syria

The latest in a string of lawsuits challenging harsh interrogation techniques could fare better than similar cases.

The Second Circuit Court of Appeals just dismissed a landmark lawsuit filed by a Canadian victim of “extraordinary rendition” against former U.S. officials, ruling that torture victims have no right to compensation from the U.S. government, even if U.S. officials were complicit in their treatment.
Maher Arar is a Canadian citizen who was seized in 2002 [...]

Human rights experts say there is a serious risk that some of the Guantanamo detainees cleared for release could face persecution or torture.

This post is going to get filled, really fast, with irresponsible speculation. So let’s have some fun.
This Washington Post story about the Washington debate over Iran is revealing for two reasons. First, the administration doesn’t seem to be phased by Manichean, inwardly focused arguments through analogy about why President Obama needs to intercede, rhetorically, into [...]

Maybe it’s a cultural thing, but Canadians seem so much more willing to apologize for their mistakes than Americans do.
According to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, a committee in Parliament is planning to recommend that the Canadian government compensate and apologize to three Arab-Canadian men who were imprisoned and tortured in Syria, due partly to information [...]

Not much will stop the right from insisting that the Obama administration’s outreach to Syria is undone by the Syria insurgent “pipeline” to Iraq re-opening, but take a look at this Friday late-afternoon message from the White House about continuing “the blocking of property of certain persons and prohibited the exportation or re-exportation of certain [...]

Here’s a bizarre observation from six-term GOP Rep. Bob Inglis (S.C.), a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, speaking to reporters today following a trip to Syria, during which he spotted several North Koreans shopping in a Damascus bazaar. In light of North Korea’s military aspirations — combined with Israel’s 2007 bombing of a [...]

Lawyers for Maher Arar, a 34-year-old Syrian-born Canadian who was arrested at JFK airport, taken to Syria, interrogated and tortured, argue he has a right to sue for damages. If the Second Circuit sides with Arar, the government could face many more lawsuits.

The case of Maher Arar, the Canadian citizen arrested in New York and sent to Syria to be interrogated under torture, will be re-heard today by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in New York, sitting en banc.
As I reported earlier, the 34-year-old computer consultant of Syrian descent was apprehended by U.S. authorities in 2002 [...]

On Friday, I flagged an ABC story reporting that Gen. David Petraeus had requested permission to talk with the Syrian government as part of his new job as head of Central Command, only to be shot down by the Bush administration. I speculated that it might be another example of congruence with Sen. Barack Obama’s [...]