Royal Canadian Dragoons, Bravo Squadron, Corporal Judd Walsh mans the front gate of Patrol Base Marianne using a 50 caliber machine gun attached to a Light Armoured Vehicle (LAV). Photo credit: Master Corporal Matthew McGregor

Despite the myriad sources of information from which to draw in order to write a column that has a grain of truth to it, it would appear that the usual suspects from the usual media sources insist on getting it wrong. You can hardly blame them. Well, actually you can, but it will hardly help. At this point, people are merely going to believe what they want to believe, and truth be damned. When it comes to Afghanistan, has it ever been any different?

Thomas Walkom, in particular, seems to get it wrong the most frequently. This rather pathetic self-flagellation of Canadians throwing their hands up in the air and making excuses that nothing else could have been done, is as depressing as their inability to get basic facts correct. Journalists are treating this fluid battle with ever-changing dynamics as something static, as though everybody has morphed into Francis Fukuyama, mourning the end of history. Pakistan capturing half the Taliban leadership in the past month? Barely a whisper.

It’s certainly easier to report on a story if you have a prearranged view on what’s actually happening. The evolution of the detainee story is a prime example. What began as little more than hearsay from Amir Attaran in the CBC, became a report in the Canadian Press, which became a fact in the minds of the official opposition in the House of Commons, as Jack Layton and Ujjal Dosanjh asked ridiculous questions about secret spies, torture, and rendition. The latter word, as I mentioned before, being technically incorrect by definition alone.

The question is, what would make the critics of the treatment of captured detainees happy? It’s as though people actually expect that we can fight a battle against the Taliban, who abide by no rules of warfare, wear no uniforms, and respect no international laws, without ever making a mistake. It’s already disturbing enough that people seem more concerned about the treatment of men who are fighting for a way of life considered barbaric by just about everybody who isn’t an Islamic Fundamentalist, than they are for the women or children used as human meat shields in the Taliban quest to outlast our resolve. But to ignore these crimes, while sifting through every prison, poring through every report, to attempt to find one instance of injustice that might undermine our moral cause, is quite simply disgusting.

As Bruce writes on his blog:

So if we accept that the Afghan justice system was or is in no state to receive our detainees in anything like a just or efficient fashion, we are certainly justified in looking around for alternatives. The alternative the Americans came up with was American-run detention in Bagram, and we can see how well that’s worked out for them. I suppose a sort of Timurid approach of refusing to take any prisoners at all, ever, could be an option: not sure how well that would go over at home, though. Not really many other alternatives than those, though. Take them home in our kit bags? Soylent Green? What?

Good questions. What would make people happy? Take no prisoners? Inhuman. Hand prisoners over to their own legal authority? Inhumane. Build our own prisons? Well, then you get the complaints that it’s too expensive, or it’s an extra-judicial gulag, or it’s a sign of colonialism. And before long you can be sure Amir Attaran would find a document which proved that a detainee slipped in the shower and cut himself, and we’d be back in permanent scandal mode anyway.

The truth is that there’s probably nothing good enough for the critics of the Afghan war. Trying to appease people who are already dealing in bad faith is pointless. Trying to sanitize warfare is a comfortable illusion of a generation of Canadians who have been raised to believe that our military exists to “keep the peace”. They would be happy if we were deployed to sit in Kandahar Air Field with blue helmets and United Nations’ flags signifying the 1% of the province officially safe from the reach of the Taliban. That way, when the Taliban is massacring people 100 metres from the Air Field, we can cite our rules of engagement directive of non-interference, and never get our hands dirty. Sure, people will die. But at least we won’t run the risk of being the ones who handed over the Taliban fighter that wound up falling down in the shower.

Afghan National Army soldiers. Photo credit: Master Corporal Robert Bottrill, Canadian Forces

The opposition attacked the federal Conservative government over Afghan detainees in Question Period again today, with the NDP picking up on the word “rendition” that had been used by federal MP for Vancouver South, Ujjal Dosanjh, the day before. The increasingly exaggerated language is based almost solely on the recent hornets nest stirred up by University of Ottawa Professor Amir Attaran, who inexplicably claims he has seen unredacted documents that show that Canadian intelligence officers ordered high-value targets to be tortured in Afghan prisons.

Following that CBC article was an rather vague report by the Canadian Press that CSIS has been used in some unknown, undeclared capacity in Afghanistan. But that doesn’t preclude the report from speculating about a number of things, such as the idea that CSIS has been playing a “crucial role” as interrogators of a “vast swath” of captured Taliban fighters. There’s no evidence to suggest this is true.

Picking up on these two unsubstantiated pieces of hearsay journalism, Ujjal Dosanjh spoke in the House of Commons on Monday:

“Mr. Speaker, the CBC and the Canadian Press have both reported that the government ordered the transfer of detainees to the notorious Afghan NDS for the purposes of extracting additional information.

We are not questioning the actions of our troops, as the Prime Minister continues to say, we are questioning the actions of the government.

Did the government conduct a deliberate policy of rendition, the outsourcing of interrogation and torture of Afghan detainees for extracting additional information?”

Well, transferring detainees to the NDS is hardly as surprising as Mr.Dosanjh makes it sounds. The Afghan NDS, whether the Liberal member thinks it is notorious being largely irrelevant, frequently rode along with Canadian Forces and joint task force operations, taking control of detainees on site. In fact, Afghan Police and NDS took custody of suspected Taliban fighters with no questions asked by Canadian Forces, and often without any documentation of the so-called transfer.

After the Prime Minister gave an answer that more or less insinuated the previous Liberal transfer policy was to blame for whatever problems the Liberals are looking for, Mr.Dosanjh asked again:

“Mr. Speaker, did the government conduct the policy of rendition? Each week media are reporting more troubling information. None of this information so far has helped the government’s claims.

Allegations as serious as rendition require more than just a vetting of the documents. They require a full and transparent public inquiry to look at all the facts.

Will the government do the right thing and call a public inquiry?”

The “information” referred to by Mr.Dosanjh is unsubstantiated and uncorroborated speculation in newspapers based upon claims made by a single University Professor and the extrapolation of torture from several unrelated events. But further to the point here, how exactly does one “rendition” an Afghan from his own country into the custody of his own police force? That word doesn’t quite make any sense in this context. When the police in Canada pull a gang member in for questioning, there isn’t any question that he’s been “renditioned”.

The main problem with the current theory being flogged by the Liberals and NDP right now, which is that CSIS has been acquiring “high-value targets” [based on words taken out of context by Richard Colvin] with the assistance of JTF-2 special forces [also unconfirmed], has been “outsourcing” interrogation to the Afghan intelligence services for the purposes of gleaning intel for NATO, is that there’s no logical explanation for it.

For one thing, the vast majority of detainees went directly to Afghan police, and hence NDS interrogation, anyway. For another, there was never any “vast swaths” of captured detainees to begin with. This concept that Canadian Forces captures dozens of Taliban fighters a day is something largely fabricated by an imaginative mind. Then there was the 72-hour rule for ISAF, which meant that all NATO players, like Canada, were required to turn over Afghan detainees to the proper authorities within 72 hours, or let them go.

The final red flag is the idea that CSIS would be working with the NDS in any capacity that would personally benefit Canada’s intelligence agency. There’s no reason for the Afghan intelligence agency to interrogate anyone for the benefit of Canada, nor that CSIS would get any information extracted from a detainee back from NDS.

Given the recent inventions of torture, rendition, and secret spies, you have to wonder what the opposition is going to come up with tomorrow. It kind of makes you want to tune in to Question Period and find out, doesn’t it?