Canada's Afghanistan

On the one hand, we have a criminal trial seeking to prosecute a Canadian soldier - Capt.Robert Semrau - accused of shooting to death an unarmed, close-to-death-wounded Taliban insurgent. Capt. Semrau defends himself by his declaration that he did what he did as a humanitarian gesture, that he would have wished someone to do to him were he ever in such a situation.

The situation being that a joint foray of Afghan forces along with a small group of Canadian soldiers facing militant, firing insurgents in the throes of a battle, the unpredictable occurs with stunning regularity.

The commanding Afghan officer shrugged with indifference at the plight of the dying Taliban, refusing to offer any medical assistance. And Capt. Semrau, according to the testimony of one of the soldiers under his command at the time, decided not to provide first aid "because he didn't want to use his supplies on a guy who was going to die anyway".

That 'guy' was barely alive, with a severe stomach injury and a severed foot. Capt. Semrau decided to dispatch him. This does not accord with the Geneva Convention.

Which is precisely the reason why he stands accused of second-degree murder and may very well be convicted of same, along with three other charges all connected to the unfortunate incident. If it is proven that this was indeed a "battlefield mercy killing", will it make much difference to the charge and the disciplinary conviction?

Certainly, Capt. Semrau's actions did not represent Canadian mentoring practises toward his Afghan colleagues.

War is definitely a most unpleasant game, vile in its necessity and worse in its outcome, for whoever wins, if anyone does, too many deaths and dreadful injuries will ensue. And there are no guarantees that all combatants will observe the niceties of civilized behaviour.

If a Canadian soldier submits to his instinctual desire to put another human being out of his mortal pain through the final release of death, what are we to think of an Afghan soldier killing his adversary because it is his country, his traditions, his tribal culture that informs and compels him?

And then, we've got Canadian diplomat Richard Colvin, testifying again and again, now informing the Military Police Complaints Commission of Canada's failures, in his estimation, to recognize and to practise all the tenets of the Geneva Convention. Mr. Colvin contends that very few of the 100 Afghan detainees captured by Canadian soldiers, then transferred to Taliban authority had the well-being of their apprehended existence monitored.

Foreign Affairs officials, Canada's military personnel, were all guilty of lack of oversight. Canadians fighting alongside their NATO counterparts in a foreign war of fanatical Islamist attrition, bearing in mind the need to ingratiate themselves with the local populations to ensure their support against the gains of the Taliban, and suffering grievous losses, must perforce be ultra-concerned over the well-being of captured enemies held by the host country.

The man's sanctimonious rectitude is mind-bogglingly self-righteous. He mistook his calling, and should have been schooled to expound from a Sunday pulpit. Canada is not present in Afghanistan to monitor the country's detainment procedures, but it has indeed done what it could to help train Afghan prison guards in humane procedures. All the good will in the world, though, will not turn around in the space of a few years, the cultural social product of a tribal society.

Amnesty International and the B.C. Civil Liberties Association are out of their depth. Their human-rights obsession, matched by Richard Colvin's to shame and blame the government on this matter borders on the obscene. Self-criticism has its place. Which is precisely why Capt. Semrau is currently undergoing his own personal trial.

The Government of Canada does not condone prisoner torture. It does what it can to constrain a purported ally from indulging in what comes naturally to that tradition and that culture. All else is unhelpful commentary.