Tracy (and Srdjan),

I don't know if Maher Arar is innocent or not. Maybe he is, in which case (assuming he's telling the entire truth), I'd agree that the United States owes him an apology and arguably more. But I'm going to ask if you're familiar with the following, and if you have any comments...

1) Did you know that NO medical evidence of torture was provided during the Arar commission? A psychiatrist testified at the commission, but not a medical doctor. Some have criticized Arar for vacillating between claims of physical and psychological torture.

2) Arar was never cross-examined on his allegations - that's right, he did not testify at the commission bearing his name.

3) Did you know that Canadian police were suspicious of Arar in 2001 when Arar did some frequent cross-border travelling?

4) Were you aware that during Arar's entire 10 months in prison, he received nine Canadian consular visits - and not one Canadian official saw signs of physical violence.....no signs of whipping, no scars, no blue skin....nothing. (Obviously, it wasn't paradise....it's been confirmed he wasn't allowed to shower for months...yuck)

5) Did you know there are still lingering questions about whether Arar traveled to Afghanistan? According to critics of the commission, Arar's whereabouts in 1993 were never established.

6) Why has he not taken any action or said anything regarding Syria? Perhaps because they know too much?

Additionally, Omar Khadr stated that he saw Maher Arar in an al-Qaeda safe house in Afghanistan. I'm not presenting this as fact...I don't know if this is credible or not....but what is known is that the Canadian Foreign Affairs department asked the Arar family to provide documentation establishing Arar's whereabouts that year. No documentation was produced. Eventually, the issue of Arar's whereabouts that year were downplayed/side-stepped during the Arar commission.

So...maybe he's completely innocent. Or maybe he's a hustler and a liar. His credibility at the government level is probably suspect enough that he'll never get what he's looking for. The fact remains, he never testified at his own commission. Some might view him as a perfect witness - so long as there's no Q&A.

So I don't know for certain, and I'm not sure anyone from the periphery can claim to as well. But I am curious if either of you have any thoughts. And if you don't, that's fine.

But Srdjan, to offer this as a rebuttal to my attacking the govt of Iran for sentencing a woman to death by stoning for adultery - well, that's pretty weak.