfer of prisoners to Afghan authorities should stop immediately, a public inquiry be launched and Mr. O'Connor be sacked. He was backed up by all opposition parties."

UBC Int. Law Prof. Michael Byers : “If this report is accurate, Canadians have engaged in war crimes, not only individually but also as a matter of policy.”

OK, we've been playing at being the "good Germans" for well over a year now, in the face of all and any evidence from groups like the Afghan International Human Rights Commission, to whom we have entrusted the safety of detainees captured by our troops, and the Revolutionary Afghan Womens Association.
Is there any meaningful difference between U.S. and Canadian foreign policy as regards the rights of brown peoples?
Anybody feel up to doing a little "standing on guard for thee" today?

Make your voice heard - CBC, the Globe and Mail, your MP, your favourite Afghan war apologist.
Just do it right now. Because this absolutely will not stop until we make it stop.

Then go read Dana.
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O'Connor's "Bumps along the road and little glitches"

Just a couple of guys who were the victims of bad intelligence.

On the heels of Defence Minister Gordon O'Connor's apology for misleading the House with assurances that the Red Cross would report any mistreatment of Afghan prisoners to Canadian authorities, the Globe and Mail reports today that O'Connor was the victim of bad intelligence from his policy advisors.

"The group, led by assistant deputy minister for policy Vincent Rigby, first advised Mr. O'Connor last May that "if pressed" in the Commons with questions about detainee follow-up, he should respond by saying: "If the ICRC advised us of some problems with transferred detainees, we would discuss the issue with the government of Afghanistan." "

This has certainly been Mr Rigby's own preferred response when pressed :


Rigby, addressing the Standing Committee on National Defence on Dec 11, 2006:

"With respect to the International Committee of the Red Cross, again, they have an international mandate to follow up in this regard with detainees who are transferred to Afghan authorities. Our relationship with the ICRC has been excellent. They have all the information we've provided to them, and certainly they've had access and have been following up with detainees we've transferred to Afghan authorities."

and

"We're very comfortable with the role of the International Committee of the Red Cross, with the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission, and with our access to prisons as required. We've had absolutely no information passed to us directly by the ICRC or the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission or Afghan authorities themselves as to mistreatment of detainees passed on to Afghan authorities by Canadian Forces."





There's lots more quotes like this from Rigby but you get the gist : he never actually states that we're depending on the ICRC to report back to us about the prisoners we hand over; he just mentions them in the same sentence every time it comes up.

The previous May, O'Connor was deferring all such questions regarding prisoners to Rigby.

From the Standing Committee on National Defence, May 30, 2006 :


"NDP Ms Dawn Black: I've had a lot of interest and questions about the detainee transfer agreement with Afghanistan. Has NATO concluded a detainee transfer agreement with Afghanistan, and when will that agreement be made public? I would assume that it will be, if indeed there is an agreement with NATO, and that it would govern Canadian transfers once NATO assumes control through ISAF in the south.

Hon. Gordon O'Connor: I don't know that, ma'am. I'm going to have to ask Mr. Rigby.
Is there such a thing as a NATO agreement for detainees?

Mr. Vincent Rigby (Acting Assistant Deputy Minister (Policy), Department of National Defence): We're certainly working on that right now, Ms. Black, in a NATO context. Certainly Canada is very involved in Brussels in helping draft that document, but it's not finished yet. I'm not aware of exactly how.... One of the issues is how it will relate to the Canadian detainee arrangement and the other detainee arrangements that NATO allies have right now, so it's still a work in progress; we still have a little ways to go.

NDP MP Ms Dawn Black: Essentially, are Canadian soldiers instructed to give minimal protections because this is not an international conflict, or do we give the full prisoner-of-war protections, such as preventing prisoners from being humiliated or being put as public curiosities and photographed?

Hon. Gordon O'Connor: My understanding is the latter--that we maintain the highest standards.
I'll ask Mr. Rigby to confirm that."





Yeah, ok, that's enough of that. You get the idea. O'Connor doesn't appear to know anything about prisoners and repeatedly cues Rigby up to "imply".

And it was all going just swimmingly until O'Connor stood in Parliament - without Rigby - and made that one small causative embellishment on Rigby's usual series of passive-voice obfuscations :

"The Red Cross or the Red Crescent is responsible to supervise their treatment once the prisoners are in the hands of the Afghan authorities. If there is something wrong with their treatment, the Red Cross or Red Crescent would inform us and we would take action."



and another time :

"The process is that if Canadian soldiers capture insurgents or terrorists they hand them over to the Afghan authorities and then the International Red Cross or Red Crescent supervise the detainees. If there is any problem, the Red Cross or Red Crescent would inform us and then we would become involved."

At which point the ICRC was forced to say that no, they wouldn't, because it was not in their mandate to report back to third parties.

The US State Dept, Louise Arbor at the UN, Amir Attaran, Michael Byers, and the Afghan International Human Rights Committee have all described torture of detainees in Afghanistan as "routine".
But O'Connor's getting his advice from a guy who once described Canada's decision to stay out of Iraq and the US Ballistic Missile Defense Program as "bumps along the road and little glitches".

That was Vincent Rigby in his powerpoint presentation to the Heritage Foundation in Washington.
You can watch it here.

UPDATE : Well now look - you guys have pissed Dave off with your Bushwhackery.
That link to Rigby's Dec 2006 appearance before the National Defence Standing Committee keeps going down so here it is in a cached pdf And I forgot to thank Audacious Ontology for the G&M link.

It isn't a war, so the rules of war don't apply

The Ottawa Citizen, April 10 : Canadian soldiers may be subject to war crimes charges.

CTV.ca, May 31 : Canada not at war in Afghanistan : O'Connor

The Globe and Mail, May 31 : Troops told Geneva rules don't apply to Taliban

In April, UBC international law professor Michael Byers and University of Ottawa Prof. Amir Attaran, a constitutional human rights law specialist, said that the International Criminal Court could charge Canadian soldiers with war crimes because they transfer prisoners into Afghan custody where even the Afghanis state the prisoners are regularly tortured.

But O'Connor says we're not really at war.

So Lieutenant-General Michel Gauthier, who commands the Canadian Expeditionary Forces Command and all Canadian Forces deployed abroad, says because the regulations only apply in an armed conflict between states, and what's happening in Afghanistan is not an armed conflict between states, therefore there is no basis for determining whether or not individuals are prisoners of war.

It isn't a war, so there are no POWs and therefore the Geneva Conventions don't apply to us.
Just like the US.

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The Great Parliamentary Afghanistan Debate

Harper wasn't there. Neither was Duceppe.
Not only was there no vote, there was no debate either.

Out of a possible 308 MPs:
58 Conservative MPs, dropping to 14 after O'Connor finished
21 Liberals but dropped to 10
2 Bloc Quebecois
8 NDP, rising to 20

Fucking shameful.
Especially as Canadians are divided about 50/50 over whether we should be there at all.

Here is one reason we are just a bit concerned:

"Canadian soldiers could be charged with war crimes in the International Criminal Court because of an agreement the government approved on the handling of detainees captured in Afghanistan," warns UBC international law professor Michael Byers.
University of Ottawa Prof. Amir Attaran, a constitutional human rights law specialist, agrees. Under international law Canada has an obligation to ensure any detainee is protected against torture, not only when they are transferred into Afghan custody but if they are sent onwards to a third nation, such as the U.S.

Defence Minister Gordon O'Connor said last week he is satisfied with the pact, as is Opposition leader Bill Graham, who was the Liberal's defence minister when the agreement was signed in Kabul in December.
Chief of the Defence Staff Gen. Rick Hillier signed the agreement even though the Afghan government's own human rights commission warned in 2004 that the torture of prisoners is "routine."
So far, more than 100 detainees from Iraq and Afghanistan have died in U.S. custody.

Canadian military officers, however, have continually said they are confident any detainees turned over to the U.S. would be treated humanely."

Here's another reason, from the Government of Canada National Defense website :

"On November 29, 2005, Camp Julien, which was the Canadian base of operations in Kabul, officially closed. Canadian Forces personnel in Afghanistan, were relocated to Kandahar in the southern region of Afghanistan as part of the United States-led campaign against terrorism known as OPERATION ENDURING FREEDOM ( OEF )."

And Defense Minister Gordon O'Connor had the unmitigated gall to open the proceedings with Bush's "Fly-paper" analogy :

"Fighting terrorists in Afghanistan is better than waiting until they show up in vancouver, Montreal or Ottawa, Defence Minister Gordon O'Connor told the Commons on Monday.
"Canada is in Afghanistan because it is in our national interest,'' he said. "Our security begins very far from our borders. "
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