Higgly

Oh I know. Him and all those Japanese out on the west coast in 1942. This is just plain dumb. You accept him into the country, grant him citizenship knowing he is retaining his Syrian citizenship, and then do this to him because he was dumb enough to remain a citizen of the country he came from? A terrorist state? Funny they have an embassy here. On Slater Street, yet!

The far right invented Realpolitik and now spends most of its time trying to pretend it doesn't exist. Yes they are, but then things were different in Chelmsford's day, wot? I thought I'd let you lot mix it up a bit before I came in with my usual cold shower of irrefutable logic... Firstly, yes, the Government of Canada can commandeer the airlines, but the scrutiny around this sort of thing is intense and we would have to be at death's door before they got away with it. China, on the other hand.... Superpowers do not directly confront each other in ground wars anymore. It is simply too dangerous. What they may lack in ground deployment logistics, they make up for in ICBM and nuclear ( or is that nuke-u-lar?) armament. China is easily within reach of US soil, even by virtue of modest missile capability. Yes superpowers do engage in ground wars, but only with much less powerful states they think they can bully. Of course, they often overestimate their capacity to bully and underestimate the capacity of the smaller state to resist: Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam.... Instead of confronting each other directly, superpowers fight proxy wars through client states. Were China's interests in Africa to be threatened, it wouldn't be by the US directly, at least not by a US government run by a sane White House.... oh wait... It would be by some other smaller state that may or may not be acting independently. If it is a small state acting on its own, only God is going to be able to help it given the resources the Chinese could throw behind their proxy. If it is by a small state acting as a proxy state for another superpower, then I would not doubt for a minute that the frequency of Chinese airline flights into the region would increase substantially. What do you think the chances are that another superpower would attack a 747 full of Chinese soldiers, supplies, what have you? Oh wait, make that "advisors, trade goods..."

What. Now you want to get me involved in this ridiculous bun-fight? Get a life Rue.

I have to admit that I don't know a lot about military logistics, but then looking at you three, I'd say that's a good thing

Bitch! Boy is she ever gonna get it when she gets over here for her booty call!

They have an entire world class commercial airline full of big airplanes. Don't think for a moment they would not commandeer it if it suits their purposes. This is not a country that is operating under the same constraints we are.

Wait until somebody tries to mess with their interests in Africa !

Well here's how that works. "Your officials are coming. If you say you are being tortured, we will kill you." Right. So why didn't they arrest him? Not guilty maybe? He was also a citizen of Canada. That is what matters here. Yeah right. There are Syrian agents all over Canada. They are swarming like flies. Have you seen the Syrian Embassy? Who do you think they got that intelligence from? Can you really be that naive? Yeah right. Here's a picture of my girlfriend on any given afternoon. Samoli's ? Is that like in "Holy Samoli"? Fortunately, neither are we.

Wow. To think all this started from a post about a fairy tale.

Sure it consists of those three. And how many centuries of war did it take? They teach that in high school history. As for Iraq being part of the Ottoman empire, that is a different situation, isn't it? You have a region that was ruled by a foreign military power as opposed to one that is supposed to govern itself.

No problem. Why not gather together all those who believe that invading Iran is a good idea and form a little group? Get yourself a little boat and a little gun, and head on over there. We'll be right behind you.

No kidding. What we have here is a failure to matriculate

Sanctions on Iran. Now there's a concept. So they stop trading with the west and start trading with the east. Bush was out of his league the day he took the job. I guess that's why they call it the Bush leagues

Lie down with dogs, get up with fleas, I suppose. Is that a French conjugation of the verb adorer? I don't believe I recognize it. Note that the subjective pronoun "who" is being used in the objective, so it should be whom. Here's a link. I personally am very happy that Arar was paid compensation, and I am especially happy that some of MikedavidDoubleZero's taxes went to pay for it

Isn't there an age limit for posting here? Don't you have to be at least 16 or have a note from your mommy? If the US has such a good case, why all the bellyaching? Just what exactly are you all so afraid of? Aren't you getting a little ahead of yourselves? Taking him off the no-fly list is not going to make a case any stronger or weaker, since the US can point to faulty information from Canada. The apology by the Prime Minister in the House of Commons in itself would be a good starting point. Arar trying to push people around? The guy is just trying to correct an injustice. Apparently innocent until proven guilty means nothing to you lot. I hear the loud clucking of a chicken little brigade. Pathetic.

BBC news reported tonight a televised meeting between Aung San Suu Kyi and the newly appointed junta liaison. They showed the two in the meeting and it looked like Suu Kyi was giving him a piece of her mind - it was evident that she was doing all the talking. At the end of the meeting, the two were shown standing side by side and it seemed that the guy was looking a little uncomfortable . The BBC reported that there was "quiet satisfaction in Beijing" over this development. How they would know that, I don't know, and they didn't clarify. This could be going somewhere.

Oh I know. And weapons of mass destruction too. It is remarkable that there is so much paranoia about Islam when the country that has most often gone out of bounds is the good old US of A.

That's nothing. There are actually those who cannot differentiate between attack and defense. Yes, I think I hear a barbarian outside my door right now. What's that noise? Oh wait..... I think it's....just a minute...yes, I opened the door to make sure...it's a saxophone! O GOD! A SAXOPHONE! WE ARE DOOMED! DOOMED!

Right. So the facts are that the guy is guilty of nohing and is being stigmatized by being on the no-fly list even though that idiot Rice acknowledges publicly that the whole process was SNAFU. Just the number of idiot postings in this thread should be sufficient to show the damage he has suffered. We've even got postings related to his personal life (he never works, his wife makes all the money, blah, blah). Mikedavid00 and BushCheney2004. Now there's a team.

Hmmm. Seems to me that there was a vote before launching into Iraq, no? The complaint there was that the Congress was being fed the wrong information. There was a vote before Afghanistan too, was there not? - That is, regardless of what the fascist right wing thinks. As for imposing your will, I'd say there are two purposes to war: one is to impose your will, which is the role of the attacker. The other is to prevent someone from imposing their will upon you, which is the role of the defender. Iraq is an example of the former, and Afghanistan the latter, which is why the US has found it easier to find allies for Afghanistan than for Iraq.

What a load of crap. A senior US official admits that the whole thing was screwed up and you lot still want the guy to be guilty of something and punished for nothing. You want proof Leafless? Where is the bloody proof Arar ever did anything to justify this travesty of justice? Get a grip. Damned right he deserves big compensation, if for no other reason than to make sure it doesn't happen again to someone else. As far as a possible law suit is concerned, as M.Dancer pointed out in another thread, $100 billion is less than 1% of the US economy. How much do you think they're going to have to pay the guy? It's not the money. They just don't want to open the door for the hundreds or more others they have done this to without trial. The Europeans have reported numerous secret flights of this type going through their air space, all of them carrying somebody of to be tortured until they finally squak out whatever it is that the CIA needs them to say. Who cares if its true, as long as they've got some poor bloodied and broken bastard to utter the words. The Ted Kennedy reference shows pretty much where a lot of these arguments belong. Kennedy was on the no-fly list by accident to the great embarrassment of the US government. As for Guyser's assertion that it is "their no-fly list..." Well sure it is, but this shows how loosely the list is connected to reality - sort of like the US drug policy . What am I seeing from you lot is how little is the value you place on citizenship in your own country - except of course Bush_Cheney2004, who appears to be a citizen of somewhere else entirely. I can't believe what I am reading here. Arar gets a formal apology from the Prime Minister in the House of Commons and it is still not good enough for you. Pathetic, the whole bunch of you.

Yeah politics. What bitch.

A large majoriy of Canadians favour decriminalization or outright legalization. I believe the average of all the polls taken over the past few years runs around 65%.

The acknowledgement is bupkis if he is still being kept on the no-fly list. If he was tortured in Syria as a result of faulty information coming from Canada, and if Canada has admitted the information was wrong, then anything that proceeds from that is fruit of the poison tree. The man was asked to testify before Congress and couldn't go because he is on the no-fly list. The situation is ridiculous. Just another of many, many incidents that bring discredit on the US.

The Canadian Prime Minister apologized in the House of Commons and Arar is being paid compensation. Our idiots recognized when they've screwed up and make amends. Your idiots on the other hand...