I don’t think its been even 24 hrs before “sources” - no doubt in the military - leaked this to the Globe and Mail:
The Canadian Forces are holding insurgent detainees at their Kandahar Air Force base rather than turning them over to Afghan authorities, are taking fewer prisoners and are quickly releasing some of them. The information, provided to The Globe and Mail by sources, answers questions about Canada’s new policy for handling detainees that Prime Minister Stephen Harper and other ministers repeatedly refused to provide Monday, citing the need for combat operational secrecy.
I guess the military either doesn’t think that this thing needs to be kept a secret, or else there are still quite a few angry military folks over Sandra Buckler’s comments that no one from the Armed Forces informed the government of the change in detainee policy of not handing them over to the Afghanistan authorities. The best part of this whole schmozzle: Harper is quoted in the House yesterday as saying he will “never” say how many prisoners are kept or where they are kept. Well, a day later, we now know where they are. It’ll be interesting to see if these same sources are angry enough to say how many prisoners we’ve got as well.
UPDATE@10:23am: Cam from Peterborough Politics (and indirectly Jack Layton) make a great point in the comments section:
Jack Layton pointed that out best yesterday…when he read that press release from the United States Government, which announced how many they had detained in Afghanistan that day, where they were captured and where they were being held. If the Bush Administration feels that it’s alright for his citizens to know these things, then what possible reason would the Harper Administration think that they could keep these kinds of things from Canadians?
The Bush administration, which hasn’t exactly been known during its reign of being forthright and open with information, is releasing more information about this then the Harper Conservative government is? That’s not a very high standard to meet, and even the Conservative government is failing to meet it. As another of my commentators, Mark from Section 15 says in comments as well:
Harper’s claim of need for secrecy is nothing but an excuse to avoid discussing the underlying issues. Big suprise there.
No, it isn’t a big surprise. I believe the military folks have seen they are being used as pawns in this political game, and have decided enough is enough.
Does anyone who thinks about this actually believe that Afghani citizens don’t know where detainees are being held? This is not the sort of thing that stays secret for long. (So would say the first person released: "The Canadians held me at their air base!")
Harper claim of need for secrecy is nothing but an excuse to avoid discussing the underlying issues. Big suprise there.
It’s a crying shame that Harper uses these tactics, and that he continues to use every trick in the book to constrict the flow of information on every file while pumping out the propaganda to make Dion look worse than him. Sadly, these tactics can and do work, in the short term at least.
All that Harper wants is to keep the con game running long enough to get him through the next election.