The Afghan "detainee" transfer problem that has not gone away

"...that history has yet to be written."

"In some ways that history has yet to be written....We went in there and we conclusively proved that Afghans were being handed over to torture chambers.  I was just one guy, but following up on the work we did, the United Nations led by a woman named Georgette Gangnon, who is also a Canadian, she led teams of human rights investigators that produced reams of reports that conclusively showed that in Kandahar detainees are regularly tortured by Afghan authorities......The answer about whether the Canadians knew that they were handing people over to torture - those answers are in Ottawa."

Graeme Smith on Afghanistan
The Dogs Are Eating Them Now
CBC Power and Politics
December 20, 2013
Clip on prisoner transfers starts about 4:52.
Sorry about the ads.

"So I said, you know, the NDS tortures people, that is what they do, and if we don’t want to have detainees tortured, we shouldn’t give them to the NDS."
– Richard Colvin, testimony before the Canadian Military Police Complaints Commission, April 13, 2010

Lastly, the general problem of responsibility for the treatment of prisoners of war can be solved only on the very basis on which the system provided by the Convention is itself founded: the States parties to the Convention must remain responsible for the prisoners captured by their armed forces. A unified command which has authority over the armed forces of several countries cannot in this case take over the responsibility incumbent upon States; otherwise the proper application of the Conventions which are, at least at the present stage, indissolubly linked to a structure composed of States, would be endangered.

Commentary - Art. 12. Part II : General protection of prisoners of war
Third Geneva Convention, August 12,1949 
Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War

Grapes and the Magna Carta

RON MACLEAN
Welcome to House of Commons Night in Canada.. Tonight is our roundup for 2013.  I'm Ron MacLean here with Don Cherry and our special guest, Ken Dryden.  Ken, welcome to House of Commons Night in Canada.

KEN DRYDEN
Thanks, I've been looking forward to it.

RON MACLEAN
Ken, you're one of the few Canadians to have played the game of hockey AND the game of parliamentary democracy at the highest levels.  How do you compare the experiences?

KEN DRYDEN
It's an interesting question.  The first thing that comes to mind I guess, is that there's not as much talking in hockey.

DON CHERRY
There's a lot of yapping...

KEN DRYDEN
You're absolutely right, Don, there is a lot of yapping in hockey.  But now that I think of it, there's a lot of yapping that goes on in the House of Commons as well.

RON MACLEAN
Maybe we should get into that a little, the difference between yapping on the rink and yapping in the House of Commons.

KEN DRYDEN
Don, why don't you take that one?

DON CHERRY
Thanks Kenny, but as you know I've never played in the House of Commons....

KEN DRYDEN
I know, but you've seen Question Period and have pretty informed opinions about what you see there compared to the British House of Commons...

DON CHERRY
...and I'm not a lawyer, like you are...

KEN DRYDEN
There's lots of lawyers around the NHL but only one Grapes...

DON CHERRY
I think that's a compliment but anyway, in hockey yapping is needling a guy, trying to get him to do something stupid, or getting him off his game.

KEN DRYDEN
I agree, except my experience of the Commons is the yapping isn't that sophisticated - it's more trying to shout people down, drown 'em out.

RON MACLEAN
The fans normally do that in hockey.

KEN DRYDEN
Yeah, the Commons yapping is more like a bunch of drunks in the nosebleed section.

RON MACLEAN
So does the Commons do any better than just yapping?

KEN DRYDEN
Yes it does.  Really - and I'm sure you'll get this, Don - it's about respect...

DON CHERRY
I'm happy to hear you say that...

KEN DRYDEN
...respect for your opponents..

DON CHERRY
I'm happy to hear you say that, too...

KEN DRYDEN
...and really you can see that at work in the recent debate about Syria in the British House of Commons.

RON MACLEAN
How so?

KEN DRYDEN
Well, I've got a clip of it here.

DON CHERRY
Let's roll it.

DON CHERRY
We don't normally do 15 minute clips but I gotta say, it's a long way from Question Period in our House of Commons.

KEN DRYDEN
And that's the difference between talking and yapping, and I think Michael Chong's Reform Act is a step in the right direction.  But I think we shouldn't be discouraged about this.  British Parliamentary democracy is in constant evolution and has about 800 years behind it, that's one of its strengths. As Winston Churchill said in the British House of Commons in the dark days of 1942:

Thus we arrive, by our ancient constitutional methods, at practical working arrangements which show that Parliamentary democracy can adapt itself to all situations and can go out in all weathers. 

DON CHERRY
So besides the Canadian election in 2015, it's the 800th anniversary of the Magna Carta?

KEN DRYDEN
It's going to be a very big deal.  The Queen is Patron.

DON CHERRY
I don't wanna get in trouble like I usually do but shouldn't she be the Matron?

KEN DRYDEN
You'll have to take that up with the Organizing Committee.

RON MACLEAN
So we should be optimistic?

KEN DRYDEN
Absolutely.

RON MACLEAN
What would you suggest for starters, if you could reform House procedure?

KEN DRYDEN
I'd rip out all the desks.

RON MACLEAN
Really?  Why?

KEN DRYDEN
Not sure I can explain it, but I think the desks provide too much cover and separate the government from the opposition like it was trench warfare.

DON CHERRY
The Australians have desks.

KEN DRYDEN
Not the front benches.

RON MACLEAN
And on that note, we'll have to leave it until....

DON CHERRY
Kenny, you always were a little different but you never fail to surprise me.

KEN DRYDEN
I feel the same way about your suits.  Would you mind if I went shopping with you some time?

DON CHERRY
First Mercer, now Dryden  Where will it end?

RON MACLEAN
...next time on House of Commons Night in Canada.

The Base and The Nation

Flaherty’s tears for Rob Ford are a reminder of the ties that bind the federal Conservative government to the Toronto mayor and his criminal advisors. In August 2011, newly reelected Prime Minister Stephen Harper made a very telling appearance at the annual, summer picnic spectacle of the Ford family and its ‘Ford Nation’ supporters....

Ford’s west-end street was blocked off by police when Harper’s motorcade arrived, while in the backyard, Tory supporters enjoyed burgers, beer and wine.

In his surprise speech to the crowd, Harper thanked Ford’s mother, Diane, for “giving us this great Conservative political dynasty.” 

“Many of you may remember Rob endorsed us in the election. That helped a lot,” Harper told the crowd in the video. “Rob is doing something very important that needs to be done here. He is cleaning up the NDP mess here in Toronto.”

The prime minister said his government had cleaned up the “left-wing mess federally” and said he hoped to “complete the hat trick” by turning Ontario blue come the Oct. 6 provincial election, a comment that elicited applause from the crowd.

[emphasis added]

 ***

DON CHERRY
(cont'd)
18.  Forcing committees into closed hearings for no good reason and to the detriment of accountability
19. Refusal of the Prime Minister to answer questions from the press
20. Shipping three armoured limos to India by air for the PM's use for a few days and blaming the RCMP for the decision
21. Stalling the release of Residential School records on the grounds of "privacy" or "it's too hard" when these records are necessary to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission to carry out its mandate...

RON MACLEAN
You have a long list of these, ah.... not accomplishments.

DON CHERRY
22. Writing a book about hockey...

RON MACLEAN
Whoa, whoa.... I thought that would be an accomplishment in your eyes.

DON CHERRY
23. Writing a hockey book about the Leafs...

RON MACLEAN
This obviously isn't striking you as a good thing.

DON CHERRY
Why is he fiddling about the Leafs while his PMO is burning?  The Leafs have had all the amateur hour help they can use over the last few decades.  As Brent Rathgeber said, Harper is the PM in the PMO and if he had no idea that evil was being done by his closest advisors, why was he spending time writing a book on something he knows nothing about?  What next, I'm going to write a book about the history of Canadian Prime Ministers?

RON MACLEAN
I've heard worse ideas.

DON CHERRY
Like?

RON MACLEAN
The NHL in Phoenix rather than Hamilton.

DON CHERRY
Well, I have to agree with you there.  The NHL should have taken Balsillie's offer while he was on a roll.  Let's face it, southern Ontario could have two NHL teams without breaking a sweat.

RON MACLEAN
Why not Waterloo?

DON CHERRY
Why not Owen Sound?

RON MACLEAN
Now you're trying to confuse me.

DON CHERRY
Owen Sound makes more sense that South Carolina.

RON MACLEAN
In more ways than one.  Let's face it, the NHL should be in Halifax, Quebec City, and Saskatoon.  They'd be sold out in no time.  The NHL finances are a black box, it has nothing to do with hockey in my opinion.

DON CHERRY
There you go.  There are more serious hockey fans in western Canada than the American south, where the major competition is Roller Derby.

RON MACLEAN
So where do you see the hard core support for British parliamentary democracy?

DON CHERRY
Not in the American south.

RON MACLEAN
In Canada....

DON CHERRY
Everywhere in Canada....

RON MACLEAN
The Conservative Party of Canada doesn't seem like a hotbed of support...

DON CHERRY
That's not fair. There are many Conservatives who are supporters:  Michael Chong, Brent Rathgeber, just to name two.

RON MACLEAN
Can you name any more?

DON CHERRY
Don't rush me, don't rush me....

RON MACLEAN
How much of The Base cares about parliamentary democracy?

DON CHERRY
About the same as The Nation.

RON MACLEAN
And that is...?

DON CHERRY
Lemme put it this way, they watch Coach's Corner.  In fact Kenny Dryden said it best, only yesterday in The Globe:

For Mr. Ford and his supporters, their greatest delight is to see the know-everythings whine, to see how powerless the know-everythings are with only argument on their side. To see how powerless the powerful can be.

The difference between the two sides now has little to do with cutting taxes or smoking crack cocaine. Mr. Ford’s supporters hardly support his abuses. It’s about the deep, diseased hatred each side has for the other. The other side can not, must not win.

RON MACLEAN
So if they don't want parliamentary democracy, what do they want?

DON CHERRY
That my friend, is the question that needs an answer.

RON MACLEAN
And maybe we'll find one, next time on House of Commons Night in Canada.

DON CHERRY
Maybe we should have Kenny on the show.

RON MACLEAN
Let's ask him and see what happens.

Weaponizing Christmas

Thanks to our amazing partners for their support of #NoradSanta! http://t.co/AyVhdcwgE9
— NORAD Santa (@NoradSanta) December 15, 2013

"Designing a Parliament for the 21st Century"

It is my very strong sense, sitting institutionally where I do, that the class of 2010 did not arrive here minded to serve its time, do what it was told, and keep itself quietly occupied. 

John Bercow
Speaker, British House of Commons
Speech to Hansard Society
Nov 27, 2013

CSEC must be the elves

The evil of banality

The guy on the right, in any plain reading of the Third and Fourth Geneva Conventions of 1949, has a case to answer for violations that are "grave breaches of international humanitarian law" a.k.a. war crimes, particularly murder without due process in Pakistan.

The guy on the left supported the invasion of Iraq which, in any plain reading of the Nuremberg Principles  is also a war crime, one that got Field Marshall Wilhelm Keitel hung with respect to Czechoslovakia.  Of course, Keitel also authorized treatment of Russian prisoners of war that were also war crimes, and that also got him hung..

I'm not sure about the actual photographer, but Denmark hasn't been noticeably wise about NATO excursions in the Middle East and North Africa, and of course Afghanistan.  Also, the NATO Secretary-General is Danish, and rah-rah about humanitarian violence.

They're all having a great time.  I'm sure it will play well in the Daily Mail and Vanity Fair, not to mention their high school year books..

A third rate accountability attempt

On behalf of the President, press secretary Ziegler said then that he would not comment on a “third-rate burglary attempt.” He added that “certain elements may try to stretch this beyond what it is.”

Laurence Stern and Haynes Johnson
Washington Post Published: May 1, 1973

DON CHERRY
(cont'd)
13. Not Bev Oda
14. Gazebos
15. G8/20 $1 billion-for-nothing boondoggle...
16. The "in and out" fiasco
17. Guelph...

RON MACLEAN
There's just no letup is there?

DON CHERRY
I know.  Just when the Senate had taken over centre stage again from the, ah, events in Toronto - bam! - a Conservative back-bencher weighs in with a Private Member's bill to reform the way the House works and everybody's paying attention.

RON MACLEAN
That would be Michael Chong, MP for Wellington-Halton Hills.

DON CHERRY
That would be correct. I have to say I'm liking Chong, he's the real deal; not exactly a rookie but he's young, sees the House well, has good hands.

RON MACLEAN
So tell our viewers what he's trying to do.

DON CHERRY
What he wants to do is get more power to elected representatives...

RON MACLEAN
...Members of Parliament...

DON CHERRY
...right, and remove some from the cabinet and particularly from the PMO where kids nobody has elected or even heard of  famously try to boss around actual Members of Parliament. Government MPs get told when to talk, what to say, when to clap, how to vote, when to pee...  We've talked about respect before...

RON MACLEAN
Is this just a Conservative problem?

DON CHERRY
Not at all.  Chong makes that point. The other thing about Chong's bill is he wants to transfer more power to the ridings. It's an all party problem, and the same thing was going on with Chretien and Trudeau the Elder now that I think of it.  Politicians who want to get things done are always trying to centralize power to they can make actual decisions, not surprisingly, and don't want to run it by a few dozen members who all want their say and then say it in ways that make people nuts and nothing gets done.

RON MACLEAN
Yeah, David Frum was writing about exactly that in the National Post.

DON CHERRY
Who's David Frum?

RON MACLEAN
Senator Linda Frum's brother. He's spent most of his political career in the States and worked for George Bush.

DON CHERRY
Which one?

RON MACLEAN
W.

DON CHERRY
And he's knocking British Parliamentary Democracy?

RON MACLEAN
Yeah, he was saying if MPs had more power, the government wouldn't get anything done.

DON CHERRY
Let me quote Winston Churchill at him:

We work our affairs in a different way. The Prime Minister is the servant of the House and is liable to dismissal at a moment's notice by a simple vote. It is only possible for him to do what is necessary, and what has got to be done on occasion by somebody or other, if he enjoys, as I do, the support of an absolutely loyal and united Cabinet, and if he is refreshed and fortified from time to time, and especially in bad times, as I have been, by massive and overwhelming Parliamentary majorities. Then your servant is able to transact the important business which has to be done with confidence and freedom, and is able to meet people at the heads of the Allied countries on more or less equal terms and on occasion to say, "Yes" and "No," without delay upon some difficult questions. Thus we arrive, by our ancient constitutional methods, at practical working arrangements which show that Parliamentary democracy can adapt itself to all situations and can go out in all weathers.

RON MACLEAN
Also, judges are unaccountable.

DON CHERRY
He said the Canadian judiciary is unaccountable? This is a guy who worked in the White House and enthuses about the presidential system in which the Supreme Court Chief Justice goes duck hunting with the Vice President.  How do we know Cheney didn't threaten to shoot Scalia like he shot some other guy on a similar hunting trip, after a few beers?  There was a big case coming up shortly after that named Cheney as the defendant.  So now we're talking about it, who's Senator Linda Frum?

RON MACLEAN
"She currently serves on the Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee, the Energy and Environment Committee, and the Senate Conflict of Interest Committee." I just checked on Wikipedia.

DON CHERRY
Which party?

RON MACLEAN
Conservative.  Appointed by Harper in 2009.

DON CHERRY
Conflict of Interest Committee?  You'd think she'd be all over this. It's a conflict for Deloitte being the auditor of the CPC that Irv Gerstein is the chair of while also conducting an audit of Duffy for the Senate where Irv Gerstein is a Conservative Senator, the audit being awarded by the Standing Committee for Internal Economy, Budgets and Administration, the results of the audit possibly implicating the current Prime Minister or his appointed staff in improper attempts to manipulate the Senate where Linda Frum is a Conservative Senator responsible for conflict of interest. So, no problem. The other thing is I don't know why the Senate needed an outside auditor when they have a perfectly good inside auditor in the form of the Auditor General. In fact his audit is already happening.  The Auditor General made that clear in his remarks on June 11, 2013 to the very same Standing Committee for Internal Economy, Budgets and Administration.

I would like to assure the Committee that we have sufficient resources to conduct the audit.  As we did in the last one, we may engage experts, if the need arises.

 It's hard to believe the Board didn't know that before they asked Deloitte to do the outside audit.

RON MACLEAN
OK so back to the House of Commons, what's your take on Michael Chong's reform bill?

DON CHERRY
Well, it really isn't a reform.

RON MACLEAN
You're kidding.

DON CHERRY
The Conservative back bench can unseat the Prime Minister any time they want.

RON MACLEAN
How?

DON CHERRY
Like Churchill said, the nuclear option is voting with the Opposition on the budget.  That would bring down the government.

RON MACLEAN
Anything less drastic?

DON CHERRY
They can maneuver in caucus.

RON MACLEAN
How?

DON CHERRY
There's 39 Conservatives in the Cabinet which leaves 126 Conservative back-benchers. It wouldn't be a contest. The back-benchers in the British House of Commons exert influence through the 1922 Committee. That was speaking truth to power. The thing about Chong's bill is it'll get people talking, like we're talking now.

RON MACLEAN
...and will be again soon, possibly on YouTube.

DON CHERRY
We can make our own studio, I'll decorate it tastefully...

RON MACLEAN
Both imagination and words fail me.

DON CHERRY
Seeing is believing.

RON MACLEAN
*puts on impressive snow goggles*  I'm prepared for a snow job.

Michael Chong on parliamentary reform

Aaron Wherry 
MACLEAN'S

The Reform Act

Uri Avnery's 90th birthday