Letters to the Editor
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Gives me chills
I am a Canadian citizen of Egyptian descent who has stopped traveling to the US for this very reason. Every time I had been questioned by airport authorities when traveling to my company's head office in Chicago, I wonder if I will be singled out and made to disappear. My last trip was 11 months ago when I spent 13 hours in an interrogation room.
When Maher Arar was sent to that hell hole to be tortured, we were all in there with him.
The US needs to come clean on this to make sure this never happens again.
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Sweetcakes
I am a 7th generation white male American and I apologize for what my government did to you in my name.
It's not what we are about, it's not what we are supposed to be and I intend on fixing this country.
Again, I apologize - and when this is done if you should even decide to visit us again we will welcome you.
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wheres the media covrerage?
The greatest outrage to me is that this case and incident (and others like it) has largely passed under the collective radar of the American public. There were some brief articles about this particular case in the MSM (and it was often portrayed as an anomaly rather than a systematic coordination that kidnaped hundereds, possibly thousands of persons merely suspected of having terrorist links and sending them other to countries where they are tortured). After the inital page 5 article, this disapeared off the "entertaining news features" list for most media.
This story should not have just "gone away". The media should have made it a public priority, and shown people the face and truth of what 'rendition' is. That they didn't shows starkly how far the mainstream media has fallen into "info-tainment" rather than acting in the public interest and right to know.
But hey, no worries, right? Why care about this stuff. Better just to pop over to the NYT and read the most emailed article, one about "teeth grinding". I'll tell you what makes MY teeth grind -- the lack of real stories of importance, and the MSM's abandonment of their civic and public responsibility to expose government abuse and cover-ups.
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The Madness of King shrubby, err, President shrubby
The United States is slowly going insane due to religion, greed and paranoia and President shrub has been accelerating the process. Unfortunately the madness seems likely to continue even after his reign is over.
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The United States of Lyncherdom
That's what Mark Twain called his country around the turn of the last century, when we were largely satisfied with shaming ourselves by lynching the occasional Negro or Jew. We continue to shame ourselvs, all of us -- every one -- until the day comes when we stand up as a nation and not just a handful in a courtroom, and demand, no, command our government to behave in the way we were all raised and taught to understand it was designed, as it is spelled out in its very charter, its Constitution and body of laws. This will not happen until we, as a people, feel, accept, and throw off the mantle of shame we have agreed, sheep-like, to wear as our elected government has carried out the most atrocious sorts of acts against both foreign nationals and some of our very own citizens.
What was perpetrated against Maher Arar and countless, often nameless others, is beyond merely unacceptable: it is an enduring shame, a crime against humanity, and all the jingoistic chanting of the same idiotic, meaningless excuses for bestiality carried out on a global scale will not put a happy face on it. Until we have forced our hired help to cease lynching the world's citizenry at random for the sheer love of brutality we will continue, all of us, to remain complicit in these crimes and will continue to stoop to the level of both our real and imagined enemies.
I love my country; at this moment I not only fear but also loathe my government. I know I am not alone.
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Why we torture
Our government has advanced many reasons to justify its need for 'enhanced interrogation techniques' and they can all be ignored.
Forget the experts who say that torture gets you bogus information. It only gets you the information the victim thinks you want to hear.
Our government engaged in torture precisely to get bogus information they wanted to hear.
And every debate on what constitutes torture will hopefully besmirch everyone in congress who took part when history looks back. Torture is not based on a pain threshold. Torture is using physical force to coerce information from an individual in your power. Any other stance is a disgrace to anyone who claims to be an American or a civilized person.
And as far as that bizarre tortured justification of the 'ticking time bomb' to these people who are willing to compromise the ideals of being an American in order to stop a terrorist attack, I call them cowards and because of their cowardice the terrorists of 9/11 have won.
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Clarity
It's too rare these days.
Thank you, Alia Malek, for clearly explaining this queasy feeling that seems to be spreading. I have also felt as the actions of the government that purports to represent me have erased the boundaries of the idea of "America." If to be American means supporting this government at all costs, then, please, call me something else. It is tragic and frustrating that that idea has been co-opted by those who would torture and disappear law-abiding citizens like Maher Arar. We must either reclaim the idea of what it means to be American, or come up with some new identity behind which all people who love civil liberties can unite.
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The title asked, "When did we become like Syria?"
If that means, "When did we start engaging in rendition?", then the answer to that question is: "During the Clinton Administration."
Sorry -- that's not the answer you all wanted to hear, was it?
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Ha! President Shrubby!
See, because his last name is Bush! But you don't like him, so you changed it to "shrub"! But then -- and here's the genius part of it -- you added the belittling "y" at the end! LMAO!
Please, sir. Share more of your wisdom. Someone with your bumpersticker understanding of politics and foreign affairs, combined with your obvious talent for turning a phrase, surely has much to teach us.
You wouldn't happen to be the one who came up with that Petraeus/Betray us thing, would you? That was another bit of Swiftian genius.