In both world wars, there were times when Canadian infantrymen took no prisoners, in the euphemism of the times. That we have moved from that to the current uproar over whether one suspected Taliban guerrilla fighter was turned over to Afghan authorities to be tortured is eloquent evidence of how far we have come in our concern for human rights, even in the most trying circumstances.
But it is also, we think, evidence that in wartime bad things happen, mistakes are made, rights are violated. The storm now raging in Ottawa over the Afghan-prisoner torture issue is also still more evidence that it's not the mistake that gets you in trouble, it's the coverup.
As the issue continued to widen this week. Chief of Defence Staff General Walter Natynczyk reversed testimony he gave earlier in the week to the Commons defence committee: In 2006, he now says, there was a case in which Canadian troops did turn a prisoner over over to Afghan interrogators; the man was subsequently badly beaten.
Nobody with any sense can doubt that such things happen. Afghan notions of honour and propriety, honed by generations of armed conflict, are not those of Geneva - or Ottawa. An AK-47 or well-placed kinfolk might protect an Afghan, but no charter of rights has ever done so.
But Canada is not a colonial power. If Canadian Forces do not turn suspects over to the Afghan government, what then should we do with them? What rules of war should apply to these ruthless fanatics who have no compunctions about hiding amid civilians? Should Canada open its own prison in Afghanistan? Who would staff it? Canadian courts, too? Or should we ship suspects to Canada, like Second World War prisoners of war? Are we in Afghanistan to aid the civil power, or to supplant it? Should there be a formal agreement on extraterritoriality? You can see the difficulties. A counter-insurgency is not a dinner party.
That said, we also agree with most Canadians that torture should have no place in our policy. Indeed, since 2006, Canada has on several occasions temporarily stopped handing prisoners over to the Afghan authorities, because of suspicions - or worse - about torture.
General Natynczyk sounded cross that his subordinates had not informed him more completely about the situation, but it's easy to suspect that at the level of command where senior officers meet cabinet ministers and top civil servants, the policy might have been, "Don't ask, don't tell."
When the issue blew up, the government first tried to discredit Richard Colvin, the diplomat who brought it to public attention. Then it chose to play the patriot card, with Prime Minister Stephen Harper placing himself squarely between the Forces and Opposition criticism, although the criticism was not aimed at the Forces.
But now the opposition has wheeled happily on Defence Minister Peter MacKay, claiming that he knew, or should have known, that torture was a real danger for detainees our troops turned over to the Afghan government. And Harper has so far shown much less eagerness to defend MacKay.
So as a political matter this comes down to the old question: What did the minister know, and when did he know it. The ancient Romans argued that "inter arma silent leges" - the laws fall silent in wartime - but today that won't wash. Turning prisoners over to a serious possibility of torture might in theory constitute, by itself, a war crime. That would be all but impossible to prove, but the government will surely suffer some political damage over this.
As far back as 2006, we can now see clearly, the government should have grasped this nettle and worked out, with our U.S. and British and other allies, a sturdy protocol for dealing with enemy combatants and suspects, to minimize the risk of torture by the Afghan government. A forceful effort then, and persistence since, could have avoided this problem.