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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Lou Weed who wrote (244621)	10/10/2007 10:18:11 PM
From: Sun Tzu	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

McClellan On Extraordinary Rendition To Syria: “That’s A New One” At today’s press conference Scott McClellan claimed he has never heard reports that the United States sent detainees to Syria, where they were tortured: QUESTION: There are allegations that we sent people to Syria to be tortured… MCCLELLAN: To Syria? QUESTION: Yes. You’ve never heard of any allegations like that? MCCLELLAN: No, I’ve never heard that one. That’s a new one. QUESTION: Syria? You haven’t heard that? MCCLELLAN: That’s a new one. QUESTION: Well, I can assure you it’s been well publicized. My question is… MCCLELLAN: By what, bloggers? Actually it was reported on page A1 of the Washington Post more than two years ago: A Canadian citizen who was detained last year at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York as a suspected terrorist said Tuesday he was secretly deported to Syria and endured 10 months of torture in a Syrian prison. It’s also been reported by the New York Times, the Associated Press, New Yorker Magazine and just about every other major news source in the country. McClellan himself was asked about in on 2/28/05: Q Has the President ever issued an order against torture of prisoners? And do we still send prisoners to Syria to be tortured? MR. McCLELLAN: The President has stated publicly that we do not condone torture and that he would never authorize the use of torture. He has made that – Q But has he issued an order? MR. McCLELLAN: — statement very publicly, and he’s made it clear to everybody in the government that we do not torture. Q Well, why do we still hear these stories then? MR. McCLELLAN: If there are allegations of wrongdoing, then the President expects those allegations to be fully investigated and if there is actual wrongdoing that occurs, then people need to be held to account. The President has made that very clear. . Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil.

To: Lou Weed who wrote (244621)	10/10/2007 10:23:14 PM
From: Sun Tzu	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

The case of Maher Arar went like this: Maher Arar, a Canadian citizen born in Syria in 1970, came to Canada in 1987. After earning bachelor's and master's degrees in computer engineering, Arar worked in Ottawa as a telecommunications engineer. On a stopover in New York as he was returning to Canada from a vacation in Tunisia in September 2002, U.S. officials detained Arar, claiming he has links to al-Qaeda, and deported him to Syria, even though he was carrying a Canadian passport. When Arar returned to Canada more than a year later, he said he had been tortured during his incarceration and accused American officials of sending him to Syria knowing that they practise torture. His wife Monia Mazigh has a PhD in financial economics and ran for the NDP in the 2004 federal election in the riding of Ottawa South. She lost. Arar and Mazigh have two young children. In the summer of 2006, the family relocated to Kamloops, B.C., where Mazigh took a teaching position at Thompson Rivers University. ______________ You can read the full timeline of event at: cbc.ca or read more at: en.wikipedia.org A bit of googling will reveal other cases too.