Contrarian is relieved to report that whoever kidnapped Stephen Maher and published Saturday's bizarre column under his byline has released him. His column this morning offers a useful reminder of the circumstances under which Richard Colvin went to Kandahar in the first place. In January 2005, Canadian diplomat Glyn Berry, the political director of the provincial reconstruction team in Kandahar, was killed in a suicide bombing that wounded three Canadian soldiers. After Mr. Berry’s death, while the Foreign Affairs Department was struggling to find diplomats to serve in the dangerous and challenging country, Richard Colvin volunteered to go to Kandahar to do...

23 November, 2009

Also in the Star, a former EU diplomat backs Colvin's testimony on torture: Richard Colvin's repeated warnings to the Canadian government about detainee torture in Afghanistan were an expression of the common concerns of like-minded Western nations, not the baseless ramblings of a rogue diplomat, a European colleague says. Michael Semple, former deputy head of the European Union's mission in Afghanistan when Colvin was second-in-command of the Canadian embassy, said his own records from his time in Kabul are littered with the same findings that the senior Canadian envoy shared with a House of Commons committee this week....

23 November, 2009

Today's must-read: A former NATO official tells the Toronto Star how Prime Minister Harper's office micromanaged the story of Canada's complicity in Afghan torture when it first erupted in 2007. The former official, speaking on condition his name not be used, told the Toronto Star that Harper's office in Ottawa "scripted and fed" the precise wording NATO officials in Kabul used to repudiate allegations of abuse "at a time when it was privately and generally acknowledged in our office that the chances of good treatment at the hands of Afghan security forces were almost zero." "It was highly unusual. I was told...

23 November, 2009

In his Saturday column, Jeffrey Simpson pointed out something others have overlooked: For all the fire and brimstone Conservative spinmeisters hurled at Richard Colvin, they didn't actually contradict a single word of his testimony. Significantly, for those who paid careful attention to substance rather than bombast, in all the sound and fury from the government and former military personnel, no one actually contradicted a single thing in Mr. Colvin's testimony...

23 November, 2009

Sonia Verma profiles diplomat Richard Colvin in the Globe: “Richard is a beta, not an alpha. He doesn't seek out the spotlight. He's never the guy you would notice in the room,” said one long-time associate, who requested anonymity to speak frankly...

21 November, 2009

CONTRARIAN INDEX — Number of newspaper columnists who think politician Peter MacKay's character assassination of diplomat Richard Colvin was a virtuoso performance: 1. The Chronicle-Herald's normally astute Stephen Maher took a flying leap off the deep end Saturday with a column slathering praise on Peter MacKay for his reckless attacks on diplomat Richard Colvin. Maher said MacKay "showed what he is made of, ...

21 November, 2009

[caption id="attachment_3464" align="alignleft" width="150" caption="E. M. Forster"][/caption] Responding to our irritation with the metaphorical overuse of the word "journey,"  Contrarian reader CC points to this recent column by Oliver Burkeman in the UK Guardian. Money quote: I've wondered about marketing a line of fridge magnets bearing the motto "Life is like a fridge magnet," but while researching this column I found that the clothing company Threadless had beaten me to it, offering a T-shirt that reads "Life is like a box of terrible analogies." Which only goes to prove the wisdom of another well-worn adage: simile, and the world similes with you. Contrarian...

21 November, 2009

Laurie Hawn, the Edmonton Centre MP who (along with Defence Minister Peter MacKay) been leading the character assassination of career diplomat and whistleblower Richard Colvin, backpedaled hard on CBC Radio's The House this morning. The Conservatives meant "nothing personal" when they savaged Colvin as a patsy for the Taliban. Host Kathleen Petty didn't buy it, and pressed Hawn, who retreated into a particularly feeble version of the bucket defence (which I guess we are now calling the kettle defence): His allegations of torture weren't credible As soon as  we heard about the torture, we fixed the problem. It's all the Liberals' fault anyway. The rope-a-dope...

21 November, 2009

The Cumberland Early Intervention Program in Amherst, NS, is advertising for a Parenting Journey Interventionist. [Note to file: Add "journey" to list of banned words.]...

21 November, 2009

The Star's Tonda McCharles reports that the Conservatives are changing tack in the torture scandal. "It is our understanding that other current and former DFAIT employees will be testifying before the Parliamentary Committee. Their testimony will provide important context and information about this issue." ...

20 November, 2009
Show more
Loading...