When memos surfaced recently showing top
Justice Department lawyers trying to justify torture, Attorney General
John Ashcroft moved quickly to stake out the moral high ground. "This
administration rejects torture," Ashcroft told the Senate Judiciary
Committee. "I condemn torture." Maher Arar, 34, however, doesn't buy
it. For 10 months and 10 days, Arar was in a Syrian prison, beaten and
confined to a cell not much bigger than a coffin. He thanks the United
States for his time in hell. Arar was picked up by U.S. authorities at
John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York, accused of being a
terrorist and then shipped on Justice Department orders to Syria under
a highly secret policy known as rendition. Arar's story reveals much
about the Bush administration's hidden war on terror. [more]
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