1. At some point in the early 2000s, Canada joined the US invasion of Afghanistan. Part of our exit strategy was to say that we wanted the Afghan policy/army to become professional enough that they could handle their own detainees.
   
2. In January of 2006, a Conservative government came into power in Canada after 12 years of Liberal rule. Our Conservatives/Liberals are like a really left wing version of your Republicans/Democrats.
   
3. In early 2006, Richard Colvin (a no-name Canadian diplomat), see was sent to Afghanistan as a diplomat. He was apparently the #2ish Canadian civilian official in the country.
   
4. In a roughly 18 month period between early 2006 and late 2007, Richard Colvin saw evidence that the Afghan authorities regularly tortured prisoners. Under the Geneva conventions, a country cannot knowingly hand enemy combatants over to authorities that will torture them. That’s a war crime. Colvin sent a number of memos back to Ottawa informing them of the situation. At some point in 2007, he was told to stop writing his complaints down, and told to voice them over the phone.
   
5. In late 2006, early 2007, a Globe and Mail reporter broke the story that Afghan authorities were torturing prisoners given to them by Canadian troops. The Canadian government initially dissembled, then eventually decided to improve their procedures to ensure that detainees were being treated fairly.
   
6. At some point in 2009, Richard Colvin was subpoenaed to testify before a Parliamentry committee (like your congressional committees, with equivalent powers) to say that his superiors must have known about the torture going on in 2006-2007, but did nothing to stop it. If his allegations can be shown to be true, then members of the Canadian government may be liable to stand trial for war crimes. Note that Canadian soldiers themselves would not be guilty of war crimes – only the (civilian) policy-setting oversight bodies, since those bodies controlled what happened to detainees.
   
7. This is where things get murky. The Conservative government circled the wagons after Colvin’s testimony. They implied that anyone who cares about Afghan detainees is either woolly headed or a Taliban supporter. They didn’t supply a number of documents requested by the Parliamentry committee (which, if it’s intentional, is illegal). The conservative MPs sitting on the Parliamentry committee didn’t show up to the last meeting in December, which prevented quorum, which prevented the committee from planning its next move. Then our Prime Minister essentially dissolved Parliament on New Years’ eve.

This is where things get partisan. Folks who are generally opposed to the Conservative government are squealing that there’s a cover-up going on. Those who support the Conservatives are saying… well… they’re saying that it’s perfectly legal for a Prime Minister to dissolve Parliament at any time. Which is true.

In the wake of the prorogation (a fancy term for the dissolution of Parliament), a bunch of uppity folks which include a number of Conservative-supporters, turned out for fairly massive protests in late January. Many of the protesters feel that the prorogation served no discernible purpose other than to hit the pause button on the detainee issue until March, when the federal budget may distract the media from embarrassing questions.

Of course, there’s some context here:

• Regarding the military: In the mid 1990s, some Canadian troops were dispatched to Somalia on a peace keeping mission. Sadly, the troops in question had discipline issues and (alleged) white supremacist tendencies. Time passed, and a couple of Somali kids turned up dead in the Canadian camp, and a bunch of photos surfaced showing Canadian soldiers torturing at least one of the boys. More time passed, the government of the day (Liberal, this time) was finally coerced into calling an inquiry. Over the course of the inquiry, it appeared as if the government (or Defence Department) was executing some kind of coverup. Despite that a number of low-ranking soldiers were found guilty guilty, and the unit was disbanded. Canadians view themselves as a nation of peace keepers, so that was like an itty bitty kick to the national gonads.
  
• Regarding our Parliament: Effectively, Canada has a two-party state. Usually, one of those parties (overwhelmingly the Liberal Party) has a majority of seats in Parliament. At the moment, the Conservatives have a minority government. If all of the MPs in the House decide to pass a non-confidence vote against the government, a federal election will be forced. Which means that the Conservative government is walking a knife-edge of governing the way they want to, versus appeasing the rest of the political leaders to prevent a non-confidence vote. If any one of the parties senses political advantage (ie, pulling ahead in the polls), then they will force an election.

Richard Colvin testifying before the Special Committee on the Canadian Mission in Afghanistan

As I learned more about our detainee practices, I came to a conclusion they were contrary to Canada’s values, contrary to Canada’s interests, contrary to Canada’s official policies and also contrary to international law. That is, they were un-Canadian, counterproductive and probably illegal.
[...]
According to a very authoritative source, many of the Afghans we detained had no connection to insurgency whatsoever

The allegation is serious. According to his testimony to the Special Committee on the Canadian Mission in Afghanistan, Canadian soldiers routinely handed over detainees to Afghan authorities, who were then routinely tortured. During 2006 and 2007, Colvin produced over 17 reports telling higher-ups that that abuse was happening. Initially, his reports were ignored. Then he was told not to put things on paper.

He compared Canada’s performance with that of the British and Dutch, whose military took many fewer prisoners while operating in equally dangerous environments. British and Dutch militaries reported each hand-over to their parliaments, and monitored the prisoners’ condition in Afghan prisons. Canada did no such thing, citing security concerns.

Our military went so far as to ignore the Red Cross for three months when the NGO tried to inform our mission in Afghanistan that our detainees were suffering torture.

Initially, government lawyers attempted to prevent Colvin from speaking in front of the Committee. Since his allegations, Peter MacKay has called Colvin a Taliban stooge: nothing short of hearsay, second- or third-hand information, or that which came directly from the Taliban and blamed the Liberals. The federal government has refused to pay Colvin’s legal bills, even though he is a whistle-blower.

This is not my Canada. This is not what Canada means. We are better than this.

We are the country that invented peace keeping. Our country is built on peaceful compromise between the colonies of two warring empires. We have never needed a revolution to clean our government. Our country was born democratic. We export human rights. Or so I want to believe.

Canadian soldier tortures Somali Shidane Arone in 1993.

I hope not.

Fixing Our Electoral System

In case you hadn’t heard, our electoral system is broken. It needs to be fixed. Duh.

Afghanistan

I’m not a fan of Canada’s current mission in Afghanistan. I do believe that Canada should be doing its best to promote the expansion of human rights, but I’m concerned about the way the mission is being run. I’d like to see more civilian oversight, a broader humanitarian mission, and a wider coalition of forces in the country. As such, I approve of the Green Party’s proposal that Canada should push for a UN mandated mission, and operate within that framework.

Removing Corporate Subsidies

Corporations are odd beasts. At their best, they reward innovation and generate wealth for their employees, investors, and suppliers. At their worst, they gerrymander government policy, squander economic resources, stifle innovation, and mistreat their employees. The Green Party policy reflects my belief that economic entities should not receive long-term subsidies from the government, nor should they receive large one-time perks. Yes, I’m looking at you, Fort McMurry.

Fair Trade

Imagine the crappiest job that you’ve ever had. Now imagine that job with a fraction of the pay, a 60 hour work week, and physically dangerous conditions. Toss in some physical and sexual abuse to make things a rollicking good time. Don’t forget that you’re enjoying these conditions so fat bastards people in the first world can buy a t-shirt for less than $10. Or save ten cents on a coffee.

Certified fair trade is a mechanism that exports human rights to countries that make our stuff. First world countries pay a little more for goods, and the premium is rolled into educational programs, local infrastructure, and health initiatives in countries where the government is either unwilling or unable to provide for those needs.¹ The Green Party wants to include those principles in our international trade agreements, and government procurement.

Yeah, there’s other stuff: decent healthcare policy, doing something about Darfur, and, yes, even environmental policy. But those are the things that caught my imagination. I don’t particularly care about income splitting. Nor do I care about nixing nuclear weapons.

Vote how you will. I’m voting for tomorrow.²

1. It’s a little more complex than this. In some cases, it also involves agreeing on prices before the start of a growing season, third-party verification that labour and environmental standards are being adhered to, etc. TransFair has a fairly opaque website, but they’re the most trustworthy certification body that I know of.
2. Or possible next Wednesday, we’ll see.

The report has a number of themes that I found striking: I’ll limit this post to the mission’s lack of measurable progress.

Measurable Progress

The indications of progress included in the report are:

• The Afghan economy as grown at 10% annually.
• The number of children attending schools is currently at six million (although we aren’t told what that number was back in August ’01, I assume it’s higher now).
• Afghanistan lingers near the bottom of the UN Human Development Index (174 out of 178, as of 2007).
• Per-capita income has doubled since 2001.
• 6.6 million Afghans don’t have enough food.
• 87% of Afghan women are illiterate, as are 57% of men.
• Five million Afghan refugees have returned home (presumably from other countries).

The report states that “living conditions in Afghanistan have seen measurable, even significant improvement,” (p. 3) it offers no measurements other than these. As far as I can tell, no source is offered for any of these statistics (other than the HDI, natch).

Most of these statistics aren’t progressive. They don’t compare progress against time. These statistics aren’t directly attributable to Canadian involvement.

So how do we know it’s all worth it? I assume that we’re doing good over there, but there’s no way of telling if we can do a better job, or even if our government officials are doing their jobs.

Canada is part of the Afghanistan Compact, which is a series of timelines and targets agreed upon by the Afghan government and donor countries. The report stats that “its targets have proved more formal than real, and performance assessments have been flimsy” (p. 19). And reading the terms (p. 78), one can understand that description: aside from target benchmarks for number of teachers, soldiers, and households with electricity, there is little or nothing that can be used to gauge our efforts.

In the recommendations, Manley et al. state that:

4. The Government should systematically assess the effectiveness of Canadian contributions and the extent to which the benchmarks and timelines of the Afghanistan Compact have been met. Future commitments should be based on those assessments.

5. The Government should provide the public with franker and more frequent reporting on events in Afghanistan, offering more assessments of Canada’s role and giving greater emphasis to the diplomatic and reconstruction efforts as well as those of the military.

I would hope that the Government goes further, offering regular quantitative reports on Canada’s non-military effect in Afghanistan. As it is, the only definite progress we can point to is a body count and a bill for close to seven billion dollars.

Lack of Coherent Leadership

The report states that there is no civilian leader

Something I’ve wondered about (since 2002ish) is why our troops are there. I’m not saying they shouldn’t be, I’m just curious what the mandate is. What are the goals the Canadian government wishes to achieve? The question isn’t as facetious as it sounds. We can’t decide if the mission is complete until we know what we’re supposed to accomplish while we’re there.

Manley et al. never provide an “official” (ie, government endorsed) answer to this question. Instead, they provide us with the following reasons:

1. It “concerns” global and Canadian security (p. 3, p. 20)
2. we need to maintain Canada’s international reputation (p. 3)
3. we need to help “impoverished and vulnerable” people (p. 3, p. 8 )
4. a lot of Canadians have already died there (p. 3)
5. to engage the international community in future peace keeping/making efforts (p. 8, p. 22)
6. the UN mandated a mission (p. 21)
7. NATO mandated a mission (p. 21)
8. we are there at the behest of the Afghan government (p. ???)

The cynic in me suspects that Canadian involvement in this mission was okayed for diplomatic reasons (ie, appeasing Washington) before a public justification was formulated. Interestingly the reasons provided on the DnD website are much more specific than the those listed by Manley et al.

The post will provide background, as described by the report.

Here’s the background: In 2001 western forces invaded Afghanistan, toppling the repressive Taliban government. The UN and NATO pass resolutions condoning the action. Since then, the Afghan Compact has been signed (in 2006), and a fairly diverse grouping of nations has, at the request of the Afghan government, been supporting the fledgling Afghan military’s efforts to establish something approaching a national government.

In the seven years since 2001, the Afghan economy as grown at 10% annually. The number of children attending schools is currently at six million (although we aren’t told what that number was back in August ’01, I assume it’s higher now). Afghanistan lingers near the bottom of the UN Human Development Index. Although the report states that “living conditions in Afghanistan have seen measurable, even significant improvement,” (p. 3) it offers no measurements other than these.

Canada currently has 2500ish troops in Afghanistan and nearly 50 civilians in the country (representing CIDA, the RCMP, Correctional Services, and Foreign Affairs)². Our current number of casualties is close to 80 Canadians. We have the highest number of per-capita casualties of the international force.

1. More correctly named “REPORT OF THE INDEPENDENT PANEL ON CANADA’S FUTURE ROLE IN AFGHANISTAN, according to their website.
2. The report does not state how many civilians represent the various government departments, so I’m reading between the lines, using information provided on pages 23 and 28 of the report.