So what are we to make of this?

Am I the only one who finds this story so sickening, so repellent and vile in every way that I want to see my president and his henchmen tried for crimes against humanity? I hope not.

Canadian intelligence officials passed false warnings and bad information to American agents about a Muslim Canadian citizen, after which U.S. authorities secretly whisked him to Syria, where he was tortured, a judicial report found Monday.

The report, released in Ottawa, was the result of a 2 1/2-year inquiry that represented one of the first public investigations into mistakes made as part of the United States’ “extraordinary rendition” program, which has secretly spirited suspects to foreign countries for interrogation by often brutal methods.

The inquiry, which focused on the Canadian intelligence services, found that agents who were under pressure to find terrorists after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, falsely labeled an Ottawa computer consultant, Maher Arar, as a dangerous radical. They asked U.S. authorities to put him and his wife, a university economist, on the al-Qaeda “watchlist,” without justification, the report said.

Arar was also listed as “an Islamic extremist individual” who was in the Washington area on Sept. 11. The report concluded that he had no involvement in Islamic extremism and was on business in San Diego that day, said the head of the inquiry commission, Ontario Justice Dennis O’Connor.

Arar, now 36, was detained by U.S. authorities as he changed planes in New York on Sept. 26, 2002. He was held for questioning for 12 days, then flown by jet to Jordan and driven to Syria. He was beaten, forced to confess to having trained in Afghanistan — where he never has been — and then kept in a coffin-size dungeon for 10 months before he was released, the Canadian inquiry commission found.

Syria is always made out by Bush to be one of our pro-“Islamofascist” enemies – yet when they provide a service we require, torture on demand, it’s all love and kisses. On every level, this story should make us tremble with rage. This is what we have become – a nation that employs the tactics once celebrated by Juan Peron and other scum, where “enemies” vanish in the night to face torture or death. Think about how you would feel had this been your sister or your brother – or yourself. We are talking about a flesh and blood human being, an innocent IT consultant, put through hell on earth for nearly a year. If he’s not insane from the experience, I can bet you anything he harbors an undying and immeasurable rage against us all for the rest of his life. As will all those who know him. Thanks for that, Mr. President. Thanks for making me once again utterly ashamed to be an American.

Note that the Canadian agents were “under pressure” to find suspects after the 911 attacks. It reminds me of Stalin’s and Mao’s quota system, where local leaders were put under pressure to come up with lists of “class enemies.” That kind of pressure, of course, leads to hideous and tragic errors. America was supposed to be way better than that.

The Discussion: 6 Comments

Yes, to send suspects to Syria, one of those spnosors of terrorism, this is realy a mastery in dialectics only a hard boiled communist can make sense of, or perhaps a Neocon.
Liberal minds will never be able to grasp such Alice-in-wonderland-like logic. Except perhaps, you’d consider adding a little LSD to your daily diet. … One pill makes you larger, and one &-) ….

September 19, 2006 @ 4:59 am | Comment

I remember following this as it developed over the last couple years. This with the Guantanamo attrocities and Abu Ghriba prison stuff… the empire is crumbling…. keep an eye out for vomitariums and massive orgies.

Oh, and while you’re at it – could Americans start keeping a better eye out for Canadian soldiers… death by American plane is a shitty (yet rising) way to come back to Canada from Afganistan. Y’know… just if someone asks for your opinion on how to better relations with us Canucks make mention of it. Cheers.

September 19, 2006 @ 7:18 am | Comment

This is exactly the type of shit that worries me about this department of “Homeland Security”.

September 19, 2006 @ 9:34 am | Comment

A sad tale. (*U*)

September 19, 2006 @ 9:46 am | Comment

Am I the only one who finds this story so sickening, so repellent and vile in every way that I want to see my president and his henchmen tried for crimes against humanity?

No.

I think that’s what this whole “torture debate” going on now is really about, actually. Not about “the program” going forward, but retroactive ass-covering.

At times I wish I believed in hell, because I’d like to see Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rove, Gonzales and Yoo in it.

September 19, 2006 @ 10:13 am | Comment

My heart is too sickened by the issue to make a detailed comment.

So in brief I will just say that the geneva convention does not speak to who our prisoners are.

It speaks to who we are, as a people.

If we now say that the convention does not apply, because the prisoners are “Terrorists”
Then we have renounced our civility, as well as our humanity.

Who then, I ask of you, is the terrorist now?

September 19, 2006 @ 1:04 pm | Comment

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