In Its Wisdom, U.S. Fights Terrorism By Torturing Canadians

[struggle4progress]

Published on 2/26/2005

<snip> If Ashcroft was right, then Maher Arar should have been in a U.S. prison, not talking to me in an office in downtown Ottawa. But there he was, a 34-year-old man who now wears a perpetually sad expression, talking about his recent experiences — a real-life story with the hideous aura of a hallucination. Arar's 3-year-old son, Houd, loudly crunched potato chips while his father was being interviewed. <snip>

In the fall of 2002 Arar, a Canadian citizen, suddenly found himself caught up in the cruel mockery of justice that the Bush administration has substituted for the rule of law in the post-Sept. 11 world. While attempting to change planes at New York's Kennedy Airport on his way home to Canada from a family vacation in Tunisia, he was seized by U.S. authorities, interrogated and thrown into jail. He was not charged with anything, and he never would be charged with anything, but his life would be ruined.

Arar was flown out of the United States to Jordan and then driven to Syria, where he was kept like a nocturnal animal in an unlit, underground, rat-infested cell the size of a grave. From time to time he was tortured. <snip>

He could hear other prisoners screaming as they were tortured. <snip>

http://www.theday.com/eng/web/news/re.aspx?re=2C5A122D-EE6E-4728-AB9D-05E4675406EA

[mediaman007]

1. Here I thought that we were upset with the Syrians,

now I find out that we like them. Can this administration tell the straight story on anything?

We want them to be democratic, but as long as they aren't, lets use their torture on our people.

May they have my God to answer to.

[RadicalMom]

2. This shit never ends! Have we always been quite THIS dirty, and

we're just hearing about it more now due to the abundance of info on the internet(s)? I know we've been screwing around where we don't belong for a long time, but this overwhelming oppression of anyone they feel like targeting is monstrous!