Terrible War on Terror

[ckBejug]

Did you know that when you do a search CNN.com for Britney Spears, the site returns a billion entries, but when you do a search on Maher Arar it returns nothing? I guess I should understand why an American pop star's 55 hours of... wedded bliss... should generate more human interest than a computer geek's deportation and 374 days of questionable imprisonment, but I don't. CNN did not find this story important or interesting enough to report even once.

You will also not find anything on Reuters, ABC, MSNBC, or NYT, but you will find very brief mention on CBS from 2002, a month after the event and no follow-up. You will also find reporting from England's BBC on his deportation and return and of course very good coverage from Canada .

So, hmmm... other countries find this story newsworthy enough to write more than one article, but every major news outlet in America covers it NOT AT ALL?

Ok - I found one. The Washington Post has a good bit, but for some reason the link wont work here...

[Anonymouse]

Patlajan will disagree since those with the mental capacity of eggplants like to be spoonfed what to believe and how to think.

[ckBejug]

I think the first article that talks about the guy's experience should be required reading for anyone, regardless of political ideology, who believes in the principles upon which America was founded.

The screaming-heads on talk radio like to remind us that "as long as you're not doing anything wrong, you don't have anything to fear."

Well. Maher Arar wasn't doing anything wrong. He was getting on a plane to go home to his family. I'd say he had quite a bit to fear.

When did this happen? Is this that great "freedom" we're always told we have that "The Terrorists" hate? If the government will take this man and ship him off to Syria -- SYRIA! Holy crap, even I know that damascus is somewhere you send someone to be tortured and I haven't the slightest bit of 'intelligence information' that the US has on Syria -- to be tortured, on the flimsiest of evidence . . . what else will they do?

That this is how we do things in the US makes my stomach turn. Hoe many times so far has Bush said that "They hate us because of our Freedom," so is this a new tactic in Bush's War on Terror? Maybe if we just give our freedoms away -- our right to privacy, our right to peaceably assemble, our right to dissent -- to the likes of John Ashcroft . . . if we allow our Congress and Supreme Court to abandon their constitutional responsibilities to check and balance the Executive branch . . . if we sit idly by while The American Enterprise Institute and the Project for the New American Century seize the reins of American power . . . if we allow the basic rights upon which America was founded to be slowly but steadily eroded, if we allow the very things that set America apart from the so-called "Axis of Evil" to be taken away . . . maybe then The Terrorists won't have anything left to hate.

I never thought I'd see the day when my government sent someone off to be tortured by a foreign country, seems we're moving backwards instead of forwards. A pity that is. And all this not found in a single one of the reputable "news" sources around here. Strange, sad and shocking indeed.

[Anonymouse]

Originally posted by ckBejug I think the first article that talks about the guy's experience should be required reading for anyone, regardless of political ideology, who believes in the principles upon which America was founded.

The screaming-heads on talk radio like to remind us that "as long as you're not doing anything wrong, you don't have anything to fear."

Well. Maher Arar wasn't doing anything wrong. He was getting on a plane to go home to his family. I'd say he had quite a bit to fear.

When did this happen? Is this that great "freedom" we're always told we have that "The Terrorists" hate? If the government will take this man and ship him off to Syria -- SYRIA! Holy crap, even I know that damascus is somewhere you send someone to be tortured and I haven't the slightest bit of 'intelligence information' that the US has on Syria -- to be tortured, on the flimsiest of evidence . . . what else will they do?

That this is how we do things in the US makes my stomach turn. Hoe many times so far has Bush said that "They hate us because of our Freedom," so is this a new tactic in Bush's War on Terror? Maybe if we just give our freedoms away -- our right to privacy, our right to peaceably assemble, our right to dissent -- to the likes of John Ashcroft . . . if we allow our Congress and Supreme Court to abandon their constitutional responsibilities to check and balance the Executive branch . . . if we sit idly by while The American Enterprise Institute and the Project for the New American Century seize the reins of American power . . . if we allow the basic rights upon which America was founded to be slowly but steadily eroded, if we allow the very things that set America apart from the so-called "Axis of Evil" to be taken away . . . maybe then The Terrorists won't have anything left to hate.

I never thought I'd see the day when my government sent someone off to be tortured by a foreign country, seems we're moving backwards instead of forwards. A pity that is. And all this not found in a single one of the reputable "news" sources around here. Strgange indeed.

Principles which America was founded on?

Ha! So much for that. The Constitution was originally designed like any article that uses language, and since language is essentially fungible it gives an unlimited amount of space to be interpreted anyway you want it to be interpreted.

Thus the Constitution itself was the problem that allowed for such things to come about in the first place. No Constitution of any silly republic or democracy is a guarantee that that won't lead to tyranny or unlimited powers for Leviathan.

[ckBejug]

Originally posted by Anonymouse Principles which America was founded on?

Ha! So much for that. The Constitution was originally designed like any article that uses language, and since language is essentially fungible it gives an unlimited amount of space to be interpreted anyway you want it to be interpreted.

Thus the Constitution itself was the problem that allowed for such things to come about in the first place. No Constitution of any silly republic or democracy is a guarantee that that won't lead to tyranny or unlimited powers for Leviathan.

I'm sorry, but how many ways can you interpret 'the FREEDOM to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness?' Or is this something that can be edited and added on to and deleted from during desperate times as these.

Well hell we might as well go back and live in Syria. If my father and brother are going to get hassled every time they step foot in an airport just because they are Syrian, even travelling on their American passports, they are still born in Syria so they must be shady... They might as well be back in Syria where at least you're TOLD you're going to be hassled, interrogated, and searched. Rather than here, where a guy can get whisked away and his family has no idea where the hell he went, while our government doesn't dirty its pretty little fingers and gets Syria to do it's dirty work. Ahh... The American government spent so much time building others to do it's dirty work. From Saddam to Osama Bin Ladin. Great examples of how that has come back to bite America in the ass. You'd think they'd learn by now...

[Anonymouse]

Originally posted by ckBejug I'm sorry, but how many ways can you interpret 'the FREEDOM to life, libery, and the pursuit of happiness?' Or is this something that can be edited and added on to during desperate times as these.

Well hell we might as well go back and live in Syria. If my father and brother are going to get hassled every time they step foot in an airport just because they are Syrian, even travelling on their American passports, they are still born in seria so they must be shady... They might as well be back in Syria where at least you're TOLD you're going to be hassled, interrogated, and searched. Rather than here, where a guy can get whisked away and his family has no idea where the hell he went, while our government doesn't dirty its pretty little fingers and gets Syria to do it's dirty work. Ahh... The American government spent so much time building others to do it's dirty work. From Saddam to Osama Bin Ladin. Great examples of how that has come back to bite America in the ass. You'd think they'd learn by now...

Well, that's the irony. Ever since The Patriot Act, everyone is a suspected terrorist.

But eggplants and surfers have their heads so far up their asses they can lick their adam's apple and won't see it.

[patlajan]

I believe the story CK. The only people that know what really happened is him and his interrogators. There are some holes in this story however:

1. His name was probably on a list otherwise the U.S. would not have known anything about his dual citizenship.

2. The Canadians probably tipped off officials at JFK. Otherwise he would have whipped out his Canadian passport and zipped right through the line and gone on to his connecting flight. So this idea that he was being hasseled because he was some poor Syrian guy coming home to his family doesn't seem credible because the border guard checking his papers would have not known he was Syrian born.

In these situations I tend to think all sides are lying a little.
He probably was affiliated with a terrorist organization but was no one special. They didn't have enough evidence to keep him, so they got rid of him. I agree, no one should be sent off to be tortured.

[ckBejug]

Hey patlajan,
If we're going by what it says in this article, his name was on a "list"....

"Why was Arar on our government's watch list? Because "multiple international intelligence agencies" had linked him to terrorist groups. How many agencies? Two. What had they reported? Not much.

The Syrians believed that Arar might be a member of the Muslim Brotherhood. Why? Because a cousin of his mother's had been, nine years earlier, long after Arar moved to Canada. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police reported that the lease on Arar's apartment had been witnessed by a Syrian- born Canadian who was believed to know an Egyptian Canadian whose brother was allegedly mentioned in an al Qaeda document."

Man, in this case my grandfather and father best stay home and never try flying anywhere again. I am beginning to thank my lucky stars that my grandparents came here before 9-11. Want to know why? My gradfather is on one of these lists too. We know this for a fact. The Armenian Revolutionary Federation, otherwsie known on this forum as you stupid Tashnags or whatever, is on the list of suspected terrorist organizations within the United States. In his younger days, when he was in Syria, my grandfather was a gun toting, bleeds the colors of the Armenian Flag member of one of the strongest Tashnag groups in Haleb... Syria. Syrian born and raised, part of ARF, in the past he was a pretty proud member of a group that happens to be on the list of suspected terrorists, and has a daughter (my aunt) and son-in-law who also just came to the U.S. from Syria (boy was that some fun times getting them through the airport. Lets just say that their suitcases were new when they left Syria and looked like they had to be duct taped together by the time it came back out on the other side here, and their 'welcome to America' questioning makes my skin crawl...) who are part of gengen, which is Getronagan Gomide or something like that, a pretty high level of the ARF around here... Yeah, sorry grandpa but I think for the sake of keeping you around for a good long while, we'd best keep you at home. No more travelling for you. Give me a break!

[felizitation]

Originally posted by patlajan I believe the story CK. The only people that know what really happened is him and his interrogators. There are some holes in this story however:

1. His name was probably on a list otherwise the U.S. would not have known anything about his dual citizenship.

I don't understand why so simple evidences are never attacked. I mean, 70% of american population has the same name "smith" (as far as we know here in France).
These lists everybody talks about are so poor.

There was some planes Paris-NY hijacked because some people on the board were suspected to be big terrorists. Of course they all were homonym. On a plane, one of the suspect was a 3 years old boy.

By the way, why do they have lists on other countries than theirs ? I want to blow the USA

[patlajan]

What about the missing passenger? He is nowhere to be found. Hmmmmm

"I want to blow the USA" means that you want to perform oral sex. You want to perform oral sex on uncle sam? He's not even real