Harper Fucks It Up Again ...

In the CBC report about General Natynczyk changing his story, stephen harper madly attempts to spin the significance of this incident into something completely irrelevant:

But Prime Minister Stephen Harper said the facts confirm what the government has been saying, that when the Canadian Forces see substantive evidence of any case of abuse, they have taken corrective action.

"That’s what they did in this case. And frankly, Gen. Natynczyk today, correcting the record on a particular point, indicates once again that the Canadian Forces — from the highest level down to the man in the trenches — act with the highest integrity at all times," Harper said.

The question (as posed by your moronic government) has been that there has not been a single credible instance of the Canadian government being aware of any of our prisoners having been tortured by the Afghan security forces. (Aside from the allegedly unreliable, forgetful Richard Colvin and his "second-hand accounts.")

Let's not forget this cryptic line from the field report:

We then photographed the individual prior to handing him over, to ensure that if the ANP did assault him, as has happened in the past, we would have a visual record of his condition.

That's why Natynzcyk tried to pretend that we hadn't actually "detained" that suspect (as the official written report claims) but that we'd only questioned that person and then let them go, whereupon the CF on the ground saw the individual caught by the Afghan government officials and beaten. Because MacKay was saying that we never handed over a detainee who was then subsequently abused. But, methinks the CF people who wrote those reports and swore to their accuracy were incensed when their work was dismissed as unreliable and meaningless and they bit back.

Now that MacKay can be shown to have known about a credible instance of prisoner abuse (or that it can now be argued that he should have known) there is no reason for him to stay in office.

I don't know why harper didn't go for the lesser crime of simply destroying incriminating documents, rather than expose his whole government to war crimes charges, but it's pretty clear that harper and company are in over their heads. They need a rest.

The prison system that they intended to construct for other felons is going to be a lot harsher than they'd like, I'm sure, but they can still get rehabilitated, learn a trade, and emerge to become productive members of society.