Mounties send US bad information

[Duck-Billed Catechist]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060919/ap_on_...da_torture_case

[bjorn_skurj]

Dudley Do-Right is appalled, I'm sure.

[Duck-Billed Catechist]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060919/ap_on_...litical_fallout

McCain objects to torture, ministers balk. Wtf.

[cryptique]

This attempt to sabotage the Geneva Conventions is one of the stupidest things Bush and his cronies have ever done -- and that's saying something.

 

What flabbergasts me is that a lot of people actually support them on this issue. Hello, don't you idiots understand what this will mean for U.S. troops? Torture doesn't work anyway -- it yields unreliable information. But I guess that's no different from the information the Bushies use to make most of their other policy decisions, so why should they care?

[Mr. Heartbreak]

The U.S. is already under intense criticism from human rights groups over the practice of sending suspects to countries where they could be tortured.

... And deservedly so. I used to assume the US would always be above this sort of thing, but the Bush admin has subverted our government to such an extent that all bets are now off.

Having your own country ruined by a band of thugs is a bad feeling. I feel as if I now live in a "banana republic."

[Dreamin']

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060919/ap_on_...da_torture_case

I've been ranting about the Maher Arar case on VC for years.

 

I'm glad that Canadian officials allowed an investigation to take place and that Arar has finally been cleared. Hopefully, the outcome of this rare public inquiry will serve as a cautionary tale.

 

How Canada failed to protect Maher Arar

 

The Arar tragedy has much to teach Canada' date=' and indeed all Western democracies. This is that rare story deserving of the overused label "Kafkaesque," a story that viscerally reminds us why a civilized justice system always insists on due process, even -- especially -- in times of stress. The reason is to protect and preserve human dignity.[/quote']

Maher's story

[EL the Famous]

... And deservedly so. I used to assume the US would always be above this sort of thing, but the Bush admin has subverted our government to such an extent that all bets are now off.

 

Do you really think that this sort of thing didn't happen until Bush got into office?

[cryptique]

Do you really think that this sort of thing didn't happen until Bush got into office?

I suspect that it was considerably rarer.

[EL the Famous]

I suspect that it was considerably rarer.

 

I suspect that it was just kept out of the public eye better, but you may have files I don't.

[Duck-Billed Catechist]

Many branches of the US military and intelligence agencies had been convinced that torture was a bad idea heretofore. Why? Because it produces bad information.

[cryptique]

I suspect that it was just kept out of the public eye better, but you may have files I don't.

Perhaps it was. But I still suspect it was considerably rarer.

 

That's not even necessarily a slam on the Bush administration. 9/11 changed everything, and who's to say a Democratic administration wouldn't be doing the same thing?

[Atticus]

That's not even necessarily a slam on the Bush administration. 9/11 changed everything, and who's to say a Democratic administration wouldn't be doing the same thing?

 

I applaud your open-minded statement.

 

 

you've got to think that on a certain level Bush is just terrified out of his freaking mind. I wonder how any of us would react had 9/11 occurred while we were President--including how it would make us feel about torture, wiretaps, surveillance and all the other relevant issues... In my mind he's not only made a big mistake but blown a big potential political score by failing to round up high-ranking members of all parties in order to have a more public and "non-partisan" roundtable on "what the fuck do we do now, 5 years later?"

 

"stay the course" just doesn't do it for me...

[Sir Stewart]

Did ikol die?

[cryptique]

Did ikol die?

Last Active Today' date=' 08:51 AM[/quote']

Nope.

[Duck-Billed Catechist]

I think the bat signal that went out for him every time there was a political thread got shorted during database maintenance.

[Mr. Heartbreak]

[ikol]

I think the bat signal that went out for him every time there was a political thread got shorted during database maintenance.

 

Yeah. It's not worth it to actually check for political threads.

 

Actually, I've just been too busy with cell bio and biochem to post much.

 

But let me know if you get a bat signal up and running.

[IRememberDBoon]

This attempt to sabotage the Geneva Conventions is one of the stupidest things Bush and his cronies have ever done -- and that's saying something.

 

What flabbergasts me is that a lot of people actually support them on this issue. Hello, don't you idiots understand what this will mean for U.S. troops? Torture doesn't work anyway -- it yields unreliable information. But I guess that's no different from the information the Bushies use to make most of their other policy decisions, so why should they care?

 

 

perfectly stated

 

 

and who's to say a Democratic administration wouldn't be doing the same thing?

 

 

anyone that knows anything about the democratic party

[G_willy]

Hello, don't you idiots understand what this will mean for U.S. troops? Torture doesn't work anyway -- it yields unreliable information. But I guess that's no different from the information the Bushies use to make most of their other policy decisions, so why should they care?

 

 

ummmm...hello??

 

haven't you ever heard of a little show called THE SHIELD!?

 

Vick Mackey gets results

[Dreamin']

The Arar Inquiry: Recommendations

 

The RCMP should ensure that' date=' whenever it provides information to other departments and agencies, whether foreign and domestic, it does so in accordance with clearly established policies respecting screening for relevance, reliability and accuracy and with relevant laws respecting personal information and human rights. [b']The 9/11 Commission in the United States concluded that, after 9/11, the largest impediment to

[MrRain422]

It blows my mind that this is even a controversial issue.

[bjorn_skurj]

Look at the bright side. Torture is bringing the U.S. and Syria closer together!

[mountain bed]

Many branches of the US military and intelligence agencies had been convinced that torture was a bad idea heretofore. Why? Because it produces bad information.

Precisely why the same agencies decided that LSD was 'unreliable' tool to extract information from prisoners/spies etc.Strange but true.

[Dreamin']

This really burns me.

 

Gonzales defends Arar deportation after Canadian inquiry report

 

Well' date=' we were not responsible for his removal to Syria, I'm not aware that he was tortured, and I haven't read the Commission report. Mr. Arar was deported under our immigration laws. He was initially detained because his name appeared on terrorist lists, and he was deported according to our laws.

 

[b']Some people have characterized his removal as a rendition. That is not what happened here. It was a deportation.[/b] And even if it were a rendition, we understand as a government what our obligations are with respect to anyone who is rendered by this government to another country, and that is that we seek to satisfy ourselves that they will not be tortured. And we do that in every case. And if in fact he had been rendered to Syria, we would have sought those same kind of assurances, as we do in every case.

Yeah, right.

 

Let's see...

 

Maher Arar (who has lived in Canada since the age of 17 and became a Canadian citizen in 1991) was travelling on a Canadian passport when he was detained at JFK airport while en route to Montreal following a family vacation in Tunisia. Although Arar wanted to return to Canada (200 miles away) and Canadian authorities were willing to accept him, he was "deported" on a private jet in the middle of the night and somehow ended up being tortured in Syria? (Oops! Who knew?) Kind of hard to swallow.

 

At least the Canadians are taking some responsibility for their role in this whole tragic mess. (And I really hope that Arar will eventually receive big $$$$$ compensation and an apology from the PM.)

[Dreamin']

From the Globe and Mail today:

 

US must accept the truth about Arar

 

Far from admitting to the gross wrong it committed' date=' the U.S. government persists in claiming it acted lawfully. This claim has never been put to the test. The United States refused to testify at the Canadian inquiry into the Maher Arar affair. When Mr. Arar sued the U.S. government in a New York court, it successfully argued that it could not defend the lawsuit without revealing state secrets. No court, no judge, no inquiry has exposed what the government did.

 

In fact, there is nothing to stop it from doing the same thing again. Washington has signed an agreement to consult Canada first if a similar situation arises. Some protection.

 

Mr. Arar was deported to Syria without being given a chance to plead his case before a judge. In a crucial hearing before an adjudicator, he went unrepresented by counsel. Given the risks to Mr. Arar -- the United States has acknowledged that Syria tortures prisoners -- how could this be legal?

 

The U.S. government offered a startling answer to this question in court, before Mr. Arar's lawsuit was thrown out: Foreigners at its airports -- even those just changing planes -- can be seized, detained and deprived of lawyers or access to courts if they are not ruled admissible to the country. That sounds more like Syria than one of the world's great democracies.[/quote']