The Tortured Logic Continues

" Extraordinary rendition" is White
House-speak for kidnapping. Just ask Maher Arar. He's a Canadian
citizen who was "rendered" by the U.S. to Syria, where he was tortured
for almost a year.

Just this week, the U.S. Court of Appeals
for the Second Circuit, in New York City, dismissed Arar's case against
the government officials (including FBI Director Robert Mueller, former
Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge and former Attorney General John
Ashcroft) who allegedly conspired to have him kidnapped and tortured.
Arar is safe now, recovering in Canada with his family. But the
decision sends a signal to the Obama administration that there will be
no judicial intervention to halt the cruel excesses of the Bush-era
"Global War on Terror," including extraordinary rendition, torture and
the use of the "state secrets privilege" to hide these crimes.

Arar's life-altering odyssey is one of the
best known and best investigated of those victimized by U.S.
extraordinary rendition. After vacationing with his family in Tunisia,
Arar attempted to fly home to Canada. On Sept. 26, 2002, while changing
planes at JFK Airport, Arar was pulled aside for questioning. He was
fingerprinted and searched by the FBI and the New York Police
Department. He asked for a lawyer and was told he had no rights. He was
then taken to another location and subjected to two days of aggressive
interrogations, with no access to phone, food or a lawyer. He was asked
about his membership with various terrorist groups, about Osama bin
Laden, Iraq, Palestine and more. Shackled, he was then moved to a
maximum-security federal detention center in Brooklyn, strip-searched
and threatened with deportation to Syria.

Arar was born in Syria and told his
captors that if he returned there, he would be tortured. As Arar's
lawyers would later argue, however, that is exactly what they hoped
would happen. Arar was eventually allowed a call-he got through to his
mother-in-law, who got him a lawyer-and a visit from a Canadian
Consulate official. For nearly two weeks, the U.S. authorities held the
Syria threat over his head. Still, he denied any involvement with
terrorism. So in the middle of the night, over a weekend, without
normal immigration proceedings-without telling his lawyer or the
Canadian Consulate-he was dragged in chains to a private jet contracted
by the CIA and flown to Jordan, where he was then handed over to the
Syrians.

For 10 months and 10 days, Maher was held
in a dark, damp, cold cell, measuring 6 feet by 3 feet by 7 feet high,
the size of a grave. He was beaten repeatedly with a thick electrical
cable all over his body, punched, made to listen to the torture of
others, denied food and threatened with electrical shock and an array
of more horrors. To stop the torture, he falsely confessed to attending
terrorist training in Afghanistan. Then, after nearly a year, he was
abruptly released to Canada, 40 pounds lighter and emotionally
destroyed.

The Canadian government, under conservative Prime Minister Stephen
Harper, investigated, found its own culpability in relaying unreliable
information to the FBI and settled with Arar, giving him an apology and
$10 million. The U.S. government has offered no apology and has kept
Arar on a terrorist watch list. He is not allowed to enter the U.S. Two
years ago, he had to testify before Congress via video conference.

He said: "These past few years have been a
nightmare for me. Since my return to Canada, my physical pain has
slowly healed, but the cognitive and psychological scars from my ordeal
remain with me on a daily basis. I still have nightmares and recurring
flashbacks. I am not the same person that I was. I also hope to convey
how fragile our human rights have become and how easily they can be
taken from us by the same governments that have sworn to protect them."

Given the excesses of the Bush
administration and Barack Obama's promise of change, it has surprised
many that these policies are continuing, and that Congress and the
courts have not closed this chapter of U.S. history. President Obama
has never once condemned extraordinary rendition. Arar's lawyer, Maria
LaHood of the Center for Constitutional Rights, calls the court
decision against Arar "an outrage." In his dissent, Judge Guido
Calabresi wrote, "I believe that when the history of this distinguished
court is written, today's majority decision will be viewed with
dismay." Given the torture that Arar suffered, his response was
remarkably measured: "If anything, this decision is a loss to all
Americans and to the rule of law."

Denis Moynihan contributed research to this column.