Turning a Blind Eye

Well no, not quite. And the question must be asked, is Richard Colvin, who has thrown that spanner into trust in the word of the Government of Canada courageous or a miserable crank? While Defence Minister Peter MacKay is under the gun because the opposition parties smell blood and have been barking like triumphant hyaenas, it wouldn't hurt to take a sober look at details. One detail is that Mr. Colvin is absorbed in his personal sense of righteous outrage. Actively on the hunt for any signs that human rights are being flouted, anywhere.

He has a personal sense of mission and, as one of his former colleagues noted, would have been a better fit as a committed member of an NGO whose mission statement accords with Mr. Colvin's search for meaningful involvement in ensuring that human rights are respected wherever he trots on his global missions. This is a man who sees black and white, and who does not appear to recognize nuances, particularly those where explicating circumstances deny conspiring to outrage.

And while the opposition parties, in particular the Liberal Party of Canada are beside themselves with jubilation at cornering the Conservative-led government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper, in wrong-doing on the world stage, claiming that the issue is one of trust and recognition of the Geneva conventions, most certainly not a partisan issue; above all, not a slur on the professionalism and confidence in the Canadian military, evidence speaks otherwise.

Take, for example, Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff's own words: "This is not a partisan matter. This is about the capacity of the Canadian Armed Forces to comply with their Geneva Convention obligations." Wait now: This is also an issue about who recalls what with greater accuracy. And where heads-up reports issued by those in the field routinely are distributed in huge volume to those who haven't the time (possibly the inclination, considering the source) to read them.

And where hearsay and the repetition of oft-phrased doubts about incidents that are not open to authentication, some of them emanating directly from the accusations of the very Taliban whom Canadian troops are facing on a deadly battlefield, cannot always be accepted as fact. And where overworked and time-squeezed overseers tend, as human nature decrees, to discount the claims of the over-zealous with a proclivity to seeing grievous fault where there is none.

Take the situation on the ground, with an overstrained battle group in an atmosphere of chaos, under-equipped and struggling to contain an insurgency where the enemy is garbed in the protective camouflage of civilian attire, and no one knows when the next bomb will land or when a convoy will blunder into an IED, and you have a recipe for error, for no one is immune to error. Take also into consideration that troops who have recently bidden farewell to another coffin headed for home, confronts a member of the enemy, taking him into their charge, then discharging their obligation by moving him forward into the care of those entrusted by the Government of Afghanistan to receive and monitor prisoners.

Cognizant in some corner of their weary minds that human rights conventions mitigate against ill treatment of prisoners of war. The realization is there that those who would not give a second thought to wearing a suicide vest and dispatching you and your buddies must be handled with kid gloves. Checking back to assure themselves that a prisoner handed over to the country's prison guards has not been brutalized. Can we equate being beaten with a shoe to torture? Well, then a man suspected as Taliban, taken into custody was tortured with a shoe.

Casting some doubt on the allegations raised by Mr. Colvin is the deputy director of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Afghanistan who claims to have a satisfactory ongoing dialogue with Canada, and who has stated himself to be concerned no little end that Mr. Colvin has left the impression that he was intimately informed of possible Canadian violation of international humanitarian laws. When no such confidence in relaying information of that kind would have been possible.

Above all, keep in mind the difficult, truly onerous, and dangerous tasks that Canadians through our government have imposed upon our military; to proudly and honourably dispatch their professional duties in a theatre of war under conditions that do not reflect a typical theatre of war. And remember that Canadian soldiers do take their obligations seriously; why else would they return to check on the well-being of an 'insurgent' and then rescue him from further abuse with a shoe?

Finally, shame on the opposition parties for their diligent commitment to finding fault both with the current government and the Canadian military in a trying and dangerous situation, when all political parties should be advancing the need to give support to a mission that has few champions eager to sacrifice their people in the cause of rescuing a people from the talons of irredentist Islamofascists.