This article describes the experience of Maher Arar, a Syrian-born Canadian citizen who was deported from the US to Syria in September of 2002.

After being starved, deprived of sleep, and being told he's not allowed to see a lawyer while in U.S. custody he was told he was being deported not to Canada (where he was headed anyway) but to Syria.

He told U.S. officials that he was worried he'd be tortured if he was sent back to Syria.

They didn't care.

He was more right than he could have imagined.

Link

While reading this account I kept hoping to read later today that this was a fake but nothing so far indicates that it's anything but the truth.

Our country knowingly sent this guy to get tortured or worse. We need to do something about this.

... on account of they keep gettin' shot down by enemies of freedom.

Another helicopter was shot down yesterday. Sure, that means progress to the Bush administration, but the rest of us humans think about how many families are destroyed by every one of these incidents. Is it worth this?

We can't just cut bait and leave, but step one to fixing the problem is putting the current administration out of work. One more year for our troops in mortal danger- that's terrible, but it's better than five more years.

Here's my tribute to that wacko who thought this stone monument was his God. It's my lame attempt to capture a moment that this guy will be unjustifiably proud of for the rest of his life.

I don't actually see hate on the faces of the workers, but the guy had a different angle, so maybe they do hate God.

"Iraqi officials, including the chief of the Iraqi Intelligence Service, had told the businessman that they wanted Washington to know that Iraq no longer had weapons of mass destruction, and they offered to allow American troops and experts to conduct an independent search."

I think the message here is clear- we were going to invade no matter what. This isn't a shock to those of us who knew the Bush administration had no interest in a peaceful resolution. There's no money in that...

Link

Broadcast flag approved, TiVo goes out of business. (Okay, not yet...)

President Bush this week said the attacks on our troops are a sign of progress in Iraq. Boy, we had tons of progress last night! Thirteen dead (so far) after a helicopter was shot down near Baghdad airport.

I'm sure there will be tons more "progress" today.

I guess it begs the question, why are we hiding soldiers' flag draped caskets from the press? I would think the administration would be proud to show us all these incredibly positive signs of progress we're seeing almost every day.

War is Peace
Ignorance is Strength
Regress is Progress


UPDATE 9:13 AM:
The death toll/Success rate has increased by two- total of 15 deaths/success markers are being reported at this hour. All good news for the Bush White House.
UPDATE 11:19 PM:
Make that 16. I heard the president dedicates a wanking session to each soldier he's gotten killed. His prolific masturbation habits result in a smaller backlog than one would expect.
UPDATE 11/5/03:
Make that 15 again. Hope the count keeps going down, no matter what kind of progress this signifies to the Prez...