Both David Janes and Pieter Dorsman have interesting posts on the case of Maher Arar, a citizen of Canada and Syria who was detained in New York on his way back to Canada from a trip to Tunisia. Arar was subsequently deported to Syria, jailed, and released, according to this CBC timeline. Katherine R, one of the bloggers at Obsidian Wings, has also been dissecting the story for a few days now (more here).

I honestly don’t know what to make of all of this. I have a sneaking suspicion that elements of the Canadian intelligence apparatus were trying to get the U.S. to do some of their dirty work for them, because the Canadian government would never let them get away with it on their own, but there’s also the distinct possibility that U.S. authorities were freelancing. It’s all deeply weird.

Obsidian Winger Katherine R has been all over the Maher Arar case for the past couple of weeks; today she notes Juliet O’Neill’s reporting on the case, which has landed Ms. O’Neill under investigation by Canadian authorities. This report reinforces my previous suspicion that the whole situation was orchestrated from Ottawa, with U.S. authorities playing an important role of being all-too-willing to go along in making the dirty work happen. It’s clear Ottawa couldn’t have deported Arar to Syria themselves without there being domestic hell to pay—so they got us to do it for them.

Bottom line: I’m with Katherine on this: there need to be investigations on both sides of the border.