Syria US relations: No good deed goes unpunished

The entire article is at Counterpunch.It is ironic that the US lambastes Syria for its human rights record and then renders Arar to Syria precisely because they know he will be interrogated and tortured. This aid by Syria in the war against terrorism goes completely unrewarded it seems.

How ironic, said Dr. Bouthaina Sha'aban, Minister of Expatriates. Syria provided U.S. authorities with intelligence to help stop a 2003 attack on U.S. ships in the Persian Gulf. Syrian security forces also obliged U.S. Homeland Security, although Sha'aban did not refer to this, by accepting a Canadian citizen of Syrian birth and torturing him at U.S. behest. Maher Arar endured almost a year of Syrian "interrogation," before Canada concluded that they never had evidence of his linkage to terrorists. Canada has since apologized and paid Arar compensation for their role in his suffering. Arar remains on the U.S. no-fly list. Homeland Security refuses to give reasons for his exclusion. Syria also "interrogated" other victims at the behest of U.S. authorities."

Syrian President Bashar Assad discovered painfully that Washington allows no good deed to go unpunished. Until late February, Washington had even ruled out discussion with Damascus, stopping just short of including it as part of the axis of evil. A former U.S. diplomat who served in the Middle East until recently said at a Damascus dinner: "U.S. policy toward Syria makes no sense. Nothing Syria does is enough. The neo cons who run Middle East policy want Assad's government to beg for forgiveness, even though they didn't do anything wrong. Then Syria has to bow to U.S. political and economic changes --democracy and privatization. After they do this," he concluded, "maybe Washington we'll deal with them. Surprising Syria rejected such terms? Who wouldn't?"