While Foreign Affairs Minister Maxime Bernier is expressing his embarrassment that a DFAIT training manual might actually recognize the current reality, the Liberal foreign affairs critic has this reaction:
Liberal foreign affairs critic Bob Rae was not surprised to hear that the document was being revised."It's incomprehensible to me that a document would establish an equivalency between the United States and Iran on the subject of the treatment of prisoners," said Rae.
"It's too hard to understand how it (the document) could have gotten this far," said Rae.
"There's a real issue now around the competency of the Conservative government on foreign affairs issues."
Got that? Bob Rae, the Liberal foreign affairs critic, joins the Conservatives in thinking that it's only torture if certain people do it. The only criticism he has of the Conservatives is that they were incompetent in not proactively censoring DFAIT training materials to avoid embarrassing our "allies."
I trust all those who have tried to convince us that we must all rally around the Liberals as the only viable alternative to the Conservatives are paying attention here. 'Cos this is really pukeworthy.
I'm glad I'm not alone in my reaction to Rae's remarks. Rae stands for pre-emptive censorship!
It seems that Dion can't speak for himself most of the time and he needs Ignatieff to hold his hand when he goes to Afghanistan. No doubt Ignatieff will respond to the Manley report with some weasel words.
Rae has joined the NDP and the Liberals.
Perhaps he belongs in the Conservatives.
He could help turn the Conservatives further to the right judging by this remark.
I don't know that Rae has managed to join the NDP and the Liberals. But, if he hasn't quite managed to join the Liberals and the Conservatives, I'm sure John Manley will finish the job with his Afghanistan report. The New Government of Canada - same as the Old Government of Canada. Neither one of them worth the powder to blow them to hell.
"...it's only torture if certain people do it."
Very reminiscent of the New Government of Canada's position on the death penalty.
The main reason many of us were glad to see Dion chosen as Liberal leader was that he wasn't either Rae or Ignatieff. Remember?
I hope y'all have read Why Do You Torture Us, Canada? Now, there's an American who is trying to set us on the right path:
Sorry for the double post, but I just read Rae over, and I picked up the signal: Iran.
My God. How do we stop this corruption? How?
Agreed - a plague on both Liberals and Conservatives. Now how do we get reasonable government for our country?
How do we stop this corruption? How?
Where's Guy Fawkes when you need him? ;-)
Immediately after typing the above, I thought "If aliens blasted the House of Commons off the map, would I miss anyone?" One word answer - No. Now *that* is a truly sad commentary.
While I agree at how reprehensible this is from Rae, I do have to wonder whether he is speaking for the party/leader or for himself here, as unlike with the Harper CPC the Libs are not so tightly top down controlled. I am not trying to be an apologist here, and I would expect Rae to be rapped by Dion for making this statement and if he is not then he can share in the dishonour of this statement but I will wait a day or two to see what happens. I do find it almost mind-boggling though that the sole NDP Premier of Ontario is now making such statements, anyone that can ignore the body of evidence that America has become a torture approved nation has some serious problems with understanding the issue at hand.
I can see where Rae might think it was sloppy of the government to let this get into the public domain and that it was a political embarrassment for the US government, but reality is what it is and that should take precedence IMHO especially on something as serious as torture by a supposedly democratic rule of law society. That Rae is apparently appalled by this consideration is something I simply cannot fathom from someone with his political background and it makes me that much happier he did not win the Liberal leadership as skdadl noted earlier.
While I will still argue the Libs are better than the CPC to govern this does count as a significant negative against them with me, I am not at all impressed. Not. At. All.
I though the Liberal Foreign Affairs critic was the BC NDP quisling Ujjal Dosanjh, not his Ontarion counterpart. Did Dion shuffle his critics while I was asleep?
was this not whistle-blowing gone wrong? where does an elected politician get off changing training 'cause its embarrassing? the fact remains: even DFAIT knows what's going on