Comments on: Outrage

By: dop

dop — Fri, 21 Nov 2003 03:58:18 +0000

Hah! You’ve brilliantly seen through their evil ploy!

By: psetzer

psetzer — Fri, 21 Nov 2003 01:22:06 +0000

I’ve reached the point of cynicism where I know that they’ll use the fact that Arar was tortured to invade Syria on human-rights violations.

By: Katherine

Katherine — Thu, 20 Nov 2003 23:08:41 +0000

“It’s not held to apply to illegal immigrants, port of entry, or no.” it is, in fact. I’m taking immigration law right now. It’s applied in idiosyncratic, half-a**ed ways, and it doesn’t apply to people paroled by the attorney general, and U.S. statutory law has made the distinction based on legal/illegal status rather than location, and if Scalia got his way it wouldn’t apply at all.

By: BruceR

BruceR — Thu, 20 Nov 2003 22:35:42 +0000

1. None of the Sept. 11 terrorists came “through Canada.” Period. 2. Coming to Canada with your parents back in the mid ‘80s at the age of 17 does not, in most quarters, count as “coming as an adult.” Did any of the Sept. 11 hijackers live in the west for 15 years? Did any of them have kids and a wife here? Did any of them run a company? He’s the opposite of any terrorist profile… other than the fact he’s Muslim. 3. Whether Syria still considered Arar a citizen, desite him renouncing his citizenship and never visiting in 15 years, is irrelevant. He was a Canadian citizen travelling under a Canadian passport. 4. He was shipped off without a word to his wife and kids back home; they only found out where he was weeks later, when Arar managed to get in touch with them from Syria. Surely if anyone involved in this thought their actions were defensible, they wouldn’t have done it in total secrecy. The man’s incredibly lucky he wasn’t just shot on arrival. 5. The official Syrian position is that Arar was being held as a favour to the Americans, who had told them he was Al Qaeda (they had no evidence, or reason of their own to hold him). They continued to hold him after Canadian officials began negotiating for a release, presumably also as a favour to the U.S. So if nothing else, the United States is culpable in prolonging his imprisonment, by not supporting Canadian pleas for his release.

By: Keith M Ellis

Keith M Ellis — Thu, 20 Nov 2003 20:39:59 +0000

The US, notably, doesn’t have as expansive human-rights asylum laws as do Canada and many other nations. This is because A) the US isn’t as concerned about human rights as it claims to be; B) expansive asylum laws on a human rights (not anti-communism, natch) basis would antagonize important allies; C) the US values soverignity highly and is loathe to interfere with it…except with bombers and armies, of course. Or a CIA action. Jeez. I’m in a very leftist mood, today, aren’t I? And so many people think of me as a centrist, and some as a conservative. See what The Chimp has done to me and my ilk? I was afraid I was going to catch the same disease that Paul Krugman got. Damnit.

By: Keith M Ellis

Keith M Ellis — Thu, 20 Nov 2003 20:31:51 +0000

It’s not held to apply to illegal immigrants, port of entry, or no.

By: Gwendolyn

Gwendolyn — Thu, 20 Nov 2003 20:28:26 +0000

With regards to Thomas’ post above – I’m not familiar with every detail of what the Canadian Alliance has been saying, and I don’t know what exactly happened between our two governments over Mahar Arar. However, Wayne Easter’s current story is that the RCMP shared some information – what information exactly is unclear – with US officials. I have heard some allegations that the US officials involved wouldn’t deport Arar to Canada because there were no promises that he would be detained in this country. No one is admitting to actively cooperating with the decision to send Arar to Syria. I’m sure there are other posters here who know more. Some details here: http://www.thestar.ca/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1069283411628&call_pageid=968332188492&col=968793972154 Apologies for the length of the URL. With regards to a comment by Keith M Ellis, as far as I have ever heard, there was never any confirmation that any of the September 11 hijackers came through Canada. That said, I find it hard to believe that it’s legal in the US to deport people – even from airports – to countries where they may be tortured, no matter what the circumstances.

By: Katherine

Katherine — Thu, 20 Nov 2003 20:10:32 +0000

“I strongly feel that anyone on US soil has the right to Due Process.” Not only a feeling, but the law of the land. The 14th amendment says that “no person”, not “no citizen” shall be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process. But for immigration law purposes, an airport or other port of entry is not treated as part of the United States (not until you clear passport control). This doesn’t mean there aren’t statutes and regs that govern, but it’s a Constiution free zone.

By: Jeremy Osner`

Jeremy Osner` — Thu, 20 Nov 2003 19:49:57 +0000

If you’re really into self-abuse, head over to this Calpundit post and watch “moderate Bush supporters” justify the administration’s actions.

By: Thomas

Thomas — Thu, 20 Nov 2003 18:33:57 +0000

1. Arar is a citizen of Syria. He is also a citizen of Canada. Deportation to Syria doesn’t seem out of bounds. 2. There is no constitutional obligation to “charge” immigration detainees, and that has never been the practice under any Attorney General. 3. If the complaint is that this man was sent to Syria, then does it follow that no one should be sent to Syria? Or just no suspected terrorists? 4. If the deportation to Syria was accomplished on the recommendation of the CIA, should that recommendation have been ignored? Is the CIA’s expertise valuable only when it leads to particular conclusions? 5. Were Canadian officials involved in the decision to deport him to Syria? Shouldn’t we know that fact before accusing the US of wrongdoing? Aren’t there indications in the Canadian press that the Canadian government was involved in the decision? If one is going to take Canadian opposition party complaints on this matter seriously, shouldn’t we at least consider the entirety of the complaint (i.e., that the Canadian government cooperated with the US in this deportation)?

By: Ted Barlow

Ted Barlow — Thu, 20 Nov 2003 16:21:14 +0000

Keith, I think that most people would agree that it would have been appropriate to take some sort of action, based on his apparent association with a suspected terrorist. If the Justice Department had asked Canada to interrogate him, there’d be no problem. If they had grabbed him at JFK, asked him some questions, and searched his posessions, I wouldn’t think to complain. If they held him overnight to question him some more, that’s getting near the line of decency. If they were holding him based on his answers, or based on some sort of real evidence, that would be understandable. If they had charged him and gave him some semblance of due process, I could live with that. No one wants to let the next Mohammed Atta slip through our fingers. But, of course, that’s not what happened. I think you’re right, a new Attorney General would be a great first step.

By: Keith M Ellis

Keith M Ellis — Thu, 20 Nov 2003 16:21:07 +0000

“I think it’s a pathetic cop-out…” I think it’s worse than a pathetic cop-out. Didn’t someone say something about it being most important to protect rights when they are the least convenient and popular? Or did I dream that? Probably I dreamt that. I live in Texas.

By: dop

dop — Thu, 20 Nov 2003 16:16:45 +0000

I wasn’t arguing with you so much as tossing in my 2¢. :-) I guess that even though I realize the human-rights-get-tossed-during-war argument is out there, I think it’s a pathetic cop-out for our government to make.

By: Keith M Ellis

Keith M Ellis — Thu, 20 Nov 2003 16:02:04 +0000

Dop, I’m in agreement with you. I was just saying that I wouldn’t be terribly surprised to discover that he was guilty of something, and I don’t find the suspcion of him unwarranted, given what he says in his own words. But, as both you and I say, his guilt or innocence is beside the point. I don’t like this extrajudicial crap, and I don’t like this disregard for human rights. But human rights always get thrown out the window during wartime, at least in the US, and there’s lots of folks who think the US has been continually at war since 9/11, and, I suppose, will be forever. But a different Attorney General might make a big difference.

By: dop

dop — Thu, 20 Nov 2003 15:50:54 +0000

Regardless of whether he was guilty of something, for a country that preaches human rights to others, this is ghastly behavior. There is no doubt that Syria tortures prisoners, and that US officials knew this when they packaged up a Canadian citizen and sent him there. You just can’t get around the fact that, no matter where this guy was born, he was a Canadian citizen and sending him to Syria was not a legal option. Even if some of the 9-11 hijackers came in through Canada (I don’t know if they did, though I’ve heard some people say they did), none of them were Canadian citizens. Not only that, but this guy was not staying in the US —he was only there to catch his flight into Canada (it’s very difficult to fly internationally into Canada without a layover or plane-switch somewhere in the US). So again, he is much unlike the 9-11 hijackers. I’m sure this happens more than we know. Take the case of Berna Cruz earlier this year—a Canadian citizen who had her Canadian passport destroyed by US customs agents who then stuck her on a Kuwaiti airlines flight for India (with no valid ID now). She’s only one more case of this sort of abuse that comes to mind.