The Canadians soldiers, collected many prisoners and the Canadians would wait several days or even weeks before supplying names of prisoners to the Red Cross as required by international law. Meanwhile the Afghan jail guards had plenty of time to do what they wanted to make prisoners fully talk, including – electric shocks, electric cable beatings, sleep deprivation and sexual abuse. “The career diplomat Richard Colvin. He kept writing reports to higher ups in Ottawa but nobody would listen. They wouldn’t answer his reports, wouldn’t take his telephone calls. When he persisted they told him to write nothing on paper. If he had complaints, phone them in. And when he persisted still more, they transferred him to the embassy in Washington, and still never acknowledged his reports on the torture. Colvin had flooded Ottawa with 16 documented reports in 18 months. They went to Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s national advisor on security Margaret Bloodworth, to the Chief of the Defence Staff, Rick Hillier, to Canadian commander in Afghanistan, Lieut.-General Michel Gauthier; to David Mulroney, our No. 1 man in Afghanistan at the time, today Canadian ambassador in China – in all 76 reports e-mailed to the most powerful people in the Canadian government. Today none of them can remember seeing or reading any of the e-mails. Memory loss is such a sad thing. Colvin came back to Ottawa recently to testify before a Military Police Public Complaints Commission inquiry into the torture, but the Harper government put a stop to that by threatening to jail Colvin for five years if he testified. They said it might endanger national security. “More likely it would rightfully endanger Harper government reputation .
Defence Minister Peter MacKay tried to discredit Colvin and said that since Colvin had not seen any torture with his own eyes there thus had been no torture. This is not a definite fact, truth. The tortures still could have occurred and that was why an investigation of the matter was needed that Harper’s government instead wrongfully tried to suppress. Harper and his ministers insist no public inquiry is needed. No, none at all. MacKay labeled Colvin “a dupe” of the Taliban. He said Colvin had “hearsay” torture stories.
But if Mr. Colvin is telling the truth, which seems very likely, then the government was waiting for evidence that could not be ignored, not just credible evidence, before it acted to stop the torture. If that is true, then Mr. MacKay, Prime Minister Stephen Harper and other senior soldiers and officials could face legal and political consequences. It is no wonder that they are attacking Mr. Colvin’s credibility. http://thechronicleherald.ca/Opinion/1154143.html
Protest grows against Tory attack on Colvin Globe and Mail – Intelligence officer and ex-diplomat Richard Colvin, right, arrives at a commons special committee on Afghanistan hears witnesses on transfer of Afghan detainees on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Wednesday.
http://picasaweb.google.com/anonconformer/Thenonconformer# OR http://www.mininova.org/tor/3176107
THIS TIME THE OFFENSE IS WORSE, ALLOWING HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES OF OTHERS BY TORTURE, AND COVER-UPS, LYING TO THE CANADIAN CITIZENS, AND THE WORLD NOW TOO. TARNISHING OUR CANADIAN REPUTATION, CREDIBILITY, IMAGE ON THE WORLD STAGE AS WELL.
http://jonathanturley.org/2009/12/09/canadian-police-department-builds-new-firing-range-that-helps-train-officers-how-to-shoot-fleeing-suspects/
Meanwhile a Toronto doctor is facing a disciplinary hearing over allegations he approved special meal allowances for people on welfare and disability programs according to the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario. Dr. Roland Wong, said he continues to approve applications for the special diet but only if he believes patients have an underlying medical condition that qualifies them for the financial supplement. “Today, I signed maybe five, four,” he said. “Sometimes more, depends.” He accused the auditor general of having a very “slanted view” of the program, and suggested he should be looking instead at the woefully inadequate support payments paid to people in need. Wong said he wasn’t overly concerned about the disciplinary hearing because it was based on a complaint laid against him by a municipal councillor. “This is a case of politicians against a physician, not the patient against the physician,” he said. The Special Diet Allowance provides up to $250 per month to a person on social assistance who requires special foods for such conditions as diabetes. Councillor Doug Holyday said . “This can’t go on.” http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/torsun/091209/canada/doc_faces_probe_over_dietary_payouts Quebec and other provinces have no such adequate help program and why?
Next we will shoot any person on social welfare as well? the sick too?
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