On full transparency

CBC's report raising the possibility that Canadian officials deliberately rendered Afghan detainees to be tortured obviously raises the stakes in the ongoing standoff over records documenting Canada's actions. But while we'll have to see how both the information showdown and the substance of the issue play out, it's worth a reminder as to how easily the Cons could muddled any responsibility for war crimes by accepting some of the ill-advised "compromises" suggested last year as a way of avoiding confrontation.

Consider what would have happened if before Amir Attaran's revelations had become publicly known, the Cons had jumped on an offer to share their documentation on the treatment of detainees with a small number of MPs in return for their being sworn to secrecy. Only a limited number of representatives would then have had any ability to look through a vast number of documents. And even if they'd managed to find on their own any documentation showing that the issue actually involved deliberate orders to pursue torture as a matter of policy rather than failure to prevent torture as had been discussed publicly, they'd have had no ability to do anything about it.

Then suppose Attaran had gone public with his revelations. At that point, the Cons would have had a ready-made opportunity to point fingers at opposition MPs for having known about what was happening, claiming that any charges of war crimes would be just as applicable to MPs who learned what happened only after the fact as to any officials who made decisions to have detainees transferred to be tortured.

In retrospect, then, it's entirely fortunate that the Cons' apparent suspicions of what the opposition parties would do with the truth outweighed their desire to spread blame around. (And based on the Libs' constant efforts to be seen as compromising, I'm far from sure that shouldn't have been obvious from the beginning.)

Now that the ultimate nature of the issue is known publicly, though, there's no way for the Cons to try to raise any pretense that all parties should be seen as conspiring to hide information about war crimes from the public, rather than the Cons alone hiding their own misdeeds from the opposition and the public alike. And now that the issue has to be seen as one of intent rather than negligence, there figures to be far more demand for a full public airing of the responsible officials' actions.

Of course, some Con supporters are already pivoting toward a claim that Canada should be satisfied with being lied to so as to avoid the consequences of the crimes which may have been committed by Canadian officials. (Or in other words: "See, we told you the truth might injure our reputation! Now let's pretend none of this ever happened." Which puts a particularly interesting spin on the hints that Justice Iacobucci's mandate might be limited to considering any possible injury resulting from disclosure of the records currently being hidden.)

But the real lesson has to be that we shouldn't settle for selective disclosure of what's been done in our name when our country's values are at stake. And while the Cons may have a greater incentive to try to fight to suppress the truth now that we have a better idea what it might include, I'd have to think they're far less likely to succeed.