http://www.mtl911truth.org/?p=3112

Not long after the period when Judge Delong had listened to STS’s impassioned oratory and viewed Professor Hall’s essay, the court was adjourned. The judge concluded by stating he was willing to stay until Thursday (i.e. for the full four days allotted for the trial) plus an extra day if necessary. The Judge’s looking ahead to a week-long trial can be deemed a victory for STS and his supporters as a five day event should allow for more evidence to be brought to light in a legal proceeding which is certainly one of the most significant trials ever to take place in Calgary. Judge Delong has been presented with a chance to create a beacon of a hope in a world afflicted with the prospect of never ending military strife as set in motion by the Cheney-Bush regime’s fraudulent Global War on Terror.

Bush-Loving Calgary Court

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=18049

The Attempted Citizen’s Arrest of George W. Bush in a Canadian Court

By Anthony J. Hall

Global Research, March 11, 2010

Judge Manfred Delong shut down the trial of Splitting The Sky versus George W. Bush on the second day of proceedings. The court denied STS his frequently emphasized request to have two witnesses give evidence in his defense. Those witnesses were myself and Cynthia McKinney. The trial came to an end just as Ms. McKinney arrived in Calgary from London. The US-based oil conglomerates active throughout Alberta form the core business constituency of the Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who represents a Calgary riding in Parliament.

The court accepted two documents as evidence for the defense. On is Gail Davidson’s widely disseminated legal opinion for Lawyer’s Against the War. STS and I studied this document closely in the days leading up to my friend being arrested for his arrest attempt. LAW’s legal opinion highlighted some of the evidence, statutes and treaties to brand Bush as a “credibly accused war criminal” that should not be allowed into Canada. Prior to Bush’s touching down in Calgary to address an audience of oil executives, Davidson’s documemtation was distributed widely to officials of the Harper government and Canada’s Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

The other exhibit for the defense was my own paper that I originally presented at an invited academic venue at the University of Winnipeg. It has been published under a variety of titles on the Internet, including at Global Research.ca, 911 Blogger.com, 9/11 Truth.org and Voltairenet in both French and English. My initial title for it is “Bush League Justice: Should George W. Bush Be Arrested in Calgary Alberta and Tried for International Crimes.”

Delong will deliver his ruling on June 7. The case for the prosecution both revealed and obscured much about the new police strategies being employed throughout North America to monitor, manage, divide and spin doctor demonstrators seeking to call attention to their political dissent. In my opinion the Crown’s chief agent of prosecution, Tracy Davis, acted more as an advocate and defender of the police rather than as a representative of the Canadian people through Her Majesty as she is required to do according the constitutional tradition of the British Commonwealth.

http://www.radicalpress.com/?p=1185

Zionist-controlled Calgary Court shuts down Splitting the Sky v. War Criminal G.W. Bush proceedings in day two of trial

March 11th, 2010

Anthony Hall with Cynthia McKinney and Splitting the Sky

Calgary Civil Servant Fired for Political Views

Despite all the prattle about “tolerance”, the City of Calgary has decided to fire employees who hold the wrong political opinions and express them over the Internet.

Rene Scherger is a City of Calgary foreman and parks worker with 35 years experience. After “anti-racist” intolerants managed to entice the Calgary Sun (January 12, 21010) into doing an expose of Mr. Scherger’s outspoken views on Zionism (although the paper didn’t name him), the City launched an investigation.

Today, Mr. Scherger was informed he was being fired effective immediately for the off-duty expression on his own time of his political views over the Internet. The noice said the city “can not knowingly employ someone who has repeatedly published anti-Semitic material.” Okay, well what about a strident abortionist who publishes anti-Catholic or anti-Christian material? Or is it only one group that matters.

Mr. Scherger will not go quietly or give in to the censorship activities of the new politically correct witch hunters. He will be grieving his firing tomorrow.

Paul Fromm
Director
CANADIAN ASSOCIATION FOR FREE EXPRESSION INC.

“Off Duty Conduct

Following an investigation, the City of Calgary has concluded that:
* You were the owner and creator of an anti-Semitic website in the public domain;
*You affiliated yourself with other anti-Semitic websites in the public domain;
*You pubic ally identified yourself as a City employee in connection with these websites; and,
* The content (including linked content) on these websites was abhorrent and contrary to the values the City promotes.

This was widely reported in the media and put the reputation of the City at risk. The City prides itself as a workplace that values and promotes equality and diversity. Your conduct resulted in undue controversy and embarrassment to the City.

Your conduct was harmful to interests of the City and incompatible with your duties as a City employee and public servant. Amongst other things, the City has an obligation to provide a workplace and services to the public free of discrimination. It can not knowingly employ someone who has repeatedly published anti-Semitic material.

You did not show any remorse for your actions nor did you apologize. You have not acknowledged that the content on these websites was offensive. The City considers the employment relationship to have been irreparably damaged.

Your employment with the City of Calgary is terminated for just cause effective 2010 Feb. 08 Your rehire status at the City of Calgary will be documented as *Do NOT Rehire” (DNR).”
_______________________________________________
Canadian Association for Free Expression.
http://www.CanadianFreeSpeech.com
http://www.Canadafirst.net

http://www.calgarysun.com/news/columnists/michael_platt/2010/01/11/12426251.html

The blogs are filled with venom and scorn for the Jewish religion. That much is obvious.

What isn’t so cut-and-dry is whether the alleged owner of the websites, a City of Calgary employee, can be punished for poisonous posts targeting Judaism and Zionism.

A full investigation of the employee, a 56-year-old foreman with Parks and Recreation, was launched Monday after the existence of at least two anti-Jewish blogs, both linked to the man, was revealed to city officials.

Described by one online watchdog as “one of the most twisted blogs you’ll ever see,” the sites both contain stories and articles targeting members of the Jewish religion, as well as anti-Jewish artwork.

The city is taking the matter very seriously, especially as one of the blogs and a Facebook site under the same name lists the City of Calgary and the Parks department as the man’s employer, for more than 30 years.

City officials confirm there is a foreman with Parks of the same name, and as a result, the city’s top lawyer has launched an investigation.

“We just became aware of the issue, so we are doing our investigation to determine an appropriate response — we need to determine a few facts, and then we can respond to this,” said City Solicitor Paul Tolley.

That the websites in question aren’t directly connected to the City of Calgary doesn’t necessarily protect the employee, whom the Sun has chosen not to name for now.

The city’s code of conduct for staff can include behaviour and actions outside of work hours, said Tolley.

“Sometimes the actions of an employee outside of the workplace can impact on their employment with the city and that’s something we’ll have to investigate,” said Tolley.

Given that the blogs in question contain vitriol towards Jews, Tolley acknowledges that a key question maybe the alleged owner’s role as a foreman, supervising people of all races and religions.

“That would be part of it, overall, but I can’t really say much about it, because I don’t want to compromise the investigation,” said Tolley.

The sites, updated as recently as August, came to the attention of the city and this newspaper after being highlighted on a separate, anti-racism blogsite, under the heading “Canadian Jew Hating Freak of the Day”.

The keeper of that blog included a warning to Calgarians: “FYI to all – If you live in Calgary you should know that you’re paying this guy’s salary. He works for the city in the parks and rec. dept. as a foreman.”

The websites connected to the anti-Jew blogs are a maze of links, containing conspiracy theories and essays aimed mainly at the Jewish religion, which is condemned as racist, power-hungry and corrupt.

It doesn’t appear the alleged owner of the blogs actually writes the material, though anti-Jewish words apparently penned by the same man can be found on plenty of online comment forums, under the same unique user handle.

As well, his Facebook page connects to one of the anti-Jewish blogs, where he is listed as owner.

Still, when contacted through an email address listed on one of the anti-Jewish blogs, the man denied running the website.

“What investigation? I went to the site and it is not my blogsite,” he wrote back.

The man did acknowledge a connection to the anti-Jewish site, but failed to explain why he was named as owner, complete with his age, occupation and profile picture.

“I am a follower as I am of many blogs, forums, websites and social sites,” he wrote.

And so the city, deserving of praise for launching an immediate investigation, will be forced to untangle the online mess.

The local Jewish community is taking a wait-and-see stance over the alleged connection to the City of Calgary, though leaders with the community wasted no time condemning the blogs.

“The places where the links take you are appalling and unfortunately, like many other inventions which benefit mankind, the web can be used for negative purposes,” said Calgary Jewish Community spokesman Adam Singer.

“There are parts of the web which have become a cesspool.”

Was Canada such a wonderful place before people like me come and torture you with the eye-clamps, and MAKE YOU SEE?  Or were the perverts, the sex predators always with us, and better able to hide their antics before the advent of the internet?

Did you ever think you’d be hearing of rape rooms on Canadian bases?  Maybe you’re shocked, but I am just confirmed in my beliefs, in what filth, perversion, sadism and pure evil lurk in the halls of power in Canada.

By way of David Icke’s website: http://davidicke.com/headlines/31287-canadian-troops-told-to-ignore-child-rape-by-afghan-allies

I also covered this here:

http://ziofascism.net/blog/2009/10/canadian-forces-approve-of-child-rape-in-afghanistan/

Original Content at http://www.opednews.com/articles/1-2-3-What-Are-We-Fighting-by-Dave-Lindorff-100305-88.html
March 5, 2010

1-2-3 What Are We Fighting For? This?

By Dave Lindorff

The stated goal of the US-led War in Afghanistan, according to the Obama Administration, is to defeat the Taliban and establish a stable democratic government over the entire country. Critical to that goal is establishing a professional Afghan army and police force that is not corrupt, and that has the respect of the Afghan people.

But reports out of Canada suggest that far from creating such a military and police force, the so-called International Security and Assistance Force (ISAF) is turning a blind eye to the thuggish criminality of those organizations, both to avoid growing opposition in ISAF member countries, and to avoid offending those organizations in Afghanistan.

The issue in question is routine rape and sodomy of children by Afghan soldiers and police operating on Canadian-run bases in the Kandahar region.

As reported last fall in the Ottawa Citizen newspaper, Canadian military chaplins and some soldiers have been complaining as far back as 2006 that Afghan security forces have been sodomizing young boys on their base. These military whistle-blowers charge that the military brass has been ignoring or burying their complaints, fearing the bad publicity they could generate.

The paper reports that Canadian military police have also complained, as reported by Brig.-Gen. J.C. Collin, commander of Land Force Central Area, that they were being told “not to interfere in incidents in which Afghan forces were having sex with children.”

According to the paper, the Canadian military command has argued that, even though sex with children is against the law in Afghanistan, the practice is culturally accepted and that the Canadian forces “should not get involved in what should be seen as a “cultural’ issue.”

Makes you wonder what other “cultural” issues involving Afghan security forces that the Western occupiers might not want to get involved in. Perhaps the oppression of women? That’s certainly part of the culture. How about bribery and extortion? Based on the evidence–that the police in Afghanistan are a wholly corrupt entity, and that the army is not much better–arguing that corruption is “culturally acceptable” would be easy to do. How about drug dealing? Again, that appears to be quite the culture in Afghanistan.

Kudos to the Canadian grunts, MPs and chaplins who found the sexual abuse of children more than they could stomach, and who brought their concerns to public attention at home in Canada when their own commanders sought to cover it up.

It makes me wonder, though, why here in the hyper-moralizing US, we haven’t heard a peep from our troops about similar behavior by Afghan forces on US-run bases.

It’s hard to believe that a practice so common on a Canadian base that it provoked such outrage among Canadian soldiers is not also occurring elsewhere.

This leaves us with two possiblities:

US soldiers and marines are just not as willing to go outside the chain of command and go public with their complaints, or

The US media are not interested in investigating this kind of story. It involves only Afghans, and who cares about Afghans? What American journalism covers is Americans. (Remember the big spate of stories about the sex escapades of guards at the US embassy in Kabul?)

I’d say it’s probably a combination of the two.

At any rate, the picture painted of Afghanistan’s army and police in the Ottawa Citizen article does not bode well for any plan that hinges on their taking over from US and ISAF troops any time soon…or for the fate of young children of Afghanistan, if and when they do.
___________________

DAVE LINDORFF is a Philadelphia-area journalist. His latest book is “The Case for Impeachment” (St. Martin’s Press, 2006). His work is available at www.thiscantbehappening.net

Here is another story on Shouten from the Ottawa Citizen:

http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/abuse+silence+exposed/2010032/story.html

Former Cpl. Travis Schouten spoke with the Citizen about the assaults he witnessed at Canada’s Forward Operating Base Wilson in Afghanistan in 2006.
Photograph by: Photo courtesy Travis Schouten, The Ottawa Citizen

Sex abuse and silence exposed

DND brass told of rape of boys by Afghan allies
By David Pugliese, The Ottawa CitizenSeptember 21, 2009

OTTAWA — Army staff and National Defence headquarters officials were told in 2007 that young boys had allegedly been sexually abused by Afghan security forces at a Canadian base in Afghanistan, but the concern at the time was that the incident might be reported in the news media, according to military records obtained by the Citizen.

In addition, last year Brig.-Gen. J.C. Collin, commander of Land Force Central Area, passed on to the senior army leadership the concerns raised by military police who said they had been told by their commanders not to interfere in incidents in which Afghan forces were having sex with children.

The newly released records raise questions about a military investigation that earlier this year concluded that allegations about sexual abuse of Afghan children by members of the Afghan army and police were unfounded. The Canadian Forces National Investigation Service also stated that its thorough investigation concluded allegations of such incidents were never reported to Canadian military commanders.

The allegations first surfaced publicly in June 2008 after concerns about the incidents, originally raised by soldiers and military chaplains, were reported in the news media.

Former Cpl. Travis Schouten told military officials he had witnessed an Afghan boy being sodomized by two Afghan security personnel at Canada’s Forward Operating Base Wilson in Afghanistan in 2006. Another soldier also came forward to a Toronto newspaper to report a similar occurrence at the same base in 2006. A military chaplain talked about the abuse in a report sent up the chain of command at Canadian Forces Base Petawawa. Two other chaplains have also come forward to state that soldiers came to them upset about such abuses.

The issue is sensitive for the Canadian Forces and the federal government as the Afghanistan mission has been promoted to the public as being about protecting Afghan civilians. The Afghan National Army and police are seen as key to Canada’s military withdrawal from that country in 2011.

It is the position of the Canadian Forces that its troops have no jurisdiction over the activities of Afghan military and police personnel, even those operating on Canadian bases.

The military records obtained by the Citizen through the Access to Information law note that a 90-minute meeting was held between an army public affairs staff member and a member of army commander Lt.-Gen. Andrew Leslie’s executive staff in the summer/fall of 2007. According to the June 2008 e-mail written by Lt.-Col. Stephane Grenier, an adviser on operational stress injuries, the meeting focused on various controversies that might be brought out in the news media, including, “ANP/ANA members having anal sex with young boys.”

ANP stands for Afghan National Police while ANA refers to Afghan National Army.

A second meeting about Afghan police and soldiers having sex with children was held later that week at National Defence headquarters involving senior members of the Defence Department’s civilian and military public affairs staff, according to the e-mail.

In addition, on June 18, 2008, Brig.-Gen. J.C. Collin, commander of Land Force Central Area, passed on to Leslie’s staff and Brig.-Gen. Ian Poulter the concerns raised by several military police officers. Collin called the e-mail from the military police commander, “rather disconcerting.”

Included were details from military police who noted it was well known among Canadian troops that ANA and ANP personnel had sex with kids. Another was upset that military police were told not to intervene in such matters, according to the e-mail.

“At this late date I cannot specifically remember who delivered the said briefings however I can say that it was delivered in Gagetown and that it sparked considerable debate amongst the MP pers(onnel),” noted one police officer in an e-mail Collin forwarded to the army’s senior staff. The e-mail had been written by Maj. V.R. Ethier, the commander of 2 MP Unit, the army military police unit of Ontario.

“Of greatest concern to the MP members was the belief that if they were (to) intervene in any instances of this nature that they would not be supported by the C o C,” the e-mail added. C o C is a military term for chain of command.

Having sex with children is against the law in Afghanistan, but some military officers have argued that since it is practised by some Afghans, particularly in Kandahar, then the Canadian Forces should not get involved in what should be seen as a “cultural” issue.

Maj. Francis Bolduc, deputy commanding officer of the Canadian Forces National Investigation Service, said his organization’s examination of the issue found no evidence to support the sexual abuse allegations.

He said a thorough review of military police records showed no complaints were made about the issue and “all the allegations were unfounded.” Bolduc noted that the investigation found the sexual abuse concerns were never reported to commanders.

Asked about the e-mails from Lt.-Col. Grenier and military police commander Maj. V.R. Ethier, he replied: “This is outside our lane.”

Bolduc said those issues could be looked at by a board of inquiry into the issue that had been ordered by Lt.-Gen. Leslie.

Last June, Defence Minister Peter MacKay told the House of Commons that troops would not turn a blind eye to the abuse of children. “Let us be clear, in no way, shape or form have Canadian soldiers and certainly the Canadian government ever condoned or excused allegations of sexual abuse against children in this country or anywhere else,” he said.

Another incident recounted in the Ethier e-mail detailed how a complaint was made about the sexual abuse of children to his chain of command in 2005-2006 in Kandahar and after that an Afghanistan commander dealt with the situation.

In addition, Brig.-Gen. Poulter received an e-mail on June 17, 2008 indicating that the sexual abuse issue had been raised by a Canadian colonel, a veteran of the war, during a military training session about Afghan culture. “He emphasized that it is not a practice that Afghan men discuss or practise in an open manner … one of those things that Afghans know happens but nobody talks about,” noted the e-mail to Poulter.

In addition, it appears senior Canadian commanders were also concerned about the abuse. In a June 13, 2008, letter to army commander Leslie, the office of Lt.-Gen. Michel Gauthier asked that an investigation be started into the sexual assault allegations. “Furthermore, initial queries suggest there appeared to be some concern of the part of the Roto 2 BG chain of command with respect to certain off-duty activities related to the same incidents later raised to the reporter,” the letter noted.

The records also indicate the allegations sparked much debate inside the military on what to acknowledge in public. The first response was to deny anything ever took place.

However, a series of “talking points” were produced on June 17, 2008, in which it was acknowledged in regard to “Afghan male sexual abuse of underage males” that “Soldiers are generally aware of this practice taking place in Afghanistan; They know that abuse, let alone of minors is wrong by our standards; They will report this activity to the appropriate authorities.”

It is unclear how the NIS investigation concluded the allegations were unfounded when other organizations inside the Canadian Forces were acknowledging that the sexual abuse was indeed taking place.

A board of inquiry, ordered by Leslie last year, is still under way. The board, which has not released its report, will look only at whether the one assault reported in media occurred. The board is to “identify the actions taken by individual CF members and the chain of command in response to that incident,” as well as assess whether medical care was provided to any soldier who witnessed the incident.

Recommendations will be made on how to address future incidents of that nature, noted the board of inquiry outline produced by Leslie.

Leslie will review the contents of the report even though, according to military records, a member of his staff was informed about the sexual abuse issue in 2007.

Leslie, through a spokesman, declined to be interviewed as the board is still ongoing.

Asked whether there was a conflict of interest in allowing Leslie to review the findings of the board examining how the senior army leadership responded, an army official noted that Chief of the Defence Staff Gen. Walt Natynczyk will also review the records.

dpugliese@thecitizen.canwest.com

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2010/03/05/afghan-attaran005.html
March 5, 2010
Canada wanted Afghan prisoners tortured: lawyer

CBC News
Federal government documents on Afghan detainees suggest that Canadian officials intended some prisoners to be tortured in order to gather intelligence, according to a legal expert.

If the allegation is true, such actions would constitute a war crime, said University of Ottawa law professor Amir Attaran, who has been digging deep into the issue and told CBC News he has seen uncensored versions of government documents released last year.

“If these documents were released [in full], what they will show is that Canada partnered deliberately with the torturers in Afghanistan for the interrogation of detainees,” he said.

“There would be a question of rendition and a question of war crimes on the part of certain Canadian officials. That’s what’s in these documents, and that’s why the government is covering up as hard as it can.”

Detainee abuse became the subject of national debate last year after heavily redacted versions of the documents were made public after Attaran filed an access to information request. They revealed the Canadian military was not monitoring detainees who had been transferred from Canadian to Afghan custody. It was later alleged that some of those detainees were being mistreated.

Until now, the controversy has centred on whether the government turned a blind eye to abuse of Afghan detainees.

However, Attaran said the full versions of the documents show that Canada went even further in intentionally handing over prisoners to torturers.

“And it wasn’t accidental; it was done for a reason,” he said. “It was done so that they could be interrogated using harsher methods.”

The government maintains that nothing improper happened.

“The Canadian Forces have conducted themselves with the highest performance of all countries,” Prime Minister Stephen Harper told the House of Commons Thursday.

But many facets of the issue remain top secret, such as the role of Canada’s elite Joint Task Force 2, or JTF2. There have been hints that JTF2 might be handling so-called high-value prisoners.

“High-value targets would be detained under a completely different mechanism that involved special forces and targeted, intelligence-driven operations,” Richard Colvin, a former senior diplomat with Canada’s mission in Afghanistan, told a parliamentary committee last November.

Colvin claimed that all detainees transferred by Canadians to Afghan prisons were likely tortured by Afghan officials. He also said that his concerns were ignored by top government officials and that the government might have tried to cover up the issue.

Opposition parties have been trying to get the Conservative government to release the uncensored versions of the documents pertaining to the handling of Afghan detainees.

The Conservatives insist that releasing uncensored files on the issue would damage national security. On Friday, Justice Minister Rob Nicholson asked former Supreme Court of Canada Justice Frank Iacobucci to review whether there would be “injurious” effects if some Afghan detainee documents were made public.

Nicholson did not give full details on Iacobucci’s assignment or a timetable for when the review might be completed.

However, opposition parties said Parliament is entitled to those documents regardless of what Iacobucci decides.

“Parliament is supreme,” said Ontario NDP MP Paul Dewar. “What this is, is a skate around Parliament.”

Liberal MP Ujjal Dosanjh said the government still has many questions to answer on the subject of detainees.

“Who knew what and when, and who allowed the continuing saga of Afghan detainees being sent to a potential risk of torture?” Dosanjh said.

It’s not clear whether the government will make Iacobucci’s advice public. Moreover, he is not a sitting judge and can’t legally rule or force the government to do anything.

Canadian Broadcasting Corporation

Now put that together with the fact that CSIS has been interrogating prisoners, and you get a more complete picture of Canada’s Depravity - Thanks Fredd for the link!

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/afghanmission/article/776514–csis-secretly-interrogated-afghan-prisoners?bn=1

New documents show CSIS had a role in the interrogation of Taliban suspects captured by Canadians.

JOHN D. MCHUGH, AFP/GETTY IMAGES FILE PHOTO

OTTAWA–Canadian spies have been interrogating captured Taliban fighters in Afghanistan since 2006.

Officers with the Canadian Security Intelligence Service have been working with Canadian military police intelligence officers, according to heavily censored witness transcripts filed with the Military Police Complaints Commission.

CSIS acknowledged in 2006 that its members gathered intelligence in Afghanistan, but the spy service’s precise role has remained in the shadows until now.

Intelligence expert Wesley Wark says the revelations are disturbing, partly because CSIS would have had no specialized knowledge of how to elicit information from Afghan prisoners at the time.

“I find that stunning,” said Wark, a University of Toronto historian who believes when it came to skill in interrogating prisoners of war, CSIS “lacked it in spades” in 2006.

Maj. Kevin Rowcliffe, former staff adviser to Canada’s overseas operations commander, told investigators with the commission (which handles complaints about the military police) there was debate within the army itself about how much experience its intelligence officers had in grilling prisoners.

“There was a lot of discussion in my headquarters about who was qualified to do interrogations, because we’re not talking the normal police interview, we’re talking interrogations, which (censored) were doing, not (military police),” he says in an edited transcript of an interview on Dec. 6, 2007.

A copy of the transcript was obtained by The Canadian Press.

“(Military police) were involved in that, but they weren’t necessarily involved in interviewing or interrogation-related issues,” Rowcliffe, who has since retired from the military, told the investigators. “That would be (censored) or some other parade that had special training in interrogation.”

Sources familiar with the unedited version say the blanked-out references are to CSIS.

The spy agency is legally permitted to gather intelligence anywhere in the world concerning threats to the security of Canada. In recent years, it has increasingly operated abroad.

Another source familiar with the process said CSIS officers in Kandahar carried out what’s known as tactical field questioning, essentially the initial interrogations of suspects. They tried to sort out who was a simple field soldier and who was a bona fide insurgent commander.

The spies would sometimes make recommendations on which Taliban prisoners to hand over to the National Directorate of Security, Afghanistan’s notorious intelligence service, the sources said.

The final say on whether to transfer always rested with the military task force commander.

The Military Police Complaints Commission tried to ask questions about CSIS’s role in Kandahar but abandoned that approach when it became bogged down in legal challenges about its authority to investigate Ottawa’s overall prisoner transfer policy.

Last November diplomat-whistleblower Richard Colvin testified before a special House of Commons committee that most prisoners Canada handed over to the Afghan intelligence service were tortured – a claim the Conservative government and military commanders, past and present, angrily denied.

Rowcliffe’s interview transcript prompts questions about whether the military and CSIS officers had enough time to conduct proper interrogations so early on in the insurgency, when newly arrived troops had little intelligence on the threats they faced.

The military has 96 hours after capture to decide whether to hand a prisoner over to Afghan authorities, but Rowcliffe said there was pressure to turn them over sooner.

He said he took up the concerns with the commander of overseas operations, saying: “I understand the time sensitiveness of this issue to the Government of Canada, but we may have Osama bin Laden, yet you are trying to get me to give him over as quickly as possible.”

Often his superior’s answer was “no.” His boss, Lt.-Gen. Michel Gauthier, indicated his hands were tied and told Rowcliffe the federal government’s policy was firm.

“I said we need to take the time to do a proper investigation, interview, interrogation, whatever you want to call it, to confirm who we have and what has this guy done or gal done,” Rowcliffe said in his statement.

He was asked by commission investigators how he thought the military would obtain its intelligence if the instructions were to transfer detainees quickly to the Afghans.

“My impression was they didn’t seem to care about that,” said Rowcliffe. “I don’t know if they didn’t grasp the importance of it, or just that it was not important because the pressure was … to get rid of them because of the Government of Canada.”

He said he wasn’t sure whether there was pressure from the defence minister and chief of defence staff.

“I have no idea, but I know from Gen. Gauthier’s position that (it was): Get rid of them as quickly as you can and what’s taking so long? That’s the kind of questions I’d get.”

Security expert Wark said these latest revelations will likely fuel human rights groups’ fears that Canada was outsourcing interrogation to the Afghan security forces.

Canada went into Kandahar thinking the Taliban and Al Qaeda were merely “a nuisance,” he said, and there was a “ferocious underestimation” of the mission.

“The military simply had no expertise. It had been decades since they had to interrogate prisoners of war,” Wark said. “And if the military lacked that expertise, you can be sure, CSIS lacked it in spades.”

He said hard questions must be asked about how much knowledge CSIS had of Afghanistan and its complex tribal network in 2006.

“The answer would be very little,” he said. “They didn’t have a trained body of people with the language skills, knowledge of the country, knowledge of the tribal situation, who was in charge of which warlord group, what was the nature of the Taliban. Those are all issues they had to develop an expertise on after 2006.”

CSIS spokeswoman Isabelle Scott, in response to media questions, said the agency does not publicly discuss operations.

She did confirm CSIS has had a presence in Afghanistan “for the past few years” and provides intelligence “in support of the safety and security of Canadian and allied forces on the ground.” She also said CSIS gathers intelligence in Afghanistan “to mitigate potential security threats to Canada.”

It was CSIS activities in Kandahar that caught the attention of the spy agency’s inspector general, Eva Plunkett, who investigated “policy gaps and inconsistencies.”

The declassified version of Plunkett’s 2007 certificate – a top secret report card on CSIS prepared for the public safety minister – contained no suggestion that the spy service had done anything wrong or illegal.

The certificate noted Afghanistan was “a fundamental intelligence priority” and commended CSIS for impressive work “in an extremely challenging environment.”

But it warned that CSIS and National Defence lacked clear policies that would “guide future (censored) activities in this theatre.”

Agreements between the spy service and military were out of date, said the annual certificate, made public in May 2008.

“I do believe that those who serve in this environment deserve to be equipped with the policy framework to guide their work.”

Thanks to Bruce for the pic!

Since Mr. Beauregard’s death, Rights and Democracy has been divided by accusations that recent Conservative appointees to its board are trying to steer the agency in a pro-Israel direction. Staff and four former presidents of the organization, which receives about $11-million a year in federal funding, have called for the resignations of senior board members whom they accuse of hounding Mr. Beauregard over Middle East issues in the year leading up to his death.

http://www.montrealgazette.com/business/Human+rights+group+choice+disputed/2602079/story.html

Human rights group choice disputed

Tories playing politics at troubled agency, Ignatieff says

By Graeme Hamilton, National PostFebruary 23, 2010

Human rights group choice disputed
Tories playing politics at troubled agency, Ignatieff says
By Graeme Hamilton, National PostFebruary 23, 2010

Rights and Democracy, whose president, Remy Beauregard, died of heart failure after an acrimonious meeting last month, was created by the former Progressive Conservative party under Brian Mulroney.
Rights and Democracy, whose president, Remy Beauregard, died of heart failure after an acrimonious meeting last month, was created by the former Progressive Conservative party under Brian Mulroney.

Photograph by: Julie Oliver, Canwest News Service Files, Canwest News Service

The Conservative government’s choice to head the troubled human-rights organization Rights and Democracy is a former Canadian Alliance candidate who has argued for restrictions on Muslim immigration to Montreal.

Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon yesterday named Gerard Latulippe, a Quebec Cabinet minister in the 1980s who now works for a democracy-promotion institute in Haiti, to replace Remy Beauregard. Mr. Beauregard, 66, died of a heart attack last month, the night after a heated meeting of the organization’s board of directors.

Since Mr. Beauregard’s death, Rights and Democracy has been divided by accusations that recent Conservative appointees to its board are trying to steer the agency in a pro-Israel direction. Staff and four former presidents of the organization, which receives about $11-million a year in federal funding, have called for the resignations of senior board members whom they accuse of hounding Mr. Beauregard over Middle East issues in the year leading up to his death.

Speaking to reporters yesterday in Ottawa, Mr. Cannon stood behind the board, saying it has the government’s full confidence “to direct the destiny of Rights and Democracy.”

The news release announcing Mr. Latulippe’s nomination suggested Mr. Cannon believes that Rights and Democracy had gone astray under Mr. Beauregard; it called Mr. Latulippe “the ideal candidate to return Rights and Democracy to the promotion of Canadian values of freedom, democracy, human rights and the rule of law.”

Mr. Latulippe was solicitor-general under Liberal premier Robert Bourassa but quit the Cabinet in 1987 amid allegations of conflict of interest and favoritism involving his girlfriend and his former law firm. He did not seek re-election and was named Quebec’s delegate-general to Mexico and later Brussels.

In 1994, after the Parti Quebecois came to power, he provoked an uproar in Quebec when he announced that he had converted to separatism. The conversion allowed him to hold onto his job in Brussels and led one columnist to dub him “the rubber man of Quebec politics.” In the 2000 federal election, he was the chief Quebec organizer for Stockwell Day’s Canadian Alliance. He ran in the Quebec City riding of Charlesbourg-Jacques-Cartier and finished third. He is currently director of the Haiti program of the National Democratic Institute, a U.S.-based non-profit organization that promotes democracy around the world.

In 2007, when Quebec was in the throes of debate over the reasonable accommodation of religious minorities, Mr. Latulippe submitted a 37-page brief to a provincial government commission studying the issue. Mr. Latulippe warned that Quebec’s open immigration practices were leading to the creation of Muslim ghettoes in Montreal, which could easily become breeding grounds for terrorism.

“Some ethnic groups insist on living according to their own life codes, which run counter to our values and sometimes even our fundamental rights,” he wrote. The smooth functioning of Quebec society, he said, is harmed by “the increasingly large geographical concentration [in Montreal] of immigration from Muslim countries.” Among the solutions he proposed were a requirement that immigrants settle outside Montreal and a pre-immigration test to verify that a potential immigrant’s values conform with those of Quebec society. He also said such religious symbols as the Muslim headscarf and the Sikh kirpan should be confined to the “private sphere.” On the other hand, Cath-olic symbols such as the crucifix in the provincial legislature reflected Quebec’s “national identity” and should be preserved, he said.

Mr. Cannon said he will consult opposition parties on Mr. Latulippe’s nomination, as required by the law creating Rights and Democracy, but he does not need their approval. Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff called the choice to replace Mr. Beauregard disappointing. “We are in a situation where the Conservative party hyper-politicized Rights and Democracy, and this trend continues with the nomination of a former Alliance candidate,” he said.

Rights and Democracy, created in 1988 by Brian Mulroney’s Progressive Conservative government to promote human rights and democracy in the developing world, has been in turmoil for the past year. A group of board members led by chairman Aurel Braun criticized Mr. Beauregard’s leadership, accusing him of giving grants to anti-Israel groups in the Palestinian territories. One board member, Jacques Gauthier, circulated a confidential memo to Mr. Braun and two other board members last May in which he alleged that Mr. Beauregard met with representatives of the banned terrorist groups Hamas and Hezbollah during a 2008 conference in Cairo.

After Mr. Beauregard learned of the allegation, he called it “patently false” and an attack on his reputation. In the memo, which was addressing perceived problems in Mr. Beauregard’s performance, Mr. Gauthier also said he was “very surprised” to learn that Rights and Democracy has no Jewish employees at its Montreal head office. Mr. Beauregard called it “completely unacceptable” for a board member to inquire about the religious affiliation of staff members.

In an interview yesterday, Mr. Gauthier, who has been acting president since Mr. Beauregard died, said he considers Mr. Cannon’s comments yesterday a vindication of the board’s actions at Rights and Democracy. Since his arrival, three senior managers have been suspended with pay, a private investigator was brought in to examine staff computers, a new executive director quit less than a week after his hiring and a forensic auditor was hired to examine a number of Rights and Democracy transactions from 2005 to 2009 “that caused concern.”

The union representing Rights and Democracy’s employees said naming a new president will not be enough to resolve the crisis at the organization.

“Our members have been subjected to religious profiling and intimidation. The workplace atmosphere is intolerable. The staff are enduring a witch hunt and are, quite frankly, outraged,” John Gordon, president of the Public Service Alliance of Canada, said in a statement. “This should have been fixed months ago.”

ghamilton@nationalpost.com

But isn’t the Professor missing part of the story?  Sure, there’s oil, but the Zionist groups have been foremost in beating the war drums against Iran.  In fact they’ve been doing it for the last two years, with Canada’s pro-Isr-el groups joining in.

All the good Professor need do is look at what is going on in his own city, at the histrionics  of the Canadian government’s 2nd biggest Isr-el toady:

OTTAWA — Immigration Minister Jason Kenney says he’s alarmed at the “disturbing” rise of anti-Semitism globally, singling out Venezuela and Iran as the worst offenders, likening Iran and its president to Germany under Adolph Hitler.

“I don’t think since the Nazi regime … the world has seen a government, which, in pursuit of weapons of mass destruction, threatens to annihilate literally millions of Jews and that is what we see now,” Kenney told MPs on the Canadian Parliamentary Coalition to Combat Anti-Semitism.

http://www.torontosun.com/news/canada/2010/02/08/12795726-qmi.html

OTTAWA — Immigration Minister Jason Kenney says he’s alarmed at the “disturbing” rise of anti-Semitism globally, singling out Venezuela and Iran as the worst offenders, likening Iran and its president to Germany under Adolph Hitler.

“I don’t think since the Nazi regime … the world has seen a government, which, in pursuit of weapons of mass destruction, threatens to annihilate literally millions of Jews and that is what we see now,” Kenney told MPs on the Canadian Parliamentary Coalition to Combat Anti-Semitism.

Kenney went on to say he found it “disturbing” reports he has read indicate acts of violence against Jews in “western European liberal democracies,” as well as across the Third World, were on the rise.

“We see it in parts of the developing world, we see it with the growing trends in Venezuela, where the collective Jew and individual Jews are being targeted as scapegoats,” Kenney said.

Khaled Mouammar, national president of the Canadian Arab Federation, said Kenney is using the term anti-Semite too loosely and is running the risk of watering down its meaning.

“When you accuse everybody of being anti-Semitic you’re confusing people as to what is a true anti-Semite, and true anti-Semites can hide behind this and say: ‘We are being accused by this government, but everybody else is also being accused,’ ” said Mouammar.

The normally non-partisan unofficial committee meeting also set the stage for opposition MPs to attack Kenney for the Conservative party’s use of so called “10-percenters.”

The term refers to flyers MPs are permitted to send to voters in other ridings, at taxpayers’ expense, so long as the flyers are limited in number to a maximum of 10% of households in the MPs own riding. The cost of sending out such flyers stands at about $10 million annually.

Kenny came under fire for a series of 10-percenters sent into a number of Liberal held ridings with large Jewish populations. Opposition MPs claimed the flyers suggested the Liberals were anti-Semitic. Kenny denied the charge, insisting the mailings were an attempt to draw a comparison between how the Liberals have responded to various attacks on Israel compared to Tory policy toward the country.

“I don’t accept the characterization that some people have made, that this accused MPs of anti-Semitism,” said Kenney. “I do regret if anyone felt that this was an attack on their personal integrity or their commitment to battling anti-Semitism.”

Zionist Scumbag of the hour, Peter Kent accepting yet another award in 2008 from a “Jewish group” for the government of Canada’s subservience to Isr-el’s agenda.

http://www.international.gc.ca/ministers-ministres/Prix_leadership_international_Leadership_Award.aspx?menu_id=5&menu=R

Minister of State Kent accepts leadership award on behalf of Prime Minister

Prime Minister Stephen Harper was honoured December 4, 2008 in New York City by the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, which presented him with its first-ever International Leadership Award. Minister of State of Foreign Affairs (Americas) Peter Kent attended the reception and awards ceremony and accepted the award on behalf of the Prime Minister.

“I am deeply honoured to be recognized for helping improve Western relations with Israel,” said the Prime Minister. “Canada stands with Israel, and will stand with any nation willing to put its trust in its people and follow the principles of natural justice, human rights and the rule of law.”

The Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations was founded in 1954 to promote the State of Israel in the United States. That remains its primary task. An umbrella group representing 50 national religious, philanthropic and civic American Jewish organizations, it serves as a central coordinating body and primary forum for deliberations and discussions among its members on national and international issues of concern to Jews.