Canada, US in stare down over extraordinary rendition

As if you needed any more proof that countries around the world don't automatically ask 'How high?" when the US says 'Jump" any more, you just have to look at the Canadian response this week to US demands that its neighbor to the north back off on its request that Maher Arar be removed from the notorious US "no-fly" list.

Arar is the Syrian-born Canadian who was stopped at JFK on his way back home to Canadian in 2002 by U.S. officials , who detained him claiming he has links to al-Qaeda. He then became a victim of America's extraordinary rendition program. Arar was secretly whisked off to Syria, where he was tortured on and off for a year before the Syrians let him go because they couldn't find any evidence against him.

Arar might still be lingering in a Syrian jail if not for the actions of his wife, and a few politicians in Canada, who refused to let the matter drop. Arar fought since his return to clear his name, and that happened in 2006 when a government inquiry found that inaccurate information given to American officials by the RCMP, compounded by the US's refusal to let Arar contact any Canadian officials after his detainment, resulted in his being sent to Syria. The RCMP commissioner, Canada's top cop, ultimately resigned after he admitted he had misled Canada's parliament about when he learned the RCMP had made a mistake about Arar.

On Friday, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper issued a formal apology to Arar and his family, and offered $10.5 million Canadian in compensation. Arar said the apology "meant the world" to him.

But lo and behold, Arar is still on that darn US no-fly list. When Canadian Security Minister Stockwell Day, who was in Washington last week, partially to try and get Arar off the list, said he has seen the evidence that the US has for keeping him there, and that it contains nothing new, US ambassador David Wilkins told Canada to back off.

"It's a little presumptuous for him [Day] to say who the United States can and cannot allow into our country," Wilkins told reporters Wednesday.

But the Canadian blog, Prime Minister's Office News Feed, notes that Harper, didn't blink and fired right back on Friday.

"Canada has every right to go to bat for one of its citizens when the government believes a Canadian is being unfairly treated," Harper said.

So why is the US keeping Arar on its no-fly list after an extensive inquiry cleared him of all charges of being associated with terrorism? Saskatchewan's Regina Leader-Post write that if Homeland Security officials admit they made a mistake about Arar, it could open a really ugly can of worms.

Leaving aside the glacial slowness with which the U.S. government made corrections to its flawed "no-fly list" in the past, here's a guess: admitting an error in sending Arar to Syria would be admitting grave problems with the entire covert program that "rendered" or sent prisoners to countries that have no qualms about torturing prisoners. If Arar was taken off the list, the question would be raised as to whether others deserve an embarrassing investigation, an apology, a compensation package and restoration of their right to travel. Perhaps there are prisoners, languishing in foreign jails, whose cases would be even more shocking than that of Arar.

The whole point of a "war on terror" is that democratic governments are more humane and more ethical than terrorists -- not their equals in depravity.

The Arar issue had also raised the ire last week of US Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont, as detailed over at Harry's Place. Leahy was pretty blunt about his feelings on the matter, while questioning Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez.

"We knew damn well if he went to Canada he wouldn't be tortured," said Leahy, a Democrat from Vermont. "He'd be held and he'd be investigated.

"We also knew damn well if he went to Syria, he'd be tortured. And it's beneath the dignity of this country — a country that has always been a beacon of human rights — to send somebody to another country to be tortured.

"You know and I know that has happened a number of times in the past five years by this country. It is a black mark on us."

Leahy noted that U.S. officials claimed to have had assurances that people sent to Syria would not be tortured.

"Assurances," he snorted, "from a country that we also say now that we can't talk to them because we can't take their word for anything."

Here's a podcase of the above exchange between Leahy and Gonzalez. Andrew Sullivan was equally harsh last Saturday on his blog, The Daily Dish, about the US reaction to Arar's plight, writing that "There's not a freedom Gonzales wouldn't undermine, not a right he wouldn't qualify, if his political patrons asked him to."

For his part, Arar says he will continue to work to clear his name. But he admits to a tinge of fear even when he's just flying over the US on his way somewhere else.

Arar may need to be nervous for a while. The Montreal Gazette quotes a Canadian expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies who says "You’ll get us to recognize Canadian sovereignty in the Northwest Passage before you’ll get us to change our minds on this one.”