What does your MP have to say about the Afghan Prisoner Abuse Scandal?

After the Afghan Detainee Abuse Scandal story broke late last year, I felt compelled to send my MP a brief email urging him to stand up in parliament and demand a full public inquiry into the allegations that the Canadian Forces and the current government had knowledge of the torture of detainees at the hands of our Afghan allies and continued to hand over prisoners anyway:

Subject:     Alleged torture of Afghan prisoners
From:     Mike McGregor
Date:     November 19, 2009 10:39:46 PM GMT-05:00
To:     Holder.E@parl.gc.ca

 

 

Mr. Holder,

As a constituent of your riding, It is my sincere hope that you will sand up in parliament and call for a full public inquiry into the
alleged torture of Afghan prisoners handed over by the Canadian Forces, despite your party's position that no inquiry is warranted.

I fully believe that these allegations are just as serious as the Somalia Affair of the '90s, if not more serious due to the scale of the issue and the potential number of prisoners involved.

If the Conservative Government is unwilling to call a full public inquiry, despite the overwhelming calls from the Canadian public for one and uphold this government's moral obligation to stand against torture, I hope this will be the issue that this government falls over. (*edited to fix some typos from the original.)

His response was disappointing to say the least. It was however a great example of how public discourse can be spun by changing a few key phrases and twisting an issue ever so slightly...   

From:     HoldeE1B@parl.gc.ca
Subject:     Taliban Prisioner Accusations
Date:     December 9, 2009 4:47:36 PM GMT-05:00
To:     Mike McGregor

 

Dear Michael,
Thank you for writing to me regarding the recent Taliban prisoner accusations.

To be clear, Mr. Colvin did not present one shred of evidence that Canadian soldiers mistreated Taliban prisoners, and any insinuation that our brave men and women acted dishonourably is an insult to the Canadian Forces.

When this government has been presented with credible evidence, we take appropriate action.  This is why we instituted an enhanced arrangement with Afghanistan over two and half years ago. We replaced the inadequate prisoner transfer arrangement left by the previous government.

Mr. Colvin admitted that he never actually witnessed any acts of abuse. His information is from unnamed second-hand sources and Taliban-prisoners.  These Taliban prisoners are instructed to lie and deceive allied forces. Once again, the opposition is only too happy to take the word of the Taliban as fact.

When directly asked if he (Mr. Colvin) ever raised the issue of prisoner abuse with a minister in person, Colvin admitted he did not – despite having ample opportunity to do so: “Yes, I met several ministers but did not raise these issues with them.” When asked why he failed to raise the issue, Colvin could only say, “It would be a bit inappropriate…to ruin a minister’s visit.”

Mr. Colvin also accused Canadian troops of arbitrarily rounding up large groups of innocent Afghans that were all subsequently tortured. This is absurd and has no basis in fact. Mr. Colvin could not even say that the Taliban prisoners that he interviewed were in fact captured by Canadian troops. And it is important not to forget that during this period our troops were engaged in major combat operations – taking the fight to the Taliban enemy – including Operation Medusa where 12 Canadian soldiers lost their lives.

This is a ridiculous accusation. Mr. Colvin’s accusations are completely unsubstantiated and were only voiced publicly more than 2 years after Colvin left Afghanistan.  As Colvin himself admitted, he had multiple opportunities to raise his concerns directly with ministers, and yet he said absolutely nothing: “Yes, I met several ministers but did not raise these issues with them.” Why not?

Our Government has been transparent on our mission in Afghanistan. The matter of Taliban prisoners has been raised and answered in this House and Committee numerous times.  We were the first Government to hold an actual democratic vote in Parliament on the mission in Afghanistan – we have now done so twice. The previous government never held a vote before sending Canadian troops to Afghanistan in 2002.

We have provided information to Parliament through quarterly reports and we have provided thousands of documents to both the federal court and the MPCC relating to the issue of transfer of Taliban prisoners.

Thank you again for writing to me and I hope that you have found this information useful.

Kind regards,

Ed Holder
Member of Parliament
London West 

I c wut u did there! "Afghan detainees" have become "Taliban prisoners" and the issue being responded to has gone from concerns about what happened to these 'taliban prisoners' after they left Canadian Forces coustody for Afghan Coustody to me and Mr. Colver calling the honour of our brave soldiers into question by accusing them of torture. How dare I indeed.

This email exchange reminds me of the documentary "OUTFOXED". I didn't think it was a great documentary, but the one gem I did take away from it was the GOP's 'message of the day' and the ability of the conservative movement to co-ordinate it's message and spin the issue at hand using techniques utilised in the response above from Mr. Holder. If you watched US news media on any given day during the Bush administration,  you'll see the same message, nearly verbatim repeated by republican congressmen and congresswomen, senators, GOP leadership,  White house spokespeople and conservative commentators. As the Detainee issue broke here, I noticed something very similar from the PMO, cabinet ministers and conservative MPs...          

So as we go forward and continue to oppose the conservative agenda, it would do us well to remember the level of sophistication in PR, media relations and message management we are up against. 

-30-
Written under duress by Mike McGregor
-=There is no Cabal, Long live the Cabal=-
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