I saw this man’s press conference on NewsWorld International yesterday. It was difficult to watch as he struggled through it despite obvious emotional pain; impossible for me to hear his story without sharing his anger particularly when he recounted the extreme physical abuse he suffered at the hands of torturers as he charges the U.S. with subcontracting for the job. Not in my name.
There are plenty of reasons to believe his charge. While the chickenhawks of Congress might be gearing up for a push into Syria evident by the recent passage of the Syria Accountability Act, shortly after 9/11 the U.S. could not have asked for a better friend than one they had in Syria.
Shortly after 9/11, the government received an extraordinary gift of hundreds of files on Al Qaeda, crucial data on the activities of radical Islamist cells throughout the Middle East and Europe and intelligence about future terrorist plans. These dossiers did not come from Israel or Saudi Arabia, whose kingdom appeared more concerned at the time with securing safe passage for members of the bin Laden family living in the United States, but–as Seymour Hersh revealed in the July 28 New Yorker–from Syria. One CIA analyst told Hersh, “the quality and quantity of information from Syria exceeded the agency’s expectations.” Yet, the analyst added, the Syrians “got little in return for it.”
Maher Arar was imprisoned for more than a year without being charged, 6 months of it spent [ed: tortured] in what he described as ‘the grave’. He credits his wife for his release and intends to press on for a full investigation despite resistance from the Canadian govt., and no doubt, a U.S. govt. that will be no more receptive to his request.
Update: The WP covered this story yesterday and cites the following:
Officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that the Arar case fits the profile of a covert CIA “extraordinary rendition” — the practice of turning over low-level, suspected terrorists to foreign intelligence services, some of which are known to torture prisoners.
According to Slate, the WP provided ‘the only significant coverage of this story’.