Tuesday, September 19, 2006

CANADIAN INTELLIGENCE?

No offense, but isn't that kind of... I don't know... ironic?

The inquiry, which focused on the Canadian intelligence services, found that agents who were under pressure to find terrorists after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, falsely labeled an Ottawa computer consultant, Maher Arar, as a dangerous radical. They asked U.S. authorities to put him and his wife, a university economist, on the al-Qaeda "watchlist," without justification, the report said.

Arar was also listed as "an Islamic extremist individual" who was in the Washington area on Sept. 11. The report concluded that he had no involvement in Islamic extremism and was on business in San Diego that day, said the head of the inquiry commission, Ontario Justice Dennis O'Connor.

Arar, now 36, was detained by U.S. authorities as he changed planes in New York on Sept. 26, 2002. He was held for questioning for 12 days, then flown by jet to Jordan and driven to Syria. He was beaten, forced to confess to having trained in Afghanistan -- where he never has been -- and then kept in a coffin-size dungeon for 10 months before he was released, the Canadian inquiry commission found.

It's quite sad when justice has become a victim of "in the wrong place at the wrong time (while being of the wrong ethnicity/religion)".

Christie's moving into Stanford tomorrow, so she hopes the boys cut her a little slack this week (and Teagle, be nice to Christie's liberal friends). She wishes y'all a good night, and wonders why she is spending her last night at home playing literati and reading washingtonpost... Oh right, it's because she promised herself not to go on facebook until 8 am.