Canada on torture : We're buying if you're selling

Canada's collateral fallout from Tuesday's Senate Intelligence Committee summary on the torture of prisoners at CIA “black site” prisons around the world.

"A spokesman for Public Safety Minister Steven Blaney’s office said Wednesday that Canada does not engage in, or condone, torture by national security agencies but ...  Canada will act on “a tip from any source” if Canadians’ lives are in danger."

This is our usual "we're buying if you're selling" approach to torture.

Feb. 2012 : "The latest directive says in "exceptional circumstances" where there is a threat to human life or public safety, urgency may require CSIS to "share the most complete information available at the time with relevant authorities, including information based on intelligence provided by foreign agencies that may have been derived from the use of torture or mistreatment."

April 2010 :  Day One of Omar Khadr's trial at Guantanamo. Confessions elicited via sleep deprivation, denial of pain medication, stress positions, being forced to urinate on himself and being used as a human mop, being terrorized by barking dogs, and being threatened with rape and torture. Khadr's defence team was only allowed to interview three of Khadr's 30 interrogators at Bagram and Gitmo, two of whom admit the 15 year old Khadr was threatened with rape.

FBI agent Robert Fuller

"... elicited from Khadr the identification of another Canadian, Maher Arar, who Khadr during interviews by Fuller claimed was training with al Qaeda operatives at a training camp at a time that, it later turned out, Arar was actually at home in Canada.

"In contrast to testimony he gave Monday, [FBI]special agent Robert Fuller told Khadr's war-crimes hearing that the young Canadian was not immediately able to name Arar, but did say he looked familiar." 

Shortly after Fuller reported the identification of Arar to the government, Arar was apprehended at JFK airport and rendered to Syria for interrogation there.

FBI agent Fuller also got Khadr to confess to throwing a grenade at US forces."

December 2009 : Harper shuts down parliament for two months in what turned out to be a successful strategy to muzzle parliamentarians regarding Richard Colvin's testimony about the torture of random Afghan farmers and taxi drivers under Canadian watch. 

Harper hired Bruce Carson to "stickhandle" the Afghan file "on a daily basis, involving senior officials from departments such as foreign affairs, defence, RCMP, justice and corrections". In 2007 a requisition for special boots to allow Correctional Services Canada inspection teams to wade through blood and shit in Afghan prisons was made public.

I think it's fair to say any report similar to the US Senate summary made partially public on Tuesday would never see the light of day in Canada.

April 2009 : "More than 16 months after Canada's security agencies cleared Abousfian Abdelrazik, government lawyers are now pressing him to admit to being a senior al-Qaeda operative, echoing American accusations extracted from Abu Zubaydah, water boarded more than 80 times under the Bush administration."

As noted by POGGE at the time : 

"While the rest of the world is coming to terms with the fact that the Bush administration was actually using torture to elicit false confessions in an effort to justify their invasion of Iraq, the Hapless Government™ is trying to use statements from a man who was waterboarded 83 times to prove that Abdelrazik is a terrorist."

March 2009 : The same day that CSIS lawyer Geoffrey O’Brian told the public safety committee there is no absolute ban on using intelligence that may have been obtained from countries with questionable human rights records on torture, RCMP spokesman Gilles Michaud tells the same committee :

"I want to be clear here - there is no absolute ban on the use of any information by the RCMP."

November 2006 : CSIS director Jim Judd said it had done nothing wrong by accepting as genuine the confession of Maher Arar, who was secretly and illegally bundled off by extraordinary rendition to a prison in Syria where he was held and tortured for a year.

"It does not necessarily follow that because a country has a poor human rights record that any information received from it was the product of torture," Judd told Parliament's public safety committee.

G&M : "In an Oct. 16, 2003 e-mail marked “secret,” officials of the intelligence unit of Foreign Affairs note that CSIS agents will pass on details of their then just-completed interrogation of Omar Khadr in Guantanamo and planned to “send two officers to Sudan next week to interview Abdelrazik.” 

Dec. 9, 2014 CBC : "This is a report of the United States Senate," Harper told the House of Commons on Tuesday. "It has nothing to do whatsoever with the government of Canada."
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Update : Tom Tomorrow
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Torture : Twas brillig, saith the slithy Toews

"Twas brillig," saith the slithy Toews

"To waterboard outside our nabe."

All mimsy went the newsy slaves

To hear the mome rath outgabe :

"Tis Ethical Torture now, my son! -

The wires that shock for me and you.

I'm the mustache of John Bolton

And John Yoo is my new guru."

 Public Safety Minister Vic Toews explained his not particularly new torture directive for CSIS in the House :

 "Mr. Speaker, information obtained by torture is always discounted.  However the problem is whether one can safely ignore the information if Canadian lives and property are at stake."

~Dad, what does the minister mean by "torture is always discounted."

~Well, my son, probably around 15%. But once you advertise you're open for business in torture intel, the whole damned market explodes and then no one gets a decent discount.

CP via Pogge  : 

"The latest directive says in "exceptional circumstances" where there is a threat to human life or public safety, urgency may require CSIS to "share the most complete information available at the time with relevant authorities, including information based on intelligence provided by foreign agencies that may have been derived from the use of torture or mistreatment."

Here's the UN Convention Against Torture, to which we have been a signatory since 1984, on those "exceptional circumstances" :

“No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat or war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture.”

One of the best wrap-ups on the actual harm torture-derived info has done to western intelligence and their agencies, quite apart from the evil or legalities, comes from David Rose at Vanity Fair : Tortured Reasoning. 

It ends with an interview with Robert Mueller, Director of the FBI since one week before 9/11 :

I ask Mueller: So far as he is aware, have any attacks on America been disrupted thanks to intelligence obtained through what the administration still calls “enhanced techniques”? 

“I’m really reluctant to answer that,” Mueller says. He pauses, looks at an aide, and then says quietly, declining to elaborate: “I don’t believe that has been the case.”

Update : Dr. Dawg : Debating torture
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The rules for censoring the Afghan detainee docs

On Wednesday, Airshow and Baird announced their success in killing off any further investigation into the abuse of  those Afghans it pleased them to refer to as "Taliban detainees" - the farmers and taxi drivers  handed off to the CIA-funded NDS on political orders from the Canadian government.

The release of a small percentage of heavily redacted docs reviewed by the three judges of the Panel of Arbiters completely vindicated the Canadian Forces, they read nervously from their notes. As if anyone other than them had insinuated allegations about "the troops" into what was their responsibility to comply with international law on the treatment of prisoners of a country we invaded.

Reading the panel's many restrictions on unredacting the documents, you might wonder how Speaker Milliken's order to release the docs to Parliament 18 months ago got watered down to whatever survived the following censorship :

REPORT BY THE PANEL OF ARBITERS ON ITS WORK AND METHODOLOGY FOR DETERMINING WHAT REDACTED INFORMATION CAN BE DISCLOSED , excerpted

The Panel of Arbiters can determine, at the request of the government, that certain information should not be disclosed due to the solicitor-client privilege.

The Panel of Arbiters, after consultation with the Clerk of the Privy Council, can also determine, at the request of the government, that information constituting Cabinet confidences should not be disclosed.

Also not to be released :

... information relating to the characteristics, capabilities, performance, potential deployment, functions or role of any defence establishment, military force or unit; and information obtained or prepared for the purpose of intelligence relating to the defence of Canada or an allied state.

 ... communications and documents obtained in confidence from third parties, generally allied states, should not be disclosed without the prior consent of the providing third party.

... information not widely known or accessible, where the authenticity of the information is neither confirmed nor denied, and where the information was inadvertently disclosed.

Government officials expressed serious concern about the disclosure of intergovernmental communications. They told us that all diplomatic communication is undertaken with the expectation of confidentiality and that disclosure of confidential communications would cause serious harm, regardless of the substance of the communication, and whether the “speaker” is Canada or a foreign government.

Certain documents referred by the Committee contain Canadian criticism of, or candid negative commentary about, Afghan institutions or officials. Some documents also contain Canadian reporting about criticism by one Afghan institution or official of another.

If the assessment appears to be merely speculation by a non-senior Canadian official, we generally either leave it redacted or summarize it at a very high level, making it clear in doing so that the assessment is the view of the individual, and not the government of Canada.
We exercise our judgment in each case to decide whether the information at issue is truly critical, and therefore would be harmful if released.

Generally speaking, we do not disclose any information or communications flowing from Canada to the ICRC [Red Cross]. We do not disclose any information, even in summary form, about or from the ICRC that is directly attributed to the ICRC or that it can be inferred comes from the ICRC.

...where information is not attributed to the ICRC, that the ICRC is the source of this information. Where that is the case, we leave the information redacted.

... information from third parties, such as foreign governments or intergovernmental organizations like NATO or NATO’s International Security Assistance Force. ... our approach is to not disclose or summarize third party information.

... the names of Afghan officials, including senior Afghan officials. Our approach is not to disclose these names except where the information, including the name, has already been widely disclosed.

... our approach is not to disclose or summarize information about Special Forces activities

...the use of gunshot residue (“GSR”) testing in Afghanistan ...disclose information indocuments relating to the use of the test and results obtained ... leave redacted other information to avoid compromising national defence.

... solicitor-client privilege is close to absolute ... extends to communications between government officials and government lawyers just as it does to any other lawyer-client communications. Unless it is waived by the client, solicitor-client privilege generally lasts forever.

Cabinet confidentiality may extend beyond Cabinet documents per se ; it may, for example, apply to communications between or involving Ministers.

So what was left to disclose on Wednesday after all the above censorship?
Just enough to shut it down.  Apparently.
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Bruce Carson : "stickhandling" the Afghan file

Five times convicted fraudster Bruce Carson - currently under RCMP investigation for influence peddling and illegal lobbying of Indian Affairs to obtain a water filtration contract that would have netted his 22-year old fiancee 20% of sales - was granted a secret security clearance in 2006 by some "low level staffer", just so he could be Harper's "main player "and "point man" on the top secret and sensitive Afghanistan file.

"... starting in 2007, Carson was a regular participant in daily telephone briefings on Afghanistan involving senior officials from departments such as foreign affairs, defence, RCMP, justice and corrections. “It was evident to all the departments that he was the main player, Harper’s point man on the file,” said one source familiar with the briefings. “He was given the most sensitive file to work on."

So while Stockwell Day was braying in the House in 2007 that even to question the treatment of detainees was tantamount to treason, a convicted felon was briefing his Correction Services Canada inspections team in Afghanistan "on a daily basis" and possibly figuring out what to do about Corrections Canada requests for boots suitable for "walking through blood and fecal matter on patrol or in the prison".

While Harper has a national security adviser, it was left to Carson, chief policy analyst, to stickhandle the Afghan file on a daily basis. His focus was usually on how the mission was being communicated here in Canada rather than on developments in the field, the source said."

Ah yes, putting the happy face on war crimes :

Canadian diplomats in Afghanistan were ordered in 2007 to hold back information in their reports to Ottawa about the handling of the prisoners, say defence and foreign affairs sources. The instruction — issued soon after allegations of torture by Afghan authorities began appearing in public — was aimed at defusing the explosive human-rights controversy, said sources who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

The controversy was seen as “detracting from the narrative” the Harper government was trying to weave around the mission, said one official. “It was meant to put on a happy face,” he added.

The instruction was passed over the telephone by senior officials in the Privy Council Office."

Impolitical says : "Incompetent leadership that left the highest, most sensitive affairs of Canada in Bruce Carson's hands without the proper security clearance"

but I think Harper knew exactly why he wanted the felon they called 'The Mechanic'.

By the way, how is the more recent stickhandling of the Afghan detainee documents progressing, 16 months after they were demanded by Parliament?

March 3, 2011 : Secret Afghan documents could be ready in two weeks, say Liberals a month ago.

The Cons have been stonewalling on handing over the Afghan detainee documents to our duly elected members of Parliament, while some unelected convicted felon buddy of Harper's was the Afghan file "point man" doing the "stickhandling" during the time in question. Unbelievable.

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A new low for Canada in Afghanistan

CBC : "The Canadian Forces have for years arrested children suspected of working with the Taliban and handed them over to [the NDS] an Afghan security unit accused of torture.

The document, obtained under an Access to Information request and marked "secret," shows that Defence Minister Peter MacKay was briefed on the topic of juvenile detainees in Afghanistan March 30."

UN General Assembly Security Council, Children and Armed Conflict, April 10, 2010 :

"Approximately 110 children have been detained by the Afghan National Directorate of Security and international military forces on charges related to national security, including their alleged involvement or association with the Taliban or other armed groups. Access to detention facilities continues to be difficult and information on children detained by pro-Government forces remains limited.

The use of harsh interrogation techniques and forced confession of guilt by the Afghan Police and NDS was documented, including the use of electric shocks and beating. ... Available information points to sexual violence as a widespread phenomenon."

Electric shocks, beating, forced confessions, sexual violence.

You can see how the Con/Lib/Bloc Afghan detainee panel - all sworn to secrecy and finally convened in July seven months after it was ordered in the House and charged with going through all those binders on detainees that Laurie Hawn is leaning on - is going to take a really really long time to get around to releasing any hint of this, if ever.

At which point, MacKay will probably issue one of his 'there was a problem but we already fixed it' missives and point out that Afghanistan is a sovereign country whose torture facilities are solely responsible for the treatment of the children we hand over to them. Especially as we now apparently actively solicit Canadian industry support for the CIA-backed NDS.

In the Afghan Committee on Oct 20, 2010, Parliamentary Secretary for National Defence Laurie Hawn remarked the NDS is "probably one of the better institutions in Afghanistan" and asked the Afghan ambassador if there was anything Canadian private industry could do to help them out.

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Privatizing the Afghan adventure with the NDS

Given that the NDS, the Afghan National Directorate of Security, is "probably one of the better institutions in Afghanistan", is there anything the Canadian government could do to facilitate Canada's private sector helping them out with equipment and mentoring?

This was the question put by Parliamentary Secretary for National Defence Laurie Hawn to the Afghan Ambassador last Wednesday in the Afghan Committee Oct. 20, 2010.

Sure, answered the Afghan ambassador, there's a future role, especially since "there is already good co-operation between CSIS and the NDS".

An quick NDS refresher follows, although I recommend a much more complete one from Pogge :

Up til 2009, the NDS was entirely funded by the CIA.

Richard Colvin, at a 2007 interview in Ottawa with government officials:

"You know the NDS tortures people – that’s what they do.”

Hawn said on CBC in March : "Our detainee arrangement is the new gold standard". However the US State Dept 2009 Report on Afghan Human Rights states:

"Torture and abuse methods included ... beating by stick, scorching bar or iron bar, flogging by cable, battering by rod, electric shock, deprivation of sleep, water and food, abusive language, sexual humiliation and rape."

Despite the Con's unflagging official support for the NDS as a "security partner" since they claimed to have "fixed" the agreement under which detainees are transferred to the NDS three years ago, not to mention Airshow MacKay's constant mantra that "there isn't a single shred of evidence" to support the possibility that any prisoners transferred from Canadian custody have ever been mistreated, a secret internal government memo, courtesy of the CBC, "circulated at the highest levels of government" in 2009 tells another story :

The notoriously brutal Afghan Security Service, the NDS, did not change its ways after the new agreement. It is still "organized according to a Soviet KGB model. Considerable scope for improper methods entails a degree of risk to Canadian interests. "

G&M, Sept 20, 2010 : "A member of Afghanistan's notorious intelligence service boasted to Canadian military officers in the spring of last year that his organization was able to “torture” or “beat” prisoners during the course of its investigations, federal documents say."

Responding to a parliamentary motion to force the Cons to turn over the secret Afghan detainee documents in December 2009, the Cons boycotted the Afghan Committee and two weeks later shut down Parliament altogether. In an effort to come to some agreement in the spring to stave off an election via a non-confidence vote, the Cons, Libs, and Bloc each agreed to appoint an MP to a special panel to look into allegations of NDS torture of detainees and filter those results back to Parliament. Hawn is the Con's designated filter.

Four months later we've yet to hear word one about NDS torture from that panel but here's Hawn on the Afghan Committee shilling for private Canadian business partnerships with the NDS for after the 2011 pullout.

Edited transcript of the Oct. 20 Afghan Committee exchange between Laurie Hawn and the Afghan ambassador, beginning approximately at the 40 minute mark :

Hawn :

"Fundamental to a democracy is the justice system. We've got a huge capacity in the private sector in this country for capacity building and training and mentoring and whatever. We heard in Kabul in June from the Afghan Independant Human Rights Commission that, you know, the NDS is far from perfect but how much better they are than they used to be and the fact they are probably one of the better institutions in Afghanistan.

Could you comment on what Canada could do -you're very familiar with our private sector and how we operate - with, like, providing something for the NDS to get them to that next level where they can be a solid part of a functioning justice system?"

Afghan Ambassador Jawed Ludin responded that there was indeed a role for Canada to support the NDS because the "Afghan National Army and Afghan National Police already receive multi-billion dollar support from the US" :

"We would like Canada to focus on areas where their support can be tangible -the NDS is one such institution. There is already good co-operation between CSIS and NDS. If there is interest in pursuing any such role in the future or support to security institutions, that would definitely be one area, not just technical skills but also management support. It is important they receive support as an organization."

Hawn :

"We've had people come to us about flying training proposals and other proposals. Have you had any contact with the Canadian private sector about specific capacities or capabilities? Would there be things that you could bring to us to say look it, why don't you, Canada, Government of Canada, go and talk to these guys and maybe find a way to help?"

War is a racket.

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RCMP coup d'etat ; CSIS soup de jour

Yesterday my co-blogger Bob at the Beav posted the first part of this Postmedia story about the RCMP's intent to return to an emphasis on "national security" :
RCMP warn against threat of coup d’etat

He titled his post Canadian Coup de RCMP because the second part of that news story was about an alleged attempted coup against Lester Pearson perpetrated by the combined efforts of the RCMP and the CIA.
Shortly thereafter the Postmedia story disappeared off the web but has since reappeared this morning almost word for word at the Montreal Gazette : RCMP identify coup d'etat as threat.

I'll pick up the second part of that story where Bob left off in case it disappears again :

Over the past year, the Mounties have signalled a renewed emphasis on national security issues that have been pushed aside by law enforcement's preoccupation with global terrorism since 9/11.

In a major speech last fall, for example, RCMP Commissioner William Elliott said while transnational terrorism and "homegrown" radicalization remain big threats, so too are economic espionage by foreign states, transnational organized crime, proliferation issues, illegal migration and other border-security issues.

While hyperbolic, the mention of a coup threat appears to reflect the force's return to a broader operational approach to guarding national security.

It's also not the first talk of a government overthrow.

The 1999 book Agent of Influence alleged the U.S. CIA plotted a de facto coup of Lester B. Pearson's government in the early 1960s.
Canadian author Ian Adams claimed that after the 1963 assassination of U.S. president John F. Kennedy, CIA counter-intelligence branch head James Jesus Angleton became convinced Pearson was an agent for Russian intelligence and supposedly had information from a Soviet defector backing him up.

"The CIA took great personal offence at Pearson's independent stands in foreign policy, his grain trades with the Soviet Union, his antiwar positions on Vietnam, and especially his friendly stance on Cuba," wrote Adams.

To get at Pearson, the CIA set its sights first on Canadian diplomat James Watkins, Canada's ambassador to Russia in the mid-1950s and a friend of the prime minister.
After 27 days of interrogation by the Mounties, the 62-year-old Watkins's troubled heart gave out and he died, apparently without supplying the confession the spymasters hoped could bring down the government.

Chilling if a Canadian ambassador died under RCMP "questioning" at the behest of the CIA. A defacto attempt at a Canadian coup de RCMP.
Although the story references "James Watkins", Holly Stick correctly noted the mistake at Bread and Roses - reporter Ian Macleod actually meant "John Watkins"

While RCMP Commish Elliott seems to be signalling that the RCMP wants a budget to return to handling national security intelligence issues, CSIS was created in 1984 precisely to separate domestic policing from spying.

Yesterday CSIS policy on torture-based evidence was muddied up again.

Much was made back in March 2009 of CSIS testimony before the public safety committee in which CSIS lawyer Geoffrey O’Brian admitted there is no absolute ban on using intelligence that may have been obtained from countries with questionable human rights records on torture.
Not possible to tell whether a particular piece of evidence was obtained through torture, he explained, allowing that Canada continues to share intelligence info with Egypt and Syria.

The following day CSIS Director Jim Judd explained that O'Brian was "confused" and Van Loan issued a statement to the effect that CSIS does not knowingly use any information obtained by torture, which is in effect pretty much what O'Brian originally said anyway.

Not noted in the media at the time was that 24 minutes into that committee meeting, when the same question was put to him, RCMP spokesman Gilles Michaud, then only eight months in the job, backed up O'Brian's comments on torture-derived info :

"I want to be clear here - there is no absolute ban on the use of any information by the RCMP."

which should come in pretty handy should the RCMP expand its scope back into the "national security" business .
The G20 police state shenanigans are looking more like a practice run all the time, aren't they?
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Khadr - The show trial must go on

Skdadl reminds us that Harper sent a wee tepid request to the US government asking that the Khadr kangaroo show trial :

"not use as evidence in legal proceedings there any evidence collected at GTMO by Canadian agents and representatives, which the Supreme Court of Canada has said (2008) was collected in violation of Omar Khadr's rights."

Steve to Obama : nudge, nudge, wink, wink

What to do ... what to do...

McClatchy :

"Earlier Saturday, officers cleared reporters and observers from the hearing to screen a 2003 interrogation video that they said was classified, though it was made public by Canada's Supreme Court two years ago and is available on YouTube.

The video shows the Toronto-born teen weeping in a Guantanamo interrogation booth and pleading for help from his Canadian interrogator.

Reporters locked out of that portion of the hearing watched the video on YouTube in a media center in a crude abandoned airport hangar below the hilltop tribunal chamber."

The other bizarre incident of the day was testimony from the Army Special Forces officer, an assistant police chief in civilian life, who initially reported that the person who threw the grenade at Army Sgt Speer died in the firefight. This is the crime Khadr is charged with. If the grenade thrower died, it couldn't have been him.

Defense lawyers discovered this report had later been altered to say that Khadr survived - what they termed "manufactured evidence" - but it turns out to have been just an honest mistake :

"W said he didn't realize that he got the report wrong until some investigators preparing for Khadr's trial visited him “a few years later.” So he opened it up on his computer and fixed it."

Just like that. Even though, according to Paul Koring , "he had known within days of the original firefight that Mr. Khadr had survived. "

Well alrighty then. It seems to me that there have been hundreds if not thousands of people not in uniform in Afghanistan who either have or have not thrown grenades at the US troops occupying their country. Where's their show trials?
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Omar Khadr - Day One in the kangaroo court

Daphne Eviatar of Human Rights Watch is interviewed as she leaves the courtroom on Day 1 of Obama's first big pretrial for a military commission into the possible terrorist actions of a 15 year old.

Terrible sound, I know, but well worth it for her explanation of how after Khadr has been tortured to confess at Bagram, the "clean team" comes in and tries to elicit the same 'confessions' under friendlier conditions so that the new clean confessions will be admissable in court.

A word about Khadr's confessions under torture. According to Eviator, CIA FBI agent Robert Fuller

elicited from Khadr the identification of another Canadian, Maher Arar, who Khadr during interviews by Fuller claimed was training with al Qaeda operatives at a training camp at a time that, it later turned out, Arar was actually at home in Canada.

Shortly after Fuller reported the identification of Arar to the government, Arar was apprehended at JFK airport and rendered to Syria for interrogation there.

CIA FBI agent Fuller also got Khadr to confess to throwing a grenade at US forces.

Well so much for confessions elicited via sleep deprivation, denial of pain medication, stress positions, being forced to urinate on himself and being used as a human mop, being terrorized by barking dogs, and being threatened with rape and torture. Khadr's defence team has only been allowed to interview three of Khadr's 30 interrogators at Bagram and Gitmo, two of whom admit the 15 year old Khadr was threatened with rape.

In the vid above Eviatar also mentions no one knowing what the rules are. This is because Secretary of Defense Robert Gates only signed off on and issued the 2009 Manual for the Military Commissions Act on Wednesday night 12 hours before the pretrial began, meaning that no one involved had time to read it beforehand and consequently no one knew what the rules were. After a four hour adjournment to read it, now they can't agree on whether or not the US Constitution applies.

Mike Berrigan, deputy chief defense council : "We don’t know what the law is."

You don't really have one, sir. That's why it's called a kangaroo court - it leaps over the law to a foregone conclusion. That's the whole point.

Correction from CIA to FBI, courtesy of Skdadl at POGGE

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Colvin, Kafka, and Catch-22

Over at the Military Police Complaints Commission, Department of Justice lawyer Alain Préfontaine is trying to prove that diplomat Richard Colvin's emails flagging abuse of Afghan prisoners were so vaguely worded that the government could not possibly be held responsible for failing to understand what he was talking about.

Colvin and MPCC chair Glenn Stannard have the blacked out versions to work from. Colvin is not allowed to divulge what he remembers is under all that black ink.

If we could just all see the unredacted versions, says Colvin, they would reveal the crucial information.

Well I have seen the unredacted versions, says Préfontaine, representing the government that blacked out the emails, and I can tell you there's nothing of importance there.

Then why can't we see them? asks MPCC chair Stannard, who apparently doesn't have the clearance to see the very emails he's holding hearings about.

"Because," Préfontaine answered, "disclosure would be injurious to either national defence, international relations or national security."

I do hope you're keeping up here. Colvin's emails are apparently so sensitive they must be blacked out while simultaneously being so unimportant there's no need to see them.
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Inside the new recalibrated Afghan committee

Back in 2007 the Cons claimed that all the Geneva Conventions do not apply in Afghanistan because we are not officially at war with Afghanistan. Yesterday in the Afghan parliamentary committee, Con MP Jim Abbott attempted to resuscitate that position.
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Appearing as a witness before the committee, Paul Champ, human rights lawyer for Amnesty International and the BC Civil Liberties Association, advised that the UK suspended detainee transfers in June 2009.
If the Brits still think the risk of torture is too great, he asked, why does Canada think it's safe, particularly in light of the 2009 report from the US State Dept dated March 11 2010 regarding continuing reports of detainees being beaten, subjected to elecric shocks etc?
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Hawn asked whether it is appropriate to impose Canadian standards on Afganistan.

Champ : "Prisoners in Canadian corrections facilities are not subjected to electric shocks or beaten with electrical cables or hung up for days."

Dosanjh : "Are you suggesting that we as Canadians, the Canadian government in particular, with the evidence before us, are in breach of our obligations vis a vis the Geneva conventions?"

Champ : "Yes and also the convention against torture and human rights [I didn't catch it]."

Dosanjh ; "Is it your view that the government of Canada today if taken to court would be likely to be found in breach of international obligations?

Champ : "I do ... Prohibition against torture is a non derogable duty."

Abbott : "Dosanjh's question is irresponsible. Would you agree with me that the Geneva convention does not apply in Afghanistan because it is not a state-to-state conflict, and would you further agree you were worried that we could be or soldiers could be subject to laws under the Geneva convention. And considering that it doesn't apply, would you agree, why would you answer that irresponsible question with an irresponsible answer?

Champ : "I would disagree with you that the Geneva convention does not apply to the armed conflict in Afghanistan."

Abbott : "Who was the other state?"

Champ : "You are quite right there's some dispute whether its an international armed conflict or not but regardless Common Article 3 - which is the duty not to subject individuals to inhumane or cruel treatment - that applies both in internal civil armed conflicts or international armed conflicts so that applies regardless and I think almost any lawyer would agree with me on that."

Abbott : "Are you chery-picking the Geneva convention?"

Champ : No I don't think so.
Common Article 3 applies in all conventions 1,2, 3 &4 . It's the prohibition against cruel and inhumane treatment and I think any lawyer would agree with me that it applies in this conflict."

There was more showboating from Abbott about docs leaked in the US "sending Osama bin Laden back to his caves" and "damage to soldiers from the complete public release of all docs" - which the unflappable Champ responded to by explaining that what is needed is a functioning system for dealing with all this and no one has suggested full scale public release of the docs and for instance he for one does not expect to see them.

Hawn opined that Champ is an employee of 2 orgs that are fighting our government so it's all just a partisan political witch hunt and we should move on to other matters.

Bachand reminded Hawn that the Cons boycotted the committee before xmas and then prorogued for a month so it's pretty rich they now just want to move on, at which they all went "in camera" for a fight.

I do not see how we can "move on" as long as we have a government that does not believe in prohibitions against torture.

UPDATE : Dave explains yet again why the Cons fiddling around with definitions of torture endangers the very troops they purport to champion as they hide behind them.

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Dear Frank

In your last go round with whitewashing government complicity in torture, it took you 16 months to determine that even though :

1)CSIS and the RCMP "mistakenly" advised Egyptian and Syrian authorities that Canadian citizens Ahmad El Maati and Abdullah Almalki were "associated with Al Qaeda" and an "imminent threat to public security" and a "confessed terrorist" and that El Maati was "involved in a plan to commit a terrorist act in Canada", resulting in

2)El Maati being subjected to "electric shock to his hands, back and genitals, and sleep deprivation while being subjected to excruciatingly painful stress torture for days on end", and that subsequently

3)CSIS fired off a handy list of questions to be put to them,

you ultimately determined in your report that :

"I found no evidence that any of these of these officials were seeking to do anything other than carry out conscientiously the duties and responsibilities of the institutions of which they were part."

and

"It seems inevitable, in the struggle against terrorism that mistakes of various kinds will be made."

After which the government redacted "about 20% of your findings from the public document for national security reasons."

So, really, Frank, who gives a fuck what you think this time round?

Yours truly,
Alison

When you write to Mr Iacobucci , I strongly advise sending Fern's letter instead.
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Laurie Hawn's "gold standard"

On CBC radio's The House this morning, Laurie Hawn, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of National Defence and the lead government MP on the Special Committee on the Canadian Mission in Afghanistan, said that his government had fixed the faulty Afghan detainee agreement they had inherited from the Liberals and then made the following statement about the current treatment of Afghan detainees :

"Our detainee arrangement is the new gold standard. Taliban prisoners are treated like gold."

Well so much for the U.S. State Department's 2009 report on Afghan human rights then :

"Human rights organizations report local authorities tortured and abused detainees. Torture and abuse methods included ... beating by stick, scorching bar or iron bar, flogging by cable, battering by rod, electric shock, deprivation of sleep, water and food, abusive language, sexual humiliation and rape."

This is Laurie Hawn's "gold standard".

We should just "move on" he said, backed up by a sound clip from Afghan occupation promoter Terry Glavin, who deemed the parliamentary Afghan committee's attempt to get documents necessary for their work "a kangaroo court".

Hawn also repeated his favorite little chestnut about "some Taliban being hit with a shoe".
Does ex-Canadian Air Force Lieutenant-Colonel Laurie Hawn not realize what a real disservice this statement is to the Canadian troops who have not only documented abuses but refused to hand over prisoners that they were convinced were just going to be killed?

This is why we can't "move on". Despite reports like the 2009 US State Dept report, the Cons are still in denial and refuse to release even independent human rights reports to the parliamentary committee charged with oversight of our "mission" in Afganistan.
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h/t Croghan at Bread and Roses for The House link.
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Iacobucci Sandbagging redux

On Friday Justice Minister Rob Nicholson announced the government was appointing Frank Iacobucci, a former Supreme Court judge with no legal hold over them, to determine what documents pertaining to the Afghan detainee issue could be released without compromising national security, national defence, and/or international relations. The scope and terms of Iacobucci's appointment are not known and he will report directly to Nicholson.

A number of bloggers have already weighed in on Iacobucci's suitability to the task. Steve at Far and Wide in particular points to Iacobucci having already previously agreed to omit information - at the Minister's request - from the public version of his October 2008 inquiry into the illegal renditioning of three Canadian citizens, Abdullah Almalki, Ahmad el-Maati, and Muayyed Nurredin to Syria and Egypt where they were tortured before being deemed innocent.

In light of Prof. Amir Attaran's explosive allegations on CBC that Afghan detainees were handed over to Afghan authorities with the precise purpose of having them tortured, and tonight's news that CSIS was involved in the interrogation of Afghan detainees, it's worth looking at what was omitted from Iacobucci's 2008 report.

What was included in the initial report was bad enough ;
In September 2001, the RCMP described Mr. El Maati to Syria and Egypt as an Al Qaeda associate and an "imminent threat to public security"
CSIS decribed him as "involved in the Islamic Extremist movement" and "an associate of an Osama Bin Laden"
They then shared his travel plans with the CIA who passed them on.
Mr. El Maati was detained in Syria for two months and Egypt for two years, where he was tortured with electric shock to his hands, back and genitals, and sleep deprivation while being subjected to excruciatingly painful stress torture for days on end.
In 2003, CSIS sent Egypt a “statement of concern” about Mr. El Maati should he be released from custody.

Iacobucci said he could not stress sufficiently that these three must "be presumed innocent of any wrongdoing."

The omitted part that Steve alludes to was released just two weeks ago as a supplement :
In June 2002, CSIS agents advised Egyptian authorities that El Maati was involved in a plan "to commit a terrorist act in Canada". They did not say, and maintain they could not have known, that this "confession" was derived from his torture in Syria.
In December 2002, CSIS went to Egypt with a list of questions "to which it wished to obtain answers."

While we the public were prevented from seeing this latest information till two weeks ago, Justice Iacobucci knew it all along and sought to have it made public. And yet in his summation to his 2008 report he still concluded :

"The inquiry did find that the three men were tortured in foreign prisons and that the mistreatment may have "resulted indirectly from several actions of Canadian officials."

but that :

"I found no evidence that any of these of these officials were seeking to do anything other than carry out conscientiously the duties and responsibilities of the institutions of which they were part."

And that, as I said at the time, is the most damning part of all.

I offer this blogpost just to run to ground the discussion on Iacobuccu's suitability as a beard for the Cons. In truth, I'm with Pogge and Eugene Forsey here - Nicholson can talk to anyone he likes - it doesn't matter. Parliament has demanded the documents. The Cons are currently in contempt of Parliament. Ultimately they must be forced to give the documents up. It's the law here.
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Richard Colvin's devastating letter of rebuttal

On Airshow MacKay's attempt to discredit Colvin by accusing him of not having brought up detainee abuse the one time MacKay met with Colvin in Afghanistan :
He, Colvin, had only been on the job for 10 days and had not met with any detainees yet.
And even if he had, protocol was to report to DFAIT, not the minister.

On Christie Blatchford's Con-fed column that Colvin had only been outside the wire once :
Colvin : 'Outside the wire' in Kandahar at least 11 times, in Kabul over 500 times.

On the claim his reports in 2006 did not use the word 'torture' :
Colvin : Six reports, one including the phrase " rife with torture"

On the government claim it heard no allegations of "torture" prior to April 2007:
Colvin : "... in early March 2007, I informed an interagency meeting of some 12 to 15 officials in Ottawa that, 'The NDS tortures people, that's what they do, and if we don't want our detainees tortured, we shouldn't give them to the NDS.' ... The response from the Canadian Expeditionary Force Command (CEFCOM) note-taker was to stop writing and put down her pen."

On the claim that it was only insurgents and Taliban who were detained:
Colvin : "... it was the NDS that told us that many or most of our detainees were unconnected to the insurgency. This assessment was reported to Ottawa. The NDS also told us that, because the intelligence value of Canadian-transferred detainees was so low, it did not want them."

On the government claim that it took action as soon as it was informed of abuse :
They were informed repeatedly of the risk of torture, the deficiencies of Canada's monitoring system, and delays in reports to the ICRC in 2006 in reports from the Provincial Reconstruction Team, the US State Department, and the US Secretary General. They finally sent someone in October 2007 who immediately confirmed torture.
The government also twice intervened to keep a torturer named by the PRT in place.

On Interdepartmental Coordinator for Afghanistan David Mulroney's statement that the only reason reports were edited was to remove 'opinion' or 'non‐fact based' information.

Colvin : Embassy staffers were told that they should not report information, however accurate, that conflicted with the government's public messaging. Ambassador Lalani instructed that we not report that the security situation was deteriorating.

In September 2007, an embassy staffer, in response to a written request from DFAIT's Afghanistan Taskforce to contribute to a security assessment by one of our NATO allies, sent a report that security in Kandahar had got worse and was likely to further deteriorate. Mr. Mulroney severely rebuked the officer in writing.

On Assistant Deputy Minister Colleen Swords' testimony that she told Colvin to phone first, write later :
Colvin : "Her message to me was that I should use the phone instead of writing..."

On the claim from Goldie, Gallant, MacKay, Abbott that "Afghan detainees are trained to claim torture."
Colvin : They are not Al Qaeda; they are peasants. We arrest them and turn them over to torturers. Why would they make any claims of torture, false or otherwise, to us? They don't trust us. Besides, reports of torture based on physical exams, not testimony.

And so on and so on. Absolutely devastating.

When Colvin originally testified at the Afghan Committee, he was just doing his job - appearing as summoned. As he stated today - he is not a whistleblower.
Today's letter, on what he politely termed the "inaccuracies" of the government's witnesses and MPs and camp followers, is even more damaging than his original testimony.

Government response?
Fucking idiot Goldie Hawn : "Now is not the time to accuse our troops of war crimes."
Peter MacKay's spokesweasel, Dan Dugas : "We reject all assertions that Canadian troops have committed war crimes."

Which is interesting in light of Colvin's letter. Note that he does not even obliquely lay blame on the military brass, never mind the troops.
Nope, it's all on MacKay, DFAIT and the Privy Council Office.
And this is why Harper has refused to release the docs to Peter Tinsley's Military Police Complaints Committee and the Afghan Committee, has fired Peter Tinsley, has intimidated witnesses from appearing before the Afghan committee, has refused to allow the Afghan Committee to continue their investigation, and has refused to call a public inquiry as voted on by the House.

All because one civil servant insisted on doing his job.
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Peter MacKay vs the evidence

Paul Koring :

"In one well-documented case in the summer of 2006, Canadian soldiers captured and handed over a detainee who was so severely beaten by Afghan police that the Canadians intervened and took the detainee back. Canadian medics then treated the man's injuries. The incident is documented in the field notes of Canadian troops, recounted in a sworn affidavit by a senior officer and confirmed in cross-examination by a general."

Peter MacKay :
"There has never been a single, solitary, proven allegation of abuse of a detainee, a Taliban prisoner, transferred by Canadian Forces.” Dec. 2 in the House of Commons

“Mr. Speaker, there has not been a single, solitary, proven allegation of a prisoner being abused that was transferred from the Canadian Forces.” Nov. 23 in the House of Commons

“We do want to hear from individuals who can bring forward credible, proven allegations, not just recitations of what was heard, what was passed on, what was read in reports, or what was disclosed by Taliban prisoners themselves. That is what the evidence is so far. We have not seen a single scintilla of proof.” Nov. 23 in the House of Commons

“There has never been a single proven allegation of abuse involving a prisoner transferred by the Canadian Forces, not one.” Nov. 23 in the House of Commons

What next, Pete? You were sadly misinformed by your generals? Your base doesn't give a shit about the Geneva conventions? What? I'm guessing Pete will go with blaming the generals.
MacKay's spokesweasel Dan Dugas lays the groundwork :

The minister's spokesman said Sunday that Mr. MacKay was standing by his repeated denials.
“He has said what he has said based on the advice of generals and senior officials in the department."

... all of which would carry slightly more weight had we not already heard from foreign affairs and defence officials via Murray Brewster that they had been instructed by "senior officials in the Privy Council Office (and reinforced in follow-up conferences between Ottawa and Kabul, as well Ottawa and Kandahar) to "hold back information in their reports to Ottawa about the handling of the prisoners" that didn't promote "a happy face".
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Dragging the goalposts right off the field

Then : October 19, 2009

MacKay seeks answers on torture memos

"MacKay said Monday that neither he nor his deputy minister ever saw diplomat Richard Colvin's reports, which were circulated widely within the Foreign Affairs and National Defence departments, as well as among senior military commanders."

.October 16, 2009

MacKay denies seeing Afghan torture reports

"Defence Minister Peter MacKay says he never saw a former diplomat's reports containing allegations of torture of detainees transferred by Canadians to Afghan prisons. MacKay, who was foreign minister at the time, insisted Thursday that he knew nothing of the documents.

"I have not seen those reports in either my capacity as minister of National Defence or previously as minister of Foreign Affairs."

Today : MacKay's office got Red Cross warnings about Afghan treatment

"I received briefings from the deputy minister and there were attachments to which Mr. Colvin was a contributor but I have not received direct reports from Mr. Colvin," MacKay said."

Scrape ... scrape ... scrape...

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And then there's the Generals. Rather than bother dragging their goalposts off the field, they just declare them invisible. I posted this at The Beav earlier:

From Richard Colvin's reports beginning in May 2006 :

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

XXX detainees still had XXX on XXX body; XXX seemed traumatized. This alleged abuse would have occurred before the new arrangement between the governments of Canada and Afghanistan was signed.

'Torture' not mentioned in Afghan detainee reports: Generals

"Three generals declared Wednesday that there was no mention of the word "torture" in reports from a senior diplomat who asserts that he repeatedly warned the government against surrendering Afghan detainees to local authorities because they would almost certainly be abused.

One of the recipients of the widely distributed reports, which Colvin says were copied to 76 government and military personnel in Ottawa and Afghanistan, was retired Lt.-Gen. Michel Gauthier, who was then the head of oversees deployment. Gauthier told the Commons committee that none of Colvin's 2006 reports, including his May document, mentioned anything about torture.

Retired Gen. Rick Hillier, Canada's top soldier during Colvin's posting in Afghanistan in 2006-07 : "There was simply nothing there."

So there you have it - because Richard Colvin neglected to include the word "torture" in his accounts of detainees allegedly being "whipped with cables and shocked with electricity", there was no torture and the generals apparently feel justified in having failed to read his reports in the first place.
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Meanwhile look for those reports under the goalposts.

Initially Harper promised to release Colvin's reports to the Afghan committee, a parliamentary committee, who so far are asking witnesses questions about reports they are barred from seeing. Wait for it...

Feds bar whistleblower diplomat from handing over torture documents to MPs

The federal government is blocking whistleblowing diplomat Richard Colvin from giving documents to a special House of Commons committee investigating Afghan torture.

Justice Department lawyers have told Colvin - through the Foreign Affairs Department - that they do not accept the view that testimony before Parliament is exempt from national security provisions of the Canada Evidence Act. Violating Section 38 of the Canada Evidence Act can be punishable by five years in prison.

Defence Minister Peter MacKay said the government intends to comply with the order to produce documents, but tempered expectations by saying the records will pass through several filters before they get to MPs.
"Anything we're legally required to hand over, we'll hand over," he said Wednesday.
"We have to, of course, respect the Canada Evidence Act, The National Defence Act and rules pertaining to disclosure. And of course anything having to do with national security will have to be vetted."

Those are the same arguments the government made to the Military Police Complaints Commission, whose public hearings into the same issue were derailed by legal wrangling. The government took a year to censor and hand over records to the watchdog agency and at one point stopped releasing documents entirely.

MacKay did not explain how the Justice Department could ignore Parliament's authority when it comes to providing evidence.

The committee will now hear more government witnesses free to spout the same crap as the generals because there will be no evidence to refute it -- and the press, barring actual reporters like Murray Brewster and Tonda MacCharles, will, in the absence of any other story, report it all faithfully.

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Winning hearts and minds in Afghanistan

MacKay :
"Not a single Taliban soldier turned over by Canadian forces can be proved to have been abused. That is the crux of the issue."

Ok, how about "farmers, truck drivers, and peasants" then?

Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission :
"Torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment are common in the majority of law enforcement institutions, and at least 98.5 per cent of interviewed victims have been tortured."

The independent study, which tracked abuse claims between 2001 and early 2008, shows the vast majority of them - 243 - were levelled in 2006 and 2007.
That is the time frame when Colvin was in Afghanistan and warning the federal government about torture. "
(h/t Cathie)


"[Colvin] says all of the prisoners Canada handed to Afghanistan’s notorious intelligence service in 2006-07 were tortured — and many of them were likely innocent … farmers, truck drivers and peasants "in the wrong place at the wrong time.
"In other words, we detained and handed over for severe torture, a lot of innocent people."
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"The Conservative government was aware from the first day it took office in 2006 that Taliban suspects, rounded up by Canadian soldiers, might be tortured in Afghan prisons, says Defence Minister Peter MacKay.
The government then waited 15 months, until May 2007, before putting new safeguards in place to monitor the treatment of Afghan detainees."
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Peter MacKay vs the US State Dept.

Defensive Minister Peter MacKay :
"A top diplomat’s account of the rampant torture and rape of Afghan detainees is not credible, Defence Minister Peter MacKay said Thursday.
MacKay dismissed testimony from Richard Colvin [First Secretary at the Canadian Embassy in Washington] as second- and third-hand information from enemy sources :
"What we’re talking about here is not only hearsay, we’re talking about basing much of his evidence on what the Taliban have been specifically instructed to lie about if captured."

US State Department :
Afghanistan
Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor
2006
Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment
"Local authorities ... continued to routinely torture and abuse detainees. Torture and abuse consisted of pulling out fingernails and toenails, burning with hot oil, beatings, sexual humiliation, and sodomy."
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KSM gets a real trial, Khadr gets a kangaroo

Fafblog explains : Breaking Terror Update!

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four of his friends are going to stand trial! It's taken about six and a half years for this to happen, during which they were all presumably kept waiting in the parlor of a sumptuous mansion along with the Colonel, the Countess, the jewel thief, the butler and the maid while a brilliant but eccentric sleuth attempted to discern the identity of the true culprit through the use of the deductive method, the thorough examination of evidence, and simulated drowning.

Everybody else has to stay in Special Torture Jail forever on accounta they have all come down with Schrodinger's Guilt. If they stay in the box they might be guilty, but if we open the box they might not be.

This hardly seems fair. Sure, the Americans may have had KSM's young children tortured with insects, but Omar Khadr was a child.

U.S. Special Forces shot Khadr twice in the back during his capture, and he was brought to the American-operated prison in Bagram, Afghanistan, in critical condition. During the three months before his transfer to Guantanamo, he was interrogated more than 40 times for up to eight hours a day. His chief interrogator, Joshua Claus, was later court-martialled in connection with the death of an Afghan taxi driver at Bagram.

Khadr claims that during his questioning he was threatened with dogs, hung by his wrists or put in stress positions, despite his injuries. He also alleges he had a hood placed over his head and then soaked with water until he began to suffocate, and had LED lights shone into his eyes, injured by shrapnel.

Naturally this doesn't cut any ice with the online newspaper commenters who suggest that rather than being repatriated to Canada, Khadr should be sent back to wherever it is he came from.
Presumably none of them actually live in Toronto.
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