Sorry, I Gotta

But I promise this is the last time I'll write about Chalk River and/or Afghan detainees. Maybe.

You recall that allegations of abuse of prisoners and detainees in Afghanistan surfaced about a year ago. These detainees were captured by NATO forces and transferred into the custody of the new, Taliban-free Afghan army. Canadian forces weren't alleged to be abusing detainees (unlike the situation in Abu Ghraib)--it was the local army that was accused of abuse and torture.

The allegations were apparently confirmed in May. At some time in the fall, the Canadian military started processing detainees in a different way to prevent such abuses and torture.

The subject of torture and a new process for handling detainees came up in early January. At that time, the Prime Minister's office, through its communications director Sandra Buckler, said that the military had not informed the Prime Minister's office or the Minister of Defence of any change in the handling of detainees.

Liberal (and opposition) leader Stephane Dion immediately announced that he had been briefed about the new policy by the military in December. Although he had wanted to make that information public at that time--because the topic of abuse and torture of detainees had been discussed, if briefly, in the public realm and Canadian citizens might want to know--he had agreed to keep the information private. Dion spoke up when he did because he knew that the Prime Minister's office was lying about what it knew, let alone when it knew it.

The military considers its process for handling detainees to be an operational matter, and they say that discussing it publicly to confirm details of the process could jeopardize the lives of military personnel. Presumably, discussing operational details also jeopardizes the lives of the detainees, though those are of course "less important" than the lives of "our own," but I went over all that on Monday.

I think that the Canadian public might be happy to hear that the Canadian military is doing the right thing by working on this process to ensure that it meets international standards. The allegations were public and were confirmed publicly. Acknowledging that you're addressing problems, even though you've vehemently denied these allegations in the past, shows responsible behavio(u)r. It might even reassure those who are basically against the war in Afghanistan that at least Canada and her soldiers are conducting themselves in a way that the Canadian public can be proud of.

But that's a side issue. The main issue is that the communications director created a lie in a situation that didn't require it. She could simply have said that the Prime Minister and other ministers don't discuss operational details. It would have been frustrating to the press and to the public, but it would have kept the discussion on the right topic: what the Canadian military is doing about detainees in Afghanistan.

Instead, her lie forces people to wonder whether the military is conducting a rogue operation in Afghanistan without at least informing proper officials about what's happening. Which is apparently not the case.

Sandra Buckler said on Monday that she "misspoke." That's not true. She didn't make a mistake; this was no slip of the tongue. She deliberately created a lie that made the situation worse than before. I'd fire her in a heartbeat, but she need not worry. The hero of the previous blog post, Peter Van Horn, said Monday that she shouldn't fear for her job. According to him, if every person who misspoke got fired, there'd be nobody left in Parliament.

The thing is, Linda Keen got fired, and she didn't even have to "misspeak" to do so. She also didn't lie. She was simply doing her job. She made a decision to protect the safety of the Canadian public. Her decision irritated the Prime Minister, a fact that she properly ignored when reaching her decision.

Parliament overrode her decision--which, by the way, is what is supposed to happen; people elect government officials to make difficult tradeoffs like the one the MPs made when they granted a 120-day licence to the Chalk River plant to get it back online producing medical isotopes. Nevertheless, in spite of the system working exactly as it was supposed to work, Linda Keen got the axe--for doing exactly what she was hired to do. Wha?

Of course, apparently Sandra Buckler also did exactly what she was hired to do--obfuscate in an effort to somehow "protect" the Prime Minister. Nevertheless, her lie made the Prime Minister seem AT BEST out of touch with the military operations in Afghanistan. It actually shows that the Prime Minister is so paranoid about the Canadian public's ability to handle mixed news that he and his minions can no longer judge when telling the truth is in their best interests.

It's been said that you can't go broke underestimating the stupidity of the American public. You'd think that Canadian politicians trust the intelligence of their own citizens more than that. But this Conservative government apparently doesn't.