Five Signs That Conservative Bloggers Are Worried About Torturegate
1) They’re embellishing their posts about the Committee hearings with huge, heroic pictures of our brave troops in action. Really, guys – wouldn’t shots of a huge puddle of urine pooling under Peter MacKay’s trousers be more appropriate?
2) They’re running posts about Gagliano-era Liberal Corruption. How charmingly retro.
3) They’re arguing that the Opposition are only pursuing this because it makes the government look bad. Golly – that certainly hadn’t occurred to me before, but you know, they could be partly right. Huh. Well, that’s certainly an excellent reason to abandon any further attempts to clarify just how much (no longer “whether”) the government is lying, or restore the reputation of a slandered diplomat, or any of that trivial stuff.
4) They’re ignoring it. (ht CC) There are, of course, more important things to pay attention to. Human Rights Commissions. Ezra’s latest bowel movement. That sort of stuff.
5) They quietly shut down their blog altogether, hiding behind mysterious server issues in order to avoid the abject humiliation of it all. (http://www.jaycurrie.info-syn.com)
Sorry to start out OT, balbulican, but you have a message over at our place and I couldn’t figure out how to PM you. Joe McFadden’s nephew was touched by your comment and wants to hear more. Cheers.
Dang right they’re worried… like they oughta be. I been starting my days off lately by reading the latest G&M and CBC reports on the detainee scandal. Coupla days ago, I posted a comment over to Scotty’s diatribe listing the lameass combox tactics of the war crimes apologists who populate the discussion with excuses, distortions, distractions and obfuscations.
* Nobody Cares
* Even if people do care, Martin Started it
* If you criticize a Conservative cabinet minister you are attacking “the troops”
* Adscam, Adscam, Adscam
* They are terrorist scumbags and deserve torture
* The 23 former ambassadors who are criticizing were Liberal appointees
* Even if they aren’t terrorists they live in the same neighbourhood as terrorists and how are CF personnel supposed to know the difference?
* The first casualty of war is truth. SOP.
Today, I noticed 2 big changes in 100’s of comments. Quantitywise, the torture apologists are posting even more of the above themed crappola. Themewise, the big theme today is that this is a partisan smear job by the Grits and Dippers (conveniently lumping together all human rights advocates as party-affiliated hacks).
The call for MacKay’s resignation seems to have fueled up the PMO talking points machine.
I had a little LOL last night when CBC’s P&P had a segment on speculating who might replace MacKay. Still smilin’ an’ shakin’ my noggin at that one.
MacKay’s in front of the #afgh (twitterese) committee today. More lies comin’ our way.
JB
Excellent summary, JB, but I think you missed a few key points in your otherwise admirable list.
- It didn’t happen.
- If it happened, it only happened to a few of them.
- Even if it happened to more than a few of them, it didn’t happen to ALL of them.
- Who you gonna believe – a paid professional, highly esteemed by his colleagues, summoned to testify and jeopardizing his career with his honesty – or the representative of a government that has for the last three years shown again and again that it will ruthlessly stomp on ANYONE who denies its version? Well, okay, they’re not putting it EXACTLY like that…
@balbulican – Good additions.
There’s also the argument that this is purely an Afghan torturing Afghan matter and none of Canada’s business. Those are the dumbasses who don’t understand the Geneva Conventions or the Criminal Code of Canada.
The “are you calling our generals liars?” question pops up a bit, too.
Such a richness of denial…and we’re barely even tapping into the famous BUD Chart.
Gate? really? I’m not sure levity is appropriate when the Canadian government is allegedly complicit in torture.
Then I suggest you refrain from levity in addressing the topic.
Speaking personally, it’s one of my favourite forms of attack.
Such a richness of denial…and we’re barely even tapping into the famous BUD Chart.
You thought you were devising a taxonomy when in fact you were writing a “how-to” manual.
MacKay had “credible evidence,” but not “absolute proof” that transferred detainees were being tortured.
Let that one sink in for a minute.
So what’s the explanation for launching an aggressive smear campaign against the reputation of the whistle-blower, I wonder.
@sooey: I already answered that question in an earlier post
Last night Andrew Coyne made an admirable effort trying to minimize the issue. Chantal Hebert was shaking her head in disgust.
Same answer but different words by Jeffrey Simpson in the G&M:
We may be seeing the beginning of the end for this government.
Yawn,
another week another Liberal make believe scandal.
Bocanut raises an important point here. Over the last two days, en masse, the BTs shifted the defense to “We Don’t Care”, as predicted by Jim Bobby. It was impressive, like watching the Snowbirds execute a tight turn.
I think the “Who cares?” defense is about to break down entirely.
The Globe has a story on how the current transfer agreement is failing. Seems we really don’t know what’s happening to those we turn over. What’s more, CF troops are reporting that they capture the same enemy fighters again and again.
Like almost every other aspect of this story, those of us who were paying attention knew about this long ago.
Indulge me a moment, please. Here’s the bulk of a blog post I wrote in March 2008.
Detainees are released AFTER being tortured sufficiently enough to induce the detainees’ relatives (or fellow Taliban) to cough up bribe money.
The failure of the detainee agreement is demonstrably putting out troops at unnecessary risk. Now. Not back in 2002-2006. Now.
Chew on that, Hillier-MacKay-O’Conner-Harper-Cannon-Baird.