OTTAWA — Opposition MPs are being “naive to the extreme” to expect the government to release uncensored documents about the Canadian Forces capture and transfer of suspects in Afghanistan, trade minister Stockwell Day said Friday.
Mr. Day vigorously defended the Conservative government’s stance on withholding information on military security grounds security in the wake of a 145-143 vote in the House of Commons Thursday on document censorship.
That vote, pitting the three opposition parties against the government, instructed the release to a parliamentary committee of thousands of uncensored document pages related to the Afghan detainees affair.
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Updates:
4:48 pm EST, December 11th, 2009 — Detainee issue on ice for holidays
If you were in Kandahar on orders of the Canadian government, how would you feel about Iffy and his ignoramuses getting access to secrets that could get you killed? I don’t trust Iffy even to know what sort of information might be of use to the taliban. Even if he did, I am not sure he could resist disclosing information he knew might put our troops at risk if he thought it would advance his agenda. As for taliban Jack; I would be surprised if he doesn’t have enemy agents mining information in his organization. I hear an abundance of criticism but I have yet to hear anyone suggest what might have been proper under the existing circumstances.
I really doubt that the e-mails contain anything remotely connected to national security. That label can be applied, and has been by previous governments in Canada, to block earlier requests for other documents.
I think Day is “naive to the extreme” (where do these cabinet ministers learn English?) if he thinks people are convinced by that argument.
Well, I’m glad that you doubt it. I’ll call Mr. Day right away and tell him that National Security or to put it in a more grass roots position, the Canadian troops and Afghani troops and translators, Cops and prison officials don’t mind at all that the information on how and who handled prisoners, when and why, should be made public.
Yanking some critter out of a fight, locking him down for a week or two and then letting him go does wonders for the enemie’s confidence in their people. Yep, good idea to allow the enemy to examine exactly what we’re doing.
I’ll get right on that.
Undoubtedly some of the documents that the opposition wants access to contain military intelligence. That means these documents are likely highly classified. That means that the intelligence can only be divulged on a “need to know” basis, that is, only if it is directly pertinent to the matter at hand. The opposition, especially the Liberals, are well aware of this. The opposition is demanding that the government circumvent it’s own security policies. This is patently irresponsible. The opposition could simply have accepted the blacked-out documents and argued for more disclosure on a case by case basis. But, once again, it’s not about doing what’s right and proper, it’s about making the Conservative government look bad. So this amounts to the the opposition compromising the security of Canada on behalf of a terrorist who got whacked a few times by a shoe (Good thing it wasn’t a wooden spoon otherwise we’d have the Social Services in there too) simply to gain some browny points with the electorate.
I have my doubts about the Conservatives with respect to Copenhagen and I also reject the concept of voting for the “lesser evil” since it means you’re still voting for evil, but if it means that these psychotic Progressives ever get near the reigns of power again which would inevitably mean a return to the inexorable march towards totalitarianism through the UN, I’ll be parking my vote with the Conservatives until Liberty becomes the new propaganda.
Corrupt Liberals want to risk lives, Canadian and Afghan, to score a few political points.
I recall portions of bodies hanging from a bridge in Falluga(sp?), Iraq a few years ago. I think this is an example of what those forsaken barbarians in the region do to their detainees, no?
Yeah! And they seem to be lacking a term for collateral damage too, don’ they. The mere fact that they do not recognize their errors with a term for same allows them to do what they want with the girls that try to attend schools, right Libs? Right Jacko?
Barbarians – all. (The term includes their friends and supporters!)
Canada’s military has nothing to appologize for.
Is it not hypocritical for the Liberals to be demanding full disclosure of classified defense documents based on alleged torture but not to demand full disclosure of all publicly funded climate science in the wake of Climategate? Is it their contention that human rights are only for alleged terrorists but not for those of us about to be enslaved to third world failed cultures?
Again, a blatant example of the progressive psychosis.
Good point JohnDoe.
They are not in uniform. There should be no prisoners. Unless we believe they have something to tell us that is worthwhile, shoot them on sight. Once we’ve milked them for all they are worth, feed them pork for a year while living in a cage with dogs and pigs. There is no way they should be fit for their 72 virgins. After that year, wrap them in a raw pigskin and set them out in the sun to dry. If we made this our policy and started importing pigs into the region for that purpose, I think the cases where these actions would be called for would dramatically decline in number.
A little harsh? Perhaps, but it makes a lot more sense than persecuting our guys because some guy was spanked with a shoe.
It seems a shame that over 130 Canadians have died trying to bring Afghanistan out of the dark ages and we see Opposition more worried about “alleged” prisoner abuse than the mission over there. Mr. Layton is not called Taliban Jack because it sounds nice.
By the way, has anyone in this story actually seen the prisoners abused?
It would be nice if we could bring Afghanistan out of the dark ages,possibly we can’t win without doing so, but let us not forget why we went there: To deny our enemy a safe place to train, to come here and kill us.