I'm not even going to suggest that this is yet another story that the Blogging Tories are going to avert their eyes from. Instead, let's go check out the dumbassitude directly.
Over at "A Step to the Right," Matt was recently stroking himself into high outrage:
A University of Ottawa professor Amir Attaran has accused the Canadian military of abusing detainees. What you may not know is this is not the first time he has taken to the media in attempt to disgrace out military; on the contrary he has a long history of baseless accusations. If you aren’t familiar with this story, this CTV article is what I’m talking about.
Attaran’s accusations are extremely serious, and I would surely hope that he would have done all of his homework before making said allegations.
Let's skip down in that article to see some of Prof. Attaran's irresponsible, moonbat ravings for ourselves, shall we, as Matt lays out the case against Attaran in delicious and excruciating detail:
Going back to May of last year, Attaran accuses Gen. Rick Hillier of making “war criminals” out of Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan:
“Hillier is placing rank-and-file Canadian troops, unwittingly, in the position of very likely being accessories to torture and, therefore, war criminals under international and Canadian law,” commented Amir Attaran, a law professor at the University of Ottawa.
A month before that in April 2006, Attan wrote a column for the Ottawa Citizen titled Canada’s role in torture.
Last Dec. 18, Gen. Rick Hillier, Canada’s chief of defence staff, signed a treaty with Afghanistan that dangerously — and illegally — compromises Canadian soldiers and our country’s taboo on torture. Gen. Hillier’s treaty provides that when our troops detain a person, he or she will be handed to the Afghan security forces, without any monitoring by Canada to prevent torture.
By now, it’s pretty obvious that Amir Attaran has it in for Gen. Rick Hillier and other members of our armed forces. His accusations against our military men and women have been something he’s parroted for quite a while now, although the Canadian government sternly maintains that Geneva Convention rules are followed.
Yessir, that shrieking, lunatic leftist Attaran certainly has it in for Hillier, doesn't he? What a nutcase. What a whackjob. What a ... a ... hello, what's this? Liberal Catnip is on the case:
Gordon O'Connor recently got his lying ass handed to him on a plate when it was revealed that he had misled parliament about the role the ICRC supposedly had in overseeing the transfer of detainees in Afghanistan from our troops to Afghan officials - a practice that has resulted in allegations from at least 18 men that they were abused at the hands of those officials.
O'Connor was forced to apologize and did so in the house today.
"I fully and without reservation apologize to the House for providing inaccurate information for members," O'Connor said Monday in Parliament. "I take full responsibility and do so without hesitations."
"The International Red Cross Committee is under no obligation to share information with Canada on the treatment of detainess transferred by Canada to Afghan authorities."
O'Connor also tabled letters to correct information he and other DND officials provided to the House of Commons.
An apology, Matt. Like, right now. And you better fucking mean it.
BONUS DUMBFUCKITUDE: Given how enamored the Blogging Tory echo chamber is with Hillier, is it worth even asking if a single one of them is going to cover this latest embarrassing development?
And while we're at it, I'd like a pony.
4 comments:
Whether Attaran is correct or not on this issue, I can't say. But from my knowledge of previous statements by this guy (the BS he has been passing off re DDT 'bans', for example), I would not take a word he says at face value. He is a publicity hound, using the media to get his name in the press as a substitute for doing the job he is paid to do. You might be backing the wrong horse here, Cynic. Even a Blogging Tory (like a clock) has to be right once in a while.
What are you suggesting Richard? That even when righties are wrong, they're right?
Fuck, I'm getting tired of this...
Richard : If you don't care for Prof Amir Attaran, there's always :
US State Dept March 2006 : "Afghan local authorities routinely torture detainees."
Louise Arbor, UN High Commissioner of Human Rights : "Torture routine"
Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission in 2004 :"Torture continues to take place as a routine part of police procedures. The AIHRC has found torture to occur particularly at the investigation stage in order to extort confessions from detainees."
UBC International Law Professor Michael Byers : "Whoever negotiated this agreement did our soldiers a great disservice," said Michael Byers, an international law professor at the University of British Columbia, who wrote the opinion.
"The mere fact there is a possibility for Canadian troops to be charged demonstrates how fundamentally flawed this detainee transfer arrangement is," added Byers, author of the book War Law: Understanding International Law and Armed Conflict."
Link
When I blogged about this a year ago, I received a number of legal arguments from lawyers in the Netherlands. Apparently they had already been arguing about Canada's position for six months -that turning prisoners over to known torturers violates the Geneva Convention even though Hillier had stated that we were not technically at war and that the prisoners were not technically enemy troops.
Apologies for going on so about this, but it does rather seem almost everyone knew about this but O'Connor.
All the Tories need to know about Hillier is that he's a general, a big strong manly man in a uniform. They love a man in a uniform. A soldier, a cop, a clergyman, any uniform will do.
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