Friday, June 24, 2011

The Opposition and the Media Pundits Should Now Apologize To the Troops

The opposition and the media should immediately apologize to our troops.  This whole Afghan detainee issue has been nothing but a witch hunt from day one. The Liberals used this cabal to find a "gotcha," a "smoking gun" moment on the Conservative government for shear political gain and  the media played right along.  This as with other faux scandals was unfounded and a total waste.

In the process they used the troops waging a smear campaign against our them.  Remember this from John Macallum on CBC when he accused our troops of war crimes?


Over 4000 pages of documents on the Afghan detainee issue was released on Wednesday.  There was absolutely NO evidence our troops or the government was complicit in any war crimes at all. Matthew Fisher  a correspondent for Post Media who has spent a great deal of time in Afghanistan knows a little bit of what goes on there, has a must read piece today in the Calgary Herald says it's time to give this detainee nonsense a rest.
There is still not a jot of proof that Canada and Canadians did anything wrong while overseeing and handing over Taliban prisoners of war during the early days of the combat mission in southern Afghanistan. The so-called scandal has been much ado about nothing. 

I agree with Mr. Fisher. This has been much ado about nothing.  The smear against the troops was disgusting and uncalled for. They do deserve a public apology.  The taxpayer deserves an apology too for that matter for a waste of 12 months and $12 million for this fiasco. 

I advise you to read the whole article, he also has some interesting  info about Richard Colvin,remember him the one who the Tor Star who portrayed  as a "whistleblower"?  
I have known Colvin for nearly 20 years. I spent several hours with him the night he left Kandahar at the end of his brief tour in 2006. I have always found it strange that during our discussion that lasted several hours, the treatment of Afghan detainees by Canadians or by the Afghan authorities never came up in any way.
Colvin spoke at great length that evening about three things: how troubled his love life was, how Foreign Affairs had repeatedly passed him over for promotion and how because of the death of diplomat Glyn Berry in a suicide bomber attack a few months earlier in Kandahar, he had not been allowed to go out into to field to get a sense of what was going on.

10 comments:

  1. I FULLY agree!
    It is truly amazing how many people in this country desperately want to see Canada, or more specifically Stephen Harper, accused of war crimes, when there is not one shred of evidence or truth to it. Even if every secret and sensitive document were released showing otherwise (putting our country and others at grave risk), they would still be sure that Harper and the conservative government were somehow guilty of covering up war crimes.
    Very sad that these same Canadians are our friends, workmates, neighbours, and even family.
    It makes me sick, really.

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  2. The MP's that accused our troops of war crimes should be banned from the HOC until they give a full public apology using the same media that helped these MP's spread their crap.

    Rob C

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  3. Thank you for your comments both of you. It seems the opposition and the media are willing to trash the troops and the country to see PM Harper go down.

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  4. Well here is one Canadian who is proud of PM Harper and proud of the Armed forces.My belief is that it is not in the make up or genes of a Canadian to torture or otherwise abuse prisoners of war.They would probably sacrifice their lives before allowing this to happen.The Turds in the Press along with the opposition party accusers are so hateful of PM Harper that they will make up any lie that could possibly harm him or his party and put it in print FRONT PAGE.Now in my mind these lies and distortions cannot be published without the consent of someone at the top of each news agency.They say print it,they say its the truth ,they are the ones after PM Harper and the Conservative party.WHY THEN is there no RCMP investigation into these MSM top dogs.Raid their HQ,s,take all their files and computer's like they did to the Conservative Party.Did Chretien not use the RCMP to do investigations for the Liberals.What is the problem with a full blown investigation of the News agencies in Canada.Anyone who made such disgusting accusations should pay for their lies and rumors that have hurt the reputations of many brave men.Now is the time with the majority to start these investigations,and the sooner the better.Because from what I am seeing in the press daily is more of the same BS that PM Harper and the Conservative Party endured for 5 years.It is time to kick some ass pm
    Harper,get Minister Blair on this and just let him loose with a free hand to start investigations and commissions .Re-open adscam and get to the bottom of where the money went and jail some of these laughing jack asses.That is just a start,but I have to carch my breath.

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  5. All of the opposition parties have repeatedly said that the question is whether the Prime Minister, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, the Minister of National Defence or any other high-level government official broke the law or committed crimes by ordering that detainees be transfered to Afghan custody knowing they would likely be tortured. The opposition parties have repeatedly said this has nothing to do with Canadian troops and that no one is accusing Canadian troops of anything.

    Both you and the Conservative government should be ashamed of yourselves for even bringing the Canadian Forces into this discussion. You are the only ones suggesting they have any responsibilty whatsoever in this matter.

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  6. Both you and the Conservative government should be ashamed of yourselves for even bringing the Canadian Forces into this discussion.

    Anony,obviously have you not watched the video I posted. Macallum in his own words accused the soldiers of war crimes.
    He then tries to say it's the government. Even the CBC host has a hard time with that one.

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  7. frmgrl:
    comments from anony below borders on the ridiculous."Both you and the Conservative government should be ashamed of yourselves for even bringing the Canadian Forces into this discussion"

    When the Conservatives formed government in 2006 the Canadian Forces had already been in Afghanistan since 2001 sent to Kabul by Chretien; and sent into Khandahar by Paul Martin: there was no transfer agreement set up by the Liberals until late 2005 which was a flawed document, it took the Conservative government until 2007 to actually correct the transfer aqgreement: All the abuses by afghans were done prior to 2005: Any negative comments by the liberal party is simple political games; trying to embarass the cons. The NDP are just as much to blame for their treatment of the military.

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  8. Excellent post! Nony is a troll, funny how they mouth off about supporting the troops when at the same time they accuse them of sending prisoners to be tortured. Maybe they should all go to Afghanistan and try to build a school for girls, that might clue them in.

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  9. It's disgusting that you're using the troops as a political cudgel to silence debate as much as you accuse others of using them as a cudgel against Harper. Raising questions about conduct in Afghanistan is not 'smearing' them.

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  10. "Maybe they should all go to Afghanistan and try to build a school for girls, that might clue them in."
    one thing Harper did do was to reclassify our involvement from "peace-keeping "to active duty ....i.e. going from building to killing afghans.
    which while not noticed here was responded to by the Taliban as "making all Canadians worldwide legitimate targets." Every unnecessary canadian symbol was taken down within a day.
    Did harper ever apologize for being found in contempt of parliament ?

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