I've never know a Tory to pass up an opportunity to show there true colours. All's well with the world.

Oops! Of course, I meant their and not there.

I am shocked. Shocked I tell you.

Did you read the rest of Kenney's letter, and AI's? I'd be curious to hear what you think of the points AI made and Kenney's counterpoints, as I'm not sure I agree with Southey's assessement (the G&M one you linked).

Why, when we disagree on something in writing, do people in the disagreement believe that one did not read the something in writing?

My point is not to the substance of the argument between Kenney and Amnesty International. It has to do with the capacity of the Minister of the Crown to display the sort of integrity that befits being a Minister of the Crown, something not in fashion it seems..

I was asking because you didn't link to either of the primary source pieces, Alan. I asked the way I did because I have some respect for you and your opinions, and it's your site. I was genuinely curious about what you thought of the points made. After so many years of corresponding, I didn't think I'd given you reason to take my question at anything other than face value.

But now I'm not sure how to square the last comment you made with the last comment in your original post. Is your point about the "substance of the argument" ("his point is so empty") or is it about the way Kenney makes it?

I don't ask questions on sites where I don't actually care what the author thinks.

I know. I was having a bit of 2005 nostalgia. ;-) I apologize.

His point is either made empty by his sarcasm or his sarcasm displays inherent emptiness. What he needed to say was Canada is a strong, free and democratic country that will enforce its immigration laws. As the "war criminal" allegations are a side show (where is the due process that proves the convictions?) that is all he needed to say.

He could well have gone on to say that this is especially the case where there are allegations (not convictions) of war crime but that has two problems. It devalues the overall enforcement of immigration law by creating two-tiers which are quite wonky given, as noted above, the lack of an actual Canadian criminal trial process in these cases. The second problem is that, if these truly are war criminals, it also denies the Crown the application of proper justice as we have criminal provisions to deal with war criminals. As they are laws of the highest order which are on the books, to not prosecute is to create a third tier, the semi-war-criminal who is not important enough to prosecute under Canadian criminal law.

Is the implication that our courts cannot be trusted, that it is enough to use war criminal as a pretense to enforce immigration laws that this government has not so enforced for five years? Who knows. The lack of understanding is only made worse - is in fact defined - by the junior high school sarcasm that suggests Amnesty International is a joke. All that is left from all that is a Minister of the Crown who looks like a clown over a serious matter which, frankly, I think his government has bungled in its rush to look tough - again, rather junior high.

Thanks for asking me to clarify as that was what I meant in condensed form but putting it out more clearly makes what I was thinking even more serious.

No worries - and thanks for the explanation. I don't understand all the legalities, and that was what I was hoping you could clarify.

From reading his letter, I think Kenney wants to avoid war-crime trials altogether if he can - from what he says, they're expensive, they add to the backlog, and even conducting them with witnesses and others far away and years detatched is problematic. I think in this area, he's tapping into a widespread latent frustration that Canadian taxpayers shouldn't be put out any more than absolutely necessary to deal with those who are trying to game the immigration system. Whether that's the right choice, and not just the popular one is another question.

When it comes to his sarcasm, I hear what you're saying and agree that it would be much better if our Ministers had a bit more decorum. But here again, I think he's tapping into something many of us can identify with: putting down those who constantly snipe from the sidelines. Personally, I lost faith in the perspective of Amnesty International's Canadian operation when they went ape and launched a legal challenge over our detainee policy in Afghanistan. Police don't waste scarce resources and public goodwill ticketing jaywalkers, and Kenney's point is analogous to this. Politics is supposedly the art of the practical, and although this is sometimes frustrating to those of us with strongly held ideals, it's also incredibly frustrating to anyone charged with actually *doing* something, making a decision, etc. to have an organization like AI say in effect "99.99% good - better than just about anywhere else - isn't good enough."

I've met Kenney, and wasn't particularly impressed when I did. But in this - whether he's legally correct or not, and I'll trust you on that - he's saying stuff a lot of us are thinking. Perhaps that's too much of an indulgence for a Minister of the Crown to take, though.

There are, what, 15 impoverished war criminals who have been on the run and we can't afford to charge them? Kenney said a bunch of them admitted it. Jail 'em! We jail plenty of non-residents for crimes. If they are real criminals, Canada is not safer by putting them on a plane. Criminal organizations - especially political criminals - do not stop at borders.

Decorum? Damn right. Makes no sense to start calling it the Royal Navy and then having Ministers of the Crown having tizzy fits. Start calling them "alleged war criminals" or "suspects" and that would go a long way for me. Have a disagreement with an NGO as important as Amnesty International without trying to pull down their pants and that would go a long way for me, too. So what if they pursued the Afghan file. That is their job. Everything needs to be open to review - especially in the increasingly closed political climate of the Federal government.- that is where they have to do their job.

They can't be both jaywalkers and war criminals but Kenney seems to think we will (must?) believe that if he has a tantrum along with his inconsistencies.

Fair enough, Alan. If the world needs us to intervene against bad guys elsewhere as the Cons have argued in the past, then there's an internal consistency to your argument that we can at least intervene in cases where the bad guys are already on our soil.

My point with the jaywalkers, btw, was not to compare the war criminals with them. My point was that AI was pursuing supposed Canadian deficiencies as diligently as Iranian or North Korean ones - treating the jaywalker (Canada) the same as the murdering kidnapper (pick your favourite nutcase regime), to follow my somewhat murky analogy.

Going overboard on the Afghan detainee file was counterproductive. Criticizing anything less than perfection with legal challenges doesn't improve the fate of those detained by Canadians in Afghanistan, all it does is make us less likely to take any detainees in the first place. And in fact, that was the practical result: our forces were far more likely to let the ANA or ANP detain a suspected insurgent than to take them into custody ourselves and be forced to jump through every legal hoop Alex Neve and co. could think of.

It also has knock-on consequences: how likely are we to become involved in an R2P humanitarian nightmare in the future if the gov't knows NGOs like AI will tolerate nothing less than their definition of perfection when we do?

This is the problem many of us who care deeply about human rights have with AI: you don't get anything done when you let the perfect become the enemy of the good.

I hear you but we also need to be fulsome in our diligence. Our own doors should be open and our dedication complete. Sounds absolutely corny but there is no point bowing to symbols of being righteous while mocking those who actually go into the dark places to argue for the cause of the forgotten.

Kenney's argument is akin to saying the police have no right to isue traffic tickets while there are still murders in the world. 100% inane.