Monstrous [corrected]

POGGE's skdadl has done the heavy lifting on this one.

Veteran Globe & Mail journalist Paul Koring, and three others, have been bounced from the Khadr Kangaroo Kourt by the Pentagon. Their crime was to repeat what has been on the public record for years: that the guard who repeatedly threatened a wounded fifteen-year-old boy with prison rape was a charmer named Damien Corsetti, appropriately nicknamed "Monster."

Koring, as readers will remember, held on to the Abousfian Abdelrazik story with pitbull jaws. It's safe to say that Abdelrazik would still be in Sudan today if it hadn't been for Koring and the remarkable support he received from his editors at the Globe.

On the Pentagon's ban, his current editor-in-chief nails it:

The Globe’s editor-in-chief, John Stackhouse, disputed the decision against the paper’s Washington-based international affairs correspondent. “We strongly disagree with the Pentagon's interpretation of its own rules, and intend to fight the ban as a matter of Canadian public interest in these hearings,” he said. “The name in question was a matter of public record. Banning the information now – when it is already known around the world – serves no apparent purpose other than to raise more questions about the credibility of the Guantanamo courts.” [emphasis added]

Indeed. But I think, with all due respect, that we've had an answer to those questions from the start.

UPDATE: A little humour from Alison at Creekside:

A week ago the military judge ordered reporters and spectators out of this same Gitmo courtroom while 'classified' video of an interview with Khadr was shown. The reporters adjourned to the media room and watched it on youtube instead.

AND A BIG "WHOOPS": The reporters' sin had nothing to do with Corsetti's testimony after all--"Monster" testified openly. They were given the heave-ho for revealing that "Interrogator 1" was Joshua Claus, another gentleman altogether, who had previously been implicated in the murder and torture of prisoners in Bagram, pleaded guilty to assault, maltreatment of a prisoner and making a false statement, and spent five months in jail in 2005.

Claus was one of Khadr's early interrogators. He received that light sentence, with a promise of immunity and a recommendation for clemency, in exchange for promising to testify against Khadr. In the end, he was dropped from the prosecution's witness list; Claus was called by the defence in order to show that Khadr's early statements had been coerced.

Here is the actual Globe & Mail article that got Paul Koring into trouble with the Pentagon.

My apologies to readers.

Cool your jets, America

...and I'm not the only one offering that advice to a country apparently in the grip of full-scale panic.

A few days ago, provoked by illegal immigration, it was Arizona, giving a free hand to police to harass and detain Hispanic-looking people, whether American citizens or not. Now, set off by suspected Times Square bomber Faisal Shahzad, Senators Joe Lieberman and the newly-minted Scott Brown have introduced a bill in Congress to strip suspected American terrorists of their citizenship.

Note that word "suspected" in there. Never mind the presumption of innocence: now someone merely thought to be a terrorist would lose citizenship rights, no longer have to be Mirandized, and could, if captured abroad, be tried by a kangaroo military commission instead of a real court.

But a line seems to have been crossed at this point. And it's not just the usual progressive suspects who are calling for calm.

Here's (gulp!) David Frum, who points out that this measure will generate more, not less, litigation:

In [1967], Afroyim v. Rusk, Justice Hugo Black wrote:

“The very nature of our free government makes it completely incongruous to have a rule of law under which a group of citizens temporarily in office can deprive another group of citizens of their citizenship. We hold that the Fourteenth Amendment was designed to, and does, protect every citizen of this Nation against a congressional forcible destruction of his citizenship, whatever his creed, color, or race. Our holding does no more than to give to this citizen that which is his own, a constitutional right to remain a citizen in a free country unless he voluntarily relinquishes that citizenship.”

Following the case, Congress amended the nationality law. U.S. citizens can be deprived of their citizenship if – and only if – they have betrayed their allegiance to the United States “with the intention of relinquishing United States nationality.”
--
Which means that if Lieberman’s law were in effect today, we would not short-circuit any legal process against alleged terrorists like Faisal Shahzad. To the contrary! We’d be on our way to court right now to litigate the issue whether the Times Square bomber’s bombing plot indicated an intent to relinquish his nationality. Only after taking that issue through trial and appeal (maybe multiple appeals) could we get to work questioning and punishing him.

And here's (gasp!) Glenn Beck:

“He’s a citizen of the United States, so I say we uphold the laws and the Constitution on citizens. He has all the rights under the Constitution. We don’t shred the Constitution when it’s popular.”[emphasis added]

Who'da thunk it?

A toxic mix [updated]

Greedy homeowners, lawyers and insurance companies. How they're treating a child hero in Alberta.

UPDATE: (May 7) After a public outcry and a question in the House of Commons, the lawsuit against young Aaliyah Braybrook has been dropped. The insurance company has been identified, by the way, as TD Insurance.

And it appears that I owe an apology--which I here unreservedly offer--to the grandparents who were named as plaintiffs in the action. This was an instance of something called subrogation, a legal manoeuvre that permits an insurance company to sue in the name of "plaintiffs" who do not even have to give consent for an action in their names. Live and learn.

[H/t reader Les Miller]

Lancing Stephen Harper

The UK's venerable medical journal The Lancet has taken a deep slash at our Prime Minister for his hypocrisy on the abortion issue.

This is worth framing:

70 000 women die from unsafe abortions worldwide every year. The Canadian Government does not deprive women living in Canada from access to safe abortions; it is therefore hypocritical and unjust that it tries to do so abroad. Although the country's decision only affects a small number of developing countries where abortion is legal, bans on the procedure, which are detrimental to public health, should be challenged by the G8, not tacitly supported. Canada and the other G8 nations could show real leadership with a final maternal health plan that is based on sound scientific evidence and not prejudice.

I have nothing to add, except that, once again, our country is getting an international black eye thanks to a Prime Minister who is more interested, as the Globe & Mail's John Ibbitson observes today, in pandering to his base--and to his own worst instincts.

Abousfian Abdelrazik update

Last week's successful Abdelrazik telethon netted several thousand dollars--and a list of more than a hundred Canadians willing to break the law.

As I have noted previously, Canadian legislation prohibits any material support to a person on the infamous UN "1267 list." It is illegal to do so much as buy our fellow-citizen a cup of coffee. The fact that he is alive today means that the law has been continually broken since his return.

Readers will recall that Abdelrazik's life savings--$10,000 from his late wife--was recently seized:

The Royal Bank refused to open a bank account for him on the grounds that this would violate the Canadian 1267 regulations. The Caisse populaire subsequently agreed to open an account, only to freeze it, with Abdelrazik's entire savings, shortly afterwards.

In the midst of the telethon, it was announced that an "exemption" had been obtained by Abdelrazik's lawyers, whereby he could draw what amounts to an allowance from that bank account to cover his basic needs. But as one commentator put it, this is simply a window in his prison. And for those interested in sovereignty issues, permission for this had to be obtained from UN Security Council drones in New York.

In any case,

[T]he exemption is not enough. Addressing Stephen Harper and Foreign Affairs minister Lawrence Cannon directly, Abdelrazik pleaded, through an Arabic-speaking interpreter: "I'm asking you at least for once to give priority to the human side. My kids, my family, have suffered for seven years. Please address the United Nations and ask that my name by taken off this inhuman list. I want to live like any other Canadian. I want a normal life."

That he should have to beg like this is indicative of how low Canada has sunk under the current government.

Those who wish to make Abdelrazik feel at home in his own country can join the sanctions-busting movement by getting in touch with Project Fly Home, and by donating directly. Cheques or money-orders should be made out to Abousfian Abdelrazik, and mailed to CSCP Charlevoix, P.O. Box 65053, Montréal, Q.C., H3K 0K4.

Stay tuned: more developments in the campaign are in the offing.

Mon semblable—mon frère!

Creationists and Aryan supremacists woke up with headaches today, and the blogosphere may have been deprived of an epithet. We have met Homo sapiens neanderthalensis, and he is us.

If White Power types want their children to be more sapiens than neanderthalensis, their choice is now clear: marry an African. Only the latter, it turns out, are purebred Homo sapiens sapiens. The rest of us carry Neanderthal material in our genes, no pun intended.

The Neanderthal genome now has been sequenced, an outstanding scientific achievement. Here is the article in Science, and here is a more readable digest for the layperson. The team of researchers who wrote the Science paper conclude:

The analysis of the Neandertal genome shows that they are likely to have had a role in the genetic ancestry of present-day humans outside of Africa, although this role was relatively minor given that only a few percent of the genomes of present-day people outside Africa are derived from Neandertals....We expect that further analyses of the Neandertal genome as well as the genomes of other archaic hominins will generate additional hypotheses and provide further insights into the origins and early history of present-day humans.

The trinomial nomenclature for modern-day humans includes both the species and sub-species name. The word "race," properly used, means "sub-species," so belay those Neanderthal jokes from now on: they are, quite literally, racist. Besides, the joke may be on us.

Forget the Great Wall of China

All bunk, as it turns out. But hard-working Canadian builders have produced a landmark that really can be seen from space.


More.

UPDATE: (May 7): Good grief, credit where credit is due. Big City Lib was all over this--more than two years ago!

The Maple Syrup Revolution presents...

...well, modesty forbids.

But Rev. Paperboy is clearly at the cutting edge of political podcasting.

White-faced in Arizona

The new immigration law in Arizona, which encourages the racial profiling and harassment of illegal immigrants and American citizens alike who happen to be of the Hispanic persuasion, can be beaten.

This remarkable invention, more proof of good old American know-how, might also be useful north of the border. Or at the border. And it could reduce wait times in airports.

It might also assist in visa applications, let you hail a cab in peace, and even prove useful to the police.

Visit Deprofiler.com and get yours! (Some assembly required.)

Rights and Democracy: the legal has landed

Charles Vallerand, Razmik Panossian and Marie-France Cloutier, three managers fired by the Braun Gang earlier this year, are suing Rights and Democracy:

The plaintiffs claim board members asked them to change past board minutes, interrogated Panossian about his ethnic origin and harassed Mr. Beauregard at every turn.

"The board members created an atmosphere of paranoia and suspicion," the court documents say. It calls the dismissals a "purge" and says they were "political in nature, contrary to the Canadian and Quebec Charters of Rights and Freedoms and were clearly made in bad faith."

As noted in the article, the Gang of Seven has spent close to $400,000 since the untimely death of Rémy Beauregard, who was R&D's President at the time, this past January. The sin of the managers appears to have been their strong support for the President. And they paid the price for their loyalty.

The NDP's foreign affairs critic, Paul Dewar, called it "a spending binge to go after people." The new President, Gérard Latulippe, has stated that $66,000 was spent specifically to hire SIRCO, a private detective agency, to investigate the three managers.

Discovery ought to be interesting, to say the least.

Tales of Sherwood

Bring on the Robin Hood Tax!

Of wider scope than the Tobin Tax, but with a far lesser rate than Tobin suggested, this is a financial transaction levy, the proceeds of which would be used to offset any future world financial crises. You know, the ones caused by the folks whom it is proposed should pay this (rhymes with "Goldman Sachs").

Think of it as a kind of insurance premium, to be paid if your latest sub-prime mortgage investments, currency speculation and exotic derivatives don't pan out. It's called taking responsibility, and, because corporations are considered "persons" under the law, we might even refer to this as "individual responsibility," held out to be a bedrock conservative principle.

Why, after all, should you expect other people to pay for your own messes--especially those whose life savings you've already destroyed? Why should we ordinary taxpayers front up for your bailouts?

But stealing from the poor to give to the rich is the real conservative value at play, as we well know. The people who got us into the current recession, one that has devastated millions of ordinary working people around the globe, are high and dry. And in the US, working people have been taxed to bail these reprobates out, as the government--their executive committee, if you like--administers the second part of the double whammy.

Time to turn that around. Hence the Robin Hood Tax.

Our High Sheriff of Nottingham--no surprise--is not amused. And the evil barons, girding themselves for battle, may have already scored a victory. There is strong support for the notion around the world--even the US has been warming to it--but finance ministers don't like it, and our own Jim Flaherty has been leading the charge against it.

After all, hasn't Canada weathered the recession pretty well, thanks to a regulatory regime put in place by the (shh!) Liberals ?

But Canada does not have a self-contained economy. We are not an island, entire of ourselves, immune to international shocks. The transglobal, multinational world of finance capital knows no borders. It has done well, and it continues to do well. Meanwhile, thanks to the "casino economy" it has created and the crisis that it caused, one hundred million more people around the globe are hungry today.

There is an odd rapprochement here between elements of the Left and the Right. Tobin, a free trader, had no time for the so-called "anti-globalization movement," and complained that all the cheering for his idea was "coming from the wrong side." As an economist, he was after world currency stabilization, and was remarkably prescient about the catastrophic effects of unrestricted currency speculation. For much the same reason, the IMF currently supports a version of the Robin Hood Tax.

As all the pomp and pageantry of that global Town Fair known as the G-20 approaches, it's surely time to join the Merry Men (and Women) and take on the sheriff's men. If we can't make the rich pay, surely the very least we can ask is that we don't have to pay them.

Turnabout is fair play. Pass the venison.

O tempora...!

A European dress code for women is coming into being, as niqabi outlaws in Belgium and Italy will attest. But if France is about to ban niqab, Parisian women may soon be permitted to wear trousers in public. It's never all or nothing.

Was the current frontlash against the niqab fuelled in part by the suspicion that the women were wearing pants under their flowing robes?

No matter. France is having yet another go at this. As reported in the British Telegraph, the last attempt at repealing the anti-trousers ordinance was seven years ago. It was unsuccessful.

The latest attempt to remove the outmoded rule was in 2003, when a Right-wing MP from President Nicolas Sarkozy's UMP party wrote to the minister in charge of gender equality. The minister's response was: "Disuse is sometimes more efficient than (state) intervention in adapting the law to changing morays." [emphasis added]

The minister was clearly trying to get out of a slippery situation. It's hard not to sympathize. There could be scores of these ordinances on the books, and the French National Assembly is about to add yet another. If they go back and fine-tune one, all of them are up for grabs.

Legislative chaos could ensue as ponderous, lumbering law tries to keep up with the fleet pace of fashion. Who knows how many more such eels might be caught in the Seine?

[H/t WFDS]

Harper's revenge

Senator Nancy Ruth was right. Not that staying quiet can be a serious option--as she knows full well, she herself being a case in point--but that our vicious government will retaliate when criticized.

This is news?

Eleven* women's groups have had their funding terminated by the Harper regime in the past two weeks alone. You can almost hear Charles McVety, Harper's very own Cardinal Richelieu, chuckling.

"Hidden agenda?" Harper's hateful agenda has never been hidden. Whether it's gay pride, church charities deemed too critical of Israel, women's programs or equity-seeking advocacy groups, the on-going purge by the Conservatives began almost as soon as Harper came to power in 2006. It's been all bully, smear and punish ever since.

How far does Harper's mask have to slip before we stop acting surprised and shocked, and start organizing? If the Cons get themselves a majority, we can take it as guaranteed that a fertilized ovum will soon have more rights than Canadian women--just for starters.

As the old joke ran, somebody once had to explain to creationist Stockwell Day that The Flintstones isn't a documentary. Now--and it's no joke--it's high time to let Harper and his buddy McVety know that The Handmaid's Tale isn't a user manual.

____________
*The number has now apparently risen to fourteen.

Casual sadism

Torturing the disabled in America.

This is what the kindly folks at the Judge Rotenberg Center call "therapy":

Behaviors that the center deemed "aggressive," as well as those considered "minor," or "non-compliant" -- such as raising one's hand without permission -- are all considered punishable by electric shocks, restraints, and other punishments to students.

"One girl who was blind, deaf and non-verbal was moaning and rocking," a former teacher says in the report. "Her moaning was like a cry. The staff shocked her for moaning. Turned out she had broken a tooth. Another child had an accident in the bathroom and was shocked."

Perhaps the worst part of this is that it's been public knowledge for years. And that people are actually having to go to the United Nations to stop it.

I guess we now have a good idea where School of the Americas dropouts find work.

[H/t L-girl]

Casual racism

Res ipsa loquitur. The buck stops with Jason Kenney. Send him a note.

[H/t L-girl]

The Siege of Gaza

In war, and in war-like situations, a fog of madness descends. And sometimes that madness is not the spontaneous outbreak of catastrophic violence, but mimicry: it pretends to be its opposite.

Unhurried bureaucrats practise their rational, orderly professions; paper flows in their offices, not blood. Administrative processes and office protocols are scrupulously observed. The means justifies the end.

Thanks to an Israeli human rights group, details are now emerging about Israel's illegal blockade* of Gaza. Arcane decisions, subject to change without notice, govern the daily lives of Gazans.

Children's toys are not allowed in. Nor is wood to make furniture. Canned meat and tuna are, but not canned fruit; mineral water gets through, but not fruit juice; cinnamon is permitted, coriander is not.

Here is the full list of what is allowed to enter Gaza, at least as of this writing. Israeli authorities have also taken it upon themselves to calculate, to the last calorie, the minimal intake of nourishment required by the inhabitants of Gaza to survive.

This precise yet lunatic attention to detail has resonances that I dare not mention.

Before our eyes (unless we choose to look away), 1.5 million "drugged cockroaches in a bottle" are struggling to live their daily lives, or perhaps just to stay sane, caught between the twin and co-dependent madnesses of Hamas fundamentalism and Israeli state policy.

[H/t ftbt, b/c]
_____________
* "Israeli acts that deprive Palestinians in the Gaza Strip of their means of subsistence, employment, housing and water, that deny their freedom of movement and their right to leave and enter their own country, that limit their rights to access a court of law and an effective remedy, could lead a competent court to find that the crime of persecution, a crime against humanity, has been committed."

From Part II, Article 4, Additional Protocol II of the Fourth Geneva Convention:

1. All persons who do not take a direct part or who have ceased to take part in hostilities, whether or not their liberty has been restricted, are entitled to respect for their person, honour and convictions and religious practices. They shall in all circumstances be treated humanely, without any adverse distinction. It is prohibited to order that there shall be no survivors.

2. Without prejudice to the generality of the foregoing, the following acts against the persons referred to in paragraph I are and shall remain prohibited at any time and in any place whatsoever:
--
(b) collective punishments;

Torture in Afghanistan: Befehl ist Befehl?

If it turns out that our forces knowingly handed over Afghan detainees to be tortured, will "just following orders" suffice as a defence?

Blogger and National Post contributor Adrian MacNair thinks so:

#
John says:
March 7, 2010 at 11:26 am

Just out of curiosity, how many people here would still “support our troops” even if it were proven that they had knowingly given detainees over to torture?

#
Adrian MacNair says:
March 7, 2010 at 11:28 am

I’d support them 100%, John. Since troops follow orders, they aren’t culpable for what happens. The command structure is.

"So much for Nuremberg," says a later commenter. But that's wasted on the benighted MacNair, I'm afraid: he probably thinks a "Nuremberg" is a German quarter-pounder with cheese.

Detainee documents: the Liberals frame the issue

Liberal House Leader Ralph Goodale's comments here merit serious attention. I find them worrying.

He begins well. He points out the unassailable nature of Speaker Peter Milliken's recent ruling on Parliamentary supremacy. And he goes further: "the judgment that is brought to bear on what is releasable or not, " he says, "must be a parliamentary judgment."

Bravo.

But at that point the tone changes. He starts talking about the sheer magnitude of the job of sifting through all of those documents. Our attention is diverted: now this issue is appropriate facilities, support services and what-have-you. He's not confident, he says, but hopeful, that the task can be carried out within "a manageable period of time."

Given that image of armies of bureaucrats toiling over a virtual Everest of paper, his concluding comments appear like nothing more than posturing:

Globe & Mail: If it turned out that no compromise on the documents can be reached between the parties within the two-week timeframe dictate by the Speaker, are the principles involved in this dispute worth going to an election over?

Goodale: The principles are critical. You could hardly imagine a more profound set of circumstances. If the government falls back from where it seemed to be going on Thursday in our preliminary meeting, if it falls back to a position of non-transparency and stonewalling and lack of respect for what the Speaker said, there could not be a more fundamental problem for our democracy and it would be critically important for political parties to not just look the other way but to stand up for the fundamental principles by which we govern ourselves.

Are there wheels within wheels here? Are the Liberals offering Harper a way out, by suggesting that the task will take months or even years--perhaps followed up with an agreement that nothing will be made public until that task is complete?

May I make a suggestion to the honourable member? Set priorities. Start with the redacted Richard Colvin memos--all of them, and any responses thereto. That's the work of half a day or so. And then get to work on these ones. Worry about the contents of the "sea container" buried somewhere in Kandahar, and additional troves of material wherever they might be, some other time.

Not to keep beating this drum, but Parliamentary supremacy is too important to be frittered away--either by accident or design.

Amir Attaran, political strategy, and the Torcher issue

The Torch, Canada's premier milblog, declared war on University of Ottawa law professor Amir Attaran nearly two years ago. He's been in their sights ever since, most recently in a salvo from Mark Collins.

Attaran, an indefatigable defender of human rights, has been an activist on the Afghan detaineee issue since 2006. He has been a continuing thorn in the side of the gung-ho crowd that uncritically defends our mission in Afghanistan, paints overly-rosy pictures of our "progress" there, and takes a what-me-worry attitude about our complicity in torture.

He had a piece published in the Ottawa Citizen on May 1, imploring the Opposition parties not to back down after Speaker Peter Milliken's recent ruling that reaffirmed the supremacy of Parliament. (I have already referred to it favourably.) In his article, Attaran looked at the constitutional issues dealt with by the Speaker, and explored options for resolving the impasse.

Should Harper continue to defy Parliament, Attaran says, the Opposition should lose no time in finding the government in contempt. But--since this could trigger an election--the contempt motion should be carefully phrased. It should raise the issue of the mission itself, and revoke Parliament's consent for continuing our combat role until 2011. That consent, he notes, was conditional: and one of the conditions, clearly broken, was that "the government must commit to a policy of greater transparency with respect to its policy on ... detainees."

This would place the government, he says, in the position of defending an unpopular war before the electorate, something he thinks it would be unwilling to do. Hence he predicts that Harper will not likely make this a confidence issue.

But, on the off-chance that Harper were to plough ahead and go to the polls to play the "Support Our Troops" gambit, the Opposition could effectively counter that our hands-off detainee transfer policies (which, among other things, ensure that Taliban prisoners can bribe their jailers and quickly return to battle) are endangering the lives of our soldiers.

There is much here with which I disagree. In my own view, the key issue is, and must remain, the constitutional one--namely, the supremacy of Parliament. That broad principle must not be put into question every time a new controversial matter arises, but remain unalloyed.

We would run considerable risk of losing this essential focus were the issue before the electorate to be the Afghan mission simpliciter. Indeed, most Canadians would not place our involvement in Afghanistan high on their list of election priorities. If this were indeed to be the Opposition's primary campaign strategy, Harper would be most likely to campaign on the recovering economy instead--and do well.

Better by far to explain to the electorate precisely why they were being forced to the polls: because Harper decided to stand in defiance of centuries of Parliamentary tradition, and attempted to dismantle our own tradition of responsible government. Ordinary Canadians figured out Charlottetown, they grasped the essence of the prorogation controversy just a few months ago, and they would not be slow to understand what is at stake in this case.

If there is to be an election, make democracy the issue.

But that's merely my strategic disagreement with Attaran. The main thrust of his article--with which I happen to agree--is that the current impasse must be resolved in favour of transparency, and he suggests way and means by which this can be done.

Enter Mark Collins.

Rather than deal with Attaran's arguments, he prefers to go after Attaran himself, first with silly namecalling ("up and at 'em Attaran") and even sillier nitpicking (yes, Mark, we know that "Parliament" is technically both Houses--so what?). Then he drops dark suggestions that Attaran doesn't really care about the constitution, or for that matter detainees:

It's not about detainees at all; it's about forcing an end to the CF's combat mission, the sooner the better.

This represents a significant shift in The Torch's line of attack. Last year, Damian Brooks was unequivocal: "it's all about the detainee transfer agreement." Only this past April, Brooks stated that Attaran's "real beef is the detainee transfer policy." Which is it, Torchers?

In any case, Collins essentially accuses Attaran of lying for noting the conditional nature of Parliament's approval for the continuation of the Afghan mission. Why, Collins huffs, "transparency" about detainees is not the only condition as yet unmet by the government, as Attaran suggests--there are many others as well. So there!

The rest of Collins' article is a climb-down from his earlier assertion that Crown privilege trumps Parliamentary rights. Andrew Coyne's "brilliant piece" in Maclean's appears to have been instrumental in this regard.

Attaran's article is informed by his concern over Afghan detainees, but deals primarily with the current tussle over documents in the wake of the Speaker's ruling. So he was exercised enough by Collins' mischaracterization of his piece to send a note in response--which The Torch has not as yet had the courtesy to acknowledge. Here it is, reprinted with permission:

Dear Mark,

I’ve read your blog post here: http://toyoufromfailinghands.blogspot.com/2010/05/afstan-true-nature-of-up-and-at-em.html

It’s bizarre that you attack me as wrong, but praise Andrew Coyne as right, on the constitutional interpretation of Parliament’s order and the Speaker’s ruling. Please go back and reread Andrew’s article in Maclean's and my article in the Ottawa Citizen, because both conclude that the order and ruling are lawfully binding on the government and are of constitutional weight. I agree with Andrew’s opinion on this totally.

Yet in your twisted presentation, Andrew’s opinion counts as “brilliant”, and mine is just nonsense from “up and at 'em Attaran.” It appears that you find it easy to credit a fellow named “Andrew,” but choke on doing the same for a fellow named “Amir.” I need not speculate on why you decline to treat our identical opinions with identical respect, as it is evident enough to any person of average intelligence.

That said, let me respond to an issue you raised.

I argued in my article that because the Harper government broke a condition of its own March 2008 motion to extend the mission in Afghanistan—and specifically, the condition of “greater transparency” on detainee matters—Parliament is within its rights to put its consent to mission extension back on the table, and perhaps to rescind it. You replied angrily to my analysis, and you wrote that there are several other conditions in the mission extension motion which the Harper government has also broken. As you write:

“I challenge Mr Attaran to show that all of them [i.e. the conditions that the Harper government advanced to secure Parliament’s consent to extending mission] have been met. If not, then surely by his logic any other one not met equally demands putting ‘...the combat mission back on the table.’”

I agree with you in this passage, and thank you for amplifying the correctness of my argument. If the Harper government has broken not just one, but several, conditions that it pledged to Parliament in its motion to extend the Afghanistan mission—and your blog argues persuasively that government did exactly this—then certainly Parliament should ask whether it was deceived, Parliament should re-evaluate the mission, and Parliament should be outraged that the government sought its consent and fought a war based on false pretences. Thank you for making the point more strongly than I did.

Warm regards,
Amir

In fairness to Collins, he took no issue with the by-now-settled constitutional question that Attaran raised. But it is indeed a misrepresentation to suggest that Attaran is being sneaky, somehow: that discussing ways of throwing more light on the detainee transfer issue is, in effect, a smokescreen for a supposedly hidden anti-war agenda.

There's nothing hidden about it. Attaran opposes the war. But in his article he predicts that Harper is unlikely to tough it out--that a compromise will be found before Milliken's deadline, making a contempt motion unnecessary. His subsequent "what-if" speculation is only that.

The Torch can of course be expected to defend our mission in Afghanistan and to take on the critics. That's all to the good. The debate needs to be had. But there are ways and ways of doing that. I've had many civilized exchanges with the founder, Damian Brooks: he knows his stuff, and he's an honourable man.

But Amir Attaran is also an honourable man. He deserves better than the shoddy trash-jobbery that The Torch, for whatever reason, has been dishing out. Could changing his name to Andrew indeed make a difference?

Paranoid? You'd be paranoid too if everyone was out to get you!

This article about conspiracy theories has captured the state of the climate debate perfectly. The fact that three different reviews of the CRU hacking incident have found nothing to challenge the science only shows that they are all part of the conspiracy. Read the whole thing.

h/t Tim Lambert

Michael Ignatieff: the "cave" man?

Is Michael Ignatieff planning to fold in the wake of Speaker Peter Milliken's historic affirmation of the supremacy of Parliament? My friend Skippy Stalin thinks so, and he's worth quoting at length:

If Michael Ignatieff refuses to put his own political viability before the constitutional future of this country, he will have failed not only as a leader, but as a citizen. Time and time again, he has put political expediency before principle, and where has it gotten him? More Canadian now prefer Jack Layton as prime minister than they do Ignatieff, which hasn't happened to a Liberal leader in nearly thirty years.

I would prefer an election, but even that isn't necessary. Parliament could vote no confidence in the government, and then the Liberals, NDP and Bloc Quebecois could present themselves to the Governor General as a coalition majority government. I don't think that would be granted, but it's at least worth trying.

I loathed that when it was tried after the 2008 election, but this different. This is about protecting Parliament itself, as opposed to being displeased with the results of an election. While I'm certain that I would despise everything that such a government would do in power, at least the principle of Parliament would be preserved. Better yet, if the Liberals started wandering into Harperland, the NDP and Bloc could withdraw their support and force an election.

...[W]hat Stephen Harper wants is the worst of both systems; executive powers without checks and balances, within a toothless Parliament that resembles something like the one that governed Romania for four decades. And Michael Ignatieff seems to be fine with that, if only because he thinks that he himself will inherit those powers someday.

Obviously I hope he's wrong. But take a look at this. And note the way the story is being spun:

Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff said this week he would consider relying on Mr. [Frank] Iacobucci if the former judge’s mandate could be changed to make him report to Parliament instead of the Tories. Some Liberals are leery of committing senior MPs to reading mountains of documents – a process that because of the need to swear an oath of secrecy would neuter their ability to speak publicly on the treatment of detainees after Canadian soldiers hand them over to Afghan officials.

Let's get this straight, once again. Parliament, as Milliken's ruling affirmed, has unfettered access to the documents. No oath of secrecy must be administered. There is no "balance" to be struck between Parliamentary supremacy and what the government claims are the interests of "national security" (more likely, the interests of its own security). Andrew Coyne crushes that persistent red herring to fishmeal here.

And let's put the spectre of Frank Iacobucci to rest. Ignatieff's suggestion is simply ill-informed. As legal expert Amir Attiran points out,

[T]he option of letting the Honourable Frank Iacobucci choose the documents Parliament can see is daft. Iacobucci is not a judge, but an ex-judge turned lawyer. As the Speaker noted, like all lawyers, when his client gives instructions, he must obey, and "his client is the government."

Nor can Iacobucci's reporting relationship be expanded to the whole House. The Law Society's rules of professional conduct read that "A lawyer shall not advise or represent more than one side of a dispute." Thus Iacobucci cannot be lawyer for the government, and with a change of clothing in a phone booth, turn lawyer for the opposition parties where the situation remains disputatious (which is always the case in the House). Anyway, Iacobucci would never accept this, as it would lead to a professional misconduct complaint.

The NDP's Jack Harris puts the whole matter squarely: "We want Parliamentary oversight, not a proxy." Attaran suggests a public inquiry as a preferred solution, or an in-camera session of Parliament in which decisions about the documents are made by the whole House about what is, or is not, a matter of "national security."

But what if Harper decides to dig in?

Will the Opposition parties stand united against what would be a spectacular defiance, not only of Parliament, but of its representative in the Speaker's chair? Will it stand up for the democratic system of governance upon which Parliament is founded--and fight an election, if need be, to defend responsible government?

Or will a timorous Ignatieff pull the plug on democracy and weasel up a "compromise" with no basis in law or Parliamentary tradition?

Am I the only one getting a sinking feeling?

Michael Mann: "Vehement suspicion of heresy"

The sun has circled the earth many times since the dangerous notion of AGW first surfaced, corrupting the faithful ever since. But the Church of the Immaculate Climate is finally taking sorely-needed action.

"Everybody talks about the weather and nobody does anything about it," said St. Mark, so many years past. Although he was seen in his day as a free-thinking gadfly, the Holy Spirit moved him on that occasion to utter an unassailable truth. Weather is the will of God, and Man opposes the Divine Plan at peril of his immortal soul. Not only can we do nothing about it; we must not dare to try.

******

Objection 1. "Weather" is not "climate," and climate may be affected by the work of Man.

I answer that, "Climate" is the weather writ large. If there is no weather, there can be no climate.

It is written in Psalm 148: 8:

lightning and hail, snow and clouds, stormy winds...do His bidding

Weather is not ours, but His. We cannot affect what He decides, either for better or for worse.

And as for our feeble attempts to pierce the veil of the future, weather may be predicted, if "through a glass darkly," but climate--weather over a long period of time--is beyond our ken.

For so it is written in Matthew 16: 1-3:

1 The Pharisees and Sadducees came to Jesus and tested him by asking him to show them a sign from heaven.

2 He replied, "When evening comes, you say, 'It will be fair weather, for the sky is red,'

3 and in the morning, 'Today it will be stormy, for the sky is red and overcast.' You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, but you cannot interpret the signs of the times."

******

And so it has come to pass that the suspected heretic Michael Mann, climate scientist, has been handed over to the Inquisition's secular arm, in the person of Ken Cuccinelli, Attorney General of Virginia. The writings of the reprobate are already under careful review by the diocese of Penn State. In a contest of God and Mann, there is only one sure victor.

Under heavy pressure to recant, Mann may yet do so, and for that we pray. But Adam is alive in his flesh: he is proving an obdurate sinner. The righteous wing having risen up, he is now disposed to confirm "minor errors." But his heresy, however altered in minimis, continues: "And yet it warms."

We fervently hope that he will soon make full confession of his grievous departure from the path of righteousness. There is much at stake.

May Day nostalgia

"When I hear the Internationale, I feel the beautiful melody again and again--but I feel the tragedy, too."




Happy International Workers' Day!

Kuhu āpiti: mō te tangata whenua o Aotearoa:

Te Hunga Mahi

Maranga mai te hunga mahi
Wetekina ngā here
Ko te mana hinengaro
Ko te waka mō tātou
Kāti rā te wehi noa
E te iwi, e tū, e tū
Ka huri rā te ao katoa
Ka eke rā te taumata

Anei te whana kai tangata
Whakapiri mai, aku hoa
Ko te hunga mahi,
Ko te ao katoa
Anei te whana kai tangata
Whakapiri mai, aku hoa
Ko te hunga mahi,
Mō te ao katoa

Richard Colvin: the hounding continues

The Globe & Mail's tabloid journo Christie Blatchford is still trying to recover some of her cred on the Richard Colvin file, lost when her inexpert leakage on behalf of the government was exposed for all to see last December.

Colvin remains in her sights, and today she bemoans the fact that the rest of the media have moved on when real live witnesses have been found who allegedly contradict Colvin's claims of having given distant early warning on the Afghan torture issue.

Blatchford has seized upon this account to rescue her cause. Gavin Buchan occupied Colvin's position before and after the latter served in Kandahar. He testified this past Thursday, before the Parliamentary committee looking into the Afghan detainee matter, that the first he heard of any torture was when the April 2007 story broke in the Globe. Retired Major General Timothy Grant said the same thing.

Blatchford sees this, of course, as reinforcing her contemptuous dismissal of Colvin as a "so-called whistleblower" in a column last November 30, claiming he had "seized his cause late in the game." And to be sure, the testimony from Buchan--more so than Grant's, because nobody seems to tell generals anything--is something to be reckoned with. In it, he stated flatly that Colvin had never mentioned detainee abuse to him, even in transition notes that he received when he took over Colvin's job.

Colvin, on the other hand, has insistently claimed that he had been blowing the whistle since early 2006. Michael Ignatieff provided a useful timeline during a debate in the House of Commons last December 10:

In May 2006 Richard Colvin began sending reports of detainee abuse to his superiors.

On June 2, 2006, the Afghan independent human rights commission reported that a third of detainees handed over by Canadian Forces were abused or tortured in Afghan custody. On that same day Richard Colvin sent another memo with reports of torture in Afghan jails. Still the government did nothing.

Mr. Colvin sent three more reports before the end of 2006. He made additional reports in March, April, June and July 2007. Yet, 17 months, 17 memos, and still the government did nothing.

[Translation]

In 2006, the Canadian Embassy in Kabul had a report on human rights stating that torture was systematic in Afghan prisons. Once again, the government did nothing.

[English]

It was during the summer of 2006 that the detainee abuse confirmed yesterday by General Natynczyk took place. It was documented and reported by soldiers in the field who did their job. Still the government did not do its job.

In November 2006 the Department of Foreign Affairs actually issued talking points playing down reports of torture. Secret memos leaked to the press confirmed that the government's priority was spinning the issue rather than preventing torture from occurring.

[Translation]

In February 2007, there were three additional allegations of detainee abuse. That same month, the military police complaints commission initiated an investigation that was blocked by the government.

[English]

The government's year of wilful blindness only ended when graphic reports of abuse surfaced in the Canadian press on April 23, 2007.

So the crux is this: either Colvin--who is sticking to his story consistently--somehow failed to deliver his concerns to his successor although he sent them hither and yon, or Buchan was, to put it as charitably as possible, working in a self-created silo until the Globe & Mail story broke. But if this sort of thing is any indication, Colvin is in the clear. This too.

Colvin, of course, has had one hand tied behind his back all along, and his enemies have taken full advantage. Memos from him have been redacted, and he is not legally permitted to disclose what those blacked-out portions say. This has allowed Blatchford to disparage him without evidence, and sleazy games to be played by the government last month.

These exchanges between Colvin and Alain "good and ready" Préfontaine are priceless:

Diplomat Richard Colvin: "If we had access to the un-redacted version then there would be some crucial information, additional information which we obviously don’t have because of the redactions."

Justice Department lawyer Alain Préfontaine: "I have had access to the un-redacted document. I don’t see there anything that is missing or crucial or important."

Colvin: "Well I am afraid you are acknowledging that you are new to this issue because if you were someone who was involved in this file, involved in Afghanistan, involved in this issue, what has been redacted is extremely important and it is critical to understanding that there is nothing particularly subtle about this message. I don’t agree that it’s a subtle signal."

---.

Préfontaine: "The commission will decide whether it was too subtle for the reader to pick up your meaning."

Colvin: "I think the commissioner is only given the redacted version so he may have some difficulty fully assessing the subtlety or lack thereof of this report."

Préfontaine: "I realize it’s difficult for the commission to have to contend without ability of independent verification of what you say, or for that matter, what I say."

Colvin: "I am fully prepared for the commissioner to see the un-redacted version and to form his own opinion."

Préfontaine: "So would I. But it’s not my call to make, Mr. Colvin."

Military Police Complaints Commission chairman Glenn Stannard: "Did you say the information contained in the un-redacted [version] really isn’t critical – or did I misread that?"

Préfontaine: "No, you didn’t Mr. Stannard."

Stannard: "Just a real silly question then: any reason why we don’t have it? "

Préfontaine: "Because disclosure would be injurious to either national defence, international relations or national security."

Stannard: "Even though it’s not critical information?"

Préfontaine: "Well it might be that the information has nothing to do with what Mr. Colvin makes it out to be."

...

Colvin: “Obviously critical information has been removed by the censor. And I’m not allowed to speak to what’s behind the blacked-out portions. So I am not sure what good it is to read simply read the little bits which the censor decided is available to the Canadian public.”

Préfontaine: “Because at the end of the day, Mr. Colvin, this commission is going to be asked to pass judgment on the actions of some on the basis of this material. That’s why.”

Colvin: "I can give you my assessment of the significance of this section if you like."

Préfontaine: "No. I just am looking at what information you relayed to the reader, who will eventually end up being the commander of Joint Task Force Afghanistan, who is tasked to make the decision of whether to transfer or not."

Colvin: “But your redactions ... have made my content somewhat incoherent because big chunks of it have been sliced out. So I am not sure what good it does to read all these little bits.”

Préfontaine: “I have heard your opinion, Mr. Colvin.”

If Stephen Harper bows to the will of Parliament, of course, those redacted portions of Colvin's memos will likely become publicly available. Then we'll see who is telling the truth and who is not. And I know where I'm putting my money.