Afghan overtime: MPs in Kabul have delayed their break, unlike Canadian counterparts...

Canadians are often dismissed as being big on beer and hockey but largely apathetic about politics. But a mounting Facebook protest shows that while “Hosers” can hardly be called policy wonks, they’re not taking kindly to their “house of the people” being hijacked by the leader of a parliamentary minority.

Why have more than 130,000 Canucks set their Mooseheads aside to join a Facebook group called Canadians Against Proroguing Parliament?

Because while Canadian troops continue to place their lives on the line in southwestern Afghanistan, their Prime Minister has called it quits half way around the world in Ottawa – quits, that is, for Canada’s parliament, which Stephen Harper’s Conservative minority has chosen to prorogue until early March.

The silencing of the House of Commons enables Harper to dodge a parliamentary committee’s probe into his government’s stifling of bad news from the Afghan war, specifically red flags sent up by a senior Foreign Affairs official regarding the abuse of battlefield prisoners handed over by Canadian troops to Afghan authorities.

In truth, there has been an unwritten fatwa maintained by the Prime Minister’s Office against discussion of any and all controversial aspects of the Afghan debacle, as evidenced by the PMO’s consistent refusal to comment on the investigations reported here since Skyreporter went on line in March, 2007.

As a result of this information control freakery, Canadians have been treated to a rose-tinted depiction of the crumbling House of Karzai. By concealing the regime’s corruption, the government and its NATO allies hoped to avoid having to do anything about it.

The result? The Karzai cabal constitutes one of the two exposed flanks of the U.S.-led coalition’s Afghan campaign, the other being Pakistan’s ongoing support for the Afghan Taliban.

Now Stephen Harper hoists himself on his own petard. The PM is unmoved by the irony here:  that even while he suspends Canada’s House, Afghanistan’s parliament is sitting overtime to sift through their bent President’s dodgy cabinet nominees, striving to salvage some small measure of viability in their government.

Among the stories smothered by the same Harper government functionaries who censored diplomat Richard Colvin’s detainee reports - David “The Rodent” Mulroney of the Afghan Task Force and former Ambassador Arif Lalani - are:

- The Kabul Airport heroin trafficking scandal, triggered by President Karzai’s disgraced former Attorney General Abdul Jabar Sabet. Sabet was fired by Karzai 18 months ago but the airport continues to haemorrhage drugs and cash.

- The violent crackdown on Kabul’s news media, also ordered by Sabet, who had reporters arrested, brought to his office and beaten. The U.N. denounced the incident, while the Canadian government remained silent, despite evidence presented in person by Skyreporter to former Ambassador Lalani.

- The role of Karazi’s disgraced former Interior Minister, Zarar Muqbul, in the disappearance of up to 30% of Canadian tax dollars sunk into the Afghan National Police. Zarar was shunted by Karzai in 2008, but Western officials attached to the Interior Ministry tell Skyreporter that there is still no effective way to trace money lost to “ghost” or fake policemen and corrupt officials.

(Karzai has nominated Zarar as Counter Narcotics Minister - see Breaking News above left on this homepage. This is an astonishing repudiation of the West's support for Karzai's regime, since Zarar's connections to criminal elements are widely known, both among Afghans and foreign diplomats. He was deeply involved in last year's ballot rigging of the presidential election in Karzai's favour.)

- The interception by police at Kabul Airport of a shipment of heroin destined for Toronto by way of Dubai. The “evidence” disappeared into the Interior Ministry, and no investigation was carried out.

For details of how Mulroney and Lalani clamped down on official comment regarding these and other stories, please see page 2 of Recent Stories on this website: As Kabul Fell, Diplomat Took Tainted Karzai’s Keepsakes and Top Canadian Officials Tipped In Afghan Abuse Scandal.

For specific stories, archived according to the date they were first reported on Skyreporter:

- The Kabul Airport scandal is detailed in our Afghan Heroin series of film reports, commencing March 5, 2007 on page 40 of Recent Stories.

- The media crackdown saga starts with Canada Helps Karzai Cover Up TV Raid, posted April 19, 2007 on page 36 of Recent Stories. Don’t miss the video reports Afghan News Blues, first posted March 2, 2007 on page 28 of Recent Stories, and Media Crackdown Blues on page 27.

- The police salaries rip-off coverage begins June 1, 2007 on page 28 of Recent Stories, with Taliban Attack Province Cheated Of Police Salaries.

- Also, see page 24 and Another Afghan War Victim: Canada’s Harper Government, posted July 5, 2007, and on page 17, Donor Nations Acquiesce To Massive Afghan Embezzlement, from August 31, 2007.

- The lost heroin story is on page 29 with the May 22, 2007 posting Afghan Heroin Discovered En Route To Canada, as well as on page 20, Canadians Fail To Follow Up On Afghan Heroin Seizure, posted August 8, 2007.

Coming soon to Skyreporter:  how the House of Karzai smuggles its cold, hard and abundant black market cash.