Quote:
Originally Posted by Lchoy
My 2 cents
I'll start by saying I haven't researched this issue throughly so I may be missing some facts or misunderstood some of the issues
In the grand scheme of things, How do Canadians want the Canadian Forces to deal with the enemy combatants they capture?
As an ideal, Canada does not support torture, and is a signatory of the Vienna Convention. Canadians are fighting in Afghanistan to support that country build a functioning country that will one day stand up on its own. In that fighting, they will capture enemy combatants
I'm thinking Canada's best option for these people is to hand them over the acting government. It is their land and ultimately their laws that Canada is fighting for (and help craft). We couldn't be handing them over to the Americans with the flack that they got over in Gitmo. We also supported the Americans and resisted the creation of a world court. Lastly, we couldn't bring these prisoners back to our land or to our allies without a lengthly judicial process that we are not prepared for.
At the end of the day, if it can be shown that Canada was transferring custody to the Afghan government, with provisions that they be treated fairly and with accordance to any treaties and conventions that might apply, then Canada has done its due dilligence
however, if the issue is about Canada deliberately transferring over custody, with full intention/consent that they'll be tortured by the Afghan government for intelligence, then I can I see the uproar
|
Yeah, I think that's a pretty good run-down of the issue, although I sort of suspect that when we learn about the documents, the truth will fall somewhere in the middle: that they didn't intentionally hand the prisoners over to torturers, but that they didn't do their required due diligence in making sure that the detainees were not tortured by the Afghans.