Afghan Detainees...what's the story?

As the Afghan detainee controversy continues to wax, an Interview by Terry Glavin with Rex Murphy prompts me to finally put finger to key and jump into the blogosphere. Here's what I wrote on Glavin's blog (Glavin tends to be pretty easy with the delete key when it comes to posts he disagrees with, so it may no longer be there).

Interesting interview with Murphy re detainees. Couple points: firstly, it seemed that you were suggesting that Canada doesn't turn over detainees, NATO does. Would you care to elaborate what you mean by this? While NATO has overall command of the mission, Canadian troops follow detainee policies written in Ottawa, not Brussels. Secondly, you can't understand why this is a newsworthy story. It's pretty simple, Terry. Turning detainees over to torture, or substantial risk of torture, is both immoral and a war crime. That's newsworthy. The government trying to cover up a war crime is newsworthy. Are the laws of war something to be used only against those with whom we disagree (Sudan, Yugoslavia, Karl Donitz, etc), and we should be exempt from their dictates? And we are not talking about "boxing ears" here. We are talking about ripping out toenails, electrocution, beating bruised and bloody with electrical cables; even summary execution (Canadian soldiers have rescued Taliban prisoners about to be executed by the Afghan army) . Some of those subjected to such treatment were likely innocent. That's what the story is about. You may not care about such things. Most Canadians probably disagree. And note, this has nothing to do with blaming Canadian soldiers on the ground, who behave with exemplary professionalism towards their enemy who shares no such compunctions. Detainee policy was written by Ottawa and the military high command, and it is a red herring to deflect criticism of the high command onto our brave footsoldiers. Disclaimer: I have a personal (family) interest in this matter. Jonathan Colvin