Khadr couldn't pick out Arar immediately, FBI agent admits

[tuvor]

Source: CBC

An FBI agent who previously testified Omar Khadr identified fellow Canadian Maher Arar as someone he saw at al-Qaeda safe houses and possibly training camps in Afghanistan acknowledged on Tuesday the teen's identification of the Ottawa software engineer did not happen as immediately as he first stated.

Robert Fuller made the admission during cross-examination by Khadr's defence team at Khadr's preliminary hearing at the U.S. military commission in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigations agent testified on Tuesday that during an interrogation session in Afghanistan in 2002, Khadr came around to saying that on several occasions he had seen Arar, who was cleared of any links to terrorism by a Canadian public inquiry in 2006.

Khadr said he saw Arar at a safehouse in Kabul, and possibly at a training camp outside Kabul, Fuller said. Both facilities were run by al-Qaeda militant Abu Musab al-Siri.

Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2009/01/20/khadr-hearing....

[HeresyLives]

1. As it turns out

Arar was in North America, being watched in fact, at the time Khadr said he saw him in Afghanistan.

Under torture, people will say anything you want them to.

[Solly Mack]

2. Snort

K&R

[time_has_come]

3. That's the problem with torture...

...people will point the picture at any picture you put in front of them.

"Yes, I saw him in the camps! Just don't water board me anymore, please."

[tuvor]

5. As the most-recommended comment on the link I provided put it...

- "Who did you see?"
- "Waa wa, wa wa wa wa."
-*Wham*-
- "Sorry, what was that?"
- "...Arar..."
- "That's what I thought you said."

Welcome to DU, thc!

[smiley]

4. this is my problem with charging these "supposed terrorists"

So this man is accused of killing a US soldier in Afghanistan. Is this not a war? Aren't our soldiers also killing Afghani soldiers (combatants)?. Should he have restrained himself from killing in the name of American Liberation? Maybe I'm not getting the whole story here but I just don't understand how we can hold someone from the supposed enemy's side accountable for killing whom he felt an attacker. Especially when it is killing that they are trained to do. This goes for both sides of any war. They are trained to kill.

A 15 yr old is obviously a grunt. He's not making logistical decisions. He's fighting for the love of the cause, nation, or religion. Or he's fighting to save his own life.

So we capture this kid and now we've held him captive for over 5 years and there is evidence to say he has been tortured according to the standards of the Geneva Convention.

I really don't understand or comprehend how we can unilaterally say that the terms of the Geneva conventions do not apply to the people whom we are fighting in this "war on terrorism". A war is a war, and as much as I feel any war is B.S., there are still terms that apply. The accused in this case is fighting his enemy, and of course he is trying to kill our soldiers. That is what war is about. Killing in the name of nationalism (or religion) and in the name of war. It's war.... period! You kill or be killed!

Why wouldn't he be given the same rights as what we (the US) gave the enemy soldiers of past wars? History tells us (whether true or not) that we treated German soldiers with respect and dignity, even though they failed to do the same with our POW's. Shouldn't we be setting the same example.... of course we should!

It just doesn't make any sense!!!

I am curious to know how many of our soldiers are in the hands of the supposed enemy at this very moment. I'm curious to know (since we are not told about them by our MSM) how they are being treated. More than likely our captive soldiers are killed instantly because of the disdain for the politics of our country. But do you really blame our supposed enemy? Doesn't the fate of our soldiers who gallantly serve the principles of country day in and day out, depend on the decisions and rhetoric of those who lead us? I believe it does. And so should you.

Question your Gov't on every decision they have made and continue to make. Re-investigate the circumstances that led us into this un-ending war (especially 9/11)! When every American begins to do this then we will find the root of all our problems and the solution to change them.

[formercia]

8. There is no standard Taliban 'uniform.'

We regard and treat the fighters as terrorists because they appear not to be part of a 'military unit'.
The Taliban was the government in Afghanistan at the time and probably considered these 'irregulars' part of their national military at the time. The US recognized the Taliban as the legitimate government of Afghanistan at the time US forces invaded. It follows that any fighter recognized by the Taliban, regardless of uniform, should be recognized by the US as a soldier and treated as such.

[Tempest]

10. The U.S. has never recognized the Taliban government

It has always been considered an illegitimate government by the U.S.

Pakistan was about the only goverment to recognize the Taliban as legitimate.

[JohnyCanuck]

6. Just goes to show what a farce this "war on terror" is.

Like this case:

I Was Slow to Recognize the Stain of Guantanamo

By Darrel J. Vandeveld

SNIP

"From June 2007 through September 2008, I worked as a prosecutor for the Office of Military Commissions at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Warning signs appeared early on, but I ignored them. The chief military prosecutor, Col. Morris Davis, complained to me and others that he was being bullied by political appointees in the Bush administration. They wanted him to bring charges against detainees before he was ready. He eventually resigned, saying that he didn't believe detainees could get fair trials at Guantanamo.

I had heard stories about abuse at Guantanamo, but I brushed them off as hyperbole. When one of the detainees I was prosecuting, a young Afghan named Mohammed Jawad, told the court that he was only 16 at the time of his arrest, and that he had been subject to horrible abuse, I accused him of exaggerating and ridiculed his story as "idiotic." I did not believe that he was a juvenile, and I railed against Jawad's defense attorney, whom I suspected of being a terrorist sympathizer.

My experience with the Jawad case led me to file a declaration in federal court this week stating that it is impossible to prepare a fair prosecution against detainees at Guantanamo Bay. I had concluded that the system of handling evidence is a haphazard farce.

I saw this clearly with Jawad.

He was not lying about his age. Nor was he lying about the abuse. Evidence from U.S. Army criminal investigators -- taken in the course of investigating homicide charges at Bagram air base -- showed that while in U.S. custody in Afghanistan, Jawad had been hooded, slapped repeatedly across the face and then thrown down at least one flight of stairs. Detainee records show that once at Guantanamo, he was subjected to a sleep deprivation regime during which he was moved to different cells 112 times over a 14-day period -- an average of every 2 1/2 hours. It was called the frequent flier program.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/20...

This is a case of terrorism alright, but in this case the USA is the perpetrator, not the victim.

[JohnyCanuck]

7. More on Maher Arar

Maher Arar: The Torture Continues

SNIP

Maher Arar is the Canadian citizen who, based on what a Canadian judge found to be unsubstantiated accusations that he was a terrorist, was detained in New York City by the U.S. government and then renditioned to Syria in 2002, where he says he was tortured for 10 months. He was finally released and was allowed to return to Canada, where a commission that examined the conditions under which he was detained concluded that “there is no evidence to indicate that Mr. Arar has committed any offense or that his activities constitute a threat to the security of Canada.”

Even so, the U.S. government kept Arar from appearing Wednesday at the 30th annual Letelier-Moffitt Awards ceremony, sponsored by the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, where he and the organization that fought for his freedom, the Center for Constitutional Rights, were given the IPS International Award.

John Cavanagh, the director of the Institute for Policy Studies, said at the ceremony at the National Press Club that he wrote to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, asking him to intervene to allow Arar into the country, and got no response.

I did not fare much better when I called a Justice Department press spokesman Thursday, who referred the question to the Department of Homeland Security. “They handle the borders,” said spokesman Charles Miller.

As of this writing, there was no response to my queries placed at the Department of Homeland Security. The Canadian Press news service was also unable to get substantive replies to questions about Arar. The Associated Press reports that Arar remains on a terrorist watch list. But the Commission of Inquiry into the Actions of Canadian Officials in Relation to Maher Arar formed by the Canadian government concluded that despite “extensive efforts to find any information that could implicate Mr. Arar in terrorist activities. … they found none.”

http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2006/10/19/maher_arar_...

[Hydra]

9. Kidnapped, tortured, disappeared- and for what?

Obviously they take the war (of) terror seriously- there isn't enough terror in the world so we're going to make more of it.

[Tempest]

11. U.S. judge halts proceedings against Omar Khadr

The U.S. military judge presiding over Canadian Omar Khadr's war-crimes case has granted an adjournment of 120 days at the request of President Barack Obama.

The defence in Guantanamo Bay did not oppose the prosecution motion to suspend the proceedings.

Obama ordered prosecutors to make the request within hours of his swearing-in Tuesday.

The president said he needed the hiatus to sort out what to do with Khadr and the other 244 detainees at Guantanamo Bay.

[gratuitous]

12. How will the United States correct its mistake?

If we don't do it, someone else almost surely will. And they might not observe even the ersatz niceties of the kangaroo courts the Bush administration instituted to "try" these cases.