The Canadian Press just moved this story:
OTTAWA (CP) _ A red-faced Tory MP is apologizing after his assistant impersonated him _ and provided false information _ in an e-mail exchange with a constituent over the hot-button issue of Afghan detainees.
An e-mail from Gord Brown's parliamentary office, dated May 2, claimed that every alleged case of abuse involving Afghan detainees had been investigated and proven to be unfounded. That despite the fact the Afghan government has yet to finish an investigation into the torture claims.
The e-mail to Randi Davidson, obtained by The Canadian Press, was signed by Brown, the member for Leeds-Grenville. But Brown says the note was written by his assistant, Mark King, without his knowledge.
“Those are not my views. They don't reflect my view. That staff member has been reprimanded for sending that out,'' Brown (left) said in an interview.
“He shouldn't have sent it out to begin with and he shouldn't have sent it out with my name it on. I'm not very happy about it.''
And here is the letter Brown’s constituent received :
From: Brown, Gord – M.P. [mailto:Brown.G@parl.gc.ca]
Sent: May 2, 2007 11:32 AM
To: Randi Davidson’
Subject: RE: disgusting
Randi,
Thank you for this email.
My assistant Mark King showed me your previous correspondence along with his response and the only thing I can do is confirm what he has written to you.
Let me try to explain by responding to your latest email step by step.
Neither Mark nor the Prime Minister are in the habit of telling lies.
Every report of abuse, upon investigation, has been found to have originated with the Taliban. It may arrive here via different channels, but the originating source is always the same.
The key to this is that the complaints are investigated.
The second key to this is the fact that the people who are making the complaints to westerners are the same people who rape, kill and jail women and female children, who conscript male children into their “army” and who blow up aid workers and kill our soldiers. The soldiers and the aid workers have been invited to Afghanistan by the now democratically elected government to help the country recover from decades of abuse at the hands of these same people who are now saying they are being abused.
There are 60 countries involved in this UN sanctioned mission and every one of them is hearing the same thing from the Taliban. They have been hearing it from the very first day of the mission. The Liberals heard it when they were in government. We heard it when they were in government.
It has only been in the past three weeks that the Liberals have decided to bring this to the House of Commons – where they have privilege by the way – and make these allegations public. They are doing this strictly for political gain. If they truly believed any of these allegations they would have acted a long time ago. They, after all, publicly sent our soldiers and aid workers to Afghanistan in 2002.
The Maher Arar case did not occur under our watch. This was a Liberal issue.
The final issue you address is the Prime Minister's staff. The Prime Minister – and other government officials – are allotted a budget for staff each year. They are free to allocate it as they see fit. I will forward your comments to him.
Jennifer Ditchburn's story is what is called in journalism a “sidebar.” Journalists are trained to take any news story and stretch it out in as many ways as they possibly can. Think of a spider's web. The story is at the centre of the web and there are many spokes reaching out in many different directions. It can be like following a family tree. What is at the end can have little resemblance to the initial story.
Journalists have also not been able to find any evidence of abuse so they are “growing” the story to keep it alive.
If you use the Arar story as a comparison, as Jennifer is doing, there they were able to find evidence of abuse. Here they can not.
My assistant Mark is a journalist by profession. He has many contacts in the industry including one of the international producers at CNN. He is in contact with him about what journalists in Afghanistan are turning up on this story. It is exactly the same information. The Taliban has a well-rehearsed on-going campaign directed at the westerners.
There is little else to say about this issue.
Gord
Gord Brown, Member of Parliament
Leeds-Grenville
810 Justi <<image001.jpg>> ce Building
Ottawa, ON K1A 0A6
Tel: 613-992-8756
Fax: 613-996-9171