In June, a federal Appellate Court in New York tossed out Canadian engineer Maher Arar’s suit against John Ashcroft and other officials for shipping him to Syria to be tortured.  Technically, the court held, he was never in the U.S.  He was taken into custody while transferring from an overseas flight en route to Canada.  So he was apparently never technically in jail before being put on a plane to Jordan.  Technically, he was never put in shackles.  That was the two-to-one ruling by the court.

Now, that same court has decided on its own initiative to take another look at the case, this time with the full bank of judges of that court, at least 13 of them.  Canada has already coughed up over $10 million compensation for its part in Arar’s mistreatment.  Maybe the U.S. will still have to pay for its sorry role in the affair. 

Counter-terrorist training

Canada is engaging the Terrorist Research Center of Arlington, Virginia, to teach Canada’s military about Afghan culture and about what motivates opposition militants. Among the matters to be covered will be Islam and Islamic extremism and codes of tribal honor.

This undertaking, announced on August 25, occurs as casualties at the hands of the Taliban have mounted sharply in recent times, both for Canadians and for other U.N. forces.

Association members oppose meeting in Canada

A group of members is petitioning the American Political Science Association to cancel plans to hold next year’s convention in Toronto.  They claim that the human rights tribunal challenges to Maclean’s magazine for publishing Mark Steyn’s article predicting that the West would be overrun by fast-breeding Muslims and for reprinting the Danish cartoons makes Canada unsafe for academic discussion of controversial matters.  So far, all these cases have failed to produce a charge that any hate crime has been committed.  A decision in the British Columbia case against Maclean’s is still outstanding.