This week the Supreme Court refused without comment to hear the appeal of Maher Arar, a Canadian-Syrian citizen detained while changing planes in JFK, held in solitary confinement in the US before being shipped by our government to Syria, where he would be tortured repeatedly. Syria, which has been publicly hostile to US interests for years, was doing the dirty work for our intelligence forces in cases like this, using brutal interrogation methods that we outsourced. After a year, Arar was released to Canada. He had no ties to terrorists, no connection to unlawful activity - except those extra-legal actions used against him.
The Canadian government, which was complicit in this process, has apologized to Arar and awarded him C$10.5 million in damages. A thorough, public investigation of the Canadian forces' role in the US rendition of Arar exonerated him of any links to terrorism. It's completely different in the United States. The Bush administration did not surprise anyone with its stonewalling tactics. Mistakes were made, Condoleezza Rice almost managed to say, but only in regard to our communications with Canada. One expected a better performance from the Obama team, and instead, we get more of the same. Acting Solicitor General Neal Katyal urged the Supreme Court not to take the case because to do so would require an evaluation of our past practices and the motives behind them. Of course it would; that's what the courts are for. When there is injustice perpetuated by the government, we should understand why and how it occurred. Otherwise, it is all too likely to happen again and again.
I've just read Ruth Harris' excellent new book Dreyfus: Politics, Emotion and the Scandal of the Century. In the fall of 1894 a cleaning lady in the German Embassy in Paris found a discarded piece of paper on which military secrets had been written. Four months after the document's discovery, the convicted Captain Alfred Dreyfus was put through the "ceremony of degradation" in the courtyard of the Ecole Militaire. Dreyfus was a Jew, and the crowds around him cried out for blood as his epaulettes were torn off his uniform and his sword was broken in two. He was sent off to solitary confinement on Devil's Island in a specially constructed cell from which he was unable even to glimpse the seas that surrounded him. Given the conditions there, he was not expected to survive long.
Dreyfus was framed, and the frame was weak. The real author of the notes on the torn paper was discovered, but the military closed ranks around its initial decision. Officers forged documents, politicians knowingly lied, and agitators inspired street disturbances. Claims for his innocence, many felt, would undermine the nation. But the claims were made, most famously by the novelist Emile Zola in J'Accuse. Citizens rallied to the idea of a Republic based in law and reason, not blood and soil, and they held those in authority responsible for this violation of an innocent man's rights. Eventually, Dreyfus would be pardoned, though the army still refused to reverse its verdict.
Reading about the Dreyfus Affair brought me back to 19th century French history. Reading about the Arar Affair reminds me that we still need to call our government to account when it fails to observe basic principles of due process in the name of national unity and security. We have grown to expect the Supreme Court to abdicate its responsibility to protect the rule law when the specter of national security is conjured. Must we be resigned to the Obama administration's complicity with cover-up? The failure to give Maher Arar his day in court is another shameful episode of how our highest court and the current administration continue to protect the abusers of human rights and of the rule of law who ran amok in the Bush years.
His wife has aspirations to run for the Senate in Canada. She has few credentials, and is just banking on the publicity the Arar case has brought about.
These people are very ambitious, and are pursuing their own agenda. Be careful.
Sorry if I'm being obtuse, but how does yet another abysmal decision by the Roberts court in not taking this case reflect on Obama?
Contrast that with the actions of the US government, which actually sent Arar to be tortured. Zilch. Nada. Nothing but stonewalling. Arar had no other choice but to take the legal route, which has obviously led nowhere.
Meanwhile, even though all parties have admitted that he had nothing to do with terrorism, Arar is still banned from flying over U.S. airspace, severely restricting his freedom to travel.
This is a U.S. Government scandal of epic proportions, that will never be forgotten.
Only 43 comments ??
Maybe a signal for neocons to pull the trigger on their agenda to "Bomb Bomb Bomb Iran"
The tortured and murdered were almost all Catholics. I don't believe that means that Catholics have "successfully been dehumanized in the US".
In Joseph Heller's "Catch 22", when Clevinger is being persecuted by military superiors, he is told that they hate him because he's Jewish. "But I'm not Jewish" he protests. "It doesn't matter; they hate everybody" is the reply. Same thing here.
Muslims should not take it personally, they just happen to live where there is oil, and therefore become targets of US capitalism and imperialism. Nothing personal; the US dehumanizes everybody in the name of profit.
http://www.loonwatch.com/2010/05/brentwood-muslims-withdraw-plans-for-mosque-amidst-islamophobia/
If you think this was a bad decision, just wait.
It's going to get a lot worse.
Dreyfus served in the French army in WWI. Not sure the author's point, above, is accurate.
Jews were not popular in those days.
Zola wrote "J'accuse!" in 1898
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2008/03/30/when_zola_wrote_jaccuse/
There are some real comparisons that can be made between the two situations and the racial hysteria prevalent today.
Candidate Obama made a priority of making up with America's friends and neighbours. In refusing to clear an innocent Canadian, President Obama is doing anything but.
Kadar may or may not be a terrorist in the true sense and his family is certainly no prize - but he was VERY young when all this happened and he's OUR problem to deal with. Why our government doesn't see their responsibility for him is beyond comprehension and equally embarassing as the Arar case.
Tragic.
If the members of HP who voted for him would take a few minutes to write the president and complain about these things, those numbers alone might be enough to let him know we didn't stop taking human rights seriously just because Bush left office.
As a former Virginian, I wonder what it is like to be a normal American living there these days?
It can't be pleasant with the lunatic religious right running the state.
If more people wrote and or called the WH and their reps in regard to their thoughts and arguments about govt we would all be better off.
Yes indeed. This is the reason why queues of 'potential immigrants' at all US consulates throughout the world have dried up and Mexicans no longer try to enter the US illegally.
Go on. Pull the other one.
Nice try clap.