More cover-ups for the higher-ups

My guess would be that, as in most government scandals, the big problem here is not going to be the initial misconduct by some underling, but the subsequent bullshittery by the government in trying to hush the whole thing up.

Obviously, at some stage someone in the chain of command figured out a mistake had been made in handing over prisoners to the Afghans, and obviously they reported it to someone higher up who was eventually told it was not a problem, when it very much was a problem. The question is: Who was the amoral idiot who decided it wasn't a problem to hand prisoners over to be tortured, and how high up in the government ranks are they? Given the steps being taken to squelch this investigation, I think we can assume it was someone fairly senior, possibly Cabinet level.

The government is doing its best to delay things until they can appoint a new commissioner to the Military Police Complaints Tribunal when the current chairman, Peter Tinsley, reaches the end of his term in December. And they will probably manage to succeed and appoint some useful idiot to shut down the inquiry once and for all.

Which will probably lead the whistleblowers to take the case to the public in bigger and better ways. Eventually, even if it has to wait for a change of government, the truth will out, but it isn't going to set anybody free in this case, except in the sense that they will be free from being tied down to a government job anymore.

Half the population is a "fringe group?"

I sorta thought this was being well covered elsewhere, but the more I think about it, the more it pisses me off, so I wanted to put my oar in.

Long story short for those not paying attention: The Stephen Harper government eliminated the federally-funded court challenges program that for years has provided money for people and group initiating test cases to challenge federal laws and policies that violate their constitutional rights to equal treatment. Quoth the prime ministerial douchebag the other day ""Instead of subsidizing court challenges, as the previous government was doing, subsidizing lawyers to bring forth court challenges by left-wing fringe groups ..."

Those left-wing fringe groups have included people insisting on equal rights for women, the disabled, gays and lesbians, the aged, first nations, francophones living outside Quebec --- you know, people who aren't pudgy, middle-aged, anglophone, white guys from Calgary.

As a pudgy, anglophone white guy who is newly middle-aged (Hey, at least I'm not from Calgary - not that there is anything wrong with that) I feel a special responsibility to be pissed off by remarks like this. Just because Steve and his fellow ReformAllianceConservative party members are a bunch of ignorant nitwits, doesn't mean all of us middle aged white guys are assholes. It's bad enough that Steverino has ruined paunch-hiding sweater vests and ten-dollar haircuts for us for all time, but this considerably more serious.

The court challenges program was a vital part of Canadian democracy. It ensured that anyone and everyone could fight for their rights in court, not just rich people who could afford lawyers. To argue that anyone who wants to fight for their rights in court is somehow part of the "left wing fringe" is offensive crap to start with. When you add to that the notion that the principle users of the program have been women--half the population--and marginalized groups such as homosexuals and native Canadians, it becomes extremely offensive crap. The idea that women, or anyone else, who want to be treated equally under federal law are somehow a "left-wing fringe group" shows contempt for women, the law, the constitution and pretty much anyone with a brain in their head. Equal treatment should not be a left-right issue, it is a matter of human rights. If Stephen Harper wants to argue that conservatives don't care about human rights or equality, well okay, be my guest -- that sounds like a real vote-getter that can only enhance your reputation as total douchebag champion of conservative family values.

Now, as I said, I'm late to the party on this one, but Alison over at Creekside, one of my fellow ink-stained wretches on the good ship Galloping Beaver, was quick to pick up the rope and start hauling on the sail first set by Antonia Zerbisias, a bunch of others have started hauling too. That sail seems to have caught the wind and the ship is gathering speed.

So screw you Stephen Harper, this is one fringe group I can happily support.

No good deed goes unpunished

Yeah, this should be entertaining when and if it gets to court.
The short version of events is this: Sudanese Abousfian Abdelrazik fled civil war in his home country and was granted refugee status in Canada in 1990. He became a citizen in 1995. Six years ago he flew to Sudan to visit his ailing mother and was arrested at the request of the CSIS and U.S. security services who suspected him of links to Al-Qaida, imprisoned and tortured and abandoned by the Canadian government. As with Mahr Arar, it appears that they had the wrong man. Neither the Sudanese or our own RCMP have been able to build any kind of case against the man, but for the last six years he's been living in the exercise room of the Canadian embassy in Sudan because his Canadian passport has expired and the government refused to give him a new one until he bought a plane ticket home. He cannot legally work in Sudan and because he is still on a terrorist watch list, anyone who gives him money is considered to have aided a terrorist. 115 Canadians -- many of them bloggers -- have thumbed their nose at the government and ponied up the cash to fly their fellow citizen home.

Canada used to occupy the high ground on issues of human rights. Not anymore.

If the government had any shame at all, this would not have been necessary. But of course if the government and CSIS had any shame at all it would never have happened in the first place.

What next, will lawyers start making sense?

Jason Kenney: liar or moron?
The Toronto Star does it right and calls bullshit on Conservative Rottweiller Jason Kenney for using a widely discredited piece of propaganda as if it were the gospel truth.

"In a terse exchange, Kenney asked him if this meant he equated Canada's inaction with "Al Qaeda strapping up a 14-year-old girl with Down's syndrome and sending her into a pet market to be remotely detonated." Kenney was referring to an erroneous story about unwitting bombers in Iraq - which military officials later retracted when it was revealed the bombers were adults and did not have Down's syndrome."

Jason Kenney: Mendacious moron, prevaricating prick or just an ignorant, loudmothed jackass who doesn't know what he's talking about? We report, you decide.
What a novel concept - a politician talks out his ass and the media actually points out that he is talking out his ass. I could get used that.

The issue in question that Kenney is trying to distract from is Liberal Senator Romeo Dallaire's comment that Canada's Gnu Gummint should maybe be trying to do something about the plight of Omar Khadr, the 21-year-old who went to Guantanamo Bay intead of high school and college after he was shot and captured in Afghanistan at age 15 by U.S. Special Forces during a raid on Taliban encampment. He is alleged to have thrown a grenade that killed a US soldier, for which the US is charging him with a war crime.

Kady O'Malley was there for the subcommittee hearing in which Dallaire pointed out the obvious, that Khadr's case has become a political hot potato that has more to do with the US government not wanting to admit it is breaking the law than it does with Khadr's alleged war crime.

The National Post quotes the exhange at the parliamentary subcommitte on human rights:

"In panicking, [the United States] is doing exactly what the extremists and terrorists are doing. They don't want to play by the rules," testified Mr. Dallaire.

So naturally Jason "Fathead" Kenney, like many a factually-challenged blogging tory, grabs the wrong end of the false equivency stick and immediately jumps to the defence of the poor, helpless, U.S. military-industrial-national security apparatus and decides to bring Al-Quaida in the whole thing:

"Is it your testimony that al-Qaeda strapping up a 14-year-old girl with Down's syndrome and sending her into a pet market to be remotely detonated is the moral equivalent to Canada's not making extraordinary political efforts for a transfer of Omar Khadr to this country? Is that your position?" Mr. Kenney asked.
"If you want a black and white, absolutely," replied Mr. Dallaire. "You're either with the law or not with the law.
"My position is that the minute you start playing with human rights, with conventions, with civil liberties, in order to say that you're doing it to protect yourself and you are going against the fundamentals of those rights and conventions, you are no better than the guy who doesn't believe in them at all."

Interestingly, the hacks atthe National Post headline their story "Dallaire likens U. S., Canada to al-Qaeda" when it was Kenney that brought up Al-Qaeda, not Dallaire. Like you needed further proof that the National Post is lame.

Dallaire amplified his remarks further today (from the Toronto Star story)

"Suffice it to say that I in no way intended to equate Canadian or U.S. authorities with the terrorist organization Al Qaeda," Dallaire wrote today. "But we cannot avoid the point that if we violate international law in our pursuit of the war on terror, we risk reducing ourselves, collectively, to the same level as those we oppose.
"Our acquiescence with his continued incarceration and prosecution puts in question Canada's standing as a nation that respects global human rights and international law."

Absolutely goddamn 100 percent correct.

Pierre Pollivere also shows he's more interested in protecting George W. Bush's reputation than protecting the human rights of a Canadian child