Harper pulls a Bush

[Wolfhunter]

Here is a link to some letters on the CBC web site.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/viewpoint/yourspace...g_halfmast.html

[Specs]

As the war gets involved these homecomings have the potential to become a genuine media circus. Anti war protestors will use them to promote their cause and the press will milk it for all it's worth. Tabloids will seek out the wackos, Maybe the unrest strengthens the resolve of the Islamic militants ......etc. Who knows? A circus will develop.

And in the end the NOK, and the soldiers comrades, will have been denied what for some may be their only opportunity to pay their respects in dignity and privacy.

The media however, or anybody for that matter, should be allowed to witness the reality that war brings. To ignore it is foolish. Perhaps what is really needed to end the debate is simply to have CPAC broadcast the event. They're dignified and unobtrusive and everybody gets equal access.

As for the flag on the peace tower. Literally - that specific flag is at half mast nearly once every two weeks. You can see the reasons here.

Archive -- Half-Masting of the Flag - 2002

You'll also see that Fallen peace officers get one day a year - Sept 27.

Why should the soldiers be treated differently - Nov 11 is enough.

(Curious note re 2001 half masting - to honour the memory of His late Majesty Sultan Salahuddin Abdul Aziz Shah, the Yang di-Pertuan Agong XI of Malaysia.

Who the heck....??)

[Kip Powick]

This is for you KIP! How would you feel about having access restricted to just CBC and CTV to record live video of the event which has obviously passed and is of little consequence now

I don't have a problem with your suggestion or for that matter I don't have a problem if only one National TV company was allowed to film/show the arrival. Most everyone has access to CTV/CBC/Global but as you are well aware, I do have a problem with a "blanket" ban as do many of the NOK.

[Trader]

I have to disagree with some of the posters.

First of all Kip explained how the media is controlled at the military bases--no media circus allowed.

More importantly, if we choose to send our military into combat and our soldiers die then they damn well should make the front cover of the news and every Candaian should see the caskets carried off the airplane on home soil!! To say that 'wacko's' or anti war protesters will get media coverage may be true but that doesn't mean that we ignore the event.

Seeing the event and reading about the INDIVIDUALS that died is important--it drives home, or should do, that these are real people dying.

As for the flag at half mast on the Peace Tower--fair enough if there is accepted military protocol. IMO if soldiers are dying in combat then the flag should be half mast. It is a reminder that Canadians are DYING! To be frank--I would rather see it fly at half mast for our soldiers then a bloody MP--who in my opinion does not deserve that honour if a soldier does not deserve it.

Again, to say that a media circus is a good reason to ban the media is really ridiculous. Control the circus and allow Canadians to see and honour their dead.

This is simply bad politicing by Harper.

[Flapsforty]

You would pretty much have to be brain dead not to know that Canadian troops have been killed in action and accidents in Afganistan. Does it serve anyone to see or not see the coffins one more time? Haven't you seen it enough at the base camp, being loaded on the plane, being taken off the plane? Would it make it easier for you imagine the pain this causes the NOK by seeing them cry and fall apart? If you show it, the people agaist the war use it for political purposes to say we shouldn't be there, if you don't, then Harper has turned into George Bush. (the two are like twins, uncanny, isn't it? ) The media is of course innocent in all of this for they have no interest except to Publish the TRUTH! (And maybe sell some advertising, so they can make some money off the misery of others). It all reeks of the cheapness we have placed upon our values, and the tabloidization of the media. (after all if it wasn't for the media, we wouldn't have known that what Harper was wearing in Cancun, was a fashion faux pas).

Cheers

[Cargo Agent]

http://www.torontosun.com/News/Columnists/...26/1550714.html

[yul07]

Dork Wrote:

<<<Families have no interest in the press at those events, not my family anyways.

The press is always looking for and angle to sell their wares....not this time fortunately. >>>

Wrongo. The father of Patrick Legere one of four killed in the F-16 incident said in a radio interview last night that in his opinion the Media should be allowed. He further thought the P.M. and MOD should be there as well. He said Chretien showed respect by coming out when his son came home. He further said his opinion was not unique among other NOK relitaves. He said the media was respectful to his family at all times. They never tried to interview or impose without asking, then and now.

Had the media been banned they still would have tried to get the story, and the competative pressures would have led to a much less co-ordinated run on the

NOK's off base, and at their homes. As for the suggestion that the DND record the

arrival and hand out the video. Hate to break it to you this is censorship. There is no National Security issue at Trenton that would justify it. Just a paroniod Prime Minister who is trying to take a page from the Cheney manual. The same Manual that will insure a Democrat is elected in 2008.

[Guest rattler]

YUL07 ... there are always two sides...

But Alberta MP Leon Benoit, whose constituent Cpl. Randy Payne was killed last week, said the family doesn't want coverage of the event.

"The greatest concern of the Payne family, the mother and the father, was that there would be swarms of media bothering the children and wife at a time when it's a very personal and great loss, and I think they appreciate that protection," Benoit said.

Results of the CTV poll re the flag. Even split 50% for , 50% against

Should flags be lowered to half mast every time a Canadian soldier is killed in the line of duty?

Yes

1260 votes (50 %)

Only on Remembrance Day

947 votes (38 %)

No

308 votes (12 %)

[handyman]

Wrongo. The father of Patrick Legere one of four killed in the F-16 incident said in a radio interview last night that in his opinion the Media should be allowed. He further thought the P.M. and MOD should be there as well. He said Chretien showed respect by coming out when his son came home. He further said his opinion was not unique among other NOK relitaves. He said the media was respectful to his family at all times. They never tried to interview or impose without asking, then and now.

Had the media been banned they still would have tried to get the story, and the competative pressures would have led to a much less co-ordinated run on the

NOK's off base, and at their homes. As for the suggestion that the DND record the

arrival and hand out the video. Hate to break it to you this is censorship. There is no National Security issue at Trenton that would justify it. Just a paroniod Prime Minister who is trying to take a page from the Cheney manual. The same Manual that will insure a Democrat is elected in 2008.

Are you suggesting a single or small group of family members wishes should dictate Government policy? There is nothing to hide as has been suggested in the opposition. Everyone knows what is happening over there and who/how many are being killed. It just comes down to the peoples percieved rights to be able to witness the grief on a family members face. Do you really need to see the tears?

[cp fa]

But Alberta MP Leon Benoit, whose constituent Cpl. Randy Payne was killed last week, said the family doesn't want coverage of the event.

"The greatest concern of the Payne family, the mother and the father, was that there would be  at a time when it's a very personal and great loss, and I think they appreciate that protection," Benoit said.

Obviously, if the only two choices are "swarms of media bothering the children and wife" or no media coverage at all, most people would choose no media coverage.

My question is, did anyone offer them a third option, that is, limited media coverage, kept at a respectful distance? If this is really about showing respect for the families, they should be offered ALL the options, not just option a), the worst case scenario, or option b ), the one the Conservatives want you to choose.

[handyman]

My question is, did anyone offer them a third option, that is, limited media coverage, kept at a respectful distance? If this is really about showing respect for the families, they should be offered ALL the options, not just option a), the worst case scenario, or option b ), the one the Conservatives want you to choose.

echo, echo, echo

Too many people are black or white with issues especially politicians. A third option would have been prudent!

[Kip Powick]

Hi Jenn,

It is always "limited" The press has NO ACCESS to the NOK during any homecoming..... For the life of me I don't know where people got the idea that the Press could run amuck at one of these events.

Handyman made a suggestion to have one National TV company there for the video and I think that would be a compromise that is palatable to everyone.

There has never been a media circus on a CFB, they are too closely supervised. The circus may come at the private fumerals, but I certainly hope not.

[yul07]

Kip,

The concept of one media outlet recording the event for all is very common. It's called a "Pool Feed" and is often used for events like royal visits, election campaigns or major stories in out of the way places where costs or logistics are a factor. Election debates in Canada are also pool arrangements. I do not think the media would have a problem with this arrangement at CFB trenton. The key point here is that it is a media outlook providing the pictures and not the Government. Over time you would see fewer and fewer of these events in the media. As more KIA come home the story would move off the radar.

[cp fa]

I believe you Kip, but do you think that was explained to the Payne family before their Conservative MP used them as an example to defend the government's policy?

[Kip Powick]

I believe you Kip, but do you think that was explained to the Payne family before their Conservative MP used them as an example to defend the government's policy?

That is a good question. Even if it was, perhaps they just didn't want the Press whereas members of the other families did as not all the NOK could make it to YTR.

I don't think Harper really thought it through and now has the Press against him, not something any politician really wants.

I had an email sent to me by a lurker of AEF that asked me to post my opinion of the "flag-flap". Again, just my personal opinion... but I don't think the flag on Parliament Hill should be lowered for a Canadian death in combat. Personally I think the flag is a symbol that all of us would fight for, that is, to keep it flying high and I think that lowering it once, November 11, for all the War dead is sufficient.

I think it is up to the Provinces, Cities, Towns villages, schools to do what they wish, and naturally NDHQ does lower the flag but I think the flag on the "Hill" should not be lowered.

[J.O.]

Even Maj. Gen. Lewis McKenzie has spoken out against the government's ban. He made two very good points; the first being that when making a rule, it should be a rule that can be enforced, and with long lenses, the media can still cover the unloading of the caskets at the base in Trenton. His second point was that the government's action has only served to turn what should have been a quiet recognition of the sacrifices of these men, into a media circus.

[yul07]

Oh my gosh Stevie, we've lost the right wingers too!

Then they came for the Caskets

The Ottawa Sun

Wed 26 Apr 2006

Page: 15

Section: Comment

Byline: BY CHARLES ADLER

They came for the National Press Gallery. I wasn't a member

of the National Press Gallery and I said nothing. They came for the

Canadian flag. I wasn't a flag waver and I said nothing. And then

they came for the caskets.

Tory true believers will say that this columnist has now gone mad.

Is he invoking the good name of the Rev. Dietrich Bonhoeffer to make

the point that Stephen Harper is becoming Canada's first fascist

prime minister?

Not at all. But that's what the left will do with Stephen Harper's

clumsy handling of the latest scotch broth from Afghanistan.

The real story is that our guys are giving up their lives to give

Afghanistan a chance at freedom and democracy. The hope is that the

country can become something other than one in which the world's

sickest of predators train to commit mass murder. Canadians are

fighting the good fight. But the Harpoons in Ottawa are spearing the

real story. Four heroes falling in Afghanistan has morphed into a

sad tale of flags and caskets. Flags won't get lowered in Ottawa and

caskets won't be seen in Trenton. The left-wing media isn't making

this one up. And the more the Harpoons try to lay it off on the

media, the more Bush they look.

Stephen Harper's whiz kids surely must have computers. It doesn't

take a minute to find out who put an end to having TV cameras at

Dover Air Force base when the U.S. coffins were coming from Gulf War

I. Dick Cheney was Bush the Elder's secretary of defence. Today Bush

continues to talk about his personal relationship with Jesus. But

many Americans have come to believe that George's Jesus is fat, bald

and evil and goes by the name of Dick.

If the Harpoons want to ape the George and Dick White House, they

will get smeared with the kind of language that you see at the top

of the column. For years now, the Bush-Cheney strategy has been to

blame the media while at the same time feeding selected stories to

certain members of the media.

The strategy now has Bush's approval numbers starting to resemble

Richard Nixon's. When Neil Young's Let's Impeach the President is

released it won't be just the burned-out dope-smokin' lefties who

nod with approval.

This week it isn't a Liberal defence minister who is telling the

media to stay off the property in Trenton when the caskets come home

from Afghanistan. In justifying the move, the honourable member for

Subterfuge says the ban was being put in place to protect the

families.

Hey, Minister. Please jam a teething ring back into the mouth of

the backroom infant who offered you that.

You have not a lick of evidence that military families have been

offended by this or by the lowering of the flag at the people's

house, the House of Commons. If you want to keep boiling your

reputation in oil by putting all this off on the media, good luck

with that.

It's probably not easy being Stephen Harper.

Ever since he first went to Ottawa to do backroom work in the '80s,

he fell in love with the idea that Liberal governments were without

moral legitimacy. The Liberals only formed government because the

national media framed the issues, and in doing so, real Canadian

leaders were getting framed. The Liberal Goodfellas took Mulroney

out to the desert and beat him with a shovel and then did the same

to Preston Manning. Facts rarely fracture the fantasies of a young

man who is a chartered member of the paranoid right.

The problem is that even paranoids have enemies. If Stephen Harper

continues to play it Bush, his government will be buried in a casket

of his own making.

www.charlesadler.com

© 2006 Sun Media Corporation. All rights reserved.

Edition: Final

Length: 632 words

[Kip Powick]

CBC News tonight...Rex Murphy at his finest

[deicer]

Just re-read an old friend that is kinda pertinent to this thread.....

If you have the time, check out Robert Heinleins "Starship Troopers", but look at it from the POV of social commentary rather than a science fiction story.

Most of Heinlein's work was such.....

Interesting that for being written back in the '50's it has hit the nail on the head for the present and probably the future.

Especially Chapter 8.

If you have the time.....

Iceman

[Kip Powick]

I always thought, based on many of your comments, that you were living on the edge of the twilight zone.......suspicions confirmed

[deicer]

Kip...

You obviously have far too much time on your hands....

Q: When is a retiree's bedtime?

A: Three hours after he falls asleep on the couch.

Q: How many retirees to change a light bulb?

A: Only one, but it might take all day.

Q: What's the biggest gripe of retirees?

A: There is not enough time to get everything done.

Q: Why don't retirees mind being called Seniors?

A: The term comes with a 10% percent discount.

Q: Among retirees what is considered formal attire?

A: Tied shoes.

Q: Why do retirees count pennies?

A: They are the only ones who have the time.

Q: What is the common term for someone who enjoys work and refuses to retire?

A: NUTS!

Q: Why are retirees so slow to clean out the basement, attic or garage?

A: They know that as soon as they do, one of their adult kids will want to store stuff there.

Q: What do retirees call a long lunch?

A: Normal.

Q: What is the best way to describe retirement?

A: The never ending Coffee Break.

Q: What's the biggest advantage of going back to school as a retiree?

A: If you cut classes, no one calls your parents.

Q: Why does a retiree often say he doesn't miss work, but misses the people he used to work with?

A: He is too polite to tell the whole truth.

[Guest rattler]

Photographer asked to suppress photos of Taliban suspects captured by Canadians

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

at 18:32 on May 11, 2006, EST.

By BOB WEBER

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (CP) - Military officials have advised a photographer to suppress his pictures of the largest group of suspected Taliban prisoners yet captured by Canadian soldiers.

It's the first time the Canadian Forces have had to deal with the issue of suppressing photos of detainees. Although there is no evidence the prisoners were mistreated, the military's position echoes an American attempt to use the Geneva Convention to block some pictures of the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuses.

"It is not a matter of trying to hide picture of detainees because it would be compromising to us," said Maj. Marc Theriault.

"We voiced our concern and now it is up to the reporter or to his organization to make his decision."

The photographs were taken by Agence France-Presse wire service photographer John McHugh during a Monday raid near Gumbad, a tiny village about 70 kilometres north of Kandahar.

Members of A Company, third battalion of the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry, were escorting a convoy to Gumbad, where Canada maintains a forward operating base, when they noticed two groups apparently conducting a reconnaissance of the area. Acting on a tip, the soldiers conducted a raid on a compound where the suspects had taken refuge.

The only shots fired killed a dog that attacked the soldiers, said Theriault.

Ten prisoners were taken in the raid, including three known to military authorities. Theriault said the men were found with large sums of money and bomb-making materials, including batteries and wires.

"It is by far the largest capture of detainees by Canadians," Theriault said. "We've taken some bad guys off the street."

The prisoners were given a medical examination and were subjected to questioning by Canadian authorities before they were handed off to the Afghan intelligence service, Theriault said.

Previous Taliban prisoners have been taken by the Afghan National Police and army. Monday's raid was a purely Canadian operation, Theriault said.

When McHugh returned to the Kandahar Air Field base with his pictures, he was summoned to a meeting with deputy commander Col. Tom Putt and two military lawyers. Although his camera was never confiscated, McHugh was told that publishing the pictures would violate the Geneva Convention on the rights of prisoners.

Article 13 of the convention states: "Prisoners of war must at all time be protected, particularly against acts of violence or intimidation and against insults and public curiosity."

McHugh, who said he plans to publish the photos, said they show no identifying details of the prisoners. He adds that he saw the prisoners being well treated.

"I saw no evidence of mistreatment," McHugh said. "They were given water. Nobody was shoved around or manhandled."

Theriault says that McHugh is under no threat of sanction from the Canadian military if the pictures are published.

"We've not come up with any threats or anything of that nature. We voiced our concern."

Canadian soldiers have taken prisoners before during their current mission in Afghanistan. Last week, coalition commanders announced that they had captured a high-ranking Taliban commander.

In January 2002, a photo published in several newspapers showed soldiers hustling three bearded men off a plane at Kandahar. The Associated Press photo misidentified the soldiers as American, but their forest-green uniforms gave them away as Canadian.

The U.S. military has used a similar interpretation of the Geneva Convention in an attempt to suppress some photos taken of prisoner abuse at the Abu Ghraib. Their argument has since failed in a U.S. court, which ordered the military to release all the photos relating to the scandal.