Some senior Liberals are unhappy over the manner in which party defence critic Ujjal Dosanjh and foreign affairs critic Bob Rae have been pursuing the Afghan-detainee issue. They fear this relentless pursuit of possible wrongdoing will undermine public confidence in the Canadian Forces and create a major rift between Canadians and their military.
The split between at least two very senior Liberals was apparent last week when Bill Graham, the minister of national defence in 2005, appeared before the House of Commons committee probing the detainee matter. At one point, Mr. Graham clashed with Mr. Dosanjh when the defence critic, in effect, implied that the former minister ought to have known that transfers of detainees by Canadian troops had made Canada “responsible as a country” for their welfare – in other words, responsible for their alleged torture. Mr. Graham replied that Mr. Dosanjh “has totally jumbled up what international lawyers make of the law of war and the law in war.”
Put simply, Mr. Graham told the committee that the 2005 deal between Canada and Afghanistan to protect detainees – done under his watch – was flawed in a number of ways: “We did our best in the circumstances – in the light of the knowledge we had … and that’s the best you can do.”
Reflect on Mr. Graham’s words. He and his government did the best they could at the time, in a chaotic situation. They had no intention to break any laws of war. And there is still no evidence that they or their successors did.
The situation in Afghanistan is still chaotic; that’s the kind of war it is. It is not a war of state against state where it is relatively easy to judge what is and what is not a war crime. It is an insurgency in a country where the police, the courts and the penal systems operate at somewhat less than Canadian standards. Mr. Graham knew that then and Peter MacKay, the current Defence Minister, knows that now.
Mr. Graham is much respected among the Canadian Forces as the man who brought them back from the precipice when he arranged the appointment of Rick Hillier as chief of defence staff, talked prime minister Paul Martin and finance minister Ralph Goodale into a major increase in the defence budget in 2005 and launched a number of important procurement projects, such as the purchase of Hercules transport aircraft.
He knows the government’s responsibility is to protect Canada with a modern, capable military that Canadians support. Judging from their words and actions, it’s an easy guess that Frank McKenna, John Manley and even Michael Ignatieff, before he became party leader, plainly know that, as do many other centrist Liberals. Some of those people are not happy with the charges that Mr. Rae and Mr. Dosanjh are making by implication: that the military’s adherence to the laws of war is questionable – a condition that no democracy can or should tolerate.
Where, then, is Mr. Ignatieff on this issue, now that he is the only real alternative to Prime Minister Stephen Harper? His failure to rein in Mr. Rae and Mr. Dosanjh is a major lapse in leadership. There is simply no significant advantage to be gained by the Liberal Party, let alone the nation, by encouraging those who continue to seek evidence of crimes committed by Canadian troops in a war in which tragic ambiguity is an ever-present reality.
There ought to be plenty of room between the Liberals and Tories to debate all sorts of issues touching on Canada’s defence, starting with the basic question of how much defence the country actually needs. But there also ought to be a basic consensus on defence and foreign policy.
When Liberals begin to argue among themselves about a gut-wrenching issue such as this, it is time for Mr. Ignatieff to quit flirting with his party’s left wing and restore sense to Liberal defence policies.
It will be good for his party and good for the country.
