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Canada's Retreat from Laws of War
Why do we still collude with torturers?
[Editor's note: UBC professor of international law Michael Byers, author of the new book War Law, was invited to deliver the F.C. Cronkite Lecture in the College of Law at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon on November 14. What follows is taken from his address.]
The government of this country -- our country, our government -- has, since September 11, 2001, repeatedly and cynically disregarded fundamental rules of the laws of war.
The laws of war are also referred to as "international humanitarian law", since these rules are designed to prevent unnecessary suffering during armed conflict. They are paralleled, in times of peace, by international human rights. And they include the prohibition on the use of chemical or biological weapons, the prohibition on the intentional targeting of civilians and the prohibition on torture; cruel or inhuman treatment or punishment.
For decades, Canadians were at the forefront of efforts to protect human beings during times of both peace and war. In 1948, McGill law professor John Humphrey drafted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In 1956, then-Foreign Minister Lester B. Pearson pioneered the concept of UN peacekeeping-and won the Nobel Peace Prize. In 1994, then-Lieutenant General Romeo Dallaire served as force commander of the UN peacekeeping mission in Rwanda and fought valiantly to convince the member states of the UN Security Council to enforce the prohibition on genocide. In the late 1990s, then-Foreign Minister Lloyd Axworthy threw his weight, first behind a new multilateral treaty banning anti-personnel landmines and then behind the creation of a permanent international criminal court. Today, a Canadian, Philippe Kirsch, serves as the first president of that judicial body. Another Canadian, Louise Arbour, is the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.
Humphrey, Pearson, Dallaire, Axworthy, Kirsch, Arbour -- great names, Canadian names, that epitomize the pursuit of justice and dignity for all.
For decades, the Canadian government - or, rather, previous Canadian governments -- took international human rights and the laws of war seriously.
In 1976, Canada was one of the first countries to ratify the Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. In 1977, Sandra Lovelace, a Maliseet woman from New Brunswick, used this mechanism to file a complaint against Canada with the UN Human Rights Committee. She alleged that the Canadian government had violated international law when it stripped her of her status and rights under the Indian Act after she married a non-native man.
The Human Rights Committee upheld her complaint. And the Canadian government responded by doing the right thing: amending the Indian Act to make it consistent with international human rights standards.
Today, Sandra Lovelace sits as a Senator in the Canadian Parliament.
More than lip-service
In 1993, members of the Canadian Airborne Regiment tortured and killed a teenager during a peacekeeping mission in Somalia. Their actions were violations of international humanitarian law and the Canadian government responded accordingly. Several paratroopers were court-martialled for their role in the atrocities; one served five years in jail. And, in a move that signalled just how serious the offences were, the entire Canadian Airborne Regiment was disbanded.
Even this was arguably not enough; a commission of inquiry found that most of the senior officers involved in the deployment had failed in the performance of their duties, but none of them were tried and the commission was prematurely shutdown. Still, much more than lip-service was paid to the rules governing the treatment of detainees.
Canada also took the protection of civilians seriously when it came to the selection of military targets. During the 1999 Kosovo War, Canadian CF-18 fighter pilots, who train with their American counterparts, were never assigned as wingmen to them.
Our pilots were not so assigned because Canada has ratified the First Addition Protocol to the 1949 Geneva Conventions, while the United States has not. Canadian pilots are, therefore, subject to more stringent requirements concerning the protection of civilians. Accordingly, they could not be counted on to respond to some threats, such as anti-aircraft fire coming from a school or hospital, in the same way that an American pilot would. While the American pilot would attack the source of the anti-aircraft fire, the Canadian pilot would -- quite properly -- turn his plane on its tail and leave.
The 9/11 shift
After September 11, 2001, there was a discernable change of approach on the part of the Canadian government to these and other rules.
During operations in Afghanistan, Canadian soldiers were ordered by their American commander to lay anti-personnel landmines around their camp. When the Canadians refused -- citing our obligations under the 1997 Landmines Convention -- American soldiers, who are not subject to the same restrictions, laid the mines instead.
The fact that American, rather than Canadian, soldiers laid the mines makes it possible for the Canadian government to argue that there was no violation of the convention. Our government interprets the prohibition on the "use" of anti-personnel mines as not extending to reliance on mines laid by others -- providing that Canadian soldiers do not request the mines be laid.
In my view, this is a strained interpretation and hardly one that reinforces our claim to be the leading proponent of the total elimination of anti-personnel mines. For the same reason, I am concerned that Canadian forces at Bagram Airbase near Kabul have benefited from the protection provided by anti-personnel landmines laid by Soviet forces during the 1980s.
Handing over detainees
Then, there is the issue of detainees. In January 2002, Canadian soldiers captured suspected Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters in Afghanistan and handed them over to U.S. forces. The transfers took place despite the fact that U.S. Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had publicly refused to convene the "status determination tribunals" required by the Third Geneva Convention of 1949, to investigate whether individuals captured on the battlefield are prisoners of war. Canada, by choosing to hand the detainees over, also violated the Third Geneva Convention. The transfers did not, however, violate Canada's obligations under the 1984 Torture Convention, since there was no reason to believe that U.S. forces would mistreat the detainees.
Today, we know better. Photographs, news reports and official investigations into abuses at Abu Ghraib Prison in Iraq, Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan and Guantanamo Naval Base in Cuba indicate that, at best, the U.S. military has failed to educate its soldiers about human rights and international humanitarian law. At worst, the revelations suggest a policy of law-breaking that extends all the way up the chain of command, to the Secretary of Defence and perhaps the commander-in-chief himself.
The denial of access to legal counsel, the removal of detainees from occupied Iraq (in blatant violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention), and leaked legal opinions that seek to justify torture provide additional cause for concern.
Just last month, television footage appeared showing a group of U.S. soldiers burning the bodies of two dead Taliban fighters. Desecrating the bodies of dead opponents is a war crime. At the same time, the American Civil Liberties Union reported autopsies on 44 prisoners who died in U.S. custody in Iraq and Afghanistan indicated that 21 were victims of homicide. Killing a detainee is a war crime.
Republican Senator John McCain, who spent five and a half years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, and was tortured there, has been the strongest advocate within the United States for respecting the rights of detainees. Last month, McCain sponsored a bill in the U.S. Senate that would bar cruel and degrading treatment of any prisoners in U.S. custody. The bill has been fiercely opposed by Vice-President Dick Cheney, who suggested a compromise that would have seen the CIA excluded from the prohibition.
Despite Cheney's objections, the Senate voted 90-9 in favour of McCain's bill. Yet Congress will prevail, since President Bush has indicated that he will veto the legislation if it is passed by the House of Representatives, which seems likely.
'American gulag'
Then there is the American gulag. Earlier this month, the Washington Post reported that the CIA was operating a series of covert prisons-so-called "black sites"-in a number of foreign countries, including in Eastern Europe.
According to the Post, "Virtually nothing is known about who is kept in the facilities, what interrogation methods are employed with them, or how decisions are made about whether they should be detained or for how long." Worse yet, "CIA interrogators in the overseas sites are permitted to use the CIA's approved 'Enhanced Interrogation Techniques,' some of which are prohibited by the U.N. convention [on torture] and by U.S. military law."
The techniques include "waterboarding", whereby a prisoner is made to believe that he or she is drowning. In addition to covert prisons, the United States also subcontracts interrogations to the notorious intelligence services of Egypt, Jordan and Syria. This practice-referred to as "extraordinary rendition"-has resulted in the torture of a number of Canadians, including Maher Arar, Abdullah Almalki, Ahmad El Maati and Muyyed Nureddin.
Earlier this year, Professor Stephen Toope, formerly Dean of Law at McGill University, was retained as an independent fact-finder by the Canadian judicial inquiry into the Arar affair. Toope determined conclusively that Arar had been tortured, including by being subjected to 18 straight hours of interrogation during which he was beaten on his palms and wrists with a steel cable two inches thick, and by being confined for 10 months to a cell three feet wide, by six feet long, by seven feet high.
Toope concluded: "The effects of that experience, and of consequent events and experiences in Canada, have been profoundly negative for Mr. Arar and his family. Although there have been few lasting physical effects, Mr. Arar's psychological state was seriously damaged and he remains fragile. His relationships with members of his immediate family have been significantly impaired. Economically, the family has been devastated." Toope added, with reference to Arar's battle to clear his name: "Mr. Arar strikes me as a person with what one might describe as moral courage."
For more than one year, the Canadian government resisted pressure to establish an inquiry into possible involvement by the RCMP or CSIS in Arar's rendition and torture and would successfully have resisted were it not for the determined efforts of Arar and his wife, Monia Mazigh.
It is still resisting establishing an inquiry into what happened to Almalki, El Maati and Nureddin, even though Toope found all three to be credible witnesses.
After Arar
Fortunately, we now know something of what happened.
In September 2004, an internal RCMP investigation revealed that at least one of their officers learned of the U.S. plans to deport Arar before he was flown to the Middle East, but did not immediately convey this information to other officers. The same internal investigation concluded that RCMP officers considered and then rejected the idea of going to New York, where Arar was first arrested, to question him because none of their own aircraft were available and commercial flights were too expensive!
Earlier this year, in testimony before the Arar Commission, Superintendent Michel Cabana, the senior officer in the RCMP investigation into Arar, said they later suspected he was being tortured but nevertheless offered to share their information with the Syrians. Cabana said, "If all my supervisors around the table and all my seniors, people more senior than me, think that it's my mandate and protecting the Canadian public, I will go forward and share the information."
We're still awaiting the final report of the Arar Commission, more than two years after Arar was released. In the interim, the Canadian government has provided no financial assistance to the Arar family, or to the other Canadian torture victims.
It is in this broader context that we must assess the announcement, just two months ago, that Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan have again acquired detainees and again transferred them to U.S. custody.
The full scope of the Geneva Conventions no longer applies to Canada's operations in Afghanistan, because our soldiers are there with the full consent of the sovereign government in Kabul. But Canada is still bound by a provision, "Common Article 3," that applies to armed conflicts which are "not of an international character occurring in the territory of one of the High Contracting Parties." Afghanistan is one such party, having ratified the Conventions in 1956.
Common Article 3 stipulates that "persons taking no active part in the hostilities, including members of armed forces who have laid down their arms," are absolutely protected from "violence to life and person, in particular murder of all kinds, mutilation, cruel treatment and torture." Common Article 3 also proscribes "outrages upon personal dignity, in particular, humiliating and degrading treatment."
Canada, by transferring detainees to a foreign military that has recently committed violations of precisely this kind, is risking complicity in breaches of the Geneva Conventions.
Toying with torture
We're also taking chances with the Torture Convention, Article 3 of which decrees that "no state party shall expel, return or extradite a person to another state where there are substantial grounds for believing that he would be in danger of being subjected to torture."
Just last week, in a report presented to the UN General Assembly, the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture singled out Canada and five other countries for violating human rights conventions by deporting terrorist suspects to countries, such as Egypt and Syria, where they may have been tortured.
Given what we now know about practices at Abu Ghraib, Bagram, Guantanamo and elsewhere, the possibility that our detainees will be tortured in U.S. custody is very real-as real, perhaps, as if we sent them to Syria.
The UN Committee on Torture has stated that the term "another state" in Article 3 of the Torture Convention encompasses any additional country to which a prisoner might subsequently be transferred. For this reason, transferring detainees to the Afghan authorities will not relieve Canada of responsibility, since Kabul may be expected to comply with a U.S. request for custody.
Transferring our detainees to U.S. or Afghan custody might even violate the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which safeguards "security of the person" and affirms that "everyone has the right not to be subjected to any cruel and unusual treatment or punishment."
The Supreme Court of Canada has held-in the February 2001 case of Burns and Rafay-that extraditing an accused murderer to face capital punishment would violate the Charter. Consequently, the Charter's provisions would seem to apply to transfers of detainees from Canadian custody in Afghanistan, especially if the death penalty might be applied, but also if torture were possible.
According to the Department of National Defence, Canada has received assurances from the United States that any detainees received by it will be treated properly. This is insufficient. Torturing governments always deny and seek to conceal their actions. What matters is the recent track record of the United States.
'Expediency is no excuse'
Defence Minister Graham says that Canada must transfer detainees to U.S. custody because we lack the facilities to hold them and that building such facilities would be impracticable. I disagree. Expediency is no excuse for violating fundamental international human rights and international humanitarian law. If compliance requires building our own detention facilities, so be it. As the eighth largest economy in the world, this is something we can afford.
The real question is whether we're prepared to stand up to our southern neighbour, even when it's torturing people.
The favourite argument of those who advocate following in Washington's footsteps, whatever it decides to do, is that the Americans will do whatever they want regardless of what we say. Moreover, so the argument goes, with 86 percent of our exports going to the United States, we've a great deal to lose by opposing their policies.
The argument fails on multiple counts. First, Canada is an influential country in its own right. We've the world's second largest territory, a massive share of its natural resources, a highly educated, healthy and remarkably harmonious population with strong fiscal foundations. Our influence is reflected in the fact that we're a member of the G-7 group of leading industrialised countries as well as the "Quad" negotiating group in the WTO.
In fact, we're the United States' largest trading partner -- as well as its largest single supplier of both natural gas and oil. And our influence is augmented by our middle-power tradition of multilateral leadership, which has always included promoting the peace and defending human rights.
Second, when Canada stands up to the United States, it rarely incurs a penalty. In the last three years, Canada stayed out of both the Iraq War and missile defence. Instead of losing, we gained from these decisions, by avoiding the quagmire in Iraq and signalling to other countries that Canada remains an independent country-open, among other things, to its own diplomatic and trading relations.
Canada's opportunity
Just last month, Canada scored a major victory with the adoption of a multilateral convention on the protection of cultural diversity at UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization in Paris. The new convention, which will help keep Canadian content requirements exempt from unrestricted free-trade, was adopted over the objections of the United States. And it would never have been proposed, let alone adopted, had Canada meekly followed U.S. policy on that issue.
In terms of fundamental human protections, the recent pattern of law-breaking by the United States creates an opportunity for Canada. For decades, Washington provided considerable leadership with regard to international human rights and international humanitarian law. In the last four years, that role has been abdicated, opening space for a determined, experienced, well-minded middle power such as Canada. But if we're to exercise leadership on this or any other international issue, we have to be on our best behaviour-and not let standards slip in the way they have next door.
Those standards were set by a generation that lived through two world wars, the rise and fall of fascism in Germany, Italy and Japan and the Holocaust. Their commitment to the rules I've discussed today finds expression in the first three stanzas of the UN Charter of 1945:
We the peoples of the United Nations determined to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind, and to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small, and to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained, ...
There you have it-the prevention of war, protection of human rights and promotion of international law-three foundational pillars of the post-war international order, all of which came together in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 and the four Geneva Conventions of 1949.
Democracy is not a spectator sport. Please contact Bill Graham, our Minister of National Defence, and tell him what you think about our soldiers transferring detainees to U.S. or Afghan custody. All of his contact details are on his website.
Michael Byers holds the Canada Research Chair in Global Politics and International Law at the University of British Columbia. He is the author of War Law: Understanding International Law and Armed Conflict (Douglas & McIntyre, 2005).
Frederick Clinton Cronkite, for whom this lecture was named, was Dean of the University of Saskatchewan at Saskatoon from 1929-1961, a specialist in public law, and an adviser to Tommy Douglas when he was Premier of Saskatchewan from 1944 to 1961. ![[Tyee]](http://thetyee.cachefly.net/ui/img/ico_fishie.png){kind=small}
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31
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Adrian
6 years ago
Comments on "Canada's Retreat from Laws of War"
Brilliant article! Well done!
A very good summary of what "International Laws" or more correctly, "International Treaties", proscribe & prescribe. Canada and a few other leading "humanitarian" countries should take note - against the "errorism" and "neo-colonialism" of certain known vested economic-political interests.
lani
6 years ago
What a great article...I so wish the Tyee would publish more articles of this quality. This information is important and needs to be disseminated. especially in the mainstream news, which of course won't cover issues like this. Very well done...
murdock
6 years ago
First Class article.
Arguments are laid out in logical manner and supported by verifiable facts.
Ended with at least a minor call to action and I encourage everyone to write to the Minister and give him your thoughts. These emails will just be deleted, but just maybe one or two will sneak through to him or his staff...
Mooney
6 years ago
I also appreciated this article and would like to see more like it.
Our soldiers are involved in three of Americas wars despite litte if any public process.
We are becoming a police state because our Gov't has committed us to America's war on terror.
Our soldiers are exposed to residue from biological weapons, depleted uranium and they can actually be toxic and harmful to their own families when they return from theatres of war.
If you know of anyone who is serving, considering serving, or has served and become ill. I highly recommend they look up Beyond Treason. The film is available on the internet.
Ron Erwin
6 years ago
To be critical of only the western democracies and ignore the human rights violations by Muslims is not helping anyone except the Muslims.
And to call Canada an independant country, when we depend on the US for defense is also not helping the cause.
I sometimes wonder who these left wing writers are working for. It seems they are interested in the further distabilization of our way of life. I find these writings dangerous and idiotic. The real enemy is the Muslim Extremists, not the Americans. Have a look at their Costitution some day.
Have a look at our Charter of Rights,\.
The first line is " Wheras Canada is founded under the supremacy of God and the rule of law "
Then read the Koran, carefully.
ubiquitous
6 years ago
If ever there was a non sequitur...
Barbara
6 years ago
Thank you for this article. This is an issue of great concern to me as a Canadian. When I read about how Canada has involved itself in permitting or collaborating with the US in breaking humanitarian laws, especially when our country does nothing to aid our citizens who are being tortured or came home from being tortured, I am so ashamed to be Canadian.
What is the point in observing Remembrance Day when our country chooses when it's politic to be humane or not?
I listened to part of the CBC's The Current when they recently interviewed William Sampson, the Canadian who was held and tortured in Saudi Arabia. The lack of action on the part of our government, not only during but afterwards, is appalling... actually, there's no words to express the shame of it all.
Yammer
6 years ago
Ron Erwin: I am as anti-AQ as anybody but I would say that this is an excellent article. I believe a strong business case can be made for following our own commitments to human rights instruments. War is raw coercion. Those who have ignored the moral ramifications will face a much longer period of resistance, it seems to me.
Ron Erwin
6 years ago
yammer, I understand where you are coming from, but these people are animals who are not going to follow the normal ways of waging war. They want us dead. I cannot help but to throw out all polteness and go for their jugular vein.
clubofrome
6 years ago
Where is the honor and the code you so often hear about. How the military man must lead by example and act beyond the minimum moral standards. They were thrown out with same bath water that contained corporate standards. The miltary now works for the corporation and tries to disguise itself with the uniform of it nationality. When did this happen? Since when did we start hanging our soldiers and verterans out to dry? Where does the buck stop with torture? No one will admit where the orders came from, but stops well short of the pentagon. Gutless bastards. In our country the miltary won't even recognize Gulf War Syndrom, and their record on PTSD is appalling. This isn't news, it's well known we have plenty of sick veterans going all the way back to WWII, it's just now the media can show you the recent returnees from their assignments abroad. East Europe, Africa or Asia it doesn't matter. Some of these men and woman come home and will never be the same. Some commit suicide over what they have seen or been a party to. How can you not feel for them and wish things were different? How can you look at them and say there is now no other option to war? If these and other facts like the dumping of munitions in the ocean, are just coming to the surface now, what else can we expect to hear about? War and politics, played by a bunch of children who never shed their bully syndrome. It's a disgrace to our veterans and citizens who cry for peace. Ghandi was probably right, there is no excuse for violence. If we are dumbed down enough to see GWB be elected twice, there is little hope for things to be set straight. I wish we could say we were different here in Canada. All I see are people casing the american dream, hoarding their wealth, and then spouting off that the US is the problem. If only it were that easy to identify the bad guy now, unfortunatly it's a global pandemic. One worse than any bird flu.
...and for the record, it's true, I like dolphins more than humans. But the rest is rumor! Everyone knows that sheep are liars!
jayward
6 years ago
i see the Uberstrumbanfurher [Ron Erwin] has checked in again. What an a_____e, i can guarantee you that he has never been on a front line or even ever been threatened by the people he denigrates as animals.
The article is well thought out and supported by the facts. If Mr.Erwin is so anxious to suck up to the regime currently in power in the USA i suggest he take his sorry ass thirty miles to the south.
JWL
kootenay
6 years ago
Your grasp on reality is very scary. Imagine if you can, being a citizen in a country that has been invaded by the USA. Your beautiful city has been carpet bombed, your friends neighbors, and family are dead, more dying each day. Your natural resources are being exported out of your country to feed a gluttonous society. Your government is being taking over by Americans. I suppose you'd quickly realize that you are in the wrong all your life, accept the consequences and take no action. I know I'd been going for the jugular of the SOB's who just destroyed my life. If I couldn't muster a force strong enough to confront the USA, then I guess I would have to revert to terroism. A message is being sent, your just to damn ignorant to read it.
The western world, particularly the USA, has brought this terrorism on themselves. Its a horrible thing, but it won't go away by killing more innocent people. It'll end when the west realizes people aren't going to sit idly by while some other culture forces their brand of democracy on them.
Ronnie, you and your friends scare me a hll of a lot more than any Muslim in the world.
Sunny Samson
6 years ago
Thanks to Professor Byers for laying out a framework of history and facts to help us understand how Canada is sliding into Yankee statehood by its mewling complicity with George W. Bush' administration. We're becoming one of the ringleader's right-hand knee-jerk bullies.
However, I'd suggest it's not just Defense Minister Graham we should contact, but Deputy PM and Homeland Security Minister Anne McLellan to whom we should be directing our strong concerns. She, along with the energetic help of John Manley, is tying Canada up in a straight-jacket of laws which will render Canadians helpless in their efforts to live a life unmolested by government scrutiny and ill-treatment and to hold our government accountable when they step beyond the bounds of human decency. If your name gets on a list (even if it's a mistake or a vendetta by some guy you had a run-in with at a bar) watch out. I know with a name like mine, I ain't going anywhere near Saudi Arabia. "Samson, Samson, don't we have that name on the list somewhere?" Seriously folks, don't underestimate the stupidity, nor the brutality of the empowered civil servant/security agent and their minions. They rule! (now) thanks to the tireless efforts of Ms. McLellan (gawd knows where Paul Martin stands on this stuff, no one ever seems to ask him, do you notice?).
We are marching in lock-step with the Americans. I watched Ms. McLellan appear in front of a parliamentary committee examining whether Canada should retain the "extraordinary" legislation it put in place right after 9/11. When one committee member asked her why a certain requirement was being added to the law, even though it wasn't necessary (I won't go into the arcane details here), Ms. McLellan abashedly admitted "Because the Americans want it." There you have it -- we are no longer writing our own laws in this country. As for emulating the United States, well, shortly after the current Bush president took office, he passed a law that prevents his records in office from EVER being unsealed. That's right, EVER. Makes you wonder, eh? No other U.S. president ever sought to keep his records private forever. What a model to emulate.
(hope this isn't too incoherent, I'm in a rush, but wanted to post something)
Wallace
6 years ago
Ah now I see, the real Ronnie Erwin doesn't wear rose coloured glasses, he wears welding goggles. That is, Ronnie only sees a tiny bit of bright light and thinks that is all he needs to know to find the truth. How else might we interpret these comments from Ron:
"To be critical of only the western democracies and ignore the human rights violations by Muslims is not helping anyone except the Muslims."
"The real enemy is the Muslim Extremists, not the Americans."
What Muslims are those Ron? Surely you don't mean every Muslim on the planet? That comment takes me back to the young Cassius Clay converting to Islam and the very proper press of the day referring to the religion as "Black Muslims". Ali gently chided the press and observed that Muslims come in all colours, just like Christians.
So Ron, what Muslims are you talking about? Are you talking about the Muslims in countries with US client governments, like Saudi Arabia or Egypt or Kuwait or any of the UAE? In those countries supported by the land of the free and the home of the brave there is no democracy. Women are not accorded equal rights and the rule of law is the gun and is decided on tribal connections. And the US doesn't care.
Or are you talking about Muslim countries like the bombed to crap Iraq that would not go on bended knee to the seven sisters or Haliburton? Therein lies the rub.
A little consistency and clarity Ronnie, please.
Canada has a long way to go to erase the stain of being a client state to the US anti-human rights interests.
And, I know I have said this before Ronnie, but do you think it possible that you could actually respond to the points made in a story. Your knee jerk puking does not enlighten anyone. It does amuse me in the way dealing with a child amuses me, but I would prefer to debate the issues, rather than parse your narrow mind.
Wallace
6 years ago
Thanks to Michael Byers for laying out the information clearly. This information should be widely disseminated. But I will not hold my breath.
Canada has been very poorly treated, by its own government. Forget the picayune issues dealt with in the Gomery inquiry, Canada's international reputation is in tatters as this government allows our foreign policy to be dictated to by the US.
We are now complicit in torture, war crimes and the violation of UN directives, and we have been singled out for participation in transferring prisoners to countries that practice torture. The corporate press largely ignores the stain on our national fabric. We should all hang our heads in shame.
Canada once had a moral position as a middle power. No more. What we have allowed our government to do is include our cities, our citizens, in the list of targets for extremists. Our quiesence is a fraud and does not serve us well.
dorothy
6 years ago
The problem with this debate is, that people think they're discussing the same thing, when they're really not. Ostensibly, war is some sort of organised enterprise, where we set rules for how brutal we can get. The minute you do that, you aren't dealing with a war, but some kind of game. War is about turf, whether it's going to be yours or mine, it's about lebensraum. We can rationalize some other label, like it's for religion, it's for democracy, it's for freedom, but it's really always because we feel crowded by these other guys, they'r getting too close to our comfort zone, they are bullying too much to have us hand over some of our goodies, and so we slug it out once more, no holds barred. Try to make a case for war being undertaken to accomplish any other purpose than more room for 'me and mine'!
Wallace
6 years ago
Sorry folks, how could I have missed this priceless gem from Ron:
"but these people are animals who are not going to follow the normal ways of waging war."
The US won its independence from Britain by wearing regular clothes, not forming skirmish lines, and generally creating havoc with the British forces by not engaging in the "normal ways of waging war" Ronnie.
What's good for the goose brother Ron... And, as noted in the Byers' piece, the western governments involved in this mightmare are not following the "normal ways of waging war." And these days the normal ways are actually written down.
PeteL
6 years ago
Professor Byers, not to nit-pick, but did we really stay out of Iraq? I mean didn't we position our Canadian frigates in the gulf? These frigates are certainly part of our arm forces.
Their mission was to patrol the gulf to ensure oil tankers made the passage safely. As well their secondary mission was to forcably board merchant ships and terrorize their crews at gun point. They would storm the ship, secure the bridge and round up all the crew in the galley. Then interogate innocent seafarers - some of the most marginalized workers in the world. Then they took digital pictures of the seafarers and sent them off to the US State Dept. Its probably not a stretch that some of these workers were taken off thier ships and turned over to US operatives.
To me our stated position on Iraq was a bit of a phoney shell game. Otherwise your address is spotless and I thank you for reminding me why we as Canadian's used to be so proud of our nation.
I'm glad Sunny Samson took the time to make the above post. Obviously Sunny hasn't lost the plot here. We have federal election coming up. I for one will be dogging Liberal candidates during the campaign. I would suggest it might be an idea to start sending Liberal constituency offices loads of questions.
Canadian's are just about at the end of the rope in terms of loss of civil liberties. And these liberties are being lost for the sake of a few frigging bucks. This is just B.S. Time to react.
Yammer
6 years ago
Ron Erwin:
Re: "these people are animals who are not going to follow the normal ways of waging war. They want us dead. I cannot help but to throw out all polteness and go for their jugular vein."
Can't agree. The fanatical AQ, Qutbist leadership are not animals, they are principled men of learning, generally of means and with options other than war on the West. They war on the West not as animals but -- far worse -- out of a sincere sense of obligation to their view of jihad, purity, and righteousness. I think if anything you are underestimating the opponent.
Anyway, the hardcore is likely to founder without the support of softer people who contribute materiel but not their lives. These are the wannabes and the look-the-other-way people.
This group is far too numerous and nebulous to target for elimination. I believe they can be subverted through the usual means: trade and diplomatic contact leading to cultural englobement and eventually assimilation into what is currently, to them, a weird sci-fi future of human rights, Godless government, and multiculturalism.
Make no mistake. The West will win this culture war. Not because of ethnocentrism on the part of Yammer, but because history tells us that good ideas often stall out but are never defeated. Equal rights for women, secular courts, and the rule of law -- all landmarks of the progressive and freedom-loving impulses in politics -- all had to overcome strenuous resistance in Christian countries, to get to the point where they are axiomatic today.
A similar journey awaits the peoples oppressed by Sharia. I really think it makes no sense to advertise the virtues of civilization by being uncivilized.
I am not talking about the conduct of the war, per se, where a bullet is a bullet and a spy is a spy. But decent treatment of prisoners, and avoidance of banned weapons, is surely a case of the superior force practicing what it preaches.
demomaniac
6 years ago
Moral outrage is a good cathartic, but a cubic kilometer of it weighs less than a feather.
Crimes are being committed in our name, by people we know the names of. Can we not form a brigade to protect Canadian values, consisting of real people to accuse the criminal. By offering a reward to anyone, who will deliver said criminals, to the international war crimes tribuneral, we would put a damper on their treasonable impulses. The I-will-do-anything-for-money bunch will jump at the chance to become a bounty hunter, maybe even Herr Erwin.
Ron Erwin
6 years ago
To all my detractors above, I stick with my view that the Americans are not trying to kill us and threaten our way of life. Christian fundamentalists do not advocate ythe murder of innocent woman and children.
You are all out to lunch as far as I am concerned.
You are the enemy of our society. You ate traitors.
ubiquitous
6 years ago
I dunno about you, but I like to boil my traitors and season them with a little salt and pepper ;)
KWD
6 years ago
Thank you, Michael Byers, for this expose of the progress of male dominated, social engineering in the 21st century. Apparently war has reified from humanity’s ultimate absurdity and unquestionably our most decisive intellectual failure, to a globally accepted and absolutely necessary method of conflict resolution. Hence we have libraries of books detailing with the fundamental rules and laws of war, rather than peace.
It seems that all attempts at tabling and examining the distortional thinking that belies the motivations for instilling compliance, and unquestioning cooperation with the warmongers, are to be treated as blasphemy or treason by today’s leaders. The UN Charter, the UN Declaration of Human Rights and the Geneva Conventions ring hollow.
lynn
6 years ago
One of the Tyee's best articles...thanks Michael Byers.
It is really not so surprising that we have drifted so far from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 and the four Geneva Conventions of 1949, when we live in a country and in a world that sees no folly in giving corporations the same rights...and often more rights... than human beings.
We can't seem to tell the difference between things and people, the artificial and the real.
We are way off course, in that our whole definition of humanity has mutated to the point that we cannot even recognize the necessary "human" component that must be present in the idea of human rights.
There's a great quote by Mae West that is comparable to Canada's present position..."I was Snow White but I drifted"... (though Canada nor West were never quite as virginal as the quote suggests).
We have drifted from a more honourable, compassionate stance on the world stage because we have drifted here, in our own country, first. We support treasonous leaders within our own borders so it is not surprising that we collaborate with the same kind of scoundrels outside of our own borders as well.
We are increasingly lacking a moral compass within this country of ours... and it shows in our international failings, in our bootlickin' behavior, and in an unforgiveable and reckless disregard for human rights.
sdgreen
6 years ago
Interesting pacifist article. Let us does roll over and play dead so that terrorists and the such can take over Canada.
While we are at it, let us lower the Canadian Flag and just quite being a nation.
Fact is we have to protect our western culture and we also have to protect those who are in need.
Appeasement and pacifist policies just do not work!
dgb
6 years ago
Ron Irwin of Victoria and Sid Green of Filthhollow are at it again. Both tend to be out of their depth among any thinking group. However, their challenge of such a distinguished author's impeccably researched article is tedious and offensive in the extreme. When the best argument they can offer is "they are all animals" one needs go no further.The depravity of such a mind set knows no barriers."Of to the gas chambers with all muslims and liberals, evil souls".God save you from your god.
Wallace
6 years ago
"Christian fundamentalists do not advocate the murder of innocent woman and children."
Ronnie, give your head a shake. The American Christian Fundamentalists are bombing and murdering innocent men, women and children in Iraq.
Oh yah, I forgot, in Ronnie's world they are Muslims. Therefore they are animals and don't count as they don't wage war by the rules.
citizen x
6 years ago
This is a great article and I encourage readers to tell their teacher friends and acquaintances about it so that they might use it in their senior humanities courses. Our young people need to be exposed to these ideas so that they might escape the pathetic and dangerous views expressed by re and sdgreen. Celebrating and supporting Bush's vile foreign policy is not the way to ensure a safe and peaceful future for our children (not to even worry about the poor and innocent victims of american fly by bombings). For those interested in understanding why so many europeans, africans, asians and south americans hate the USA, or more properly, their policies and behaviors, you might read peter scowen's Rogue Nation.
clubofrome
6 years ago
How timely was "A Few Bad Apples" on the Fifth Estate last night? Abu Gharib prison and the torture that no one will accept responsibility for. Shame, anger, confusion and damage. That is what most of those soldiers are now feeling, as their Military abandons them in their time of need. A complete lack of accountable responsibility is what one soldier said. Hmmmm I wonder why that sounds so familiar? Oh ya! That's what I said 2 weeks ago! Canuck666 Here's a refresher:
It has nothing to do with which side of the fence you are on. It has nothing to do with your personal belief on wearing a poppy, the history of civilization, the past or future, religeon and politics. All of these are just excuses that COWARDS hide behind to avoid responsibility for thier actions. People know the difference between right and wrong. It's that radar that goes off and causes that warm flushing feeling to rise from your toes to your head. It's a filter to stop you from going over the edge, as we heard from one of the soldiers witness to the torture. He couldn't continue to watch, he had to leave or he might not be able to come back. The other "who lost it" is still waking up on the floor screaming. How convenient that Rumsfeld who was at the prison and likely gave the order hides behind the Geneva Conventions now as protocol in Iraq. What a bunch of fuckinghypocrites!! Elected twice!
not sure who wrote that.
And those of you pointing fingers at the US better have a look in the mirror. As I said the other day this is a global pandemic, these are global corporations, multinational criminals. Lot's of them right here in hockeyland too.
Yammer
6 years ago
"The American Christian Fundamentalists are bombing and murdering innocent men, women and children in Iraq."
Citation?
the-west-is-best
6 years ago
Policy is one thing, practice is another. Canada can have the greatest foreign and human rights policies in the world, but they are meaningless if no one follows them.
Unfortutnately, many of our foreign service officers out there aren't into sticking their necks out, even for Canadians. I have visted quite a few embassies and High Commissions in the developing world, and I must say I was NOT impressed with the diplomatic culture that existed in many of those locations.
Basically, it is one big country club / international social club. Our Heads of Mission are mostly male baby boomers with no career prospects simply because of demographics. So every just coasts along, looking for invites to parties and conferences and travel and staying out of trouble.
Combine that general attitude with some bumbling and prejudice in Ottawa, and you are left just twisting in the wind. Read Sampson's book on Saudi Arabia if you really want a scare.
Don't rely on your Canadian passport to save your neck, when overseas!!