Keep Your Eyes On The Detainees, Please.
Tuesday/12 January 2010
Canadians
are pissed about the blow to sacred democracy by the forces of
manipulative government. It's a mighty suspicious time to prorogue
Parliament, eh.
The affront to democracy is this: PM Harper cancelled Parliament because it was inconvenient. Why was it inconvenient? It was inconvenient because there was a clear and present danger that a House of Commons committee would find that Civil Servant Higher-Ups, and maybe even McKay, Harper and the odd General, knew that Afghan detainees were being knowingly transferred into truly torturous conditions. Even knowing about this kind of thing and doing nothing about it creates liability for prosecution as a war crime. At the very least, the investigation and media focus would cause Harper, Inc. to look unseemly in the eyes of the world when they focus in our pristine land for the Winter Olympics.
Governments do things that aren't right. We all known that is true even though we don't know the details. It's a given. We extrapolate from the world we do know and conclude it to be true. Governments deny that they do nasty, rotten things. They arrange what the spy novels call "plausible deniability". When plausible deniability breaks down, what then? What if it breaks down over something deadly serious, like the question of Canada's complicity in the torture of Afghan citizens?
PM Harper's solution to this problem is to prorogue Parliament, even though it means throwing out dozens of Conservative bills and initiatives. And what of that annoying Afghan detainee inquiry? It gets tossed — one of many government processes, lost in the trash can of Big Government. So sad.
The given reason for the prorogue? To contemplate and to work on the economy. Oh jeez.
I risk messing with my readers' loyalty by reverting to youtube one more time so early in the year, but really, if you haven't yet seen Richard Colvin's testimony, see it below. Remind yourself that subsequently Mr. Colvin was seriously slagged by Harper, McKay and other Higher-Up's. Mr. Richard Colvin. Whistle blower.
That was before Harper, Inc. got into the escape pod and pressed the "Prorogue Now" button. PM Harper knows that made us mad and bruised our fine democratic sensibilities, but he won't care so long as we forget Colvin and the Afghan detainees.
While yelling at the Government about its bashing of democracy, let's resolve to keep yelling about the bashing of Afghan detainees. What is worse for democracy, to have a premature eradication of a session of Parliament or to wonder if we have war criminals hiding in Ottawa?
What is worse for an Afghan detainee, to have a crime against him hidden or revealed?
The affront to democracy is this: PM Harper cancelled Parliament because it was inconvenient. Why was it inconvenient? It was inconvenient because there was a clear and present danger that a House of Commons committee would find that Civil Servant Higher-Ups, and maybe even McKay, Harper and the odd General, knew that Afghan detainees were being knowingly transferred into truly torturous conditions. Even knowing about this kind of thing and doing nothing about it creates liability for prosecution as a war crime. At the very least, the investigation and media focus would cause Harper, Inc. to look unseemly in the eyes of the world when they focus in our pristine land for the Winter Olympics.
Governments do things that aren't right. We all known that is true even though we don't know the details. It's a given. We extrapolate from the world we do know and conclude it to be true. Governments deny that they do nasty, rotten things. They arrange what the spy novels call "plausible deniability". When plausible deniability breaks down, what then? What if it breaks down over something deadly serious, like the question of Canada's complicity in the torture of Afghan citizens?
PM Harper's solution to this problem is to prorogue Parliament, even though it means throwing out dozens of Conservative bills and initiatives. And what of that annoying Afghan detainee inquiry? It gets tossed — one of many government processes, lost in the trash can of Big Government. So sad.
The given reason for the prorogue? To contemplate and to work on the economy. Oh jeez.
I risk messing with my readers' loyalty by reverting to youtube one more time so early in the year, but really, if you haven't yet seen Richard Colvin's testimony, see it below. Remind yourself that subsequently Mr. Colvin was seriously slagged by Harper, McKay and other Higher-Up's. Mr. Richard Colvin. Whistle blower.
That was before Harper, Inc. got into the escape pod and pressed the "Prorogue Now" button. PM Harper knows that made us mad and bruised our fine democratic sensibilities, but he won't care so long as we forget Colvin and the Afghan detainees.
While yelling at the Government about its bashing of democracy, let's resolve to keep yelling about the bashing of Afghan detainees. What is worse for democracy, to have a premature eradication of a session of Parliament or to wonder if we have war criminals hiding in Ottawa?
What is worse for an Afghan detainee, to have a crime against him hidden or revealed?
