The National Non Profit Party will charge all the politicians who sent Canadian solders to war in Afghanistan with crimes against Humanity.
The precedent set by the trial of Desire Munyaneza in a Montreal court room. A Rwandan man who was the first person convicted under a Canadian law, allowing people in Canada to be tried for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed abroad.
Under the provisions of this law the National Non Profit Party will file criminal charges and crimes against humanity, against all the politicians, Prime Minster and Ministers who voted to send Canadian armed forces to war in Afghanistan. In addition we will file charges against all private corporations and contractors employed by the Canadian government who were involved in crimes against humanity.
It is our opinion that the politicians are solely responsible for causing the conditions which led to the, torture, death and the brutalization of the people of Afghanistan. Also the destruction of homes, farms, business and attacks on the livelihood, society, cultures and religion of the people of Afghanistan.
It is our opinion that the politicians to further their political and finical gains sent our soldiers to invade an independent nation. The National Non Profit Party will NOT file any charges against Canadian military personal that are or were involved in the Afghanistan war.

I listened to the interview with Lewis Mackenzie on November 29 to which reader Doug refers and was interested to hear MacKenzie state that Richard Colvin railed against his confinement to the Kandahar air base during his visit there (2006, can’t recall the month). This, of course, runs counter to attack-dog Christie Blatchford’s rewrite of the history in the Globe and Mail, wherein Colvin was happy to lob critiques of the conduct of Canadian soldiers and officers from within the safe confines of the base.

A new, independent source confirming a portion of Colvin’s testimony appears in today’s Ottawa Citizen, from none other than the National Directorate of Security of Afghanistan. The full article is here:

Little evidence detainees linked to Taliban: Report

By David Pugliese
The Ottawa Citizen, November 30, 2009
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/Little+evidence+detainees+linked+Taliban+report/2284282/story.html

Officials from Afghanistan’s intelligence agency complained to Canadian military and government representatives on several occasions that troops were detaining people with little evidence linking them to the Taliban, according to records obtained by the Citizen.

The Canadian government documents detail how agents from the National Directorate of Security, a key Afghan organization involved in the fight against insurgents, raised concerns in spring 2007 that Canadian and NATO soldiers were taking people into custody, but could not provide proof of how they were involved in insurgent activities. As a result, the NDS had been releasing most of those captured.

Members of a Commons committee recently heard testimony from Canadian diplomat Richard Colvin who said that many of the Afghans detained by Canadian troops were innocent farmers, peasants or people in the “wrong place at the wrong time.”

Colvin, who dealt with detainee and intelligence issues in Afghanistan, warned that Canada’s detainee policies had alienated Canadian troops from the Afghan population and strengthened the insurgency.

His view, however, was challenged last week by diplomat David Mulroney, who had been a key player in the Afghan mission. He testified there was “no doubt that the detainees captured by the Canadian Forces posed a real threat to Afghans, and more than that, in some cases, had Canadian blood on their hands.”

Retired general Rick Hillier also disputed Colvin’s allegations and said that Afghans taken into custody were indeed working for the enemy.

He told the Commons committee that those detained had actually been caught in the act of trying to kill Canadian troops and had explosive or gunpowder residue on their hands.

But if that was the case, then that information wasn’t being passed on to the NDS.

During a May 7, 2007, meeting at the NDS prison in Kandahar, the Afghan intelligence officials complained to a Canadian Forces legal advisor, as well as Foreign Affairs and Correctional Services Canada representatives. “(Names of NDS agents censored from document) complained that they need more detailed charge information when detainees are transferred by Canadian Forces,” the Canadian government report from Kandahar noted. “In the cases the only evidence is (details censored from document) which in the Afghan context is insufficient grounds to hold someone in detention.”

The report was sent to various Canadian officials including Mulroney, Foreign Affairs, Defence Department and Privy Council Office representatives. Colvin was not included on the list.

The NDS officials asked that their concerns be passed on to Canadian and NATO troops, according to the report.

In another report, dated May 15, 2007, Elissa Golberg, Canada’s representative in Kandahar, compiled details about a meeting regarding human rights held with the NDS and the deputy warden of Sarpoza prison. “Concern was expressed about the absence of sufficient evidence from ISAF forces on why detainees were captured and subsequently transferred, resulting in a high rate of release,” she wrote.

That report was sent to various Foreign Affairs officials including Mulroney as well as to the office of then-foreign affairs minister Peter MacKay.

Concerns about who Canadian troops were actually capturing was also discussed by Canadian representatives in Kabul and Amrullah Saleh, head of the National Directorate of Security. In an April 2007 meeting, Saleh said he didn’t know how many actual insurgents were among those detainees the Canadian Forces turned over to the NDS.

Saleh responded that he would have his intelligence analysts look into the issue. But the report also noted that Saleh questioned the intelligence value of those being captured by Canadian troops.

“He suggested that, in general, conventional forces are not necessarily the best instrument for identifying high-value combatants,” according to the report. “Most of those detained by Cdn forces, he guessed, would subsequently have been released.”

It was Colvin who wrote that report marked “Detainees: Urgent demarche to NDS chief Amrullah Saleh.” He flagged it for various Canadian officials including Mulroney and Hillier.

According to Hillier, he seldom read such reports.

The Defence Department could not say if it changed its criteria for detaining Afghans after the NDS raised its concerns.

Intelligence specialist Wesley Wark said that the NDS is locked in a vicious battle with the Taliban, with its operatives highly knowledgeable about the insurgency. “If the NDS is releasing people, then the only way to understand that is that the NDS is confident those individuals have absolutely no connection whatsoever to the Taliban,” said Wark, a visiting professor at the University of Ottawa.

But the only way to adequately determine whether those being detained by Canadians were innocent or not is to review the military files of Afghans taken into custody, he added.

Those records, however, are considered secret. The Defence Department will not even release information on the number detained by troops over the years.

Colvin testified at the Commons committee that as of May 2007, Canada had transferred to Afghan authorities six times as many detainees as the British. Estimates based on that information would put the figure at around 580 detainees.

Amnesty International has suggested as many as 400 were taken into custody by Canada by the end of 2007.

MacKay, now defence minister, acknowledged that Canada detained more Afghans than other nations but said that “is a tribute to the good work being done by the Canadian Armed Forces in Afghanistan today.”

Colvin has also alleged that most detainees turned over to the Afghans had been tortured. Hillier, Mulroney and various other officials say that is not the case.

In response to Colvin’s testimony, the government launched a vigorous attack on the public servant, questioning his credibility and how he did his job in Afghanistan.

MacKay, MP Cheryl Gallant and Transport Minister John Baird have suggested that Colvin, who was promoted and is now the deputy head of the intelligence liaison office at the Canadian Embassy in Washington, had been duped by the Taliban.

On Friday in the Commons, Baird, referring to Mulroney’s testimony, said that Canadian troops are not “arbitrarily rounding up farmers and taxi drivers and willingly sending them off to abuse.”
© Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen

I think that this hit job is the new aspect of the cover-up after a week or so of flailing by the Tories and military – keep the opposition and public in the dark while a new narrative is constructed based on partial evidence by Blatchford, Mackenzie and the key generals who have testified. The new narrative is that not only did Colvin only go “outside the wire” for only half a day, but that his emails during the period in question. Blatchford and Mackenzie have also repeated this nonsense about Canadian soldiers only arresting those who test positive for gunshot residue (the first the public has heard about this despite three years of controversy on the subject). Blatchford, in her Nov.30 article, is now going so far as arguing that Graeme Smith’s exposé of detainee abuse in April 2007 was in fact what prompted Colvin to “change his tune.”

It’s telling that Blatchford is the attack dog (and that Mackenzie is trotting out the same line as her). Blatchford is not simply pro-military but was embedded and, I would argue, still is.

The goal here is to smear Colvin to such an extent that the public forgets that this about the abuse of prisoners and the complete lack of oversight on the CF’s part in tracking the prisoners they’ve handed over. It’s also shifting the issue from prisons to Canada’s troops which the Tories and military know is their major card for rallying the public to their side. If this works, the Tories will step in to argue (again) that the parliamentary committee is smearing the military, and thus undermine public support for a public inquiry. This is why all the evidence demanded by the parliamentary committee is being held up yet selectively leaked to key propagandists like Blatchford and “credible” sources like Mackenzie.

Notice how the emails were leaked to Blatchford, not Graeme Smith who would have probably done some real investigating.