Is Stephane Dion Out to Lunch?

[riggermade]

I was watching the news this evening and they were reporting on the abuse of Afghan prisnors in Afghan jails.  Apparently there were three solutions 1. Don't take prisoners, 2. Start a POW camp and3. apperently suggested by Dion to bring these people to Canada.
Now correct me if I am wrong but if they are captured it seems to me they are trying to kill Canadian soldiers and he wants to bring them to Canada and do what with them, let them live on the Government dole and ultimately taxpayers paying to look after somebody trying to kill our soldiers.
I think the Liberal Party should give their heads a shake and censor Dion before he speaks

 

[gaspasser]

Not a good idea! If he shakes his head, the rocks will fall out.
I can't believe that even the Liberals would suggest such an out to lunch idea.  I'm upset to see that that story has made it's way into the media again.  Wasn't that the reason O'Connor went over to A'stan about three weeks ago? 
Someone should rein in that horse... :deadhorse:
My 0.02
Regards, BYTD

 

[GAP]

Couple of points:

Was there not just a thread admonishing us to be kinder and gentler to liberals as they bruise easily???

Dion, as a leader, is embarrassing.  I have no great love for the Liberal party, but I hate to see them looking totally silly, that's for the NDP.

Let's all remember that if you ask prisoners if everything was alright, you are going to get some colorful stories. Wander down to the local goal/pen and try it.

Aside from that, why would we be interested in taking care of Afghan citizens when they already have a government? Maybe one of the solutions is what was suggested by the Afghan Ambassador....transfer them to Kabul and their facilities.

 

[Michael OLeary]

Review this thread and please keep the discussion on the subject.  Divergence into pile on rhetoric and invective will find this thread locked and/or deleted.  Starting the thread in Radio Chatter does not absolve members of a shared responsibility to act in a mature manner.

 

[gaspasser]

Hence the reason I was surprised to see it resurface again.
As for returning Taliban prisoners to the Afghan government, I shall take a page from Star Trek. 
Prime Directive, anyone?

 

[geo]

Hmmm....

Time to pull this fella over and make him blow into the baloon

He's gotta be boozin - cause no sober individual would/could/should even contemplate the thought of bringing in Taliban guerrilas intent on killing Canadian soldiers - here to canada for a visit....

With respect to the Afghan prisons and the conditions found there----- it's the treatment standard which the afghan people are used to receiving.... there is no need for us to apply canadian standards once they have been handed over to the duly elected afghan gov't

 

[eerickso]

If Dion is not too busy, he should conduct a survey of all the maximum penitentiaries in Canada to see if they can find any allegations of torture. There are rumors in Kingston that sometimes guards have to touch inmates!  :rofl:

Seriously, I wait for the evidence of these latest allegations. I hope the liberals have real evidence instead of some idiot pointing to a bruise on his elbow.

This stuff should be easy to prove:

"Some of the men said they were whipped with bundles of electrical cables until they fell unconscious. Others said they were stripped naked and left outside all night, when Kandahar temperatures dipped below freezing.

One man said he was hung by his ankles and beaten for eight days, while another said he was choked while a plastic bag was held over his head."

 

[sober_ruski]

I have another solution.
Dont join taliban in the first place!

As for Dion. He is the early Christmas present for CPC. Every time he opens his mouth, his foot somehow ends up in there.

 

[AndrewS]

I'm really not a fan of  Dion.... this liberal, from a family with ties to the Liberal Party going back 90 years, is ready to vote Conservative for the 3rd straight time.

 

[FrenchAffair]

I don not like the Liberal leader or the direction that party is taking. But he brings up a valid point. Handing prisoners over to the Afghan government is not only condoning but facilitating the abuse and torture of humans. Maybe they are Taliban members (or maybe they are wrongly accused), maybe they are trying to kill Canadians, or Afghan civilians or who knows. But we as Canadians pride ourselves on our human rights, and like it or not the Taliban and every other terrorist who is out to kill our troops is a human. We can not maintain our status as a moral nation and supporter of human rights if we just start deciding that certain people, based on their actions do not deserve the fundamental human rights that we are all entitled too.

When we take prisoners we become custodians of those indivuals, and to willingly hand them over to a government that will not respect their human rights, not give them a fair and just trial and in all likely hood will torture/kill them is really no different then torturing and killing them ourselves.

We have to come up with some solution to solve this issue, Dion as misguided as it may seem was only suggesting what Canada has done countless times in the past with POW’s and that is to house them in camps, often in Canada. Canada accommodated many prisoners during the first and second world war, during the Boer war and other wars we have operated POW camps with in our borders. If or if not that is practical in the current situation will have to be discussed further. But what ever the solution we come upon is, one thing is clear and that is we can not continue to hand humans over to have their rights abused.

 

[armyvern]

I find it quite ironic that this latest unsubstantiated claim by a member of the Taliban (who, of course, has no alterior motive  : and thus must be telling the truth ) is leading to talk about Canadian's disregarding or not respecting human rights and statements that we might as well be killing them ourselves. That statement by you deeply offends me FrenchAffair.

Why don't you go lecture them about respecting women's human rights?? Or is what's good for the gander ... not good for the goose?

Because, au contraire to your statement here

We can not maintain our status as a moral nation and supporter of human rights if we just start deciding that certain people, based on their actions do not deserve the fundamental human rights that we are all entitled too.

that is exactly why we are there in the first place; ensuring that the Taliban (who'd certainly prefer to just slit my infidel female throat rather than even arrest me) are no longer able to just drag citizens of Afghanistan down to the nearest soccer stadium for public execution on a whim anymore. How dare you compare our soldiers handing over prisoners to a legally and democratically elected government to the Taliban.

You're damn right we respect human rights in this country. Those soldiers you refer to, pay with their lives to defend it. Perhaps before you insinuate that we may as well be killing and torturing them ourselves, we wait to see if the facts even bear out whether or not this allegation of torture has even occured?

Isn't that also another basic human right and foundation of that democratic principal and moral ideal you so like to uphold? "Innocent until proven guilty?" That "fair & just trial" you have referred to below? Or is it only applicable to them these days?

 

[Steenburg]

I have to shake my head. The Libs and the NDP calling for the defence ministers, and Gen Hillers resignation, with out even knowing if these poor poor Taliban are telling the truth. They want to fire the two men whom are at the very top of the chain of command during a war because some prisoners are crying about abuse.  Even if true does  that mean the comand structure must be able to read the minds of the Afghan government and know if they are lying about how they treat Taliban prisoners? Not to mention the un talked about issue here of the opposition parties wanting to make the government look bad so much by the time our next election rolls around that they are willing to side with the enemy in any accusation without confirmation! Heads do need to roll here and none of them are in power at the moment. sorry if I seem a little ticked off.

 

[FrenchAffair]

I find it quite ironic that this latest unsubstantiated claim by a member of the Taliban (who, of course, has no alterior motive  and thus must be telling the truth ) is leading to talk about Canadian's disregarding or not respecting human rights and statements that we might as well be killing them ourselves.

The Afghan government is comprised of various warlords and militia that have no better human rights record than the Taliban. Their abuses of human rights, especially the rights of prisoners is long documented since they have been internationally recognized and every before that (as the Northern Alliance). Don’t pretend to be naïve and claim the first you’ve heard of human rights abuses by the Afghan government is the claims of a Taliban prisoner.

Handing over prisoners to a government that is well known to abuse human rights is an insult to everything our great nation stands for and everything our brave men and women are fighting for.

Why don't you go lecture them about respecting women's human rights?? Or is what's good for the gander ... not good for the goose?

So the Taliban was a brutal and oppressive government, therefore they deserve to be tortured and abused?

Maybe in the dark ages that mentality was the norm, but we live in the 21st century, in which human rights are afforded to all humans, even those who commit the most abhorrent and heinous crimes.

I truly hope that you do not seriously believe that we should actively deny the prisoners in Afghanistan their human rights based on our assumption of their crimes, because if that is the case it seems that everything the men and women who fought for recognition of these humans rights taught has been lost on you, which would be a very sad thing indeed.

that is exactly why we are there in the first place; ensuring that the Taliban (who'd certainly prefer to just slit my infidel female throat rather than even arrest me) are no longer able to just drag citizens of Afghanistan down to the nearest soccer stadium for public execution on a whim anymore. How dare you compare our soldiers handing over prisoners to a legally and democratically elected government to the Taliban.

And we should be there ensuring that the Taliban are not able to commit those atrocities. But how are we helping when instead of the Taliban dragging off women to be shot in a soccer field, we are handing the Taliban over to the Afghan government to be dragged out and shot in a soccer field?

This is not an issue of our soldiers, it is an issue of our leadership and an issue of the agreements they signed with the afghan government.

But most of all it is an issue of upholding the values our nation stands for and the values our people demand. Maybe you don’t care about the rights of those “non white” people off in a distant land you can’t see, but to some of us who respect the fundamental principles this great nation was founded on, and the principles that hundreds of thousands of brave Canadians have fought and died for we can not selectively apply these rights to those we want to. Human rights by definition are extended to all humans, and in order for us, as Canadians, to be able to continue to say that we, in standing tradition are the vanguard of these rights we must ensure that even the fundamental rights of the people trying to kill us are protected.

 

[ArmyRick]

OK, build a guantonomo prisoner holding facility some where in oh, lets see...Baffin Island sounds great.

French Affair, bottom line. We recognize the Afghan government. Its really up to them to sort out this mess of prisoner abuse.

French Affair, how about some more info on your profile? Have you served a day in your life in uniform? Do tell.

 

[observor 69]

OK, build a guantonomo prisoner holding facility some where in oh, lets see...Baffin Island sounds great.

French Affair, bottom line. We recognize the Afghan government. Its really up to them to sort out this mess of prisoner abuse.

French Affair, how about some more info on your profile? Have you served a day in your life in uniform? Do tell.

Are only people with time in the military able to present an informed reasoned argument ?
The thread about liberal viewpoints being trashed argued that rather than speaking to the points of a liberal (small L)  opinion we jump on the individual.
In this case has O'Connor done a good job of informing Parliament about treatment of Afghan prisoners ? He has apologized once to Parliament but the extensive article in the Saturday Star leads one to think he has yet to fix the problem.

 

[observor 69]

Oh and ref the thread title, yes Mr.Dion is out to lunch ref bringing prisoners to Canada. 

 

[sober_ruski]

But we as Canadians pride ourselves on our human rights,

And that's why there are hundreds, if not thousands, scumbags are munching off the system here, instead of being send back to their homelands to get tried for their crimes.

 

[Staff Weenie]

Has NATO, the UN, or Canada (or any other country) initiated a program to train the Afghan 'Correctional Service' (for lack of a proper/better term) in the humane treatment of prisoners? That's probably the best long-term approach - though at this time they may not want to hear it. I'm not aware of anything, but that doesn't mean it isn't already happening.

As well, you can't just change a society and culture overnight. While I cannot agree with the torture of a human being, I find it naive to think that the Afghan police, judges, jailers, etc, who have every reason to carry powerful grudges against these murderous thugs, will all of a sudden become peace-loving rights-respecting....well.....wanna-be-Canadians.....just like that.....

We also have to respect the fact that Afghanistan is a sovereign nation and we are there at their Govt's request. Legally, I think that Canada has absolutely no right whatsoever to take any Afghan nationals out of the country without due judicial process. I'd be willing to bet that Mr Dion knows this, but is banking on the fact that a majority of left-leaning Canadians don't know it. and, while I think that there are aspects of valid criticism involved, we are fighting a war over there, and the playing this card in the House of Commons so publicly at this time is extremely irresponsible, and the Liberals and NDP should know better! I find their current polemics almost paramount to stabbing our troops in the back.

 

[FrenchAffair]

OK, build a guantonomo prisoner holding facility some where in oh, lets see...Baffin Island sounds great.

If that is what we have to do to ensure the rights of these prisoners are upheld then we should do it. But I think what you are calling for is jumping the gun, there are many steps we can take before that is necessary.

French Affair, bottom line. We recognize the Afghan government. Its really up to them to sort out this mess of prisoner abuse.

We know they are abusing prisoners, but we hand them over to them. That makes us complicit in the torture and abuse of these prisoners. To any Canadian that should be unimaginable that we could allow Canada to be actively participating in handing over prisoners to be tortured and worst. We have a moral responsibility to take every step to ensure that we are not part of any such action.

French Affair, how about some more info on your profile? Have you served a day in your life in uniform? Do tell.

What if I served for 40 years or never at all? Would it change the validity of anything I’ve said?

 

[FrenchAffair]

And that's why there are hundreds, if not thousands, scumbags are munching off the system here, instead of being send back to their homelands to get tried for their crimes.

The burden we must accept as a nation who respects the fundamental rights of all individuals.