US ambassador slams Canada for pushing to have Arar taken off watch list

[Spazito]

EDMONTON (CP) — American Ambassador David Wilkins is slamming Canada’s efforts to have Maher Arar removed from a U.S. security watch list.

Wilkins says Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day is off side with his efforts and should back off because a U.S. review determined Arar should remain on the watch list.

“It’s a little presumptuous of him to say who the United States can and cannot allow into our country,” the ambassador told a news conference Wednesday after a brief meeting with Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach.

snip

Day said Tuesday that he’s seen the information supplied by the Americans and found nothing new to suggest Arar is a safety risk.

more

http://www.canada.com/topics/news/national/story.html?id=c9748d9f-579e-4d18-ac54-e65406bb9521&k=58489

[redqueen]

1. At this point I think the US has little to no credibility on these matters. n/t

[Kagemusha]

2. Stockwell Day is a hardline conservative.

If HE says there's no justification for this guy being on a watch list, not coming from any bleeding heart liberal, it must be some pretty damned thin stuff.

Wilkins is just being an ass.

[roamer65]

8. Yeah. Exactly. Former "Reform Party" leader.

[Lisa]

11. yes -- wonder how he feels now? Stock's been worshipping Bushco for years

And if the man has a grain of sense (I'm willing to concede him that much), he's going to see this repuke rebuke as a rejection of HIM, as well.

By the way, Maher Arar and his family are now living Kamloops, in the BC interior -- not in Stockwell Day's Okanagan riding (our equivalent of a congressional district), but fairly close. I hope that Mr. Arar's Conservative MP is going to bat for him in caucus meetings!

[coalition_unwilling]

3. Canada, plese liberate us! (We apologize for all the moose jokes!) n/t

[tanyev]

4. But how does God weigh in on this matter, Ambassador Wilkins?

Never mind that David Horton Wilkins had only been to Canada once—a brief visit to Niagara Falls more than 30 years ago—when President Bush nominated him to serve as ambassador in Ottawa in May 2005. Wilkins, the long-time speaker of the South Carolina House of Representatives and an old friend of Bush, had a few other factors going for him.

The ambassador, who raised eyebrows when he said in his farewell address to the South Carolina legislature that God had instructed him to accept the post in Canada, has a long history of contributing substantial amounts of time and money to Republican candidates. In addition to serving as chairman of the Bush campaign in South Carolina for the 2000 and 2004 elections, Wilkins and his immediate family contributed $33,050 to Republicans over the course of the 2000, 2002 and 2004 election cycles, including $5,000 to the Bush campaigns. Wilkins also became a Bush Ranger during the 2004 cycle, raising at least $200,000 for the campaign.

http://www.opensecrets.org/bush/ambassadors/wilkins.asp

[saigon68]

7. Wilkins= another fawning boot-licking Bush Bot

[struggle4progress]

22. Wilkins: cochair SC Bush for President 00, SC state chairman Bush-Cheney 04

[MasonJar]

5. Canada, expel the sorry SOB (ambassador) from your country.

[aquart]

6. George wants to invade Canada, too?

God, I wish he'd stop picking fights, nasty little bully that he is.

[Amonester]

9. All smoke and mirrors. Harper (lil' bu$h lover) needs that kind of...

silly "theater" in hoping to "look" like he can "stand-up" to the nationally "hated" neocons down south because...

he's afraid to be "hand-voted" back into his "previous" opposition bench pretty soon.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

10. News Report: David Wilkens reportedly

was off his meds today.

[Spazito]

12. I just realized why Mr. Wilkins came out so publicly and

agressively on this at this time. I was reading another thread about Senator Leahy's outrage at the bush administration on the issue of Arar and his pointed, to say the least, questioning of Gonzales last week during the hearing.

The Canadian media made a "mistake" of reporting Leahy's outrage so this is the bush cabal response to any questioning of the Arar travesty.

The arrogance continues to take my breath away.

[Lisa]

21. I especially love the whiny tone used by Wilkins

He got all huffy about Canada supposedly telling the US what to do. As if Canada were trying to "force" the Bush Administration to do anything (heck, they won't even listen to multiple WTO rulings -- and they still are hanging onto some of that softwood lumber money!).

Most of us up here are well aware that the petulant, sulky brats who are carrying out Bush's so-called "diplomacy" do not speak for the American people as a whole.

[GliderGuider]

13. Deep Integration is going to be the bane of us up here

Time to review Canada's security links with U.S.
With our no-fly list set to go into effect, Ottawa is moving closer to meshing security operations with Washington, despite its poor human rights' record
January 22, 2007
Maude Barlow
http://www.thestar.com/article/172991

We know now that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has been storing information on all travellers entering and leaving the U.S. in order to grade them on their risk as a terrorist or criminal. Under the Automated Targeting System (ATS), travellers are not permitted to see or challenge their terrorism score, even if it can be used to detain or deport them to countries where they will be tortured. More disturbing were revelations in the final Arar commission report that the Canadian Border Security Agency has also been collecting data on all Canadian travellers through a National Risk Assessment Centre (NRAC).

<snip>

Arar was deported under this kind of careless information-sharing agreement. That's not a threshold anyone should find comforting.

<snip>

The signing of the Military Commissions Act and recent reports about the U.S. Automated Targeting System make it obvious that Washington holds little regard for laws protecting personal information and human rights.

And yet Canada is plowing ahead with plans to further integrate our two security apparatuses through opaque trinational agreements like the security partnership. It's crucial that we keep this in mind while criticizing Canada's new no-fly list. There is a larger agenda at work here and stopping some Canadians from flying is just the beginning.

So, let me get this right. We can't dare ask for one of our citizens -- proven to be honest, proven to have been criminally treated by your government -- to be removed from a secret list, but we are expected to share personal, private information on all the rest of our citizens for God-knows-what purposes. Ha!

My blood boils.

[TankLV]

14. The nerve - wanting an INNOCENT man to have his rights RESTORED!

[Heidi]

15. Kick.

:kick:

[CHIMO]

16. U.S. defends blacklisting Arar

OTTAWA – Maher Arar's personal associations and travel history are enough to keep him on a U.S. security watch list, says a senior State Department official.

While Washington concedes these points may not warrant Arar's presence on a Canadian security roster, they meet the threshhold for the American list, the official told The Canadian Press.

Arar's place on the list means that he can't enter the United States or even fly over U.S. airspace.

http://www.thestar.com/News/article/175382#

[Kagemusha]

17. Let me guess...

Arar's traveled to Syria.

Recently!

[CHIMO]

18. Yep

Compliments, of guess who...?
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x2704719

[0rganism]

19. Irony so thick you can cut it with a knife

Step 1. Take bushco representative's statements
Step 2. Apply most cynical interpretation possible -- or, when necessary, simply invert for opposite day
Step 3. Ignore the PR spin into the weekend
Step 4. Find out during the news-cycle "dead zone" that your interpretation in step 2 was accurate
Step 5. Rinse & Repeat until January, 2009

[IndianaGreen]

20. Wilkins is as big a fool as our envoy to Venezuela

Bush sure has nominated quite a bunch of losers as US ambassadors. Who voted to confirm this turkey?

[Vidar]

23. Kindly send Wilkins packing, Canada.