Eric Morse and Eugene Lang have their doubts:

…Small, relatively prosperous, yet ethnically and religiously divided, this West African country with one principal export (cocoa) already has 9,000 UN peacekeepers on the ground, one of the UN’s largest operations. Gbagbo [still claiming to be president after an election the UN says he lost] faces both an international and African community united in outrage against his intransigence.

It should be a recipe for successful international action to remove him.

Instead, the aftermath of the election is turning into a prolonged standoff, a test of the relevance of the UN…

As for the UN, Gbagbo has thumbed his nose at New York, demanding peacekeepers leave the country. Although the UN is steadfastly refusing to retreat, the Security Council peacekeeping mandate does not extend to active military intervention in a political confrontation.

It’s unlikely Gbagbo will go anywhere he’s not forced to go, and that is the nub of the issue: How do you get rid of a despot who shows no sign of moving, and has a significant armed force at his disposal?…

That leaves the possibility of armed intervention. ECOWAS has had a fairly respectable record with this in neighbouring Sierra Leone and Liberia, but Ivory Coast is something else again. Gbagbo’s forces are capable of strong resistance if they are so minded.

Unless Gbagbo is persuaded it is in his self-interest to quit, the possibility of either a prolonged standoff or a bloody civil conflict or both is uncomfortably real. The international community has expressed its will and may be close to finding out that it has no realistic way to impose it, despite having thousands of UN troops on the ground. That would highlight the impotence of the UN as an entity capable of forging the political consensus for a military intervention, much less actually organizing an effective on-the-ground effort. And if civil war, genocide or crimes against humanity occur in Ivory Coast following the failure of the international community to force Gbagbo out, you can effectively say goodbye to the lofty and idealistic UN doctrine of Responsibility to Protect [see "There’s a responsibility to protect us from Pink Lloyd and Soft Rock"]…

It might well take the military efforts of France — the former colonial power that still has troops in the region and has a record of intervening in African hot spots — to save the UN’s bacon and restore something resembling democracy to Ivory Coast. France has said it won’t do it but in the end it may not have much choice. Wouldn’t that be ironic?

Eugene Lang, former chief of staff to two Liberal ministers of national defence, is co-author of The Unexpected War: Canada in Kandahar. Eric Morse is a former Canadian diplomat who is now vice-chair of security studies at the Royal Canadian Military Institute in Toronto.

Meanwhile, in the same edition of the Ottawa Citizen, pernicious Prof. Michael Byers reveals a sweet stink of hypocrisy:

…
Canadians can help…by demanding that Ottawa support a UN-authorized military intervention by ECOWAS…

But why not simply have the Security Council give the UN peacekeepers already there (and reinforce them if necessary) a more robust mandate rather than outsourcing the job?

After all Mr Byers has not approved of the Security Council’s outsourcing (more here) the job in Afstan to NATO:

…Prof. Byers believes that “it’s time to move from a combat-oriented approach to one that focuses on negotiation, peacemaking and nation-building. … It’s time to move NATO troops out, and UN peacekeepers in.”..

So the Security Council’s outsourcing military intervention is a Good Thing in Ivory Coast but a Bad Thing in Afstan. UN peacekeepers are all that’s needed in the latter but not in the former.

Huh?

Update: A version of this post is at the Canadian Defence & Foreign Affairs Institute’s 3Ds Blog.

Mark
Ottawa

The good professor (amongst other things, see below) is now knotting his knickers over the possibility that Canada might start an arms race in the Arctic if we buy F-35s:

A government purchase of F-35 fighter jets could cause “angst in Russia” and trigger an Arctic arms race, Arctic sovereignty expert Michael Byers said Thursday.

“I don’t want my country to be the country that starts an Arctic arms race,” Byers said as debate over the government’s plan to spend $16 billion on 65 of the F-35s raged on several fronts on Parliament Hill.

Byers is chair in global politics and international law at the University of British Columbia…

Perish the thought of causing Bad Vlad Putin any Angst (though the fellow certainly can surprise one, as with endorsing The Gulag Archipelago).

What a load of hooey. The F-35–or any other new Canadian fighter–can hardly start any Arctic arms race. The roles of Canadian fighters up there, and off our other coasts, are airspace surveillance, defence and interception. That’s what our current CF-18s do and what their replacements will do. No offensive role whatsoever so nothing for the Russians to race to defend against.

Moreover, the F-35′s radar-evading stealth is no advantage in those missions; there’s nothing for the Russians to counter since, as I wrote earlier:

…Russian Bear bombers themselves do not have a radar system to search for approaching fighters. Its emissions would be simply suicidal, drawing fighters right to their target…

Stealth fighters do not up the ante in terms of air defence against Russian bombers.  But I think Mischievous Michael knows that and is just trying to stir things up anyway. Not exactly intellectually honest, I’d say. But not unexpected.

The Postmedia News story identifies him as “chair in global politics and international law at the University of British Columbia.” That’s hardly a really informative identification.  It is indeed effectively misleading by making him seem the disinterested “expert” he is described as.  Take a look at this post to see where he (a defeated federal NDP candidate) and some of his buddies really are, as they say, coming from:

The major media, the Rideau Institute and, e.g., Steve Staples, Michael Wallace and Michael Byers…

A very committed crew of Rideau Institute advocates trying to push the view that the CF should essentially become a non-combat constabulary and peacekeeping organization. But, contrary to what Senator Pamela Wallin writes in her letter quoted in the post, Mischievous Michael unfortunately does not appear to be retired from active professing at the university.

By the way, as readers of this blog well know, I’m no fan of the way this government has committed to, and justified, acquiring the F-35.

Update: In reality:

Breaking:  CF-18 on the job

Mark
Ottawa

Good on Mr Burney (note the typically spinning headline; is wanting fewer immigrants “anti-immigration”? and note the “conservative movement”–there is one?–sliming):

Former ambassador lends support to new anti-immigration group

A pillar of the Canadian establishment, brushing aside the risk he could become embroiled in one of the country’s most sensitive political issues, is endorsing a new organization challenging Canadian immigration policy.

Derek Burney [a day job here] is a former senior corporate chief executive, ex-U.S. ambassador, the one-time chief of staff to Brian Mulroney, and served as the head of Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s transition team after the Conservatives won the 2006 election.

Canadian society, he said, needs to stop treating immigration as an untouchable “third rail” that can’t be debated without prompting allegations of bigotry.

So he’s joined the advisory board of an organization being launched Tuesday on Parliament Hill in Ottawa. The Centre for Immigration Policy Reform will be headed up by Martin Collacott, a former ambassador who writes frequently on immigration and refugee policy at the Fraser Institute, and James Bissett, a former director general of the Canadian Immigration Service [more here].

The Centre for Immigration Policy Reform argues that the benefits of high immigration aren’t worth costs that include considerable government expenditures and higher housing costs, pollution and crowding in big Canadian cities.

“Unfortunately immigration and refugee policy is a bit like health care in Canada,” Burney told Postmedia News.

“It’s being denied rational debate at the political level, and this is despite the very clear evidence of abuse of the system, of fraud in the system and a lack of co-ordination in the country in terms of screening.”

He says his major concern is that Canada’s economy has been chronically plagued by relatively low economic productivity, yet the large number of unskilled workers and family-class immigrants weakens productivity further [see "Starry-eyed about immigrants to Canada"].

Burney said politicians of all stripes refuse to discuss such concerns because some immigrant communities that lobby for high quotas of family-class immigrants are “very active” in federal politics [see "Multiplying like…"]…

The Centre for Immigration Policy Reform is an organization dominated by academics and former senior bureaucrats, many with links to Canada’s conservative movement [emphasis added, evidence only provided for one person, see below], who argue that immigration levels are far too high and that refugee screening policy too lax.

Canada has in recent years brought in roughly 250,000 immigrants and refugees annually, and since 1990 has accepted more per capita than any country in the world, according to the Fraser Institute [bit of a slime there, it's "according" to everybody].

There are also 300,000 or so skilled and unskilled “temporary” workers currently in Canada, of which 192,500 arrived in 2009. And the government admitted 79,500 foreign students last year.

The critics say Canada’s policy is essentially hijacked by self-interested groups — employer groups seeking cheap labour even when there’s high unemployment, lawyers, advocates and consultants in what they call the “immigration industry,” and urban MPs from all parties who depend on immigrant groups for political support [see "A Liberal’s Divided Priorities"].

They also cite statistics and reports, including several from federal government researchers, showing that Canadian immigrants since the 1980s have struggled economically compared to the average Canadian.

Others backing the new group include Gilles Paquet, a frequent public commentator and professor emeritus at the University of Ottawa’s Centre on Governance [a very bright, "credentialed" and non-partisan fellow], and Salim Mansur, a University of Western Ontario political scientist, columnist, former federal candidate for the Canadian Alliance party under Stockwell Day’s leadership [emphasis added], and author of Islam’s Predicament: Perspectives of a Dissident Muslim.

Collacott said his group is trying to avoid, rather than import, what he calls the “xenophobic” hostility today in Europe against immigrants and minorities. To do that, mainstream parties need to debate the issue openly, he said [see "Adrian MacNair: Adding to the immigration boom"]…

A nasty example of all-too-typical Canadian reporting.

Update thought: On the other hand our major media almost never identify Prof. Michael Byers, one of their darling go-to “experts”, as a former federal NDP candidate (more here). Fair and balanced? My fat flipping foot.

Mark
Ottawa

In this post it is subtly noted that the senator fails to identify her own partisan affiliation whilst criticizing the media for failing to give such affiliations for others:

The major media, the Rideau Institute and, e.g., Steve Staples, Michael Wallace and Michael Byers/F-35 Update

Sen. Wallin now has her letter published in the Toronto Star (’twas first in the National Post). She has made some progress in fuller self-identification but has yet to give the whole Tory:

…
Pamela Wallin [her website], Senator, member of government caucus in the Senate, chair of Senate Committee on National Security and Defence, Ottawa

Mark
Ottawa

Those people sure are, er, economical in their descriptions of these people.  A letter in the National Post:

Look closer at F-35 critics

Re: F-35 purchase coverage.
When the F-35 fighter decision was  recently announced, some news outlets led readers to believe that three  critics of the purchase are defence experts and independent of one another, giving no hint that all belong to the same basically anti-military  organization.

Canadian Press, for instance, said Steven Staples is with  “the Rideau Institute, a defence think tank.” (Globe and Mail July 16, 2010.)  The Rideau Institute is not a defence think tank. It’s a left-wing peace and  social policy think tank that routinely criticizes Canada’s military spending  and seems to favour a peacekeeping, search and rescue model.

Then  Globe and Mail reporters called F-35 critic Michael Wallace “a University of  British Columbia defence and international relations professor.” (Globe and  Mail, July 17, 2010.) Actually he is professor emeritus in the UBC political  science department, which means he’s retired but retains his title as an  honour. More to the point, Michael Wallace is on the board of the Rideau  Institute, which the reporters don’t note.

Finally, the Toronto Star  published a column by Michael Byers – a jack of all trades when it comes to  commentary, and a defeated NDP candidate. Like Steven Staples, Byers doesn’t  like the F-35 purchase. Like Staples, he suggests the money instead be spent  on search and rescue aircraft. And like Staples, he’s with the Rideau  Institute – although you wouldn’t know it by reading the Toronto Star, which  lists only his UBC affiliation.

Don’t get me wrong. The public should hear  a full range of opinions about matters like the F-35 purchase, from both hawks  and doves. But let’s tell readers who’s a hawk and who’s a dove. Otherwise,  they might mistakenly think defence experts are against this major defence  purchase – when in fact it’s peace activists who are being quoted.

The Honourable  Pamela D. Wallin, OC, SOM
Senator, Saskatchewan [Conservative - MC].

Earlier from me, along similar lines:

Canadian F-35s, Michael Byers and me

…Prof. Byers (a firm NDPer, though almost never identified as such in our major media, check the end of the Star piece) would, I think, really prefer that the CF not be well-equipped at all–at least for combat roles. In which case they would not be true armed forces at all: rather another gendarmerie, suitable only for selected UN peacekeeping missions–simply more heavily armed than the RCMP…

More at the end of another post :

…
Ceasefire.ca (the name says it all) is the main “activist” effort of St. Steves’s militantly anti-military Rideau Institute (see end of  “EMERGENCY RESPONSE” link above).  Mr Staples is constantly quoted by our major media, in their effort supposedly to be fair and balanced, when reporting on defence matters.  Yet one would hardly understand his true stance, or the real nature of his “Institute”, when he is simply described thus as he often is (end of link):

…Steve Staples of the Rideau Institute in Ottawa…who has been critical of the Canadian Forces mission to Afghanistan…

Hardly the whole, er, story. Our lovely major media informing the public. Not.

Somehow I’ve missed Prof. (ret’d) Wallace.

Update: Last part of a very lengthy topic thread at Milnet.ca–lots of views:

Ottawa to sole-source $9 billion for 65 F-35 Joint Strike Fighters

Mark
Ottawa

Holy embarrassing coincidence!  Strange bedpersons indeed:

Byers:

$16 billion for the wrong planes

Me:

Canada’s new fighter, the F-35: What the government is and isn’t saying

Almost scrarifying to find the good professor and me making some similar points. But fear not, he can still be rather economical with the truth…or inexcusably ill-informed. As well as self-contradictory. A letter sent to the Toronto Star and not published [Update: The Star did print the letter, along with several others, July 22] :

Re: $16 billion for the wrong planes, July 8

Michael Byers writes that “Canada’s most desperate procurement need is for fixed-wing search-and-rescue aircraft that could be built in Canada by Bombardier.”  While a new aircraft of that sort is certainly required by the air force, Bombardier is not the company to build it.  Such planes require a rear ramp for the rapid and accurate release of rescue materiel and personnel.  Unfortunately the only aircraft Bombardier might offer for the role is an adapted version of its Q Series turboprop airliner–which has no rear ramp and cannot be fitted with one.

Professor Byers goes on “…opportunities for Canadian industry would be created by sourcing search-and-rescue planes here.” A major thrust of his piece is to argue against the sole-sourcing on our military aircraft, yet here he sees to be advocating it.  Does he not want a fair competition that Bombardier would be free to enter.  What gives?

Indeed he criticizes the government for the purchase of the air force’s new C-17 strategic airlifters and C-130J tactical airlifters.  He states that “…sole-sourcing ensured that the planes would be purchased from American firms [emphasis added, quelle horreur!] ratherthan Europe’s Airbus.”

The A400M is the Airbus plane that might have been considered.  But it is several years behind schedule and is still in flight testing.  The first delivery, to France, is now not expected until 2013.  Any aircraft for Canada would be some time after that and we needed our new transports rather sooner.

Our first C-17 was actually delivered in 2007, all four by 2008.  Our first C-130J arrived at Trenton early this June.  Does Prof. Byers really think Airbus was such a good idea?

I’m criticizing the government’s method in selecting equipment.  Prof. Byers (a firm NDPer, though almost never identified as such in our major media, check the end of the Star piece) would, I think, really prefer that the CF not be well-equipped at all–at least for combat roles. In which case they would not be true armed forces at all: rather another gendarmerie, suitable only for selected UN peacekeeping missions–simply more heavily armed than the RCMP.

Earlier at Daimnation!:

Afghanistan: Bilge from Byers

Fisking Michael Byers’ bilge

Why I say “no” to Byers

Plus Adrian has, er, issues on the Tamil front with the prolific prof.

Back to the Lightning II.  Defense Industry Daily round-up:

Canada Preparing to Replace its CF-18 Hornets
…
Canada has been an active Tier 3 partner in the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program, participating in both the Concept Demonstration Phase ($10 million) and the System Development and Demonstration Phase ($150 million). This USD $160 million has included funding from both the Department of National Defence, and from Technology Partnerships Canada (TPC [more here]). In the Production, Sustainment and Follow-on Development Phase of the F-35 program, it is estimated that Canada’s contribution will exceed C$ 500 million (currently about $435 million) over 44 years [emphasis added]. Now, the F-35 is Canada’s official choice to replace its Hornets…

July 16/10: Canada’s Conservative Party government declares that it will buy the F-35A, without a competitive process. The jets would begin to enter service around 2016, and the initial budget is C$ 9 billion for 65 F-35 aircraft and associated weapons, supporting infrastructure, initial spares, training simulators, contingency funds and project operating costs. That budget has not been confirmed by an actual contract, however, something that reportedly led to unpleasant surprises when Canada bought C-130Js from Lockheed Martin. DND statements indicate that an F-35 contract would not be negotiated until about 2014-2015 [emphasis added, so how the heck do we know what the total price will be for those 65 aircraft?].

The government’s defense of its decision revolves around economic and industrial benefits:

“To date, Canada has invested approximately CAD$168 million in the JSF program. Since 2002, the Government’s participation in the JSF program has led to more than CAD$350 million in contracts for more than 85 Canadian companies, research laboratories, and universities – meaning that Canada has already seen a two-to-one return on its investment.

Now that Canada has committed to purchasing the F-35, Canadian industrial opportunities could exceed CAD$12 billion for the production of the aircraft [emphasis added, note that "could", good luck on the total]. Sustainment and follow-on opportunities for Canadian industry are emerging and will be available over the 40-year life of the program. For instance, in accordance with the industrial participation agreements, all 19 Canadian companies manufacturing items for the F-35 will also repair and overhaul those components for the entire global fleet.”

The government needs that defense…

Meanwhile other partners are not moving very fast, some at least doing formal comparisons–from AW&ST, June 10, 2009:

Norway To Begin F-35 Negotiations

Norway’s defense ministry is to begin negotiations on the purchase of up to 56 Lockheed Martin F-35As after parliament voted to accept its recommendation of the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) over the Saab Gripen NG.

Negotiations are expected to take two years, and the government is required to return to parliament in the spring for authorization to begin negotiating the final contract. Norway is already a partner in the JSF program…

The defense ministry does not know when a contract will be signed, or how many aircraft will be ordered, but beginning negotiations this year keeps the program on track to allow first deliveries in 2016 and full operational capability in 2020…

Denmark is going though a three-step process, first to decide whether it needs a new fighter, then which one, and finally how many and when. The first two decisions were planned before its parliament recesses at the end of this month, but are expected to slip.

With a requirement for 48 aircraft, JSF program partner Denmark still is hoping to decide between the F-35A, Gripen NG, and Boeing F/A-18E/F before year-end, Burbage says…

Among the other international JSF partners, the U.K. has ordered its first two test F-35Bs as part of the 17-aircraft third production lot just awarded. A single test F-35A for the Netherlands also is included, but the Dutch will not make a final decision until 2010.

A third test aircraft for the U.K. and a second for the Netherlands are planned as part of the 32-aircraft LRIP [low-rate initial production] 4 contract to be awarded next year.

Australia has confirmed plans to buy 100 F-35As, beginning with an initial tranche of 75, but has slipped its first purchases by a year to 2012, as part of LRIP 6. Italy, with a requirement for 131 F-35As and Bs, and Turkey, with 100 F-35As, also expected are to begin their purchases in LRIP 6, [Tom] Burbage [Lockheed executive vice-president and general manager, F-35 program integration] says…

More on Euros, I wonder about impact on F-35:

Analysis: Defense in firing line as Europe begins budget cuts

For European policymakers desperate to cut spending, the defense budget looks an appealing option. But military chiefs and arms firms will lobby hard, arguing that jobs and geopolitical clout are on the line…

Britain’s new government is already pushing through a comprehensive defense review, making it clear that military budgets will come under particular pressure. Other European governments have frozen key decisions.

Across the continent, the main choice will be whether to scale back or axe major projects — warships, aircraft, new vehicles…

On one level, analysts perceive a drive to high-tech new solutions: drones, satellites, robots and cyberwarfare. But powerful vested interests protect the status quo…

Amusing update: The results of a Google search: “Michael Byers F-35″.

Mark
Ottawa

Jack Layton, showing his solidarity with what he hopes are NDP voters.

As Michael Byers writes in the Tyee today, “they’re coming.”

200 Tamil refugees are reportedly headed for the coast of British Columbia on the ship, MV Sun Sea, hoping to claim political asylum when they reach our shores. We already took in 76 “boat people” from Sri Lanka last October, undocumented refugees who were suspected of being former fighters with the defeated Tamil Tiger terrorist group.

Unlike Mr.Byers, I think that Canada can ill-afford to harbour more refugees from the civil war that ended last summer with the ignominious defeat of Velupillai Prabhakaran and the LTTE [Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam], a terrorist organization designated as such by Canada since 2006. Technically speaking, the government of Canada refuses residency to LTTE members on the grounds that they have participated in war crimes.

It’s true that it may be impossible for a Tamil refugee to flee Sri Lanka without having had some form of prior activity with the LTTE. Denying Tamil refugees on that basis alone would invalidate the entire ethnic group. It would be like denying refugee status to an Afghan because of past associations with the Taliban.

Of the 76 Tamils processed from the last boat that arrived in Canada, eventually all were released when the government could not prove their links to terrorism. Every single one of these people represents an enormous financial burden on the state. None are allowed to work as their claims are being processed, but will have been issued health cards, welfare, and legal advice paid for by the taxpayers of Canada.

Naturally, it’s difficult to differentiate the “good guys” from the “bad guys.” But when it comes to the Tamil people, they are all singularly united behind the cause of a Tamil homeland. Which means that even if all 76 refugees pending a decision by the IRB, and all 200 aboard the “Sun Sea”, have never fired a weapon or funded the Tigers, they all support the eventual goal of an independent Tamil homeland nonetheless.

Because these refugees are fleeing their home, and not voluntarily seeking a new life, it is inevitable that adjusting to life in Canada will be difficult, if not entirely impossible. The continued moral, and likely financial, support for another Tamil Tiger uprising against the Sinhalese government, is assured.

Canada is now the home of the world’s largest expatriate Tamil community, and until 2008, the greatest source of foreign funding for the LTTE from groups posing as humanitarian and aid organizations. Canadian intelligence sources discovered that the Tamil community had been contributing between $10-12 million to the LTTE in the years leading up to the defeat of the Tigers.

Make no mistake. While the LTTE is a terrorist organization with designs only on an independent homeland, it has had to broaden its alliance with other terrorist organizations in order to become an effective guerrilla group. That’s why the LTTE trained in Southern Lebanon with the PLO in the ’70s, importing the strategy of suicide-bombing.

In 1998, the LTTE Intelligence wing circulated a document that stated in its concluding paragraph:

“[...]the LTTE has resolved to work in solidarity with the world national liberation movements, socialist states, and international working class parties. We uphold an anti-imperialist policy and therefore we pledge our militant solidarity against western imperialism, neo-colonialists, Zionism, racism and other forces of reaction.”

The LTTE has also been accused of using the same cowardly tactics as Islamic fighters, by recruiting women and children, using civilians as human shields, and attacking civilian targets in Sri Lanka. They are also accused of ethnic cleansing by murdering Muslims and ethnic Sinhalese.

Despite the atrocities committed by the Tigers, the Tamil people remain broadly supportive of the LTTE movement, and continue to fly the red Tiger flag at rallies in Canada and other countries. When the civil war reached its tipping point last year, Tamils in Ottawa and Toronto demonstrated in the thousands, held rallies that caused widespread civic disturbance, and even illegally marched on the Gardiner Expressway in downtown Toronto.

Even if all 276 Tamil refugees are civilians, you can be assured of their loyalty to the LTTE. Their integration into Canadian society will likely not occur, and it will strengthen the expatriate Tamil community here in Canada, and hence the LTTE organization in exile. It would be a grave mistake to allow our sympathies for the Tamil people to enable the designs of another foreign terrorist uprising. Simply put, we can’t afford to get involved in an ethnic squabble we have no business interfering with.

The latest allegations against the Conservative government being circulated in the media are based on unsubstantiated, uncorroborated assertions made by none other than Amir Attaran, law professor at the University of Ottawa. The entire premise to this story is that Mr.Attaran has seen portions of the unredacted documents, so he says, and that within them contain the smoking gun of evidence for complicity in torture by Canada’s government.

It’s already been widely circulated today that Mr.Attaran has strong ties to the Liberal party. During the 2008 federal election, the Conservatives pointed out that the non-partisan professor had donated “at least” $1,000 to the Liberals and NDP since 2006.

While it certainly doesn’t make one a partisan because one donates to a political party, when a man is asserting, without proof, that the government is directly involved in “war crimes”, one needs to assume all potential conflicts of interest.

Although the professor has never been a member of any political party, Mr.Attaran donated to former Liberal leader Stephane Dion, and also to federal NDP MP Dawn Black, whom he met during his work on the Afghan detainee file. He’s also donated to his local MP, NDP MP Paul Dewar. Mr.Dewar, as many will note, is the NDP Foreign Affairs Critic, and has been calling for withdrawal from Afghanistan since the beginning.

He also donated to Michael Ignatieff, who was his boss when he was on faculty at Harvard University. Mr.Attaran was an adjunct lecturer in Public Policy at Harvard University, publishing research as part of the Center for International Development and the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at the John F. Kennedy School of Government. As it turns out, Michael Ignatieff directly intervened in order to save Mr.Attaran’s job.

Amir Attaran has a history of stirring the hornets nest without proof. Whether that’s out of genuine concern for human rights, or to cast aspersions on the Conservative government, we can’t know for sure, since conclusive evidence has never been forthcoming.

Back in February of 2007, he began the whole Afghan detainee allegations when he said he obtained proof that three Afghan prisoners were abused based on government documents obtained under the Access to Information Act. Not only did Mr.Attaran accuse Canadians of complicity in torture, he accused the detainees of being beaten by Canadian soldiers themselves.

A military investigation was launched immediately, as Defence Minister Gordon O’Connor came under attack. Amir Attaran had sent the information on the Military Police Complaints Commission, a civilian-run body that investigates complaints. There was no evidence of any mistreatment at the time of the investigation.

An April 23, 2007 article in the Toronto Star said of the investigation that Mr.Attaran was casting a “serious shadow” on Canada’s human-rights credibility, the latest blow to an oft criticized agreement “signed in the waning days of Paul Martin’s Liberal government.”

But along with Amir Attaran, another professor made his way into the spotlight in 2007, saying that the door had been opened for Canadian troops to be tried as “war criminals” if prisoners had been found to be tortured in Afghan prisons. Michael Byers, professor of political science at University of British Columbia, urged the Harper government at the time to build its own prisoner detention facility.

Michael Byers also has strong ties to the opposition parties in Canada. On July 2, 2008, Mr.Byers announced he was seeking the NDP nomination for the federal riding of Vancouver Centre, a seat held by Liberal Party of Canada incumbent Hedy Fry since 1993. After losing in the election, Mr.Byers then suggested an alliance between the Liberals and NDP, in order to assure that the left wouldn’t split the vote in ridings that the Conservatives could win.

A military police commission finally ended the controversy started by Mr.Attaran, declaring in early October of 2008 that Canadian military police did not abuse three suspected Taliban prisoners in April 2006.

In an online question and answer period from March of 2007 on the Globe and Mail, however, Mr.Attaran clearly had preconceived notions about our performance in the field:

It pains me to see the Canadian Forces reneging on their policy and obligation to uphold the Geneva Conventions, and it appalls me to see my government making excuses — some of them which are now proved untrue — to have stuck with torturers.

Amir Attaran contacted me recently via email, lawyer in tow, over comments I made about him in the National Post, referring to him as “hardly a human rights expert”, because he has a case before the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal to get OHIP to fund his wife’s invitro fertilization.

He threatened me with defamation and asked for a retraction. But what I found very interesting was the email address of Mr.Attaran’s lawyer, whom he had carbon copied in his correspondence with me. It’s none other than Paul Champ, the representative for Abousfian Abdelrazik, and public advocate in the case of Omar Khadr and Maher Arar. Talk about bringing a bazooka to a fair comment fight.

Mr.Champ has been vocal in the media on the Afghan detainee file as well, condemning Rick Hillier publicly for “trivializing torture”. Mr.Champ, representing Amnesty International and the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association, and retired diplomat Gar Pardy, former head of consular affairs, testified in December at an informal hearing of the Afghan detainee committee.

Mr.Champ was questioned by Liberal MP Bob Rae, their Foreign Affairs Critic, who responded:

“In my view, it’s an absurd statement to make and it’s a trivialization of what’s happening in Afghanistan and the absolutely terrible conditions in Afghan prisons. It’s not being frustrated with a prisoner and you hit him with a truncheon or something like that… This is planned, systemic torture. And to compare it to a Canadian prison, I would suggest, is indicating someone is not taking this matter very seriously at all.”

As of this writing, no evidence of Canadian complicity in torture has been provided.

Update

A little backgrounder. Damian Brooks had this right back in 2007.

Amir Attaran expressed “concerns” at a University of Ottawa conference in March of 2006:

“Soldiers risk involuntarily becoming accessory to torture, a war crime.”

This is a sort of cart before the horse thing, since the allegations of torture surfaced after Amir Attaran went looking for evidence of them. Any evidence.