HUMOUR ?:

AMERICAN "INTELLIGENCE":

Which leads to the question...is there evidence that one, just one single one, terrorist attack has been prevented by the American use of torture on their detainees ? Another incisive item from Kirktoons.

CANADIAN POLITICS/INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS:

STOP CANADIAN COMPLICITY IN TORTURE:

While the political football of the "torture scandal" is being tossed back and forth amongst Canada's political parties there at least some who preserve an ethical compass in the debate. While the government of (Sneaky) Stevie Harper continues to stonewall and add further legal hurdles to an open inquiry into how Canadian troops knowingly handed over detainees to the Afghan government for torture the opposition parties concentrate on the "who knew what when" aspect. Every once in a while (more often in the right wing press ) the mask is dropped and the Conservatives pull the 'Oh Canada' card ie "what the hell do you care about what happens to enemies you traitorous, yellow bellied, blah, blah, blah sons of bitches". I love it when this happens because it at least makes the problem under discussion clear. In truth the opposition, perhaps from political reasons of decorum, hasn't raised the obvious. When you turn detainees over to the present quisling government of Afghanistan what do you expect other than either torture or a speedy release due to the proper bribes being paid. The last time I looked the government of Afghanistan was indeed the government of Afghanistan. I hope that I am not mistaken and that they have not all become Sufi mystics who have given away all their worldly goods and vowed benevolence to all when I was not paying attention. To put it at its bluntest...what the fuck do you expect, other than torture for those who cannot pay the bribes from this crew ? Perhaps the majority of sheep who follow the dictums of their rulers in the Conservative Party may believe the lies, but I am sure that the more intelligent bureaucracy of the Conservative Party have no such illusions.

Those who do indeed preserve an independent moral compass (something that the average conservative is in sorry need of) include Amnesty International Canada. Here is their statement of opposition to the way that Canada is complicit in torture in Afghanistan and their appeal to join your voice to theirs in protesting this state of affairs.

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TORTURE IN AFGHANISTAN:

These have been a couple of intensely busy weeks. Amnesty International has been raising concerns about Canada’s approach to handling prisoners apprehended on the battlefield in Afghanistan for over seven years. Now it has become one of the dominant issues in the country. I'd like to share with you some reflections about the disturbing information and heated political debate regarding very real concerns that over the past several years an unknown number of prisoners, picked up by Canadian troops, and then transferred to Afghan officials, have almost certainly been subject to brutal torture in Afghan jails.

I am very proud of the role that Amnesty International has played in pressing for action on this issue. Working against torture has long been a priority for Amnesty International, right around the world. In that work we seek to expose the torturers, but we also expose instances where other officials and even other governments may be complicit in torture, including by handing over likely victims.

Torture is abhorrent. Complicity in torture is shameful. Both are against the law. That is what is at stake for Canadians as we confront these latest revelations.

Why should Canadians care what happens to detainees once they're in the Afghan prison system? See Questions & Answers

Amnesty International, alongside the BC Civil Liberties Association, first raised questions about Canada’s prisoner policy in Afghanistan in 2002. ( Under a Liberal government- Molly )

At that time Canadian troops were handing prisoners over to US forces in Afghanistan. We called for those transfers to be halted because some of the prisoners were being sent on to Guantánamo Bay and others were at real risk of torture in US detention facilities in Afghanistan. Combined with US refusal to recognize the applicability of the Geneva Conventions to those prisoners meant, we insisted, that Canada was violating our own international obligations when we handed prisoners over. We urged Canada to consider developing its own capacity to hold prisoners.

Eventually the government agreed with us, and halted transfers to US forces in late 2005. But they traded one human rights problem for another. Since that time, prisoners have instead been delivered to Afghan authorities, even though torture and ill-treatment in Afghan jails is a longstanding and widespread reality in the country. We again called for Canada to take a different approach. We urged instead that the government develop a cooperative approach to overseeing the detention of these prisoners, doing so in collaboration with Afghan officials and with other NATO allies. Unfortunately the government did not take up the suggestion. Transfers continued.
Why a Public Inquiry?
After years of public campaigning and raising concerns directly with successive Canadian governments, Amnesty International eventually turned to the courts and tribunals for a remedy. Here’s a look at the path we took to get there

In early 2007 we launched an application in Federal Court seeking an order halting the transfers. We also lodged a complaint with the Military Police Complaints Commission asking that body to look into it, as military police did play a role in the transfers. We were faced with considerable government resistance and obstruction on both fronts and both proceedings became difficult and bogged down. Despite some promising initial rulings, in the end the Federal Court case could not go ahead when the courts ruled that the Charter of Rights (the entire legal basis of our case) did not apply to the actions of Canadian soldiers outside Canada. That, clearly, is a very worrying legal precedent with implications beyond this case.

Amnesty is calling for a full, public Commission of Inquiry regarding the handling of Afghani detainees.

Open letter Action

Following Richard Colvin’s explosive testimony two weeks ago, a parade of witnesses has come before the parliamentary committee now looking into this, including retired Generals and our current Ambassador to China.

There has also been a false debate about proving torture. The government has insisted that no incident of a transferred prisoner being tortured has been proven.

One is left with the impression that the only proof the government would accept is to be present while the torture occurs and witness it firsthand. The proof of torture in Afghan prisons and that transferred prisoners have been tortured is overwhelming and it is very disturbing.

Richard Colvin, who the government tasked with looking into this for 1 ½ years, certainly reached that conclusion. But having assigned him the task, the government preferred to disregard his message. He is not alone. Canadian journalists have, through tenacious investigative reporting, uncovered numerous cases of transferred prisoners who provide detailed and credible accounts of torture. The Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission (funded and supported by Canada, to our credit) has expressed concern. Other Canadian government monitors have documented cases. And there is good reason to believe that the Red Cross has also raised concerns with the Canadian government.

Instead of denying these concerns and impugning the messengers, it is time to take action.
Torture is an egregious human rights violation. By its very nature it destroys the sense of human dignity that is at the heart of the very concept of human rights. Canada clearly stands against torture. It is imperative, therefore, that we be firm and resolute in our refusal to in any way cooperate with or assist torturers. But we have not witnessed that firm, resolute stand over the past several years. Certainly not in the last two weeks. Clearly this has upset large numbers of Canadians who do not believe that this reflects their Canada.

Amnesty International and the BCCLA have jointly called for a public inquiry into this matter. Many others have as well, including all three opposition parties and leading media editorials across the country. We will now press hard for that inquiry to be convened. It is only through a public inquiry that we will gain a full understanding of what has unfolded over the past several years. A public inquiry would also offer recommendations for a different approach, one that would fully conform with our international human rights obligations. If you would like to add your voice to that demand, just click here:
Sign appeal

Amnesty's open letter to Prime Minister Stephen Harper
All the best,
Alex Neve

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THE LETTER:

Please go to THIS LINK to send the following letter to the Prime Minister of Canada.

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Dear Prime Minister Harper:
Canada has pledged to be part of the effort to restore and uphold human rights in Afghanistan. Yet Canadian forces continue to transfer detainees to Afghan custody despite the risk of torture and ill-treatment.

I am shocked that the Canadian government has chosen to dismiss the reports of human rights organizations and even some of its own trusted officials. I am further disappointed by the obstruction of efforts – whether through the courts, tribunals or even the parliamentary system – to clarify the handling of prisoners in Afghanistan.

Accountability and transparency are essential to the promotion of human rights both at home and abroad. It’s time for Canada to live up to the same responsibilities we demand of others.
I urge you to convene, without delay, a full, public Commission of Inquiry into all aspects of the laws, policy and practice that has governed Canada’s approach to handling prisoners in Afghanistan.

CANADIAN POLITICS:

DEMAND A TORTURE INQUIRY:

The ongoing debate about whether Canadian troops have been deliberately handing over detainees for torture to the Afghan government and whether the Canadian government knew all about this continues in Parliament and the press. Molly has briefly commented on a this a couple of days ago. The following petition appeal is from the Canadian anti-militarist group Ceasefire.ca , and they are asking you to write the leaders of the federal political parties demanding a full public inquiry into the allegations. Here's the appeal.

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Add your voice - We need a Torture Inquiry:‏

I want a TORTURE INQUIRY

The news from Ottawa is shocking. Senior intelligence officer Richard Colvin repeatedly warned the government about the routine use of torture in Afghan prisons, yet the Canadian Forces continued to hand over their prisoners to brutal Afghan authorities.

Stephen Harper's Conservative government, rather than taking the charges seriously, has instead used a smear campaign to attack Mr. Colvin. We cannot trust the military, or this government, to investigate itself.

Please send your letter to all of the party leaders, calling for an independent public inquiry into the conduct of government and military officials at the highest levels.We must learn the truth, and hold those responsible accountable for their actions, and their inaction. We cannot allow Canada to be complicit in torture.

In peace,

Steven Staples, Ceasefire.ca
P.S. After you send your letter, please make your donation to Ceasefire.ca's campaign to end Canada's war in Afghanistan. If you have already made a gift recently, please accept our thanks.

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THE LETTER:

Please use the link above or go to THIS LINK to send the following letter to the leaders of Canada's federal political parties.

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Dear Prime Minister Harper,
I am very concerned by the recent testimony of senior intelligence officer Richard Colvin.
According to Mr. Colvin, who served in Afghanistan and is currently posted to Canada's embassy in Washington, the government received repeated warnings that people who were taken prisoner and transferred to Afghan authorities by Canadian troops were tortured by the Afghans. Yet the Canadian government failed to act.

I support the call for an independent public inquiry into the possibility that government and military officials abandoned their responsibility to ensure Canada acted within Canadian and International law, and upheld Canadian values.
I look forward to your reply.
Sincerely,
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Monsieur le Premier ministre,
Le récent témoignage de Richard Colvin, officier senior du renseignement, m’inquiète beaucoup.

D’après monsieur Colvin, qui a servi en Afghanistan et qui est aujourd’hui en poste à l’ambassade du Canada à Washington, le gouvernement canadien a reçu maints avertissements selon lesquels les gens faits prisonniers par les soldats canadiens et transférés aux autorités afghanes étaient torturés par les Afghans. Or, le gouvernement canadien a refusé d’agir.





Il est possible que le gouvernement et les autorités militaires n’aient pas vu à ce que le Canada agisse selon les lois canadiennes et le droit international et respecte les valeurs canadiennes, comme ils en ont la responsabilité. J’appuie donc l’appel en faveur d’une enquête publique indépendante là-dessus.





En attendant votre réponse, Monsieur le Premier ministre, je vous prie d’agréer mes salutations respectueuses.

CANADIAN POLITICS:

WHISTLEBLOWER SMEARED:

The Parliamentary Committee hearing into the allegations of Canadian ex-diplomat in Afghanistan Robert Colvin that Canada knowingly handed over Afghan detainees to that country's government for torture continues. The Harper government responded with what it does best- a vicious attack on Colvin's credibility. The following is the story from the Harper Index news service, a site devoted to keeping a close eye on the manoeuvres of our beloved Prime Minister, Sneaky Stevie.

This matter has been commented on repeatedly in the mainstream press, and from what I am reading the general opinion of said commentators is that "nobody gives a damn". The more Conservative the author the greater amount of gloat with which this message is delivered. The sad fact is that it is probably true. Outside of the tiny ranks of "the left" most people in these parlous times have bigger fish to fry. One may hope, however, that this incident added to dozens of others may reinforce the also widespread conviction that Sneaky Stevie and his coterie are accomplished liars. If it adds to this realization it will have done some good.

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Colvin's gagging and public smearing highlight callousness:
Harperites deaf to suffering of detainees, innocent or not, and quick to slag courageous whistleblower.
OTTAWA, November 20, 2009, a special HarperIndex.ca report: The reaction to diplomat Robert Colvin's report, that top advisers gagged him when he tried to report widespread torture of Afghan detainees captured by Canadians, revealed the Harper government's callousness in two ways. First, the government, according to Colvin, who served as a top diplomat in Afghanistan, willfully ignored urgent reports from him in 2006 and 2007 that all detainees, guilty and innocent, were subject to torture, including being beaten with rubber hoses and electrical cable, shocked with electrical current, and raped.

Colvin pleaded for a year with top officials to deal with the situation, but he was told to keep quiet and to stop putting his concerns in writing.

Then, confronted this week with Colvin's explosive testimony to a Parliamentary committee, government ministers blasted Colvin as an incompetent official and under Taliban influence. "We are being asked to accept testimony from people who throw acid in the faces of schoolchildren and who blow up buses of civilians in their own country," defence minister Peter MacKay said in Parliament.

Attacks by MacKay and other government members came despite Colvin's support for Canada's military role in Afghanistan, and his posting, since 2007, to Washington in the high-security role of senior intelligence officer at the Canadian embassy.

"From ordering officials to stop documenting information on detainee abuse, to gagging witnesses, using delay tactics, and interfering with the Military Police Complaints Commission, this government continues to undermine the investigation into Afghan prisoner abuse," NDP defence critic Jack Harris (St. John's East) told a Parliament Hill news conference. "It places our soldiers in a perilous legal position. As Mr. Colvin testified, handing detainees over to people who we know will torture them constitutes a war crime."
Posted: November 20, 2009
Harper Index (HarperIndex.ca) is a project of the Golden Lake Institute and the online publication StraightGoods.ca

AMERICAN POLITICS:

CIA TORTURE REPORT-DEEPER INVESTIGATION NEEDED:

The long awaited- and I do mean long awaited; it was written in 2004 under the Bush Administration and kept under wraps- CIA Inspector General's report on US interrogation techniques (aka torture) was released today. You can read more about this report and the American government's co-announcement of appointing a special prosecutor to investigate HERE at the BBC and HERE at the English news section of Al Jazeera. Many are already criticizing both the report and the US Administration's actions as being insufficient. Amongst these is the Human Rights First organization. Here is their story and appeal.

APAPAPAPAPAPAP
New evidence on torture: call for an investigation:‏
From:
Devon Chaffee,

Human Rights First

(Communications@HumanRightsFirst.org )
New report on torture: there are still unanswered questions.
Sign our petition supporting an independent inquiry to get the full truth.
The wheels of justice...are creaking.

Today the Obama Administration released new excerpts from a report that expose more evidence of torture. How many more reports do we need before we make one clean, thorough, and independent investigation that gets to the bottom of not just what happened – but how it happened, and who is responsible?
Join our efforts to demand answers. Sign our petition.

The 2004 CIA Inspector General’s report released today details harsh interrogation techniques used from September 2001 to October 2003. This document underlines the need to conduct both a criminal investigation – as part of the preliminary review announced today by Attorney General Eric Holder – and an independent review of how torture and abuse were authorized and implemented.

The release of these documents is good news, but it leaves many questions unanswered. We need those questions answered.

Sign our petition supporting an independent commission empowered to get to the bottom of how torture happened.
Sincerely,

Devon Chaffee

Advocacy Counsel

APAPAPAPAPAPAP

THE PETITION:

Please go to THIS LINK to sign the following petition.

APAPAPAPAPAPAP

We call on the President of the United States to establish an independent, non-partisan commission to examine and report publicly on torture and cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment of detainees in the period since September 11, 2001. The commission, comparable in stature to the 9/11 Commission, should look into the facts and circumstances of such abuses, report on lessons learned, and recommend measures that would prevent any future abuses. We believe that the commission is necessary to reaffirm America's commitment to the Constitution, international treaty obligations, and human rights. The report issued by the commission will strengthen U.S. national security and help to re-establish America's standing in the world.

AMERICAN POLITICS/INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS:

DON'T LET TORTURE BE JUSTIFIED:

In the last few days ex-Vice President Dick Cheney has been on the circuit, trying to claim that the past use of torture by US government agencies was fully justified. Here is a statement from the Human Rights First group questioning this assertion, and asking that the use of torture be fully investigated and totally repudiated.

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The torture testimony that Cheney is trying to drown out:‏

The debate on torture must not be led by Former Vice President Cheney’s press tour
Fight back: Demand the truth about torture, not more spin.
Urge President Obama to set up a nonpartisan inquiry on torture today!:
In the wake of several investigations into the Bush administration's use of torture, and despite expert evidence to the contrary, Former Vice President Cheney has been all over the press saying that torture actually worked.

Why is he suddenly making such a loud case for torture? His side of the debate is trying to drown out new evidence that torture actually weakened American security.

The scary thing is, even today, as we heard new testimony from seasoned FBI interrogator Ali Soufan showing why torture does not work and how the Bush administration's insistence on using these techniques actually hurt our intelligence gathering – much of the public is only hearing Cheney's side of the debate.

So today we need your help to push back. Urge President Obama to set up a nonpartisan inquiry on torture to evaluate the full cost of abuses, look at how we got there, and come up with safeguards so we don't repeat the same mistakes.

Your action isn't just critical to making sure we inform the public – even some Senators aren't listening to the evidence of experts. In a Senate hearing today, FBI interrogator Ali Soufan clearly laid out in his testimony that "harsh interrogation methods are harmful, shameful, slower, unreliable, ineffective, and play directly into the enemy's handbook."

Senator Lindsey Graham — who has zero interrogation experience or expertise — actually responded, "One of the reasons these techniques have survived for about 500 years is apparently they work." (Torture is only 500 years old ??????. I think the good senator refers to "dunking", but I am not too sure. Maybe it is to throwing so-called witches into water to see if they float.-Molly)

Wrong, wrong, wrong. Even before today's testimony, Human Rights First has worked with dozens of experienced interrogators and retired generals and admirals who firmly stand against torture, as an inhumane – and ineffective – technique.

The reality is that there is no debate, and this false back and forth about torture's effectiveness is keeping us from moving forward. Help us increase the pressure – support a nonpartisan inquiry to get to the truth and make sure we never make the same mistake again!
Sincerely,
Sharon Kelly

Human Rights First

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THE PETITION:

Plrase go to THIS LINK to send the following petition to the Obama Administration.

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We call on the President of the United States to establish an independent, non-partisan commission to examine and report publicly on torture and cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment of detainees in the period since September 11, 2001. The commission, comparable in stature to the 9/11 Commission, should look into the facts and circumstances of such abuses, report on lessons learned, and recommend measures that would prevent any future abuses. We believe that the commission is necessary to reaffirm America's commitment to the Constitution, international treaty obligations, and human rights. The report issued by the commission will strengthen U.S. national security and help to re-establish America's standing in the world.
Signed by:

[Your name]

[Your address]

AMERICAN POLITICS:

ENDING THE TORTURE CAMPS AND THE TORTURE SCHOOL:

In the waning days of the rule of Emperor Bush II American legislators are striving to distance themselves from the greatest scandals of his regime, especially the acceptance of torture as a regular part of US foreign policy. The President-elect has made his usual vague statements about ending this practice. The School of the Americas Watch intends to hold their feet to the fire. Here's their story and what they'd like you to do to help.

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Senate confirms Rumsfeld Authorized Torture:
Take Action: Ask President-elect Obama to Ban Torture and Close the School of the Americas

Yesterday the US Senate released a report confirming that Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other senior US officials are responsible for authorizing torture at Abu Ghraib prison and Guantanamo Bay. Similarly, the torture manuals used at the School of the Americas/WHINSEC - made public in 1996 - were also authorized by the highest levels of the Pentagon in the early 1980s. Read the Reuters article here: www.soaw.org/rumsfeld

TAKE ACTION: Please Call the Obama transition team and share the below message at 202-540-3000 - after instructions, press "2" to speak with the transition team.

"President- elect Obama, as a member of the School of the Americas Watch - I ask that after you are inaugurated President that you issue executive orders to ban torture - no exceptions, close the School of the Americas/WHINSEC and close Guantanamo Bay."

Please also take a moment to Contact President-elect Obama via his website to paste in the above message at:

http://change.gov/page/content/contact