On recycled sources

The CP reports that the Cons are still doing their utmost to escape Canada's international obligation to avoid contributing to the torture of Afghan detainees. And they apparently don't care how much it costs - or who they have to do business with - in order to find even the smallest scrap of an argument for their position:

The Canadian government has hired a controversial international academic to argue that Canada's military has no obligation to accord Afghan detainees Canadian-style legal rights.

Christopher Greenwood, a professor of international law at the London School of Economics, submitted an opinion in mid-August to the Federal Court, which is hearing an application by Amnesty International to halt all prisoner transfers by Canadian soldiers to Afghan authorities.

Prof. Greenwood was the author of a 2002 legal opinion commissioned by the British government entitled The Legality of Using Force Against Iraq. He concluded that an invasion was justified on the grounds of a 1990 UN Security Council resolution, and also on the grounds of self defence if Britain could show the threat of an imminent Iraqi attack.

His opinion was reported to be at odds with that of lawyers in Britain's Foreign Office and many other international law experts. It was revealed in 2005 that the Blair government paid Prof. Greenwood £46,000 (about $100,000 Canadian) for legal advice on Iraq.

Prof. Greenwood's 34-page opinion for Canada's Federal Court, dated Aug. 14, says it was prepared at the request of General Rick Hillier, chief of the defence staff.

The Defence Department said late Friday that Prof. Greenwood was paid $50,000...

New Democrat MP Dawn Black, the party's defence critic, said Friday that in spite of all the international legal expertise available within Canada's Foreign Affairs Department or the broader Canadian legal community, the government clearly went shopping for what she called “a discredited, right-wing expert.”

What's perhaps most interesting about the story is the link between Greenwood's current opinion and the past one used to justify the Iraq invasion. After all, the Cons have been at pains to draw distinctions between the military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, and have received plenty of advice that they're only hurting themselves by parroting the U.S.' Iraq language. Yet Hillier and the Cons still apparently don't have any concern about looking to one of the most dubious Iraq war proponents as their main source for an opinion on Afghanistan.

Which means that even if Amnesty International's application fails in court (and indeed I'd have to consider that the more likely outcome), it seems to have succeeded in showing some of the parallels between the Cons' mindset on Afghanistan and the one that managed to mire the U.S., U.K. and others in Iraq. And that attention can only help to make the Cons look ever more untrustworthy when it comes to both human rights and international responsibilities.