WEEKEND ROUNDUP The whole torture thing Apologies if you have no interest in Richard Colvin’s allegations. We have very little else for you today. Sun Media’s Greg Weston provides a helpful primer on the Afghan detainee abuse fracas, in which Peter MacKay comes off looking (quite rightly) like a bit of a tool. ( Scott Taylor , writing in the Halifax Chronicle-Herald , files an entertaining...
I’m presuming that Peter MacKay and the rest of the Conservative government will claim since this agency didn’t actually, you know, see the torture first hand, it’s ‘not reliable’: An Afghan agency, at one time entrusted to monitor Canadian-captured insurgents in Kandahar, says it has documented nearly 400 cases of torture across the war-ravaged country…The Conservative...
MacKay : "Not a single Taliban soldier turned over by Canadian forces can be proved to have been abused. That is the crux of the issue." Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission : "Torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment are common in the majority of law enforcement institutions, and at least 98.5 per cent of interviewed victims have been tortured ." The independent...
Gordon Brown won headlines for announcing a timetable that will probably not get British troops out any faster The great irony of Gordon Brown's announcement last week of a plan to hand over Afghan territory to local control, according to his Nato colleagues, is that British troops are likely to be among the last to benefit from it. At an informal meeting of Nato officials and analysts in the eastern...
HALIFAX FORUM - U.S. Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates addresses the audience as Canadian Minister of National Defense Peter MacKay, left, and Craig Kennedy, president of the German Marshall Fund, look on during the Halifax International Security Forum in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Nov. 20, 2009. DoD photo by Cherie Cullen From U.S. Department of Defense: HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, Nov. 20, 2009 – Defense...
Members of the 78th Highlanders stand at the entrance of the Citadel in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Nov. 20, 2009. DoD photo by Cherie Cullen [U.S. Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and Canadian Minister of National Defense Peter MacKay toured the Citadel. The Highlanders are a Regimental Association that preserves the history of the Citadel.]
HALIFAX, NOVA SCOTIA -- 11/22/09 -- As the three-day Halifax International Security Forum today wrapped up its final sessions, the Honourable Peter MacKay, Minister of National Defence and Minister for the Atlantic Gateway, declared the inaugural e..
HALIFAX, NOVA SCOTIA (MARKET WIRE) As the three-day Halifax International Security Forum today wrapped up its final sessions, the Honourable Peter MacKay, Minister of National Defence and Minister for the Atlantic Gateway, declared the inaugural event a success and invited the organisers to return to Halifax in future years. Some 300 international and industry leaders, academics, policy makers, and...
Now and in the future : MacKay in talks with U.S. over 2011 troop pullout HALIFAX - Canadian troops can return home in 2011 assured that U.S. forces will be able to handle security for Canada's continuing diplomatic and development mission in Kandahar, Defence Minister Peter MacKay said Friday. Enlarge Photo The Canadian Press Defence Minister Peter MacKay, left, and U.S. Defence Secretary Robert Gates...
After a whistleblower revealed Canadian complicity in the torture of Afghan prisoners, a full public inquiry is vital One man has Canada in an uproar. Former second-in-command at the Canadian embassy in Kabul, Richard Colvin , told a parliamentary committee in Ottawa that all detainees handed over to the Afghanistan government by Canadian soldiers were abused . The opposition parties have called for...
The Conservative government is dismissing allegations levelled this week by Richard Colvin, a Canadian diplomat who says he delivered repeated warnings that prisoners handed over to Afghan authorities were being tortured. Mr. Colvin claims his reports were widely distributed. But top military and political figures deny any awareness of their contents. Unless we are to believe they are all lying, it...
Bravo Rick Salutin! Our own little Abu Ghraib? The nauseating component in current claims and reactions about Canada's role in turning Afghan detainees over for torture does not lie in the betrayal of some mythic Canadian role as an idealistic actor on the world stage – as opposition questions implied in the House of Commons yesterday. We have always played an ambiguous, often duplicitous, role...
Defence Minister Peter MacKay, left, and U.S. Defence Secretary Robert Gates field questions after a meeting at the Halifax Citadel National Historic Site in Halifax on Nov. 20, 2009. ANDREW VAUGHAN/THE CANADIAN PRESS World's Top Military Leaders To Meet In Nova Scotia -- Digital Journal Canada will play host to the world's most powerful military figures this weekend in Halifax, Nova Scotia. They will...
Someone might want to start looking for a different line of work : Question: Why was this man [Richard Colvin] promoted to an important job in Washington and charged with intelligence if he has no credibility? Hon. Peter MacKay: Look, I can’t answer that question and I suspect that promotion took place or it did take place long before he gave his evidence yesterday. Shorter Peter MacKay: "Nice...
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