With Liberals trailing by 10 points in the polls, the Toronto Star and James Travers are having trouble discerning reality from partisan politics. Travers latest editorial can be summed up in one word. PATHETIC. Check out this beauty of a piece:
" It's been a long march into twilight. A country that gave the world Lester Pearson's peacekeeping and Brian Mulroney's stand against apartheid is now struggling with Stephen Harper's apparent blindness to compelling evidence of Afghanistan prisoner abuse.
For all its sound and fury, the counter-attack that politicians, bureaucrats and generals mounted this week was morally weak and legally flimsy. In struggling to sway public opinion, finely parsed denials skidded around the looming conclusion that Canada transferred prisoners into probable torture after being warned by the pre-eminent and most credible victims-of-violence organization, the International Committee of the Red Cross."
Did Travers just infer the testimony of three highly honored and respected generals was flimsy and weak? Wonder how those three esteemed gentleman feel about Travers slight on their reputation. Travers bigger problem is that on the same day he writes this tripe the Globe and Mail runs an editorial on the same subject by Christie Blatchford. It's also worth pointing out that the Globe and Mail was quite critical of the government after Colvine's testimony.
But what sets Blatchfords editorial apart from Travers is that hers is actually based on fact. Take for example Travers reference to the Red Cross, and what the actual facts of Colvine's emails were:
" It seems to have been Mr. Colvin's visit to the provincial prison in Kandahar city on May 16, 2006, that first triggered his concern. But that inspection and an earlier one upon which he relied, made in December of 2005 by the International Committee of the Red Cross, were, in the Afghan context, practically sunny about their findings."
Blatchford goes on to list more facts, all of which are damaging to Travers attempt at smearing the PM. Perhaps Travers should do some research rather than taking notes from the OLO, or whatever it is he supposedly does to glean information for his column. Blatchford actually references testimony from Hillier, which I would suggest to Travers is neither morally weak nor legally flimsy:
"From the start, Canadian soldiers were using gunshot residue tests (this was mentioned by the former chief of defence staff Rick Hillier in his testimony to the committee this week, but the significance of the remark went unnoticed) to sift the wheat from the chaff.
They detained only those who tested positive for GSR (meaning they had recently either fired a weapon or been right beside someone who had), were found with guns or bomb-making parts or near IED strikes or were otherwise highly suspicious, such as well-dressed men carrying large amounts of Pakistani cash.
Mr. Colvin's claim that innocent farmers were being cruelly dispatched to torture suggests he paid scarce attention to the “Taliban by night” phenomenon, whereby the man who farms by day becomes, under cover of darkness, a low-level fighter in the insurgency. Whether he acts out of need or is coerced into fighting with the Taliban, once he begins shooting or planting bombs, for the soldier, he is the enemy."
It's called journalistic integrity Mr. Travers, something you yourself seem to be morally weak on.
Interestingly enough, the Star seems to have stopped allowing comments on Travers columns.
ReplyDeleteThe ones I have read recently have been unanimous in criticising Travers point of view. This could not of course have anything to do with the fact that no one is allowed to comment any more.
Yes, I was disappointed that the Star didn't allow comments on Travers' piece. I was hoping to post a scathing comment, and click the appropriate thumbs up/down on the other comments.
ReplyDeleteTravers can't handle the fact that his preferred final narrative-- linking Harper to the "coverup"--
has died an inglorious death. And so he beats this dead horse way beyond it's last gasp.
It was good to see John Baird take a few strips out of Rae in Question Period, over the Libs fund-raising letter. Funny how Travers couldn't muster any outrage over that shameless move by Rossi.
Leftists don't like war unless it is a communist country invading a non-communist country and then they have nothing to say about it. Where was Travers when the Russians were invading Afghanistan? (real conservative)
ReplyDeleteWe need someone who is photoshop friendly to make a deck of cards for these Supporters of calling our sons and daughter war criminals.
ReplyDeleteThey discount the generals and Mulroney to score cheap shots against the CPC.
They don't care about the collateral damage to our reputation or the morale for the mission.
I read that this morning then I had to get away from my computer for a few hours . That fella is a piece of work , no doubt about it . When I got back a few hours later I checked O'Malleys blog to see if she dyed her eyebrow the same color as the rest of her head yet and it seems she and her 17 ndp fans are all uptight about Blatchfords column where she seems to have found some of Colvins e-mails before the most holy Kady. --http://www.cbc.ca/politics/insidepolitics/2009/11/colvin-memos-now-in-the-public-domain.html
ReplyDeleteAnd didn't she actually go to Afghanistan a while ago, and write a book about it.
ReplyDeleteAny problems in May 2006 that Colvin may have found or heard about had to be due to liberal policies. So, Travers, go after Paul Martin and Chretain. They come up with the policy in force when PMSH was elected.
Still waiting for someone to explain what they think torture is, other than a word tossed about in an attempt to scam millions out of our government.
How many times did Travers, cbc,ctv etc mention or talked about our troops in AFGHANISTAN from Chretien downwards.
ReplyDeleteSince the prime minister came into power, the cbc ctv etc suddenly remembers who and where our troops are at.
I rememner Hillier complain of lack of funds for our troops which the media thought nothing of it- our troops were not worth a daily discussing. However, the taliban are the taliban name have on the lips of the opposition parties, the national media for many months even from the first day when the liberals new in opposition decided to bring up the subject of the taliban detainees supposedly torture. Stupid liberals implicated their own selves because it was the liberals who were the first to deal with the taliban transfers-not the conservatives.