More David Wilkins Dissing

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Biography

Jeremy Kinsman was Canada's ambassador to the European Union from 2002 until his retirement earlier this year. Before that he was high commissioner to London as well as ambassador to Russia and Italy. He joined Canada's foreign service in 1966 and currently resides on Vancouver Island.

KEN's Note:

Another surprisingly tart response to David Wilkins remarks about Day asking for Arar to be taken off the no-fly list. The large award given to Arar contrasts with the treatment Arar continues to suffer at the hands of the US.
I sometimes wonder if all this is not a plot to boost the popularity of Harper and Day both right wing reactionaries and pro-US and in favor of friendlier relations and closer links to US foreign policy--for the most part. Harper has spoken out on the northwest passage as being Canadian waters rather than international.



From one ambassador to another: Mr. Wilkins, cut the bull
Jan. 26, 2007
Cut the bull, Mr. Ambassador. That's how my mother's family in South Texas would react to pompous indignation like that of U.S. Ambassador David Wilkins.

Once again he slammed Canadian efforts to have Maher Arar taken off the U.S. watch list as a suspected terrorist, observing it was "a little presumptuous" of Canada to try to tell the U.S. who it could let into its country.

Wilkins' remarks are especially galling now that the O'Connor inquiry has revealed that "Canadian investigators made extensive efforts to find any information that could implicate Mr. Arar in terrorist activities" and "… found none."

Wilkins impresses no one with his loaded statement that "three U.S. agencies" did a full review of the Arar file and found "their own reasons" to keep the Canadian software engineer on America's watch list.

"Their own reasons," eh? One wonders what those reasons might be.

Scent of McCarthyism
Of course, Wilkins' public statements continue to victimize Arar. But his pain at being on a no-fly list is nothing compared to the pain of being tortured in a Syrian jail for almost a year after U.S. authorities sent him there on October 8, 2002 on a chartered flight paid for by the U.S. Department of Justice.

We all accept that Canadians were in part responsible for that horrible event. The RCMP, sadly, has a long history of making uneducated guesses on international and counter-intelligence files, which is why CSIS was created in 1984.

Still smarting over their lost mandate, it seems, the Mounties again jumped to unwarranted conclusions on Arar, which were conveyed to the U.S.

Though Canadian authorities tried to self-correct, there would be no relenting from a U.S. security machine eager to chalk up political wins, and it would require Canada to negotiate directly with Syria in order to gain Arar's eventual release in 2003.

Ambassador Wilkins suggests that Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day and, by extension, Canadians generally are "presumptuous" to question what the U.S. has on Arar.

To some Canadians, this reeks of McCarthyism. Heck, we don't have to go that far back to question the merits of intelligence claims from an outfit that started and entirely screwed up a war on the basis of information from the likes of Ahmad Chalabi, a wealthy Iraqi ex-pat with overblown ambitions. Remember the junk the honourable Colin Powell was made to present the world on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction at the UN Security Council?

Presuming what exactly
In the innocent days prior to 9/11, one of Paul Martin's memorable lines as finance minister was his sceptical reaction to an appropriations request for a big increase in the Canadian intelligence budget.

At the time, Martin noted that the U.S. spends billions on intelligence and still hasn't a clue, whereas Canada gets the same result for nothing.

Obviously, today we take terrorism more seriously and respect the burden and responsibility of the U.S. But Ambassador Wilkins and his righteous indignation are not helping the cause.

"Presumptuous?" Nous?

Well, I do dare to presume that the damning innuendo on Maher Arar coming from the U.S. ambassador as well as the U.S. attorney general has little to do with intelligence and a lot to do with the fact that Arar has filed a lawsuit against the U.S. government.

While Arar is suing for real money — and getting nowhere (the U.S. has invoked the rarely used "states secret" law) — Washington has generously settled some egregious cases of mistaken identity involving U.S. citizens who had been placed on watch lists without justification.

The problem with the Arar suit, however, is that its judicial disposition could constitute a nightmarish precedent of liability for Washington from who knows how many other foreign citizens who have been seized, rendered and imprisoned, including the hundreds held at the Guantanamo Bay detention centre.

A precedent here
The whole episode recalls the ferocious defence that the CIA and U.S. department of justice lawyers mounted in the early 1980s to block a lawsuit on behalf of those elderly Canadians who had suffered from clandestine CIA financing of brainwashing experiments in the 1950's and 60's at the Allan Memorial Institute in Montreal.

Then, the U.S. would not settle any claim higher than a minimal "nuisance" level because of the implications such acceptance of responsibility would have for any other claims from foreigners who could demonstrate harm at the hands of the CIA, from the widow of Chile's Salvador Allende on down.

Then, too, the U.S. claimed there was a counterpart Canadian responsibility, as is the case now with Arar. The Canadian department of justice took a long time to admit responsibility. But eventually there was a deal and a limited form of justice — the Canadian side made an ex gratia payment (without obligation) and the American government followed suit.

Twenty years later, Justice Dennis O'Connor has recommended a similar Canadian payment to Arar. The Canadian government is this time out front in acknowledging what went wrong on our part.

The U.S. admits nothing. For it, the stakes are too high.

It may be reprehensible, but it's an understandable legal defence strategy. Sooner or later, the truth will come out because a Democratic-controlled Congress is going to bring it out and Maher Arar will be compensated.

What isn't acceptable is to be lectured to about "presumption."

So, as one (former) ambassador to another, Mr. Wilkins, give us a break. Cut the bull.

Canada reaches 10 million dollar settlements with Arar

No doubt there will be a government apology as well. Rumoured settlements were much higher. The US settlement so far is to leave Arar on US no fly list and also no doubt in the near future it will throw out Arar's pending appeal of his case against the US on national security grounds as it did in the first round. Meanwhile the EU has issued a report suggesting that the EU issue an apology and consider financial compensation for Arar. Only the US refuses to admit any wrongdoing and continues to suggest Arar is a terrorist. Leahy needs to bring Gonzales and Chertoff back on the carpet. What is presumptuous one should tell David Wilkins is to continue to hide mistakes behind a cloak of national security and continue to defend sending an innocent person to be tortured in Syria since that is what in effect he is doing.


Ottawa reaches $10M settlement with Arar
Last Updated: Thursday, January 25, 2007 | 11:29 PM ET
CBC News
Ottawa has reached a $10-million settlement with Maher Arar over Canada's role in a U.S. decision to deport him to Syria, where he was jailed and tortured.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper is scheduled to make the settlement announcement on Friday afternoon, when he will also issue a formal apology to Arar on behalf of Canadians. Sources told the CBC the government will also pick up Arar's legal fees.

Maher Arar, shown in September, had originally sought millions in compensation and a government apology.
(CBC) Arar, a Canadian citizen born in Syria, had originally sought $37-million in compensation and an official government apology. In previous comments, Harper said that any apology would accompany a settlement.

The apology is expected to highlight that Arar and his family suffered extensively.

Arar, who now lives in Kamloops, B.C., will be in Ottawa on Friday and plans to speak to the media after Harper's announcement.

In 2002, the engineer was living in Ottawa and coming back from a vacation when he was arrested during a stopover at New York's JFK Airport.

Continue Article

U.S. authorities deported him to Syria, where he was tortured.

Ottawa set up a judicial inquiry into the case led by Justice Dennis O'Connor after Arar returned to Canada more than a year later.

O'Connor released his report in September 2006, concluding that Arar had no links to terrorist organizations or militants. He also concluded the RCMP had given misleading information to U.S. authorities, which may have been the reason he was sent to Syria.

"I also recommend that the government assess Mr. Arar's claim for compensation in light of the findings made in this report," O'Connor wrote.

Arar received a unanimous apology from the House of Commons after the report's release. However, the Conservative government later drew a distinction between a parliamentary apology and an official government apology, calling it the former.

At the time, the prime minister acknowledged that Arar had suffered a "tremendous injustice."

Earlier this week, U.S. Ambassador David Wilkins criticized Ottawa's efforts to have Arar removed from a United States security watch list, saying Washington alone will decide who to let into the country.

Speaking in Edmonton after meeting with new Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach, Wilkins warned Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day to back off because a U.S. review determined Arar should remain on the watch list.

"It's a little presumptuous for him [Day] to say who the United States can and cannot allow into our country," Wilkins told reporters Wednesday.

The ambassador reiterated that the U.S. found its own reasons to keep Arar on the watch list.

Day said in a visit last week to Washington that he has seen the information and found nothing new to suggest Arar is a safety risk.

David disses Day

I suppose it is even more presumptuous to expect an apology for rendering an innocent Canadian citizen to Syria to be tortured. Day is a right-wing pro-American evangelical who would have had Canada participate in Iraq but to give him credit even he cannot go along with CHertoff and Gonzales. These fellows are hiding behind a cloak of national security to hide their lack of evidence and the fact they made a mistake.
Day's rather mild remarks were simply to the effect that he had seen the American evidence and this had not changed his mind about Arar not being a security risk. It is surely surprising that Chertoff and Gonzales reviewing the file came to the opposite conclusion especially in light of the fact that an exhaustive inquiry in Canada over two years came to the conclusion that Arar was not a security risk.
It is not just a question of the US having the right to decide who is to enter their country, it is a question too of the right of the US to render a Canadian citizen who was after all just changing planes for interrogation and torture in SYria.
Senator Leahy needs to have his own inquiry into the Arar affair and also into the practice of rendition generally. Arar is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. At least in Canada Stockwell Day has also called an inquiry into three other cases where Canadian citizens were imprisoned in Syria seemingly on information provided by Canadian intelligence.

Wilkins slams Day for questioning U.S. on Arar
Last Updated: Wednesday, January 24, 2007 | 1:20 PM ET
CBC News
U.S. Ambassador David Wilkins on Wednesday criticized Ottawa's efforts to have Maher Arar removed from a United States security watch list, saying the U.S. alone will decide who to let into the country.

Speaking in Edmonton after meeting with new Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach, Wilkins warned Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day to back off, because a U.S. review determined Arar should remain on the watch list.

"It's a little presumptuous for him [Day] to say who the United States can and cannot allow into our country," Wilkins told reporters Wednesday.

The ambassador reiterated that the U.S. found its own reasons to keep Arar on the watch list.

Day said in a visit last week to Washington that he has seen the information and found nothing new to suggest Arar is a safety risk.

Arar, a Canadian citizen born in Syria, was seized at a New York airport in 2002 and sent to Syria, where he was tortured. A judicial inquiry into his case led by Justice Dennis O'Connor was set up after Arar returned to Canada more than a year later.

O'Connor concluded Arar had no terror links and the RCMP had given misleading information to U.S. authorities, which may have been the reason he was sent to Syria.

Parliament apologized to Arar and the government has been asking Washington to remove him from a watch list that prevents him from travelling to the U.S., despite being cleared in Canada.

However, the U.S. has refused to do so and has not explained why.

Day said Tuesday in Halifax that Canada will continue to let its position be known.

With files from the Canadian Press

US refuses to budge on Arar decision

Americans Won't Budge On Arar Controversey
One of the reasons why the US will not alter its position is the Arar lawsuit. If the US changes their mind they admit they were wrong and that gives Arar ammunition for his suit. Of course Wilkins defends the decision that is his job. He doesn't give any grounds or try to bring out any evidence that shows the US is right. Obviously there is going to be an attempt to wait and shove the whole matter out of sight. The Arar suit will again be rejected on national security grounds.


Jan, 23 2007 - 2:10 PM


CALGARY/AM770CHQR - "The decision stands, and its best we all move on".
Those words from the U.S. Ambassador to Canada, David Wilkins, who's standing behind the American decision to keep Maher Arar on a security watch list.
Despite persuasion by the Canadian government, Wilkins says their decision is the appropriate one.
He spoke Tuesday morning on CHQR's Dave Rutherford Show.
"A full examination was done, and based on that re-examination, it was determined that keeping him on the watch list was the right thing to do."

Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day says Canadian officials have looked at a secret U.S. file on Arar, and found nothing to suggest he's a risk.