Politics-International

Human Rights Groups Now Responsible For Commiting Human Wrongs

Mulder

I would love to start a group to sue the Human Rights groups for abusing people with frivolous legal action. We could call it a Human Wrongs group.

Canada’s practice of turning detainees over to Afghan security forces, widely accused of torture and abuse, violates international law and the Charter of Rights, Amnesty International and the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association say.

The two groups will Wednesday file an application in Federal Court in Ottawa seeking judicial review of the military’s controversial policy. Named as respondents in the action are Defence Minister Gordon O’Connor, General Rick Hillier, Canada’s Chief of the Defence Staff, and Attorney-General Robert Nicholson.

The legal action will be announced today by Alex Neve, Amnesty International Canada’s Secretary-General, and Shirley Heafey, a B.C. Civil Liberties Association board member.

What these groups don’t realize is that we are not at war with Afghanistan. We are there now in rebuilding/reconstructive role. This means we work WITH their police forces and not against them.

If there are issues with the Afghani police forces, that is a concern and should be addressed via the appropriate Internal Affairs (or similar equivalent) department within their police.

Law Professor Allegations Meant To Remove Canadian Forces From Afghanistan

Mulder

Amir AttaranOttawa University Professor Amir Attaran appeared on Canada AM this morning to discuss the possible abuse by Canadian troops of Afghani prisoners.

I have been doing some light reading this evening and I am wondering why Mr. Attaran would be so interested in the possible abuse of these men.

The information which will be presented in an investigation look pretty clear cut to me.

The three Afghans were captured near Dukah by a small group of Canadian soldiers.

One of the detainees was seen observing the soldiers but escaped, only to be captured the next day. In a field report, the soldiers described him as “non-compliant.”

Another is described as being “extremely belligerent” and “it took four personnel to subdue him.”

In the most serious instance, it was said that only “appropriate force” was used and that the suspect was an alleged bomb maker.

And what did these men suffer? Remember, one that they were “non-compliant”, “extremely belligerent” and one was an alleged bomb maker.

All three of them had a similar set of injuries to their face, to their head and the most seriously injured man had his eyes swollen, cuts on his eyebrows, a slash across his forehead and a cut on his cheek.

So in other words, these men looked like this.

Rocky

Big Deal. It took 4 men to subdue one of them. How do you expect these guys to look?

Right now it seems to me that most of this is still speculation, hearsay, and allegations by Mr. Attaran. Apparently, the men were returned to Afghan authorities and “never seen again.” (cue Twilight Zone music).

So what is this really all about?

Well we can tell you that Dr. Attaran has conveniently brought up these cases (with one file missing) when only a year ago he was criticizing Canada’s Prisoner Transfer Agreement with Afghanistan.

Professor Amir Attaran of the Faculty of Law fears that the agreement between Ottawa and Kabul on prisoner transfers makes Canadian soldiers complicit to torture.
He made this assertion during the conference on the “Canadian Legal Response to Torture” that took place on March 24, 2006 at the University of Ottawa.

This event, organized by the Law Society of Upper Canada, the Human Rights Research and Education Centre and the Faculty of Law, attracted more than two hundred people from different government departments, human rights organizations and lawyers interested in the subject.

So after criticizing the agreement almost a year ago, Mr. Attaran has been reviewing report after report after report on the Afghani prisoner transfers and has finally found 3 that can make his criticism valid. How many prisoner files did he need to review before he found these? How many hundreds of prisoners were processed properly without issue before three “Belligerents” took a couple of shots to put them back in line?

Mr. Attaran should produce a bit more evidence before making allegations as he has.

Judge him for yourself. Mr. Attaran has written for the Globe and Mail (left leaning), The Washington Post (left leaning), The New York Times (VERY left leaning) and his previous employer was the “Sierra Legal Defence Fund” (Granola crunching, left leaning, tree hugging, legal action group).

I think Mr. Attaran should come clean. His actions indicate he wants Canada out of Afghanistan. Just like his buddy Jack Layton.

ADDENDUM: Actually, Mr. Attaran is quoted on page 3 of one of Alexa McDonough’s “Global Perspectives” flyers from 2003. e

GroupThink – We Are Borg, Resistance Is Futile. You Will Be Assimilated

Mulder

What happens when someone who is considered a leader switches sides? Should his followers shun him or follow him?

This question is being asked again by many on the left after Nick Cohen, infamous leftist protester and activist has come out with his new book What’s Left? How Liberals Lost Their Way.

I was pointed to an interview Nick Cohen gave and he has clearly not left his roots, but he is questioning the current state of affairs among what he calls “Guardianistas”.

“Serious people on the left I have no trouble with. They may not agree with me but they know something is going wrong. An Oxford don has told me, ‘I’m against the war but I hate going on a demo with anti-semites and Trotskyites’. It’s the soft left liberal intelligentsia, those bloody comedians we get these days — they want to feel righteous, they dislike all ambiguity. They want to think they are good. They swear at me.”

Auntie gets it on the chin too. “I support the BBC but I think our problem is the concentration of media in London. When there is an absolute liberal consensus, everyone they meet, eat or sleep with thinks the same damn thing.” So in Iraq’s case this groupthink didn’t come in the hard questions they asked the other side, but the soft questions they asked their own side. “For years,” he writes, “the BBC’s attack dog presenters couldn’t manage to give one opponent of the war a tough interview. Not even George Galloway.”

Auntie got her “impartial, balanced” revenge; on Radio 4’s Start the Week last Monday Cohen was politely monstered by every other left-liberal guest. The Guardian also came up with a novel way of pigeonholing Cohen’s politics as unworthy of serious discussion. “The Guardian online talkboards carried a discussion with me and another supporter of the war from the left with a Jewish name, which was entitled: ‘David Aaronovitch and Nick Cohen Are Enough to Make a Good Man Anti-Semitic’.” Not funny, not clever. He has also been pilloried on the paper’s op-ed pages by an apologist for the communist dictatorship in Cuba.

In that quote we see the term “groupthink”. I recently came across this word in Paul Wells’ new book which I am reading now, but Paul elabourates on not only the meaning but some scientific study into “groupthink”. I will refrain from quoting Mr. Wells directly, but I will say that group think polarizes people according to the studies Mr. Wells quotes. It takes a bell curve where their are few at the extreme and shifts the mass of the bell towards that edge. This is clearly something our society is dealing with now on many issues. Americans and Brits in Iraq … polarized. Canadians in Afghanistan … polarized. Climate Change being unnatural … polarized, etc. etc. etc.

Cohen appears to be standing off from the polarized left on a few issues and as the quote says, he is being “pilloried … by an apologist for the communist dictatorship in Cuba.”?

Wow, with friends like these, who needs enemies?

The left and, in particular, Guardianistas, have made their bed by defending the rights of the minorities in their own nations. Yet only those hard core leftists, leave their own country to protest. The majority of that shifted Bell Curve crowd run and hide when push comes to shove and getting up off their ass is required. You never see the throngs protesting women’s rights in Kabul or Riyadh. You never see the throngs protesting the opening of a Chinese coal fired power plant in Shenzhen. Those not willing to go to the extreme are the ones that are polarized by GroupThink and not the idealogy itself. They just keep jumping on the bandwagon of the issue of the day and pick the left leaning side and champion it, keeping this GroupThink polarization mentality. After all, who wants to be pilloried by your “friends” over a Latte or a Chi at Starbucks?

According to Paul Wells, the Paul Martin government fell in large part due to GroupThink polarizing Liberals towards the idea of change and the extreme was too much change for Canadians. If we are lucky the leftist movement supporting Kyoto will fall because they are all pulling the rope in the same direction and it happens to be one heading towards a cliff that Liberal Environment critic David McGuinty said will cost us as much as $40 Billion a year. That’s a pretty steep cliff that even extreme left leaning Canadians may not want to get close to for fear of falling over.

If we can take anything positive from Nick Cohen’s defection, it is that resistance is NOT futile. We will NOT be assimilated. (If there is anything leftists can take from this, it is that polarization and groupthink will destroy them…but I wouldn’t want to be the one to tell them that before they make like lemmings.)

H/T to my friend Sandy for the Nick Cohen link.

How Does "Osama Bin Laden Middle School" Sound?

Mulder

This one takes the cake.

The Taliban is spending one million dollars to open its own schools in areas under its control in southern Afghanistan.

The group has announced it will provide Islamic education for students in six southern provinces.

The textbooks would be the same ones used during the Taliban rule.

The Taliban destroyed 200 schools and killed 20 teachers last year.

What a record. Destroy 200 and build one. That’s how you win over the citizens.

I was looking over the courses offered…

Sharia 101 – How To Hit A Woman Without Leaving a Visible Bruise (Full Burka and Hajib required)

Torture 010 – Beheading Dhimmis for Dummies

Advanced Electronics 200 – How to build a bomb using horse manure, a digital watch and a gyroscope

OS Bookshelf – America Alone-The End Of The World As We Know It By Mark Steyn

Mulder

Steyn-America AloneWhen I first heard Mark Steyn speak I thought to myself “This man is going to get knocked off by a hit man!” If that wasn’t enough to get me hooked then perhaps it was the ease with which he lays out facts and cuts through the politically correct haze most other writers/speakers are surrounded with.

In America Alone-The End Of The World As We Know It, Steyn lays out the demographic facts that show how America (yes, Alone) is the only nation in the free world producing enough offspring to sustain its’ own existence. Italy and Russia sitting at 1.2 and Spain producing a paltry 1.1 children per two adults and even Canada producing only 1.5. When the requirement for sustained population is 2.1 (when mortality is taken into account) the only nation in the free world producing enough offspring to sustain itself without immigration is the United States.

But Steyn points out that when we look at other parts of the world the story is quite different. Niger – 7.46, Mali – 7.42, Somalia – 6.76, Afghanistan – 6.69, Yemen – 6.58. To quote Mr. Steyn:

Notice what those nations have in common? Starts with an I, and ends with a slam. As in: slam dunk.

But Steyn doesn’t just look at the demographics of declining western culture and skyrocketing Islamism. He addresses the demasculation of society and the culture of bleeding heartism that lead to statements by people like Osama bin Laden that say America is weak. She has no teeth. It isn’t the military he is talking about. It is the soft underbelly in our society that sees fit to give in to every whining small L liberal.

Whatever your political stripes, this book is an eye opener and a must read in my opinion. After you read it, make sure you give the book to a friend and make them read it too.

ADDENDUM: If you don’t have time to read the book, watch Mark Steyn’s speech to the Heritage Foundation by clicking here.

Now on to Paul Wells’ latest Right Side Up – The Fall Of Paul Martin And The Rise Of Stephen Harper’s New Conservatism.

Vegetarian It Is

Mulder

After reading Greg Weston today, I am wondering if the next proposal from granola crunchers is that we all go vegetarian and stop our efforts to aid in the reproduction of cattle.

Among the many reasons to cut the bull on global warming, it turns out a staggering 24 million tonnes of annual greenhouse gas emissions are coming from the exhaust pipes of Canadian cattle and other farting farm animals.

In the overall ecological scheme of things, that means farmyard flatulence is contributing as much to heating the planet as half of all the regular passenger cars on Canadian roads today.

All I have to say is that if Cows are making up half the GHG’s that regular passenger cars on our roads make, then we really are lucky our current government opted out of Kyoto or we all may be sitting in a cart being pulled by some farm animal.

The worst offenders?

-Power Generation – 130 MegaTonnes
-Oil and Gas Industry – 133
-Oil and Gas Exports – 46
-Ordinary Passenger Cars – 50
-SUVs and Family Vans – 44
-Transport Trucks – 45
-Domestic Aircraft – 8
-Mining and Manufacturing – 139
   -Chemical Industries – 22
   -Mining – 18
   -Steel Mills – 15
   -Aluminum and Other Smelting – 13
   -Cement – 11
   -Pulp and Paper – 9
Home Heating – 43
Office and Institutional Heating – 38
Waste Disposal – 29
Agriculture – 55
   -Animal Flatulence – 24
   -Manure Management – 9
   -Other – 23

So there you have it. So let’s put a few facts down. As previous Environment Minister Rona Ambrose stated, it is true that we could take every vehicle off the roads and every airplane out of the air and we would only eliminate 147 MegaTonnes, less than 75% of our target.

It is also true that with scrubber technology on incinerators that we should probably get rid of all landfills. The Netherlands has banned them all together and is now strictly using incineration. This alone could cut close to 30 megatonnes. Why are the environmentalistas not jumping on this idea? It would certainly help remove what may become the biggest pile of trash in the free world should the city approve a proposal to triple or quadruple the size of the Carp Rd. landfill in Ottawa. What a way to add another monument to our nation’s capital.

Another way to cut our emissions is to tell Kyoto to eliminate the penalty we receive for being a net exporter of oil. After all, we may be producing it, but we aren’t burning it. Saudi Arabia exports more than four times the oil we do and they are exempt from Kyoto because they are considered a developing nation. Go figure that one out.

The Saudi GDP is about 20th in the world (+/-2) and they have a population about 3/4’s that of Canada. The per capita number may be lower than us, but when the worlds 20th most prosperous nation is considered developing, think about how many nations our payment into Kyoto would be compensating? Sorry, but no thanks. A lot of oil get’s used in plastics and is not simply burned, so I don’t think we should be responsible with what other nations do with that oil.

And regarding going vegetarian, if we move from beef to broccoli, we wouldn’t eliminate the flatulence, we would just displace it.

China's Coal Powered Plants Wet Blanket For Kyoto

Mulder

562

Remember that number.

It is the number of coal fired plants that China plans to open in the next few years. Add in the USA and India (all three exempt or not signatories to Kyoto) and the number of plants goes up to 850.

…the implications of this planned coal-fired plant construction in China, India and the U.S. It estimated these 850 plants will put five times more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than Kyoto is designed to remove, even if every other country, including Canada, miraculously hits its Kyoto target.

Pause for a second and reread that statement. Five Times what Kyoto would remove if every nation hits its target. Wow.

Lorrie Goldstein is taking on the Kyoto challenge and doing a great job. In this article he outlines how the biggest polluters are not included in Kyoto.

Something that I would like to add is that the Kyoto Protocol considers Saudi Arabia a “developing country” too which means the Saudis are not being penalized for pumping petroleum into the world while nations like Canada are.

For more, I urge people to read Lorrie Goldstein regularly. He is doing a good job trying to educate Torontonians on the myths surrounding Kyoto.

The problem with Kyoto

Debunking Hot Hysteria

More Kyoto Crimes

Well worth the time to read them.

Iraqi Economy Booming More Than The Car Bombs

Mulder

Let’s cut to the chase. Iraq, despite the security issues, is starting to thrive. The International edition of Newsweek reported in their December 25th, 2006 to January 1st, 2007 issue:

  • 2 years ago, Iraqi cell phones numbered 1.4 Million. Today there are 7.1 Million.
  • 3 years ago, Iraq had 8,000 registered companies. Today there are 34,000.
  • GDP in Iraq grew 17% in 2005 and projections are for 13% in 2006.
  • Income tax has gone from 45% under Saddam to 15% and Iraqi’s are spending.

To quote some of the article:

Consider some less formal indicators. Perhaps the most pervasive is the horrendous Iraqi traffic jams. Roadside bombs account for fewer backups than the sheer number of secondhand cars that have crowded onto the nation’s roads—five times as many in Baghdad as before the war. Cheap Chinese goods overflow from shop shelves, and store owners report quick turnover. Real-estate prices have risen several hundred percent, suggesting that Iraqis are more optimistic about the future than most Americans are.

That last sentence is quite telling. And all this from Newsweek, which is typically considered a left leaning publication.

So Iraq is thriving. What does this mean? It means that despite what Americans think about the war, the nation is going through some major pains while it grows.

The withdrawal of a certain great power could drastically reduce the foreign money flow, and knock the crippled economy flat.

Could George Bush be right? Could Iraq be a thriving western style nation under the right conditions? We may never find out with the Democrats taking control of both houses. The biggest complaint by the Democrats is that American soldiers are dying.

Some statistics. The number of casualties in 45 months since the war began is 3017. That comes out to just over 800 a year. In the four calendar years from 2001 to 2004 inclusive the average number of road deaths in the USA was over 42,000 a year. But do the car crash safety ratings get the air time that the war in Iraq gets? Not even close. Iraq is in the news every newscast, every day, every week. In my opinion, the war fatigue just caught up with Americans and we can thank the MSM for continuing to report every single death in Iraq numerous times and rarely, if ever, reporting statistics about how the nation has changed and is thriving under new government.

God help the Iraqi people once the Americans leave.