Updated

I’ll not lie, there is nothing in this entry about hockey. But that doesn’t alter the fact that the majority of Canadians care more about what goes on in the NHL than the human rights abuses that their own government has had a hand in. Buried in CBC’s pack pages, and most likely dwarfed by hockey news in your local paper, Maher Arar finally responded to the resignation of RCMP commissioner Giuliano Zaccardelli with the following…

“It is only my hope that Justice O’Connor next week in his report will recommend an agency that can oversee the activities of all those departments that have to do with national security. The public deserves to have the full truth. Accountability is about more than one person, or one agency, or one government department.”

Dangerous waters. The oversight of an intelligence community is a tricky business. Look only to the United States to see how the people’s representatives have been all but stripped of their ability to properly address the actions of their own intelligence community, one for which they pay, and yet one that has, since its inception, actually operated outside of the financial disclosure language found in the first section of the Constitution – language which, as Chalmers Johnson has aptly pointed out in the past, creates the United States a democracy.

It should also be noted that besides being rendered to Syria by the CIA, where he was held captive for a year and tortured (as if that’s not grounds enough to demand justice on both sides of the border), this affair has affected his entire family…

“Arar’s lawyer Julian Falconer said the parties responsible for the fiasco must be identified and held accountable.

Falconer said Arar’s entire family has been affected. His brother lost a trucking business because of an inability to travel to the U.S., his parents have aged “horribly” and Arar himself cannot travel to 70 countries, Falconer said.

The family is also unable to make the Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca, Saudi Arabia, Falconer said.�

Tonight, when you’re sitting on the couch, Molson Canadian in hand, watching Hockey Night In Canada, maybe take a few seconds between periods to remind yourself that if we’re to treat such incidents with minor consideration, then when it comes our turn we have forfeited the right to complain.

Perplexed?

Oil trumps politics, remember that as long as fossil fuels reign supreme on our planet. One need only look at the American relationship with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for reassurance. Sure, US and Saudi intelligence worked together in the 80’s to help fund and train the Mujahideen in Afghanistan, among them Osama Bin Laden (himself a Saudi, and perhaps even more than merely a radical with money). During the Gulf War, the US military populated Saudi Arabia, where they remained until 2003, after which ‘limited training personnel remained’ – the US military presence in Saudi Arabia being a key issue with many radical Islamic groups.

Over the last five years, the Bush administration has made it clear, in no uncertain terms, that it will deal harshly with those nations that either harbour or support terrorists, which is a round about way of saying radical Islamic militants. Ironically, when it comes to this assertion, it seems that the Saudis have a free pass. When Vice President Cheney visits Saudi Arabia, as he recently did, it’s all smiles and handshakes, not hard words and stern looks, as is often the case when dealing with Pervez Musharraf’s government most of the time. Because of their oil wealth, and to a lesser degree because Saudi Arabia is home to Islam’s most holy sites, the United States conveniently overlooks a variety of things that they have, in other parts of the world, pointed to as unacceptable. The most important being that the majority of foreign fighters entering Iraq are Saudi nationals.

There’s Also…

Saudi Arabia is a Monarchy, not a democracy. And while it has made token gestures to usher in the electoral process on very basic civic levels, the House of Saud is far from allowing the country to be transformed into a pro-Western democracy. In truth, there’s little point to it. They’re a pro-Western Monarchy, and that’ll do in a pinch, especially when you’re one of the world’s foremost oil producers.

Women cannot drive cars or ride bicycles (among other things).

Public executions take place.

In short - The Mutaween.

The government of Saudi Arabia has rigged its major oil fields with explosives so that, in the event of a coup or military invasion, it can destroy its own oil infrastructure.

Between Period Reading

For a complete run down of Saudi Arabia’s human rights record, check out Amnesty International’s 2006 Report.

Spinning

Reuters…

“The U.S. military said ground forces with air support killed 20 suspected al Qaeda militants, including two women, in an area where the Sunni Arab insurgency is strong.

Police and officials in Ishaqi, 90 km (50 miles) north of Baghdad, said the bodies of 17 civilians, including six women and five children, were found in the rubble of two homes.

“The Americans have done this before but they always deny it,” Ishaqi Mayor Amer Alwan told Reuters by telephone. “I want the world to know what’s happening here.”

Complaints that unjustified killings by U.S. troops are common have soured Iraqis’ sentiment toward the U.S. presence in Iraq and prompted Shi’ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki earlier this year to say he was losing patience over such reports.”

Required

Analysts: US at Root of Effort to Topple Lebanese Government…

“It’s no coincidence that all those who supported Israel in the war are today supporting what remains of this falling government,” Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said Thursday night via video feed to a cheering crowd of thousands.

“Does any Lebanese accept … supporting a government that George Bush and (Israeli Prime Minister) Ehud Olmert support?” he asked.

The sea of men, women and children booed and screamed for the government’s downfall.

Asked for comment, a representative at the U.S. Embassy in Beirut referred a McClatchy reporter to remarks by Rice last summer in which she said any peace deal had to ensure that Lebanon didn’t return to its “status quo,” again meaning that Hezbollah must be brought under control.

But Hezbollah now appears more in control than ever.”

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