Why middle class English-speaking Canada can lick the shit off my boots

Norman Spector on "Stephen Harper's successes" in The Globe and Mail:

What I saw in Stephen Harper at the beginning of this decade is what I still see in him — a chap who...is an exemplar of middle class English-speaking Canada.

Which is probably true given that, if the polls are to be relied upon, he would form another minority government if another election was called.

Worth keeping in mind as Harper prepares to shut down the government yet again in the hopes that the public and the opposition will forget that Tories--to the individual--are criminals.

That time of the year again

Time to focus on what's important and shit.

Normalising torture II

Terry Glavin weighs in on "torturegate" by uncritically quoting Christie Blatchford and not offering much else. Very disappointing.

Blatchford's piece is the usual ignorance-as-patriotism bullshit, but since she seems to have a difficult time understanding what constitutes torture (though clearly what happened in this case wasn't torture and you might as well burn a Canadian flag and extinguish the flames by pissing on it if you think it was because it's THE TROOPS we're talking about here!), may I suggest the UN Convention Against Torture as a starting point? Article 1.1:

For the purposes of this Convention, torture means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions.

I'm not a legal scholar, but I would suspect that a prisoner transferred to Afghan forces and beaten severely enough that Canadian troops had to seize him back could reasonable constitute "severe pain or suffering...inflicted on a person". In any case, this matter could be resolved if the Tories would allow a proper inquiry into the matter. Doesn't look like that will happen anytime soon though:

The Harper government has effectively suspended parliamentary hearings on allegations that Afghan detainees were transferred to torture – boycotting attempts by opposition MPs to continue a Commons probe of the matter....Tuesday's Tory boycott comes four days after the Harper government defied an extremely rare Commons motion backed by all opposition parties – who outnumber the Conservatives in Parliament – that calls on them to release confidential records on Afghan detainees.

The “order-to-produce” has the power of subpoena and the opposition could find the Tories in contempt of Parliament for ignoring it. The Tories, however, say releasing the records would threaten national security.

And, to boot, the rumour mill is saying that the Tories are going to shut down Parliament rather than dealing with this. Isn't democracy grand?

What your favorite author says about you:

A little bit of fun here.

Hitchens doesn't do as well as Dostoevsky, but that all depends on who wrote the list.

Sharpen your knives and dust off the black flag

A couple of pieces from the Globe and Mail today about the Afghan torture scandal:

The first is Jane Taber on recent poll results showing that the Cons are losing support in British Columbia and Quebec, largely over Richard Colvin's allegations and the repeal of the long gun registry.

The second is by John Ibbitson and is about why defence minister Peter MacKay--though his actions are, according to Ibbitson, "indefensible"--won't be asked to resign. This has partly to do with how Harper forcing MacKay to resign could create a schism between MacKay's old Progressive Conservatives and Harper's Canadian Alliance (this would be the best thing that could happen to the Canadian centre and left and should be encouraged), and partly to do with detainee abuse not being "a ballot question".

Ibbitson might be wrong with the latter point, especially seeing as how whether or not the Canadian government had knowledge that they were violating the Geneva Conventions is an issue that doesn't seem to be going away--and Chief of Defence Staff General Walter Natynczyk's admission yesterday that, yes, a prisoner taken into custody by Canadian soldiers was tortured by Afghan authorities is a massive blow to the government's credibility. Is it enough, however, to bring down the government? I'm not sure about that.

What bothers me most about Ibbitson's article is this sentence: "Afghan detainees, even innocent ones, are not sympathetic people." To be fair to Ibbitson, he isn't making the same argument that Christie Blatchford made earlier in the Globe and how this effectively justifies torture (a sentiment that was more or less echoed by retired General Rick Hillier--though probably Blatchford was echoing him) as he writes that "heads should roll" over this--but he is correct that a lot of people--I hesitate to say "most"--don't see this as a particular problem. If comments forms are any indication there are a lot of Canadians who see Afghanistan as a dirty war where ugly things like the torture of prisoners happens. And if these prisoners are members of the Taliban or sympathetic to them? Then especially who gives a shit? It's further evidence that since Harper's Conservatives took power this country is becoming increasingly unrecognisable.

A quick observation about Tory morality

Canadian Tories lost far more sleep about the film Young People Fucking recieving tax credits than they are with the certainty that they committed a grave breach in the Geneva Conventions by handing over prisoners to be tortured in Afghanistan.

December 6

Reading here.

But why not just expropriate both their resources and send them off to work camps?

A judge awards a Toronto woman record-setting spousal support payments:

“The wife should not have to eradicate her savings to pay for her living expenses,” Judge Greer said. “She sacrificed a career to be a stay-at-home wife and mother for all those years. This is a family with extensive wealth, and both parties should live out their retirement years in a style that can easily be afforded.”

Okay, sure, sounds reasonable.

“The wife says that in 2009, her expenses have decreased to $88,790.33 per month,” Judge Greer said. “This equates to $1,065,483.90 per year.”

For fuck's sake!

Making waves in the blogosphere...

...and justly ignored everywhere else: Andrew Sullivan "leaves the right". He seriously just figured out that right-wingers are homophobic god-botherers with a penchant for war and torture? Seriously?