By now most of you have heard of Richard Colvin, Canada’s former number two guy at the Canadian embassy in Afghanistan. If you haven’t, let’s just say he’s a guy with a big conscience that you would (and probably should) trust with your children.
He’s also the guy who decided to out the Conservative government’s policies regarding the transfer of Afghan detainees to Afghan security forces. In his own words:
“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 our information, the likelihood is that all the Afghans we handed over were tortured. For interrogators in Kandahar, it was a standard operating procedure” (From a CBC report)
Ooops! Did you notice how Colvin used a tried and true Conservative rhetorical tactic to out the very same Conservatives for their own allegedly corrupt and deeply unethical behaviour? He called them un-Canadian!! How dare he.
If you’re a blue-blooded Conservative, you know damn well the only Canadians who are legitimate targets of that kind of rhetoric are non-Conservatives: “Dirty Liberals”, “Red Socialists”, and “Canada-hating Separatists”.
For Colvin to have the audacity to execute the kind of rhetorical rip-off is a no-no in Con-land. Truth and conscience be damned!
The Conservatives, noticing one of their their signature moves was in danger of being illegitimately co-opted, reportedly consulted government lawyers to see if they could sue him for some sort of copyright infringement. After allegedly being told by their lawyers that the current copyright regime provides no such protections, (and that they were probably unfit to govern the country for even asking), the Conservatives re-doubled their efforts to engage in secret copyright reform talks to remedy future occurrences of this type.
Our government allegedly saw no other credible way of squashing this story (it should be noted that the option of launching an investigation to uncover the truth never really occurred to Harper). So the Harper government decided to fall back on a second tried and true fantastic Con-tactic – it was time to assassinate the character of a well-decorated, top civil servant who has for years, and by all accounts, served his country loyally and honestly. All accounts but for the one the Conservatives were about to manufacture, that is…
Harper’s troops worked hard to come up with this: According to the Conservtives, Richard Colvin is deeply anti-military.
Sure. We’ve all heard this before. Criticize the government on anything to do with Afghanistan and you’re any number of things: a terrorist sympathizer; a Taliban apologist; a member of the Taliban; a Taliban supporter; a soldier/troop/military/serviceperson hater; un-Canadian; anti-military; anti-freedom; anti-happiness; or possibly the devil among us (NOTE: all of the previous © Conservative Party of Canada, just to cover my ass).
What strikes me as odd about the anti-military attack is that I picture how I would see this debate playing out if I were in the military. If I were in the military following orders given to me by my superiors to hand over Afghan detainees, and if I was suspicious that those detainees might be tortured, I’d have a problem with it. Not because I suffered from some deep-rooted self-hatred, which might be the Conservative explanation of my unease in such a situation. But rather because, as a Canadian, I have a sense of right and wrong. And torture falls under the category of wrong. I’d be watching Richard Colvin and applauding him for trying to get to the bottom of some very problematic policies that had forced me to hand over Afghan detainees to a security force that was accused of torture.
I’d be applauding quietly, of course, for fear of being noticed by a government who would likely cast me as an anti-troop troop.
Listening to the Conservatives attack Colvin, a Canadian troop might be led to believe that in order to be pro-military you have to be pro-torture. Put another way, you have to be pro- whatever the Conservative government says. And everyone (save the current Conservative government) knows that is idiotic. But then, so is an approach to running a country that resorts to name-calling whenever anyone questions Conservative party policies on human rights grounds, or on any grounds for that matter.
Does the Conservative approach not strike you as a problem? Consider their approach applied to more familiar (hypothetical) circumstances:
- Imagine you were a parent criticizing the school board for taking all the books out of libraries – then according to Conservative logic you would be anti-education and a student-hater.
- Imagine you were a hockey-parent criticizing the local league for allowing fighting at the Timbits level – then you would be anti-hockey and definitely un-Canadian.
Ridiculous? Of course it is. And our government acts this way all the time.
What’s most striking about Colvin’s decision to call the detainee transfers un-Canadian is that he has provided an example of how one might correctly apply the epithet. Sadly, Conservatives are weary of getting things right, lest they be seen as trying to come off as “elitist”.
(+8 rating, 8 votes)
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