quote:Although much of the inquiry has been conducted behind closed doors, a recent series of public hearings has embarrassed the Canadian government by exposing details of Arar's "extraordinary rendition" -- the phrase used by the CIA to describe the U.S. practice of secretly sending terror suspects to countries where torture is routine. The hearings have also revealed a greater Canadian role in the practice than previously acknowledged.
posted
Hey, aren't we just as horrified? Aren't we wishing we could have hearings?
Did you see the Daily Show this week at all? The stuff on the Dems holding a hearing in the basement, without anyone who knew how the lighting worked and very few microphones and very little space was hysterical. (They were having hearings about the Downing Street memos. At least, I think that's what they were called. You know, the memos from 2002 that showed that England and the US had already decided to take out Saddam and were plotting strategies on how to get information that the public would by as reason to go to war.)
Posts: 9871 | Registered: Aug 2001
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quote:In Canada, the Arar inquiry has sullied the country's self-image as a principled defender of human rights and may result in a call for tighter limits on intelligence-sharing between Canada and the United States, according to analysts and people involved in the process.
So, basically, Canada is likely to cooperate less with the US.
There's an article in the same WP issue about how the Italian government wants to question a Colonel who appears to have led the Milan kidnapping of a muslim cleric. They are also wondering if their intelligence community cooperated a bit too much with the US.
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posted
Although, is it just me, or have we become a coalition of two? Tony Blair and GWB? I mean, what is the most recent polling numbers of people who think this war was mistake in the US?
Ahh, here it is.
quote:Fifty-three percent of Americans say the war in Iraq was a mistake.
posted
Well, you know, with Echelon, the Canadians have been spying on Americans (for the CIA/et.al.) for years now. I'd be happy if they decided to be a little bit less cooperative. What was is, England, Canada and Australia that have the capability to spy and the apparently the willingness? Since we can't spy on our own people (theoretically) we have them do it for us.
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posted
Kayla...I know. It's just horrible. And it sometimes seems like the whole country has abandoned its principles because we are afraid.
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posted
Yeah, this unpleasant case has been in the news for a while now. The problem with intelligence issues is that because it's inherently secretive nobody knows what's going on...
quote:Most testimony has been taken in 65 sessions that were closed to the public, including Arar. Many documents submitted in evidence are full of blacked-out redactions. And this week, the scheduled testimony of a key Royal Canadian Mounted Police supervisor was postponed while lawyers wrangled over the how much he should say in public.
Who know's what being said and not being said? I understand the need for secrecy, but it's hard work trying to figure out just who are the most guilty parties when only a few people can hear what's being said. Especially since the accused is not allowed to be there!
quote:His icy testimony brought an outpouring of mockery in the press.
This is one good thing. The press is doing it's job semi-properly at least in this case.
quote:"I want to know if I was sent to Syria on behalf of Canadian security agencies," he said in an interview at his apartment. "When the Americans asked, did they nod?"
If this is the case, it demonstrates why Canada must sometimes lose the "getting along with people" image. Canadians should not be dealt with by Americans, on suspicion of terrorism or no. And vice versa, of course.
quote:"try to build some human rights context into intelligence sharing..."
This is the problem with intelligence. It's supposed to be invasive. It's more effective when shared with other agencies and yet when it's used wrongly, what can you do? Nothing, without losing the importance of intelligence. You just have to trust the people you're dealing with and hope nothing horrible happens.
Unfortunately, that's a bit of a utopian view. Posts: 8473 | Registered: Apr 2003
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Basically, CIA agents illegally kidnapped an Italian resident and apparently sent him to Egypt for imprisonment, where he may have been tortured.
This Italian resident was at the time subject to an investigation by Italian police, and they were going to use him to pull in his whole terrorist hierarchy. The US's illegal actions put a crimp in that plan.
So they've issued arrest warrants on 13 CIA agents involved, who're, no doubt to Italy's disappointment, no longer in the country.
Yeah, we're the good guys.
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posted
Actually, fugu, according to NPR it's unclear yet whether or not this is a case of action taken with the tacit approval of Italian intelligence services, but without the knowledge of Italian law-enforcement services.
It's nice you've reached a verdict already, though Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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posted
Note the article included no information along that line, in fact explicitly denying knowledge of the Italian authorities. Hardly surprising I'd reach that conclusion . If the NPR addendum is so, what we did was only reprehensible insofar as the sending him to Egypt to do our dirty work is true (which it may or may not be, and to varying degrees) .
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posted
Oh, and I'm sure that if that's so, and the activities were not illegal under Italian law (which I'd hope we'd have verified) the judge will be happy to drop his arrest warrants .
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posted
Rakeesh, fugu did actually provide a link to reputable news source that backs up everything he said. I'm not sure what you're complaint is. Are you saying that a report from another news source given at some time doesn't fully confirm what was in the CNN article? I'm not sure how that could be considered a valid criticism.
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posted
Adding information is neither a complaint nor a criticism. Now I know that in the US, knowing what the Americans did is important.
Give the Italians some credit for being equally curious about what their own intelligence services did. Neither the Italian government nor their intelligence services have denied complicity in the extraordinary rendition/deportation.
Frankly, I'm more disgusted by the fact that those thirteen accused of being US agents spent months in five-star hotels.
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posted
My beef is the extraordinary rendition (known in the human rights field as 'disappearing' -- a far more appropriate term). The fact that we are doing it to citizens from other countries, and to people who are on their home (or host) country's soil adds a new wrinkle to it that has disturbed the citizens of those places.
They aren't rallying around the US as the aggrieved party here. They are asking questions like:
- Who does the USA think they are kidnapping or disappearing our residents/citizens?
- How did they manage to do this? Was our government or intelligence service notified? Where they helping? And if so, why?
I hold out the hope that there are legitimate reasons for all of these cases. But, unfortunately, I don't hold out much hope. It seems entirely too convenient that we are finding ways to put these people beyond the reach of the international human rights community. They go to places unknown, are subject to treatment that is illegal under our laws and those of the country from which we snatched them, and then they surface months to years later with a horrible story to tell.
And while all of that is bad enough to make me believe that those doing it ought to be prosecuted, there is another thought to it all that is just chilling to me, and, I think should worry every person on the planet, not just America's citizens.
That is:
Our intelligence services are so terribly bad at covering their tracks that not only does everyone involved (including the disappearee) know that it's Americans doing this, but they have a paper trail pointing right back to our CIA or military. That means that we're doing it either with the open compliance of the host governments (like Italy or Canada) or we just don't care. Either way it is bad because we are going to poison the well with the countries that should be our closest allies. And, when you think about it, the news of this behavior is such that it would obviously and directly become a rallying cry for our enemies. Helping them to recruit more people willing to die in order to kill our soldiers and/or citizens.
And to what purpose? While I wouldn't condone this behavior even if it yeilded some useful information, since for me the ends do NOT justify the means, it would at least provide a reason for our countrymen to have brought this shame upon us. But these men are going to countries where they use torture. We've been told by our own military that torture doesn't work. Maybe that's a lie. Maybe torture is the only effective means of getting information out of a well-trained terrorist.
But the other side of this we hear (repeated cases now), is that the person sent for such treatment is later determined to be wholly innocent.
In other words, this is being done without sufficient proof of guilt. No trials. Nothing but a suspicion. And as we all know, sometimes the innocent get punished in a system that does not start with the presumption of innocence.
That is the basis for our criminal law.
We are throwing that out the window. It is a standard that applies only to our own citizens on our own soil, we're told.
Sure. Unless one is trying to act in a morally upright fashion. Unless one cares about justice and all the other things that America is supposed to stand for. Unless one cares about the example we're trying to set for the countries we're invading at present.
Then such behavior is just stupid and counterproductive, at best.
At worst, it is undermining our efforts in the region, and aiding and abetting our enemies.
Since it is obviously being done by our own military under orders from above, it will never be termed treason. But it is a betrayal of everything I've ever learned about American values.
"Do as we say, not as we do" is a crummy policy no matter whether its in the home or in international politics.
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quote: "Let me personally give you what our government has not: an apology," said Bill Delahunt, D-Mass., as he opened the hearing. "Let me apologize to you and the Canadian people for our government's role in a mistake."
Republican Dana Rohrabacher also apologized, but defended rendition.
The US Executive Branch hasn't apologized and probably never will. Arar and his family remain on a watch list and are forbidden to enter the US.
quote: Maher Arar, 37, appeared before a joint hearing of House subcommittees by video, because he is still on a U.S. government watch list.
posted
The Canadian government apologized and gave Arar $12.5 million earlier this year.
Here is the report from the public inquiry into Arar's case here in Canada. The U.S. did not participate.
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posted
The shame of it seems to have tainted public opinion of the Mounties, perhaps for good.
--- Edited to add: that reads as (unintentionally) ambiguous, but it works both ways. "For good" in the sense of a lasting damage to the reputation, but "for good" also in the sense of a push for increased external oversight. That push is complicated and fraught with problems, but it is having a substantial effect, and the dialogue is there.
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posted
The Mounties have been involved in various other scandals in the last few years as well -- as far as I can tell, public perception is that major organizational change is needed to "clean up" the force.
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