How Bush Shames America

The Canadian government has acknowledged wrongdoing and apologized to one of it's citizens, Maher Arar:

"Prime Minister Stephen Harper formally apologized Friday to Maher Arar for the torture he suffered in a Syrian prison and said the government would pay him and his family $10.5-million, plus legal fees, to compensate them for the "terrible ordeal."

"On behalf of the government of Canada, I wish to apologize to you ... and your family for any role that Canadian officials may have played in the terrible ordeal that all of you experienced in 2002-2003," Mr. Harper said in a letter to Mr. Arar.

The government cannot change what is past, he told a news conference in Ottawa. Mr. Arar was detained in the United States in 2002 and flown to Syria where he was jailed and tortured after the RCMP wrongly labeled him an Islamic extremist. "But we can make changes to ... [reduce the chances] that something like this will ever happen again.""

Now here in the land of the free and the brave – a land where we trumpet our concerns for human rights and are sacrificing American blood to “free” Iraqis and create democracy, one would think that America too would apologize for the wrong actions against Mr. Arar. One would be disappointed - for this is not the land created by our forefathers – this is Bushworld, where disdain, suspicion, and a negligent government runs unfettered.

Here is Bush's chihuahua, Gonzales hiding and dodging:

QUESTION: Canada, as you know, released a long-awaited report yesterday on the treatment of Maher Arar. Since the Department was the agency that allowed his removal to Syria in which he was then tortured, doesn't the Department owe him an apology?

ATTORNEY GENERAL GONZALES: Well, we were not responsible for his removal to Syria, I'm not aware that he was tortured, and I haven't read the Commission report. Mr. Arar was deported under our immigration laws. He was initially detained because his name appeared on terrorist lists, and he was deported according to our laws.

Some people have characterized his removal as a rendition. That is not what happened here. It was a deportation. And even if it were a rendition, we understand as a government what our obligations are with respect to anyone who is rendered by this government to another country, and that is that we seek to satisfy ourselves that they will not be tortured. And we do that in every case. And if in fact he had been rendered to Syria, we would have sought those same kind of assurances, as we do in every case.

QUESTION: From the report, he had no connections with any terrorist groups, and he has sought an apology from the U.S. Government.

ATTORNEY GENERAL GONZALES: Again, I haven't read the report.

The difference between Canada and the United States in this matter is stark indeed. While the Canadians have taken responsibility, have actually conducted an investigation, and have acknowledged deficiencies in their policies, America remains mum. The head of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police has resigned over this fiasco. Americans are still on the job – ducking and running for cover. You see, no one is ever responsible – for anything, in Bushworld, they never make mistakes.

Inhabitants of Bushworld are just not accountable to their countrymen. While this is depressingly shameful, the saddest aspect of Bushworld inhabitants is that should the slightest recognition of wrongdoing develop, they just don't care. For if you are not one of them, you are inconsequential.

Americans of conscience anxiously await the outcome of Senator Leahy's investigation into this disgraceful affair.
Posted on The Human Stain