Those lovable scamps at "The Torch" are getting seriously bored with all this human rights bullshit:
Brian Platt, at THE CANADA-AFGHANISTAN BLOG, sees the bigger picture that's being lost in our political madhouse:
Ah...this is just killing me. It's killing me.
At the very moment when the Americans have, for the first time ever, committed themselves to a fully-resourced mission to build a functioning state in Afghanistan, and when our country needs to be debating what our commitment after 2011 will look like, we are going to be talking for MONTHS ON END about whether Afghan detainees were abused three years ago. Good grief...
...the fact that we're calling this a scandal is embarrassing and laughable. Have you seen the living conditions in Afghanistan? Have you read that country's history in the past 30 years? If only a few Taliban prisoners have been abused, that's not a scandal, it's a MIRACLE. It is a massive step forward from where that country has been in recent times. Can people not understand this?!
There is no scandal here, aside from the all-too-familiar incompetence of our government's public relations team.
Can we please, for the love of God and all that is holy, talk about something RELEVANT? Get serious about this? Determine what role our country will continue to play in Afghanistan's ongoing struggle to lift itself out of anarchy and violence?
Please. Please. I'm begging you, journalists, editors, bloggers. Get some fucking perspective.
Please.
No shit. What is this obsession with whether a bunch of innocent farmers had the crap beaten out of them in an Afghani prison somewhere? Let's make sure we all understand the critically fundamental point here: They weren't white.
Are we good? Yeah, we're good. Carry on.
AFTERSNARK: Curiously, Blogging Tory Paul E. Marek -- whose son allegedly serves in the Canadian forces -- also has no problem with captured combatants being tortured. One wonders if Paul is even capable of logical analysis and the study of consequences.
I'm guessing not.
21 comments:
Winning heart and minds... and then these dumbfucks wonder "why do they hate us?"....
We prove we are better than the bad guys by becoming bad guys. Simple.
Hmmm...
Paul doesn't surprise me. He's a fucking idiot.
The kids over at The Torch, however, should know better.
Brian Platt is simply getting it wrong. He claims that none of the actions in which prisoners are taken are subject to the conditions of the Geneva Conventions. It's a dirty fight which, in his view, we're playing too cleanly.
So... Platt is either intentionally misleading his readers or he has failed to grasp a single salient point:
Regardless of the caveats in the Geneva Protocols detailing who is covered under the Treatment of Prisoners, Canada has stated very clearly that all captured combatants and detainees will be afforded protections as PWs under Geneva III even if it's clear that no such entitlement exists.
That's not hand wringing; that's what the Canadian government promised.
What none of them get - none of them - is that there was and is a solution which they don't want to discuss: There never should have been a prisoner hand over agreement in the first place. We should have retained our own prisoners, secured them and interrogated them. Inconvenient? You bet. War is hell, especially if you're doing it properly.
The prisoner handover agreement has always looked dirty. It has always smacked of "Give 'em to the ANP. They can get intelligence out of 'em faster than we can. (wink, wink)"
Platt also jumps out on a most dangerous limb when he says that Canadian soldiers are demonstrating the most humane conduct of any soldiers in any war in the history of humankind.
Shows how little he knows. I could dispatch that lie with one word.
Perspective? Platt and his cheerleaders long since lost it.
I used to keep Brian's blog on my site as a source for intelligent pro-"mission" commentary.
I removed it because he's a pathetic, lying, stupid sack-o-shit.
I don't give a fuck what he or his hero terry glavin think about anything.
Case in point: Platt said that the Shia "rape your wife" law didn't exist, but if it did, Karzai would veto it because it violated Afghanistan's constitution.
Platt was wrong on every single count.
Idiot's like him have been saying "we're winning" for 8 years now, and they've been wrong for 8 years.
To hell with him.
So let me get this straight:
1. We're doing an awesome job, winning the war, painting schools, making Afghanistan a better place.
2. Afghanistan is a total shithole. Have you seen how those people live!? There's no helping a country like that.
Doublethink is alive and well at the Torch.
And remember, kids ... they're an award-winning military blog. That must mean M@ and Dave suck. What other possible logical conclusion is there?
Y'know, you're welcome to foul your own nest with your over-the-top criticism of The Torch. This is your blog, after all, and the only one you're embarrassing is yourself.
But you may want to reconsider calling me a racist, Mr. Day. I don't take kindly to that.
And Dave, I have considered the option of keeping detainees ourselves, in this post, among others. I'd be happy to discuss it further with you, but not here.
Babbling,
Yes, do take your self-righteous whining elsewhere.
"Duh, we can't do EVERYTHING, so by all means, let's let the Karzai/Warlord government torture, er, um, ... handle our prisoners!"
"Unh, (drool, stammer) ... I am the voice of reason, and, duh, experience on this, unh, ... weighty issue."
I've read what you wrote, Damian. Honestly, I don't much like your approach.
And as for any possible discussion, I'll pick the ground; not you.
Yes, Damian ... as a member of the Blogging Tories, why don't you lecture me on civility?
No, really, I'm ready to be judged.
To clarify, "The Torch" is not/not part of "Blogging Tories".
Mark
Ottawa
I wasn't suggesting it was -- I was referring to Damian specifically.
But you may want to reconsider calling me a racist, Mr. Day. I don't take kindly to that.
I'm sorry could you please point out exactly where the accusation of racism gets made by anyone but you in this thread, Mr. Brooks?
Careful ... your Freudian slip is showing.
Canada's right, when the real argument we're having gets to scary and close to home, we'll make up another one that we'd rather have.
CC is clearly referring to that numbskull Brian Platt, hyped beyond his capacities by the propagandist Terry Glavin--not to Damian. The latter is a person with whom I disagree, profoundly, but he has substance.
But it's fun to watch these folks dance down that tricky line between "they're people who want robust democracy like anyone else, and we're here to help" and "lesser breeds outside the law: torture comes naturally, but we didn't see nothin'."
"But you may want to reconsider calling me a racist"
awkward non sequitur, freudian slip, or am i just missing something here?
seeing as you hadn't yet called him a racist, cc, will you now take him up on his offer?
KEvron
"If only a few Taliban prisoners have been abused, that's not a scandal, it's a MIRACLE. It is a massive step forward from where that country has been in recent times"
now, there's some swell moral relativism! at what point, torchbags, will you consider afghanis sufficiently civilized, so as to relieve them of the threat of torture?
KEvron
Dear commenters: Yes, I'm suggesting that Damian Brooks is a racist. Quite simply, these days, I assume that if someone is a member of the Blogging Tories, they're racist, and the burden of proof is on them to prove otherwise.
I hear that's how logic works in their world.
Oh, come on. I'm sure these all these guys are suggesting is that innocent Afghans are being picked up, detained, and tortured by or through the complicity of ISAF personnel for purely political reasons.
If not, well, your accusation is tantamount to saying it's racist to deprive someone of their human rights just because of their ethnicity! And we all know that's completely RED T-SHIRT SUPPORT THE TROOPS BLAH BLAH BLAH CAN'T HEAR YOU
KEvron:
I think the accusation of racism is inferred:
"Let's make sure we all understand the critically fundamental point here: They weren't white."
I don't know the history over there. And sodding weeping Jesus I hate to do this, but:
In reading that particular post, I don't see anything I could characterize as inherently racist.
Wrong, yes, and badly. But not racist on the face of it. And I feel it weakens the arguments to include that implication.
ah. thanks, metro.
"racist" may be too strong a word (and up until cc's penultimate comment, only damian had used it, not cc).
"I feel it weakens the arguments to include that implication."
i think "racially/culturally chauvinistic" is more accurate. it's plainly apparent in the bit of text i c&p'ed earlier.
KEvron
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