Once upon a time, many years ago, Canada was a leader when it came to human rights. We helped create the UN, the Geneva Accords, and even adapted many of those accords into our own legislation. We took pride in being the protector, the one who stood up for the little guy, damning the consequences. However, this recent torture debacle involving our military has my recent suspicions that Canada is in a bit of an image crisis confirmed. Like a teenager that has emerged from puberty a little different, Canada is not the peace-loving, torture-hating nation we all thought it was. Between the adjusting of our voice and the ridding of our pimples, we changed.

Torture has always been a no-no. But we all know it happens. It happens in Guantanamo, it happens in Iraq and it sure as hell happens in Afghanistan. At the very least, our job is to not take part in it, and certainly not solicit and most definitely not condone it. Handing over a detainee when one knows he/she will be tortured is not doing our job correctly. Now I know that in the atrocities of war, worse things have happened. However, this begs the question: is this the only time something like this has happened? Because chances are, it isn’t. War makes many people do things they would not do under normal circumstances, no one is questioning or berating that. We have been putting our military on such a pedestal from past peacekeeping accomplishments we thought our soldiers were immune to such cruel behavioural traits, but clearly they are not. They are after all, only human.
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The last few weeks have seen a flurry of promises, dates and opinions regarding the potential withdrawal of ISAF troops from Afghanistan.  While both President Obama and Gordon Brown have publicly declared a surge in troop numbers for their respective countries’ armed forces, Canada has stuck to its guns.

Wednesday’s announcement by foreign minister Lawrence Cannon that Canada’s government would not change its planned withdrawal in 2011 seemed to show solidarity with Obama’s pledge, repeated this week, that the withdrawal of American soldiers would begin in mid-2011 despite an additional 30,000 being deployed in the coming months.  The question though, is whether a strict end date can be placed upon an operation that has seen its objectives muddied and targets missed time and time again?
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The last several weeks have seen the development of the Afghan detainee story unfold in multifaceted directions.  First we had the testimony of senior level bureaucrat Richard Colvin, whom after serving a stint in Afghanistan and numerous other positions as an overseas diplomat and being “promoted” to the top intelligence position representing Canada in the United States, comes before the Special Committee on the Afghanistan Mission and describes what some of us had already known: torture is going on in Afghanistan. Several international organizations have already reported that the NDS (National Directorate of Security) was torturing or allowing the torture of detainees handed over by Canadian soldiers. Colvin places this on a backdrop of poor documentation and negligent attention to warnings from him to the Canadian government and senior military officials.

Upon confrontation in the house the government has switched their stance on this issue numerous times. They began by saying that there were no allegations of torture and, at least at first, lambasted Colvin as a rogue bureaucrat who could not be trusted. This wouldn’t have sat well with the always micromanaging Stephen Harper, whom I’m sure doesn’t want the opposition to get a foothold on anything, and the frame quickly changed from criticizing Colvin, to criticizing the credibility of the reports and not the person. This shifted again when Harper came back to referring to Colvin’s reports for a period of eighteen months as mere “evaluations.” In my honest opinion, this constant reframing of the governments narrative calls into question the complicity of senior PMO officials, ministers and even the Prime Minister. There are simply too many questions left unanswered here. We know that the Liberal Government signed a transfer agreement some weeks before losing the election in 2006/2007, but what about before then? What kind of agreement was in place before the Conservatives took power? I think a full scale inquiry dating back to the beginning of the war and our operations in Afghanistan is necessary so we can have a proper examination of the level of accountability that existed in regards to the transfer of detainees.
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Canadian soldiers and a captured Afghan insurgent

Disturbing allegations regarding the treatment of Taliban prisoners captured by Canadian forces in Afghanistan have resurfaced this week, after Parliamentary testimony by Richard Colvin, the second highest ranked member of Canada’s diplomatic service in Afghanistan from 2006 to 2007.

Colvin appeared before a special Commons committee on Wednesday November 18, 2009 and steadfastly reaffirmed previous statements he has made that senior Conservative government officials and Canadian military personnel had been aware of serious allegations that Taliban prisoners had been subjected to systematic abuse since at least 2006, that such treatment was part of sanctioned government policy, and that those he attempted to raise the issue with made it clear to him that these charges were not to be brought to light at a time when Prime Minister Stephen Harper was attempting to persuade an increasingly skeptical public that Canada’s Afghan mission was being conducted in strict accordance with international law, particularly when dealing with captured Taliban fighters.
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Canadian Commander in Afghanistan Brigadier-General Jonathan Vance

Brigadier-General Jonathon Vance, Canada’s commander in Afghanistan, has been the most recent high level official to state publicly what many NATO military and political leaders are increasingly recognizing as a primary obstacle to success in the war torn country.

“The international community is going to demand honesty, integrity and good performance from all levels of government or we won’t stay. We have lost too many soldiers and spent too much of our people’s money to stay if there is not honest co-operation. Our public accepts us here and is deciding right now whether we will stay. Canadians, Americans, the British, everyone is wondering whether it is worth it to stay.” Vance made his comments during his final tour of Kandahar province, meeting with local tribal elders on the eve of his departure as Canada’s top commander in Afghanistan, following his ten month tenure.

His dire warning comes on the heels of similar statements delivered to Afghan president Hamid Karzai, in the aftermath of the election debacle which saw widespread fraud allegations lead to a potential second round of voting, only to have the runoff vote halted at the last moment by the unexpected withdrawal of Karzai’s main challenger, Dr. Abdullah Abdullah.
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One hundred and twenty-seven soldiers dead. That’s the causality count (to date) of Canadian solders in Afghanistan… for what could possibly be the biggest most costly renovation project that Canada got suckered into. We’re fixing up Afghanistan folks, but the tenants don’t want us to.

Seven years ago. This whole thing was sold to the Canadian public as a war. The war on terrorism. While not a conventional war, we were still behind it. We were part of a global initiative to make the world safer. For us, them, and everyone. And we were going to kick the Taliban’s butt to boot. Sounded good. Right?
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Testifying before Canada’s national defence committee on the Hill two days ago (Monday, 9 February), Defence Minister Peter Mackay claimed that progress was being made in Afghanistan, albeit at a slower pace than would be ideal. Coupled with this unfounded rosy assessment of slow Afghan progress, Mackay also acknowledged a $331 million increase in Afghan war costs for this year.

Mackay’s insistence that progress is being made in Afghanistan goes against substantiated reports made by the British foreign ministry and President Obama’s new civilian proconsul for Afghanistan and Pakistan. The British now acknowledge that NATO forces are in a stalemate with Afghan insurgents. The new American administration prefers the term ‘mess’ in describing the situation. Both statements are true, unlike Mackay’s, but ultimately fail in describing the real problem in Afghanistan. The fact of the matter is that a majority of the Pushtan, a pro-Taliban ethnic group straddling the Afghan-Pakistan border that makes up about a third of Afghanistan’s population, will not stop fighting the established Afghan government until the Taliban is recognized as a legitimate force in Afghanistan politics. At least one British general has stated that progress cannot be made without making peace with the Taliban. The Taliban insurgency, which made more attacks against Western forces in the last year then in any other year of the war, has repeatedly shown that it cannot be stopped by military means.
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Robert Semrau held in military police custody

A Canadian Forces captain must now await a custody hearing after having his day in military court on January 6th.

At least one witness testified as seeing Capt. Robert Semrau, of the 3rd Battalion of the Royal Canadian Regiment, shoot and kill a severely wounded and unarmed insurgent during an ambush in October.

The hearing will decide whether Semrau will be released until his trial, which isn’t expected until sometime after the summer.

This issue should ignite some heated debate across the country about whether this act can be considered a mercy killing or whether it is, in fact, murder.

It is reported that Semrau was commanding an Operational Mentor and Liaison Team on Oct. 19 in the Helmand province of Afghanistan when they, as well as Afghan soldiers, were ambushed. With help from American military helicopters the insurgents were fought off. After the air strike, Afghan soldiers moved in and found one Taliban fighter dead, along side another who was still armed but severely wounded. Once disarmed, it was determined that the insurgent’s wounds were “too severe for any type of treatment.”
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