The Torture Judge
U.S. court rules our government can break international laws to keep us safe

by Nat Hentoff
March 13th, 2006 12:45 AM
Federal judge David Trager: Am I my president's keeper?

Essentially you have a judge saying that assuming that U.S. officials sent Mr. Arar to be tortured, a judge can do nothing about it. Georgetown University law professor David Cole, New York Law Journal, February 17

In a startling, ominous decision—ignored by most of the press around the country—Federal District Judge David Trager, in the Eastern District of New York, has dismissed a lawsuit by a Canadian citizen, Maher Arar, who, during a stopover at Kennedy Airport on the way home to Canada after vacation, was kidnapped by CIA agents.

Arar was flown to Syria, where he was tortured for nearly a year in solitary confinement in a three-by-six-foot cell ("like a grave," he said). He became, internationally, one of the best-known victims of the CIA's extraordinary renditions—the sending of suspected terrorists to countries known for torturing their prisoners.

Released after his ordeal, Arar has not been charged with any involvement in terrorism, or anything else, by Syria or the United States. Stigmatized by his notoriety, still traumatized, unemployed, he is back in Canada, where the Canadian Parliament had opened an extensive and expensive public inquiry into his capture and torture. The United States refuses to cooperate in any way with this investigation.

Maher Arar sued for damages in federal court here (Maher Arar v. John Ashcroft, formerly Attorney General of the United States, et al.). Representing Arar for the New York–based Center for Constitutional Rights, David Cole predicts, and I agree, that if Judge Trager's ruling is upheld in an appeal to the Supreme Court, the CIA and other American officials will be told "they have a green light to do to others what they did to Arar"—no matter what international or U.S. laws are violated in the name of national security.

http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0611%2Chentoff%2C72497%2C6.html

bush and his rich boy wannabe nazi's make me wonder what hat trick they'll pull out just before bush's term is up.

anyone wanna take bets on if bush is given a reason to declare martial law just before his term is up?

Scary tactics. I'm no expert on american law, but that sounds very very illegal! Also, it's totally unacceptable that it can go on unopposed.

LOL, welcome to dictatorship?. if your ignorant ass knew what it was like to live in a real dictatorship you would know how idiotic your constant over the top claims look. If it were a dictatorship we wouldnt have to send terrorists to other countries have someone else torture them. damn, at least put some thought into the titles of your threads before you go copying and pasting more crap.

I would have to agree that this is some pretty scary stuff. However, on another point, America has always put it's well being and goals before everybody else's. Who wouldn't?

Travh- quit talking out your ass you ignorant waste.

A dictatorship means the leader can do whatever the fuck they want to.

Just because it doesn't fit into your little fantasy world with stormtroopers kicking in doors and people being gunned down in the street doesn't mean its not a dictatorship...

oh so now we are redefining dictator huh? why not, you redefine everything else to fit your arguments why not this too?

Originally posted by Travh20
oh so now we are redefining dictator huh?

He's not redefining anything, you are. You are under the misconception that a dictatorship is always some sort of brutal regime that bans books and beats little children for their milk money. A dictatorship is nothing more than a government where the head is a dictator, in that the person has absolute dominion, regardless of laws or moral implications.

Originally posted by Evil Homer
However, on another point, America has always put it's well being and goals before everybody else's. Who wouldn't?

Well, no, we haven't always done this. We really didn't until about 30 years after the Civil War. Before that, we were an isolationist, rural nation concerned mainly with settlement. And, IMO, we were doing just fine and I wish we were still like that!

Also, other nations have a history of looking out for number one. To say that we're the only country who's ever done such is historically inaccurate (not saying you've said that, but others here have and it bothers me)....England, the USSR, the Roman Empire, for example. World powers seek to enlarge and expand and eventually overrreach themselves and then topple.

OK, fine, tell me, is george bush in any way a dictator, uunder any definition? I think not, and claiming he is is ridiculous.

Maher Arar, who, during a stopover at Kennedy Airport on the way home to Canada after vacation, was kidnapped by CIA agents.

Arar was flown to Syria, where he was tortured for nearly a year in solitary confinement in a three-by-six-foot cell ("like a grave," he said).

You have to admit, that does sound a lot like what a populist dictator would do.

a dictator wouldnt have to send someone out of the country to torture them, the whole premise that bush sending people OUT of the country to torture them makes him a dictator is stupid. If anything it shows that he is not a dictator because he has to do stuff like that.

Originally posted by Evakian
He's not redefining anything, you are. You are under the misconception that a dictatorship is always some sort of brutal regime that bans books and beats little children for their milk money. A dictatorship is nothing more than a government where the head is a dictator, in that the person has absolute dominion, regardless of laws or moral implications.
So the real question is: do you think we're living in a dictatorship?

personally, i would prefer that the government brake some of its own laws in order to lower the chance of a repeat 9/11. i know its a little ridiculous, but i would prefer that the government detain and even torture a couple of innocent people to the chance that one of them isn't really innocent and decides to kill twenty or one hundred or one thousand innocent people. the government is going to make mistakes, but if Mr. Arar happened to be an international terrorist mastermind and the government had prevented the next catastrophe, you would have had an altogether different outlook.

you have to break some eggs to make an omelet.

Trav, ya use mighty tortured logic which could really put the hurt on America's...


..."good guise" image...



:(





CIA operative: Why is Chief Angleton havin' us torture Yuri Nosenko for more than three years?


2nd operative: Because he thinks Nosenko may be a double-agent and he wants a confession...


Yuri Nosenko: Enuff! No more torture! I'm a double-agent, I guess...



Angleton, entering the room: Continue givin' him the ruff stuff, boys! I suspect he's only tellin' us what we wanna hear...

Originally posted by ivan
bush and his rich boy wannabe nazi's make me wonder what hat trick they'll pull out just before bush's term is up.

anyone wanna take bets on if bush is given a reason to declare martial law just before his term is up?

I won't take your bet but in order to pull off martial law, he would have to be absolutely certain his military and police forces are willing to take and defend the streets against american citizens, all of which are the family or friends of someone in their ranks.

A good example would be the attempted elitist military coup against the white palace when Gorbachev was exiled. The rank-n-file military threw down their rifles and parked their tanks.

I would hope the same thing would happen here in the US. If not, then we would have to rely on the 2nd ammendment which could turn out to be our saviour or turn out to be the invitation to a Jenin-style massacre.