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|  | | | | America's Shame — Delivering Humans Into Torture | | | | | found on The Washington Post
written by Philosawyer, edited by John (Plastic) [ read unedited ]
posted Fri 7 Nov 5:16am | | | | |
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On September 26, 2002, Syrian-born Canadian Maher Arar began his trip home from a family vacation. A routine stopover in New York to change planes changed his life forever.
Within days he had been accused of 'terrorism' and deported to Syria via Jordan.
For over a year Maher Arar was isolated from his family and the outside world. Held in solitary confinement and enduring torture and horrific conditions, he was never informed of any charges or evidence against him. On the eve of a trial before the State Security Court, Syrian authorities suddenly released him. He finally arrived home in Canada on October 6th.
Security concerns are not an excuse for undermining or ignoring basic safeguards against torture and false imprisonment. No one should be detained without charge. And no should be deported to a country where they are at risk of torture.
"The story of Maher Arar is just one example of the U.S. government's shameful treatment of citizens of other nations," Philosawyer writes. "The U.S. has sent dozens of 'suspects' to the probable fate of torture. Unlike some of those, Maher Arar was 'lucky,' because although he was tortured and imprisoned for over a year, he is still alive and now free to tell his own story. His treatment by the American authorities was bad enough, but for the United States of America to seize and forcibly deport any man to a country where they are likely to be tortured is shameful. It is ironic that the U.S. deported Maher Arar in the name of fighting terrorism when according to the United States: "Syria is on the wrong side of the war on terrorism." If this man had been tortured and died in a Syrian prison we would never know his story. It is only by chance that he did not (or was it?). There is ongoing debate on whether the United States' own tactics amount to torture, but there is no doubt we are sending human beings to nations such as Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Syria. The State Department's published documentation of torture in these countries may understate to facilitate U.S. diplomatic interests, but paint a clear picture of torture.
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| | | "Would America simply stand by if any other nation treated an American citizen in such a fashion? If a law-abiding American citizen who had been born in Syria had been flying home via Mexico or Canada, would Americans simply shrug if those nations sent a man who had committed no crime to a state that is known to torture its own people, let alone those who flee? Although Canada's Prime Minister condemned the Arar's deportation, thus far Canada has rejected calls for a public inquiry pending resolution by Canada's RCMP complaints commission, which is investigating the case. In any case, Canada doesn't know why the U.S. deported Mahar Arar and does not have the power to compel U.S. authorities to testify, but has demanded that the U.S. back up its assertions that it acted on the basis of information provided by Canada. Whether the U.S. had good information or not, should people simply stand by and shrug while the U.S. forcibly seizes 'suspects' and delivers them directly into the hands of torturers?
"Publicly, America has pledged to support all individuals who seek to secure their unalienable rights, including freedom from torture, while describing the war on terror as a battle against oppression everywhere. The President has repeatedly pointed to torture chambers in Iraq as clearly showing Saddam Hussein to be evil and as one of the best reasons for having invaded Iraq. Privately, however, some officials admit that the CIA is deporting 'a lot' of suspects with a secret presidential finding, intending that they be tortured in a covert practice known as extraordinary rendition."
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[ more plastic... ] |
| | | | | | | 1. Old news | | | | by paul_holloway |  | | | at Fri 7 Nov 5:36am | score of 2 informative | | | | | | |
The fact that the US is deliberately sending people to states that it knows will use torture is not new: Guardian, March 2002, CS Monitor, July 2002. However, the testimony of somebody who has been through this process is new. I hope that this is yet another nail in the coffin of this so-called "war on terror".
"Iraqis are sick of foreign people coming in their country and trying to destabilise their country" - guess who
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| | | | | | 26. ending the war on terror | | | | by davidpalter |  | | | at Fri 7 Nov 2:23pm | score of 1.5 interesting | | in reply to comment 1 | | | | | |
The deportation of Maher Arar did nothing for the war on terrorism. As far as anybody has been able to determine, he is not a terrorist. Strangely enough, if the US had actually thought that Arar was in the US for the purpose of committing a terrorist act (rather than merely to change planes enroute to his home in Canada) then according to the (apparent) policies of the war on terror, he should have been sent to the internment camps at Guantanamo Bay, rather than to Syria (itself a country that supports terrorism).
This ridiculous deportation was motivated by confusion about the war on terror. Someone involved in this deportation probably believes that anyone born in Syria is at least a potential terrorist. Of course, punishing people for their ethnicity, or for the crimes that one believes that they potentially might commit, is completely contrary to the traditions of justice in the western world. Whoever made that decision is an idiot.
None of this seems to mean that as you put it, "this is yet another nail in the coffin of this so-called 'war on terror' ". Just because some official apparently has no understanding of what the war on terrorism actually requires of us, is no reason why the war on terror should therefore be abandoned. As far as I can tell (I know you'll correct me if I am wrong) terrorism DOES exist in this world, Americans have been killed by terrorists, and America is still at risk from terrorism, as are many other countries. The problem is real, and has not been solved, although two anti-American, pro-terrorist regimes have been deposed.
One could certainly argue that America is not going about the war on terrorism the right way. I have no doubt that certain aspects of it have been strategically wrong, and I also believe that a more far-reaching solution is needed, in addition to military action; we need better diplomatic solutions as well. But really, the Arar affair, tragic though it is, does not discredit the idea of fighting against terrorism.
In times of great national struggle, paranoia is a frequent side-effect. The struggles against communism, which gave us such things as the Korean War, the Vietnamese War, and the Bay of Pigs invasion, also gave us the McCarthyist witch-hunts. In spite of all this, communism was a real problem in the world, and did need to be opposed — it's unfortunate that it wasn't opposed more intelligently, although the struggle did ultimately come to a successful conclusion with the demise of the USSR in 1990. There are still unresolved problems in the Korean peninsula.
To accuse someone of being a terrorist simply on the grounds of Syrian birth, is paranoia. So, we need to conduct the war on terrorism with less paranoia. That is not exactly a nail in the coffin of the war on terror. What will put a nail in that coffin? Preferably, the defeat of global terrorism, and new international agreements by which the Muslim world can discover that there is no need for them to be in conflict with the West. — dp
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| | | | | 35. Cant blame Some Random bigoted Official | | | | by Philosawyer |  | | | at Fri 7 Nov 6:12pm | score of 3.5 scholarly | | in reply to comment 26 | | | | | |
Just because some official apparently has no understanding of what the war on terrorism actually requires of us, is no reason why the war on terror should therefore be abandoned.
Your argument that this was just the mistake of some low level official and therefore of no importance to the overall war on terror, isnt based in reality unless the White House is lying about what happened:
``I think we need to dispel the notion that this was an arbitrary decision on the part of our government,'' Ridge said in the Oct. 3 interview. ``There was sufficient information within the international intelligence community about this individual that we felt warranted his deportation. a www.nytimes.com link The decision to deport Arar was not the mistake of some random official, it was a calculated deliberate policy decision directed by the White House. If this was just a single isolated diplomatic snafu as you suggest that would be one thing, but this is the policy of the White House. It goes to the highest levels of government with some officials claim that the policy is direct from the President himself in the form of a www.washingtonpost.com link secret presidential findings.
Nor is the case of Arar an isolated case, but rather dozens of people are being sent where they are known to be likely to be tortured. This was not an accident, this is government policy, the main difference about Arar is that he is alive and free to tell his story. And no this case alone isnt by any means provide the whole picture on the war on terror, it is just one more ugly piece showing a clear disconnect between what the White House claims to be championing and what it is really up too. This ridiculous deportation was motivated by confusion about the war on terror. I agree, the problem is that the confusion goes all the way to the very top.
The marketing division of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation defines a robot as "Your plastic pal who's fun to be with."
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| | | | | 52. Re: ending the war on terror | | | | by snarkism | | | | at Sat 8 Nov 2:36pm | score of 2 astute | | in reply to comment 26 | | | | | |
But really, the Arar affair, tragic though it is, does not discredit the idea of fighting against terrorism.
No, it just totally discredits the Bush administration's way of doing it.
Do you think Bush invented anti-terrorism? I don't think previous governments supported terrorism — they just did not masturbate themselves into a publicity frenzy over all the stupid 'initiatives' they launched. They just got on with the job.
Anti-terrorism has always been around. As far as "Bush's war on terror" — that is a counter-productive joke. Terrorism against Americans has skyrocketed since this "war" began.
So, what are the goals of Bush's war? Nobody is suggesting we stop fighting terrorism — just noting that since the Republicans have been at the helm, everything has turned to shit.
snarkism
That's using your ass.
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| | | | | 45. who ordered the deportation? | | | | by davidpalter | | | | at Sat 8 Nov 7:48am | score of 1 | | in reply to comment 35 | | | | | |
I admit that I don't really know who is ultimately responsible for ordering the deportation. I am not necessarily going to believe that the order came from a high level, even from the President; it is possible that some unnamed source actually thought it would be less embarrassing to depict this as the result of a deliberate policy, rather than the result of mere incompetence (although, of course, if it is a deliberate policy then it is an evil policy).
However, if this is a policy, it is a very puzzling policy. Do they think that Arar is a terrorist? If so, he should have been held in custody either in the US or in Guantanamo Bay. What can be accomplished by deporting him to Syria? If he is a Syrian terrorist, then he already WORKS for Syria, and Syria will just send him out again to perform his nefarious acts of terrorism. And if he isn't a terrorist, then what can be accomplished by disrupting his life in this manner? It makes no sense.
It may turn out that the policy of the Bush administration actually does make no sense. I won't rule out that possibility. I was being charitable in my assessment that this was probably caused by some incompetent low-level official.
I would also say that even if it turns out that the policies of the Bush administration make no sense, that does not logically lead us to the conclusion that the US should not be conducting a war on terrorism. As long as the problem of terrorism still exists, it seems to call for a solution. If Bush's solution is not the right one, then we need a different one. However, terrorism must be fought. That is an unfortunate reality of the very troubled world in which we live. It should also be fought in a way that makes some kind of sense. Perhaps that will require the election of a new President. — dp
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| | | | | 53. Re: who ordered the deportation? | | | | by snarkism |  | | | at Sat 8 Nov 2:41pm | score of 0.5 obnoxious | | in reply to comment 45 | | | | | |
However, if this is a policy, it is a very puzzling policy. Do they think that Arar is a terrorist? If so, he should have been held in custody either in the US or in Guantanamo Bay. What can be accomplished by deporting him to Syria?
Do I need to draw you a picture, or put the puzzle pieces together?
The current US administration does not give a shit about humans, and is racist. They will send anyone to be killed or tortured for their short-term electoral gain.
Do you fucking understand now? This is not a game, this is racist, greedy assholes ruining the world so they can make a few more million dollars.
snarkism
That's using your ass.
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| | | | | 56. Re: who ordered the deportation? | | | | by Norman108 | | | | at Sat 8 Nov 3:15pm | score of 0.5 obnoxious | | in reply to comment 53 | | | | | |
No, your wrong. Don't you fucking understand yet? It's fascist, voracious troglodytes decimating civilization so they can make a few more billion dollars.
Ha, ha! I snarked the snarky one.
In man's stone-dark heart there burns a fire, That burns all veils to their root and foundation. Jelauddin Rumi
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| | | | | 68. Believe it: the facts are right in front of you | | | | by Philosawyer | | | | at Sun 9 Nov 9:29am | score of 1.5 astute | | in reply to comment 45 | | | | | |
Your responses appear to be reasoned and based on rationality, but are severely handicapped by your consistent failure to read closely and not just assume facts that may be highly critical of the administration must not be true and assuming the White House couldnt be doing something you yourself described as "idiot[ic]" and "confused" or even "evil." First you assume some random low level official must have been responsible, and when corrected you then assume that a statement from the Secretary of Homeland Security was also some random unnamed official.
I am not necessarily going to believe that the order came from a high level, even from the President; it is possible that some unnamed source actually thought it would be less embarrassing to depict this as the result of a deliberate policy, rather than the result of mere incompetence (although, of course, if it is a deliberate policy then it is an evil policy).
If you read the comment you are replying to you would see that it is NOT an unnamed source but is expressly attributed to Tom Ridge:
``I think we need to dispel the notion that this was an arbitrary decision on the part of our government,'' Ridge said in the Oct. 3 interview. ``There was sufficient information within the international intelligence community about this individual that we felt warranted his deportation.
Yes, the same Tom Ridge that is President Bush's Secretary of Homeland Security.
Your consistent failure to see the facts is not unusual, but is true of a lot of people who dont want to believe that the President of the U.S. is sending people to be tortured. I only stress your mistatements because they are consistent with many thoughtful people who seem unable to believe that their government could be up to such an action and thereby, as you do, refuse to believe it despite the facts being right in front of them.
The marketing division of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation defines a robot as "Your plastic pal who's fun to be with."
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| | | | | 75. the facts in front of us | | | | by davidpalter | | | | at Sun 9 Nov 12:24pm | score of 1 | | in reply to comment 68 | | | | | |
I admit that I was in error in referring to an "unnamed official" when in fact the official was clearly named as Tom Ridge. That was a careless comment on my part, & I should be more careful, especially when talking about a subject which is so emotionally charged.
This case, and some other cases like it, are very disturbing. The deportation of Arar to Syria was clearly wrong, and would have been wrong even if he actually was a terrorist — which, apparently, he isn't. For Tom Ridge to state that he had information showing that such deportation was warranted, does show that something is badly wrong at a high level of the US government. That much I will grant. If I lived in the US, I would not vote for the re-election of Bush.
I will also concede that it appears likely, as you claim, that President Bush personally wants people to be tortured, although we have only indirect evidence of that — so far, only Tom Ridge is directly implicated. But it seems very likely that Bush & Ridge are working together closely. And this is very disturbing.
To go beyond that, as a few other commentators have done, to conclude that the entire war on terror is a fraud, and that every aspect of US foreign policy under Bush has a selfish & evil motive, rather than being sincerely intended to protect America from terrorism, does seem to be more than the facts have shown. — dp
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| | | | | 77. Re: ending the war on terror | | | | by davidpalter | | | | at Sun 9 Nov 12:34pm | score of 0.5 disingenuous | | in reply to comment 52 | | | | | |
You seem to be leaping to some very far-reaching conclusions based on the Arar case. You state, "Since the Republicans have been at the helm, everything has turnd to shit." I have pointed out in another discussion that the overthrow of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, and that of Saddam Hussein in Iraq, are desirable objectives that the US has accomplished. The fact that fighting continues in both countries is unfortunate, but I cannot agree that they would have been better off if they were still governed by Sheik Omar, and Saddam.
It is a curious aspect of contemporary left-wing politics that any amount of torture, murder, or other human rights violations are acceptable to the left as long as they are committed by governments in third world countries that are not allied to the US. Whereas any human rights violation that can be traced to the US or to Israel, is completely intolerable. I am not saying that we should tolerate human rights violations, but let's also look at the big picture. The US is not the most serious offender.
Maher Arar should not have been deported to Syria & certainly should not have been tortured, BUT today he is back in Canada, & has survived; hundreds of thousands of victims of the regime of Saddam Hussein were not as lucky. Nonetheless, the Arar case, according to you, proves that it was wrong to invade Iraq & overthrow Saddam. This is a strange kind of moral selective vision.
I agree that Bush has been wrong about some things & was certainly wrong in the Arar case; this does not mean, as you believe, that he is therefore wrong about everything. — dp
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| | | | | 79. Do I fucking understand? | | | | by davidpalter | | | | at Sun 9 Nov 12:51pm | score of 1 | | in reply to comment 53 | | | | | |
You & I do substantially agree about this particular case; it was wrong the for the US to have deported Maher Arar to Syria, and that deportation does indicate some kind of serious problem originating from the Bush administration. I could not support Bush after this.
However, you seem to believe that it only requires one example of wrong-doing to prove that absolutely everything that Bush has ever done is wrong. The Arar case does not prove that the Bush administration does not give a shit about humans and is racist, and will send anyone to be tortured or killed for short-term electoral gain. That is quite a conclusion to reach on the basis of a single case. It might be true, but I personally think that you are over-stating the matter.
So, do I fucking understand? Well, I fucking understand that you are too emotional to discuss this matter in a reasonable manner. That much is fucking clear. Such are the fucking pitfalls of fucking Plastic. — dp
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| | | | | 86. Re: ending the war on terror | | | | by paul_holloway | | | | at Mon 10 Nov 3:24am | score of 1.5 astute | | in reply to comment 77 | | | | | |
the overthrow of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, and that of Saddam Hussein in Iraq, are desirable objectives that the US has accomplished... I cannot agree that they would have been better off if they were still governed by Sheik Omar, and Saddam.
Will you please take your false dichotomies somewhere else? Why do you right wingers seem to think that the alternative to invading countries is to do nothing, and why do you seek to make liberals therefore complicit in the actions of those regimes? Your arguments have no merit, which is no surprise as you are trying to defend the indefensible.
"Iraqis are sick of foreign people coming in their country and trying to destabilise their country" - guess who
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| | | | | 101. Re: ending the war on terror | | | | by J Random Loser | | | | at Mon 10 Nov 2:34pm | score of 1 | | in reply to comment 77 | | | | | |
It is a curious aspect of contemporary left-wing politics that any amount of torture, murder, or other human rights violations are acceptable to the left as long as they are committed by governments in third world countries that are not allied to the US. Whereas any human rights violation that can be traced to the US or to Israel, is completely intolerable. I am not saying that we should tolerate human rights violations, but let's also look at the big picture. The US is not the most serious offender.
I don't believe that anyone is saying that "torture, murder, or other human rights violations" in any amount are acceptable, what they are saying is that maybe we should remove the beam in our own eye before bombing the mote out of theirs. Sure, Saddam Hussein is much, much worse than anything our country might have done, but we don't get to vote for president of Iraq. We, do, at least in theory, have the ability to change the American regime without causing anyone to be exploded. To describe cleaning up our own backyard through political action and cleaning up Iraq's through military action as equivalent makes you either intellectually dishonest or foolish. It is entirely consistent to be critical of the human rights abuses of the US and at the same time believe that military action is not justified in Iraq.
The tragedy of this world is that everyone has their reasons.
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| | | | | 126. addressing human rights violations | | | | by davidpalter | | | | at Tue 11 Nov 8:54am | score of 1 | | in reply to comment 101 | | | | | |
Oh yes, we don't get to vote for President of Iraq. I guess that means that there is nothing we could legally have done to combat any human rights violations that Saddam Hussein might have wished to commit. Similarly, since we couldn't vote for Chancellor of Germany, there was no legal recourse to Adolph Hitler either. Military action, even in self-defense, is always wrong. I understand. — dp
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| | | | | 128. what did I actually say? | | | | by davidpalter | | | | at Tue 11 Nov 9:11am | score of 1 | | in reply to comment 86 | | | | | |
I happened to be replying to a very specific claim, which was that the affair of Maher Arar should drive the final nail into the coffin of the war on terror. I pointed out, correctly, that this affair is an extremely incidental, tangential aspect of the war on terror — it actually did nothing to either advance or retard the overall conflict — and that since terrorism remains a problem in the world, we cannot just abandon our efforts to oppose it, regardless of the incorrect handling of Maher Arar by the US government. As long as there is terrorism, there will be a need for anti-terrorism. When terrorism is at a high level, it seems to call for an actual war. Nothing about the Arar case seems to alter that.
There are certain conclusions that we can legitimately draw, based on the Arar case. We can conclude that Tom Ridge has made a terrible error in trying to justify it by claiming that he had some (unspecified) information which warranted Arar's deportation; there is no possible information which would have warranted that, as I pointed out. No useful purpose is achieved by deporting Arar to Syria, regardless of whether he actually is a terrorist, or isn't. It was just wrong to do that.
A few Plasticians have now concluded on the basis of this erroneous act by the US government that Bush is an incarnation of pure evil, who doesn't give a shit about human beings, is a racist, and is motivated solely by greed, as well as having a completely wrong and useless foreign policy which must immediately be scrapped in its totality. That seems a bit much.
But what do I know? You are free to dismiss all my arguments since I am now officially disingenuous. I will shut up now. — dp
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| | | | | 130. dp full of it? Sources say yes! | | | | by J Random Loser | | | | at Tue 11 Nov 1:20pm | score of 1 | | in reply to comment 126 | | | | | |
Oh yes, we don't get to vote for President of Iraq. I guess that means that there is nothing we could legally have done to combat any human rights violations that Saddam Hussein might have wished to commit. Similarly, since we couldn't vote for Chancellor of Germany, there was no legal recourse to Adolph Hitler either. Military action, even in self-defense, is always wrong. I understand. — dp
Wow, it was amazing how you were able divine the fact that I oppose all military action in any circumstance, just from my stating that it it is hypothetically possible for a person to oppose the invasion of Iraq while still being critical of the US' actions. You are truly wise, o seer. Maybe next you could tell me what my lucky numbers are for today?
Oh, and is case anyone is laking their daily dose of irony:
But what do I know? You are free to dismiss all my arguments since I am now officially disingenuous. I will shut up now. — dp
Oh poor, maligned davidpalter. A single tear rolls down my cheek.
The tragedy of this world is that everyone has their reasons.
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| | | | | | 2. A useful link | | | | by paul_holloway | | | | at Fri 7 Nov 6:06am | score of 3.5 informative | | | | | | |
This is a BBC interview with ex-CIA man Robert Baer. He makes some interesting points:
BARRY: Are you telling me that interrogation techniques have changed since 9/11?
ROBERT: Oh yes, definitely. The attitude is they will break these people, one way or another. The interrogation is changing because they are franchising it. Franchising out assassinations, the collection of intelligence and franchising out torture to Egypt and Syria. If you have a problem with someone who's not talking and you have suspicions that they could give you something, you send them to Syria for a start. Syrians have a bunch of people in jail being interrogated and the information is being sent to US government.
BARRY: But isn't Syria one of the countries on the axis of evil, because they harbour terrorism?
ROBERT: It's schizophrenic, of course. The CIA's out looking for allies and the neo conservatives in the White House are looking for new targets.
BARRY: And what are the Syrians getting from us for doing our franchise work?
ROBERT: Well the Syrians are hoping for is to get immunity, not to be attacked... they hope to get some recognition from Washington.
"Iraqis are sick of foreign people coming in their country and trying to destabilise their country" - guess who
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| | | | | | 3. The law be dammed. | | | | by rough ashler | | | | at Fri 7 Nov 6:06am | score of 1 nuanced | | | | | | |
Is anyone surprised here?
If a Republic is to be 'governed by the rule of law' then the American public knows the 'rule of law' is dependent on how much money you have/at stake, or how much bad publicity would happen if the 'rule of law' was applied.
Here are three examples:
From the distant past — The Cherokees successfully challenged Georgia in the U.S. Supreme Court. President Jackson, when hearing of the Court's decision, reportedly said, "[Chief Justice] John Marshall has made his decision; let him enforce it now if he can.
Yup. The Republic features a balance of powers, and if you can ignore part of that balance AND get on the money, not to mention get color on your bill, what does that say about the 'rule of law'.
Something from my past, as told by my Uncle:
He was on the town board, and was out drinking with the City Manager. Legally toasted. 2.5 sheets to the wind. Plotzed.
One of the towns finest pulled them over. She figured out the town manager was drunk. The officer then asked if my uncle was drunk and could drive. Thus my uncle took the city manager home and went home.
And the recent past: Then finally you have international law — the idea of one sovereign nation invading another is not supported by international law. Such was the basis of 'Kick the Iraqi forces out of Kuwait and put back the monarchy' back in 1991 by a President named Bush.
Mr. Arar had a lack of money and a lack of a name thus under 'the rule of law' he got what was expected.
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| | | | | | 4. Dear American Immigration.... | | | | by Payool | | | | at Fri 7 Nov 7:00am | score of 2.5 clever | | | | | | |
Dear American Immigration Official,
Please stop deporting Canadians to countries other than Canada. You know when you're feeling that urge to deport, and you grab that little blue book they're holding and it says "ADANAC", and you say to yourself "where the fuck is Adanac? Let's just send this fucker to Syria or India!". Just pause, take a deep breath, turn the book over, and instead ask yourself "where the fuck is Canada?". Then ask your manager, your mom, your friends or that brainy guy from high school. Someone will know. Call me collect and I will give you directions.
Sincerely yours,
Payool
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| | | | | | 6. Re: Dear American Immigration.... | | | | by tdahnsn | | | | at Fri 7 Nov 7:20am | score of 2.5 clever | | in reply to comment 4 | | | | | |
No, you don't get it. Now that we've freed Iraq there's room for another country on the list of Evil Terrorist Nations and Canada is the big winner! We chose Canada because our pilots already have experience bombing your soldiers and you're relatively close by. Furthermore, like North Korea and Iran, we've got a great history of military success against you, dating back to the War of 1812.
Of course, when they start rounding up US Citizens born in Canada, I'll be pretty close to the top of the list. Man, this is gonna suck, but at least We're Winning the War on Terror!
Why? What's the most callous thing you've said today?
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| | | | | 125. Re: Dear American Immigration.... | | | | by duncsrocks12 | | | | at Tue 11 Nov 7:25am | score of 1 | | in reply to comment 6 | | | | | |
I'm afraid that you don't get it. How exactly have you freed Iraq? By ousting Saddam? There's more chaos there now than there ever was when he was in power. And if it was truly over, you wouldn't have to ask the U.N. for money to help clean up the mess that the U.S. made.
Why would you gloat about the fact that your pilots killed allied soldiers? Is that supposed to make them heroes? In reality, they were just two trigger-happy cowboys who couldn't wait for executive orders and decided instead to go on a bombing spree. I hope they rot in Hell.
Who exactly won the War of 1812? It certainly wasn't the Americans. I seem to remember us burning the White House to the ground.
And finally, winning the War on Terror? Just by initiating this War on Terror, the U.S. has simply given the rest of the world another reason to hate the Land of the Free, and Home of the Cowards who bomb their own allies.
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| | | | | | 5. Selective concern | | | | by Brian Jones | | | | at Fri 7 Nov 7:19am | score of 2 disingenuous | | | | | | |
Maybe a consensus is forming that torture isn't even effective, thus reducing whatever "need" there might have been. Even in the event that it turns out each and every one of these detainees is indeed tied to terrorism, that's still a goal to strive for.
But regardless of what's happening to these detainees, I'm not in the mood to hear words of concern from the same people who would have, if it were their decision to make, embraced policies that would have meant hundreds of thousands of tortured Iraqis would just have to wait patiently for the UN to come to the rescue. A tip of the hat to the submitter for acknowledging that that torture has been put to a welcome end.
My critique is not directed at those who've had consistent beliefs on this all along, regardless of who's been holding the reins in DC.
Would America simply stand by if any other nation treated an American citizen in such a fashion?
Sure we would, and it happens all the time, under all administrations and all ideologies.
One other thing — where's the Canadian government in all this? They're passing the buck on the Arar case, and fumbling the similar cases of William Sampson and Zahra Kazemi, where there's no opportunity to make America look bad.
Cheap crass attention-whoring plug goes here.
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| | | | | | 15. Re: Selective concern | | | | by hermenewt | | | | at Fri 7 Nov 11:32am | score of 2.5 nuanced | | in reply to comment 5 | | | | | |
But regardless of what's happening to these detainees, I'm not in the mood to hear words of concern from the same people who would have, if it were their decision to make, embraced policies that would have meant hundreds of thousands of tortured Iraqis would just have to wait patiently for the UN to come to the rescue. A tip of the hat to the submitter for acknowledging that that torture has been put to a welcome end.
Brian, an appeal for consistency is admirable if sincere, but you are really applying a ridiculous standard, apparently just for the purpose of taking a swipe at Iraq war opponents (if I get your innuendo correctly).
I have never heard of an anti-war person who is not happy that Saddam is no longer in power. Taken by itself, it is unquestionably a good thing. The question is how, and why, and at what consequence, was Saddam removed from power? Goods don't exist in isolation--even smart children understand this. To say that anyone who opposed going to war--now now now! damn the consequences!--therefore "embraced" Saddam's regime is just silly and offensive. Disingenuous, even. It is preposterous to equate morally the failure of one nation (or nations) to prevent (by whatever means) another nation from committing torture, with a nation (your nation and mine, I presume) actively enabling the practice.
If you wish to disqualify from this discussion anyone who opposed Bush's war, that's your choice. But by your standard, you should also disqualify anyone who is not in favor of the U.S. (or another nation) immediately invading Uzbekistan, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and many other nations, whatever the consequences. I'm assuming that you'll therefore disqualify yourself from this discussion as well, as a failure to endorse a reckless global war in dozens of nations means (by your standard) that you "embrace" the continued torture of people in these lands.
different(42), human(37), language(37), always(33), every(32), article(32)
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| | | | | 73. Acknowledging some good points of yours | | | | by Brian Jones | | | | at Sun 9 Nov 11:49am | score of 1 | | in reply to comment 15 | | | | | |
To say that anyone who opposed going to war--now now now! damn the consequences!--therefore "embraced" Saddam's regime is just silly and offensive.
It's not "embraced" in intent, certainly. Bad choice of words on my part.
Perhaps "enabled" is a better word, in its sense of passively allowing atrocities to continue on a colossal scale. To condemn a terrorist act, an atrocity, or an act of injustice like what appears to have affected Arar, without being willing to act on behalf of its victims is likewise silly and offensive. Thus my beef with the Chretien government — heaven knows there's no real political downside in raising a real stink with the Bush administration, but they sit on their hands for no reason I can discern other than maybe incompetence. Mr. Sampson has it exactly right when he rips his government a new one for not only letting him rot in a Saudi prison, but for telling his captors he was guilty when he undoubtedly was not.
Thus do my eyes roll whenever I hear an American administration official — past, present, future — react to a suicide bombing with the phrase condemn in the strongest possible terms. It's diplo-speak for we're upset, but we don't have the slightest intention of doing anything.
But by your standard, you should also disqualify anyone who is not in favor of the U.S. (or another nation) immediately invading Uzbekistan, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and many other nations...
Can American or coalition force be everywhere, all the time, to avenge every injustice? Of course not. Doesn't mean we shouldn't ever use it. And thus the two most dangerous regimes were taken down; that would appear to be our maximum capacity for now.
I'm assuming that you'll therefore disqualify yourself from this discussion as well, as a failure to endorse a reckless global war in dozens of nations means (by your standard) that you "embrace" the continued torture of people in these lands.
You're right in that I should have included some remarks about the immorality of torture, or at least its limitations. As I said earlier, it looks like Mr. Arar was not only railroaded by the Bush administration, but abandoned by his own government.
But if that's the case, it does Arar no service to lump him in with the other terror suspects — unless they're all as innocent as he.
Cheap crass attention-whoring plug goes here.
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| | | | | 16. Dubious and Selective Critque of Selective Concern | | | | by Philosawyer | | | | at Fri 7 Nov 11:51am | score of 3 astute | | in reply to comment 5 | | | | | |
Maybe a consensus is forming that torture isn't even effective, thus reducing whatever "need" there might have been. Even in the event that it turns out each and every one of these detainees is indeed tied to terrorism, that's still a goal to strive for. It is very unclear what goal you recommending we strive for. Are you suggesting that if torture is sometimes effective that it is ok to utilize torture?
So long as you are talking about selective concern you seem to go out of your way not to state a clear position on whether the United States was justified in sending Arar to Syria.
You suggest that opposition to torture was a good reason to invade Iraq, so why arent you voicing your opposition to sending Arar to Syria?
I'm not in the mood to hear words of concern from the same people who would have, if it were their decision to make, embraced policies that would have meant hundreds of thousands of tortured Iraqis would just have to wait patiently for the UN to come to the rescue.
You conveniently set up a straw man, no one was embracing a polcy that would mean hundreds of thousands of Iraqis would be tortured, I reject your stated assumption that was the only option to immediate invasion. Surely you know that there were not only 2 options to follow that of immediate invasion or innaction, yet you misleading suggest that it was. Furthermore, you seem to be suggesting that torture alone was sufficent grounds to justify invading Iraq, that certainly wasnt the Bush Administration's position. Wolfowitz expressly said that humanitarian grounds were not sufficient to justify invading Iraq. Yes at least one good end has come to pass in terms of reducing the number of Iraqis tortured, hopefully to zero, but that particular end does not alone justify the entire venture, nor prove there were not better ways to solve the problem. We could also end torture in Syria, Iran, Cuba and North Korea, but that alone is not enough to prove it was a good idea, and you know it. There is nothing inconsistent at someone seeing torture as a very important factor to be weighed in deciding what action to do, and concluding the President handled to issue poorly, utilized diplomacy poorly and invaded prematurely.
It is not clear that your 3 links are directly comparable and, in any case, when people learn about situations like that in Guatemala and affirmatively conclude that torture was practiced they do condemn it. The problem is that is rare that the message is clearly conveyed. In Arar's case, we know the U.S. sent Arar to Syria, we know the U.S. had charged him with nothing, we know that the U.S. not only good reason to believe that he would be tortured, but some evidence that is precisely what US authorities wanted and we know he was tortured. You still dodge the far more important question, which is not whether Americans would condemn the practice, but whether they should condemn the practice.
And you demonstrate the height of "selective concern" in your final paragraph to attack Canada as trying to make America look bad. Its interesting you selectively choose not to say much about America's behavior.
The marketing division of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation defines a robot as "Your plastic pal who's fun to be with."
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| | | | | 54. Re: Selective concern | | | | by snarkism | | | | at Sat 8 Nov 2:49pm | score of 1.5 nuanced | | in reply to comment 5 | | | | | |
embraced policies that would have meant hundreds of thousands of tortured Iraqis would just have to wait patiently for the UN to come to the rescue.
OK — so they didn't "have to wait for the UN" — but that doesn't mean they are liberated.
Do you think that America's conquest of Iraq means that all the torture and human rights abuses have finished? I have seen no evidence that there is any less torture in Iraq today, now that it is US-occupied.
Terrorism and other armed attacks have increased enormously since "major combat operations" finished. How are we supposed to believe that the torture has been eliminated in Iraq, in this climate?
snarkism
That's using your ass.
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| | | | | 113. Re: Selective concern | | | | by stankow | | | | at Mon 10 Nov 6:51pm | score of 1 | | in reply to comment 54 | | | | | |
I have seen no evidence that there is any less torture in Iraq today, now that it is US-occupied. That's pretty hilarious coming from someone who's used the "logical impossibility of proving a negative" argument within the last 24 hours.
You want evidence? Saddam isn't in power, and his two psychotic sons are dead. Unless you'd like to produce witnesses that the three top people in the IGC have a torture habit anywhere near what those three assholes had, you have to admit that at the very least, the official state policy of Torture As A Means Of Political Discussion, Athletic Encouragement And Just For The Hell Of It has been damped down pretty well.
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| | | | | | 7. Dual Citizenship | | | | by Bobidus | | | | at Fri 7 Nov 7:25am | score of 2 helpful | | | | | | |
Although I don't want to defend what may be an immoral policy of sending individuals who are suspected of being associated with terrorists off to be tortured, doesn't the fact that this particular individual holds dual Syrian-Canadian citizenship at least deserve a mention in the write-up?
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| | | | | | 13. Re: Dual Citizenship | | | | by Anonymous Idiot | | | | at Fri 7 Nov 10:28am | score of 0.5 | | in reply to comment 7 | | | | | |
He was traveling with a Canadian passport. He was avoiding Syria purposely because he could be forced to serve in the military there. He had not been there in a long time.
I don't think his country of birth was really relevant in this case.
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| | | | | 29. Re: Dual Citizenship | | | | by throwawayhack | | | | at Fri 7 Nov 3:28pm | score of 1.5 brilliant | | in reply to comment 13 | | | | | |
I don't think his country of birth was really relevant in this case.
I think that it was.
You're not supposed to send individuals to countries where they might be tortured, but if this man was (say) Indonesian-Canadian and he was sent to Syria to be tortured then it would be truly heinous. In that case, Syria is clearly being used as an American proxy.
But sending a Syrian to Syria isn't so clear-cut. The choice of Syria rather than Canada does look rather suspicious to me, but my suspicions aren't proof.
I wonder what people who are stuck with Syrian nationality can do? Maybe going to the local Syrian embassy and delivering a notarised document saying "I would like to renounce my Syrian citizenship" would be some sort of evidence of one's true commitment to the other nationality. Any tangible evidence of this would be helpful (I would think) when confronted with the notoriously suspicious personnel of US Customs & Immigration.
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| | | | | 55. Re: Dual Citizenship | | | | by snarkism | | | | at Sat 8 Nov 3:02pm | score of 1 | | in reply to comment 29 | | | | | |
Maybe going to the local Syrian embassy and delivering a notarised document saying "I would like to renounce my Syrian citizenship" would be some sort of evidence of one's true commitment to the other nationality.
... or it is evidence that they are TERRORISTS because they are trying to infiltrate another country and trying to hide their true allegiance. You have to think big in the WoT, think Rumsfeld.
Besides, why should anyone have to hide where they were born? I thought the goal of this war was to bring democracy and freedom to people everywhere.
What about democratic, freedom-lovin' Yankee-type Syrians? They might be essential to bringing peace and democracy to their home nation. Yet in the West's eyes, they will always be marred with the "Syrian" label.
In other words, we aren't even giving these countries and their citizens a chance to become free and shake off the "terror sponsor" tag. Is it any wonder that people will continue to resort to terrorism, when we have already decided they are terrorists, regardless of the truth?
snarkism
That's using your ass.
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| | | | | 93. Re: Dual Citizenship | | | | by bigdumbjerk | | | | at Mon 10 Nov 10:14am | score of 1 | | in reply to comment 29 | | | | | |
I'd say that the decision to send him to Syria is more than a little suspicious — he hadn't lived there in at least 15 years.
As for the dual nationality issue, it is possible (haven't found any references on this yet) that you are not able to renounce Syrian citizenship. AFAIK, some countries follow that kind of policy. (Morocco did/does.)
Personally, I suspect that this situation was another petty swipe at Canada. (Which seem to be increasing under the current amabassadorship.)
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| | | | | 25. It is in the writeup | | | | by zanzibar | | | | at Fri 7 Nov 2:08pm | score of 2 interesting | | in reply to comment 7 | | | | | |
doesn't the fact that this particular individual holds dual Syrian-Canadian citizenship at least deserve a mention in the write-up?
As far as I know, simply being born in Syria gets you stuck with Syrian citizenship for the rest of your life. If you've gone and gotten Canadian citizenship, and there's no way to get rid of your Syrian citizenship (short of being expelled), what meaning does that really have?
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| | | | | 83. Re: It is in the writeup | | | | by throwawayhack | | | | at Sun 9 Nov 7:45pm | score of 1.5 succinct | | in reply to comment 25 | | | | | |
As far as I know, simply being born in Syria gets you stuck with Syrian citizenship for the rest of your life. If you've gone and gotten Canadian citizenship, and there's no way to get rid of your Syrian citizenship (short of being expelled), what meaning does that really have?
It provides a (flimsy) legal framework for things like this to happen to you.
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| | | | | 131. Re: Dual Citizenship | | | | by asc | | | | at Tue 11 Nov 5:38pm | score of 1 | | in reply to comment 7 | | | | | |
i have a dual bangladeshi/american citizenship and i used to live in saudi arabia (which i visit sometime), does that mean i should be deported? and where should you send someone like me? i'm not saudi, can't send me there...i've never really lived in bangladesh, send me there? where should the gov't send me? b/c it seems by their standards, i'm a huge threat...
"Texas is a state of mind. Texas is an obsession. Above all, Texas is a nation in every sense of the word."
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| | | | | | 8. It all depends on what kind of American you are. | | | | by MAYORBOB | | | | at Fri 7 Nov 7:44am | score of 1 | | | | | | |
"Would America simply stand by if any other nation treated an American citizen in such a fashion?"
If you were an American student who happened to make the grave error of being in a country when a military coup was rounding up and dispatching as many members of the democratically elected government and various Leftist hangers on, the answer is an emphatic YES!. If you were an American general who got himself kidnapped by Leftists the answer is "there isn't enough we can't do."
Tending to final details.
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| | | | | | | | 24. You Cant Alienate an "Inalienable Human right" | | | | by Philosawyer | | | | at Fri 7 Nov 2:02pm | score of 1.5 astute | | in reply to comment 12 | | | | | |
Your quote raises other issues as well:
It can be argued that a suspect has excluded himself from the social treaty by refusing to uphold the rights of others
The only way you can make such an argument is if you decide that the right to be free from torture can be forfeited or alienated. President Bush and I agree that it cant: "Freedom from torture is an inalienable human right." President George W. Bush, June 26, 2003 a www.whitehouse.gov link
Is it too much to ask for the Government to protect rather than take away inalienable rights especially when it has pointedly promised to?
The marketing division of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation defines a robot as "Your plastic pal who's fun to be with."
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| | | | | 49. Re: You Cant Alienate an "Inalienable Human right" | | | | by Adipic Acid | | | | at Sat 8 Nov 1:57pm | score of 1 | | in reply to comment 24 | | | | | |
To dive off on a tangent, do any of us truly have "inalienable" rights? Even the Founders seemed to recognize that the big three could be compromised. They pretty much supported the death penalty for certain offenses, and I think we all agree that liberty and the pursuit of happiness can be taken away as punishment for crimes.
I'm not defending a right to torture by the government here, but I'm curious as to just how "inalienable" inalienable really means.
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Churchill
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| | | | | 82. Re: You Cant Alienate an "Inalienable Human right" | | | | by irritablbowelboy | | | | at Sun 9 Nov 7:00pm | score of 1.5 compelling | | in reply to comment 49 | | | | | |
They pretty much supported the death penalty for certain offenses, and I think we all agree that liberty and the pursuit of happiness can be taken away as punishment for crimes.
Civil rights may be forfeited if the person was found guilty by a legally convened trial. Mr. Arar was never tried in the U.S., certainly not by a jury of his peers. He was sent to be tortured on the mere accusation of being a terrorist.
America is strongest when we act in accordance with our ideals.
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| | | | | 88. Re: You Cant Alienate an "Inalienable Human right" | | | | by Adipic Acid | | | | at Mon 10 Nov 5:48am | score of 1 | | in reply to comment 82 | | | | | |
As I said, I was veering off on a tangent. I wasn't defending what happened to Mr. Arar, but exploring how inalienable "inalienable" actually meant. I take it from your post that you agree that there really aren't any inalienable rights? After all, a truly inalienable right can't be legitimately taken away, period.
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Churchill
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| | | | | 94. Re: You Cant Alienate an "Inalienable Human right" | | | | by Adipic Acid | | | | at Mon 10 Nov 11:37am | score of 1 | | in reply to comment 91 | | | | | |
OK, and what might these rights be? Remember that we are saying a right that can't be legitimately taken away. So far, life is about the only one that's a slam dunk to me, and death penalty proponents would argue that even it is not truly inalienable. Furthermore, I don't think many of us would have trouble with killing in self-defense.
Is it possible that there truly are no inalienable rights? That under some circumstances we can find legitimate reasons to take away any right? If so, how do rights differ from ordinary privileges?
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Churchill
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| | | | | 99. Re: You Cant Alienate an "Inalienable Human right" | | | | by Adipic Acid | | | | at Mon 10 Nov 1:19pm | score of 1 | | in reply to comment 96 | | | | | |
The right to life would be one (maybe the only one) that I would advocate should be treated as inalienable.
It would appear that both anti-death penalty and anti-abortion advocates are in agreement with you here.
The self defense argument shifts us to a different issue I think, as when we talk about rights we're talking about individuals' interaction with the state.
Are you then saying that it is impossible for an individual to deny someone a right? Or are rights something we are all bound to respect in our interactions with each other, regardless of our status?
These are hard questions, and one of the reasons I have trouble with any argument that comes from a moral absolute like "inalienable rights." It seems that every time someone comes up with a categorical imperative, I can think of an exception to it.
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Churchill
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| | | | | 103. Re: You Cant Alienate an "Inalienable Human right" | | | | by telepanda | | | | at Mon 10 Nov 3:15pm | score of 1 | | in reply to comment 99 | | | | | |
It would appear that both anti-death penalty and anti-abortion advocates are in agreement with you here.
Funny how those are rarely the same people. (It really honestly puzzles me.)
I think we've shown that faith-based flood control doesn't work.
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| | | | | 109. Re: You Cant Alienate an "Inalienable Human right" | | | | by paul_holloway | | | | at Mon 10 Nov 5:11pm | score of 1 | | in reply to comment 94 | | | | | |
Is it possible that there truly are no inalienable rights?
My God. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is over fifty years old now. It has got many fundamental human rights within it; the following are some of the more definitely inalienable.
The right to life.
The right to be free from slavery.
The right to freedom from torture.
The right to be recognised as a person before the law.
The right to a nationality.
"Iraqis are sick of foreign people coming in their country and trying to destabilise their country" - guess who
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| | | | | 112. Re: You Cant Alienate an "Inalienable Human right" | | | | by Adipic Acid | | | | at Mon 10 Nov 5:52pm | score of 1 | | in reply to comment 109 | | | | | |
Do not appeal to the authority of a piece of paper. Convince me that under no circumstances any of those things cannot be legitimately taken away. That's the definition of inalienable we are working with here. The only two that I cannot come up with ready counterexamples for are numbers three and four. You and I both know that the others can be taken away legitimately, and therefore aren't inalienable.
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Churchill
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| | | | | 117. Re: You Cant Alienate an "Inalienable Human right" | | | | by paul_holloway | | | | at Tue 11 Nov 2:34am | score of 1 | | in reply to comment 112 | | | | | |
But under any circumstances all of those can be taken away; that is the point of having to enumerate them. I can deny you the right to be recognised as a person under law. I can kill you. I can torture you. If you are looking for things that a state cannot stop, there is the right to think what you want, or the right to metabolise glucose — but so what?
The point of those rights is to set out a baseline for the way that we as people are dealt with. And yes, they are all alienable — and all have been — which is why they have been spelt out and agreed.
"Iraqis are sick of foreign people coming in their country and trying to destabilise their country" - guess who
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| | | | | 120. Re: You Cant Alienate an "Inalienable Human right" | | | | by Adipic Acid | | | | at Tue 11 Nov 5:57am | score of 1 | | in reply to comment 117 | | | | | |
Can you do those things legitimately? If so, then the right is not inalienable. Society can legitimately deprive you of several of those rights as punishment for a crime, for example. It can even legitimately have you killed if you are an imminent danger to the life of another (a police sniper shooting a hostage taker comes to mind here.)
My point is that "inalienable rights" may be something like "the perfect good," an idealistic concept that has no real bearing in discussions of the real world.
I don't believe that what happened to Mr. Arar was legitimate, but I didn't like the reason the poster gave at the the top of this thread. It was logically inconsistent. A bad argument in favor of a good cause is worse than no argument at all.
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Churchill
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| | | | | 127. Re: You Cant Alienate an "Inalienable Human right" | | | | by paul_holloway | | | | at Tue 11 Nov 9:05am | score of 1 | | in reply to comment 120 | | | | | |
Ah, well if it is legitimacy that you are after then the position is quite clear: The UN Agreements on Human Rights. This makes it clear that a State can deprive you of your right to life, but only for those over 18 and then only for the most serious of crimes. However the covenant forbids (ie makes inalienable) the following: torture and inhuman or degrading treatment, slavery or involuntary servitude, arbitrary arrest and detention, and debtor's prisons. It also forbids propaganda advocating either war or hatred based on race, religion, national origin, or language.
And after doing a lot of scrolling up — (Philosawyer comment 24?) I would agree with him (and GWB!) that freedom from torture is an inalienable human right, based on the The UN document, which is part of the supreme law of the US (BTW do I have to throw that in to stop claims that I am appealing to bits of paper?)
"Iraqis are sick of foreign people coming in their country and trying to destabilise their country" - guess who
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| | | | | 129. Re: You Cant Alienate an "Inalienable Human right" | | | | by Adipic Acid | | | | at Tue 11 Nov 9:24am | score of 1 | | in reply to comment 127 | | | | | |
Will you stop with the appeals to authority already? It's a logical fallacy of the first order. I am interested in why you say those rights are inalienable. Are you prepared to state that the UN is a moral authority and infallible in its declarations? Would you then criticize those who hand it over to God and His declarations in the Bible or the Koran?
This is hard stuff. Even the US Founding Fathers punted on this by stating that the inalienable rights were "self-evident." I read that as "we couldn't find any proof, but we needed a high sounding phrase here." Typical Jefferson, actually. The slave-holding eloquent defender of Liberty was nothing if not logically inconsistent.
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Churchill
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| | | | | | 11. collateral damage? | | | | by Erik Riker-Coleman |  | | | at Fri 7 Nov 9:04am | score of 4 informative | | | | | | |
Arar's story is a disturbing one, certainly, but just one facet of a complex issue. Human rights groups have criticized the U.S. for using what it terms "coercive" methods in interrogating suspects in the War on Terrorism — a practice some observers have referred to as "Torture Lite." These methods, including isolation, sleep deprivation, heat, cold, uncomfortable positions, together with the evident willingness of American authorities to remand suspects to foreign intelligence services with fewer compunctions — presumably with the understanding that such individuals may then be subject to the full spectrum of interrogative pressures — do raise troubling moral questions.
Yet before one categorically denounces the employment of coercive methods in interrogation, it's worth considering the case of Jakob von Metzler. Last October, after the kidnapping of the 11 year-old son of a German banker, Frankfurt police snatched up Magnus Gaefgen picking up the ransom money. Authorities, hoping the boy might still be alive, grew desperate after the suspect led them on a series of wild goose chases. At that point, the local police chief issued a written order authorizing the use of torture to extract information on the boy's whereabouts from the Gaefgen--who caved in immediately when informed that a "specialist" was being flown in to "inflict on me pain of the sort I had never before experienced," as he recounted it. Yet the police weren't entirely bluffing--a martial arts instructor had been put on call--and one wonders what would have happened if Gaefgen had continued to hold out.
The German authorities dodged that moral bullet when Gaefgen gave it up so quickly (Metzler was already dead, it turned out)--but the issue remains: where do you draw the line when you have a suspect in custody who you have reason to believe has knowledge that may save or cost human lives depending on whether it can be extracted in a timely fashion or not?
Journalist Mark Bowden, assessing U.S. interrogative tactics in the WOT in an article in the October issue of the Atlantic Monthly, pointed to Israel's long history of dealings with suspected terrorists as instructive for American policymakers. Torture was illegal in Israel until 1987 — but was nonetheless frequently practiced by the Israeli security services. Recognizing this unpleasant reality, an Israeli commission decided to authorize "moderate physical pressure" in special cases while underlining the ban against harsher techniques. The results were disastrous, however, as the number "special cases" grew wildly--eventually 2/3 of Palestinian detainees were being subjected to it--and the distinction between "moderate physical pressure" and illegal methods was hard to pinpoint. In 1999, the policy was rescinded and all coercive methods were once again declared illegal — which is not to say that the use of coercion stopped.
But perhaps that's justifiable. Jessica Montell, executive director of B'Tselem, an Israeli human rights group, summed up the issue thusly:
If I as an interrogator feel that the person in front of me has information that can prevent a catastrophe from happening, I imagine that I would do what I would have to do in order to prevent that catastrophe from happening. The state's obligation is then to put me on trial, for breaking the law. Then I come and say these are the facts that I had at my disposal. This is what I believed at the time. This is what I thought necessary to do. I can evoke the defense of necessity, and then the court decides whether or not it's reasonable that I broke the law in order to avert this catastrophe. But it has to be that I broke the law. It can't be that there's some prior license for me to abuse people. Endorsing this logic, Bowden concludes that "the Bush Administration has adopted exactly the right posture on the matter [of coercive interrogation]....
Candor and consistency are not always public virtues. Torture is a crime against humanity, but coercion is an issue that is rightly handled with a wink, or even a touch of hypocrisy; it should be banned but also quietly practiced. Those who protest coercive methods will exaggerate their horrors, which is good: it generates a useful climate of fear. It is wise of the President to reiterate U.S. support for international agreements banning torture, and it is wise for American interrogators to employ whatever coercive methods work. It is also smart not to discuss the matter with anyone.
If interrogators step over the line from coercion to outright torture, they should be held personally responsible. But no interrogator is ever going to be prosecuted for keeping Khalid Sheikh Mohammed awake, cold, alone, and uncomfortable. Nor should he be. The Gaefgen case and the situation of people like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed do strike me as compelling arguments in favor of Bowden's thesis. Mr. Arar's experience would seemread the entire comment...
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| | | | | | 39. Re: collateral damage? | | | | by dzetetes | | | | at Fri 7 Nov 7:04pm | score of 2.5 brilliant | | in reply to comment 11 | | | | | |
...overreaching on the part of US authorities certainly does not serve the interests of the republic and should be punished, but I don't think it necessarily dictates that the policies that led to Mr. Arar's deportation should be abandoned altogether.
Michael Levin argues, unconvincingly in my opinion, that torture is justifiable when a suspect is clearly guilty and is refusing to divulge information that is time-sensitive and may save lives. There is no indication that US officials believed that Mr. Arar had such information, based on his account of the sorts of questions he was asked. His interrogation seemed to revolve primarily around his having been to Afghanistan and trained at a terrorist camp sometime in the past, not about an impending attack. In any event, after being held for several months, any useful information he had about a terrorist attack would either have come out in the interrogations or rendered irrelevant by the act being committed. Yet, he was held for over a year.
In addition, even the CIA admits that torture is a tool of limited utility, prone to backfiring and eliciting spurious intelligence.
The 'policies that led to Mr. Arar's deportation', as you so delicately term them, are a perverse inversion of one of the cornerstones of civilized law, the presumption of innocence. Without having any evidence that he was guilty of a crime, US officials chose to send him to a country where they knew he would be tortured. His name, his original nationality, and his skin color undoubtedly played a role in his arrest. Are we prepared to follow the logic of Mr. Arar's arrest to its conclusion? After all, if people of Arab origin are much more likely than non-Arabs to commit acts of terrorism, and are thus liable to detention, deportation and torture at any time because they may have information about a crime, when are we going to start rounding up random males whenever somebody is raped? After all, many more men than women commit rape, and even if we have no evidence that a particular individual has committed the rape, torture may extract a confession related to another crime.
Where is the evidence? Where is due process? Where is oversight of the mechanisms by which people are sent overseas, held virtually incommunicado, and subjected to barbaric treatment? In what way is a world in which our personal safety and the integrity of our bodies are subject to caprice and callous indifference better than the perverse systems under which the bin Ladens of the world would have us live?
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| | | | | 40. Re: collateral damage? | | | | by Erik Riker-Coleman | | | | at Fri 7 Nov 7:23pm | score of 1 | | in reply to comment 39 | | | | | |
Without having any evidence that he was guilty of a crime, US officials chose to send him to a country where they knew he would be tortured. His name, his original nationality, and his skin color undoubtedly played a role in his arrest. Are we prepared to follow the logic of Mr. Arar's arrest to its conclusion?
You're either exaggerating (not helping the argument) or not fully informed. I don't think it was the case that there was no evidence to suggest that Mr. Arar had al Qaeda ties....Arar came under suspicion, in part, because of links to Abdullah Almalki, another Syrian-born Canadian imprisoned in Syria. Almalki was picked up by Syrian authorities in 2002 upon landing in Syria after a flight from Malaysia. ... Arar said U.S. officials questioned him about why Almalki signed as a witness on a 1997 rental lease for Arar. Arar said he had forgotten that Almalki signed the lease and said he knew Almalki casually. ... it's just that based on what information we now have, the information the U.S. evidently had on Arar seems to have been pretty pathetic, as I noted above. So let the chips fall where they may.
stand up, keep fighting.
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| | | | | 41. Re: collateral damage? | | | | by dzetetes | | | | at Fri 7 Nov 7:51pm | score of 1.5 informative | | in reply to comment 40 | | | | | |
I was aware of Arar's relationship to Almalki. However, your reasoning seems to be: Arar had a relationship with Almalki. Almalki had ties to al-Qaeda. Therefore, Arar had ties to al-Qaeda. That is ridiculous. I do not think it is exaggeration to say that there was no evidence against Arar if he was held merely because Almalki once witnessed a lease (5 years previously, no less). If that, to your mind, does constitute evidence that Arar had al-Qaeda ties, I hope you would at least agree that it is not strong enough evidence to justify detaining someone for over a year and applying torture to him.
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| | | | | 46. Re: collateral damage? | | | | by Erik Riker-Coleman | | | | at Sat 8 Nov 9:38am | score of 1 | | in reply to comment 41 | | | | | |
However, your reasoning seems to be: Arar had a relationship with Almalki. Almalki had ties to al-Qaeda. Therefore, Arar had ties to al-Qaeda.
No, that isn't my argument--that was the US government's argument. Contrary to your assertion, it is more than nothing; but as you suggest [and as I stated several times] if that is all the evidence against him the case seems startlingly thin.
If that, to your mind, does constitute evidence that Arar had al-Qaeda ties [a], I hope you would at least agree that it is not strong enough evidence to justify detaining someone for over a year and applying torture to him [b].
a) by itself, it doesn't [note numerous previous statements to that effecct].
b) I do [and if you read carefully what I wrote above, I think I made that pretty clear].
stand up, keep fighting.
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| | | | | 48. Re: collateral damage? | | | | by dzetetes | | | | at Sat 8 Nov 1:08pm | score of 1.5 compelling | | in reply to comment 46 | | | | | |
Actually, I find your previous statements ambivalent. You did, at one point, suggest that the US officials may have been 'overreaching', and you stated that the evidence against Arar was thin and should not have resulted in his torture. However, you also stated that you did not feel that the policies that led to Arar's deportation should be abandoned. Unfortunately, it is exactly these policies (submitting suspects to extraordinary rendition with no real judicial oversight) that allowed Arar's deportation in the first place. Given that these policies amount to a suspension of habeas corpus for certain individuals, I do not think we can separate Arar's case from the policies that led to his deportation (i.e. treat Arar's case as exceptional, or as a one in a million anomaly that will likely never be repeated). If we support the idea of extraordinary rendition as it is practiced today, we must also admit that Arar's case, while unfortunate, does not in our eyes constitute sufficient reason to shut the program down, and in doing so, we legitimize the torture of individuals based on evidence that could not even be described as circumstantial.
Furthermore, I stand by my assertion that Arar's relationship with Almalki, if it consisted of a casual relationship and witnessing a lease in 1997, constituted absolutely no evidence that Arar had any al-Qaeda ties, if by 'ties' we mean a relationship any more meaningful than the '6 degrees to Kevin Bacon' sort. I do not think we should be expected to perform background checks on our friends and acquaintances.
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| | | | | 81. terrible acoustics. | | | | by Erik Riker-Coleman | | | | at Sun 9 Nov 4:08pm | score of 1.5 interesting | | in reply to comment 48 | | | | | |
Actually, I find your previous statements ambivalent.
Very perceptive.
Given that these policies amount to a suspension of habeas corpus for certain individuals, I do not think we can separate Arar's case from the policies that led to his deportation (i.e. treat Arar's case as exceptional, or as a one in a million anomaly that will likely never be repeated).
The question is whether these policies contribute sufficiently to the al Qaeda hunt that instances in which an (apparently) innocent person is caught up by mistake can be regarded as an accceptable risk. Your position is unambiguous, which must be gratifying for you; I'm not so sure.
If we support the idea of extraordinary rendition as it is practiced today, we must also admit that Arar's case, while unfortunate, does not in our eyes constitute sufficient reason to shut the program down, and in doing so, we legitimize the torture of individuals based on evidence that could not even be described as circumstantial.
If one agrees that torture ought to be illegal but in some cases may be justified by extraordinary circumstances, all that needs to happen is for the people who (apparently) screwed up in this case to be tried. [I said this before too.] Perhaps 'extraordinary rendition' should be junked--but as I noted, I don't think we're ever going to see a public announcement to that effect.
stand up, keep fighting.
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| | | | | | 14. Arar Deportation Immoral, Illegal&UNCONSTITUTIONAL | | | | by Philosawyer | | | | at Fri 7 Nov 11:24am | score of 3 informative | | | | | | |
All too often the current Presidential administration defends questionable practices by saying they are legal such as the treatment of prisoners in Cuba and its refusing access of an American Citizen to his lawyer for over 16 months despite being arrested in America, because the military took him off shore in a U.S. Naval vessel. This is the same administration that savaged Al Gore for responding that their was no legal binding authority to show his fundraising practices might be illegal. The truth of the matter is that just because something is legal does not answer the question whether it is moral.
In this case not only was the deportation immoral but also illegal and this action violates the U.S. Constitution and the President's oath of office.
President Ronald Reagan signed and congress later ratifed the international treaty against torture: Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading
Treatment or Punishment.
Article 2 provides that: No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat or war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture.
Article 3 provides: No State Party shall expel, return ("refouler") or extradite a person to another State where there are substantial grounds for believing that he would be in danger of being subjected to torture.
Under these circumstances deporting Arar to Syria was in direct violation of Article 3 of the Convention Against Torture.
Now some people may say: so what? Not only is the U.S. obligated to follow this treaty but the President of the United States is obligated under Article 6 of the Constitution to uphold all treaties which under the Constitution are the Supreme Law of the Land
President Bush's failure to abide by the Convention Against Torture is a failure to abide by the "Supreme Law of the land" and violates his oath of office under Article II of the Constitution (which also describes impeachment by the way).
The marketing division of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation defines a robot as "Your plastic pal who's fun to be with."
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| | | | | | 17. Re: Arar Deportation Immoral, | | | | by Kurtz | | | | at Fri 7 Nov 12:08pm | score of 1 | | in reply to comment 14 | | | | | |
Not that I disagree with your sentiment, but your 'ratified' link only lists the USA as having "RATIFIED or acceded to the UN Convention against Torture and Other Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment". The signatures link at the bottom of your 'Convention Against Torture' link indicates that the USA signed the Convention but has not yet ratified it.
--What Would Azathoth Do?
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| | | | | 20. US Ratified Convention Against Torture in 1994 | | | | by Philosawyer | | | | at Fri 7 Nov 12:40pm | score of 1 | | in reply to comment 17 | | | | | |
The United States ratified the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CAT) on October 21, 1994, and submitted its initial report as required under the treaty in October 1999. The United States' Commitment To Fight Torture
See also a www.state.gov link
The State Department often points to other nations membership on the treaty when complaining about human rights violations See for example: a usembassy.state.gov link
The United States, including this administration, has consistently and correctly called on other nations to abide by the Convention Against Torture, of course, the United States also has a clear obligation to abide by the treaty in spirit as well as word, just as it demands of other nations.
Part of the problem is that the signatures link apparently has not been updated. I noticed the same issue you call attention to and therefore researched to make sure the U.S. had in fact ratified the treaty. I found several other sources that said the US had ratified the convention, hence my first link but none of the sources I found confirming the ratification of the treaty by the United States also had the actual text of the treaty itself.
The marketing division of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation defines a robot as "Your plastic pal who's fun to be with."
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| | | | | 22. Re: US Ratified Convention Against Torture in 1994 | | | | by paul_holloway | | | | at Fri 7 Nov 1:18pm | score of 1 | | in reply to comment 20 | | | | | |
Yes, that list is very old. The important question is what is the position of the United States with respect to Article 22 — which allows for individual complaints to the Committee against Torture:
"A State Party to this Convention may at any time declare under this article that it recognizes the competence of the Committee to receive and consider communications from or on behalf of individuals subject to its jurisdiction who claim to be victims of a violation by a State Party of the provisions of the Convention. No communication shall be received by the Committee if it concerns a State Party to the Convention which has not made such a declaration."
This is a much better and more complete list of ratifiers as of the 2nd Nov 2003, which shows that the US did indeed ratify the convention on 20 Nov 1994, and furthermore the little * by the ratification date indicates that the US will accept complaints to the Committee under Article 22.
I hope that Arar, or somebody acting on his behalf, does make such a submission.
"Iraqis are sick of foreign people coming in their country and trying to destabilise their country" - guess who
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| | | | | 18. To paraphrase b43, | | | | by GodSpiral | | | | at Fri 7 Nov 12:10pm | score of 2 succinct | | in reply to comment 14 | | | | | |
If you coerce Syria, under threat of bombings/regime change, to torture and rape your chosen, you are just as guilty as the torturing rapists.
but that doesn't ring quite as cute or bushian as,
If you coerce others to torture, you're just as guilty as the torturists.
All Calculating American Satanists are Evangelical Christians
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| | | | | 21. Job Done by Capt Useless Semantics? | | | | by Philosawyer | | | | at Fri 7 Nov 12:54pm | score of 1 | | in reply to comment 19 | | | | | |
So if you are right a stallion is not a horse. The way to tell is that it's described using the word "convention" and not the word "horse."
If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck its a duck, if if you insist on calling it a mallard.
Frankly, I admit I am not a trained scholar on the semantics of International Law, so perhaps you could enlighten us with a link describing the difference between the two with an explanation as to why the President is not obligated to follow international conventions to which the U.S. is a party. While you are at it you could also explain why it is not completely hypocritical to demand every other party to the convention to follow when the US isnt?
The marketing division of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation defines a robot as "Your plastic pal who's fun to be with."
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| | | | | 36. From the duck's mouth | | | | by pdhines | | | | at Fri 7 Nov 6:41pm | score of 2 helpful | | in reply to comment 21 | | | | | |
Good question ps. In trying to Google out an answer, I found what I suspected:
The Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties defines a treaty as "an international agreement concluded between States in written form and governed by international law, whether embodied in a single instrument or in two or more related instruments and whatever its particular designation." Whether it is called a convention, a protocol, an accord, a pact, or a charter, as long as it fulfills the definition above, it is a treaty. A treaty can be between 2 nations (bilateral) or among several countries (multilateral). A treaty is usually binding only on the parties to it; however, there are certain circumstances under which non-parties to a treaty can agree to be bound by its terms... etc.
This was here. Can't vouch for it, I'm not a lawyer either.
But, hey, whether it's an international convention or a secret treaty signed in blood or just a half-assed drunken plan to get together and do it all again next weekend, what really counts is whether the parties to the agreement stand by their promise, isn't it? No matter how informally made.
Hypocrisy is the least of it. Going the "so, who's going to fucking make me?" route on issue after issue, behaving as if the only promises worth keeping are those that can't profitably be broken is... not polite. As policy, it's bad politics. It's just looking for trouble.
And bullying corrupts the bully as well as those who give into it, which is what I think we're seeing.
Torture? Who can doubt it? I don't. Might macht Reich.
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| | | | | | 47. Canada lends a hand | | | | by antistatic | | | | at Sat 8 Nov 12:54pm | score of 1.5 nuanced | | | | | | |
Arar's plight isn't all America's fault. As the Globe and Mail makes clear, Canada certainly had a role in his deportation.
More interesting, to me anyway, was the Alliance party's criticism of the Liberal government not detecting Arar's "terrorist connections" before U.S. authorities had him deported. Now, they are calling for an inquiry on how and why the government allowed him to be deported.
Ah, the sweet smell of hypocrisy.
"Imminent doom lowers the bar a bit." - Warren Zevon
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| | | | | | 51. Being Involved Not same as sharing blame | | | | by Philosawyer | | | | at Sat 8 Nov 2:32pm | score of 1.5 helpful | | in reply to comment 47 | | | | | |
Arar's plight isn't all America's fault. As the Globe and Mail makes clear, Canada certainly had a role in his deportation.
Being involved is NOT the same as sharing blame. If accurate, the Globe and Mail certainly shows that the RCMP provided information about Arar, but that does not mean the deportation was the RCMP's fault. Assuming that the information provided by Canada was reasonably believed to be true, its important that Canada and the United States share information.
The problem was not with the exchange of information, but what the United States chose to do with that information. It appears that the RCMP provided some circumstantial evidence that showed some possibility that Mr. Arar may have been friends at some time with someone who might be a member of al Queda. The U.S., not Canada, chose to send Mr. Arar to Syria to be tortured. Unless Canada provided false information or told the United States that the U.S. did not have to recognize Mr. Arar's Canadian citizenship, then it is not Canada's fault. This may have happened, but there hasnt been any evidence of it. Unless you assume either that the information was false or that prior to the incident with Arar, it was unreasonable for Canada to trust the U.S. to act responsibly with the information, then Canda does not share the fault.
The fact that Canada is being so heavily criticized will potentially be a signal to other nations to be careful before sharing any information with the U.S. about their citizens. IF that is the lesson other nations draw, it will be one more handicap that the Bush administration's heavy handed tactics has brought upon the U.S. effort to fight terrorism.
As for the smell of hypocrisy, you have no argument from me there, other than the smell in my opinion is the strongest from the White House.
The marketing division of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation defines a robot as "Your plastic pal who's fun to be with."
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| | | | | 59. Re: Canada lends a hand | | | | by snarkism | | | | at Sat 8 Nov 3:31pm | score of 1 | | in reply to comment 47 | | | | | |
Arar's plight isn't all America's fault. As the Globe and Mail makes clear, Canada certainly had a role in his deportation.
Actually, I think it is. Let's imagine that the Canadians delivered to America a pile of evidence proving that he was about to make the next 9/11-style attack.
America should have used the evidence to convict him to life in prison, or death.
If America did have enough evidence from Canada, they should have put him on trial. If they didn't they should have sent him home.
In what circumstance is it constitutional, ethical or right, to send someone to another country for torture without trial?
No matter how much evidence Canada gave the US, the US is still obligated to follow its own constitution. I mean, wouldn't a public trial be better anyway? Then the government can show that they are actually having success in the war on terror.
Only one problem, though. A trial would require evidence. The USA knew they did not have this evidence, and that an open trial would make them look bad.
So yes, it is all America's fault. Canada did not deport him. The Mounties provided a small amount of information. Even a large amount of information would not relieve America of the duty of double-checking this information, and providing Arar with due process.
snarkism
That's using your ass.
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| | | | | 71. Re: Canada lends a hand | | | | by Adipic Acid | | | | at Sun 9 Nov 10:49am | score of 1 | | in reply to comment 59 | | | | | |
If they didn't they should have sent him home.
In a legal sense, this exactly what they did. It all depends on what "home" means. It should come as no surprise that the administration used the letter of the law to get an outcome they desired. All politicians of every persuasion do so routinely. Just ask the Muslim refugees who are cleverly kept out of Australia's borders so that the nation can deport them back to deplorable conditions at "home" without the need for an extensive legal review of their status.
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Churchill
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| | | | | 84. Re: Canada lends a hand | | | | by snarkism | | | | at Sun 9 Nov 9:13pm | score of 1 | | in reply to comment 71 | | | | | |
In a legal sense, this exactly what they did. It all depends on what "home" means. It should come as no surprise that the administration used the letter of the law to get an outcome they desired.
Wrong. The letter of the law in the US explicitly prohibits deporting people to countries where torture is likely to happen. So no, the law was not followed.
snarkism
That's using your ass.
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| | | | | 89. Re: Canada lends a hand | | | | by Adipic Acid | | | | at Mon 10 Nov 5:53am | score of 1 | | in reply to comment 84 | | | | | |
Way to ignore the second point of my post snark. I guess we all have blind spots. Didn't Australia sign more than a few treaties on the treatment of refugees? As I said, all politicians do this all of the time. No one has any particular moral superiority.
To paraphrase another famous US politician, it all depends on what "is" means. What happened to Mr. Arar is despicable, but to pretend that it is in any way exceptional is a distortion of reality.
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Churchill
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| | | | | | 50. The other side of the coin | | | | by snarkism | | | | at Sat 8 Nov 2:22pm | score of 2.5 nuanced | | | | | | |
If you can forget the human rights abuses in this case, and accept that to make an omlette, you have to break a few eggs, how is the omlette going?
How many terrorists have been caught because of the "War on Terror," and how many attacks prevented?
Bueller?
Bueller ...
Bueller ...
Screwing a few people in order to catch terrorists is one thing .... but screwing over so many people, without a captured terrorist in sight? What the fuck is that?
snarkism
That's using your ass.
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| | | | | | | 60. Why the surprise? | | | | by Hiro Agonistes | | | | at Sat 8 Nov 4:28pm | score of 1 | | | | | | |
We regularly deliver citizens into dangerous prisons; we're wedded to the principle that we can't stop bad things from happening to good people (often, lest we blaspheme the Most Holy Market), but we can at least make sure that bad things happen to Bad Guys (defined as needed).
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| | | | | | 64. Irrelevant details | | | | by eduardo | | | | at Sat 8 Nov 7:45pm | score of 1 | | | | | | |
I clicked on the very first link in this writeup and found these irrelevant bits of information. Please humor me by reading them.
Arar came under suspicion, in part, because of links to Abdullah Almalki, another Syrian-born Canadian imprisoned in Syria. Almalki was picked up by Syrian authorities in 2002 upon landing in Syria after a flight from Malaysia.
....
Arar said U.S. officials questioned him about why Almalki signed as a witness on a 1997 rental lease for Arar. Arar said he had forgotten that Almalki signed the lease and said he knew Almalki casually.
I know that the reason for his initial detention isn't relevant to the final outcome. It may, however, serve as the "missing" link in the chain of events that took this guy from tourist to suspect to deportee.
The writeup is also "surprised" that this guy was deported to a terrorist country of Syrua. The link attempts to address the point too:
U.S. officials confirm that in the year following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the CIA had a growing relationship with Syria. Syria had provided helpful information not only about al Qaeda but also about terrorist plots.
But by mid-2003, the Bush administration lessened ties and shut down the intelligence relationship, according to U.S. officials. The Bush administration charged that the Syrian government had allowed personnel and equipment to flow to Iraqi forces during the war.
I.E. this guy was deported to Syria before the U.S. has given up on them as an allie in the war on terror. Perhaps now the U.S. would more readily detain this guy instead of shipping him out.
Also, the link addresses why he was "suddenly" released before trial:
Syrian officials freed Arar a month ago because the Bush administration cut communications with the government in Damascus and because they wanted to maintain good ties with the Canadian government, Moustafa said.
J'ai une petite amie avec des tres, tres grandes tetons.
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| | | | | | 66. Re: Irrelevant details | | | | by ep0nym0us | | | | at Sun 9 Nov 1:38am | score of 1 | | in reply to comment 64 | | | | | |
the "missing" link in the chain of events that took this guy from tourist to suspect to deportee
But...but...but he was just an engineer travelling on a Canadian passport from Somalia to Montreal. It was just pure shitty luck that his itinerary called for him to change planes in New York. If he'd picked a direct flight or one routed through Heathrow none of this would have happened. Think about that: a year of torture in a Syrian jail because some fucknozzle racist asshole decides that your wife and job and life mean nothing next to some signature on a lease from 5 years ago.
Think about the people you've asked to co-sign documents, including leases, business documents, passport applications.... What if, 5 years from now, you found yourself yanked out of line because they were under investigation?
Perhaps now the U.S. would more readily detain this guy instead of shipping him out.
For what? He didn't DO anything! Aw crap. The Arar case just seems to sum up all that is shitty and despicable about this current American regime. It's like they're working around the clock to ensure that anyone who doesn't already hate them finds a reason to start.
"his facts were often shaky, but his convictions were deep and abiding"
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| | | | | 70. Re: Irrelevant details | | | | by eduardo | | | | at Sun 9 Nov 10:40am | score of 1 | | in reply to comment 66 | | | | | |
So you're saying that Bush himself has reviewed this case and decided that Arar was innocent but sent him to Syria to be tortured anyway? You're going to have to support that one with more than just an aside in the last sentence.
If you have a more objective explanation, why deride for pointing out what prompted the officials to treat Arar with suspicion?
J'ai une petite amie avec des tres, tres grandes tetons.
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| | | | | 67. Ahhaa!- Still more facts hidden in first link!? | | | | by Philosawyer | | | | at Sun 9 Nov 7:42am | score of 1 | | in reply to comment 64 | | | | | |
I clicked on the very first link in this writeup and found these irrelevant bits of information. Please humor me by reading them. Despite your smarmy sarcasm, I assume you mean they are relevant or you wouldnt be quoting them just to waste our time. You sound like you are surpised to find relevant information in the very first link — did you know thats why most submitters add links, since they cant cut and paste every single relevant fact for a complex story?
Yes, Almalki signed the lease 5 years ago, so that means straight to the Syrian torture rooms? While I cant be sure that you did, many may leap to the conclusion from this little blurb that Arar probably lied about ever knowing Almalki and only admitted to being a casual aquaitance after being shown the lease. A little more context might help:
They asked me about Abdullah Almalki, and I told them I worked with his brother at high-tech firms in Ottawa, and that the Almalki family had come from Syria about the same time as mine. I told them I did not know Abdullah well, but had seen him a few times and I described the times I could remember.
I told them I had a casual relationship with him.
They were so rude with me, yelling at me that I had a selective memory. Then they pulled out a copy of my rental lease from 1997.
I could not believe they had this.I was completely shocked. They pointed out that Abdullah had signed the lease as a witness. I had completely forgotten that he had signed it for me — when we moved to Ottawa in 1997, we needed someone to witness our lease, and I phoned Abdullah's brother, and he could not come, so he sent Abdullah.
But they thought I was hiding this. I told them the truth. I had nothing to hide. I had never had problems in the United States before, and I could not believe what was happening to me." Arar's story
Of course, his memory might be selective especially after being tortured over a year in Syrian prison. The U.S. may have their own version but for whatever reason they appear to have chosen not to share the details.
The writeup is also "surprised" that this guy was deported to a terrorist country of Syrua. I am not sure how you come up with the term surprised to describe the writeup — when the actual word is right there in the writeup — "ironic". The U.S. position on Syria as a supporter of Terrorism has a history predating the latest invasion of Iraq by many years. Yes, the CIA had a growing relationship with Syria with Syria providing information they obtained via torture to the CIA. Unless it is your position and you can support it that the U.S. was completey convinced by Syria's sudden transformation from being on the wrong side of the war of terror, to the right side of the war of terror and then back again in about a years time, it remains ironic.
Also, the link addresses why he was "suddenly" released before trial:
Which is why I added the link since it provides one possible explanation, but you also neglect to quote far more relevant information from the same link:
"We believe there is no case against him." Moustafa said U.S. officials told the Syrians they had "solid information" about Arar's links to al Qaeda but never produced any.
Although you are not too clear, I gather by your account that you also believe that deporting Mr. Arar to Syria was also a mistake since your account suggests that the U.S.'s trust in Syria was sadly misplaced. However, are you also suggesting that if Syria was still providing information via torture of suspects that it is perfectly ok to send a man like Arar to be tortured on such flimsy evidence or for that matter on the basis of strong evidence since sending anyone to be tortured violates our consistently stated oppossition to torture as well as our committment to uphold the Convention Against Torture. Or by your account are our Nation's stated principles and International Obligations irrelevant?
The marketing division of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation defines a robot as "Your plastic pal who's fun to be with."
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| | | | | 69. Re: Ahhaa!- Still more facts hidden in first | | | | by eduardo | | | | at Sun 9 Nov 10:20am | score of 1 | | in reply to comment 67 | | | | | |
You're right I was using sarcasm there. Good catch. Here's the stuff you missed.
While I cant be sure that you did, many may leap to the conclusion from this little blurb that Arar probably lied about ever knowing Almalki and only admitted to being a casual aquaitance after being shown the lease.
You're right not to be sure, I didn't "leap" to that conclusion. The fact that "many" may do so doesn't mean you should cut the fact out of your writeup. This creates a context for the chain of reasoning that, as I describe it, took this guy from "tourist" to "suspect" to "deportee." Everyone agrees in retrospect that a mistake was made. It is intelectual dishonest to try to analyze what happened without giving due attention to the causes.
am not sure how you come up with the term surprised to describe the writeup — when the actual word is right there in the writeup — "ironic". The U.S. position on Syria as a supporter of Terrorism has a history predating the latest invasion of Iraq by many years. Yes, the CIA had a growing relationship with Syria with Syria providing information they obtained via torture to the CIA. Unless it is your position and you can support it that the U.S. was completey convinced by Syria's sudden transformation from being on the wrong side of the war of terror, to the right side of the war of terror and then back again in about a years time, it remains ironic.
Mock surprise is part of irony. But that's fine, I'll grant you the irony/surprise thing. Not that I am a fan of Syria, either. But your term "ironic" was used to hide away actual context. The one you now mentioned in the paragraph I just quoted.
"We believe there is no case against him." Moustafa said U.S. officials told the Syrians they had "solid information" about Arar's links to al Qaeda but never produced any.
This quote added up to "we gladly tortured him before but now the US doesn't like us and we want to kiss up to Canada instead so here you can have him back"
However, are you also suggesting that if Syria was still providing information via torture of suspects that it is perfectly ok to send a man like Arar to be tortured on such flimsy evidence or for that matter on the basis of strong evidence since sending anyone to be tortured violates our consistently stated oppossition to torture as well as our committment to uphold the Convention Against Torture.
I am not "suggesting" anything other than that your writeup omitted key contexts of what happened. The fact that you take the mere mention of these contexts suggests to you a different conclusion on the issue just highlights the importance of your omissions.
J'ai une petite amie avec des tres, tres grandes tetons.
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| | | | | 72. Everyone Agrees a Mistake except White House | | | | by Philosawyer | | | | at Sun 9 Nov 11:08am | score of 1.5 succinct | | in reply to comment 69 | | | | | |
Everyone agrees in retrospect that a mistake was made.
Part of the problem is that not everyone agrees that a mistake was made. If the White House agrees a mistake was made they have failed to admit it so far: ``I think we need to dispel the notion that this was an arbitrary decision on the part of our government,'' Ridge said in the Oct. 3 interview. ``There was sufficient information within the international intelligence community about this individual that we felt warranted his deportation.''
Likewise, not everyone agrees the extent of the mistakes and hence the focus of the write up on the broader policy implications. There is a more fundamental "mistake" than just whether Arar should have been sent to be tortured by Syria, and that is whether anyone should be sent to any country to be tortured. Arar's story illustrates a tangible individual sent to be tortured by our government, but that "mistake" has already been made, the important issue is to ensure that no fewer people be sent by our government to be tortured whether the level of evidence is better than with Arar or not. Yes mistakes were made, the important issue is what we are going to do to make sure they dont happen again. The big mistake is the fact that the United States government has a policy of sending people to be tortured.
The marketing division of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation defines a robot as "Your plastic pal who's fun to be with."
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| | | | | 74. Re: Everyone Agrees a Mistake except White House | | | | by eduardo | | | | at Sun 9 Nov 11:53am | score of 0.5 obnoxious | | in reply to comment 72 | | | | | |
There's a bit of a problem discussing a "tangiable individual" as you put it in order to understand a "big mistake." We're focusing on the plight of this guy for the sole reason of him being a Canadian citizen. The problem happened because for some inexplicable reason his Canadian citizenship was overlooked by some American officials. The other cases which the writeup lumps into the same issue are about deportees that get sent back to their country of citizenship. If you have a suspect who's not an American, what are you supposed to do except ship him on to his country of citizenship? If Arar got sent on to Canada there would be no problem.
We sent a citizen of a "non-torture" country to a "torture" country by accident.
J'ai une petite amie avec des tres, tres grandes tetons.
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| | | | | 76. You Miss the Forest Via myopic focus on Tree | | | | by Philosawyer | | | | at Sun 9 Nov 12:32pm | score of 1 | | in reply to comment 74 | | | | | |
We're focusing on the plight of this guy for the sole reason of him being a Canadian citizen. Speak for yourself Eduardo, you are focusing on that very narrow issue, if you read the rest of the thread you would find that lots of other people are not. Apparently your myopic refusal to consider the broader policy implications make it impossible for you to discuss the broader issues. The other cases are listed precisely because the issue isnt only about Mr. Arar. We sent a citizen of a "non-torture" country to a "torture" country by accident. Even the White House isnt trying to explain away the problem with such a ridiculously simplistic explanation, and in fact if you read the quote in the comment you were responding too you would have seen that (Secretary of Homeland Security) Tom Ridge's explanation directly contradicts the one you offer.
The marketing division of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation defines a robot as "Your plastic pal who's fun to be with."
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| | | | | 87. Re: Everyone Agrees a Mistake except White House | | | | by paul_holloway | | | | at Mon 10 Nov 3:34am | score of 1 | | in reply to comment 74 | | | | | |
We sent a citizen of a "non-torture" country to a "torture" country by accident.
Jesus, the bare faced lies of the right. First off, it was deliberate, not an accident. Secondly, sending anybody to a country where they will likely face torture is against US and international law. Thirdly, sending somebody to a country in the expectation and hope that they will be tortured is very wrong. And fourthly it is not only legally wrong, but morally reprehensible.
"Iraqis are sick of foreign people coming in their country and trying to destabilise their country" - guess who
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| | | | | 90. Re: Everyone Agrees a Mistake except White House | | | | by eduardo | | | | at Mon 10 Nov 7:30am | score of 0.5 obnoxious | | in reply to comment 87 | | | | | |
Is it wrong to send a Syrian back to Syria or a Egyptian back to Egypt if they've got no status in this country. Should we detain them indefinately instead?
J'ai une petite amie avec des tres, tres grandes tetons.
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| | | | | 97. Re: Everyone Agrees a Mistake except White House | | | | by Norman108 | | | | at Mon 10 Nov 12:56pm | score of 1 | | in reply to comment 90 | | | | | |
Give it a break eduardo. You are possibly, but unlikely right in the case of a Syrian. Alternatively the USA can choose to send the detainee to a neutral country, with diplomatic ties to both our countries, instead of throwing the poor fucker to the wolves.
You are patently incorrect in the case of Maher Arar, since he was a Canadian citizen. As we have strong diplomatic ties with Canada, we could have continued to detain him ourselves or "deported" him to Canada.
In man's stone-dark heart there burns a fire, That burns all veils to their root and foundation. Jelauddin Rumi
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| | | | | 100. Re: Everyone Agrees a Mistake except White House | | | | by Norman108 | | | | at Mon 10 Nov 2:10pm | score of 1 | | in reply to comment 98 | | | | | |
The point I am making is, in almost any context, whether or not the Gov't mislays a detainees actual citizenship, they still have the choice to send him to a neutral country instead of into possible torture.
I asked you to "give it a break" because your "Should we detain them indefinitely?" question borders on disingenuous.
It's not impossible to detain someone indefinitely, but even in the cases where the detainee has to be held for longer than the Gov't is comfortable doing so, it can send them on to a diplomatically neutral nation, if it actually desires to do so.
In man's stone-dark heart there burns a fire, That burns all veils to their root and foundation. Jelauddin Rumi
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| | | | | 104. Re: Everyone Agrees a Mistake except White House | | | | by J Random Loser | | | | at Mon 10 Nov 3:26pm | score of 1 | | in reply to comment 90 | | | | | |
Is it wrong to send a Syrian back to Syria or a Egyptian back to Egypt if they've got no status in this country.
Yes, according to the Convention Against Torture, especially when you tell the Syrian authorities that he is a terrorist. You cannot honestly claim that the government didn't know what would happen to him.
The tragedy of this world is that everyone has their reasons.
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| | | | | 105. Re: Everyone Agrees a Mistake except White House | | | | by eduardo | | | | at Mon 10 Nov 4:33pm | score of 1 | | in reply to comment 100 | | | | | |
Why should a neutral third country be responsible for acting as America's prison? Why would they even want to?
That actually makes no sense to me, could you explain why you think it's reasonable to expect this?
BTW: the context comment was about you mentioning Arar's Cannuck citizenry after the prior post made it clear that his case is distincively different because he was not sent to the country of his citizenship (well, he sort of was, but I agree that in this case his canadian citizenship should have been recognized)
J'ai une petite amie avec des tres, tres grandes tetons.
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| | | | | 106. Re: Everyone Agrees a Mistake except White House | | | | by eduardo | | | | at Mon 10 Nov 4:39pm | score of 1 | | in reply to comment 104 | | | | | |
That's kind of weird. It's legal to travel to Syria, it's legal to live in Syria, but it's not legal to be deported in Syria?
I pose that question with the idea in mind that most of the people in the writeup's stats (I forget which link it was) were just deported because they were initially detained for terror suspicion, turned out to have no legal status, and were just deported. I mean, even in Arar's case the Syrians were clearly free to do whatever they wanted to — including releasing him. If the gov't of Egypt or Syria decides to treat its prodigal sons with tortue, it doesn't really make sense to me. Why would you torture someone just because the U.S. kicked 'em out?
J'ai une petite amie avec des tres, tres grandes tetons.
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| | | | | 107. Re: Everyone Agrees a Mistake except White House | | | | by Norman108 | | | | at Mon 10 Nov 5:00pm | score of 1 | | in reply to comment 105 | | | | | |
"Why should a neutral third country be responsible for acting as America's prison? Why would they even want to?"
I thought this was a part of international diplomacy, especially in the cases of iffy deportations to dangerous regions. Are you saying we have nothing like this in place and/or this is never done? Am I totally off track here?
Also, we are talking about arrestees and detainees, not prisoners or even POW. Right?
In man's stone-dark heart there burns a fire, That burns all veils to their root and foundation. Jelauddin Rumi
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| | | | | 110. Re: Everyone Agrees a Mistake except White House | | | | by paul_holloway | | | | at Mon 10 Nov 5:14pm | score of 1 | | in reply to comment 90 | | | | | |
Is it wrong to send a Syrian back to Syria or a Egyptian back to Egypt if they've got no status in this country
Yes it is, if there is a reasonable suspicion that they will be tortured. Furthermore, if somebody suspects that they will be tortured US law states that a hearing must be held to decide what to do. This is something else that did not happen in the Arar case.
"Iraqis are sick of foreign people coming in their country and trying to destabilise their country" - guess who
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| | | | | 111. Re: Everyone Agrees a Mistake except White House | | | | by eduardo | | | | at Mon 10 Nov 5:34pm | score of 1 | | in reply to comment 107 | | | | | |
I dunno. You know precidents of us shipping other country's citizens to a 3rd country for them to be detained?
I mean, we're not even sending them to be detained (since we don't have a case against them) — we're deporting them for immigration reasons.
J'ai une petite amie avec des tres, tres grandes tetons.
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| | | | | 115. Re: Everyone Agrees a Mistake except White House | | | | by eduardo | | | | at Mon 10 Nov 10:15pm | score of 1 | | in reply to comment 114 | | | | | |
Thats not a different country. It's an island prison?
Why would we detain someone we haven't accused of anything? You're like Ashcroft.
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| | | | | 116. Re: Everyone Agrees a Mistake except White House | | | | by ep0nym0us | | | | at Tue 11 Nov 1:05am | score of 1 | | in reply to comment 115 | | | | | |
Thats not a different country. It's an island prison?
No fair editorializing! Oh wait — maybe you really don't realize Guantanamo Bay is part of Cuba. The cool bit, if you're a government apologist, is American law doesn't apply there. So you can do whatever the hell you like to the people you incarcerate there. Or at least that's the idea.
Why would we detain someone we haven't accused of anything? You're like Ashcroft.
WTF? Why am I like Ashcroft? Have you never heard of Jose Padilla — you know, the American citizen being held without charge or trial? They didn't even bother to ship him overseas, they're just holding him indefinitely. If you live in America and you aren't concerned with the shit your government's up to, eduardo, you're just not paying attention:
"Essentially, on orders of the executive branch, anyone could wind up imprisoned by the military with no way to assert his innocence."
That's from the link above. Arar and Padilla are just two examples of what can happen when a government decides to forgo due process. If that fact eludes you and you live in the U.S., I feel sorry for you.
"his facts were often shaky, but his convictions were deep and abiding"
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| | | | | 118. Re: Everyone Agrees a Mistake except White House | | | | by J Random Loser | | | | at Tue 11 Nov 3:23am | score of 1 | | in reply to comment 106 | | | | | |
That's kind of weird. It's legal to travel to Syria, it's legal to live in Syria, but it's not legal to be deported in Syria?
Like I said, the US cannot deport someone to a country if that action will almost certainly result in torture.
Why would you torture someone just because the U.S. kicked 'em out?
It's not like the man got deported for unpaid parking tickets. According to Syria the US told them in no uncertain terms that he was a terrorist. Their standard response to this would most likly be torture, and we knew that. We might as well have pulled out his fingernails ourselves, as far as culpability goes.
The tragedy of this world is that everyone has their reasons.
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| | | | | 123. Re: Everyone Agrees a Mistake except White House | | | | by eduardo | | | | at Tue 11 Nov 7:13am | score of 1 | | in reply to comment 116 | | | | | |
I still am not sure whether you want us to detain people for no reason (like Padilla) or to deport them back to their country of citizenship.
I am arguing for the later. A post ago you seemed to be saying (or maybe it wasn't you) that we should be shipping them to 3rd party countries like Cuba, except that you don't seem to realize that in the case of Guitmo, Fidel has no say as to whether the prisoners are housed there or not which is why I don't think it counts as a neutral country willing to hold our unnacused detainees.
J'ai une petite amie avec des tres, tres grandes tetons.
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| | | | | | | 102. I'm probably missing a point somewhere... | | | | by Armaphine | | | | at Mon 10 Nov 3:14pm | score of 2 compelling | | | | | | |
But it seems like there's all this anger directed at the U.S. (Admittedly, some level is certainly justified), but shouldn't there be an insanely higher level of scorn actually directed at Syria? I mean, it seems like people can't believe that someone could be deported to a place that tortures people, but don't seem to have the same level of scorn for the people actually doing the torturing?
Just my two cents, though...
Once again, the knife weilding maniac has shown us the way. -Bart Simpson
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| | | | | | 122. Yes, you are missing the point | | | | by Philosawyer | | | | at Tue 11 Nov 6:32am | score of 1 | | in reply to comment 102 | | | | | |
You seem to be suggesting that because what Syria did was so completely wrong, that every discussion should focus on Syria and never on the aider and abettor in this case the United States. Its patently obvious that what Syria is doing is evil, so you shouldnt be surprised if people dont see the need to repeat the obvious over and over since its hard to have a discussion if everyone feels the need to restate all first principals in every comment.
but don't seem to have the same level of scorn for the people actually doing the torturing? Only if you are either blind or intentionaly misreading the context. It is clear that what Syria does is heinously wrong and is that immense "scorn" of what Syria does that makes the U.S. policy that takes advantage of the evil behavior of Syrian intelligence itself immoral.
In case you missed it part of the discussion revolves around the fundamental committment for human rights to end torture in places like Syria and how the U.S. actions in this case fly in the face of the long held committment. Another reason to focus on the U.S. in this context is that as the sole remaining superpower it has a lot of influence that might actually bring a change to practices around the world and not just torture.
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