Thursday, January 24, 2008

Asymmetric warfare

I have a prediction: the next thing we're going to hear from the Harper government is how the suffering by these torture victims, like the suicides in Guantanamo, is actually just another example of asymmetric warfare so that the Taleban can demoralize the Canadian people!
First, the Harper government wanted us to believe these prisoners weren't really being tortured at all. Alisonwrites:
...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.
Now, when the stories of torture have been substantiated, the Harper government is wrapping itself in the flag to avoid answering questions about the prisoners:
...Lawyers for human-rights groups are fighting that argument in one of two court cases against the federal government. One quipped Thursday that the government was conflating national security and national embarrassment.
Graham repeatedly sprang to his feet in objection as human-rights lawyers attempted to ask a military witness – Brig.-Gen. Andre Deschamps – about the detainees.
Some of the questions that remained unanswered Thursday:
– Where are the detainees?
– Who has them?
– How many are there?
– How many are actually enemy combatants and how many are civilians who have helped the Taliban?
– How many have disappeared?
No doubt the government is protecting us by not sharing these unpleasant and uncomfortable details -- if, indeed, they actually know any of these answers. Dave sums up what this whole miserable story shows the Canadian people about our government.:
They are right-wing authoritarians and they would rather chew off their own arms than admit a mistake.
And they expect us to believe them when they tell us how things are going in Afghanistan.

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