Cooperating with Syria on torture

Updated below

Most of us have already heard the story of the poor innocent Canadian, Maher Arar, who was whisked (kidnapped) from an American airport by the C.I.A. and secretly sent to Syria so he could be tortured there. Today, the NY Times tells us that the Canadian commission investigating this has faulted both the Canadian authorities and the U.S. authorities for this.

OTTAWA, Sept. 18 — A government commission on Monday exonerated a Canadian computer engineer of any ties to terrorism and issued a scathing report that faulted Canada and the United States for his deportation four years ago to Syria, where he was imprisoned and tortured.

The report on the engineer, Maher Arar, said American officials had apparently acted on inaccurate information from Canadian investigators and then misled Canadian authorities about their plans for Mr. Arar before transporting him to Syria.

“I am able to say categorically that there is no evidence to indicate that Mr. Arar has committed any offense or that his activities constituted a threat to the security of Canada,” Justice Dennis R. O’Connor, head of the commission, said at a news conference.

The whole thing is worth a read if you have the stomach for it.

But, as Matthew Yglesias asks, just why is it that Bush is willing to cooperate with Syria on torture but is not willing to sit down and talk to them about peace in the Middle East? Doesn't that seem a little ass-backwards?

Update:

Glenn Greenwald adds this:

Do Americans want to be a country that kidnaps people without charges, tortures them, lies to its allies about it, and then, when it turns out they were completely innocent, blocks the Government officials who are responsible from being held accountable? That's the country we've become under this administration and its blindly loyal servants in Congress.