Mark Jaquith, just how much sway do you think your arguments hold with those who died on 9/11?

You don’t know any more than I do, but it wouldn’t matter if they were willing to sell their last speck of freedom to be able to survive that day.

Arguments about liberties aren’t worth a bucket of camel squat when American lives are on the line, and playing the pessimist never accomplished a damn thing.

American lives are on the line every day from completely preventable things, most of them much more deadly than terrorism. Why not then? Why only now?

Q: What do you call the civil libertarian who was on American Airlines Flight 11? A: Fertilizer.

Interesting how, during the course of your comment, 9/11 victims went from being the paragon of political debate to being the punchline of an unfunny joke.

If we want to have an honest, non-moonbatish discussion about this topic it has to be acknowledged that Arar ought to have been deported to Canada, from whence he came, and on whose passport he was travelling. In other words, to a country just next door, rather than on the other side of the planet.The deportation to Syria is really suspicious, and looks bad.

Exactly, Blaise. I didn’t think that was such an extreme point to be deserving of an all-out chiding of my views on freedom.

That said, this matter reflects equally badly on Canadian authorities. The real question is why wasn’t he sent back to Canada, and the suspicion is that Canadian authorities were onside with the U.S. authorities in this little escapade.

That sounds like the most reasonable answer, in which case both governments have blame in whatever happened to him.

I think when we try to justify it on the basis that he was a dual national of Syria, we are engaging in a bit of moonbat-ish sophistry. Everyone knows that he really had no connection with Syria (there are a lot of countries…I don’t know if Syria is one, but Iran is…in which you cannot legally give up your citizenship).

He hasn’t been in Syria since he was a boy. His wife, daughter, home, career, and life were in Canada. He asked to be deported to Canada. It’s something quite more foul than sophistry to say that exportation to Syria was a reasonable thing.

God forbid that we grant an increase in the government’s power to stop the will of Allah.

Arguments about liberties aren’t worth a bucket of camel squat when American lives are on the line, and playing the pessimist never accomplished a damn thing.

Q: What do you call the civil libertarian who was on American Airlines Flight 11? A: Fertilizer.

It is their attacking talking point, but they just cant say HOW they’ll do this.

They’ll be different! New! Better! That’s how!

Feel better now? Me neither.

We do not place different values on life and freedom. It’s repulsive for you to use that kind of sophistry.

Huh? So now we agree completely on the liberty/safety tradeoff? I think not…

You seem to assume that since we can’t reduce the threat to zero, we shouldn’t bother reducing it at all.

Not true at all. I gave you a whole list of things we should be doing, many of which we aren’t currently doing.

And, by objecting to reasonable measures now, you guarantee that less reasonable measures will be needed later–after the next severe attack.

This argument doesn’t really hold much sway with me. Even if everyone stood back and gave free reign to all antiterrorism-related efforts, the next attack would still bring cries for increasing the government’s power. With a non-existential yet persistent threat, I really doubt that I can buy future freedom by giving it up now. Sounds like an uncertain payday.

[...] I’ve been following the Arar story since it broke a few days ago, with caution. [...]…

Your absolutism will get people killed.

There’s an awful lot of that going around. Have you noticed how we’ve hopelessly lost a war because it hasn’t gone perfectly and according to plan?

Thats the entire plan of the Dems, isnt it? The no-plan plan… the ‘we can do it better’ absolutism? It is their attacking talking point, but they just cant say HOW they’ll do this. Like Bryan said, cause it can’t be done 100%.

Your absolutism will get people killed.

There’s an awful lot of that going around. Have you noticed how we’ve hopelessly lost a war because it hasn’t gone perfectly and according to plan?

No one in their right mind thinks the terror threat can be reduced to zero. No one. But I do think reasonable measures should be taken to reduce the threat as much as possible. You don’t. You seem to assume that since we can’t reduce the threat to zero, we shouldn’t bother reducing it at all.

That’s the difference. Your absolutism will get people killed. And, by objecting to reasonable measures now, you guarantee that less reasonable measures will be needed later–after the next severe attack.

Dangerously naive.

Mark, you’re hopeless. Like the bloggers linked in this post, we know what you’re against. Tell us what you’re for doing to stop terrorists.

I’d still like to know why the U.S. handed Arar over to the Syrians, but I guess that can wait.

My anti-terrorism plan:

Border security, including ports. It’s a legitimate function of the government, and it can be done without breaking the law or violating civil liberties. All of Bush’s talk about “listening to X to protect you” or “spying on Y to keep you safe” doesn’t mean crap if terrorists can just walk across our borders or ship a dirty bomb through one of our ports. San Francisco (of all places) is taking the lead here, doing long distance radiation scanning of the port.

Bringing the fight to them. I don’t believe Iraq had any significance to the war on terror initially, but we had a legitimate reason to resume war with Iraq, and now that we’re there, it has become the center of the fight against terrorism. The “flypaper” strategy works. Zarqawi was allegedly planning a terror plot on U.S. soil before our invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq… we kept him busy over there.

Working with governments (Pakistan etc) to get them fighting their own mini wars on terrorism in their own backyard. I don’t think we’ve pushed Saudi Arabia hard enough. The vast majority of the 9/11 hijackers were Saudis, and Saudi Arabia continues to be a breeding ground for militant extremists.

Pushing for nuclear disarmament of nations with extremist bases. #1 Iran, #2 Pakistan.

Allow commercial pilots to carry guns (this may have happened already).

Refocus TSA to look at people and behavior instead of wasting time confiscating water bottles and iPods. “Yeah, but what about white female terrorists?” We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it. Right now we need to focus on who they are and how they act. Our scanning technologies aren’t good enough, and likely never will be. There are too many ways to take a plane down that can’t be detected.

I think that’d be a good start.

You’re against surveillance unless it goes through FISA, which can’t cope with modern technology.

Bush signed an amendment to FISA in October of 2001 and said “This new law I sign today will allow surveillance of all communications used by terrorists, including e-mails, the Internet, and cell phones.”

And yep, I’m all for it.

You’re against any kind of interrogation of terrorists beyond pretty please.

Not applicable to me. I’m on board with “tough, but not torture,” as Bush put it, assuming he’s talking about what we all think he’s talking about.

We do know that you’re for giving terror suspects captured on battlefields access to all the evidence against them, and that you’re for snarking at everyone who disagrees with your libertarian absolutism.

If we’re going to try them, we should try them for real. Rigged trials are a waste of time, and not at all in the spirit of this country. There are easier and less insulting ways to execute people.

When the next attack occurs because we have reverted to your pre-9-11 mindset on surveillance and interrogations and a law enforcement first approach to terrorism, I hope you’ll be able to live with yourself.

I’ll do what I did on 9/11. Blame the terrorists, mourn the victims, help pick up the pieces. Terrorism will always be possible. There will always be “one more thing” we could have done to stop a specific attack, but nothing that can stop all of them. “At any cost” simply isn’t realistic, because the cost slides up an infinite scale, but the risk never hits zero. I’m not going to feel guilty because my point of cost-benefit equality is different than yours. We just place different values on life and freedom.

That said, this matter reflects equally badly on Canadian authorities. The real question is why wasn’t he sent back to Canada, and the suspicion is that Canadian authorities were onside with the U.S. authorities in this little escapade.

I think when we try to justify it on the basis that he was a dual national of Syria, we are engaging in a bit of moonbat-ish sophistry. Everyone knows that he really had no connection with Syria (there are a lot of countries…I don’t know if Syria is one, but Iran is…in which you cannot legally give up your citizenship). The best thing is for the Canadians and Americans to acknowledge that this was wrong (or in current political nomenclature…a “mistake”…and try to not let it happen again.

That depends on your definition of torture. As a non-lefty non-moonbat, I am routinely tortured by colleagues and much of Canadian public opinion.

You’re against surveillance unless it goes through FISA, which can’t cope with modern technology.

You’re against any kind of interrogation of terrorists beyond pretty please.

We do know that you’re for giving terror suspects captured on battlefields access to all the evidence against them, and that you’re for snarking at everyone who disagrees with your libertarian absolutism.

When the next attack occurs because we have reverted to your pre-9-11 mindset on surveillance and interrogations and a law enforcement first approach to terrorism, I hope you’ll be able to live with yourself.

He was detained closer to Canada than Syria.

I think that is the point, Mark. If someone were to show up on the terror watch list, would you send him across the ocean or over an easily crossed border. Just sayin’

Canada swept up a man named Maher Arar in the wake of the 9-11 attacks. They sent him to us because his name came up on a terror watch list. We sent him to Syria.

If Canada wanted the guy so badly they would never have sent him to us, and we have yet to see proof that he was tortured, so it remains an allegation.

Americans understand the concept of turning the other cheek, but liberals redefine that into bend over, and spread.

Yet they sent him to Syria. It seems an odd choice.

If the Governor of California were arrested in Canada, would they send him to Austria?

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We deported him under our immigration laws, meaning that we were done with him as a person of interest. Syria seems to have done what Syria does, or not.

Another curious bit here is that as far as I can tell, we didn’t send him to Syria. We sent him to Jordan. According to the NYT

The Syrian-born Mr. Arar was seized on Sept. 26, 2002, after he landed at Kennedy Airport in New York on his way home from a holiday in Tunisia. On Oct. 8, he was flown to Jordan in an American government plane and taken overland to Syria, where he says he was held for 10 months in a tiny cell and beaten repeatedly with a metal cable. He was freed in October 2003, after Syrian officials concluded that he had no connection to terrorism and returned him to Canada.

How did he get from Jordan to Syria and in whose custody was he when he went?