By Richard Norman
Canada’s involvement in Afghanistan has become more controversial following recent revelations that detainees captured by Canadian forces have been abused following their turnover to local authorities. From the Globe and Mail:
The federal government is waiting for media reports of abuse and torture against Afghan detainees to be proven true before it takes action, Prime Minister Stephen Harper told Commons on Tuesday.
For the second day running, the Conservative government endured a barrage of irate demands from opposition parties to immediately cease all detainee transfers between Canada and Afghanistan and to sack Defence Minister Gordon O’Connor.
The issue has been picked up by non-politicians too:
At a Monday news conference, human-rights experts and university professors Michael Byers and Amir Attaran said Canadian authorities are complicit in torture if they ignore the most recent reports of mistreatment of prisoners in Afghanistan, and said the Canadian Forces or the North Atlantic Treaty Organization should build a detention facility in Afghanistan. [Globe and Mail]
Stephane Dion, leader of the opposition, who would like to see forces return home in two years time, suggests the following solution to the detainee abuse question: transport detainees from Afghanistan to Canada. An astute commentator, Stephen Taylor:
Stephane Dion floated a trial balloon on his idea that perhaps instead of handing Taliban detainees over to the Afghan people, we should import them and detain them here in Canada!Nevermind that Dion and Jack Layton’s [another opposition leader] activist base have been advocating for the release of men linked to al Qeada in Canada and held on security certificates. They advocate that if we can’t deport them back to the backward countries that may torture them, we shouldn’t detain them here but rather release them into the public. Now, consider Dion’s plan: import Taliban fighters for detaining, and failing the stomach to detain them — the logical progression and historical record goes — release them into the general Canadian public when left-wing activists condemn the Canadian government for holding combatants without charge….
Layton and Dion and their supporters on the left are inconsistent when it comes to their claimed ideology of rights and their policy position that we ought to pull out of Afghanistan. Why do these leaders want to abandon the Afghan mission when the alternative is unthinkable from a human rights perspective? To the Liberals, was the Charter [of Rights and Freedoms, the Canadian bill of rights] a practical document for Canadian rights or does it represent a global ideal? Women in parliament? Girls in schools? The crackdown by the Taliban would be horrendous if Canada left. In fact, why was World War II worth the fight and why would Layton and Dion suggest that we shirk our responsibility to stop fascism in Afghanistan? Is it the Eurocentric ethos of the NDP and Liberal Party? Or is it more consistent with the trend of reductio ad americanum practiced by the left?
While the present situation is unsavoury, and the government should look for a way to improve it quickly, the debate on this issue is largely manufactured. Attacks on the Conservative government on this issue from the likes of Michael Ignatieff, considering his record on the issue of "lesser evils" and his previously principled stand on Afghanistan, are particularly galling. (See Ignatieff and Prime Minister Harper in the House of Commons in this video.)
You’ve misrepresented Dion’s position. He is not in favour of the troops coming home, but for the mission to be redefined.
With all due respect, that “astute” commentator is a co-founder of the “Blogging Tories” web aggregate, which is an aggregate for Conservative blog supporters, and Stephen is a staunch Conservative supporter.
You couldn’t have picked a more biased person to make the counter-claim against them.