As one who has actually been to Afghanistan and seen how the military cares for and treats detainees, it’s a little difficult to swallow the news that the International Criminal Court could investigate Canada for so-called war crimes. I’m not sure what that would accomplish, but it certainly would do nothing to help with the main problem in the country: the insurgency.
I’m unsure as to how or why anybody believes that Canada’s role in Afghanistan is anything more than a humanitarian mission buttressed by security. We’re in the country to provide stabilization for the democratically elected (thought admittedly corrupt and fraudulent) government with whom we have specific agreements and rules we must follow.
In providing security to Afghans we are not allowed to hold Afghan nationals for more than 96 hours in our custody, though at the time of the allegations (pre-2007) this was 72 or 48 hours.
It doesn’t seem reasonable to me to expect a foreign military with finite resources to ensure absolute humanitarian oversight of detainees after they’ve been handed over to the Afghan government. That’s like expecting a police officer in Canada to ensure proper oversight of a prisoner he has arrested and brought to justice. Is a police officer morally culpable if a prisoner is raped in prison?
The answer in Afghanistan appears to be yes, but only if the arresting party knew that the prisoner would be likely to be exposed to harm. Well, in Canada we know that many prisoners are likely to be exposed to violence and rape in prison as a matter of routine consequence. So, again, who is responsible in a moral sense? The system allowing the rape and violence? Or the police officer doing his job?
Even worse, most Canadians are not aware that the charges facing us are based upon the 2005 agreement signed by Prime Minister Paul Martin and General Rick Hillier with the Afghan government, which did not include the sort of oversight that exists in the revamped 2007 agreement. The system now is very clean and involves oversight from third party humanitarian agencies, in particular the International Red Cross, who has said it presently has no issues with Canada or any other NATO member.
But what bothers me the most is we are seeing torture through a very narrow prism of self-interest. Canadians only seem to be interested in the kind of torture taking place in which Canada may have had an indirect hand, but not torture in the broader context and problem that it is in Central Asia. The facts remain and are borne out in many studies, that although torture is ubiquitous in Central Asia, it has been significantly reduced since the fall of the Taliban, and detainees captured by NATO enjoy perhaps the highest exemptions from mistreatment of any Afghan citizen.
According to a 2009 International Red Cross Survey, those Afghans who report having been tortured has dropped to 29 per cent from 43 per cent in 1999 during the Taliban rule. That one in three Afghans have still reported being tortured in some manner is disturbing, but it does provide a more contextual analysis than the cherry-picking of detainees who went through Canadian custody.
The Canadian military is also relatively savvy to what irks the population back home, which is why it now usually brings along ANA soldiers or ANP police who can take detainees directly into custody without ever having changed hands from Canadian to Afghan authority. In this manner, because Canadians are only interested in torture if it occurs to detainees who went through our control, our military can never be “complicit” in torture. Never mind if torture occurs independently of Canadian involvement.
What is more perverse than any of this is the fact that Canada would be investigated for third-party complicity in war crimes, when there’s a foe out there that has little qualms about murdering women and children indiscriminately. It’s difficult to bring to trial an insurgent army that has signed no international agreements and abides by no rules of international law.
There’s a reason why Canada has lost its appetite for humanitarian work in Afghanistan and it’s because we have focused so much on how well the Taliban have been treated in Afghan custody that we’ve lost sight of the bigger picture. Public morale has been sapped by such gross distortions of our work over there that at this point it makes little sense to try explaining or justifying it any more.
Our military has a job to do and it will continue to do it in the same professional manner it has since the beginning, until it is called back home. What the International Criminal Court rules is of little consequence to anyone.
[...] Adrian MacNair is [...]
First, the fact that this issue has become partisan for some is truly lamentable. It deserves better.
I have no doubt that our military strives to perform its duties to the best of its ability, and with compassion for the people it encounters, everywhere it has a presence. That said, there is no room for faith in this arrangement. Canada has a duty to constantly uphold our very high standards and respond seriously to allegations of military impropriety.
The ongoing struggle for peace in Afghanistan is not relevant to this discussion. The limits to acceptable conduct in war are purposefully detached from the lawful reasons for war. The war convention does not allow combatants the right to diminish their responsibilities so that they can ‘win’. There are parts of the convention that relate to proportionality of force but where it is stated that particular actions are forbidden, they are forbidden completely. As such, the conduct and morality of our foe is also not relevant to this issue.
Military humanitarian intervention is a relatively new frontier for the international world, and is incredibly complicated for both moral and practical reasons. I have an enormous amount of sympathy for those with the responsibility of organizing our forces. However, those leaders are also expected to be fully aware of the war convention and abide by it. If they want to make the claim that they intentionally ignored the convention for practical reasons, they are entitled to do so, but the arguments should be presented in court and not in the circle of public opinion.
I do not particularly like the analogy between our military and our police. These are very different forces with very different purposes, training and styles of operation. Furthermore, the police force and government (on varying levels) in Canada is responsible for the rights of prisoners in Canada. The reason the convention seems inappropriate in Afghanistan is precisely because military humanitarian intervention of the type seen in Afghanistan is new and unusual. The detaining force is responsible for the treatment of the prisoners, nonetheless, and will remain so until the convention is changed (if ever).
I do not believe that Canadians are ambivalent to the suffering of people in other countries. The reason this is so important is because we are accused with being responsible for the illegal suffering of a particular group of people. I also disagree with the idea that the new policy that avoids prisoner transfers has to do with fear of irking the Canadian population. It has to do with complying with the law, even though it admittedly does nothing to ensure the humane treatment of the prisoners. I am confident most Canadians would like to see actions that reduce suffering around the world, but complying with the war convention is not optional.
Something key missing from this post is that a Canadian court can investigate, precluding ICC involvement (which isn’t all that likely anyway).
I don’t think the detainee issue is largely responsible for Canada’s lost appetite for military humanitarian intervention. To be honest, I’m not sure if there was much appetite to begin with. In any case, if morale has been sapped by “gross distortions of our work”, the obvious remedy would be to confront the allegations openly and put our minds to rest. If it is true that crimes were committed, I don’t see why the Canadian people shouldn’t know about it.
What is totally unacceptable is the claim that we should control how prisoners are treated by the Afghan authorities, when we are not an occupying force. Imagine the howls should we act an though we were an occupying force. Whether our troops should be there is a different argument, but to suggest that we must dictate to the Afghans how to treat their prisoners when it is not a Canadian colony is ridiculous.
“We’re in the country to provide stabilization for the democratically elected (thought admittedly corrupt and fraudulent) government with whom we have specific agreements and rules we must follow.”
Er…that would be the election where there was massive and obvious electoral fraud, right? I’ll agree it was elected, the “democratic” is doubtful at best.
“when we are not an occupying force”
Here’s a clue for you, Alain. When our own CDS describes the local population as “truck farmers by day, Taliban by night”, and a journalist (if I can stretch that term to include Adrian) has to be led by the hand and have his every move controlled for “security reasons”, we’re an occupying force. Caling a skunk a cat doesn’t help the smell any.
We are at war with a enemy that has no rules , regulations or qualms about being ruthless to achieve their goals. Our objective is to win by showing them a alternative to the Taliban with kindness , democratic carrots and promises. This was tried in Viet Nam and was a dismal failure because the populace knew that the invaders would leave eventually and they would be at the mercy of the winner. They also know that every invader eventually left with their tail between their legs. We are not there as peacekeepers. We are there to win. We will never win unless we are prepared to turn the country into a parking lot and throw the western rule books on war into the gargage can. This is unacceptable in our culture. We measure a war with time frames , lives lost and dollars. They measure the war with no time frames, no fear of dying and future generations to carry on the fight against the “infidels”. We try to bring them democracy which they did not ask for and do not want. They see our lifestyle as a perversion with equal rights for woman, supporting Israel, gay marriage, Christianity, no sharia law, alcohol and many other ideals that make us the spawn of the devil. We are completely out of our element there and will be just another invader to leave. And the country will revert back to the 51 warlords who will go back to growing poppies for drugs and stash their weapons until the next invader shows up.
Gen.Patton had it right. You do not win wars by being nice. You crush them with overwhelming force or you will lose because time is on their side.
They see our treatment of prisoners as just another weakness. They torture and behead prisoners.
Alain is absolutely right. What happens to the prisoners is not our concern once we hand them over to the Afghan authorities. Best move we can still make is just to get the hell out of there. As I’ve stated in other posts, even if we win……what have we won??.