The blow-up in Parliament over the testimony of a former Canadian intelligence agent in Afghanistan is fraught with errors and missed opportunities. The agent, Richard Colvin, testified that from May 2006 through to the end of 2007 he frequently informed officials and politicians that Taliban prisoners transferred by Canadian forces to Afghani jails were being tortured by their Afghan jailers. While politically dangerous for the government if not handled well, few people were particularly surprised by the testimony.

What has been surprising is the way the government and many of its critics have responded. The government appears to have been overtaken by hysteria immediately upon hearing the reports of what Colvin said. In a classic case of ill-considered political management, Ministers shrilly denounced Colvin, making him out to be an unreliable fool and liar. His character has been trashed, his motives questioned and his competence denounced. As to the substance of the charge, the strategy has been simple – deny, deny, deny. Nothing was done wrong, brave soldiers just did their jobs and it is unpatriotic to raise any questions of this sort. Even the senior military officers and the Prime Minister have leaped into the fray.

The result has been a disaster for the government. Why has the government responded the way it has? Anyone with any skill in managing difficult political issues could have see immediately that this is a losing strategy. The government should have immediately done a few basic things. First it should have given the appearance of listening to what was said and of examining the situation seriously. Second, it should have set out its narrative about the challenges of taking Taliban prisoners and jailing them in a country where the government and the justice system are fragile and underdeveloped. Third, it should never have attacked Colvin’s character and believability. No-one will side with the government in that kind of attack. Fourth, it should have left room for the fact that mistakes and screw-ups could well have occurred over that time, but that the system has been fixed and can now be relied upon. As for response style, it should be cool, not red hot; considered, not fight or flight. And the Prime Minister should never become an attack-dog in these kinds of situations. Leave that to Ministers. And they should only engage in attacks on politicians, and then only when it is credible to do so.

This government looked until this week as if it has gained some maturity and skill in handling hard political issues. All of that has been undermined in less than a week. It is amazing to watch a government make so many huge missteps in a weeks time. One wonders who is responsible for this strategy. Are there no senior people who have the power and smarts to prevent these kinds of things from happening? Is there no adult supervision in the Cabinet Office?

Meanwhile on the other side there has been a unseemly number of people lighting their hair on fire with claims that war crime charges will, or should be, proceeded with immediately. They may be right. But for the moment they way overshoot the mark with this claim. The extremity of the claim, with so little evidence yet available, is almost as off-putting as the defenses of the government. It has undermined their credibility almost as much as the government has undermined its own credibility. I have no doubt that prisoners were tortured. But we know next to nothing about the circumstances. There are any number of extenuating circumstances that make charges unlikely – the fact that these are actions of a democratic nation, the circumstances of the transfers, the environment within which they took place, are all factors . There is considerable discretion for prosecutors in such case. It is very unlikely that any Canadian is going to stand trial on this matter whatever the evidence. They may have screwed up, but it is not credible that a federal minister or Canadian General deliberately subjected prisoners to torture as a strategy. But torture is wrong. We live in a democracy that officially proscribes it. The issue must be addressed by Canadians holding the government politically accountable. Answers must be provided and if anyone is fount guilty of wrong-doing they must be dealt with through exposure and dismissal.

It is time for cooler heads to prevail. The committee should continue its work. MP’s and Cabinet, including the Prime Minister should keep cool. They should answer questions. They should avoid extreme opinions. They should not attack public officials like Mr. Colvin. He is more believable to the public than they are right now, which is always the case in these kinds of situations. They will lose that fight politically. Someone needs to tell Mr. Harper and MacKay this, since they seem not to get it themselves.

And they should prepare to open the lid on what has been happening in Afghanistan with prisoner exchanges. They should explain the challenges and difficulties. And they should be open to admitting that things have not and perhaps could not be perfect. They need to stop attacking and begin to look reasonable and responsible. Above all they need to bring the temperature a way down. When in trouble a little humility can go a long way.

A just released report from the excellent International Crisis Group (ICC) looks at the disastrous Afghanistan Presidential election and concludes that the election “delivered a critical blow to the legitimacy of both the government and the international community”. The ICC says:

“Karzai’s retaining power under these circumstances has bolstered the impression that the international community is disinterested in or incapable of checking corruption. It handed the Taliban a huge public relations victory”.

It adds that “to stem the decline in public confidence, the international community, particularly the US and the UN, must urgently put in place and vigorously support a number of key measures, including:

• restrictions on the size of the cabinet, and more importantly barring nominees with demonstrated links to armed groups or criminal activities from joining government;
• the formation of an impartial commission of inquiry to conduct a thorough public review of the 20 August 2009 elections; the National Assembly’s use of its full sanctioning powers against those suspected of abusing their offices to influence the polls; and vigorous pursuit by the attorney general and courts of criminal prosecutions of those involved in flagrant violations of the law;
• consultations among relevant Afghan and international actors to achieve consensus on immediate steps to strengthen the machinery for the 2010 elections;
• convocation of a loya jirga to undertake constitutional reform, including consultations on the role of the Supreme Court; enhancing the independence of the judiciary and legislature; and meaningfully devolving authority and resources to provincial and district levels; and
• resignation of UN Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) chief and UN Special Representative of Secretary-General Kai Eide, since he has lost the faith of many on his staff and the necessary trust of many parts of the Afghan polity, accompanied by a thorough re-evaluation of the advisory role of UNAMA’s Enhancing Legal and Electoral Capacity for Tomorrow (ELECT) program view to rebuild public support for Afghanistan’s electoral institutions and processes”.

These are absolutely essential matters for the west to respond to. Canada’s Minister of Foreign Affairs and the US Secretary of State attended Karzai’s swearing in, in an apparent show of support for Karzai. That was disturbing because it seems to put the stamp of approval on Karzai’s election. Now President Obama is about to announce the US plan for Afghanistan going forward. It is critical that the matters raised by the Crisis Group be part of that plan.

Afghanistan is at a tipping point. A large scale expansion of military forces will not save it from disaster. Governance and development are the important things. If Karzai is permitted to continue his embrace of the criminal warlords and drug dealers, including appointing three of the most notorious warlords to his cabinet as he indicated he will do two months ago, there is no point in continuing the western presence there. If the failure to develop services, infrastructure, housing and jobs continues, the people there will see no point in maintaining the existing western supported regime. Canada has sacrificed the lives of well over a hundred smart, tough young soldiers who have served well beyond what should be expected of anyone, much less the young, with a great future ahead. It will be criminal if the ICC’s proposals are not accepted as a minimum part of the plan going forward. Stephen Harper needs to make that case with vigour, as he is entitled to do as a result of the incredible contribution of Canada over the past few years.

Today, November 24, 2009 marks the 150th anniversary of the publication of The Origin of the Species by Charles Darwin. This now notorious book is perhaps more than any other both the most reviled and the most admired book in the history of science. Darwin set off a stormy debate and protest that has resonated through generations and continues to this day. And the world remains almost as divided today as it did 150 year ago on the book.

It is perhaps risky for a non scientist like myself to speak to a scientific subject. However Darwin’s theory has suffered from attacks most frequently from non-scientists, most often in relation to educational policy. Non-scientists involved in policy making and politics have an obligation to understand and appreciate what Darwin had to say.

Resistance to Darwin is based on two sets of arguments, the first dating back to when he first published and the other having more modern origins. The first are rooted in his fundamental observation that animal (and plant) forms, or species, change in their basic make up over time. This runs counter to the fundamental Christian belief that all life was created by God and remains immutable in keeping with God’s design. He made things worse by suggesting that these changes result in evolution, and that over time species adapt to their environment. This he said can lead over much longer periods of time to the creation of new species that are related to but fundamentally different from existing ones. All of this was and is seen as radical challenge to the notion of God the Creator. As such, it has been the centre piece of Christian objections to Darwin ever since the publication of the Origin of the Species .

The second set of arguments, more recent in origin, relate to the argument for intelligent design. This argues that the theory of evolution contains no convincing mechanism that can explain the amazing detail and complexity of functioning organisms. In fact, it is argued, the complexity, sophistication and functionality of organisms can only be explained by the existence of an intelligent designer. Since this designer cannot be observed at work, it is not much of a stretch to name her God. Whether this is the same God as that of Christians is often glossed over, but it is at least plausible that it is.

A problem for those who object to evolution is that any reasonable person can observe from the historical record that, through generations, life forms do change, and often in a way that suggests survivability of some and extinction for others.

At one time some argued that the fundamental changes that take place occur during the life time of single individuals, sometimes in response to their environment. This is now accepted as false with respect to the basic characteristics or traits of species. In simple terms, the traits of individuals are immutable during one’s lifetime (nature), even though behavior of individuals may respond to environment (nurture). It is now agreed that change in basic characteristics has its source in an inter-generational process.

Darwin’s description of this process of change has largely survived intellectual and scientific challenge. He said that individual members of species have different traits, (variability), these traits are transmitted by parents to offspring and that offspring assume a mix of traits of parents, (heritability), some of the (different) offspring are better than others at competing for scarce resources (scarcity) and thus some survive the competition for scarce resources while others die out (natural selection). As a result, over time, some traits dominate the make up of members of species while others die out and disappear.

Some things are left unexplained by this. It took the development of genetics and gene theory to fill the blanks. There are still questions about how to explain the source of all of the variability among individuals, although it would be generally accepted that random mutations are part of the explanation.

Darwin’s genius was to set an overall framework of change and survival of life forms based on scientific observation. If we did not have Darwinism, we would have to invent it. His book is a remarkable work that has weathered 150 years of criticism intact.

His findings are nevertheless the subject of continuing debate in educational policy. Anyone who has been a Minister of Education or a member of a public school board knows that anti-Darwinism is very much alive and well. Alberta recently made a concession to these views in its curriculum. Other school boards are less than clear in their handling of the teaching of evolution.

It is important that the case for the science of evolution be supported. We cannot expect to have first class educated young people who respect and understand science if we waffle on evolution. And pretty much everyone agrees that educated people are fundamental to maintaining a modern, knowledge based, high value added, high productivity economy.

The scientific case for evolution is unassailable. Everyone in public life and education should celebrate Darwin’s findings, in recognition of good science and the importance of defending its findings.