So occasionally a muslim is mistaken for a terrorist. Big deal. Better safe than sorry. All of the U.S. agenices (official and unofficial) do many things to try and protect this country. Extreme and not so extreme things. Believe it or not this guy, Maher, Arar, is in the minority. It's just like Pacino said in "The Recruit". The failures are known and the successes are not. That is true. I'm sure there are lots of successes from these interogations. You just don't hear about them. So when one man gets nabbed wrongfully, probably because of bad intel passed on from Canada, of course you liberals jump all over it. Moreluck and Over9Five were right. There were probably red flags sent up somewhere. Bad intel. Something. Oh well. If the guy is truly innocent I'd have to say that proves the system isn't perfect. But it does work.
Considering this post I thought of an old quote from an english poet and diplomat during the the real greatest time of another empire, the British empire.
The ends must justify the means.
Matthew Prior
You could equate many in history with this thinking but of the many a few by name come to mind.
Adolph Hilter: Had he succeeded and achieved his goals, we would hail him today on any equal plain with any past leader of mankind. He took a very wrong course to achieve an end but had he been successful, we would not view those means with great remorse and distaste. I say we would hail him because the first principle of history is the victors write the history!
Stalin: Who massacred millions in order to solidify power in a totalitarian state. Anything outside absolute obedience to the super state was not tolerated.
Mao Zedong: Also massacred millions and his legacy lives on in this regard. Sure, China plays nice on the international economic stage but let a small group of students rise up to protest lack of freedom and watch the tanks roll.
Here's you a quote from Chairman Mao that I'm sure you can relate and very much respect!
"We must affirm anew the discipline of the Party, namely:
(1) the individual is subordinate to the organization;
(2) the minority is subordinate to the majority;
(3) the lower level is subordinate to the higher level; and
(4) the entire membership is subordinate to the Central Committee.
Whoever violates these articles of discipline disrupts Party unity. "
The Role of the Chinese Communist Party in the National War" (October 1938), Selected Works, Vol. II, pp. 203-04.*
I also find it ironic that you make the following statement:
"So occasionally a muslim is mistaken for a terrorist. Big deal. Better safe than sorry."
There was an event in history in which nearly the same words were spoken but with a slight difference.
So occasionally a Kurdish child is mistaken for an adult in opposition to my rule and power. Big deal. Better safe than sorry and use the chemical weapons.
You and Saddam have much thinking in common. I'll even bet you'd find a fellow traveler in Osama too!
A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine.
Thomas Jefferson
Better hope you never find yourself a part of the 49%. Oh wait a minute, your side lost the election didn't they! I might even vote for Hillary in 08' just so I can help you taste firsthand the very vampire...uh I mean empire you have obediently helped to create!
Delay is preferable to error.
Thomas Jefferson
I guess you'd have never tolerated a Jeffersonian Federal Gov't! Then again we'd have never had a federal gov't that created Saddam, Osama, or for that fact Hitler, Stalin, Lenin or Chairman Mao!