A chilling lesson about secret torture

The Virginian-Pilot

Secret prisons. Unauthorized wiretaps. Abandonment of international rules on the treatment of prisoners of war.

The Bush administration dismisses questions about all of them with a single, sweeping refrain: trust us.

Now comes Maher Arar, a Canadian citizen with a Kafkaesque tale, to expose the danger in swallowing that government bromide.

Innocent of any crime, unconnected to terrorists, Arar was nonetheless seized by U.S. officials on Sept. 26, 2002, when he passed through Kennedy Airport in New York on his way home from a holiday in Tunisia. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police, in error, had placed Arar on an international watch list for suspected associates of al-Qaida, thereby triggering a U.S. response that turned his life into a living hell.

Shipped by the U.S. to Syria under a post-9/11 practice unknown at the time to most Americans, Arar was beaten with a metal cable until he “confessed” to aiding the terrorist cause. For 10 months, a coffin-sized cell served as home.

Once Syrian officials determined that it was all a big mistake, Arar was freed and returned to Canada. A lengthy Canadian investigation concluded last week with a full exoneration. “I am able to say categorically 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,” said Justice Dennis R. O’Connor, who headed the review.

As the Bush administration pushes Congress to weaken the Geneva Convention on the treatment of prisoners of war, Arar’s story speaks more eloquently than any orator about the perils of tampering with tenuous safeguards. In times of understandable fear, capable of escalating quickly to near hysteria, the imperative to balance security needs with respect for civil liberties mounts.

Minus clear-cut rules and safeguards, individuals can too easily be sacrificed to a dragnet that sweeps up innocent and guilty alike.

The price of short-circuiting longstanding checks on unbridled power far exceeds any gain. Mimicking our enemies, we lose our most potent weapon - moral suasion. And for what? As in Arar’s case, the tainted evidence that torture often supplies.

“Trust us” invites sloppiness, excess and abuse.

“Trust and verify” remains the solid, foundational underpinning of democratic societies.

Maher Arar reminds us why.