Assume Canada detains someone.
What do we do then? Set up POW camps? Bring the prisoner to Canada? Or turn the prisoner over to the Afghan civil authorities who we are trying to support?
Torture is unacceptable. But absent that turning the prisoner over to the Afghans makes sense.
So what do we do when torture is there? Perhaps setting up POW camps is the best idea? But what about Afghan sovereignty. It's a thorny issue.
(And I am aware one answer is leave)
James Morton
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6 comments:
Well, we have been there since 2001. Granted I'm speaking from hindsight, however, they could have set up temporary facilities until they trained enough Afghans, then turned over full control.
But I agree, it is a thorny issue.
The other answer, of course, is to release them.
We can't turn them over to the Afghans if we can't ensure they won't be tortured. If it's politically unacceptable to imprison them ourselves, in terms of respect for Afghan sovereignty, then they would have to be released.
And if we're going to go to the extent of setting up our own prison system, we're also going to have to think about what we plan on doing with them. At least some of those detained clearly aren't POWs. Are we going to charge those who aren't? If not, we would need to release them anyways, I assume.
What's so thorny about it? Was it thorny to set up and manage POWs in WWI, WW2, or Korea? Nope.
Is it expensive? yes.
Are there political considerations as we are technically now an invited military force in a sovereign nation? I suppose, but weren't we that in Korea too?
Instead we heard testimony that the government wanted detainees fast-tracked for handover to the Afghanis (target: 12 hours in Canadian custody), directly implying that there was a lack of interest in accountability. Just arrest 'em and get rid of them.
We also heard that for a time the Afghanis started refusing to accept prisoners from Canadian forces because they weren't getting the info they needed from us to prosecute them.
Needless to say, I would expect that our governments rush to hand over detainees played a role in our lack of providing proper evidence along with the prisoners.
The rules are pretty clear: you capture someone, they are your responsibility. Full stop. If that means a base prison until an oversight process is in place then so be it. It has been an accepted cost of war for a century. Why it this suddenly being portrayed as some sort of new burden?
This in part should be a question for our NATO allies too. Handing them over to the Americans was an option that was turned down.This seem to have been a huge mistake.
Thorny;indeed.
David
> what about Afghan sovereignty.
I think the Afghans are sovereign when the tens of thousands of troops occupying their country pack up and leave.
Until then, assertions of "Afghan sovereignty" are just hollow fictions used to evade responsibility.
If the Afghans we prop up in power after the corrupt elections can't refrain from torturing people, we should remove them from this responsibility and put them in jail with the other terrorists.
Or, yeah, leave.
> Handing them over to the Americans was an option that was turned down.
That's because the Americans, um, tortured their prisoners.
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