The Arar case has rightly attracted a lot of attention; Brian has already linked to Katherine’s great series on the subject at “Obsidian Wings”:http://obsidianwings.blogs.com/. Still, it seems to me that there’s one angle that hasn’t received enough attention in the US debate. The Bush administration aren’t the only bad guys in this story. It appears that “elements in Canada’s RCMP”:http://www.globeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/TPStory/LAC/20040110/ARAR10//?query=Arar leaked erroneous information to US authorities, which caused them to take a particular interest in Arar’s travel plans and activities. This points to a more serious underlying problem – the creation of more or less unaccountable networks involving and intelligence and law enforcement officials across different states. Indeed, without networks of this sort, the US wouldn’t have sent Arar to Syria to be tortured in the first place; US intelligence officials wouldn’t have had access to any information that he might have revealed.
Transgovernmental networks have been around for a while in various policy areas; a few years ago, Anne-Marie Slaughter wrote a highly relevant “paper”:http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/delivery.cfm/000209651.pdf?abstractid=209319 on the problems that they pose for democratic legitimacy. They’ve grown vastly more important – and more troubling in their implications – since then. Accountability disappears into a maze of shadowy relations between states – it becomes impossible to figure out who is to blame for any particular decision, and whom to hold responsible. Certainly, it has made it very difficult for Paul Martin to criticize the US; his officials seem to be “engaged in a cover-up”:http://www.globeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20040114.wspector0114/BNStory/International/.
{ 6 comments }
BruceR 01.15.04 at 9:54 pm
To be fair, all we “know” yet re RCMP involvement is Arar’s own surmise of what might have happened. We don’t know exactly what information was collected by the RCMP (other than that document cosigned with Almalki), what of that info was passed on, and how that was interpreted (or misinterpreted) in the light of Arar’s statements to American officials in New York.
What we do seem to have clear is that there were no Canadian officials at Arar’s questioning and that the decision to later deport him to Syria was taken without consulting the Canadian government. There is, obviously, a difference between consenting to Arar’s being held and interrogated in New York en route home, and consenting to him being deported to Syria for torture. It’s entirely possible the RCMP was only party to the former, in which case, had Arar been then returned to Canadian hands as everyone in our government apparently expected, then it would be hard to seriously fault them. It is really the second, apparently unilateral American decision to deport to Syria that is the outrage here.
Which is, of course, why we need a public inquiry into the matter.
Katherine 01.15.04 at 10:49 pm
I’m starting to believe that Almalki may have named Arar under torture in Syria. It’s the only way I can even start to make sense of these facts:
1. Arar really seems to be innocent.
2. The U.S. government went to considerable lengths, (yep, that’s yet another post) considerable lengths to deport him; it really sounds much more like a CIA effort than some low level INS SNAFU.
3. Arar had his work permit to the U.S. renewed without a problem in April of 2002.
4. Almalki was arrested in Syria in May of 2002.
5. Arar encountered Almalki in a Syrian prison in September of 2003, and said Almalki had been severely tortured.
Stu 01.15.04 at 11:08 pm
Couple of points –
If the RCMP had info on Arar that led them to believe he had terrorist connection, and he was connecting flights in the US, they did the right thing – they passed on the info. Whether the info was erroroneous or not is irrelevant, because if due process had been followed by US authorities, he would have been sent home to face investigation. If the RCMP had requested deportation to Syria, that too would have been ignored if due process was followed. The US authorities had no right to arrest Arar, he had not passed through customs, and was not officially in the US.
Also, even if Almalki fingered him from Syria, why would the US send him to an essentially hostile nation? Wouldn’t they want to hang on to him? What kind of extradition treaties exist between the US and Syria anyway?
Yes, there really needs to be an investigation on both sides of the border.
Katherine 01.16.04 at 1:38 am
I’m really amazed by how little coverage it’s gotten in the U.S. I’m usually not fond of using Nexis hits to measure the press’ bias/diligence/whatever but in this case I’ll make an exception.
# of hits for “Maher Arar” in Canadian sources: 913.
# of hits for “Maher Arar” in U.S. sources:
67.
The Canadian sources include some TV transcripts as well as newspapers while the U.S. is just newspapers. But the United States database includes many more newspapers, and my guess is there’s been very little TV coverage (I’ve seen none).
Conrad Barwa 01.16.04 at 11:46 am
This points to a more serious underlying problem – the creation of more or less unaccountable networks involving and intelligence and law enforcement officials across different states. Indeed, without networks of this sort, the US wouldn’t have sent Arar to Syria to be tortured in the first place; US intelligence officials wouldn’t have had access to any information that he might have revealed.
In a sense some of these networks have existed for a long time; much of it was semi-official and institutionalised like ECHELON and other listening networks. Before the WoT, much of was being switched to narrower circuits as commercial espionage became the main objective as opposed to conventional intelligence work; in the words of one US intel Chief to European countries that protested about this “Yes, my friends we spy on you – because you cheatâ€. Some of the networks would have been expanded and reworked along older lines.
Antoni Jaume 01.16.04 at 8:45 pm
I remember reading that the intelligence services are usually forbidden to act on citizen on their state, and some claim about ECHELON being, amongst other thing, a scheme to get behind that restriction, so the USA would get information on US citizen from the UK, and viceversa.
DSW
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