Is this member of the Canadian parliament a coward?

On September 13, 2006, I sent a letter to Jack Layton, the leader of the NDP in Canada when I read that he wanted Canadian troops withdrawn from Afghanistan.
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Dear Mr. Layton:

You made an impressive statement with respect to the terrible event that took place five years ago when terrorists attacked the United States on September 11th , 2001. I quote you in part;

“On September 11th, 2001, an immense tragedy struck the United States, and the whole world felt its impact. The scourge of terrorism continues today and bringing it to an end must be a part of our international and cooperative efforts. We cannot let that act of terror, that day of great loss, cloud our vision of ourselves, our country or our world and we must move forward. At this time of mass grief and commemoration of so many lives brutally cut short, let us move forward with dialogue and development and let us rebuild the international community's consensus to help bring closure to this tragedy.” unquote

Bringing closure to this tragedy is exactly what Prime Minister Harper is attempting to do by keeping our Canadian troops in Afghanistan. His government acted with the United Nations when the mission to Afghanistan was launched in October 2001. It is a noble cause.

Already you have forgotten about the human rights abuses in that country before the NATO forces went in and rescued that country from the Taliban abuses heaped upon the women and girls of that country. As a result of NATO's 35-nation military campaign in Afghanistan, Afghans have held elections for a president and parliament, girls go to school, women are permitted to work for a living and run for office and women are not publicly whipped in a stadium that the international community built for them.

In your speech, you said, “…..let us move forward with dialogue….” When asked about the NDP's position, The American Secretary of State Rice vehemently disagreed when she said, "You can't negotiate with Taliban. C'mon, these are people who whipped women in stadiums given to them by the international community. The Taliban made Afghanistan a failed state and a terrorist haven for al-Qaida so that they could launch the Sept. 11 attacks. What's to negotiate?" unquote

You weren’t around when Hitler was in power so you didn’t see British Prime Minister Chamberlain holding a peace of paper in his hand, and crying out, “Peace in our time.” after getting a written promise by Hitler that he would not encroach on the borders of his neighbours. When he invaded Poland, England declared war on Germany and soon after, so did Canada. Before the Allies could bring an end to that war, Hitler massacred almost six million Jews, many of them in Poland.

This raises an interesting rhetorical question. If you were a member of parliament in 1942 when the war in Europe wasn’t looking very good for the Allies, would you have stood up in Parliament and demanded that we withdraw our soldiers and return them to Canada?

The world stood by and did nothing when almost a million Rwandans were slaughtered on orders of the governing powers in that country. The Sudanese government has forbidden UN peacekeepers to enter the Darfur region of Sudan and so far, over 200,000 people have been slaughtered there. Despite these tragedies, I can find no public statements of condemnation made by you when those Rwandans were being slaughtered, nor can I find anything said by you re the plight of those victims in Darfur and now you condemn our prime minister for trying to bring stability to the lives of Afghans.

Despite progress in Afghanistan, a large area of that country is still in the hands of the Taliban and aside from the fact that women and girls under their control are still suffering from human rights abuses heaped upon them by the Taliban, 90 percent of the world’s poppies are grown in their sector of Afghanistan which increases the flow of heroin worldwide thereby providing most of the revenue which goes directly into the coffers of the Taliban.

Obviously the Americans have a vested interest in fighting the Taliban since most of the heroin created in Afganistan ends up in the veins of Americans. That is also the reason why the Americans invaded Panama and arrested, tried and convicted its leader as a drug trafficker.

Terrorism is a plague that has encompassed the world. Three times since 1975, I have addressed United Nations crime conferences (the latest in Bangkok in 2005) about the dangers of terrorism and I have consistently said that we must stamp it out like one stamps on bugs that are prone to infesting homes.

Thanks to the ruling Taliban—Muslim fundamentalists who imposed radical Islamic rule on the country—Afghanistan had become a base for terrorists, namely Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda training camps. Because Afghanistan was such a chaotic place, and because the Taliban were deeply influenced by bin Laden’s philosophy, the Taliban welcomed him and his network into the country. There they could plan their attacks with less fear of reprisal because other countries were wary of entering Afghanistan. Are we to believe that the Taliban have since renounced terrorism? Not likely. If the Taliban overtake all of Afghanistan again, it will be a cesspool of terrorists and we will all be back to square one again.

The battles are not won and although we have a bloody nose, we must persevere. Until the Taliban is eradicated and Afghans can live in peace and enjoy equality for all, Canadian soldiers should continue to fight the Taliban and any other warlords who abuse the people of Afghanistan and encourage heroin trafficking and harbour terrorists.

When John W. Dafoe wrote a letter to George Ferguson in 1939 after Canada declared war on Germany, he said in part; “I thought the news would knock me out. Instead it was such a relief that the sword had at last come out of its scabbard in a good cause.” unquote

Canada has drawn its sword and is swinging it at the Talibans in Afghanistan. Your demands that Canada put it back in its scabbard before the fight is over are the words of a coward.

Letter to the prime minister of Thailand
written by Dahn Batchelor


Thailand's American-educated prime minister thought he could use capitalist tools and democratic elections to bask in a family sale netting 1.8 billion dollars, tax-free, amidst crushing demands that he resign. He resigned from office as a disgraced politician. The following letter was written by me to him a year before he resigned.

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Thaksin Shinawatra May 9, 2005
Prime Minister of Thailand
Government House
Phitsanuloc Road
Bangkok, 10300
Thailand


Dear Sir:


When I attended the 11th UN Congress on the Prevention of Crime and Criminal Justice held in Bangkok in April, I was one of the persons who accepted your government’s offer to visit two of your country’s prisons. I wanted to see if the allegations in the Internet that stated that your prison system is a disgrace, had any validity to them. What follows is a sample of what I recently found written in the Internet.


Klong Prem Central prison was originally a temporary prison established in 1944, and later changed to a vocational training centre. In 1960 the prison was so overcrowded that the Interior Ministry established a temporary new prison within the same compound by dividing one part into a vocational training centre and the other part into the Lard Yao central prison. In 1970, the Interior Ministry separated the two prisons and the Lard Yayo was upgraded to Klong Prem Central and the old prison was renamed the Bangkok Special Prison.


Built in 1930's Bang Kwang is a Maximum Security Prison which holds inmates who are serving more than 25 years. Bang Kwang also holds prisoners whose appeals are pending in the Appeal Court and the Surpreme Court and Death Sentence Prisoners waiting for execution.


Overcrowding is an understatement as 20 or more inmates sleep side by side in small concrete cells with a bare bulb shining all night long. An open shit hole in the corner which all the men use. Origionally built to hold a few thousand inmates, it now holds over 8000.


Food consists of one meal a day of red rice in a dirty looking broth devoid of vegetables or meat. If you are lucky there may be a fish head or some other object with the promise of nutrition. Some resort to eating cockroaches, which swarm all over the place.


Punishment is common in Bang Kwang, from a random (and regular) whack with a cane to the wearing of leg shackles (denied by the prison authorities even when photos of leg shackles on prisoners are shown in the Internet). Beatings are common and are dispensed by guards and prisoners alike. Those poor souls unlucky enough to be put in the hole (solitary confinement) can spend months at a time in complete darkeness.
The hospital isn’t much better and those unlucky enough to end up there are usually there to die. TB, HIV, Hepatitus, along with disentry, fungal diseases, scabies and a host of other tropical diseases are common and can spread through the prison like wildfire. If you do fall sick (which is extremely likley) you have to pay for the medicine yourself. Most of the poorer inmates simply die. The pictures in the Internet (that were shown on Thai TV) show the prison conditions even more graphically.


That part of your country’s prison system that we who attended the 11th Congress were shown was the vocational training centre. Naturally I was impressed as were the other conferees. But being shown the vocational centre of your prison in Bangkok was not unlike being shown a beautiful woman in a bikini. What we were shown was most interesting. However, it was what was unseen that really tantalized my curiosity.


In 1999, Amnesty International stated on the Internet and I quote;


Prison conditions often constitute cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, characterized by prolonged shackling in heavy chains, prolonged solitary confinement, and beatings for routine infractions of prison rules. Overcrowding and medical neglect are also ongoing problems. As a result of the economic downturn, prison conditions appear to have deteriorated further, including more overcrowding and a cut in food rations.


In 2001, Amnesty International in a report stated;


Torture and ill-treatment in prisons after people are tried and sentenced for criminal offences also occur in some cell blocks of prisons, which are under the control of the Corrections Department. Beatings and kicks are generally the form of punishment given to inmates on suspicion of breaking prison regulations. ''Trusties'', who are selected by prison officials for special privileges, are often the agents of such practices. Reports of ''trusties'' (also known as ''blue shirts'') beating prisoners with impunity are common. Such treatment occurred frequently in Building 2 of Lard Yao Men's Prison, Nonthaburi Province, on the outskirts of Bangkok. According to informed sources, Building Chiefs in prisons have almost complete power and in practice are not held accountable to the Prison Governor. Some of them are reported to be conscientious, but others permit torture and ill-treatment of inmates by prison guards and ''trusties''. Some also reportedly collect bribes on a regular basis from the prisoners for privileges, including sleeping space in a cell.


Naturally, I am curious as to whether much has changed since then.
I appreciate the fact that prisoners are not to be coddled (especially drug traffickers and murderers ) and that the prison experience should act as a deterrent but I think that your country should look to countries like Canada where we treat our prisoners in a more humane manner irrespective of their crimes.


My wife and I attended your reception and we were impressed with your speech. I chose however not to meet with you because of my fear that I would feel compelled to tell you of my concerns about the treatment of your prisoners and I didn’t want to say anything to you at that time that would spoil your evening. Hence, I am writing you instead.


As a person trained in criminal justice (as I too have been) you perhaps more than anyone else in Thailand can appreciate the need for improvement in your prison system.


If the treatment of prisoners in a country can be read as the barometer of civilization in that country, then unfortunately Thailand, a nation which is reknown as the country of smiles, has a barometer reading that is extremely low.


It is my fervent wish that some day, your Bang Kwang prison in Bangkok will appear to all who are invited to visit your prison system, ( and not just the façade ) as a beautiful woman and not as a decrepit old hag.


I remain,


Respectfully yours


Dahn Batchelor C.Crim. C.Fam. PLL

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NOTE: He didn’t reply to my letter.