A Lesson in Stonewalling

Almost every day for the last few months, the Toronto Star and the Globe and Mail print stories about the Afghan Detainee Scandal. They produce weekly scathings of the Federal Government, and call on them to come clean.

Funny thing is that while they are busy recriminating the government and their delaying tactics, they have failed to explain one thing: why the issue is a big deal at all.

To my knowledge, here's a run down of the facts that are known:

• Combatants and suspects captured by the Canadian Forces in Afghanistan were transferred to local Afghan authorities
• While in custody, these detainees were likely tortured
• The government, led by the Conservatives, were aware of allegations of torture, but neither investigated nor changed Canadian Forces protocol with respect to handling detainees
• Concerns over the treatement of detainees can be traced as far back to the Liberal Government

In fact, the source for the latter point says that there was concern from the beginning about the treatment of prisoners that were transferred to Afghan authorities. However, the alternatives were even less savory: transfer prisoners to American control, who would likely send them to Gitmo, or establish our own prison, which would run the risk of all sorts of human rights violations, and at the very least accussations of such things.

Handing off detainees to the Afghans seemed to be the least of all evils. And it certainly is. The Prison at Guantanimo Bay has been a sources of nothing but headaches for American authorities, and if we sent our prisoners there, we'd have to deal with them as well - with absolutely no ability to dictate policy on how the prisoners were treated. Opening our own gulag somewhere on Baffin Island would disgrace the country and damage our collective soul.

Yes, the prisoners we handed off to the local authorities were at risk of being tortured. However, that's the only risk worth taking. If we are to build a stable government in Afghanistan, then we must trust our allies in the country. We must let them build their own institutions.

And when torture allegations broke, what exactly was our government to do? Send in more "observers" - which are undoubtedly seen by locals as condescending, high-handed foriegners who have no idea what it's like to be at war for generations? That is no way to win hearts and minds.

I think most Canadians understand this. It is why this issue isn't ressonating at the polls, even as the country's top two newspapers continue to beat the war drum. The only parties to press the issue in the House of Commons are the NDP and the Bloc, two parties who cannot help themselves when it comes to scoring cheap political points against the Conservatives.

This is also a good example of why governments stonewall investigations. Here we have a situation where most people are either apathetic or understanding of the government position, and yet we have two major newspapers feverish with the scent of blood in the water.

What good could possibly come out of a full investigation? Political opponents will refuse to accept the logical explanation of why the course taken was taken. And likely they will find something that will force an perfectly good minister to resign. Perhaps even the resignation of an experienced CF officer - the last thing our exhausted Army needs.

While the bad press will blow over and the hit in the polls will be temporary, there is no benefit to being transparent on this issue - there too many people out to nail the Conservatives to this cross. Just ask any defense attourney of any worth; they'll tell you to never talk to the police when you're a suspect. No good can come from it.

Republicans need a "Secret Speech"

After the Soviet Union emerged victorious from the Great Patriotic War and Stalin's death, a great deal of turmoil swirled around the new leader of the Red Empire.

The extent of the repression, brutality and stupidity of Stalin's rule were only beginning to dawn on select members of the Communist Party, Nikita Khrushchev one of them. He was locked in a struggle for the future course of the Soviet Union with the hard-line Stalinist faction led by Molotov and Melenkov. The popular opinion of party members was that it was difficult to critize Stalin and the job that he did. If the Stalinist view persisted, the Soviet Union would continue down a dark road of repression and terror, with the support of the rank-and-file Communist Party member.

In early 1956, at the 20th Communist Party Congress, or Party Convention, Krushchev delivered a speech entitled On the Personality Cult and its Consequences, in which he exposed and denounced many of Stalin's worst crimes and excesses to a closed audience, hence it being referred to the Secret Speech. Even in that era, however, a speech of this magnitude could not be kept secret, and its contents were leaked across the world. Later that year, a summary of Krushchev's four-hour-long speech became required reading at all Communist Party meetings, and was open to non-members.

This led to an era in Soviet history known as the Krushchev Thaw, which saw a renaissance of communistic ideological thought and discussion throughout the Eastern Bloc.

Now that the eight year reign of Republican era is over, we see that the Republican party is now mirred in the same ideological quagmire that the Soviets were in fifty four years ago. And they are having the same trouble breaking free of the ideological mistakes that had brought them down in the first place.

Republicans cling to these repressive and anti-democratic tenants, like warrentless wiretapping, indefinitely detaining terrorist suspects in Gitmo, and denying classifying detainees as "enemy combatants" so as to deny them the right to habeas corpus, even though these acts either have nothing to do with or are completely antithetical to the traditional Regean-esque small-c conservativism that many of them say they believe. The rank-and-file Republican fails to change his opinions, as wrong as they are, because no high-ranking Republican dares to diminish the legacy of the Bush-era, such as it is.

Now, I don't mean to dump on Bush. I think he was the victim of falling into a bad crowd of people with their own agendas to push more than anything else. He tried to make up for this in his second term, but by then the damage to his legacy had been done. But none of the Republican bigwigs have come out to denounce the mistakes of his administration. Instead, they cowardly defend the inexcusable acts. This intellectual inflexibility is a reason why the Republicans have such a hard time gaining traction with the educated of America.

It will require someone from the Republican Party to dare to make a speech that properly exposes and refutes the illegal, anti-democratic actions undertaken by the Republican administration of 2001-2008 to finally end the intellectual stagnation in the party and allow them to engage the American people once again. The Republicans need their own Secret Speech to save themselves.

Isn't it ironic that the example set by a Communist is what could save the Republican Party?

McGuinty Moves to Exploit Foreigners at the Cost of Ontario's Future

Premier Dalton McGuinty will announce in his Throne Speech a plan to open up Ontario to more foriegn students, following an Australian Education Model.

Never mind that Australia produces next to no academics worth the paper on which their degrees were printed, while Canadian academics sit as part of disguinished faculties across the world. Never mind that Ontario has eight of the country's top ten research universities, if you still consider McGill an elite institution (I do to be generous), and three of the top one hundred in the world.

Since the push to nearly double available spaces at Universities in Ontario for the arrival of the dreaded double-cohort, there has been absolutely no shortage of spots for qualified applicants in Ontario's univerisities. Generous financial aid programs that currently exist mean only those with a pathological fear of accumulating debt (no more than $28 000 for a four year degree, because OSAP does NOT allow you to accumulate more than $7 000 a year) are unable to go to university.

So, let's review: we have a system in place where we swing above our weight in terms of quality, and we have a generous subsidization and financial aid system in place and more than enough spots for qualified applicants.

Clearly, our undergraduate education system is broken, and we need to learn from Australia, which has only one university in the top 100, because they properly exploit wealthy foriegners. In fact, educating international students is Australia's third largest industry.

The only price for it is the quality of education.

While the Premier plans to add even more spots to undergradute programs, faculties across the province are planning hiring freezes for tenured faculty. Some programs are giving the "Honours" designation meaning again, by streaming talented students into special classes while giving the rest a lower-quality, bulk-barn style education taught by sessionals and graduate students.

It's like Mr. McGuinty doesn't even talk to anyone before he comes up with a plan.

The Ontario Liberals will argue that more foriegn students will help subsidize tuition of local students. Pure nonsense. The market for foriegn students is competitive, and so tuitions set cannot be arbitary. A foriegn student will not pay the same to attend York University as he would to pay to attend Yale. A foriegn student will not pay a 50% premium to go to a public Ontario University, if a private institution will offer tuition at cost. This competitiveness will ultimately drive tuitions down to near-cost, meaning the subsidy for local students will be small as undergraduate programs grow more and more bloated.

Foriegn students have a place at universities. They help build a school's reputation abroad, and as graduate students they help bring new ideas and concepts over from other countries. However, the notion that we can exploit them to make a quick buck is not only incorrect, it will be counterproductive and lessen the quality of undergraduate education in Ontario.