David Akin of Canwest reports that Sgt. Carol Utton gave testimony yesterday to the Military Police Complaints Commission that “the transferred detainees seemed “delighted” to be turned over to the Afghans.” If there were credible allegations of torture and abuse in Afghan prisons, those reports never made it to her or the “rank and file” based at Kandahar Airfield, Ms.Utton testified.
But Aaron Wherry of Macleans thinks he has a scoop of an answer for that. The following is from a transcript of Sgt. Utton’s testimony provided to reporters last night:
Q. You mentioned some of the detainees were quite happy—quite happy might be overstating it. I don’t suppose anybody would be quite happy to go off to prison, but they didn’t protest at being turned over—
A. Never.
Q. —to the NDS. Do you know why?
A. I believe because they could be bought out of the Afghan jails.
Q. They saw it as a way of getting a quick release?
A. I believe that is a way of life in the Afghan system. It is so corrupt that if you had enough money you could buy people out of jail.
I recently did a story on Afghan detainees by interviewing Afghans about prison conditions in the country, and whether such a thing registers on the radar of ordinary people there. In one of my interviews, I was told that the Taliban don’t really care whether they get taken into custody or not. If they’re held by ISAF they know they’ll get better treatment than they would if they were in an ordinary prison. But if they’re sent to an ordinary prison, they can easily bribe the guards to escape.
This isn’t breaking news. It’s only breaking news to reporters who never leave Ottawa:
A passenger needs to get to the airport quickly without any bothersome security checks? No problem, for a price of $20 at the first checkpoint.
You need a driver’s license immediately and without any tests? Such express service will set you back $180.
A family wants their son, in prison for drug smuggling, to return home? The necessary papers will be filled out the same day for a price of $60,000.
This is why I question the Outrage by John Kerry when he alleged all those War-crimes in Vietnam that he saw first hand. They must have been so traumatic that it forced him to stay muted at the time they happened,and then they laid dormant until an Election Campaign where they must have caused a Sudden-Recall to THEN make Kerry talk about Vietnam and finally see Vietnamese as equals to see those horrors as War-crimes .