My sweetie's letter to the Hon. Frank

Dear Mr. Iacobucci,

Long time listener . . . first-time caller . . .

Please reconsider joining in the project to help the Harper Conservatives delay Parliament's access to documents related to Canada's policies and actions concerning Afghans captured and detained by Canadian troops since 2001.

What needs to be removed/redacted from those documents is presumably going to be code words, common practices, names of clandestine informants, locations of stashes/caches, and plans for the future.

You are not well suited to this work - smart as you no doubt are, you will have a wastefully steep learning curve for a function which is largely mechanical.

In general, something which is in the past is most likely no longer a source of abuse or threat. Military secrets are sensitive as they may refer to ongoing or future projects. The detainee policies in question have been changed. What a majority of the members of the highest authority in Canada seek is the documentation of responsibility for what may prove to be a past injustice. Investigations of responsibility for criminal behavior of the sort alleged constitutes no sort of threat to this nation. If we were to find and punish a past injustice our pride and reputation should improve. I thought that that was what Canadians do.

Canada's pride and confidence must depend upon adherence to international conventions or we will have nothing worth protecting. We should expose the chain of 'players' and events which has led to this hubbub and cease to allow a few individuals' fear of retribution do further damage to our democracy.

I fear that you are being invited to act as a shill for venal purposes. I believe that your involvement has been sought not because you would be effective at the practicalities of the enterprise but rather, because your shining reputation will obscure the fact that the job should not be done.

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