This morning, CBC Radio One said that the Kingdom of Jordan was giving a new version of events regarding the so-called "extraordinary rendition" of Maher Arar from the United States to Syria. The accepted version, even by the States, is that Arar was loaded on to one of the CIA's Gulfstream Jets and shipped directly to Damascus.
Jordan, however, is now saying that Arar was flown on a scheduled commercial flight to Amman, the Jordanian capital. According to them, Arar then said he wanted to go to Syria, so they drove him overland and passed him off at the border.
Without going into an obscenity laced tirade which is what I am seriously tempted to do as I type this, let me just say that this is just as laughable as the North Korean ambassador to the UN saying we should "congratulate" the PDRK for exploding a nuclear bomb. But it may offer an explanation as to why the US still has Arar on their no-fly list -- Jordan is probably sitting on their own Arar file. If they have something on him, they should have the guts to release it and not just speculate about what he may or may not have done. Not wait for the US to send Arar to Jordan so they can have their turn at torturing him.
And keep in mind, this astounding claim happened, of all places, at the UN Human Rights Council. Canada should recall its Ambassador to Jordan. We don't needs friends like these.
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1 comment:
actually, arar was flown to jordan (although not on a commercial flight, but a charter flight as you say) and was transported across the land border to syria.
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