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Charlie Pierce reminds us of why we should all be wary of the U.S. intelligence apparatus and their penchant for royally fucking up benign situations to the point of abhorrent ineptitude:
In September, 2002, while on a layover at JFK in New York, Arar, a telecommunications engineer from Canada, was detained by US authorities because they thought he was a member of al Qaeda. He was held incommunicado in this country for two weeks and then sent on rendition, not back to Canada, but to another one of our staunch allies in the War On Terror. Once there, Arar was beaten, and held in a rat-infested 3-by-6-foot cell from which he could listen to the screams of other people being tortured. He was held there in those conditions for 374 days. Eventually, the Canadian government settled a lawsuit brought by Mr. Arar. Facing a similar suit, the United States government invoked a "state secrets privilege" to kill Arar's efforts to get justice. Ultimately, the United States Supreme Court declined to hear the case.
The plucky ally that was so willing to cooperate with the United States in the torture of Maher Arar was Syria.
When it comes to politicians and war ---- The Gadfly's advice is unembellished ---- Always, always, always question whether or not their interests accurately reflect the interests of the Americans they supposedly represent. We The People have a voice and that voice must rise to the occasion when our leader's interests threaten the unalienable rights that our founders promised us .... Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness ....
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government.
----TFG
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