Just when you thought he couldn't get more hypocritical, here's Our Glorious Liberal Leader on the Arar settlement:
“We hope that today’s announcement brings a small amount of comfort to Mr. Arar and his family, however, the Official Opposition will continue to hold this government accountable for their actions with respect to Mr. Arar,” said Mr. Dion.
“This government preaches accountability, but the Liberal Party will push them to actually practice accountability.”
Perhaps the international Standards Authority could develop a hypocrisy scale, which would measure it, of course, in "Dions".
The payment is basically an admission that Arar was sent to Syria to be tortured.
That he was tortured has yet to proven (unless I missed something).
And why is the US keeping him on the watchlist? The ultimate Irony would be if Arar gives some of this fortune to the islamo-terrorist cause.
I'd love to see Canadian taxpayers sue the LPC for the money, and throw in some personal lawsuits as well, maybe Bill Graham for a start. Those are the people under whose watch this occurred.
Posted at 2007-01-26 16:25:23 [PermaLink][External Link]
I can wait a week, if it means there really is more to this story...
After a heated exchange in the U.S. Senate on Thursday, U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales promised to release more information about the Maher Arar case.
Check the Hansard, people. Harper and his ilk tried everything to get the LPC to stop wasting time on what they called a 'suspected terrorist'. He hardly supported any efforts on Arar's part from the beginning, and then not until it was politically advantageous. Harper's partisan comments today (both the letter and the press statement) show he has no class and used Arar's suffering to further his political ends.
Posted at 2007-01-26 16:48:44 [PermaLink]Mr.Arar has never taken the stand in a Courtroom to swear on a Quran and tell his story
so we all can see what happened that lead to the USA denying Arar entry at JFK .
This new standard for dual Citizens to Globe-Trot in the Middle East and when they get in trouble they Sue Canada, will be a magnet for scam artists that will tie up our Judges and Courts with vague claims that all happened outside of Canada.
This is a insult to William Samson who actually suffered torture in a Saudi jail for 3 years while Liberals knew all about it and Bill Graham feared harming the relation with thr Royal Family in Saudi Arabia.
Hamas must be dancing in the Streets now that
a Palestinian Sunni Muslims in canada has $$$$ to fund suicide bombers and build Jihadist camps in B.C. to train future martyrs in Canada.
According to the UN's web site [External Link]Syria was a member to the UN's Commission on Human Rights through 2003. Why does this NEVER get mentioned? Why does Syria get off scott free?
Posted at 2007-01-26 18:45:30 [PermaLink]I still don't understand why Syria tortured him. If he was suspected of being a terrorist, why would Syria torture him when they in actuality support terrorism? If he didn't have ties to terrorism, then why torture him?
Can someone explain why Syria tortured him in the context I just stated.
And....why wouldn't Arar give up his Syrian citizenship? or has he?
I have a question for the right-wing nut jobs in here:
Why would the United States send a terrorist back to a terror-supporting state? What is the logic? Wouldn't that be like the Allied powers releasing captured Nazi soldiers back to Germany during WWI?
Either:
1) Arar is a terrorist and the Americans sent him to Syria because Syria is not a supporter of international terror contrary to whatever Bush and the Americans may say (i.e They're liers).
2) Arar is a terrorist and the Americans sent him back to Syria although they believe/know that Syria supports international terrorism. In that case, the Americans are insane and incompetent. While they're at it, they may as well release Khalid Sheikh Mohamed back to Al Qaeda.
3) Arar is innocent.
Moreover, since when did the absence of evidence make someone is guilty?
Marc, you seem to be the only nut-job here, an immature one too. Didn't you learn in grade six to quit calling people names??? Or does it make you feel superior?
p.s. check your spelling
I'm disappointed in Arar - and, I guess, peeved, too. I agree with his frustration with Canada, but he's never criticized Syria, so far as I know.
I've come to believe in not allowing dual citizenships - I think. It occurred to me last night that this wouldn't have happened if Arar had given up his Syrian citizenship (why would you even want to keep that?)
Gord Tulk wrote > “payment was an admission that Arar was sent to Syria to be tortured”.
By “to be tortured” I hope you didn’t mean, as CBC’s Don Newman meant it (see [External Link]) ‘for the purpose of having him tortured’?
I thought Newman’s assertion absurd. But I do agree that we only have Arar’s claim that he was tortured. The Commission of Inquiry certainly didn’t make a convincing case - they ultimately just accepted Arar’s story.
Marc, you can add another possibility to your list:
(4) The Americans 'suspected' Arar of having terrorist links (based on information provided by the RCMP). Since they didn’t have enough to convict him of anything they decided to send him to his other home country, Syria - as far as possible from the U.S. border.
So when are the Rcmp,Csis,Cabinet ministers,etc going to pay for their pitifull perfomances in all of this?How come the actual people responsible for this injustice get to continue in their careers.
Posted at 2007-01-26 21:13:27 [PermaLink]"That he was tortured has yet to proven (unless I missed something)."
No, you didn't miss anything, Gord, but the CBC certainly has. They've been reporting Arar was tortured as a statement of fact since O'Connor's findings were released. For the record, I suspect he probably was tortured, but Arar making the claim, and O'Connor saying he believes him, doesn't make it proven fact. The CBC shouldn't be reporting it that way.
"I have a question for the right-wing nut jobs in here:
Why would the United States send a terrorist back to a terror-supporting state? What is the logic? Wouldn't that be like the Allied powers releasing captured Nazi soldiers back to Germany during WWI?"
Why that would be obvious to anyone who isn't a frothing left wing head case, Marc.
Canada didn't have sufficient evidence to charge him with terrorism-related offences. Neither did the U.S. Both believed he was certainly a terrorist sympathizer. The United States simply took advantage of the fact that he was a Syrian citizen too, and put 5000 miles between him and the U.S. mainland.
Given the choice between having Arar in Canada or having him in Syria, they picked Syria. One more terrorist sympathizer in the Arab world makes it, what, 47,546,331 instead of 47,546,330? Pefectly understandable to me.
So now Maher Arar can begin to get on with his life after his terrible ordeal. He was exonerated by the Cdn. govt. He was subjected to physical and psychological torture. He spent 10 months in a Syrian jail. He spent 3 years trying to clear his name. He can never get his life back. I never cried.
David Milgard was a 17 year old boy. He was convicted of a murder he did not commit. He spent 23 years in a Canadian prison. He was raped and tortured by his fellow inmates. He was almost killed by Toronto police trying to escape the psychological torture he was enduring. He was not exonerated until five years after his release (that's 28 years). He has no life to get back. Since he gained his freedom he has suffered severe bouts of depression and has been hospitalized several times. He also received $10 million dollars. I cried several times watching the empassioned pleas of his mother who fought tirelessly for her son's life for 28 years.
Something is wrong here.
It's a bit strange too isn't it that Arar sued for something like $400 million....and then accepted $10 million? I may have the first number wrong, but I know that the original suit was for a ridiculous amount. Firstly, why sue for a ridiculous amount? Secondly, why settle for something that is only a fraction of that?
Still lots of questions unanswered to satisfy the Canadian public.
There's more to Arar than meets the eye. I don't believe for a second that he doesn't have connections to terrorism, and the bungled investigation into his affiliations by the Canadian government doesn't exhonerate him in my mind. Why on earth was he a "person of interest" to start with? Why are the Americans keeping him on the no-fly list? I don't buy his woe-is-me routine for a second.
Posted at 2007-01-26 22:22:40 [PermaLink]S.O; MikeH and JR have summed it up nicely.
Mahar Arar may well BE sympathetic toward Islamic doctrine, that doesn't make him guilty of terrorism. There's also no evidence that he IS supportive of their cause.
When Canada gave the US the 'nudge, nudge, wink wink' regarding their (our) suspicions they conspired in whatever the US finally decided to do inspite of the fact that he is/was a Canadian citizen and entitled to all the rights and protection that provides (not a lot apparently...)
Before you get your self in a knot here, consider the dog's breakfast CSIS and the RCMP created in the AirIndia case, and that PROVEN terrorists are walking free here in Canada.
DaninVan:
Government incompetence notwithstanding (and I completely agree that it has made a mess of many affairs), what concerns me is that people are missing the bigger picture.
Arar was exhibiting patterns that went well beyond "sympathy for Islamic doctrine" and had LIED about it (such as his associations with "person of interest" Almalki and travelling to places considered as hives of extremism). These facts have been completely whitewashed in the frenzy of self-flagellation that has ensued, compliments of the media. And while he may not be the type to strap on explosives and take a swan dive off the Peace Tower, there are many other ways of contributing to the cause, as it were. Unfortunately, due to government incompetence,we will never know the full extent of his involvement.
Does anyone know why he left Syria in the first place and chose Canada to live in?
Posted at 2007-01-27 09:10:49 [PermaLink]You can't give up Syrian citizenship if you're a man of military age (which Arar still is). Syria just won't recognize your renunciation.
That's not an uncommon position by dictatorships. Egypt doesn't allow men to renounce citizenship without official permission -- which is rarely given. That's one of the reasons Canada allows dual citizenship. It would be unfair to deny someone Canadian citizenship becuase Bashar Assad won't let the person free.
If the discussion of dual citizenship were fact based, instead of hysteria-based, this point would already be common knowledge.
More info
[External Link]
I'd also note that I thinkt he tone of this comment thread pretty accurately sums up the views of Damian's readership. Good job, Damian.
I don't care about the danegeld. What I'd like to know is whether or not the Arars will be leaving Canada.
Posted at 2007-01-27 12:02:35 [PermaLink]Haven't they just recently moved to Kamloops, B.C., John P? Not exactly a hotbed of extremism up there...
[External Link]
As far as I'm concerned, until somebody proves conclusively that Arar is a terrorist or even a loon, he's welcome to bring and spend his "Danegeld" here in B.C.
$10M would buy a pretty nice ranch up there.[External Link]
Ikram; good points, esp. on the dual citizenship. You have probably noticed the past threads on this issue re our GG and Dion (plus a few others); there was no mention by the respective subjects, in news interviews, of their inability to shed their excess nationality through legal obstacles...snot on a doorknob syndrome, as it were.
Hopefully your remark about Damian's audience was meant to be positive as it could easily be taken either way, eh?
One of the 'Anonymouses' (sp?) asked, "I still don't understand why Syria tortured him. If he was suspected of being a terrorist, why would Syria torture him when they in actuality support terrorism? If he didn't have ties to terrorism, then why torture him? "
Likely because Syria is controlled by the Ba'ath Party [External Link]and it's adherents have as much to fear from Islamic fundamentalism as the Saudi Royals do. As long as I can remember the concept of Arab solidarity has been a huge oxymoron and pan Arab support for al Qaeda is a non-starter.
Syria and Iran are NOT allies, in spite of what the media would have us believe.
Thank you Ikram for the link. I read all 233 pages. Kidding. :-)
Thanks to DaninVan for the explanation about why Syria would torture Arar. As for the Arab solidarity "myth", I believe you are correct.
Once the infidels are either killed, or dominated, then the real war can begin....arab vs arab.....muslim vs muslim...
"Syria and Iran are NOT allies, in spite of what the media would have us believe."
They are, at least for now. They signed a mutual defense treaty in 2004. There are a number of reasons why, not least of which is to avoid becoming the next Iraq. The Council on Foreign Relations has a good piece on why the two are cooperating. [External Link]
"It would be unfair to deny someone Canadian citizenship becuase Bashar Assad won't let the person free."
If a person renounces their Syrian citizenship when becoming Canadian, there's no reason why Canada should recognize Syria's claim. Quite frankly, such claims have nothing to do with allowing people to retain their old nationality when becoming citizens. You cannot be a patriotic citizen of two countries.
The more interesting question is why the U.S. used extraordinary rendition to send Arar to Syria, a country not hitherto known as being friendly to U.S. interests. Purportedly the most common extraordinary rendition destinations are (or were) Morocco, Jordan, Egypt, and Syria. I can understand the first three, but not the fourth.
The policy has its origins in the early 90s and was controversial then. Curiously a big proponent was then Vice president Al Gore, who was for it before he was agin it. [External Link]
Paying Arar should trouble Canadians on so many levels. In a time of war, mistakes are made and it looks like the RCMP made one. To extrapolate from this mistake and blame the year of possible torture in Syria on Canada is simply ridiculous.
Furthermore, there are injustices everyday in this country and everywhere else. Canada panders to criminals by being soft on crime and trying to reform rather than punish criminals. Victims of crime deserve restitution for their suffering, but they don't receive any help at all. The government needs to be held accountable for decades of mismanagement of justice. If Arar gets over 10 million dollars then it's time to demand that victims of crime get similar compensation. That needs to be the message that comes out of this.
Bruce; sorry, bad choice of wording on my part. That link you supplied does a great job of clarifying the relationship.
Posted at 2007-01-27 20:37:32 [PermaLink]Dan, I agree with you on the bigger point that Arab solidarity is largely a myth. Moreover, most Iranians are not Arabs and the small Iranian Arab minority is oppressed.
Posted at 2007-01-27 21:25:58 [PermaLink]What the RCMP did was not a big deal. They did not maliciously give false information to the Americans. The US simply went ahead on intelligence from numerous sources, Canada being one of them.
A terrible mistake.
Just to be clear, I do have a problem with extraordinary rendition.
Even if you take the view that, as unlawful combatants, terrorists have few rights, there must still be a reliable means of determining whether a person is a terrorist, and I don't trust the CIA or any other government agency to make that determination without oversight and some level of transparency. It's one thing when a person receives due process yet is wrongfully convicted and sent to prison, which happens. It is something very different to snatch people to be tortured.
We can only guess as to whether Arar was associated with terrorism, or not, and that's pretty frightening - even in time of war.
Arar is likely to use his 10 million to fund the next terror operation in Canada. He is no dummy.
Posted at 2007-01-28 08:30:27 [PermaLink]Faramir:
Arar will lay low, I suspect. I think that is why he moved to B.C. Maybe Monia will make a play for the NDP ticket again, but judging from her last election results in Ottawa, The Arars have no more pity credit from the public. You know the proverbial dead horse has been flogged when Frank Magazine lists you as one of Canada's "Top 100 Wankers"...
The size of this settlement is obscene and out of all proportion with events. The money belongs to the Canadian people who are not responsible for the Syrians' actions. Mr. Arar is, afterall, a Syrian as well as a Canadian but, the Syrian government see him as a Syrian first and a Canadian second (did you read the Arar Commission Report?). He drew attention to himself from a security standpoint by associating with some bad company and became "a person of interest". Those circumstances have never been explained away by Mr. Arar. All this hype over the commission and the morale outrage has made people forget that he would never have had all this trouble if he not been under investigation by the security services. It seems bizarre in the extreme that Canada should hold itself to blame and then dip its hand into taxpayers' coffers to make amends. No! No! No! - this is totally wrong and ought to be stopped - c'mon wake up, say something !
Posted at 2007-02-08 00:01:47 [PermaLink]