I am truly troubled by the further revelations today about what was going on in Afghanistan regarding the transfer of detainees to the Afghan government and the lack of cooperation or notification with the Red Cross, and that it is possible that senior officials in the previous Liberal government may have known about what was going on as well as the present Conservative government. Since the other opposition leaders have security clearances, it stands to reason they have known something as well but have been (for obvious reasons) constrained from doing so until now.
At this rate there are a lot of questions to be answered. But simply brushing it aside by saying most Canadians don't care or that this is the "insider story of the week" just doesn't cut it. Canadians want answers. If the military mission was to create an environment that would have respect for human rights as most people understand the principle, then knowingly contributing to torture is a sure fine way to do that.
Someone asked me the other day, do I think people in the Liberal party ought to resign? At this point I am almost tempted to say -- maybe we need a new and clean slate from all parties. Fire all 308 MPs and 105 Senators, ban them and all their predecessors from ever running again; and start with a new freshman class. I don't know what the result would be but at least we'd get a majority, regardless of affiliation, who have absolutely no tolerance for this crap.
But as far as today's news about the lack of cooperation with the Red Cross, which is itself a war crime: We can't hide behind the old standby that "this is a matter of national security, so we can't talk about it." If we don't say this is not what Canada is about, then we're actually risking our national security and inviting a terrorist attack on our soil. Not to mention, there is no point in donating to the Red Cross if their hands are going to be tied by meddling officials, which we expect from Burma and Zimbabwe but not from Canada.
We don't need a parliamentary inquiry or a "Royal Commission." We need a special prosecutor and we need one now.
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1 comment:
I read that he Liberals at first were handing the few there were. over to the Americans. Apparently. people did not like that.So Bill Graham wanted Karzai to go by the Geneva Convention. Hillier was to go to Karzai..and then the Election of 2005. I heard that some place.
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