Hooding of prisoners - Is it Ehical?
I was deeply disturbed last week while watching a news item on television. It showed american police with a captured suspect who was handcuffed behind his back being led to a waiting squad car. What was chilling about the scene was that the suspect was hooded.

We have witnessed the hooding of captives in Iraq and Afghanistan and I am very disappointed that the Canadian government has condoned this method by their silence. We have for centuries been able to transport captives, both war-prisoners and felons alike, without resorting to this tactic.

The purpose of hooding a prisoner is to remove his humanity from him, to take away his or her ability to make eye contact with their captors or others in his situation. The hooded prisoner becomes an object, the easier to abuse because the abuser now has the anonimity necessary to commit illegal acts.The prisoner is both denied the right to identify the perpetrators of illegal acts committed upon him, nor those he may witness committed upon others.

What I find really disturbing is that the hooding of prisoners is now being carried out in the United States by civilian authorities. If no one decries this outrage, how soon will it become common practice, not only in the U.S., but in Canada? Is the next logical step a progression to the methods of torture meted out upon those poor souls in Abu Graib and Guantanemo?

The Canadian public needs a clear understanding from our government wether this type of action will be tolerated, not only here in Canada, but by our troops overseas in Afghanistan. We have, until lately, enjoyed a high degree of respect around the world for our democratic government, our peace-keeping and our tolerance of others. Please, let us not sink to the level of our neighbor.

The Role of Canadian Troops in Afghanistan
It is disturbing to see the direction Canada is taking in its foreign policy regarding the use of Canadian troops. It is one thing to be sent under a United Nations mandate for peacekeeping activities and another to be going on search and destroy missions to root out an unrecognizable civilian enemy.
Peace-keeping activities have been our mainstay since our involvement in the Korean war, if my memory serves me right. Our recent foray into Bosnia in this capacity was fraught with all the dangers of warfare, and our beleagured troops under the command of Gen. Romeo Dallaire show Canada's willingness to engage belligerent combattants when the need is there, even if the world community forgets to care.
So as you can see, I'm not necessarily against war. The difficulty with the present so-called 'war on terror' is that history has shown that a guerrilla war cannot be fought with conventional troops.
Removing both the Taliban and the Saddam regime with conventional forces was immensely successful. Its what follows that goes to the proverbial Hell on a haycart.
How do we take troops trained to fight a conventional war by european standards and send them to search for guerrillas tens of thousands of miles away, in a forbiddingly difficult terrain, with a semi-hostile population and a totally alien religion and culture?
If, hypothetically their job was to eradicate or contain a terrorist threat on Canadian soil, it would be a task beyond their capacity, given a well-established civilian structure of police and a citizenry mainly sympathetic to their cause. It is one thing to fight a visible, easily identifiable enemy and another to fight those disguised as honest citizens.
Would Canadians tolerate home invasions by armed men who cart off any male accused by informants? Would we tolerate innocent children, women and the elderly killed as collateral damage in the taking of a suspect? And yet we are willing to let this happen, as long as it is to the little brown people half a world away.
As a Canadian who had the pleasure of seeing Afghanistan before the russians invaded, I cannot emphasize strongly enough the high regard accorded Canadians by the Afghani citizenry.
It is one thing to fight wars to bring peace and another to wage war.