Apparently you can rise all the way to Chief of Defence Staff in this country without having to understand that being whipped with cables and shocked with electricity qualifies as torture.
What a country, eh?
Who promised you democracy would be easy?
I guess we shouldn't be surprised. Hillier has demonstrated before that he is blind to reality and solidly embraces only the things that he 'believes' in. When confronted with a Decima poll that showed a majority of Canadians were convinced that Afghanistan was a hopeless situation for our military involvement, Hillier simply ignored the reality of the poll and said, "I believe Canadians support the mission".
Hillier is an idiot. Reality to him is merely what he 'believes'.
I'm still trying to figure out who finally released that memo -- what'm I missing?
skdadl:
Amnesty International has six of Colvin's reports in heavily redacted form which they got hold of before the feds realized they were radioactive. The CBC has made them available here.
Groovy.
Is it torture? It depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is.
Politicians ... agh.
Caught some of his testimony - at the beginning, referenced the lack of funding during the Cretien years (decade of darkness), and the fact that a liberal government sent them into Afganistan. Wondering which riding he'll be representing for the Cons in the next election.
An ex-CIDA employee tells her story of being muzzled by DFAIT and reminds that we just finished throwing Peter Galbraith under a similar bus for reporting election fraud in Afghanistan :
Hiding bad news is standard procedure
Brian Stewart recently wrote about CIDA;
"...For CIDA, which is supposed to be the standard-bearer of Canada's humanitarian face in the world, has long been reduced to a timid, risk-averse, unfocused and curiously publicity-shy minor player within the ever-thickening shadows of Ottawa bureaucracy..."
"...CIDA was clearly afraid to answer questions in detail or expose its operation to outsiders because openness carried the risk that even mild criticism would result in its top management being dragged to the PMO woodshed.
All of official Ottawa was cowed at this prospect, but it turned the ever-meek CIDA into a borderline recluse..."
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2009/11/18/f-vp-stewart.html