Posted By DAN CHRISTIE Posted 51 mins ago

Why should we care if a few Afghans are tortured just because Canadian troops handed them over to Afghan security forces? I mean, who cares, eh? For all we know they’re nothing but “scumbags” anyway. Isn’t that what Rick Hillier called them –”scumbags”?

What about us? What about our dead and wounded? Don’t they count for something? after all, we’re only trying to help these pathetic people, trying to make sure little Afghan girls get the chance to go to school. I’m pretty sure Rick Hillier said that too, didn’t he?

I mean who are we supposed to believe — some disgruntled ex-diplomat who claims he told anybody who would listen that Canadian troops were handing over Afghan prisoners for torture, or our own minister of national defence, the Honourable — and I repeat, Honourable — Peter MacKay — the man who swore he’d never, ever merge the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada with the Canadian Alliance Party just moments before he merged the Progressive Conservative Party Of Canada with the Canadian Alliance Party.

I mean, who are we supposed to believe? Boy, I’ll tell ya, I’ve heard all kinds of things

this past week that just about make my blood boil. Imagine a Globe and Mail columnist, one of the big guys, coming right out and calling Gen. Rick Hillier “the government’s chief military blusterer”. Holy cow! Rick Hillier, hero to millions, lantern-jawed, straight-shooter a “blusterer”! Can you beat that? Man-oh-man, I tell ya. Next thing you know somebody’s going to say Gen. Hillier left his troops in the field during the heat of battle and high-tailed it back to Canada so he could get into consulting work, write a book and mount a credible line of bluster about how — oh goodness me, no — Canada would never hand anybody over to anybody else if even the slightest whiff of torture was involved. Goodness, no.

I mean, for crying out loud.

Now I’m starting to hear noises about some convention in Geneva or something. What the heck has a convention in Geneva, Switzerland, for God sakes, got to do with us? especially the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and how our soldiers, our men and women doing their duty for their country, their flag, our democracy and, yes, for Tim Hortons for Leafs Nation and, yes, even for the right of Afghan women to wear high-heels like I think Rick Hillier mentioned at a Red Shirt Rally at Toronto City Hall a while back, could find themselves facing a war crimes trial for being complicit in torture just because they might have done what their government might or might not have told them to do.

A war crimes trial. some kind of mini-Nuremberg, I suppose. Unreal.

This is Canada. We’re Canadians. we don’t torture people. our military especially has never, ever tortured anyone. never. except maybe once. Somalia or some Godforsaken place I think it was. but, it was so long ago I can’t even remember the name of the kid we tortured. Sixteen or 17 I think they said he was. we took pictures, too. Yeah, we took pictures.

Arone! Yeah. That’s it! Sidane Arone was the kid’s name, 16 years old.

But, geez, all this talk about torture and war crimes and Geneva Conventions, eh? who are they trying to kid?