Mounties Faulted in Rendition

Can anyone imagine who would have won World War II if, every time the Allies captured a suspected German spy, there would have to be a 1200 page report filed investigating the capture?

Oh give me a break, Bruce. Investigations are only necessary when a wrong is done. In this case, an innocent man was deported to a totalitarian country which tortured him, and while we can't take that back, we can do our best to right a wrong.

Or do you have some sort of problem with accountability? From the tone of your post, it seems like you do.

Let me guess, Bruce....you were born in the US, you don't tan very easily and your last name is easily pronouncable by any average joe. In Bruce's world view, I suppose all brown people are suspect and it's just their dumb luck.

Nothing like putting racist words in another poster's mouth, eh? God, the leaps of logic some posters take. Has it occurred to anyone here that the U.S. authorities may have simply been acting on the incorrect information the Canadians passed along to them? Maybe like the report says?

"It faults the Royal Canadian Mounted Police for passing along unsubstantiated and false information about Arar to the FBI and Canadian authorities."

I'm glad the FBI didn't participate in this international political witch hunt.

There are at least two reasons why Arar's case is important:

The first is we shouldn't take wrongful incarceration and torture of anyone lightly.

The second more far reaching is no law enforcement/spy agency should just take anothers at face value. Not because of suspicion of ill will but to make sure the other agency got it right. The time wasted on Arar could have been spent on other investigations or training. Now we have another international incident we sure don't need.

On the big picture, bad information got us into Iraq. And whether you support this war or not, bad information/intellegence is not in the best interest of anyone.

Bruce,
There was not a report filed because he was captured. It was filed because he was wrongly detained, accused of terrorism, sent to another country and tortured. Your thought process is sickening and dangerous.

For Bruce and Bill: First of all let’s get to the point here, whatever information was given US officials the fact that the US sent this man to a foreign country to be tortured is against international law. The media seems to be pointing a finger at the reason this man was detained, and not what happened to him afterward. If this is allowed to happen to someone with a Middle Eastern name then what happens if a person named “Jones” pulls off a terrorist act? That would put us all at risk of being arrested and tortured because of mistaken identity or faulty intelligence.

The reason we are seeing alot of bad intelligence gathering these days is because there are those out there,like the Dubya administration,who only want to hear intelligence that fits in with their agenda.

It's called...cherrypicking information to fit a political agenda,it's the same kind of work that was done by the George Dubya administration leading up to the war on Iraq,......can we all say WMD's together.

Dubya's boys have everyone convinced that every Muslim that looks suspicious,is a member of Al-Qaeda.

Rory, I agree with you about faulty intelligence and I think John Negroponte is doing the best possible job right now to fix an intelligence bureaucracy that's been broken for more than a decade. It'll take time.

Yes, it's wrong that we sent this man to a CIA prison for interrogation. No one disputes that. But the question has to be why did he get there in the first place? In intelligence gathering the US simply can't go it alone and independently investigate every lead in every part of the world. We don't have the agents or the background personnel.

We'll STILL need our allied intelligence agencies to give us good information. The Canadians clearly didn't do that here. While the report rightly faults the US for not doing enough follow-up work, I ask who is the FBI to trust? If not our century-long allies in the RCMP, then who?

England still has some of the best intelligence agencies in the world despite the mistakes they made on WMD intelligence. We can't just ignore the rest of their stirling record for providing accurate intelligence because they were wrong on that call. We just can't go it alone.

Bill, it seems that not just bad intelligence, but as John E points out, cherrypicking intelligence that is the culprit here. Relying on foreign intelligence may bring up its own problems, but the story here should be about the US sending this man to be tortured in a foreign country without any chance to defend himself. If our country is allowed to do this on suspicion of a passenger passing through our airports, what will stop other country’s from doing the same to Americans?

Bruce says!
"Can anyone imagine who would have won World War II if, every time the Allies captured a suspected German spy, there would have to be a 1200 page report filed investigating the capture?

Posted by: Bruce | Sep 19, 2006 4:15:56 PM"

This guy wasn't a spy, or terrorist.

And if we thought he was a terrorist, for whatever reasons, why allow Jordan to send him to Syria, one of the 'axis of evil' that sponsors terror?

Wouldn't that be like capturing a WWII German spy, and for punishment, sending him back to Berlin?

Maybe you don't care who pays, as long as somebody, anybody pays?

By that logic, invading Iraq makes all the sense in the world.