The left wing mass media can’t wait for the renewal of their barrage of anti-military and anti-government rhetoric of the supposed ignoring of the possible torture of Afghan insurgent detainees. Unfortunately they have whipped up a form of hysteria among the public, especially among those who are already inclined to dislike the Harper government.
The whole charade has been a propaganda success that just about equals their exaggeration Harper’s suspension of democracy by closing parliamentary activities for an extra 22 days. Unfortunately the detainee question can be extremely harmful to Canada’s operations in Afghanistan whereas the lib-left nose-ringed public is already feeling embarrassed about being taken in by their nonsensical proroguing ploy.
Any person in or out of government who has followed the Afghan war or the political situation in Iran, Iraq, Syria, Algeria, etc. knows full well that torture, abuse and even death in Middle East prisons has been endemic for as long as they have existed.
The fact is that the question only became of concern when the Canadian Army entered the battlefield in force in 2004-5 and held themselves subject to the Geneva Conventions regarding the treatment of war prisoners. The enemy of course fights with no such limitations.
An especially egregious attack was made by Jim Travers of the Toronto Star Saturday, February 27th, 2010 against General Hillier for his statement last fall claiming there was no proof that prisoners taken by Canadians were tortured. According to the arrogant Travers, “Hiller has some explaining to do,” because General Hillier’s replacement, General Natynczyk apparently first supported Hillier’s statement to the Parliamentary Committee and then the next day “corrected” his story by saying that he had been aware of “one” prisoner that had been abused by the Afghans.
Apparently Mr. Travers can’t grasp the fact that one officer at a different time and place on the battlefield may not be aware of every scrap of information that another officer may have had at a different time and place. War or peace, life is not a still picture. Information changes every second of the day and not all information is held in common.
Lets get the Facts Straight and Stop the Muckraking
First, the government and the entire parliament of Canada was aware early on, probably soon after our army began to take prisoners that there was a possibility of abuse or torture in the Afghan prison system. The proof is that in December 2005 the Canadian government signed a Transfer Arrangement with the Afghan Government guaranteeing the safe treatment of detainees. Obviously the government had heard rumours of abuse and took action. The Transfer Agreement must have taken months to arrange.
Second, it was not up to the Canadian Army or the Canadian government to police the Afghan prison system at that time, as much as that might be have become possible at a later stage in Canada’s combat and intergovernmental relationship with that country. Normally nations rely on international organizations such as Amnesty and the International Red Cross to monitor that process. The Afghans also established their own Afghan Independent Human Rights Organization. All reasonable efforts were made to secure Detainee safety.
The job of our small army, overstretched and under equipped and new to that battlefield was to fight successfully and not concern themselves with issues they were not trained to deal with. The normal learning curve that any army must go through is of itself an all-consuming task and the weasel propagandistic opportunists trying to win political points need to button up, curb their crass political partisanship and get the tools to do the job to the troops.
The real crime was they did not bend every effort to make sure our troops had the necessary equipment and support because many of our casualties can be directly attributed to years of political immorality regarding our fighting men and women. That is the real shameful story that ought to be the subject of strenuous mass media and political investigation but that story stretches back into dangerous left-Lib, Bloc and NDP territory.
The 2007 – 2009 Afghan Detainee Arrangements
What is most interesting about the left-Liberal media and their political allies is that they have tried to make a hero out of Mr. Richard Colvin, the former Ambassador to Afghanistan for having gone public with his charge that he had warned his superiors many times about reports of prisoner torture and had been told by his superior, Mr. David Mulroney that steps were being taken and that if he had anything to say then keep it to voice communication and not written correspondence. That is when, out of patience, he went public with his charges.
A great whistle blower story and you can’t blame the opposition or the mass Liberal-left media for making the most of it. However, as often is the case they didn’t do their necessary due diligence on the story. Political bias got in the way. It turns out that there were valid reasons for Mr. Mulroney’s instructions and the Media are now caught in their own trap of finding themselves in the midst of an inter-governmental disciplinary problem.
The truth is at the core of this issue. The left-Liberal media now know the truth but refuse to acknowledge their error and stubbornly continue their hateful propaganda. The Liberals and the opposition politicians continue to deny the excellent work done to correct the detainee situation right from the beginning of Canada’s heavy involvement in the fighting and later when there were indications the 2005 Transfer Agreement might not be working as well as it should.
What they have done and continue to do instead is jump up and down, holler and scream, call for Official Inquiries, and mislead the public into believing that the Harper government, the Minister responsible and the military were and are guilty of not only of covering up the possible torture of detainees by Afghans in Afghan jails but doing nothing to try and stop such things happening. They even go so far as to accuse the government of exposing Canada to the charge of committing a war crime. Note that no International agency has levied that charge or even suggested such a thing.
The Truth of the Government’s Actions
In my previous article on this subject I referred to the report of Mr. David Mulroney as being to the Senate Committee. In fact it was to the House of Commons Special Committee on Afghanistan. I had assumed I was watching (on CPAC) a Senate Committee in action because of the extreme partisanship of some of the members. I apologize.
Mr. David Mulroney (no relation to Mr. Brian Mulroney) is presently our Ambassador to China. In 2007 and 2008 Mr. Mulroney was the Deputy Minister of the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (DFAIT). He had been involved in Afghanistan for years and was in charge of solving many Afghan-Canadian interrelationship problems when the reports of the torture of detainees began to surface again. He was at that time, in effect, Mr. Colvin’s superior. Mr. Mulroney flew back at his own insistence to rebut Mr. Colvin’s statement and fully outline what had taken place in respect to government actions regarding the detainee issue.
His report to the Committee was precise and fully refuted Mr. Colvin’s claim that nothing had been done and that he had been instructed to keep quiet. You will also note that no full report of Mr. Colvin’s statement has been printed or detailed in any mass Liberal-left newspaper that I could find except the more reliable Canwest News Service, David Akin correspondent.
It was also apparent that no appropriate time was given to Mr. Mulroney by any TV program, the CBC or CPAC to allow Mr. Mulroney to explain to the public what was done. However, a great deal of time was devoted to Mr. Colvin, “the whistleblower” and his personal views.
Synopsis of Ambassador Mulroney’s Statement
Ambassador David Mulroney’s statement to the House of Commons Special Committee on Afghanistan was fifteen minutes long, so to shorten it I have listed the following significant points: Mr. Mulroney’s statements:
- As Foreign and Defence Policy advisor to the Prime Minister from April 2006 to February 2007, I participated, when my presence in Ottawa would allow it, as an observer in the committee of Deputy Ministers that oversaw the (Afghan) mission.
- In Feb 2007 I was named Associate Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs and was given the lead responsibility to coordinate intergovernmental efforts in Afghanistan and worked almost exclusively on Afghan affairs until May 2009.
- The mission when I joined was characterized as “3-D,” referring to the pillars of Defence, Diplomacy and Development working together, but the effort was not coordinated and coherent as it should have been. (Mr. Mulroney then describes there were too few civilians employed in the field, too junior and a lack of management structures defining accountability thus a serious lack of coordination between HQ and the field, Kandahar and Kabul and the military and civilian employees).
- I worked to change that with a growing team of talented people. We created a new Afghan Task Force in DFAIT which brought all resources under my responsibility. We also set to work to build a single coordinated plan that would allow us to align people, programs and resources in support of a clearly defined Canadian objective. All this took time. We grew our civilian presence from a handful in Kandahar in early 2006 to more than 120 in Afghanistan today, including 80 in Kandahar.
- With regard to the specific issue of detainees, it was clear here too greater coordination between government departments was required. As General Hillier indicated in his opening statement yesterday, reporting from respected international sources confirmed that the challenges faced by Afghanistan were enormous and that Canada’s detainee policy had to be set in that context. It was precisely because of those challenges that the Government had concluded the Transfer Policy of 2005 with the Government of Afghanistan.
- When I took up my responsibilities at DFAIT in February 2007, the department was already exploring ways to engage in monitoring and tracking detainees. At the same time, we had an exchange of letters with the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission – an organization for which we are a major funder in which the AIHRC agreed to notify Canada should it learn of any mistreatment of Canadian transferred detainees. In mid-March we began detailed work to create a contingency plan – a standard operating procedure – in the event of well-founded allegations of mistreatment.
- We did this not because of confirmed instances of real and substantial risk of torture or mistreatment of Canadian transferred detainees, but because it was clear that what we had in place at the time could and should be further reinforced. We needed to be far more engaged in terms of monitoring, training and providing infrastructure and equipment. We worked quickly and collaboratively to design a system that would require contributions from the CF, ONO, OFAIT, Correctional Services, the RCMP, Justice, and several of our diplomatic posts. I spent hours talking with (and in many cases visiting) people involved in the intelligence work, and the actual operations in the field. I walked through every step of the incarceration process at Kandahar Airfield. I would later visit the NOS detention facility in Kandahar and sit in on an interview with a Canadian-transferred detainee.
- We were very attuned to the many problems in the Afghan justice system. In a country so beset by poverty, illiteracy, insurgency, with a lack of public institutions, and suffering from decades of civil strife – the possibility of mistreatment could not be ignored. We did not ignore it. A dedicated and experienced interdepartmental team talked with Afghan officials in Kabul and Kandahar, with allies and with informed people in the relevant international organizations – in short, everyone who had a stake in the issue to find out what they knew. We reviewed all relevant reports and documents; took the time to consult; built a common sense of objectives and purpose; a clear understanding of roles and responsibilities; and marshalled the resources to ensure effective implementation. And we negotiated a new and better Arrangement with the Afghans.
- Throughout, we were very clearly aware of our responsibilities under international law and were informed by a need to build capacity in Afghan institutions. . We in no way underestimated the challenges, but we had confidence in our people and in the array of tools that we could bring to the effort training, monitoring, providing new infrastructure and equipment, engaging the Afghans at all levels to remind them of their obligations and commitments. The issue was not theoretical:
First, we had no doubt that the detainees captured by the CF posed a real threat to Afghans and, more than that, in some cases had Canadian blood on their hands. Our inability to put into the Afghan justice system those who were captured on the battlefield or in operations against IED makers would have put Afghans and Canadians at more risk.
Second, a working correctional system and a working justice system are critical to governance, nowhere more so than in Afghanistan. If we gave up on that, it would be a terrible set back for the Afghan people. We believed that we needed to effect change, and that we had the ability – and the obligation – to do so.
On May 3, 2007, our governments signed a Supplementary Arrangement that enhanced the December 2005 Arrangement in a number of important respects to make explicit Canada’s expectations and Afghanistan’s responsibilities. The Supplementary Arrangement provided us with unrestricted and private access to any person transferred by the CF to Afghan authorities;
- Acknowledged that the AIHRC and the ICRC have the same unrestricted access;
- Made clear that the Afghanistan Government would investigate ALL allegations of abuse and mistreatment and prosecute offenders in accordance with national law and internationally applicable legal standards; and,
- Provided that Canadian-transferred detainees would only be held in a limited number of facilities, thereby facilitating access and monitoring. This was a major interdepartmental achievement and remains arguably the strongest model for any NATO nation operating in Afghanistan.
Now, let me say a few words about my management, not just at DFAIT or PCO, but of the broader interdepartmental team that I was asked to coordinate. The Afghanistan mission presented us with a number of challenges that none of us had ever dealt with before. We learned every single day, talked about how we could do better, integrated best practices into our work and refined our policies and processes in the wake of an evolving series of challenges. One of those challenges was how to move from policy discussion to policy formulation to implementation.
On detainees, as all the files we were coming to terms with, I encouraged an open airing of views, opinions and suggestions. But once the policy was decided, I made it clear that it was up to all officials to implement it, with rigour and commitment and discipline.
I have already observed that I felt that we needed far more consultation and teamwork. I noticed that departments tended to report separately, in some cases only to their own people. And although I would certainly be considered an insider, when reading some of the field reporting, it was not always clear whether what we were reading was based on first-hand experience or opinion; whether an author was speaking with the authority of his home department, the embassy or even the government of Canada; or offering an individual view. Though there was a high volume of reporting, there was a lower volume of hard facts. I felt that it was my job to ensure that we were providing the best possible advice.
Richard Colvin refuses to follow Directions
Allow me to say a few words about one member of our team. Richard Colvin willingly volunteered to go into a dangerous theatre of operations and undertook very challenging work at a time when there was not a long line up of people to do so. He demonstrated bravery and dedication, and for that I am grateful.
Richard was one of a very large number of people who brought ideas, suggestions and recommendations to bear for consideration. I didn’t necessarily always agree with him, but I always listened. The volume of reporting he did would alone suggest that he always had ample opportunity to express himself and have his views considered. In fact, the revised Transfer Arrangement addresses each of the shortcomings he spoke to in his testimony before this Committee because of the collaborative interdepart- mental work we did to get to that point. He acknowledged this to me.
The view that I muzzled him or any other officials is wrong. The correspondence to which he has referred in this is, I believe, from April 24, 2007.
We had written to provide our embassy in Kabul with our diplomatic contingency plan, the product of extensive interdepartmental consultation that had included the embassy. He wrote back with a message that appeared to reopen the debate based on no new information; to request that we take up a course of action that we were already taking; and to offer views about how the military should conduct its operations. This caused considerable confusion in Ottawa. I made three points to him:
- First, the approach we have outlined represents interdepartmental consensus at this stage.
- Second, more detailed and specific tasking for you vis a vis Government of Afghanistan and AIHRC will follow
- and third, ideas/opinion and strongly held views are often best first expressed by phone.
Getting very difference departments, agencies and the CF to agree and much less do the same thing is not easy. I insisted that we take the time to consult widely on all major issues. I asked people to talk through things, confer with colleagues, and to use the phone more – you can’t do work of this nature with officials in three continents and divided by several time zones exclusively through email exchange.
We would bring all Ottawa players together into a single room, and connect them with key contacts in Kabul, Kandahar and, where warranted, Brussels or New York. I made it clear that any and all views were welcome and that we were interested in seeing any new, relevant information. I also said that I expected people to be clear about whether they were reporting based on direct experience and whether they were adding new information. Our ability to add facts and understanding grew with our deployment of civilian experts.
I asked that the Ambassador be consulted on all important policy messages, a necessary fact of life in every mission, and something that senior people in Canada assumed was happening. I asked for reporting from the field that was factual, objective, collaborative, and subject to rigorous assessment.
Finally, I made it clear that, after those extensive consultations, once a policy direction was set, I did not expect people, in the absence of any new or relevant information, to reopen the debate. To do so would be to sow confusion in the system, undermine effective implementation, and demoralize those who were risking their lives to visit the prisons and meet the commitments that all departments and agencies had agreed on. I am also very proud of the fact that, far from stifling opinion or hiding the truth, we built up the resources to report fully, bluntly, and transparently on the mission. In this respect, I point to the Manley Panel report, and to the Quarterly Reports that we have published since June 2008.
No other country offers this level of transparency. But our ability to do this was linked to getting civilian resources into the field, and shifting from opinion, circumstantial evidence and allegation, to fact. J’ai cree une solide equlpe interministerielle profondernent dediee a accomplir la mission et a promouvoir les valeurs canadiennes a commencer par le respect de la loi.
I spent more than two years on the Afghanistan file. I served in DFAIT, as Secretary to the Manley Panel, and in PCO, where I directed the work that saw all of the Panel’s recommendations implemented. I helped to forge a strong interdepartmental team that was fiercely devoted to the mission, but also fiercely devoted to Canadian values, starting with a respect for the law.
I left behind some colleagues who, I know, felt frustrated because once our own airing of views and opinions had concluded, and all relevant consultations were completed, we moved decisively from debate to implementation. I am confident, though, that we did this carefully, effectively and with total fidelity to the standards expected of us by the Canadian Government, the international community, and most importantly, Canadians.
This Observer’s Summary
The only culpable players in this scene are the Liberals, other opposition politicians and the mass Liberal-left media trying to blacken the heroic and dedicated work done by the Canadian Government and all those struggling to cope with the detainee problem in the midst of a war in a backward land.
Any leader in the corporate, military or government world, or any experienced employee knows that in any well managed organization, input from all levels is the key to proper decision making. Once a decision is taken however, all participants know they must get on board and carry out the plan without dragging their feet or creating negative attitudes and certainly not defying their leader’s directives.
It is obvious that political opportunism and the precipitous lib-left mass media’s lack of professionalism have caused them to put their foot in the bear trap of an inter-governmental disciplinary problem from which they cannot extract themselves without losing face.
Do not expect any of them to acknowledge the truth or apologize.
They will continue their callous work to try and expose to the entire world those sensitive documents (some have already been leaked) of claimed detainee torture that if tabled may cause deadly repercussions to the detainees, their families, our soldiers or those risking their lives to work with Canadian authorities in Afghanistan.
