The Opposition When It Comes To Reality

Opposition a real scream
By GEOFF MATTHEWS

My neighbours must think I'm cracking up. To say nothing of my poor cat.

Normally I only yell at my television during the closing minutes of hockey games, particularly when I need the Senators to score a quick goal to tie a game or, better yet, put it out of reach.

Lately, though, it has been the nightly news setting me off. Watching the smug faces of NDP Leader Jack Layton, Liberal Leader Stephane Dion and wannabe leader Michael Ignatieff demand the head of Defence Minister Gordon O'Connor is sending me into a profanity-laced rant.

Layton, Dion and Ignatieff have been frothing for the cameras over the alleged mistreatment of a handful of Taliban prisoners who they say have been roughed up by Afghan jailers.

Who told our politicians the prisoners had suffered abuse? Why, the Taliban members themselves, once they had been turned loose. Were there any independent witnesses to corroborate their tales? Er, no.

Didn't matter to Layton et al, however. After all, why shouldn't they believe a few members of an armed resistance group whose members think nothing of blowing up innocent civilians to make their point?

I'm not going to suggest for one moment that torture is right, or that it's an acceptable way to treat any prisoner. It isn't. Period.

But let's not lose sight of the fact that justice is less sugar-coated in developing nations. You go against the law and you pay the consequences. Certainly those who grew up with the Taliban in power were aware of that.

Under Taliban rule, a "crime" like educating your daughter, shaving your beard or appearing uncovered in public could get you a beating on a good day -- and something far worse on a bad one.

Members of the Taliban don't much like the fact they're out of power now, so they do their best to create chaos, blowing things up, planting landmines, staging hit-and-run attacks, targeting innocent civilians as well as NATO forces.

In retaliation, Afghan authorities are reported to be smacking the prisoners with cables when they're handed over for questioning.

Spurred on by a couple of academic eggheads, Layton, Dion and Ignatieff are demanding that members of our armed forces stop handing the prisoners over to Afghan justice officials, and instead build some nice Canadian-style jails to house them.

In one particularly wacky moment, Dion suggested bringing the prisoners to Canada, where they'd no doubt claim refugee status and tie themselves up in our legal system for the next decade or so.

Yesterday Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Mideast adviser, Wajid Khan, tried to inject some sense into the debate, pointing out that Afghanistan's various tribes have their own ways of settling accounts.

"These things happen in those tribal cultures ... I'm not supporting it. There should be no torture. It is not acceptable, and the (Canadian) government is doing as much as (it) can."

But I'm betting Iggy, Dion and Layton weren't listening. Not when there's political hay to be made.

These politicians, who have nothing to say when Taliban and al-Qaida members lop off the heads of innocent men and women and display them as trophies, will be back in front of the cameras tonight condemning mistreatment of the captured terrorists. I hope my neighbours are out for the evening.