The Boston Globe has more on the mystery surrounding the US deportation of Canadian Maher Arar. For background, read our recent post "U.S. Deports Canadian Making a Connecting Flight to Syria" here.

From the Globe article:

"INS agents arrested Arar Sept. 26 during a layover at Kennedy International Airport and detained him in a federal prison until Oct. 10, according to his lawyer. A week into his detainment, he was allowed one phone call, to his mother-in-law in Ottawa, who hired lawyer Amal Oummih."

"Oummih said she was able to visit Arar just once. When she returned to the prison a few days later, Arar was gone. ''They told me there was a hearing, but they never notified me,'' Oummih said. ''They won't tell me where he was deported to. I kept asking and finally [an INS official] told me, `You won't find him in the US.'''

"Amal said that when she visited him Arar showed her a document that listed the charge as being a member of a foreign terrorist organization. The document, she said, later mentioned Al Qaeda."

Reynald Dioron, spokesman for the Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs. said ''We have two core questions: Where was he removed to and what is the rationale behind the decision? This is very unusual.''

Of the hundreds of people detained after September 11, Canadian officials report this is the first time a Canadian has been deported to a third country. ''We're not saying anything about it,'' said INS spokesman Bill Strassberger. ''There's no explanation why. We're just not saying anything.'' (our emphasis)

Maher Arar's wife meanwhile waits in Tunisia where they had been vacationing when Arar took a flight back to return to work at a software company in Ottowa, a job he held for the past two years. Workers were shocked to learn of his disappearance. They described him as hard-working and friendly.

An ominous op-ed piece on Bush's insistence on attacking Iraq called Intoxicated With Power , by Leon Fuerth, national security adviser to former vice president Al Gore and now the Shapiro visiting professor of international relations at George Washington University, strikes a chord with us. It concludes with:

"One can imagine that if the president takes his time, plays out his hand with the United Nations, allows inspectors to return to Iraq and awaits the inevitable demonstration of bad faith by Saddam Hussein, he might be able to deal with Iraq with meaningful, rather than nominal international support; and he might then also be able to deal with the aftermath of a change of regime in the same way. But much of the time the administration's overall approach to policy breathes impatience with the opinion of others, eagerness for military action despite protestations to the contrary and an ideologically driven indifference to consequences that could prove devastating to fundamental American security needs."

For a comprehensive anti-war page offering readers " the best analysis, activism resources, and timely information they need to resist this precipitous rush to war", we recommend Alternet's War on Iraq.

"With tensions rising between intelligence agencies and a congressional panel investigating the Sept. 11 attacks, lawmakers have decided that a meeting with the directors of the CIA and FBI today will be held behind closed doors ."

The scheduled witnesses are FBI Director Robert Mueller and CIA Director George Tenet. The decision to close the hearing was made late Wednesday night. No reason was given, but speculation is that the topic to be discussed is the FBI's handling of the informant who was the landlord of two of the 9/11 hijackers.

The informant had been promised anonymity. The FBI has allowed the agent who was the informant's handler to speak with Congress but has refused to allow the informant himself to be questioned. For more on the informant and the controversy, see our October 6 post.

The hearings will go public agains next week.

Officials in the Bush Administration apparently are not all on the same page when it comes to attacking Iraq--Some are expressing misgivings.

"While President Bush marshals congressional and international support for invading Iraq, a growing number of military officers, intelligence professionals and diplomats in his own government privately have deep misgivings about the administration's double-time march toward war."

"These officials charge that administration hawks have exaggerated evidence of the threat that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein poses -- including distorting his links to the al-Qaida terrorist network -- have overstated the amount of international support for attacking Iraq and have downplayed the potential repercussions of a new war in the Middle East."

"They charge that the administration squelches dissenting views and that intelligence analysts are under intense pressure to produce reports supporting the White House's argument that Saddam poses such an immediate threat to the United States that pre-emptive military action is necessary."

We didn't write a letter to Congress today as part of Open Letters Blogburst. We really couldn't think of anything original to add to the heart-felt, exceptionally written and passionate letters we read there, particular the one by Jeanne D'Arc of Body and Soul.

Since last week, whenever we think of the upcoming attack on Iraq, a song keeps running through our head, and it's not one that is likely to sway any member of Congress.

So, instead of writing Congress, we thought we'd reprint the lyrics here. It was performed for the first time in 1965, but became an anthem after it was sung (following a legendary cheer) at Woodstock.

Since then, many have changed the lyrics to fit their particular cause. We invite you to fiddle with a few words in the comments section here, to make it "a case on point" for the war in Iraq.

The last verse before the final chorus is the one that resonates with us the most: both because of those we knew back then who didn't come home--and because as a parent with a son of draft age now, there is no way we could support a war with Iraq without an imminent, credible and well-documented threat to the United States--and concrete evidence Iraq has the capability to carry it out.

Country Joe & the Fish. "I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixing-To-Die-Rag." (You can listen to it here.)

Yeah, come on all of you, big strong men,
Uncle Sam needs your help again.
He's got himself in a terrible jam
Way down yonder in Vietnam
So put down your books and pick up a gun,
We're gonna have a whole lotta fun.

And it's one, two, three,
What are we fighting for ?
Don't ask me, I don't give a damn,
Next stop is Vietnam;
And it's five, six, seven,
Open up the pearly gates,
Well there ain't no time to wonder why,
Whoopee! we're all gonna die.

Well, come on generals, let's move fast;
Your big chance has come at last.
Gotta go out and get those reds —
The only good commie is the one who's dead
And you know that peace can only be won
When we've blown 'em all to kingdom come.

And it's one, two, three,
What are we fighting for ?
Don't ask me, I don't give a damn,
Next stop is Vietnam;
And it's five, six, seven,
Open up the pearly gates,
Well there ain't no time to wonder why
Whoopee! we're all gonna die.

Well, come on Wall Street, don't move slow,
Why man, this is war au-go-go.
There's plenty good money to be made
By supplying the Army with the tools of the trade,
Just hope and pray that if they drop the bomb,
They drop it on the Viet Cong.

And it's one, two, three,
What are we fighting for ?
Don't ask me, I don't give a damn,
Next stop is Vietnam.
And it's five, six, seven,
Open up the pearly gates,
Well there ain't no time to wonder why
Whoopee! we're all gonna die.

Well, come on mothers throughout the land,
Pack your boys off to Vietnam.
Come on fathers, don't hesitate,
Send 'em off before it's too late.
Be the first one on your block
To have your boy come home in a box.

And it's one, two, three
What are we fighting for ?
Don't ask me, I don't give a damn,
Next stop is Vietnam.
And it's five, six, seven,
Open up the pearly gates,
Well there ain't no time to wonder why,
Whoopee! we're all gonna die.

For a succinct, well-documented chronicle of anti-war efforts during the period of 1965-1975, we recommend this series from the BBC.

One other quote we found and appreciated:

"If you grew up in the 60s, you grew up with war on tv every night. A war that your friends were involved in...and I want to do this song tonight for all the young people, if you're in your teens... because I remember a lot of my friends when they we were 17 or 18, we didn't have much of a chance to think about how we felt about a lot of things. And the next time, they're gonna be looking at you, and you're gonna need a lot of information to know what you're gonna wanna do. Because in 1985, blind faith in your leaders, or in anything, will get you killed. Because what I'm talking about here is:
War!
What is it good for?
Absolutely nothing....

--Bruce Springsteen, introducing his band's rendition of "War" by Edwin Starr, Los Angeles, September, 1985.

Atrios posted this picture Sunday of the anti-war protests in LA and Skippy was there.

In New York, several thousand protested in Central Park. The event was organized by the group Not In Our Name and speakers included actors Tim Robbins and Martin Sheen and relatives of victims of the Sept. 11 attacks. The protests didn't seem confined to the war on Iraq as there were many signs and speakers protesting other issues, from the war on drugs, to police brutality, feminist issues, oil company complaints, and more.

In Seattle, 5,000 protesters rallied against the war and listened to U.S. Representative Jim McDermott, just back from Bagdad.

In Philadelphia, an email informs us that the press has been minimizing an anti-war protest and sit-in at Sen. Rick Santorum's field office on Thursday, mostly of Penn students. More than a dozen were arrested on disorderly conduct charges when they refused to leave at the building's closing time. The police are threatening additional charges on those they had to carry out of the building.

Denver had an excellent week as well. Earlier in the week 2, 000 people showed up during lunch hour with anti-war protest signs at a downtown hotel where the President was making a fund raising appearance for local Republicans.

And Sunday, a record 54,587 people laced up their running shoes and participated in the 10th Annual Race for the Cure for breast cancer, raising $2 million. You can watch a short video of the spirited crowd here.

It appears that activism is alive and well.

Law Professor Jeff Cooper of the very articulate, sincere and well-reasoned blog Cooped Up comments on the Administation's promotion of the War on Iraq and his opposition to it:

"There is, in other words, plenty of reason to question the truthfulness of the administration's case as well as its motive for advancing the case at this time. My opposition to the administration's approach to Iraq is not based on partisanship pure and simple. It is not based on reveling in being in a political minority, sainted or not. It is based on a sincere belief that the administration's course of conduct will ultimately damage important American interests, even if the invasion of Iraq is quickly successful."

The F.B.I. is refusing to provide Congress with data it is seeking on an F.B.I. informant who provided information about two of the September 11 hijackers.

"The Federal Bureau of Investigation had a confidential informer who rented rooms in California to two of the Sept. 11 hijackers, but the bureau is resisting a request from the Congressional committee investigating the attacks to interview the informer and his F.B.I. handler, government officials said."

"The joint Sept. 11 Congressional committee plans to hold a closed hearing on Wednesday focusing on the F.B.I.'s handling of its San Diego informer, who was the landlord of the hijackers Khalid al-Midhar and Nawaq Alhazmi a year before the attacks."

"Several officials said the F.B.I. had rebuffed requests to make the informer available to the committee and would not authorize the agent who was his contact to testify."

"The F.B.I.'s resistance has led Congressional officials to become more aggressive in trying to find out whether the informer provided clues about the hijackers that the bureau ignored or failed to act on before Sept. 11."

Congress has a specific interest in these two hijackers who were aboard the American Airlines flight that crashed into the Pentagon: The CIA had identified them as Al Qaeda operatives back in January, 2001.

The CIA did not ask for them to be placed on a watch list until August--and by then the two were already in the country. Nor did the CIA pass the information on the two to the F.B.I. until late August. Some members of Congress speculate that these two hijackers were key to the whole 9/11 plot and had they been caught, the attacks may have been foiled.

Is Binalshibh cooperating with authorities or not? We can't tell from today's Washington Post article Binalshibh Said to Provide 'Useful Information' .

Binalshibh is the former roomate of Mohammed Atta who allegedly was supposed to be the 20th hijacker but couldn't get a visa. Authorities think Moussaoui may have been Binalshibh's stand-in and have charged that Binalshibh funneled money to Moussaoui. Binalshibh was arrested in Pakistan a few weeks ago, turned over to the U.S and taken to a secure location to be interrogated.

The lead-in to the Post article says he's talking. The remainder of the article suggests he is not.

"Officials said they hope the Yemeni-born Binalshibh, 30, will corroborate and expand on details..." he gave in an Al-Jazeera television interview. (our emphasis)

"But officials cautioned that questioning of Binalshibh was in its early stages. "He has not been in captivity that long and it takes time to get significant information," one official said, adding, "We are learning some more every day."

There are two other men in custody the Government believes are high level Al Qaeda operatives: "Abu Zubaida, who helped direct the network's operations and was captured in March, and Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, who had run an al Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan and was seized in January."

"The interrogators are playing the testimony of the three men off against each other, officials said. "Then," an official said, "we can try to put it all together in a mosaic."

Sorry, but this sounds to us like spin. To us it translates to, we're working on Binalshibh as hard as we can, we're lying to him and telling him his buddies and superiors have given him up so there is no point in him holding out, it hasn't worked yet but we're gonna keep trying.

Via Instapundit, the text of the Iraq resolution as it's to be marked up this afternoon is here He got it from Reporter Derek Willis at Congressional Quarterly. The Scoop says it has the support of GOP leaders Hastert and Lott and Democratic leader Gephardt.

Jay Bookman, deputy editorial page editor of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution lays out Bush's real goal in Iraq and it's not what we've been told.

"This war, should it come, is intended to mark the official emergence of the United States as a full-fledged global empire, seizing sole responsibility and authority as planetary policeman. It would be the culmination of a plan 10 years or more in the making, carried out by those who believe the United States must seize the opportunity for global domination, even if it means becoming the "American imperialists" that our enemies always claimed we were."

"Once that is understood, other mysteries solve themselves. For example, why does the administration seem unconcerned about an exit strategy from Iraq once Saddam is toppled? Because we won't be leaving. Having conquered Iraq, the United States will create permanent military bases in that country from which to dominate the Middle East, including neighboring Iran. "

He bases his conclusion on a report downloadable here called "Rebuilding America's Defenses: Strategy, Forces and Resources For a New Century," September 2000 by a group called The Project for the New American Century. Twenty-seven people are listed in the report as having contributed to its preparation. "Among them are six who have since assumed key defense and foreign policy positions in the Bush administration. And the report seems to have become a blueprint for Bush's foreign and defense policy."

Bookman finds further support for his theory in the President's National Security Strategy, available here. This is a document in which each administration outlines its approach to defending the country. The Bush administration released its plan on September 20. Bookman says,

"In essence, it lays out a plan for permanent U.S. military and economic domination of every region on the globe, unfettered by international treaty or concern. And to make that plan a reality, it envisions a stark expansion of our global military presence."

"The United States will require bases and stations within and beyond Western Europe and Northeast Asia," the document warns, "as well as temporary access arrangements for the long-distance deployment of U.S. troops."

Bookman says it was not September 11 that inspired the change of course. Bush's plan appears to be "a blueprint" of the 2000 Report by the Project for the New Century, "a group of conservative interventionists outraged by the thought that the United States might be forfeiting its chance at a global empire."

In turn, the 2000 report acknowledges a debt to a 1992 report by the Defense Department that "also envisioned the United States as a colossus astride the world, imposing its will and keeping world peace through military and economic power. When leaked in final draft form, however, the proposal drew so much criticism that it was hastily withdrawn and repudiated by the first President Bush."

At the time the report was drafted, Richard Cheney was the Secretary of Defense and the primary author was Paul Wolfowitz, who at the time was defense undersecretary for policy. He is now deputy defense secretary.

"Now, more than a decade later, the events of Sept. 11 have given those advocates of empire a new opportunity to press their case with a new president. So in debating whether to invade Iraq, we are really debating the role that the United States will play in the years and decades to come. "

"Are peace and security best achieved by seeking strong alliances and international consensus, led by the United States? Or is it necessary to take a more unilateral approach, accepting and enhancing the global dominance that, according to some, history has thrust upon us?"

Bookman's point seems to be that Bush's plan to invade Iraq has less to do with fighting terrorism than with the view of his father's (and now his) advisors that America has to militarily and economically dominate the world through a global military presence. In other words, we have to become the World Policeman. As one drafter of the 2000 report said, we need to be the equivalent of Gary Cooper in High Noon.

Bookman makes a good point in reminding us that this was not one of the platforms Bush II ran on or that the people were either informed about or voted on. "The American people have never been comfortable with themselves as a New Rome."

Hopefully Bookman's theory will be raised in the Senate and vigorously debated.

(Thanks to Vodkapundit for leading us to Bookman's article).

Daniel Benjamin, a former member of the National Security Council and co-author of The Age of Sacred Terror argues in today's New York Times that Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda Are Not Allies.

Benjamin says that "Iraq and Al Qaeda are not obvious allies. In fact, they are natural enemies."

"A central tenet of Al Qaeda's jihadist ideology is that secular Muslim rulers and their regimes have oppressed the believers and plunged Islam into a historic crisis. ...To contemporary jihadists, Saddam Hussein is another in a line of dangerous secularists, an enemy of the faith."

Benjamin says the reverse is also true: "Saddam Hussein has long recognized that Al Qaeda and like-minded Islamists represent a threat to his regime. Consequently, he has shown no interest in working with them against their common enemy, the United States."

"Mr. Hussein has remained true to the unwritten rules of state sponsorship of terror: never get involved with a group that cannot be controlled and never give a weapon of mass destruction to terrorists who might use it against you."

"...while we may have to go to war with Mr. Hussein eventually, he still has a country that he wishes to hold on to, and that fact will govern all his calculations. Mr. bin Laden, by contrast, has said that Muslims have a duty to obtain nuclear weapons. After Sept. 11, no one should doubt that he and his followers would put them to use."

Another reason not to go to war against Iraq now, and instead to keep focusing on Al-Qaeda and the jihadists, is this:

"It is also worth considering how a war in Iraq might further the jihadist cause. With his regime threatened, Mr. Hussein might break the taboo on giving terrorists weapons of mass destruction. Moreover, as images of the United States attacking another Muslim nation are beamed throughout the Middle East and South Asia, many will take it as confirmation of Mr. bin Laden's argument that America is at war with Islam."

In short, according to Benjamin, the President is simply wrong when he says "you can't distinguish between Al Qaeda and Saddam when you talk about the war on terror." Such talk just reinforces "widely held misunderstandings about the extraordinary danger of the new religious terrorism."