Thank You Sir, May I Have Another?

There is an astounding article in Tuesday's New York Times that should be causing an a reverberation of amazing magnitude in the rest of the press and, even more importantly, the halls of Congress.

But of course it's not.

Read the article yourself, but the gist is basically this: After a inquiry by the Canadian government, the facts of the case of the Canadian man detained and sent to Syria to be tortured are now a matter of record. A Syrian born Canadian citizen named Maher Arar was, due to faulty intelligence originating with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, suspected of being an Al Qaeda terrorist. When he was traveling through the United States (JFK airport in New York) on his way home from a vacation he was picked up by the FBI. He asked to speak to the Canadian Consulate in New York and was refused, in conflict with basic international law. He was then transported on an American government plane to Jordan and then taken by ground to Syria. He spent at least ten months in a Syrian cell and was repeatedly tortured over that time, including being beaten with a shredded electrical cable.

Let me remind you that the Syrians were doing this to him at the bidding of the US government. The Syrians. The supporters of Hezbollah, a very well know terrorist organization. The same Syrians that have illegally occupied Lebanon for years.

And their torture worked. Mr. Arar confessed to training with Al Qaeda in Afghanistan. One problem, it wasn't true. In fact, he has been found to not had done a single thing wrong. This is the usual result of torturing suspects, false confessions and information.

So while George W. is out there publicly shaming Syria for all the bad things they do, he turns around and uses those bad things for his own ends. And you can bet that the Syrians didn't do it for free. I imagine they are making a pretty penny from the US for providing this service, part of which then goes to help Hezbollah try to destroy Israel.

This is the same government that puts commercials on TV telling people that if they buy a joint they are "helping terrorist" (by the theory of that money goes from the dealer to the supplier to the grower who might be connected to a terrorist organization).

Oh, and the US government refused to cooperate in the inquiry, and hasn't called their own.

And this is what isn't being talked about enough in the mainstream media, especially the television news. And it's also not being talked about by our politicians. This case should be front and center of the argument about why Bush should be stopped in his attempts to "clarify" the Geneva Convention.

Whenever some Republican hack says it's just loony partisanship to call for the impeachment of the president, this should always be the first thing brought up. If the right-wing can impeach a guy for cheating on his wife why is it so out of left field to want to do it for illegally torturing another human being?

I'd like to say just a couple things to the President:

Sir, if you don't know the basic right of human dignity then you are beyond reproach. The Geneva Convention is not "vague" you evil bastard. If you don't know what "outrages upon personal dignity" means what you can't do to people, then you have absolutely no moral center.

What is being done to these people in your name and under your authority is not a game like your fraternity's ritual hazing, despite what your little pea-sized brain might think.

God I hate you.