Tuesday, September 19, 2006

U.S PRACTICE OF RENDITIONS "ought to be reviewed"

That was the comment that counsel for the Canadian government said in reference to the U.S. government's extraordinary rendition of Muslim Canadian Maher Arar. Arar was labelled an "Islamic extremist individual" and detained by the US authorities when he changed planes in New York on September 26, 2002. He was held for questioning for 12 days, then flow by jet to Jordan and driven to Syria. There, he was beaten, foreced to confess to having trained in Afghanistan -- where he has never been -- and then kept in a COFFIN-SIZE DUNGEON FOR 10 MONTHS before he was released. The man was innocent and never had any ties with Al-Qaeda.
So, my question to you is whether the Canadian, U.S. and Syrian governments were justified in the extraordinary rendition of this Canadian citizen. Given his innocence, probably not -- but where does that leave us regarding the continuance of extraordinary rendition in general?
Should the US be allowed to extraordinarly render its citizens or other nationals, and contine the operation of the "CIA prisons" throughout the world?

3 comments:

morgan marks said...

My initial reaction to the article was 'No, extraordinary rendition should be stopped.' Unless their are facts and the CIA is absolutely positively sure and does not just suspect a person to be associated or involved with terrorist activities, then then extraordinary rendition should not be in place, as it goes against our laws and what our country is said to believe in. Yet with further reading, the article stated that the CIA has "captured an estimated 3,000 people in its effort to dismantle terrorist networks." The questions are how did they catch them, did they use forms of torture - and are both of their methods to those 2 questions, ok actions to take. Even more important, what about the innocent people that are taken because of false information, or based on assumptions - why was there bad information, and where did it come from? and just because you have a hunch, should you act on it? For the sake of the few that were suspected and wronged, the extraordinary rendition should not be in place, but what about the estimated 3,000 that have been caught - what role do they play in terrorist networks, and is it worth ruining a few lives to catch a few thousand people?

Anonymous said...

The critics of the U.S. government detaining and questioning Muslim Canadain Maher Arar are aiding and embedding the enemy. This is particularly true of the media in general. Each time major newspapers release their liberal attack in the name of 'freedom-of-speech, just move their 'civil liberties' back another few paces. So goes terrorism, so goes the country. While an unfortunate situation for Mr. Arar, he is merely a causality of war.
Those who complain about civil liberties and the like are self-centered. They fail to recognize the terrorist will win if they don't shut up.

Anonymous said...

Hey Hewhowould:
I think you are forgetting that we are a country at war -- check out this video from WWII

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rl1UTLBy8aA

War against Euphoria

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