Speaking of Unsound Methods

I'm in a bit of a bad mood, and this news doesn't really help matters: "Canadian intelligence officials passed false warnings and bad information to American agents about a Muslim Canadian citizen, after which U.S. authorities secretly whisked him to Syria, where he was tortured, a judicial report found Monday."

But now here's the rub. Cooperating with Syria on our common interest in combatting Salafist terrorism seems like a very good idea to me. Certainly a much better idea than trying to provoke conflict with Syria by nonsensically lumping it in with some "Islamofascist" bogeyman. And yet, since the United States shouldn't be in the torture business, colluding with Syria in order to have people tortured is not the sort of cooperation we should be engaged in. That's my view, and it strikes me as a coherent one reflecting a standard liberal worldview. "Cooperation good; torture bad." Somehow, though, to the Bush administration we should cooperate with Syria only insofar as it once provided a convenient mechanism for the conduct of torture. That, it seems to me, is a truly deranged worldview.

Comments

Why do so many "rational" people fail to see how few of their fellow countrymen are rational?

Why do so many "deranged" leaders perceive correctly that "Kill the all!" gives them a better chance of staying in power than reason?

I do not think those words mean what you think they mean...

Posted by monkyboy | September 19, 2006 4:23 AM

monkyboy, I think you've got to error on the side of assuming sanity and decency among others. After all, if we can't see sanity in our fellow Americans, we can hardly blame those who can't see sanity in "Islamofascists".

Posted by Consumatopia | September 19, 2006 8:31 AM

"Somehow, though, to the Bush administration we should cooperate with Syria only insofar as it once provided a convenient mechanism for the conduct of torture."

It's mind boggling. The Bush Administration supposedly doesn't trust Syria. Nevertheless they expect Syria to pass along any "critical" intelligence information (the only reason we have these programs is to get critical information) Syria is able to coerce out of the prisoner. What rational basis is there to expect an enemy to turn over intelligence information? But presuming nevertheless that Syria does turn over some information it claims it got from the prisoner, that information can be used as secret evidence to convict the prisoner? ...or to aid in making national policy decisions?

Posted by Steve | September 19, 2006 8:36 AM

It's Canada's fault!

Posted by tomboy | September 19, 2006 9:39 AM

There's a passage in Saul Bellow's book "To Jerusalem and Back" where he recounts stories about how his hosts would discuss Soviet policies, Arab policies, etc. Bellow compared their efforts to a passage in "War and Peace" where Russian intellectuals speculated about Bonaparte etc. Bellow saw his hosts' discussion (and hinted that Tolstoy share the view) as part of the trap where intellectuals (and intellectuals lite, such as me) try to make sense of the world, as if the world and its bullies/leaders were rational.

Once we've passed into the strange nether world where torture is discussed as an option we've got to recognize that whole chunks of our co-inhabitants of this world have gone absolutely and viciously insane. There isn't a compromise fallback position on this. There aren't ticking nukes buried in crates in NYC. There aren't psi waves which clue us that certain children and bums and madmen are holding out on guilty knowledge that can make the world safe.

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | September 19, 2006 10:03 AM

Not that this would make it any better, but is there any evidence that this rendition actually constituted *cooperation* between the US and Syria? In the sense that Syrian authorities tortured Arar at the US's behest (and/or with CIA participation) and fed back to the Americans the information they obtained? Or was this just a case of the US dumping the guy out of the hemisphere and the Syrians torturing him for their own reasons? The Post story doesn't say whether the US remained involved and interested in his case beyond flying him to Syria (no doubt because the US apparently didn't cooperate with the Canadian inquiry).

Posted by Ryan | September 19, 2006 10:17 AM

So, "tortured until proven innocent" is the new legal standard in the US?

Posted by Tiparillo | September 19, 2006 10:44 AM

Yes, our current leaders are seriously mentally ill, I mean clinically mentally ill for real. Torturing peopls is evil, even if the people you are torturing are evil.

Actually I think Bush is Satan's toy.

Posted by cathy | September 19, 2006 10:46 AM

Sure, we cooperate on torture, but not on diplomacy. Smart.

Posted by Sue | September 19, 2006 2:35 PM