Harper is Really Going to Blow It
| 4/26/2007 | Posted by Patti under Afghanistan, Canadian Politics, Harper |
The longer this detainee issue goes on, the worse Harper’s handling of it gets. His unwillingness to admit any error on his part is really making this drag on a lot longer than it needs to. At minimum the Minster of Defense needs to go. Some are hollering for Hillier’s head, well the agreement he worked out initially was not a good agreement, the question is, what was the Chief of Defense doing being authorized to do what should have been handled by either the Minister of Defense of Foreign Affairs?
Sometimes a strong leader needs to do their mea culpa’s and get on with fixing what’s wrong. Obviously Harper hasn’t learned that because he’s not a leader, he’s a bully. He is more engaged in trying to bully the opposition into silence than really giving a damn on fixing the problem. The release of the heavily blacked out report points accusingly at Harper’s office if not Harper himself knowing about this issue long ago. He did nothing.
What is going to suffer here is that the small majority of Canadians currently supporting the mission in Afghanistan are going to slide towards disapproval. Not because Canadian soldiers did anything wrong. In fact, the detainees claiming abuse are quick to point out that they were well treated by Canadian soldiers, Amir Attaran’s claims earlier this year notwithstanding.
Harper needs to move swiftly to resolve the situation not to try to bully others into silence, well except maybe his ministers who can’t seem to get their stories straight. Let’s see, we have:
O’Connor on Wednesday suddenly announcing a ‘new’ deal being worked out with the Afghans allowing Canadian oversight of detainees, announcing first that military officials would have the access and then when Hillier stated it was not an area of expertise for the military, O’Connor changed that to ‘government officials’.
The court jester of the Conservatives, Day first weighed in that some of those people who were detained were killers. Gee, ya think Stock? In a war when you capture detainees, it stands to reason that some of them have been engaged in killing. That doesn’t make it ok to abuse or torture, that behaviour makes you no better than the detainees.
Rosie Dimanno of the Toronto Star writes a piece about an Afghan dubbed ‘the Mad bomber’ who has been caught by the Canadian forces for making IEDs. She notes:
Could be in the Kandahar City jail, where detainees have long complained of torture inflicted by their Afghan custodians. Or, if the right bribe exchanged hands, if tribal loyalties were brought to bear, it could be that Omar has already been released.
Yet another reason why detainees should be under the direct oversight of Canadians or NATO forces while they train Afghans in the appropriate handling and treatment of prisoners. If detainees like this are being released then they are a clear and present danger to Canadian, Afghan and other NATO troops.
Meanwhile, yesterday Harper tells the Commons that the deal O’Connor claims has been made has not yet been formalized (so it’s not really a deal) and the court jester announces that Canadians have been accessing the detainees all along. Day must operate on a planet the rest of us haven’t caught up to.
Harper is going to lose this mission in the court of public opinion as long as the stink of this is attached to it. He needs to admit the problem and move to resolve it.
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