I Pit the Bush Administration for Torturing Innocent People

[scotandrsn]

@Scylla

It seems that an awful lot of this report and testimony is classified so we don’t know the whole story.

The 800+ page commissioner’s report of fact finding and analysis can be downloaded in 3 pdf files from the official commission site

[Fritz]

@Scylla

<snip>
So, the US picks this guy up and sends him back to Syria. Did we know he was a Canadian citizen? Did the Canadians tell us that? Did they claim him?
<snip>
Not one fucking word against the Canadians, and you write a misleading title suggesting that this guy was tortured by the administration, when, as far as you know, we thought we were sending him home.

This guy didn’t have a Canadian passport? How could there be any doubt as to his citizenship? How could we not know he was Canadian?

[Scylla]

@elucidator

The old citerino? Linkeroo? Some substantiation for this scenario?

No cites for you, but I got all the facts from the article in the OP. You should read it.

[Grey]

Here is the link for the Maher Arar Commission. I’ve only skimmed through it.

Scylla, Mr. Arar called the RCMP from Tunisia the day following their approaching his house for an interview and once back in Canada he met with them. Those are hardly the actions of a fugitive.

However, that anyone should be deliberately sent to a country that will torture them. None. The INS determined that as per section 235(c) of the Immigration and Nationality Act that he should be deported to Syria. As well, it was determined that

@Arar Report

According to the order, the Commissioner of the INS had determined that Mr. Arar’s removal to Syria would be consistent with the United Nations Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, meaning that he was satisfied that Mr. Arar would not be tortured, apparently because of an assurance received from Syrian authorities

The INS Commissioner, in my opinion, either didn’t care (or was too stupid to care) that he had just sign the order to have a man tortured.

The ultimate fault is with the RCMP. Through incompetence, bias and inaccuracy they labelled an innocent man an AQ agent.

@Arar Report

it is very likely that they [ed. the US] relied on information received from the RCMP in making the decision to remove Mr. Arar to Syria.
The rationale for my conclusion may be broken down into three parts:
• Over time, the RCMP provided the American agencies with information about Mr. Arar, including some inaccurate information, which would have been relevant to the American decision.
• The fact that the RCMP provided most of the information without written caveats increases the likelihood that American authorities relied on information received from the RCMP.
• There is nothing in the evidence to suggest that American authorities did not rely on information received from the RCMP. Indeed, the available information suggests the contrary.

It also appears that the RCMP, both through ignorance or incompetence, misled the government of the time and proceeded to downplay/cover up the scope of their mistake. The Commissioner should swing for such actions.

[elucidator]

@Scylla

…
So, the US picks this guy up and sends him back to Syria. Did we know he was a Canadian citizen? Did the Canadians tell us that? Did they claim him?..

NY Times has it thusly…

…Evidence presented to the commission, said Paul J. J. Cavalluzzo, its lead counsel, showed that the F.B.I. continued to keep its Canadian counterparts in the dark even while an American jet was carrying Mr. Arar to Jordan. The panel found that American officials “believed — quite correctly — that, if informed, the Canadians would have serious concerns about the plan to remove Mr. Arar to Syria.”…

See how that’s done, Scylla, old bean? Rather simple, really.

[Scylla]

Oh, and the process of “extraordinary rendition” was developed and pioneered by Bill Clinton

http://www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/pdd39.htm

The first person to be dealt with in this fashion was Talaat Fouad Qassem who was captured and interrogated by the US and then sent off to Egypt never to be heard from again and is presumed dead, executed.

Then, in 1998 Shawki Salama Attiya and four other Al Qaeda militants were captured, interrogated by the US and sent to Egypt where Attiya said they were tortured.

So, apparently Clinton thinks this is cool.

[Scylla]

@elucidator

NY Times has it thusly…

See how that’s done, Scylla, old bean? Rather simple, really.

Tha doesn’t actually answer the questions I asked, does it?

[elucidator]

@Scylla

Tha doesn’t actually answer the questions I asked, does it?

Says explicitly that the Americans knew, and did not advise the Canadians. What part of that you having trouble with? Should I type slower?

[El_Kabong]

@Scylla

He claims he was tortured there and kept in a “Coffin sized” box for ten months. I have to confess that last bit a little incredible. Ten months in a coffin?

No matter.

Let’s look for a moment at an excerpt from the Fact Finder’s report of the Arar Commission:

@Stephen J. Toope

Mr. ELMaati also offered a lengthy and highly specific description of the cell in which he was held. He remembered cell Number 5 with horror, describing it as a “hell hole”. The cell was downstairs from the interrogation rooms, in a basement. It was approximately “190 cm high by
180 cm long by 90 cm wide”. A small window in the door was blocked. There was a small hole in the ceiling covered by bars. Mr. ELMaati found two blankets that smelled of urine. The cell was freezing cold, as it was winter and there was no heating.

This description of a cell at Far Falestin was mirrored almost exactly by Mr. Almalki. His cell was also downstairs from the interrogation rooms. It was small and dark, approximately 198 cm high by 185 cm long by 86 cm wide. Mr. Almalki was quite precise about the dimensions; he had decided to make a special effort to remember the conditions of the cell with care. For example, he remembered that the width was the length of his arm, plus the diameter of four fingers. He also described a hole in the ceiling some 25 by 15 cm, and mentioned that cats
would sometimes urinate through the hole.

Both descriptions come from the testimony of men who were held in the same center as Mr. Arar at around the same time.

Please read at least a bit of that 27-page document, then come back and smear Mr. Arar some more, apparently for no other reason than because you don’t like some of the posters here, you lovely person, you.

[Rufus_Xavier]

@Scylla

Oh, and the process of “extraordinary rendition” was developed and pioneered by Bill Clinton

PDD-39 U.S. Policy on Counterterrorism

The first person to be dealt with in this fashion was Talaat Fouad Qassem who was captured and interrogated by the US and then sent off to Egypt never to be heard from again and is presumed dead, executed.

Then, in 1998 Shawki Salama Attiya and four other Al Qaeda militants were captured, interrogated by the US and sent to Egypt where Attiya said they were tortured.

So, apparently Clinton thinks this is cool.

I didn’t see anything in your link about rendition, extraordinary or otherwise. Perhaps it was in one of the redacted sections? If not, can you please quote the pertinent section of the document? Thank you.

[elucidator]

“Rendition” as I understand it meant sending victims to another country to further the prospect of obtaining itel by whatever means necessary. What Scylla is talking about is, technicly, “sending people where they’d rather not be”. Not to put too fine a point on it.

[GIGObuster]

@Scylla

Oh, and the process of “extraordinary rendition” was developed and pioneered by Bill Clinton

PDD-39 U.S. Policy on Counterterrorism

The first person to be dealt with in this fashion was Talaat Fouad Qassem who was captured and interrogated by the US and then sent off to Egypt never to be heard from again and is presumed dead, executed.

Then, in 1998 Shawki Salama Attiya and four other Al Qaeda militants were captured, interrogated by the US and sent to Egypt where Attiya said they were tortured.

So, apparently Clinton thinks this is cool.

:rolleyes:

Once again we see here the mendacity of the right wing talking points.

This is similar to the stupid points that many defenders of the administration raise when condemning the critics of wiretaps: conveniently ignoring that the complaints are about the “warrant-less” part.

The subject here is the torture of innocent people. In the past, Clinton even had those terrorists tried in absentia and **once convicted ** execution was one outcome.

Old news indeed, and in 2005 there was a report that showed what the difference was. Jane Mayer of the New Yorker showed that in “Outsourcing Torture. The secret history of America’s “extraordinary rendition” program”:

Reporting | The New Yorker

Scheuer claimed that “there was a legal process” undergirding these early renditions. Every suspect who was apprehended, he said, had been convicted in absentia. Before a suspect was captured, a dossier was prepared containing the equivalent of a rap sheet. The C.I.A.’s legal counsel signed off on every proposed operation. Scheuer said that this system prevented innocent people from being subjected to rendition. “Langley would never let us proceed unless there was substance,” he said. Moreover, Scheuer emphasized, renditions were pursued out of expedience—“not out of thinking it was the best policy.”

But, just like when ignoring warrants, Bush just can not help loving doing torture with no oversight:

Since September 11th, as the number of renditions has grown, and hundreds of terrorist suspects have been deposited indefinitely in places like Guantánamo Bay, the shortcomings of this approach have become manifest. “Are we going to hold these people forever?” Scheuer asked. “The policymakers hadn’t thought what to do with them, and what would happen when it was found out that we were turning them over to governments that the human-rights world reviled.” Once a detainee’s rights have been violated, he says, “you absolutely can’t” reinstate him into the court system. “You can’t kill him, either,” he added. “All we’ve done is create a nightmare.”

…

For ten years, Coleman worked closely with the C.I.A. on counter-terrorism cases, including the Embassy attacks in Kenya and Tanzania. His methodical style of detective work, in which interrogations were aimed at forging relationships with detainees, became unfashionable after September 11th, in part because the government was intent on extracting information as quickly as possible, in order to prevent future attacks. Yet the more patient approach used by Coleman and other agents had yielded major successes. In the Embassy-bombings case, they helped convict four Al Qaeda operatives on three hundred and two criminal counts; all four men pleaded guilty to serious terrorism charges. The confessions the F.B.I. agents elicited, and the trial itself, which ended in May, 2001, created an invaluable public record about Al Qaeda, including details about its funding mechanisms, its internal structure, and its intention to obtain weapons of mass destruction. (The political leadership in Washington, unfortunately, did not pay sufficient attention.)

Coleman is a political nonpartisan with a law-and-order mentality. His eldest son is a former Army Ranger who served in Afghanistan. Yet Coleman was troubled by the Bush Administration’s New Paradigm. Torture, he said, “has become bureaucratized.” Bad as the policy of rendition was before September 11th, Coleman said, “afterward, it really went out of control.” He explained, “Now, instead of just sending people to third countries, we’re holding them ourselves. We’re taking people, and keeping them in our own custody in third countries. That’s an enormous problem.” Egypt, he pointed out, at least had an established legal system, however harsh. “There was a process there,” Coleman said. “But what’s our process? We have no method over there other than our laws—and we’ve decided to ignore them. What are we now, the Huns? If you don’t talk to us, we’ll kill you?”

And let us not forget, with this administration **even torturing the guilty ** was (and is) screwed up, it got them what they needed, a **false ** connection with Saddam and Al-qaeda, an important piece for the “intelligence” that lead us to the war in Iraq.

Bush called it a gut feeling, I call it gutless.

Laying the foundation for this shift was a now famous set of internal legal memos—some were leaked, others were made public by groups such as the N.Y.U. Center for Law and National Security. Most of these documents were generated by a small, hawkish group of politically appointed lawyers in the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel and in the office of Alberto Gonzales, the White House counsel. Chief among the authors was John C. Yoo, the deputy assistant attorney general at the time. (A Yale Law School graduate and a former clerk to Justice Clarence Thomas, Yoo now teaches law at Berkeley.) Taken together, the memos advised the President that he had almost unfettered latitude in his prosecution of the war on terror. For many years, Yoo was a member of the Federalist Society, a fellowship of conservative intellectuals who view international law with skepticism, and September 11th offered an opportunity for him and others in the Administration to put their political ideas into practice. A former lawyer in the State Department recalled the mood of the Administration: “The Twin Towers were still smoldering. The atmosphere was intense. The tone at the top was aggressive—and understandably so. The Commander-in-Chief had used the words ‘dead or alive’ and vowed to bring the terrorists to justice or bring justice to them. There was a fury.”

Soon after September 11th, Yoo and other Administration lawyers began advising President Bush that he did not have to comply with the Geneva Conventions in handling detainees in the war on terror. The lawyers classified these detainees not as civilians or prisoners of war—two categories of individuals protected by the Conventions—but as “illegal enemy combatants.” The rubric included not only Al Qaeda members and supporters but the entire Taliban, because, Yoo and other lawyers argued, the country was a “failed state.” Eric Lewis, an expert in international law who represents several Guantánamo detainees, said, “The Administration’s lawyers created a third category and cast them outside the law.”

The State Department, determined to uphold the Geneva Conventions, fought against Bush’s lawyers and lost. In a forty-page memo to Yoo, dated January 11, 2002 (which has not been publicly released), William Taft IV, the State Department legal adviser, argued that Yoo’s analysis was “seriously flawed.” Taft told Yoo that his contention that the President could disregard the Geneva Conventions was “untenable,” “incorrect,” and “confused.” Taft disputed Yoo’s argument that Afghanistan, as a “failed state,” was not covered by the Conventions. “The official United States position before, during, and after the emergence of the Taliban was that Afghanistan constituted a state,” he wrote. Taft also warned Yoo that if the U.S. took the war on terrorism outside the Geneva Conventions, not only could U.S. soldiers be denied the protections of the Conventions—and therefore be prosecuted for crimes, including murder—but President Bush could be accused of a “grave breach” by other countries, and be prosecuted for war crimes. Taft sent a copy of his memo to Gonzales, hoping that his dissent would reach the President. Within days, Yoo sent Taft a lengthy rebuttal.

Others in the Administration worried that the President’s lawyers were wayward. “Lawyers have to be the voice of reason and sometimes have to put the brakes on, no matter how much the client wants to hear something else,” the former State Department lawyer said. “Our job is to keep the train on the tracks. It’s not to tell the President, ‘Here are the ways to avoid the law.’ ” He went on, “There is no such thing as a non-covered person under the Geneva Conventions. It’s nonsense. The protocols cover fighters in everything from world wars to local rebellions.” The lawyer said that Taft urged Yoo and Gonzales to warn President Bush that he would “be seen as a war criminal by the rest of the world,” but Taft was ignored. This may be because President Bush had already made up his mind. According to top State Department officials, Bush decided to suspend the Geneva Conventions on January 8, 2002—three days before Taft sent his memo to Yoo.

[Gorsnak]

@Globe and Mail

A packed House of Commons apologized unanimously Wednesday to Maher Arar for Canadian involvement in his deportation from the United States and torture in Syria.
[snip]
The motion is not legally binding in the same way a bill to pay compensation would be. But the minority Conservative government has said it is in talks with Mr. Arar’s lawyer to reach a financial settlement for his ordeal. (link)

@Alberto Gonzales

Well, we were not responsible for his removal to Syria, I’m not aware that he was tortured. (link)

Scylla, in the grips of either complete ignorance or despicable disingenuity, questions why the Bush Administration is being pitted. While it is true that there is plenty of blame to go round north of the border, and indeed, the Canadian press is raking the Royal Canadian Mounted Police over the coals for their incompetence in this affair, there is a marked difference in the response of the Canadian and US governments to this report. Apparently Parliament, which is made up of politicians and hence is full of liars and scoundrels, could teach Scylla a thing or two about accepting responsibility for fuckups and knowing when to stop dodging blame with deceitful weaseling. Fancy that, being outdone in the area of integrity by a pack of politicians. That’s got to be humiliating.

[mhendo]

@mhendo

Dude, i’m not sure if you have some history with John Mace that i’m unaware of, but i strongly disagree with your characterization of him as an unreflective apologist for Bush.

<snip>

There are some folks on this Board who might fit your characterization, but i don’t think he’s one of them.

My thanks to Scylla for obliging me with a perfect example.

[oy_vay]

@Scylla

So, apparently Clinton thinks this is cool.

And if you or your family was sent to rendition by the current dipshit moron of president that would make it okay?

An innocent man was tortured and say “but clinton did it”. What the hell is wrong with you when you’re so partisan you think that makes it okay?

[oy_vay]

Let me add go fuck yourself for attempting to apologize for this.

[Der_Trihs]

@Scylla

Oh, and the process of “extraordinary rendition” was developed and pioneered by Bill Clinton

PDD-39 U.S. Policy on Counterterrorism

The first person to be dealt with in this fashion was Talaat Fouad Qassem who was captured and interrogated by the US and then sent off to Egypt never to be heard from again and is presumed dead, executed.

Then, in 1998 Shawki Salama Attiya and four other Al Qaeda militants were captured, interrogated by the US and sent to Egypt where Attiya said they were tortured.

So, apparently Clinton thinks this is cool.

Even assuming this is all true ( others seem to disagree ), so what ? Clinton could be a child devouring alien, and it would make Bush not one bit more trustworthy, ethical, smarter, or anything else. It’s Bush who is in office now, and doing bad things now. Clinton’s gone, he’s been gone for a long time and he’s not ever going to be President again. Clinton doesn’t matter.

Then of course, the fact that you present this as an argument shows that you assume Bush opponent = Clinton supporter, which is simply not true.

[Squink]

@El_Kabong

Gonzalez’ statement, despite his being overall a worthless weaselling sack of shit, is more or less accurate, as far as it goes, which is not very far at all.

It turns out that’s not true. Justice has had to release a clarification:

Asked at a news conference on Tuesday about a Canadian commission’s finding that the man, Maher Arar, was wrongly sent to Syria and tortured there, Mr. Gonzales replied, “Well, we were not responsible for his removal to Syria.” He added, “I’m not aware that he was tortured.”
…
On Wednesday, a Justice Department spokesman said Mr. Gonzales had intended to make only a narrow point: that deportations are now handled by the Department of Homeland Security, not the Department of Justice.
…
The spokesman, Charles Miller, said the attorney general forgot that at the time of Mr. Arar’s deportation, such matters were still handled by the Immigration and Naturalization Service, which was part of the Department of Justice.

“He had his timeline mixed up,” Mr. Miller said.

So it was Justice’s responsibility. Let the Eagle Soar!

[Eva_Luna]

@Grey

However, that anyone should be deliberately sent to a country that will torture them. None. The INS determined that as per section 235(c) of the Immigration and Nationality Act that he should be deported to Syria. As well, it was determined that
The INS Commissioner, in my opinion, either didn’t care (or was too stupid to care) that he had just sign the order to have a man tortured.

The INS Commissioner isn’t supposed to get to make that decision, if the process works as it should. Bricker is correct that a person is not considered legally to have “entered” the U.S. until being inspected and admitted by an immigration officer, which Arar would not need to have done if he were just changing planes in the U.S. and didn’t need to leave the secure area of the airport.

However, that does not remove from a person all legal rights. Once it was decided that there was reason to suspect Arar of any wrongdoing, a) he should have been allowed to contact the Canadian diplomatic mission, and b) he should have been given a credible fear interview. If he expressed any fear of being removed to Syria, he should then have been given a full removal hearing before an Immigration Judge (part of the Justice Dept., not INS/Homeland Security), with all that would entail in terms of legal representation, being informed of the charges against him, appeal rights, etc.

Even if all the above procedures were not followed, he should have been removed to Canada, the country of his citizenship and AFAIK the passport he had been traveling on.

It may be quite some time before we find out who made the call to remove him to Syria, if indeed we ever find out at all. Several international treaties were violated in this case.

Eva Luna, Immigration Paralegal and former Office of the Immigration Judge employee, who thankfully left before expedited removal (deportation without a hearing before a judge) was implemented

[Eva_Luna]

@Squink

It turns out that’s not true. Justice has had to release a clarification:
So it was Justice’s responsibility. Let the Eagle Soar!

True, but there were 2 separate agencies within Justice involved in deportations: INS, which handled any non-discretionary deportations, and the Office of the Immigration Judge, which made any discretionary decisions regarding contested deportation issues, before a judge, with counsel, opportunity to present evidence, etc. before turning over any unsuccessful respondents to INS for physical removal.