Maher Arar
Sep. 19th, 2006 08:28 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chickenfeetSo the report of the inquiry into the deportation of Maher Arar to Syria is in and it exposes bungling, malfeasance, lying and indifference from both the RCMP and the Canadian diplomatic corps. It also gives a passing nod to the practice of torture by Syria and the use of 'extraordinary rendition' by our torture happy neighbours to the south but, quite properly, Mr. Justice O'Connor's report focusses on what went wrong in the Canadian bodies involved.
Both the Globe and Mail and the Toronto Star have editorials calling for 'heads to roll' but it's already apparent from the government reaction, best summed up as 'not on our shift' and 'we'll get back to you' that nothing is going to happen and, indeed, who would expect it?
What do the charges amount to? Firstly, extreme sloppiness and indifference to human rights by the RCMP in pursuit of sucking up to the US Torture Machine. Well, sucking up to the Americans is the principal function of the entire Canadian security establishment and is fully endorsed, indeed sealed with a loving ass lick, by the Prime Minister. So nothing is going to happen there.
Second, utter incompetence. Well, when has that ever resulted in action being taken against the RCMP? The recent history of the RCMP is one long catalogue of malfeasance and incompetence. Why do anything now?
Third, misleading senior officials and ministers. This is actually the interesting one. The briefings which, inter alia, allowed Bill Graham, then Minister for External Affairs, to get up on his hind legs and say that he was reliably informed that Arar had not been tortured happened at a time when the press was full of stories that just that had happened. I'm 99.9% sure that no-one was actually misled in those briefings but they certainly provided the 'plausible deniability' for ministers which was surely their true purpose.
So what happens now? My money says SFA. Stephen Harper is not going to do anything that jeopardises his status as second poodle to Dubya. So the incompetent will be promoted, the public will be reassured that procedures are in place to make sure it can never happen again until the next time and so on.
It's not a good day for Canada and it ought to be a wake up call to those who look at the train wreck to our south and say 'it couldn't happen here'. Next time you are voting, remember that both the Tories and the Liberals are deeply implicated in this.
Both the Globe and Mail and the Toronto Star have editorials calling for 'heads to roll' but it's already apparent from the government reaction, best summed up as 'not on our shift' and 'we'll get back to you' that nothing is going to happen and, indeed, who would expect it?
What do the charges amount to? Firstly, extreme sloppiness and indifference to human rights by the RCMP in pursuit of sucking up to the US Torture Machine. Well, sucking up to the Americans is the principal function of the entire Canadian security establishment and is fully endorsed, indeed sealed with a loving ass lick, by the Prime Minister. So nothing is going to happen there.
Second, utter incompetence. Well, when has that ever resulted in action being taken against the RCMP? The recent history of the RCMP is one long catalogue of malfeasance and incompetence. Why do anything now?
Third, misleading senior officials and ministers. This is actually the interesting one. The briefings which, inter alia, allowed Bill Graham, then Minister for External Affairs, to get up on his hind legs and say that he was reliably informed that Arar had not been tortured happened at a time when the press was full of stories that just that had happened. I'm 99.9% sure that no-one was actually misled in those briefings but they certainly provided the 'plausible deniability' for ministers which was surely their true purpose.
So what happens now? My money says SFA. Stephen Harper is not going to do anything that jeopardises his status as second poodle to Dubya. So the incompetent will be promoted, the public will be reassured that procedures are in place to make sure it can never happen again until the next time and so on.
It's not a good day for Canada and it ought to be a wake up call to those who look at the train wreck to our south and say 'it couldn't happen here'. Next time you are voting, remember that both the Tories and the Liberals are deeply implicated in this.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2006-09-19 04:16 pm (UTC)As to the Liberals, what is likely to happen, that hasn't already happened, to jolt them?
no subject
Date: 2006-09-19 04:32 pm (UTC)Firstly, 'the US' is not a unified entity. It may be that rural Ontario is like rural Minnesota or Massachusetts, but these are atypical states within the American context. The population of the GTA and Vancouver skew the remaining 25 million heavily, and *far* to the left in terms of the American context. I just don't see how the polls you are talking about indicate that English Canada is at all like the US (as a whole) in terms of social conservatism.
But setting that aside, the real issue with Arar is one of race. If Joe Smith from Kamloops had been deported somehow, I think the response would be very different. And on racial/immigration issues, Quebec is more xenophobic than Ontario, which is partly but by no means entirely a consequence of linguistic politics and ethnonationalism, which are of course nearly entirely absent among most Anglo-canadians.