“The allegations are not being made – I hope – against Canadian soldiers,” Mr. Harper said in a year-end interview with the French-language television network TVA. “… Our diplomats reformed the transfer system. We are speaking here of a problem among Afghans. It's not a problem between Canadians and Afghans. We're speaking of problems between the government of Afghanistan and the situation in Afghanistan. We are trying to do what's possible to improve that situation, but it's not in our control.”
First of all, no one is accusing the soldiers of anything. That apparently can't be said enough times to sink in to the thick skulls of our leading cabinet ministers. The suspicions and accusations are against the cabinet ministers for giving immoral and illegal orders.
Second, what a cowardly way to approach to the issue.
A "problem among Afghans".
Let me tell you, Mr. Harper, how this works. I shove someone at the top of a flight of stairs. As a consequence, he falls down the whole flight and breaks both his legs. Guess what? I'm legally responsible for his broken legs. You know why? Because physical damage is a reasonably predictable consequence of shoving him down those stairs. If I went before a judge and said, "All I did was shove him near the top. The rest of the problem is between him and the stairs", the judge would either laugh at me or declare me psychotic and have me institutionalized.
Of course, the difference between me and you, Mr. Harper, is that I can't violate the law and put black magic marker over all of the evidence. Boy, that must be convenient.
No, Mr. Harper, we don't accept your latest ignorant argument. We've seen the reports from Amnesty, the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission and from Richard Colvin. We've heard that soldiers had actually photographed it happening. We - the entire nation - are slowly becoming aware that you knew what was going on.
And regardless of the evidence, you kept our nation in the immoral position of handing over more prisoners to be tortured.
If those reports were available to you, and it certainly looks like they were, torture was a reasonably predictable consequence of the actions take by your government. And that would make the bunch of you war criminals.
Best of luck at the trial.
