And unintended consequences to work for outcomes that don't begin with, then engender more violence.
I keep thinking to other interactions with Syria. We collaborated with them in the past to render accused people there who were then tortured.
Remember Maher Arar?
Outsourcing Torture
The Secret History of America’s “Extraordinary Rendition” Program
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0208-13.htm
Published on Tuesday, February 8, 2005 by The New Yorker
On January 27th, President Bush, in an interview with the Times, assured the world that “torture is never acceptable, nor do we hand over people to countries that do torture.” Maher Arar, a Canadian engineer who was born in Syria, was surprised to learn of Bush’s statement. Two and a half years ago, American officials, suspecting Arar of being a terrorist, apprehended him in New York and sent him back to Syria, where he endured months of brutal interrogation, including torture. When Arar described his experience in a phone interview recently, he invoked an Arabic expression. The pain was so unbearable, he said, that “you forget the milk that you have been fed from the breast of your mother.”
Maher Arar: My Rendition & Torture in Syrian Prison Highlights U.S. Reliance on Syria as an Ally
http://www.democracynow.org/2011/6/13/maher_arar_my_rendition_torture_in
MONDAY, JUNE 13, 2011
As Syria continues its brutal crackdown on demonstrators, we speak to a Canadian citizen who was repeatedly tortured by Syrian authorities after he was rendered to Syria by the United States in 2002. Maher Arar was seized at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport in September 2002 and sent to Syria, where he was tortured and interrogated in a tiny underground cell for nearly a year. He now works as a human rights advocate in Canada. “The cooperation with the Syrian government, as well as other dictatorships in the Middle East post-9/11, gave some kind of legitimacy to those dictatorships,” says Arar. He calls on the United States and the United Nations to declare the Syrian regime illegitimate and refer the matter to the International Criminal Court. [includes rush transcript]
We only know about what happened to him because his wife did not give up and kept at the Canadian government to get him released.
What was gained from what the United States, in the hurry to do 'something' about terrorism did to Arar, and unknown numbers of others?
What was lost?
And what message did it send to regimes like Syria, that we would collaborate with them in such lawless brutality and signal that it's ok for nations to go against international conventions if they think it's in their best interest.
Now we seem on the brink of intervening militarily, and perhaps even by ourselves, again in a place with many factions, some of which we currently consider enemies, ready to use any means to attack and ready to pounce on any real or perceived weakness of the other sides. Who do we help by this? Which faction(s) rise to power and what will they do once they gain it? How many people will still be subject to the violence from one side or another?
Why not turn to Camp David, to International Court, to the U.N. ? Why not try to use legal, just and yes, all the diplomatic means possible rather continue to escalate the violence?
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