But for the mission in Afghanistan, the ethics and standards that once guided military decisions have been all but abandoned by the military brass. Under the Harper government, the rules governing the battlefield are ignored; the Geneva conventions are flouted and war crimes are committed.
The Prime Minister has long been aware of the repercussions his policy on detainees was having, and the implications on his government if the warnings were not heeded. But it wasn’t until a diplomat, who’d been muzzled by Harper, broke his silence that Canadians became aware of the misconduct being perpetrated by our government in Afghanistan.
[…]
The Canadian diplomat began alerting Ottawa to the “serious, imminent and alarming” circumstances surrounding detainees in 2006; sending a series of memos to both the senior ranks of the military and Department of National Defence.
[…]
Following his testimony, the Conservative government set their sights on Colvin; Intent to undermine his credibility and reputation. The relentless smearing of the well respected diplomat prompted twenty-three former Canadian ambassadors (joined later by an additional twelve) to release a letter to the media condemning the behaviour of the Conservative government.
One of the letters signatories, former ambassador Paul Durand, singled out Defence Minister Peter MacKay’s particularly reprehensible attacks.
“He savaged him in public, and ridiculed him,” said Durand. “And that’s not the way to treat a guy who’s doing his job. He is not a whistleblower. He was hauled before a parliamentary committee and had to state the truth.”
[…]
In direct contrast to MacKay’s assertion “not a single Taliban prisoner turned over by Canadian Forces can be proven to have been abused,” uncensored documents and sworn testimony by senior officers detail an instance in 2006 where an detainee transferred to Afghan police was so severely beaten, Canadian troops had to intervene and ultimately took the man back. The Globe notes “the Canadian soldier’s account, handwritten in a field notebook in the hours after the June 19, 2006 incident, is corroborated by a medic’s examination of the detainee’s injuries and photographs, which the (Harper) government refuses to release.”
[…]
A Globe report from November 2008 outlined that “more than 20 months after it first promised full co-operation, the Harper government has moved to block public hearings into whether it ordered Canadian soldiers to transfer prisoners to Afghan security forces knowing the detainees would likely be tortured … The government is seeking a Federal Court order that the MPCC can neither investigate nor hold hearings into allegations that transferred prisoners were tortured and that senior government officials and military officers knew it would happen. Government censors have blacked out key passages of secret documents that showed that ministers knew that torture was rife in Afghan prisons.”
