Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Jack Layton fires a shot at Bill Graham in Question Period

For all the time I spend complaining about CBC news content, I should give them credit when they report something worth reading. Eillen Olexiuk, one of Colvin's predecessors warned the Martin government that prisoners in Afghan prisons were likely tortured before they created and signed the transfer agreement and "I don't think anybody really cared, quite frankly". Today in Question Period Jack Layton sternly demanded testimony from former Liberal Defense Minister Bill Graham to explain why monitors were not included in the 2005 agreement.

The Martin Government, with many current LPC MPs sitting in cabinet, was repeatedly warned of possible torture in Afghan prisons and nobody cared. Then in a rush to stop transferring POWs to our NATO allies, the Liberal Government created a treaty to transfer them into Afghan custody and deliberately excluded any mechanism to monitor prisoners after transfer. This was not lost on Layton today in QP, as he used Olexiuk's statements to fire some hard shots at the Liberals.

This story supports what I have been saying all along. The day after Colvin's testimony I asked why were the Liberals so eager to draw attention to their own negligence? The Liberal chattering class were accusing Peter MacKay of war crimes, and my opinion was that if any war crimes had indeed taken place, the Liberal government bore the greatest responsibility.

I have become accustomed to liberal partisan slants on the CBC politics page, and it was a pleasant surprise to see a headline with very negative consequences for the Liberal Party. I am curious to read Kady O'Malley's spin on this, but she has been conspicuously quiet on these revelations thus far. I understand; JafferWatch2010 has been consuming a lot of her time...

9 comments:

  1. Kadie O'Malley is silent because its NEWS!
    She is only capable of gossip... needs to graduate high school soon, me thinks.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Ooooh, dead silence over at Liblogs.

    If you take the CBC report (and there are others out there too) to the same conclusion that Liberals and their media took the Colvin reports....Liberals complicite in war crimes!

    The Supremes have already ruled on this when Amnesty LOST their case for Afghan detainees being protected with Charter rights.
    The Supremes ruled NO Charter rights,
    Afghan detainees are protected by their OWN GOVERNMENT.

    Both Lib and Con govts got assurances from the Afghan govt that Cdn detainees would not be subject to abuse.
    We are not invaders, the Afghan govt tells us what we are allowed to do in THEIR country.

    ReplyDelete
  3. another CBC report
    Liberals feared Abu Ghraib-type detainee scandal: source
    http://www.cbc.ca/politics/story/2010/03/10/afghan-detainees-controversy.html

    Interesting too, PMSHs answer to Jack in QP re calling an inquiry because allegations go back to Lib govt

    Harper says
    'this government is NOT interested in calling inquiries into Prime Ministers of other parties administrations'....
    or something like that, I haven't looked it up!
    we heard '..Mulroney..'in the background.

    So no matter what Harper knows about the Libs, on the nilitary file, mum's the word.
    This is why I really like PMSH,
    loyal to the core.
    Our military has a true, genuine ally in this Prime Minister.

    ReplyDelete
  4. By the time the Liberals got around to this formal transfer agreement polling data indicated a high probability that they would lose power in the next election.

    1) They were well aware of torture allegations.

    2) They were aware that they were likely to lose the next election. That's why the opportunistic Layton bailed on their soft coalition with Martin.

    3) They deliberately excluded any monitoring mechanism in the transfer agreement.

    Conspiracies have been born from less...

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  5. Why has Layton waited so long to bring up Bill Graham. Most of us have known for years who wrote the agreement to transfer with no supervision. Wonder if iggy knew it. Wonder if internal polls show this to be a bad issue for the libs, and that Layton could gain lots of seats.
    As for Jaffer. Who dropped the charges and why. An Ontario liberal prosecutor. Could he have done this as he knew what the fallout would be for the conservatives. Maybe it was Ont libs who had an agenda.

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  6. Neither Pierre Pettigrew, the former Liberal foreign affairs minister, nor Bill Graham, the former Liberal defence minister, would speak Wednesday on an issue that has triggered criticism of Canada's current and previous governments.

    Gee, I wonder why?

    Does anyone notice that the Liberals that have come the latest in Paliament are the loudest in demanding a public inquiry? And that it is the ones that were actually in government at the time, both former MPs and current MPs, that are deathly silent?

    Gee, I wonder why?

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  7. why were the Liberals so eager to draw attention to their own negligence?

    Iceman, have you notice, the liberals have been drawing attention to their own negligence in every thing for example they accuse this prime minister of the mishaps on E.I, isotopes, transfer of payments to provinces for healthcare, infrastructure, etc ...... all these and more were the liberals negligence including cutting funds to the military.
    The media's negligence is the same like the liberals-they blame other people for the liberals very own mess.
    So, the next time you either hear CBC CTV Tom Clark, taber Oliver, fifey or ;iberals go after the conservatives you can better your bottom dollar is has something to do with the liberals own negligence.

    ReplyDelete