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December 2, 2009

The Colvin emails

For your information, here are the emails from Richard Colvin, former deputy head of mission in Afghanistan regarding the his version of events surrounding the treatment of Afghan detainees.

Now that they are in the public domain, they can face scrutiny from everyone.

1-Colvin
5-Colvin
10-Colvin
13-Colvin
14-Colvin
21-Colvin
27-Colvin
29-Colvin
34-Colvin
38-Colvin
40-Colvin
45-Colvin
46-Colvin
49-Colvin
52-Colvin
53-Colvin
55-Colvin
62-Colvin
64-Colvin
65-Colvin
66-Colvin
71-Colvin
73-Colvin
74-Colvin
76-Colvin
79-Colvin
81-Colvin
84-Colvin
90-Colvin
91-Colvin
94-Colvin
95-Colvin
101-Colvin
104-Colvin
106-Colvin
108-Colvin
111-Colvin
112-Colvin
115-Colvin
118-Colvin
126-Colvin

This entry was authored by Stephen Taylor at 06:30 PM | Tweet this | Comments (10)

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tedbetts

“Now that they are in the public domain, they can face scrutiny from everyone.”

Well, not quite. Not quite at all.

They are so heavily redacted that most of the emails are not scrutinizable in the least. And we now know that they were redacted for non-security reasons too which is ghastly.

At least the MPCC had the guts to release these when Harper continued to refuse to do so (though releasing them to sycophant media was OK, somehow releasing them to ordinary Canadians and Parliamentarians charged with oversight was somehow too democratic for him, I guess).
http://devinjohnston.ca Devin Johnston

My favourite paragraph (from the first email):

7. For example, (the next 4 lines are then completely redacted).

What a joke.
tedbetts

But it appears that, despite the Herculean effort of the Harper government to protect itself by redaction and pressuring witnesses and attempting to gag witnesses/get them to change documents and generally cover up their mismanagement of this issue, the truth is slowly trickling out.

And now, more than a trickle as the unredacted emails are starting to come out.
guest

wow, look at # 27 – very revealing!
guest

wow, look at # 27 – very revealing!
Kelly Jamieson

Politically these released documents are worse than releasing nothing at all for the Government; now everyone knows the government is hiding a great deal of information from the public. I'm sure most of it is valid security concerns, but on the stink test, these documents make it look like a cover-up is happening.
TwoYen

There are valid national security reasons, especially in the middle of a war, not to release information. It might be possible to give unredacted versions to MPs in camera but given the hyperpartisan atmosphere it is probably valid to ssume none of the information would remain secret for long. This leaves the government with little choice.
tedbetts

There is no valid reason to keep that information from the MPCC who are part of the security team.

There is also no valid reason to give the Afghani ambassador access to these documents and allow him to decide what we can report to ourselves about their actions.
Bruce

Still losing bets are ya Ted?
Bruce

Still losing bets are ya Ted?