A friend recently sent me a letter about the potentially troubling case of Maher Ahar, asking what I thought. (Click the link and read the first few paragraphs for a short summary.)

I guess the short answer is that I don't think I know enough yet to comment, though I'm pretty sure that detaining a guy, denying council and councilar notification, and deporting him to a dictatorship where he hasn't lived since he wasn't a boy, is definitely a stupid/evil move.

But there's a lot of unanswered questions: For one, I'd like to see more confirmation that various things I'm reading in news accounts are actually true, or the whole story. (Sorry, but it's worth asking these days.) For example, other accounts mention that the US sent him to Jordan -- not Syria. Jordan then made the decision to send him to Syria. It's possible that direction could have come from the US. But other alternatives are also possible.

I'd like to know more about what he was specifically accused of (not that it justifies this alleged behavior, but the case is even worse if he's apparently innocent), who took the actions, whether it conformed to some policy or whether it was some INS dork doing whatever he or she wanted. In short, I want to hear the other side first (I know, that's terrible).

If that story doesn't float, I'll want to know how high up the chain it went.

Then I'll have an idea of what should be done.

This is, apparently, not how certain leftists work. In response to this:

This is speculation on my part, and should be treated as such. I want to emphasize that, because these are serious charges...

Regarding these speculations, which their author clearly understand "should be treated as such", Brad DeLong reacts as follows:

Impeach George W. Bush. Impeach him now. Impeach Richard Cheney. Impeach him now. Remove John Ashcroft from office. Remove him now.

For a man who claims to believe in due process of law, and innocence until proof of guilt beyond reasonable doubt, he certainly doesn't seem to apply those standards in his own judgements.

My friend mentions that Amnesty International is having a letter writing campaign about this, demanding a full, impartial investigation. The demand sounds reasonable to me.

But where were the similar cries of "foul" and letter writing campaigns when the Justice Department actually killed eighty people without due process of law or trial during the '90s? Where were their concern for Richard Jewell, who was falsely accused of the Olympic bombings? Where was that outrage?

Or are they only concerned about Justice Department misbehavior under conservative US presidents?

We'll see how this turns out...

Update, over two years later (Sept 2006): I was, as usual, a bit misinformed about this. It turns out that the country that Maher was deported to, Syria, was in fact a country he was a citizen of. (Why do I have to wait years for the media to admit important things like this?) In fact, contrary to what had been implied previously, Maher actively held and used a passport to that country.

So the US deported a man to his own country. That's the charge.

I believe this is a truly unfortunate case, and would hate to be in Ahar's shoes. I absolutely agree with the commenter below: "We continue to pray that these types of ignorant and careless mistakes do not fall upon those whose lives are filled with innocents of such claims." Indeed!

Yet why did Canada assure US authorities the man was a suspected terrorist? And why does none of the analysis I'd heard previously place any culpability on Canada for that false claim? I have little doubt Canada was contacted about what to do with the man -- if they'd been informing the Americans he was a terrorist, I suspect they also expressed little interest in having him returned. If we are to prevent these sorts of mistakes in the future, it is important to look into these questions -- even if the culpability involves (gasp!) Canada.

The introduction to the Canadian government report [PDF format] below, provided by zaynab (thank you, zaynab!) appears to be a whitewash, hurriedly assuring the Canadian public that Canadian officials were not "complicit" in the decisions made by the Americans -- but then admitting that the Americans simply acted on information which originated solely from Canada:

... the U.S. the RCMP provided American authorities with information about Mr. Arar which was inaccurate, portrayed him in an unfair fashion and overstated his importance to the investigation. Some of this inaccurate information had the potential to create serious consequences for Mr. Arar...

As the Times put it:

Judge Dennis O'Connor, who was asked by the Canadian government in 2004 to examine what had happened, found the Royal Canadian Mounted Police had wrongly told U.S. authorities that Arar was an Islamic extremist.

``The provision of this inaccurate information ...totally unacceptable'' and guaranteed the United States would treat Arar as a serious threat, O'Connor said.

Yet instead of focusing on the mote in its own eye -- an utterly incompetant RCMP investigation -- the Canadian report puts the ultimate blame on American "attitudes."

Pardon my abbreviated language, but this is utter BS. Imagine a woman falsely accuses a man of rape. The police arrest him, and put him in jail (with her agreeing), where he beaten up by another prisoner and dies. Terrible! Yet the woman later admits the accusations were false, but insists she bears absolutely no culpability for the ensuing results -- insisting she wasn't "complicit" because herself didn't escort him into detainment -- never mind that the false information and advice she provided did? How utterly dishonest.

And for those in such danger: It's an unfortunate fact of life that if you hold a passport to a certain country, and claim citizenship there, you can be extradited to that country. There's nothing unusual about that -- it's a fact throughout the world. Not just the big, bad, evil US, but any civilized country, if assured by a man's country of origin that he is a terrorist, will deport him.

And if the notifying country says, in so many words: "We don't want him" you could end in the other alternative. Don't blame the country which relied on the bad information: what were they to do in the case of real terrorists? Investigate your country's police departments to make sure your evidence handling rules are up to snuff? Force a friendly country to take someone they're saying they don't want? (Indeed, the report finds Canada's government made no attempts to help free Ahar, but instead leaked more false information to ensure his reputation was damaged.)

Who imagines Canada pulls these kinds of stunts? But they do: and, in fact, the focus on the US as being the always-bad-guy only makes that more possible, as the smug disclaimer in the Canadian government's report demonstrates, still.

Undoubtedly, this would be a good time for those who hold dual citizenships -- one in a country which treats people the way Syria does -- to renounce them. To help prevent or minimize the damage of these sort of bureaucratic mistakes. Governments are dangerous entities, even when trying to do the right thing. I do not want to see another innocent person go through what happened Mahar Arar.

Mahar, should you ever read this: You and your family are in my prayers. As are all innocent Muslims. I am sad for the problems brought on by a clash between extremists and my own civilization, and innocent people, like you, who are hurt as a result. You have my sympathy and prayers.