Ottawa 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.
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
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wanna bet that this:
“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.”
. . . was a pigs in the trough fest funded by the Canadian taxpayers
Why do we waste the money on these dough-heads when we could be using it to get better equipment for the troops.
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A quote from a friend of mine.
“Profs are always looking for funding to continue their research. National publicity might help raise his profile and get some more research grant”
Welcome to Canada’s new age Prof’s
When you cant achieve fame on your own, attempt to redeem yourself by using someone’s misfortune and misery.
SHAME!!!!!!!
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Hopefully, the Afghani Freedom fighters abused by our terrorists in uniform, are better actors than the one pictured above. Gad, those Hollywood makeup artists are good!
A generation ago, those fine Afghani lads would have been quietly shot, and everyone would have been saved the song and dance that’s about to occur, if our MSM can ever get their cameras on the “abused”.
Canada disbanded it’s airborne regiment over the death of one boy, and the actions of one or two soldiers. If this one proves true, should we surrender to the Taliban, and all our soldiers come home?
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This is NOT the same person – Dr. Amir Attaran is a project director at the Center for International Development, and is an active proponent of continued use of DDT for malaria control.
He is someone I respect – imagine, he’s taking on the UN and saying DDT is acceptable! Note: I said “respect” and meant it. Although I can’t figure out why he’s quoted in an article about AIDS, I’m sure the NDP knows that malaria and AIDS are not the same thing. Ummmm … no, I’ve used up my cheap shots for today.
Anyway, please restore the good name of Dr. Amir Attaran – make up for it and give him some much deserved publicity.
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The photo from above matches the CBC picture so I don’t know what your issue is for falsely display the whiner.
But ever since the Arar settlement of $10’500’000.00
dollars for what Syria did to him, is it any surprise that the Islamophobia bandwagon has more Muslims jumping on to “Allege” harm to people outside of canada , next week CAIR and Muslims will have a Victory-dinner for the Arar’s and then plan to set up a Scholarship at Law Schools in Ottawa to fight for Justice in canada.
Except Arar’s wife is orthodox and is anti-Abortion and anti-Gay marriage , so Taliban Jack at the NDP should be forced to answer to why he used this Sharia-law friendly female in the last Federal election while her husband was Suing us Taxpayers for $400’000’000.00 dollars for what Syria did to him.
Mr.Attaran and CAIR would go ape if anyone Alleged that Canada’s Mosques have a radical group within them and are plotting to slaughter thousands of us with Saudi backing as Tarek Fatah has stated on many occation , but it’s OK for some University yahoo to alleged war-crimes by Canadians and not display one piece of evidence to back the claims.
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Lindsay, please elabourate. From the University of Ottawa website, Dr. Amir Attaran is by training both a lawyer and a biologist. He has a BA from Berkeley, MS from Caltech, D.Phil from Oxford and an LL.B from UBC.
He publishes in numerous journals and medical reports and has advised and collaborated on numerous NGO’s, UN agencies, governments and corporations on aspects of international development.
Who in my post is NOT this Amir Attaran?
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TrustOnlyMulder …
My Bad – you’re right. I apologize. I missed the SourceWatch write up. It was the Mr. of law / Dr. of medicine that threw me off. He does get around. Guess I’d better spend more time checking sources – thanks for only slapping me gently.
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There are lots of pictures of this interesting guy on Google. I particularly like the one that looks like a mug shot, which I have on my site.
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The media laps up this smear campaign without asking the source of these smears any tough questions – they give him the benefit of the doubt, but refuse to do the same for our troops – F&%@ them.
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Lindsay, no problem. I would have corrected myself quickly if I was wrong. Sorry to shatter your image of him. I think he is a very smart man. I just disagree with his method of fighting to remove our troops from Afghanistan. We all know what the Somalia Inquiry did.
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Check out Walkom of the Red Star and his call to pull us out of Afghanistan:
http://www.thestar.com/News/article/179422
This is what the lawyer’s story is all about… try and get Canada out of a place where they are doing something worth while.
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Wait a minute! He’s got a point. Nobody here would advocate that for safe keeping, you should give a child to a pedophile. So why are the Canadian Forces saying that for safe keeping of detainees, they give them to known torturers? It’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. Torture not only wrecks a guy’s life, but it gives the interrogator crappy intelligence too. People will say anything.
Sounds to me like DND has screwed this one up, and when those victims figure it out, the Canadian taxpayer is going to be paying a lot of megabux claims like for Arar. We may owe the Prof a favor for pointig it out early. He could save us a lot of money and embarrassment.
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Uh, Forest, NATO is NOT at war with Afghanistan. NATO is supporting the existing elected government with their fight against internal and external terrorists. We have no right to retain detainees and must turn them over to the lawful authorities, otherwise we would be kidnappers. Also, who said the Afghans were torturing anyone? I doubt it – too many foreign witnesses. And the NATO troops certainly wouldn’t – we respect rules even while fighting against terrorists who like torturing and blowing up civilians. Yes, I consider tying a school teacher to 4 motorbikes and riding in 4 different directions to be torture.
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