Where were we? Oh yes. Torture.
By Alison@Creekside
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 [...]
The missing Olympic boycott
By Alison@Creekside
Thirty years ago in 1980, Canada joined the U.S. in a 64-country boycott of the Moscow Olympics to protest the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. On Feb. 15, under cover of wall-to-wall Olympics news, Canada joined 15,000 coalition troops in Obama’s assault on the town of Marjah in Helmand province, the biggest offensive since the [...]
Canada v. Khadr, abridged
By Alison@Creekside
Shorter Supremes :While it is true that the Canadian government violated the Canadian charter rights of a Canadian citizen when it sent Canadian agents to interrogate him in a foreign concentration camp and then turned the contents of that interview obtained under duress over to the owners of that concentration camp, and while it [...]
Richard Colvin’s devastating reply
By Alison@Creekside
On Airshow Peter MacKay’s attempt to discredit Canadian diplomat Richard 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 [...]
The Cons’ torture blackout continues
By Alison@Creekside
Among the many fakeries and falsehoods foisted on the House on Thursday by the Cons, in their bid to maintain the most secretive and unaccountable government evah, usual frontrunners Laurie Goldie Hawn and Cheryl Gallant got beat out by Gary Goodyear, Minister of Creationism, Science, and Technology. Here he is explaining why the motion [...]
Steve hides behind his troops
By Alison@Creekside
Faced with mounting condemnation for government ass-covering over Richard Colvin’s testimony about Afghan detainees, Harper resorts to an oblique slight-of-tongue blackmail :
“There were allegations of Canadian troops involved in torture. We’ve been very clear that’s not the case.”
So who is pointing fingers at the troops?
No one.
No. One. But. Steve.
Least of all Richard Colvin, as [...]
Richard Colvin and the Wankers
By Alison@Creekside
Wow. More of the smearing of witnesses we’ve come to expect from the Cons, this time at the Special Committee on the Canadian Mission in Afghanistan.
- Cheryl Gallant. Although Richard Colvin took pains in his opening statement to the Special Committee on the Canadian Mission in Afghanistan to make clear that he had nothing [...]
Paying the Taliban to kill our troops
By Alison@Creekside
“Defense Minister Peter MacKay on Friday dismissed allegations that the Canadian military paid insurgents in Afghanistan not to attack them as nothing more than ‘Taliban propaganda.’
‘I strongly suspect that this is more Taliban propaganda. Of course, they’re not bound by rules of engagement or simple things such as truth.’” Unlike our Defence Minister [Vancouver [...]
The occupation of Afghanistan: “Useless.”
By Alison@Creekside
“A bit useless” is how 23-year-old Private Jonathan Couturier, the 131st Canadian soldier to die in Afghanistan, described the Afghan “mission” that took his life.
If we are to have standing armies, the very least we can do, the absolute minimum responsibility we have to them, is not send them off to die in the [...]