This is a book that should make you angry, depressed, and ashamed.  Ashamed to be Canadian, ashamed to be American.  It tells in graphic and gruesome detail of the tortures inflicted on innocent Muslim men. The tortures resulted from faulty information provided by Canadian and/or American governments about Maher Arar, Ahmad El Maati, Abdullah Almalki and Muayyed Nureddin.  

As is well known by now, Arar was a victim of “extraordinary rendition,” ending up first in Jordan, where he was beaten and then transferred to Syria, where he was severely tortured.  Arar provides the foreword, in which he speaks of “many” fellow prisoners in the Far’ Falastin Prison in Damascus who were “rendered to Syria courtesy of the U.S. government and its allies.”  

Of course, there is a lot more blame to go around.  Did the Italian government know about Presidential Aviation’s role in Arar’s rendition when it stopped over in Rome?  And then there is of course the behavior of Jordan, Egypt, and Syria, all of whom seriously mistreated one or more of the men and all of whom routinely mistreat prisoners.  Pither names some of the torturers.

Canada participated in the “war on terror” hysteria which precipitated this inhuman treatment because, as then Deputy Prime Minister John Manley put it, “from the Canadian point of view, the primary objective was economic.”  Canada had to be seen by the U.S. to be doing its share in the war on terror in order to keep the border open to commerce.  Besides, Canadian security had fumbled badly in losing track of Ahmed Ressam, the so-called millennium bomber, and in failing to deport him even after his deportation was ordered and even when he was incarcerated for criminal activity while under order for deportation.

Gar Pardy, was, before his retirement, the Director General of the Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade’s consular division.  He was involved in dealing with the four cases, and he had unkind words for RCMP involvement.  “We had inexperienced and, up to a point, inept people dealing with a subject matter that they know nothing about and absolutely no supervision of the people at a level that should have been taking place.”  Even after the victimized Muslim men returned to Canada, the shadowy men in “intelligence” kept feeding doctored information to the media to cast doubt on the lack of the men’s culpability.  True “cover your ass” behavior.
Pither is not prepared to leave the matter of responsibility at that.  There is also the question of the role of the Canadian Security and Intelligence Agency (CSIS), and beyond the various public servants there are their political masters.  Why are people like former cabinet ministers Jean Chrétien, John Manley, Justice Minister Anne McLellan, and Solicitor General Wayne Easter not made to pay for their role in all of this?  Pither does not specifically mention criminal responsibility but why not?  And of course there are American officials who share the guilt, beginning with President George W. Bush at the top.  The answer of course is that people at the top rarely pay for such crimes.