Lawmakers Apologize To Rendition Victim

U.S. Officials Took Canadian To Damascus, Where He Says He Was Tortured And Held For A Year Without Charges

(CBS/AP)  Lawmakers apologized Thursday to a Canadian engineer for his detention by U.S. officials, who took him to Syria where the man says he was tortured and held for nearly a year without charges.

Maher Arar, 37, appeared before a joint hearing of House subcommittees by video, because he is still on a U.S. government watch list.

“Let me personally give you what our government has not: an apology,” said Bill Delahunt, D-Mass., as he opened the hearing. “Let me apologize to you and the Canadian people for our government's role in a mistake.”

Republican Dana Rohrabacher also apologized, but said he would fight any efforts by Democrats to end the practice of extraordinary rendition, whereby terror suspects are grabbed by government agents and taken to another country where local authorities may torture confessions out of them.

“Yes, we should be ashamed” of what happened in the case, Rohrabacher said. “That is no excuse to end a program which has protected the lives of hundreds of thousands if not millions of American lives.”

Arar, a Syrian-born Canadian citizen, was detained by Homeland Security agents on Sept. 26, 2002, as he stopped over in New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport en route home from a vacation. Days later, he was sent by private jet to Syria where, according to Canadian officials, he was tortured.

---

Visit Maher Arar's Web site

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After nearly a year in a Syrian prison, he was released without charges and returned to Canada.

The Canadian government has apologized to Arar for its role in the case, and agreed to pay him almost $10 million in compensation. The Bush administration has not apologized.

The administration has refused to say much about its extraordinary rendition program, other than it is an extremely important tool in combatting terrorists.

The hearing comes a day before Hollywood is to offer its own take on the contentious anti-terror program: “Rendition,” starring Reese Witherspoon, opens in U.S. theaters Friday.

[vastr-wcon]

.
Once again, the lawless criminals DickNBush have embarrassed and humiliated the United States. They have again dragged the image of our country through the mud and slime of their PHONY WAR ON TERROR. The spineless, gutless weasels of Congress must stop these high crimes and misdemeanors.

.

[lawyertom1]

Another opps by the Shrub. When will the Congress do its job and require the Administration to obey national and international law? Our borders are porous and our guards are incompetent [see related story about airport TSA inspections]. Why does anyone think that the Shrub and his cohorts have even the vaguest idea how to deal with terrorism? Idiots and imbeciles all.

[taddles-2009]

"extraordinary rendition" means taking a prisoner to a country that practices torture so we can say "we don''t torture". That''s like hiring your neighbor to shoot your wife so you can say "I didn''t shoot my wife"...huh, you know it still sounds illegal even when you put it in childishly simple terms that even Bush can understand.

"Republican Dana Rohrabacher also apologized, but said he would fight any efforts by Democrats to end the practice of extraordinary rendition"

So you''re sorry that a foreign national was wrongly tortured at our request but you will do nothing to stop that from happening again. That means you do advocate torture...glad we got that cleared up, I was starting to think that whole thing about "we don''t torture" was actually true, glad to know it was all just another lie from the White House.

[zootallures2]

But Israelis driving around New York City on 9/11/2001 in a van full of explosives... After dancing and jumping up and down and flicking lighters at the burning towers with people jumping out...

[susanhelit]

The mud and slime here is our own, so long as we say "extraordinary rendition" - shipping someone out to a foreign country to be tortured and not have rights - is something we want to do. We should be embarrassed and humiliated that we ever let our country do that, worse yet, that we are still doing it!

We have become the bad guy, the villian, the dictatorship where people vanish in the night and are tortured without any legal process or protections.

[Krazcarl]

I''m sure he feels better now?

[ivandrago]

Now we even outsource out our torture!!! Yet again foreigners taking jobs from hard working Americans. Where''s the pride?

I guess they needed to torture him more than the U.S. could stomach, but much less than Al Qaeda would do. We call this the Goldilocks paradox. Out sourcing gets it juuusst right.

[boatdocster]

Republican Dana Rohrabacher also apologized, but said he would fight any efforts by Democrats to end the practice of extraordinary rendition, whereby terror suspects are grabbed by government agents and taken to another country where local authorities may torture confessions out of them.

%u201CYes, we should be ashamed%u201D of what happened in the case, Rohrabacher said. %u201CThat is no excuse to end a program which has protected the lives of hundreds of thousands if not millions of American lives.%u201D

I''ll bet if MS. Rohrabacher would change her tune very quickly if she was whisked away in the night and had to endure what Mr. Arar ''enjoyed''.

[robertkjjj]

www.jihadwatch.org for the Truth

[boatdocster]

And yes, that was MS Rohrabacher because any one who thinks that sending an innocent person away to be tortured for a year has real self identify issues....

but then, on the other hand they could just be your standard GOP scum bag....

[skyk-2009]

The only sad thing is that we don''''t do these renditions a thousand times a day. If we had the ball*s to do THAT, we''''d scare the holy bejeezus out of every insane Muslim(excuse my redundancy here) and make a few more of them walk straight and behave. And even if they didn''''t, it''''d feel realllllly good from a "revenge for mass murdering all our people on 9-11" standpoint. www.jihadwatch.org for the Truth



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Posted by robertkjjj at 08:09 PM : Oct 18, 2007
+ report abuse
You are a very sick person. Not all Muslims are our enemy and certainly are not involved in terrorism. What you suggest would be like torturing every person in the state of mississippi for the actions of the Klan. Wow!

[boatdocster]

robertkjjj

I hope you are the next person, behind Dana Rohrabacher, to get the free first class plane ticket on the GOP Rendition Program compliments of Mutt (Bush) and Vader (the acting President).

Very much like Nazi Germany in 1939 when people just start ''disappearing''...

[skyk-2009]

Thunder thighs (aka jumbo) hits up john john about going on the Loony Dobbs Show regarding being redemptioned or whatever ...

John john says he was promoting Kombat Kerry for the next Nobel Medal to go with his combat medal collection (buckets and buckets)

and anyway he wasn''''t a *******.

The **** till looking for Ellen''''s mutt which is also a ****.





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Posted by stonebog at 08:00 PM : Oct 18, 2007
+ report abuse

You seem to be a very sad and ignorant person. Why bother? No one pays any attention to your obviously hateful and bigoted post!

[skyk-2009]

Very much like Nazi Germany in 1939 when people just start ''''disappearing''''...


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Posted by boatdocster at 08:24 PM : Oct 18, 2007
+ report abuse

Ah yes! Where is Sarge, MCVet, when we need him. You are very much correct and as the Sarge likes to point out the German People themselves have been trying to tell us this for many years now. Sarge convinced me that Bush and the present day Republican Party are fascist in every way.

[myidoncbs]

"Republican Dana Rohrabacher also apologized, but said he would fight any efforts by Democrats to end the practice of extraordinary rendition, whereby terror suspects are grabbed by government agents and taken to another country where local authorities may torture confessions out of them."

Typical Repugnant BS. Torture is NOT a US value! It is not only UnAmerican; it is Anti-American!

The Repugnant Ones have led us down the path of Evil. Their place in H3ll is assured, but let''s not add to the misery they''ve caused. END TORTURE NOW! END "EXTRAORDINARY" RENDITION NOW! RESTORE HABEAS CORPUS NOW!

[undermyboot]

I truly and sincerely hope that each and every supporter of "rendition" finds that their beloved mother disappears and spends a year being tortured by Syrians. As the repug Dana Rohrabacher said, "Yes, we should be ashamed. That is no excuse to end a program..." We can all "feel bad" about torturing his mother and the rest of you fascists'' mothers...ROFLMFAO

[myidoncbs]

FYI, people:

Dana Rohrabacher is a Congress"man", not a woman. I know it''s getting kind of hard to tell with some of the Republicans lately, but you might as well know who wants to continue the torture: http://rohrabacher.house.gov/

You wouldn''t want to direct your unhappiness with his inhuman bloodlust at some poor woman named Dana!

[kansas1946]

Republican Dana Rohrabacher also apologized, but said he would fight any efforts by Democrats to end the practice of extraordinary rendition, whereby terror suspects are grabbed by government agents and taken to another country where local authorities may torture confessions out of them.
*******************************************
Why would anyone with any morals fight to end the practice of rendition. I think the Republican party is totally immoral at this point. They have bought into the evil empire of the Bush administration. I am ashamed to even claim them as Americans.

[myidoncbs]

robertkjjj, you are in/sane. Torture does not work. If you torture someone, they tell you what they THINK you want to hear. That is rarely the actual truth.

A few lunatics with box cutters crashed some planes into the WTC. They are all dead. You can''t undo what they did, and you can''t cause them any harm by torturing OTHER people.

You seem to think that Muslims are blood-crazed lunatic killers, and the US "Christians" are all nice, sweet people who have been wronged by them. The truth is Muslims can''t be lumped into a single group and hated because of the actions of a few, just like we can''t blame ALL Christians for the actions of the few terrorists who attack and kill doctors who perform abortions, or Timothy McVeigh, who attacked and killed hundreds of innocent US citizens. And we can''t hold their crazy scriptures against them, either. Read the da-mn bible, sometime! God is a crazed, jealous, violent, mass-murderer, and he enjoins all of his chosen people to engage in baby killing, stoning women to death, and murdering entire towns and villages and tribes, based on the flimsiest of possible excuses.

The texts of every religion contain countless acts of unspeakable violence. Just because YOU don''t understand what it all means, that''s no excuse for you to pick one group of people (about 1/5th of the world''s population) and encourage their annihilation.

Grow up, or crawl back into your dark, dank, smelly, little hole and stay there!

[walt1944-2009]

The Great Emperor Bush is somewhat upset that Congress would apologize to a person who was "renditioned" seemingly in error. The Great Emperor claims that while an occassional "innocent" may get caught up in his "terrrrrorist" nets, a majority of those taken and held until a confession is obtained are truly "terrrrrorists, enemy combatants, subversives, and undesirables".

Of course, students of history (that history as yet not re-written by the Great Emperor) may remember that the Nazis used this same argument with the millions of people they arrested and sent on one-way trips to the dozens of concentration camps throughout Europe over 60 years ago, but, as the Imperial Wizard, Rush Limbaugh, would say, that, if it happened, was then, this is NOW!

HAIL TO THE GREAT FASCIST COUNTRY OF THE NEW USSA!!!

SIG HEIL, BUSH!!!

[kansas1946]

I hope you folks out there in California are proud of your representative, Mr. Dana Rohrabacher, a guy that thinks it is okay to torture people, and thinks by doing so we have saved "thousands and maybe millions of American lives." Not only is he a sadistic, immoral scumbag, his is totally nuts.

[johngress]

Thunder thighs (aka jumbo) hits up john john about going on the Loony Dobbs Show regarding being redemptioned or whatever ...

John john says he was promoting Kombat Kerry for the next Nobel Medal to go with his combat medal collection (buckets and buckets)

and anyway he wasn''''''''t a *******.

The **** till looking for Ellen''''''''s mutt which is also a ****.

----------------------
Posted by stonebog at 08:00 PM : Oct 18, 2007

I%u2019m having a hard time deciphering exactly want your point is. It must have something to do with inbreeding on your part.

[tylenol6]

I would think our WORTHLESS IDIOTS in congress would just be appalled at a innocent man being tortured in
jail for 1 year. I guess our IDIOT IN CHIEF president
isn''t going to apologize. We definately need a revolution in this country to get our country back from
our insane congress and jail Bush and Cheney. Vote Ron
Paul...

So, this guy apparently didn''t spill the beans on where those WMAs are hidden.........

[creeper00]

"
Thunder thighs (aka jumbo) still going on the Lulu Dobbs show and later the Larry the Lizard show ...

gets a call from the Morning Dork show from Meeka Alphabet.

The **** asks Alphabet if she/he can recommend Sheryl One Square for a Nobel. Alphabet to check with the dork.

Ellen''''s mutt found in Darfur meatmarket."

*Posted by stonebog at 09:58 PM : Oct 18, 2007



OHMIGOD! The astronomers were right! There IS life on other planets.

[rowdytexan2]

Yes, I agree...couple of these folks just landed on the planet...please God, tell me they''re not really Americans...I''ve heard that it''s hard to determine gender out there too...

[GRPDiver]

We should all be ashamed that our government acts in this manner. In 50 years, historians will group this outrageous behavior with the CIA giving people LSD, government researchers allowing black men to go untreated for syphilis to see the results, and slavery. It''s barbaric!

There are many good people working in the government to make things better. let''s hope they get the upper hand.

[kansas1946]

I%u2019m having a hard time deciphering exactly want your point is. It must have something to do with inbreeding on your part.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Posted by gmanj7


*********************************
LOL. I am relieved I am not the only one. I thought maybe I just was too old to be hip.

[feelfree1]

Re: "Republican Dana Rohrabacher also apologized, but said he would fight any efforts by Democrats to end the practice of extraordinary rendition, whereby terror suspects are grabbed by government agents and taken to another country where local authorities may torture confessions out of them."

One thing is for sure- nobody that supports this kind of subhuman, criminal tactic, has any standing to label anyone else as a "terrorist" or a criminal. People that support this kind of useless, counterproductive barbarity are all to eager to surrender anything left of value in our country, simply to appease their own cowardice and greed.

They offer crocodile tears for this man, and won''t even act to get him off of the Uber-fascistic "no-fly" list.

What a bunch of pathetic weasels.

[ubrew12]

Article: "Yes, we should be ashamed" of what happened in the case, Rohrabacher said. "That is no excuse to end a program which has protected the lives of hundreds of thousands if not millions of American lives."

Translation: the life of a Syrian is worth less than the life of Americans. If Rohrabacher were to find himself on the other side of the waterboard, I wonder how tightly he would hold to that view. My guess is he''d reveal the location of bogus terrorist camps in Indiana within a few hours.

[undermyboot]

If Rohrabacher were to find himself on the other side of the waterboard, I wonder how tightly he would hold to that view. My guess is he''''d reveal the location of bogus terrorist camps in Indiana within a few hours.

Posted by ubrew12 at 12:48 AM : Oct 19, 2007
--------
OMG how true! I volunteer to help this Cali fascist find his "inner terrorist." ROFLMAO

[brianbwb-2009]

Article: "Yes, we should be ashamed" of what happened in the case, Rohrabacher said. "That is no excuse to end a program which has protected the lives of hundreds of thousands if not millions of American lives."

Not only a flat out lie, but a statement of principal that the US government has no respect for international, or even its'' own laws.

You might as well say that Al Capone saved the world from illegal bootleggers.

[jswilliams451]

Having been in counter intelligence in the military, I know for a fact there are many other ways for our country to gain the intel we need outside of torture. The vast majority of my colleagues refused to participate in such activities. They weren''t monsters like many in the media would portray.

The real monsters are those in our government that encourage good people to commit unconscionable and unnecessary acts in the name of national security.

Torture has to be off the table. It doesn''t work. Its unreliable. And it creates more enemies for us that it exposes. Plus, its just wrong.

And if anything, it makes the job of the intelligence gathering community just that much harder. No one wants to talk or help if they fear THEY might be the next to be siezed and tortured.

The whole debate over torture is just insane. We shouldn''t even be having it. Its wrong, it doesn''t work reliably, and it does more harm to us as a nation than good.

[feelfree1]

willia451,

Thank you for the comment. Very well put.

####

jerryomara,

Re: "He is as stupid an anoying as his mother Babs the Quaker oats guy."

That was a beauty!

[abbe91]

"Not one of the concentration camps was in Germany.
Posted by jerryomara at 03:51 AM : Oct 19, 2007"

Even if I agree with you, you should rephrase this as
Not one of the most known concentration camps ...
there were about a dozen in Germany during the 30''s
and more during WWII, for example Buchenwald, Bergen-Belsen, Dachau, Dora, Flossenburg ...

[brianbwb-2009]

Posted by abbe91

Bergen-elsen? you mean the one Bush''s ideologial father Reagan wanted to visit to honor the dead Nazis? THAT Bergen-Belsen?

[brianbwb-2009]

Als die Nazis die Kommunisten holten,
habe ich geschwiegen; ich war ja kein Kommunist.
Als sie die Sozialdemokraten einsperrten,
habe ich geschwiegen; ich war ja kein Sozialdemokrat.
Als sie die Gewerkschafter holten,
habe ich geschwiegen; ich war ja kein Gewerkschafter.
Als sie die Juden holten,
habe ich geschwiegen; ich war ja kein Jude.
Als sie mich holten, gab es keinen mehr,
der protestieren konnte.
-- Der Weg ins Freie, Martin NiemC6ller (F.M. Hellbach, Stuttgart, 1946)

Translation:
"When the Nazis arrested the Communists,
I said nothing; after all, I was not a Communist.
When they locked up the Social Democrats,
I said nothing; after all, I was not a Social Democrat.
When they arrested the trade unionists,
I said nothing; after all, I was not a trade unionist.
When they arrested the Jews,
I said nothing; after all, I was not a Jew.
When they arrested me, there was no longer anyone who could protest."

[abbe91]

"willia451,
Thank you for the comment. Very well put."

Indeed ... torture is just a proof of incompetence.

http://people.msoe.edu/~meissned/pictures/demotivation/photos/photo_36.html

[abbe91]

Posted by abbe91

Bergen-elsen? you mean the one Bush''''s ideologial father Reagan wanted to visit to honor the dead Nazis? THAT Bergen-Belsen?

Likely so. But don''t forget Prescott Bush, doing business with a german company using work from Auschwitz.

[missingamerica]

The only reason that I can guess that this Administration does the things they do is that it is a part of PNAC''s playbook: Maintain a large presence in S/W Asia and the Middle East.

Getting a global reputation for torturing and otherwise mistreating prisoners is not how you demonstrate you are in actuality really a "good guy".

All that it serves to teach the people of the rest of the world - and many Americans - is that our vaunted Constitution and Bill of Rights as well as our proclamation that "Democracy is the best form of goverment" are all just an increasingly threadbare cover for yet another kind of a banana republic dictatorship.

Perhaps we went to war simply because Cheney believed he could extend the power of the Executive Branch the most under those conditions, and we stay at war and do the best we can to keep other people at war with us simply because Cheney is, after all, a signer of PNAC''s guiding principles.

[gkc99]

"Republican Dana Rohrabacher also apologized, but said he would fight any efforts by Democrats to end the practice of extraordinary rendition, whereby terror suspects are grabbed by government agents and taken to another country where local authorities may torture confessions out of them. "


So Bushit, Darth and their thugs have turned the United States of America into a place where the secret police can seize you off the street with a secret warrant or with no warrant, kidnapping you to a foreign land where you are tortured by agents of the foreigners working in corrupt collusion with agents of this secret Bushit administration?

This appears to be more of an occupation of the USA of unConstitutional fascists than any recognizable administration under USA laws!

[jjp735i]

Nazis used the same tactics for the good of the country...so welcome to the new Amercian Republican Nazi Party...the sheets finally comes off and we can see what we have always known but denied, redneck beliefs are taking over the country.

[mcvet]

I don''t care how many lives the Reich CLAIMS to have saved, THIS is just NOT something that American''s do. The present Government of this nation is as FASCIST as any that has ever occupied this planet. Refusing to admit it will only delay the obvious. Today, I am TRULY ashamed to be an American. Sieg Heil Bush!!

[mcvet]

OHMIGOD! The astronomers were right! There IS life on other planets.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Posted by creeper00 at 10:11 PM : Oct 18, 2007
+ report

You call THAT life? I hardly think so!

[brianbwb-2009]

the sheets finally comes off and we can see what we have always known but denied, redneck beliefs are taking over the country.
Posted by jjp735i

Taking over?, Any "Black" man, or any "Native American" could have told you this generations ago.

[hungry1968]

So Bush and his administration''s answer to this guy is...?

Oops?
Too bad?
Get over it?
Tough luck?

[gunownerdan]

"Today we need a nation of minute men; citizens who are not only prepared to take up arms, but citizens who regard the preservation of freedom as a basic purpose of their daily life and who are willing to consciously work and sacrifice for that freedom. The cause of liberty, the cause of American, cannot succeed with any lesser effort."
-- President John F. Kennedy, January 29, 1961

[speakinup]

BUZZ BUZZ BUZZ

I find it totally interesting that the same flies buzz from piece of ******* to piece of ******* on CBS.

Like Bush PERSONNAL flew the jet to Syria which carried this guy.

I would like to hear the conditions under which he was extradited... Did he possibly do something like yell out that NYC deserved what it got ? I''m certain many more Syrian-born Canadian citizens have passed thru NYC''s airports, why this guy ?

That he was tortured is not good, that he was taken without APPARENT reason in the article is not good. But, somehow, I find it really hard to believe, that without motive government agents whisked him away.

Methinks the flies protesth too much.

[abbe91]

"The Bush administration claims Syria is a "state sponsor of terrorism."
So, George Bush kidnaps a guy, sends him to Syria and tortures him.
Who is the real state sponsor of terrorism?"

There is always a problem with the definition of terrorist, depending where you stand. For example, Menahem Begin, as a member of Irgoun, would be called a terrorist by the British and a patriot by the Israelis. On a "neutral" point of view, we might define a terrorist as somebody who kills innocent civilians. That makes the USA a state sponsor of terrorism by supporting Blackwater in Iraq.


"As others have pointed out, if this process is saving so many lives, why does the Bush administration refuse to reveal whose lives it has saved?"

On the other hand, how many lives have been lost by outing Brewster-Jennings ?

"This is the most corrupt administration is US history."
Posted by tuckerndfw at 08:28 AM : Oct 19, 2007

Indeed.

[abbe91]

"That he was tortured is not good, that he was taken without APPARENT reason in the article is not good. But, somehow, I find it really hard to believe, that without motive government agents whisked him away.
Methinks the flies protesth too much.
Posted by speakinup at 09:51 AM : Oct 19, 2007"

Somebody posted Niemoller''s poem already, so I won''t redo it, but I think it really applies after your comment. You basically say that, because he was tortured, he must have been guilty of something.
This is in complete disregard with 1) presumption of innocence and 2) habeas corpus. If he really yelled something like NYC deserved it, it''s a shame. If he committed any crime or felony, there is a due process
to deal with it and I''m sure we would have heard about it already.
This is the kind of feeling among the people which leads to the acceptation of dictature.