Sunday, December 13, 2009

The Wit and Wisdom of Damian Brooks

Canadian Cynic links to it here.


Damian attempts to answer his own imitation of what us peaceniks and human rights fanatics are saying:

"This just proves that we're not doing any good over there and should pull out immediately."

Well, so much for your crocodile tears on the plight of Afghan detainees. Do you honestly think Afghans will be more humanely treated by their jailors if we pull out?

As opposed to your own crocodile tears for the people of Afghanistan? It beggars belief that someone who wants keep the issue of how our prisoners were treated swept under the rug presumes to lecture others on their hypocrisy. It's your team that handed Afghans willy-nilly over to the torturers. It's your team that made it impossible for the ICRC to monitor what happened to our prisoners. It's your team that spends 9/10ths of the money in Afghanistan on the military and the other 1/1oth goes who knows where due to corruption and due to foreign contractors taking most of the aid money out of the country. If some Canadians are by now heartily sick of our adventure over there, that doesn't mean that their concern for the people of Afghanistan is less than that of somebody who wants to cover-up our complicity in the torture of Afghans. (To even have to say that is absurd!)


It's also the case that the reason this is dragging out so long with all of this parliamentary drama is because the harpercon government won't come clean with the goddamned information we're asking for.

Damian, toots, ... if there's nothing to this, ... if this can all be adequately explained, then by all means, tell your hero stephen harper to release the documents already!

Or, as Canadian Cynic put it:

But the best part is when Damian bitches and whines about all that nasty "misinformation." A good point, Damian. And you know how we might possibly solve that problem? By making public all of the unedited and unredacted documents folks are asking for.

It's a wild and crazy idea, Damian, but it would seem that the cure for misinformation is, well, actual information, so I look forward to Damian's unconditional demand for the release of all of those documents so we can damned well get to the bottom of this, once and for all.


By now it seems obvious to me that the information is toxic for the government and dead-end adherents to "the mission." That's why they're running scared.

"Colvin's just an honest whistleblower, and doesn't deserve to have his reputation smeared like this."

The government has certainly gone out of it's way to appear thuggish with Colvin. Some of the criticism of him has been unprofessional at best. It has certainly been ill-advised. Colvin supports the mission:

I volunteered to go to Afghanistan. Canada’s objectives are noble: to help bring peace, prosperity and hope to Afghans after 30 years of war and the repressions of the Taliban.

And although he wasn't the first to make these arguments, he does present two of the only cogent arguments against the former Canadian detainee policy that I've seen: that if proven deficient, it could expose Canadian soldiers to war crimes prosecution; and that it undermines our campaign for the trust of the Afghan people. I think the seriousness of both of those arguments is overstated, but they're the best ones out there and deserve to be addressed.

Wow. The seriousness of exposing Canadian soldiers to war crimes prosecution is overstated? How so? You're either exposed to war crimes prosecution or you aren't. And you're either guilty of war crimes or you aren't. And knowing the harpercon government, don't for a second think they're not going to try to make some low-level grunts take the heat for this if it comes to having to hang somebody out to dry. That's how these gutless, militaristic hypocrites operate.

And Damian, sweety? When the facts on the ground show you to have been LOSING for EIGHT FUCKING YEARS you don't get to be the one who decides what's credible and what isn't. When it comes to deciding whether the CF have the trust of the Afghan people or not I rather think that the increasing size of the insurgency, the increasing amount of area being taken over by the insurgency, the increasingly depressing position of the west and its allies, says much more than your self-satisfied drivel ever will.

2 comments:

no_blah_blah_blah said...

It's always a "partisan issue" when the going gets tough...

Damian Brooks has forgotten three things:

1) Canadian troops were detaining a lot of people, to the point where a significant fraction of the detainees were innocent. Sure, the troops were probably assuming that the Afghan officials would separate the innocent from the real suspects. Too bad the Afghan officials turned to torture so readily...

2) What are the chances of the International Criminal Court going after individual rank-and-file soldiers for war crimes? Zero, because it is too hard to track everything that everyone did. The only ones at risk of prosecution are Harper, a few cabinet ministers, and possibly a few generals. (Besides, isn't it convention for those in charge to be held responsible?)

3) The departure of Canadian troops will not help, but the presence of Canadian troops will not help either. Withdrawing Canadian troops will reduce the risk to their lives and reduce the waste of money and equipment necessary to support their deployment.

Furthermore, discontent and hatred of NATO is growing in Afghanistan due to collateral damage and civilian casualties. Withdrawing Canadian troops will reduce the risk of Canada being a target of someone seeking revenge in the future.

(Of course, if Canada was not in Afghanistan in the first place, Canada would have been even less likely to be a target. No point in crying over spilled milk, though...)

thwap said...

That's true. There are more options than "keep killing and dying for a discredited puppet government" and "leave them to their fate."

Canada could start spending the money it should have been spending almost a decade ago, if the perpetrators of this "mission" had been at all serious about rebuilding that country.