Peter F

Just had a brilliant idea! Which company manufactures knee-pads? Can you imagine the market for knee-pads when Alberta separates? CCM maybe...yeah that it...

Geez, this almost makes me want to vote conservative....almost, but not quite.

First off, August1991, service in Napoleon's army was rarely volountary. It was a mass conscript army. Same with the Red Army of WWII, unless choosing the army over the coal pits of Novosibirsk is volounteering. It also was a mass conscript army - just like every other major powers' army was. But that is neither here nor there with regards to your post. What do we do to stop crazy islamists from causing random mayhem and destruction? The answer is nothing. We do nothing out of the ordinary to stop this. Assassination of a political figure is unusual but not new. Julius Ceaser was assissinated by his political opponents. There is nothing new about assassinations. Flying aircraft into tall buildings is new, but whats so outlandish about it as compared to, say, trying to blow up the same tall buildings by setting explosives in the parking garage? So how do these murderous attacks succeed? What is different about them as compared to any other murderous attack? How could these attacks have possibly been stopped? They could have been stopped with vigilant security measures at airports, or with a functioning police service in the case of suicide bombers.The most important thing is a population that doesn't think terrorists are freedom fighters .Thus very few terrorist Attacks in North America have been few and far between, a bit more in Europe, and a lot more in the Middle East...and up to the Twin Towers, that was even with a lax security service that risk-managed things. There is no reason to change anything. At least here in North America. Public Support is the crucial issue. No support for terrorists/freedom fighters and they will be ratted out. Otherwise they won't. Thus the problem of terrorism in the middle east...mostly Israel and Iraq; a sizeable portion of the population, rightly or wrongly, doe's not support their present governments and fewer informants as a result. So how do we protect our liberal nation from being overthrown by terrorists? Answer: by being a liberal nation. Treating everyone (even immigrants) fair and square in a non-arbitrary fashion within the rule of law...basically doing what we do now. Have we anything to fear from terrorists and other extremists? No. Would anyone feel safer if the police had the power to arrest everyone in town? Under a military government? The greatest danger to our liberal values and government is if our government should over react and arrest everyone who looks funny or sweats too much at public gatherings...or resort to torture in order to extract the story we want to hear ala the inquisistion. Or things of that nature. As long as we steer clear of that sort of jack-booted horsepoo, we'll be just fine, albeit some of us could very well end up dead. Terrorsists can blow me up anytime they like - or saw off my noggin if they should so desire. Because in the long run they will inevitably lose, as long as the government of the day keeps its own head...

and that doesn't explain anything either.

Moxie cannot be Queen of Alberta unless she types her name thus: MOXIE

Its funny, he quotes AP Newton, then completely ignores "or upon some historical status common to them all,..." So, contrary to Kuhl, no soveriegnty is required to enter into confederation.

yes. And muslims don't always have stampedes either. There's always exceptions to rules.

Perhaps its thier propensity for violence? Jew certainly lack that propensity...look at Auschwitz, nobody killed in any stampede...they just came and went in an orderly manner.

Since I have a complete lack of facts to support my contention that the USofA is not blameless, I will have to fold on this one.

You are right, of course. The US acted on the information they were provided. They had nothing to jail him for but every reason in the world to deport him. I cannot blame the US for that. The US immigration service deports undesireable foreign nationals all the time. I imagine that when they do deport they don't ask permission of the state they are deporting the undesirable too, for permission to deport. I expect, that normally, the immigration guys would put the undesirable onto the next plane to the country of his passport. It strikes me as odd that that didnot happen in Arar's case. I can see why they held him in jail for a few days. I can see why they eventually chose to deport him after the Canadian authorities finally informed them that they had only the flimsiest of reasons to suspect Arar. So flimsy, in fact, that even under Canada's new anti-terrorism laws, they would still be unable to incarcerate the man. At this point the US authorities can either let Arar continue his flight back to Canada, and be done with it; or send him to Guatanamo as a suspected terrorist; or send him to Syria b ecause thats where he was born. But because the Canadians wouldn't jail him they decided not to let him continue his trip. This implies that no-matter what flimsy evidence the Canadians had, the USofA thought different. Yet, whatever the US thought, they couldn't justify handing him over to the marines, wich implies the USofA had some pretty flimsy reasons for suspicion themselves. So if everything is so flimsy, Why Syria? Perhaps he shit-ass lippy attitute and the powers that be said 'fuck you too, we will send you where-ever we want" and did - just because Arar was an asshole. Actually, now that I think about it, that seems very plausable. in

Yes, Arar should have know he was having coffee with a man that the RCMP and CSIS were watching...no, wait...that was a secret - He most certainly should not have known that. Too bad the people on the other forum didn't inform the Arar Commission. Perhaps they should tell the cops...

Americanwoman: . Most certainly. The USofA can refuse entry to Clowns if they so desire. They are a soveriegn state and can do as they wish. They certainly do not seek my or anyone elses permission, nor do they need to. They felt they should ship Arar off and they shipped Arar off. I have no issue with American soveriegnty over who comes or goes within thier own borders. I do have an issue with the US claim of blamelessness. It wasn't Arar's fault to be shipped off to Syria. It wasn't Arars fault to be considered a terrorist suspect. It was Arar's fault that he didn't realize that his Syrian birth would be reason for suspicion and eventual torture as a result of the actions and beleifs of others. He should know better...and so should I.

and the difference betwee Arar and the rest of the vacationers on a lay-over at JFK? Arar had been born in Syria, just like many other vactioners, and Arar had coffee with a suspected terrorist, just like many other Canadians of dual citizenship or not. The entire thing was entirely arbitrary - wich is not a sound basis on which to conduct law enforcement...or a war on terrorism for that matter. ...Or, Arar really is a terrorst! and he got sent back to his Axis of Evil country for debreifing. Now he's a perfect mole with 10million buck to boot! Any way you look at it this has not been good for the war on terrorism. But lets not try to change nuthin...keep the buffoons at the RCMP and CSIS...they're doing a fine job.

So fashion police is a bad idea.

Get over it. Visiting Tunisia is not a crime nor reason for suspicion nor incarceration.

One of Arar's crimes is being a citizen of Syria. He came to Canada legally under a Syrian passport at the age of 17. So at that time he was definately a Syrian citizen. Eventually he was granted Canadian citizenship. The granting of Canadian citizenship does not negate any other citizenships a person may have. When Arar travelled to Tunisia for his holiday he was not travelling under a Syrian passport but under his rightfully held Canadian passport. So where did the US immigration authorities get the idea he was a Syrian citizen? Probably because his passport indicated he was born in Syria. That made him, in US immigration eyes a citizen of Syria. So how doe's one renounce one's citizenship? Would it have been adequate for Arar to tell the US immigration people that he was not a citizen of Syria? Is there any possible means of Arar to escape the accident of his birth? No. No matter what Arar said or did, no matter what his past, he was a Syrian citizen by birth and there is no known way for Arar to have escaped that designation. It is not a crime to be born in another country.

Now we need fashion police? Didn't the Taliban have that?

Leafless: There's the goon. Why would the USofA export a potential/possible terrorist to, as you say, a terrorist supporting country? Also, the reason the US did not send Arar to Canada was because Canada could/would not arrest and imprison him. Since when doe's USimmigration give a shit what happens to deportee's? Thier job is to not allow the illegal into the country and send him packing. What was with the US asking Canada to incarcerate the man? That comes nowhere within the immigration powers you earlier cited. Its very bizarre.

Yes, you're right regarding a sovereign state. Saudi Arabia then. But for Arar and his deportation under US Law...If the immigration authorities would send him to Canada under certain conditions (arrest) would not they also send him to Syria under certain conditions (arrest)? If so, then the Syrians met the condition Canada couldn't and off to Syria he went. Syria the terrorist supporting country. Granted, US immigration law allows immigration officers to bundle the illegal onto a plane back to his home country. But does that law include clauses for arrangements of how the deportee is to be treated? It would seem that that is what happened here. I allege that US authorities asked both Syria and Canada to arrest and squeeze the suspect for information. Syria agreed, Canada didn't, so off to Syria he went. I don't think this was the innocent and routine case of deporting an undesireable. But then that is/is not a problem for the US to figure out. Its quite obvious that Canada has its own steaming heap of horseshit to get down.

Regardless of the RCMP circle jerk and soap opera in this country, I still find it very odd that the USofA would deport a suspect in the war on terrorism to one of the Axis of Evil country's. Would the US send Osama back to the Taliban?

Canada did not have information saying he was a terrorist threat. They only had information saying he had been in contact with a third party who they suspected could be a terrorist threat. The Canadian government could never have brought him to trial on the information they had. They had nothing other than he was seen in the company of a third party. Other than that the RCMP and/or CSIS had absolutely zilch. Such 'evidence' would never have survived a hearing to determine if available evidence supported a trial. Thus the conundrum Arar found himself in due to the incompetence of the Canadian security establishment; There was no evidence to support any trial yet he was still considered a possible terrorist with only the flimsiest of circumstantial information to support such a designation. To be saved from deportation to Syria the US authorities required the Canadians to arrest him when they had nothing to arrest him for. failing that then the US would deport him to Syria. Catch 22 for an innocent man brought about by beurocratic incompetence. There was nothing on Arar at the time they passed information to the US authorities. But the officers running the show didn't tell the Americans that. Only that Arar was a suspect. Not that Arar was really not a suspect but only someone who had been seen in company with someone who actuallly was an actual suspect. That nuance wasn't passed on. It took years to come out because the RCMP, after Arar's family and friends started pestering the government, chose to cover up the mistake they had made by fabricating a bullshit story about how Arar was indeed suspected of terrorist links and how they'd love to show the evidence they had but, y'know, need for secrecy and all that. Meanwhile they hoped that some sort of evidence would crop up to indeed implicate Arar. None did and eventually the RCMP Commissioner had to admit such and resigned. More bullshit from the government beurocrats. The Syrians were getting nothing whatsoever, but in order to mask the beurocratic fuckups the excuse was that Arar was giving the Syrians usefull information so as to help the RCMP cover up thier mistake, and to help the government of the day cover up the fact that they had done absolutely nothing to help a wrongly accused man. It was cover-your-ass from begining to end. Eventually, thankfully, the parliamentarians managed to root out the stink in the beurocracy. So the enquiry eventually took place and all the facts came out. Arar had suffered much because of the failures of the Security establishment. Oh, well, mistakes happen...especially in beurocracys. But the real failure of the system was a stubborn refusal to admit that mistakes had been made and even the attempt by low and high level RCMP officers and CSIS officers and Foriegn Affairs officials to cover up the mistakes of thier underlings. Arar deserve's every dime he got and then some. Who know's what happened to all the egotistical turkeys that brought all this on. Probably a letter of reprimand. The lot of them should be sacked.

or maybe he's the one who bought the airplane ticket?

Afghanisan identifies itself as an Islamic Republic ; Israel can identify itself as a Jewish state - or not, as they wish. Thats thier business. So you are surely wrong. I care not what Israel calls itself. As for syncophants - I don't desire the circle jerk, unlike many on this forum 'oooh we're so good, ooooh we're better than them..."

I most certainly do think draconian law is a very very bad thing. I certainly am glad that I don't live under such system. But, Iran is not the only nation to criminalize homosexuality. Iran, as a sovereign state, can enact whatever laws they feel are appropriate. What makes Iran a rogue state? Its adherence to Sharia Law? As regards rabble.ca, I've never been there. Perhaps you should ask them how they feel about it.

Actually you're the one choking. We should leave because they can defend themselves on thier own...it's the pro-interventionists who are suggesting that Afghans can't do it on thier own. Myata is simply pointing out that since corps sized operations are apparently succesfull why is that still not enough? How many divisions do the Taliban have? It would seem the Afghans need a couple of armies trained up to deal with the Taliban who have a hard hanging on to a hill-top. If Corps aren't enough then how many more years to train the Armies? ...besides that, I'm surprised you of all folks want to see us westerners training Muslim armies...