Photo: Combat Camera, Canadian Forces
The Canadian Press has released what will surely add to the brushfire burning over the allegations of Canadian complicity, at times changing to direct involvement, in alleged torture of alleged Taliban detainees. But as though the somehow sinister speculation that JTF-2 has been involved in apprehending “high-value” targets, an oft-repeated term found only in testimony from low-ranking diplomat Richard Colvin, wasn’t enough, now we’re told that CSIS has been playing a “crucial role” as interrogators of a “vast swath” of captured Taliban fighters.
What’s most interesting about these articles of late, beginning with Professor Amir Attaran’s, and moving on down the line to this latest one, isn’t what is being written. It’s what is not being written.
What exactly is a “vast swath” of Taliban fighters supposed to look like? As with the supposed torture, and the supposed involvement of shadowy JTF-2 special forces, we’re supposed to use our imagination. I suppose.
According to the Canadian Press, CSIS began working with military police intelligence officers in Kandahar as the war “spiralled” out of control in 2006. This information comes from heavily redacted witness transcripts filed with the Military Police Complaints Commission.
The involvement of CSIS adds a new dimension to the controversy, the Canadian Press writes, surrounding the handling and alleged torture of prisoners. So to recap, the involvement of Canadian intelligence officials, unbeknownst until now, somehow compounds the unproven allegations of special forces involvement in apprehending unproven “high-value targets”, who were alleged to have been tortured. But this can’t be proven either.
The document obtained by the Canadian Press states that Canadian Military police weren’t involved in the interviewing or interrogation of detainees. That would have been left to some other trade [meaning a military profession other than MP] that had special training in interrogation. Unnamed “sources” in the article speculate that the redacted versions refer to CSIS.
Milblogger BruceR doesn’t seem to understand what the big deal of CSIS involvement is. If anything, he writes, the allegations of military commanders putting the orderly transfer of detainees ahead of intel-gathering seems more worthy of pursuit. All the Globe article seems to say is that military police aren’t trained to interrogate, and that Canadian Forces weren’t trained to interrogate either.
But throwing a wrench into the idea of CSIS interrogating “vast swaths” of Talib fighters is the 72-hour rule that was in place in 2007. All detainees were of very limited intelligence value at the time, since ISAF was obliged to turn over captured detainees to Afghan authorities within 72 hours. With a such a short time to get any information, the apprehension of fighters was more of a catch and release program than anything else.
As Bruce writes, during his time serving in Kandahar, most Taliban were not even “subject to even our initial questioning.” Most were captured in the field by the Afghan police or NDS [National Directorate of Security, like CSIS] which towed along with Canadian troops. Even the idea of outsourcing interrogation [or torture] to Afghans is flawed, since outsourcing the intel would imply we could get it back, and NDS is as likely to share information with other nations as any intelligence agency would be [read: little to none].
The Canadian Press article observes, without a hint of irony, that the revelations of CSIS being involved in interrogation or torture are also unusual, since CSIS would have no specialized knowledge of doing so either. So what this article has really done is paint a picture that neither outsourcing nor internalizing advanced interrogation techniques is very likely to have occurred under Canadian ISAF command.
As of the time of this writing, no government documents, declassified or otherwise, has suggested CSIS has done anything wrong or illegal in Afghanistan. Which means that, other than speculation, we’re back at square one.
Update
The Libs are buying this hook, line, and sinker. They think Amir Attaran’s assertions are unimpeachable.
