Rotten, evil, un-American bastards - and I don’t mean that in a good way.

Thrown to the Wolves
By Bob Herbert, February 25, 2005, The New York Times

OTTAWA - If John Ashcroft was right, then I was staring into the malevolent, duplicitous eyes of pure evil, the eyes of a man with the mass murder of Americans on his mind. But all I could really see was a polite, unassuming, neatly dressed guy who looked like a suburban Little League coach.

If Mr. Ashcroft was right, then Maher Arar should have been in a U.S. prison, not talking to me in an office in downtown Ottawa. But there he was, a 34-year-old man who now wears a perpetually sad expression, talking about his recent experiences - a real-life story with the hideous aura of a hallucination. …

In the fall of 2002 Mr. Arar, a Canadian citizen, suddenly found himself caught up in the cruel mockery of justice that the Bush administration has substituted for the rule of law in the post-Sept. 11 world. While attempting to change planes at Kennedy Airport on his way home to Canada from a family vacation in Tunisia, he was seized by American authorities, interrogated, and thrown into jail. He was not charged with anything, and he never would be charged with anything, but his life would be ruined.

Mr. Arar was surreptitiously flown out of the United States to Jordan and then driven to Syria, where he was kept like a nocturnal animal in an unlit, underground, rat-infested cell that was the size of a grave. From time to time he was tortured. He wept. He begged not to be beaten anymore. He signed whatever confessions he was told to sign. He prayed. Among the worst moments, he said, were the times he could hear babies crying in a nearby cell where women were imprisoned. He recalled hearing one woman pleading with a guard for several days for milk for her child. He could hear other prisoners screaming as they were tortured.

"I used to ask God to help them," he said.

The Justice Department has alleged, without disclosing any evidence whatsoever, that Mr. Arar is a member of, or somehow linked to, Al Qaeda. If that's so, how can the administration possibly allow him to roam free? The Syrians, who tortured him, have concluded that Mr. Arar is not linked in any way to terrorism. [emphasis added] …

A lawsuit on Mr. Arar's behalf has been filed against the United States by the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York. Barbara Olshansky, a lawyer with the center, noted yesterday that the government is arguing that none of Mr. Arar's claims can even be adjudicated because they "would involve the revelation of state secrets."

This is a government that feels it is answerable to no one.

Think about this Dear Reader. We exported this man to a state that the administration has labeled a terrorist state. We call this “extraordinary rendition.” How classy! It’s really just outsourced torture. But I digress. The Syrians “interrogate” him at our behest for six months or so and find that he was telling the truth. This poor bastard wasn’t even trying to enter the country - he was changing planes at JFK! Now he files a suit and the government says that his claims can’t be judged because the rationale for his treatment is a “state secret.” Outrageous is too mild a word.

Alberto R. (for Rasputin) Gonzales, our new AG and Torturer-in-Chief can certainly be proud. Personally, I think that every Senator, including the Democrats, who voted for his confirmation should be impeached. The new face that American justice presents to the world represents torture? I’m just so damned proud - and Lady Liberty is weeping.