Rice Admits US Erred in Deportation, But Offers No Apology For Rendition
WASHINGTON - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice admitted Wednesday that the United States had mishandled the case of a Canadian who was deported to Syria and who has said he was tortured there, but she stopped short of an apology.
Ms. Rice spoke in response to a lawmaker’s question about the man, Maher Arar, who was arrested during a stopover in New York in 2002 and deported to Syria, where he has said he was tortured and imprisoned for a year.
“We do not think that this case was handled as it should have been,” Ms. Rice told the House Foreign Affairs Committee. “We do absolutely not wish to transfer anyone to any place in which they might be tortured.”
The Canadian government has cleared Mr. Arar of any links to terrorist groups. It has apologized and paid him $10.9 million in compensation and legal fees.
“I am pleased that the U.S. administration has taken the encouraging step of acknowledging that my case was mishandled,” Mr. Arar said in a statement from Canada. The case has become a sore spot in relations between Canada and the United States, and Canada has asked the United States to remove Mr. Arar from its security watch list.
Mr. Arar, a software engineer who was born in Syria, is still prohibited from entering the United States, although a Canadian inquiry found that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police had wrongly told United States border agents that he was suspected of being an extremist.
Last week Democratic and Republican lawmakers urged the Bush administration to apologize to Mr. Arar, who is married and has two children. Ms. Rice did not apologize in her comments on Wednesday.
© 2007 Reuters
Maher Arar’s Story (transcript):
http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/arar/arar_statement.html
Maher got of easy compared to what happened to Abdullah Almalki whose big crime seems to have been to have once met Khadr. The fact that Almalki did not like Khadr and wanted nothing to do with him did not seem to matter.
Not only is Arar still on the no fly list, but Baraa and Houd still have their names on America’s terrorist watch list. Who are Baraa and Houd? By my calculations, Baraa would be about 10 and Houd would be 5 - they are Maher and Monia’s children.
Rice admits U.S. handling of Arar case ‘imperfect’ (text and video):
http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2007/10/24/rice-arar.html
Rice admits U.S. improperly handled Arar’s case (text and video):
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20071024/arar_rice_071024/20071024?hub=TopStories
As rude as Condi Rice has been in the past concerning Arar, she has always been much nicer than David Wilkins on the topic of Maher Arar:
David Wilkins: “It’s a little presumptuous for him to say who the United States can and cannot allow into our country,”
David Wilkins: “We’re committed to making sure our borders are secure and our country is safe. Will there be other deportations in the future? I’d be surprised if there’s not!”
David Wilkins: “You’re talking about regrets by the United States? We made the decision [to deport Arar to Syria] based on the facts we had and in the best interest of the people of the United States.”
(David Wilkins is the American Ambassador to Canada.)
I am deeply saddened at the arrogance of our criminal government, with their proven record of arrests without warrant and torture. Mahar Arar is living proof of it. Canada has officially apologized and paid compensation to Mr. Arar. What’s holding up the real guilty party, which is the USA. This case is living proof that we are living in a fascist state. How many other individuals are there like Mahar Arar that we don’t know about which the Bush administration has concealed? How long will it be before what happened to Mahar Arar happens to me or you?
“We do absolutely not wish to transfer anyone to any place in which they might be tortured.” Condi’s Congressional testimony
A statement that should have been followed up by this question: “Then why the f*** do you keep sending these extraordinary renditions to Egypt, Syria, Khazakstan, etc?”
Of course, Dems cannot challenge anyone in W’s administration for fear that they will be viewed as “mean” or “politically motivated.” And that might cost them the 2008 vote of that mythical hard-core Republican, 24% Bush-loving, red-state conservative who is THIS CLOSE to switching to a Democratic vote for Hillary in November 2008.
Our standing in the world has collapsed and, I’m sad to say, we’ve deserved every bit of it. To quote Jefferson: “I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that his justice cannot sleep forever.”
Good point, OREZ_ENO. We might begin to answer your question by checking out the Patriot Act to see precisely how easily anti-war and anti-globalization activists can be charged as terrorists. Medea Benjamin takes a big risk in trying to cross the Canada-US border. She might find herself in Syria one day soon.
zoya, the NDP have invited Benjamin and Wright to address parliament so they will monitor their safety as much as possible. It is not like Benjamin and Wright have decided on a whim to go to Canada. The letter involving letting them into the country is signed by the following NDP MPS:
Dawn Black (Defense Critic)
Penny Priddy (Public Safety Critic)
Olivia Chow (Citizen and Immigration Critic & wife of party leader)
Libby Davies (House Leader)
Paul Dewar (Foreign Affairs Critic)
Alexa McDonough (Peace Advocate and International Development Critic & and former party leader)
Will tell you if I have an update.
How come we never hear the names of American citizens taken for rendition? I am sure that if the Americans have done this to Canadians and Germans and Brits that they have also done so to their own people.
Extremists who believe in torture and killing civilians are unlikely to apologize for anything.
I’d like to extend apologies to Mr. Arar and his family because my government lacks the simple human decency to do so.
No, see, here’s how it works. We want Turkey to apologise for all those Armenians who were slaughtered by people who aren’t even alive anymore, but there’s no way in h___ we’re going to apologize for torturing the wrong guy. Apologizing means admitting you were wrong. Kings who rule by divine right are never wrong.
Anyway, he’s really just a case of collateral damage. Bad things happen in wars. The War on Terror is no exception.
In the name of God
ORZE_ENO: To answer your question, the US has imprisoned over 14,000 people in these prisons (including Gitmo) for the War BY Terror. Torture is utterly commonplace. And it’s not the work of a few bad apples. It’s regulated, organized, and scholarly taught (which makes me sick to my stomach).
Miss Condi Rice should stop being so high and mighty: “We do absolutely not wish to transfer anyone to any place in which they might be tortured.”
Whatever, that is a bold face lie, many of these torturers are either American themselves (prisons on U.S. bases stationed in other countries) or on the payroll of the U.S. gov’t (Egypt, etc)…
Arrogant, soul-less blobs of flesh will never apologize.
Salaam
America is, of course, way too great to ever apologize to anyone! Disgusting! This administration owes America and the rest of the world numerous apologies; not that apologies would even begin to address what this White House has done-but anything that ‘takes em’ right by the nose”-is good for em’.
How about shipping that insult to the black race, not to speak of the whole USA, Rice to Iran to get her buck teeth pulled without anesthesia?
How can Rice apoligize for something that she very well knows is totally illegal?
This is message I am hearing…I am the president and I can do anything I want illegal or legal during the entire term of president and no one can do a damn thing about it.
WHY IS THIS?
Is the president some sort of supernatural human being? Is he above all humanity? This makes me so angry I could bite!
Two words for Condoleeza Rice: War criminal.
Hey, if you want to go after someone, David Wilkins has more to apologise for personally than Rice does.
Rice is just giving the official government position - and you get the feeling that some in the Bush administration figure that she conceded too much. The only way you will get what Rice truly thinks about the Arar case is when she leaves office - which may be soon.
Right now Cheney wants a war in Iran and Rice doesn’t. Rice is busy trying to use what influence she has to try to stop one. “Embarrassing” the Bush administration by making “inappropriate comments” concerning the Arar case may damage her ability to prevent the US from attacking Iran - or so she thinks.
Note that this is the Bush administration where the truth is considered an inappropriate comment.
Note also that what Cheney wants Cheney usually gets.
The point here is that being American means never having to say you’re sorry.
Sorry? Whatever happened to compensation?
In the name of God, the All-Merciful, the Mercy-giving
VAUDREE:
To tell you the truth, I don’t see terrorism as the issue. I mean, the media here (i.e. the gov’t) has done a pretty good job in labeling people who fight against their oppressive governments terrorists. (For more info on that you can read Edward Said’s culture and imperialism). This phenomenon really began, he said in his book, with Reagan and the British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher (who, on a side note, I personally hate, because of her dealings with the Irish in the North).
When a government is oppressive, people will rise up against them. That’s life really. So, if you look now at places like Afghanistan for example. There really is no organized terrorist groups (contrary to what the media spews). There are groups, sure, more like militias. But their agenda is not terrorism or to topple the U.S. or anything like that. The want to get the U.S. military off their land and stop them from bombing the living daylights out of them.
Another example is the IRA, labeled a terrorist organization (which I do not consider it to be one). There was a real social justice issue with the Catholics in the North. They were completely oppressed, and when the British Army was sent in, in the 1970’s, you better believe a segment of the population was going to fight England’s reoccupation of their homeland.
So, I don’t think the U.S. actions of torture will increase terrorism. U.S. occupation of people’s land will increase fighting with the U.S. soldiers in those lands (which the gov’t labels terrorism).
In regards to torture, if a super-power like the US is going around the world committing these gross inhuman acts, it is going to harm the US. in the sense of it loosing all it’s credibility. The fact of the matter is that the U.S. has no moral authority whatsoever in the international world now. And this can be a scary thing because if things start getting rough over here, I do not think we will have much support or sympathy from the global community. That’s what we living in America have to worry about, not terrorism.
On another note, about torture-victims, what I find interesting is what you pointed out with Arar. When you see him and hear him, he is just such a human filled with peace. The amazing thing is, he is not an exception or an anomaly (redundant I know) to other torture victims. I’m kind of obsessive when it comes to prisoners and prison stories, so I know all about them : ) And one thing that is in common with all these prisoners who have been tortured and brutalized in prison (Arar, ex-Gitmo detainees, former IRA prisoners etc) is they are just so humble, sincere and just so human. I feel their experiences have raised them up to such a beautiful level of humanity. It’s as if their experiences stripped away all the nitty-gritty pettiness most of us humans are consumed with, and it sort of purified them. I don’t mean to put them on a pedestal, I know they are people just like the rest of us. But they are of a different caliber. If I had to use one word to describe them, I’m not sure which I’d use; perhaps it’s dignity. Complete, utter dignity.
I hope that answers your questions! If not, just ask me to clarify. I know I tend to be long-winded. Also, if you are more interested in this prisoner issue, I’ve posted some essays about it, on my blog.
salaam
Oh, and the Canadian gov’t is no better than ours (well, that’s not entirely true…they don’t have as much wealth or power as ours so they can’t be as horrible).
Canada is the ONLY WESTERN country that has not even ATTEMPTED to secure the release of their citizen held in Gitmo. Omar Khadr is a Canadian citizen and has been held in Gitmo for 6 years. He was captured in Afghanistan at the age of 15!!!!!! He just turned 21 last month. The poor boy was wounded by U.S. troops in Afghanistan (bullets in the chest and shrapnel in the eyes), because of the torture and harsh conditions of his imprisonment he has not recovered from those six-year-old wounds…He is also going blind…And the Canadian gov’t, despite much protest from individuals and legal/humanitarian groups, had done nothing to get him out of there. A child no less…
Sorry if I sound angry, but Khadr is a year younger than me, and it just makes me so sad and upset and hurt to think he’s been in jail all this time, so close to my age and everything…
Govts’ don’t apologise for anything because they are shit scared of the avalanche of similar litigation in the future.Gutless and unprincipled as usual!
Our “Secretary of State” Condoleeza Rice is a fascist pig.
HANK SILVER: From your comments I’ve on several articles, I think we’d both agree that this world is filled with way too many fascist pigs : )
Hank Silver, oh oh, watch out …. there are a few posters on CD who pretend to be progressives, but if you say one word against Ms. Rice, you will be labeled as a “racist.”
This indeed is a fascist country.