Wednesday, December 16, 2009

The Ball Is In Your Court Harper, Even a Conservative Can See That.

Even loyal Conservatives who can claim any sense of self-respect and decency must be troubled at the manner in which they have been persistently and outrageously deceived by their prime minister and his political and military underlings on the Afghan detainee torture affair.

We heard what Richard Colvin said and then we heard just the opposite, outright denials and dismissals from a coterie of Con artists including Harper cabinet ministers and top generals. Then, today, Colvin releases a 16-page indictment laying out the blatant lies and coverups these blackguards invoked as their smokescreen. Their response? Nothing to see here, move on.

Safely retired ex-general Michel Gauthier says there's "no substantive new information" in Colvin's retort. That hardly sounds like a denial. Besides, says Gauthier, the accountable cabinet ministers should have been those who, in December, 2005 created the policy. Not the cabinet ministers and generals who, in 2006, 2007 and afterward knew or ought to have known what was happening and did nothing or, worse, even rallied to support one of the torturers.

If the extensive detail furnished by Mr. Colvin in this letter wasn't new information to Gauthier, he must have known it all along. He must've known it when he and his cronies dummied up before the Commons committee.

MacKay's greaseball secretary Laurie Hawn took the most despicable low road, throwing up allegations that the government's critics were accusing Canadian soldiers of war crimes. What manner of cowardly filth is that man?

The nice thing is that Colvin's rebuttal is long and packed with rich detail. Even a reporter of the calibre of today's Canadian media can see where it leads, where to look and how to quickly verify just who is telling the truth and, better yet, who is lying and why.

What's most telling is that Colvin has made such a substantive reply; he has furnished meaningful corroboration and probative sources for his claims. What do we get from the other side; from Harper, O'Connor, Hillier, Gauthier and MacKay? They're the guys with all the documents. They have all the advantages when it comes to proving what they say. Yet they still stand there like a bunch of thugish goons and say "we didn't know anything about it" so go away.

Even if you're a really gullible Conservative, it's obvious that Colvin has presented a case that Harper, O'Connor, MacKay, Hillier and Gauthier have to meet. But they're in too deep and they know it and now all that's left to them is to run for cover.

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