It is obvious that old phrase 'the terrorists have won' is increasinlgy accurate.

Here we have an innocent man who has been let down by three governments; the Canadian for letting the RCMP get away with their misdeeds; the American for their policy of 'Extraordinary Rendition' to known state-sponsored terrorist countries, and the Syrian for, well, being the animals that they are.

And now, when this gentlemens' innocence is proven, the RCMP, Canadian and US governments hide under the blankets like spoiled children. "I'm not going to say sorry, he's mean" - Is it too much to ask that our politicans stop acting like they are in grade 9?

The North America I grew up in is gone, snatched by a combination of a 13th century world-view and idiot politicians that would rather scream chicken little and erode the freedoms of both our countries rather than tackle the problem head-on.

Disgusting

Harper should stop calling Blair; not everyone can do slippery.

Big problems here. Within Canada, certainly Mr. Arar is suffering. Every month that he has to wait he is loosing about $1.6 million dollar in interest alone of his $400 million claim (based on 5%/yr). Also, most certainly the Royal Canadian Mounted Police is guilty and appropriate action should be taken - they're riding high but thinking low (just fire a few - always works - incidentaly, Giuliano Zaccardelli is an interesting name for the commissioner of the Mounted Police (actually I expected something more like "Bruce Snow" or "Chuck White" or whatever - is going to be difficult for a movie on this), and last but not least the present Prime Minister Stephen Harper who obviously is hiding behind the crowds. A coward perhaps? To a lesser extend, the USA Government is somewhat to blame - let's face it they trusted Canada. Well, lessons learned! And last-but-not-least, the Moslim Brothers in Canada. Didn't hear a thing about them. Where were they? Hiding perhaps - if so, why? One of their friends-relatives-brothers is being tortured and they keep quiet. Not good. With respect to Canada and USA sending Mr. Arar to Syria is like being a Syrian agent yourself. You get tortured there - Everybody knows. Somehow, Syria comes out smelling like a rose. They kept Mr. Arar alive.

I believe any country who signed the Geneva Convention is oblidged to arrest anyone guilty of a war crime if that person lands on their soil. I believe a warrent for arrest must be issued. I know Sharon was subject to legal action in Belgium, Pinochet in Spain, and an Israeli General in England. In the latter case, he was obliged to hide in a restroom until his plane returned to Israel. There was some speculation in the Israel press on how their generals could be protected legally when going overseas for training. Because of the torture memo, I believe Bush, Cheney, Gonzalez, and Rumsfeld might need to be careful about foreign travel after they leave office. There is some protection legally for them as government officials, but it disappears when they leave office.
I have no problem with another country arresting them, because our own Congress is too corrupt or cowardly to impeach these low life and put them in jail where they belong.
It is my belief that ordinary prisoners of war that do not commit a criminal act come under the the Geneva Convention. Those who commited a criminal act should be treated as criminals under American law, and subject to the same rights as American Criminals. American law worked quite well with the Oklahoma City Bombing, and it can work quite well with the 9/11 highjackers if proper legal procedures are followed. I'll bet money that the Bush Administration has really messed up the case against these people with the torture memo. There is little doubt in my mind that these people would face the death penalty if proper procedures were followed. Maybe we will get lucky, and members of the Bush Administration will get arrested on their next trip overseas.

The US gov't is not "Somewhat to blame." It took sketchy information from Canada and shipped an innocent man to a country where we know torture takes place. We concealed our plan to send him to Syria from Canada. Then, when he's tortured (Condi Rice says, she's shocked, shocked to find there's torture going on in Syria), we claim we can't even respond to his lawsuit because the ability to send people abroad to be tortured is too precious a resource to be discussed in the courts! Let's not pat ourselves on the back here. We should kick the lousy bastards who arranged this out of office.

@@:SteveH
You just doubled the guilt complex of Canada. They gave Arar to the US and didn't expect him to be tortured at some secret place or Quantanamo. They can't be that stupid - although you just mentioned Condi.

Move on and get over it!

@che
Your thing about Mark Foley has nothing to do with Mr. Arar, Canada, etc. but this time why not - it is a big issue and J. Morley should have opened the books by now. In any event I noticed that on Google this Foley caracter has already some 45 pages which started about 3 days back. Me personally in 20 years of doing honest work have only one quarter page on Google. Not fair.

To Pragmitist:

"Move on and get over it!"

I wonder if you said the same thing when Clinton was being demonized DAILY by Republicans for Monica Lewinsky.

So a man is plucked off the streets, separated from his family, sent to a foreign country where he is tortured repeatedly for months - no doubt he will be having nightmares for the rest of his life - and you want him to move on? I guess it's okay since he's not white.

While I wouldn't wish this on you, but if you ever find yourself in a similar situation -- say you're traveling to a foreign country for vacation -- and were accused of spying and were tortured and jailed, I'm sure you'd want at least an apology.

That is, if you're ever freed.

Good article overall. But I wonder why Mr. Morley failed to mention the fact that it was the U.S. government that made the decision to send Arar to Syria to be tortured?

Where's Jean Chretien? Why isn't he the one to apologize?

It is, of course, a complete lie to say that we sent Arar to Syria "to be tortured".

But the left never cared about the truth anyway.

@Joe America.
Good point about Jean Chretien - indeed him being the former Canadian PM is part of it all. Bytheway, he and Bush did get along OK, so I'm sure he knew what was going on. What is your point about "It is, of course, a complete lie to say that we sent Arar to Syria "to be tortured ... etc. Not clear. Explain.

Here is a completely innocent Canadian citizen, tortured by our government, then cast back into society with no recourse whatsoever.

Mark my words, if we allow these nutjobs in the current administration to continue to push the country down this path, American citizens will be "disappeared" and tortured in the name of national security before it's all over.

Stalin and Hitler both used issues of national security as pretext to begin their programs. By the time they were finished, millions had died (they say Stalin killed 60 million). They did so with the overwhelming support of their respective parties (both ultra right and ultra left).

While our own governemt willfully erodes our moral standing and reputation in the world with legislation like the torture bill and acts like the one described above, They are simultaneously working to create a more fertile environment for terrorsim in the middle east.

The debacle of Iraq (which had absolutly nothing to do with world terrorism BEFORE the war), The debacle of Lebanon (which probably has done at least as much damage to our reputation and moral standing as Iraq while achieving absolutely nothing) and the wishlist of other debacles (Iran and Syria) have done nothing to reduce terrorism, but rather have increased it worldwide according to the National Itelligence Estimate.

Meanwhile, while no one was looking, the Israeli settlers in the West Bank and East jerusalem have increased thier population by about 30 thousand during the period that they were supposed to be withdrawing. The Palestinian conflict (driven by the Israeli settlers) was the beginning of ME world terrorism and the engine that still drives a great deal of recruiting and funding, yet we allow the Israeli ultra right to continue to fan the flames of terrorism (and even help pay for it by simply giving Israel 3 to 6 billion dollars a year of US taxpayer money).

To suggest that this administration has been utterly ineffectual in the war on terrorism would be complimentary. They have increased terrorism and the threat to US security, while simultaneously eroding our constitutional rights and moral standing in the world community.

In addition, while no one was watching, Germany passed the United states in total exports; yes Germany, (a country of 80 million in a space a little smaller than the state of wisconsin) exports more goods than the entire US economy.

And, North Korea is heading towards Nuclear testing.

But I suppose all the "new markets" that are emerging will somehow make up for all of that temporarily lost export power. all we have to do is tell these countries to " take our goods at the prices we want, or we'll waterboard you!"

J

Joe America - you said "It is, of course, a complete lie to say that we sent Arar to Syria "to be tortured" But the left never cared about the truth anyway."

Huh? Why else would they send a third national to a country with a known history of torture? Would it not make sense that they would deport Mr. Arar to his current country of residence and citizenship, which at the time was Canada?

Oh, right, Canada is supposedly "weak on terror" - you probably still beleive the fallacy that some of the 9/11 bombers came through Canada, which has been disproven time and time again.

We should torture many more muslims.

KJ took exception to my suggestion that it was time to "Move on and get over it!"

First, thanks for the information that Mr. Anwar is not white as I did not consider race in my comments. If I had it would not have changed my comment.

There already have been lots of apologies and success in the $400,000,000 suit might be even better than another apology.

I found the statement, "And every day I wait I'm suffering more and more." self-indulgent.

With self pity one can remain unhappy forever. We admire those who overcome adverse avents.

The reason Arar wants an apology from Harper is that:
a) the State is supposed to apologise through its current leader. When the US apologised for slavery, did someone say: "This should be George Washington's responsibility"?

b) More importantly, Harper and his current 'public safety' minister Stockwell Day both called Arar a terrorist in Parliament. Both criticised the Liberal government for trying to get Arar back from Syria. And both again criticised the Liberal government for setting up an inquiry into the kidnapping and torture of Mr Arar.

The Mounties are out of control, unaccountable, and incompetent to perform intelligence work.

They're also in a symbiotic relationship with the Conservatives. Just weeks before the last election, the Mounties loudly announced an investigation of a Liberal minister for corruption. As soon as the Tories had won the election, they dropped it. The Tories then announced vast new spending programs for their party attack dogs, the Mounties.

Everybody wins. Except Canadian democracy.

PS - It's spelled 'Pragmatist'.

As a conservative Canadian I say Maher Arar is entitled to an Apology by P.M. Harper on behalf of the Canadian Goverment for this monumental screw-up by our federal police force.
Whatever settlement he is paid will reflect on the fairness of The Canadian Justice system for years to come.
I can say without reservation,I,m Glad I have light brown hair and blue eyes in the present climate in Canada & USA.
The madness continues everyday!

When i first heard this story as an american citizen presently vacationing for several months in Canada, i was shocked! I have been here now for a month or so.... But i was deeply wounded by hearing that a man any man was extradited to a foreign country for torture. I wasn't more offeneded that woops turns out he is inoocent.... We screwed up! And yes i mean WE. Someone said this was the fault of America and that Canada really bears a lesser guilt. I don't agree, who is the bigger fool the fool or the fool who follows him? Canada made a crappy choice but it made a choice to hand this man guilty or innocent over to have him shipped off to Syria for torture. The fact that America would even request such a thing and over step the bounds of Canada's sovereignty in such a way is also a heinous misdeed. One that Canada should not sit back and just accept.One that Canada could have at the time have chosen not to accept. You are a sovereign nation. Start bleeding acting like one. You are the only hope in this nightmare from hell that has become the united states, that some of us have. Don't let us down. Please... But also don't blame us for your crappy choices. Blame us for putting you in the position to have to choose but don't you dare blame us for the choice you made. You and you alone are responsibile for what happened to that man. You could have said no. Worst case scenario, war mongering Bush would have declared war on Canada. He would have been exposed as the psycho nutjob that he is and his rein of terror would be promptly ended. We value our canadian neighbors now more than ever. Instead you chose to hand a man over to be taken to a foreign country to be tortured. What america does on her soil you have no control over what happens here in Canada is not america's business. Please tell the vile demagogs in office where to stick it. Tell them it makes no difference if a man is guilty or innocent. We are civilized human beings and though the actions of some make them unacceptable for common society that does not make them targets for torture and inhumane acts done against them. Or have we become the terrorists we are trying to stomp out? What is the cost of fighting terror? I don't mean the monetary values... It seemns each day our rights erode further and our humanity is forfeit all so a small select group of old men with no human decency can make a profit selling us all war toys. Where does it end? We have an innocent man shipped to a foreign country and no one apologizing and more than that no one accepting blame. Instead we have everyone screaming it is the government's fault. But that isn't so. IT IS THE FAULT OF A PEOPLE ANY PEOPLE WHO CHOOSE TO ACCEPT A CORRUPT GOVERNMENT! Complain about it does not solve the problem. The power lies with YOU there is no reason you should accept the government as your authority. I had a personal impeachment of Bush ceremony all alone in my basement YEARS ago. I have stood up i have protested. I have screamed and i have yelled... But it takes more than speach. NO ONE IS LISTENING. I will never advocate violence. I will however say stop whining and start being civilly disobedient. You are as culpable in this event as your government by choosing to blog about it instead of taking action to put an end to your government in a peaceful way. You sit here saying our government is partially at fault and should apologize abnd should give him a few thousand dollars to shut him up... But America is also to blame.... So is Syria... But the choice to allow this man to be taken from Canada was the choice of Canada. The only truly at fault ppl i see are the ones on this blog site who know what happened was wrong. Who do nothing but blog into cyber space in an "effort" to change the world. I know no one has the money to take the time off of work... bla bla bla to make a difference... Well then where are your priorities?! Will they change when they come for your son or daughter??? What will it take for Canada to stand it's ground and tell America no? What will it take for Canada to accept it's own responsibility. I am not denying that america played a part... It did. Which sux... But i have done all i could short of violence to change my country. What have you all done? You choose to give america the power to demand that people be exported from Canada to Syria for torture... The only power America or anyone has over you is that which you willingly give them. So again Canada chose to give America power and so america bears some responsibility but no where near the responsibility which canada bears.

So what choices will you make next? Think long and think hard ask yourselves would it have been ok would we all be cheering if this man actually was a terrorist and he went through such an ordeal? Would it serve him right? Ask yourselves who is the real criminal here? The people who defend their nations against an invasion or those who invade? Who is the terrorist those who rape pillage and torture or the ones who bring down 2 buildings... Ask yourselves, Would you rather live with no freedoms and the likelyhood of repeating these errors of judgements to protect yourselves and if this is justifiable by any stretch of the imagination. Ask yourselves would you rather die as a marter for peace than to continue wreaking havoc in the middle east so that the corrupt government officials get richer and richer while you get more and more enslaved? Personally i would rather die a martyr to peace... But... That is just me