The Dirty Mistress Club

If you knew Syria like Dubya knew Syria, oh, oh, oh what a gal!

It is a commonly held secret that Syria is President Bush's dirty little mistress in the global war on terror. Like most mistresses, Syria is not acknowledged publicly for its aid and comfort to our self-proclaimed "war president." Remember when he used to be Mr. Compassionate Conservative?

In fact, Bush openly shuns Syria — something that also happens to dirty mistresses. They get used, but they get no respect.

Bush II berates Syria in public as a wellspring for terrorism. He could talk what we in Missouri call ad nauseum about Syria as a benefactor for Hamas and that crowd.

Such criticism is deserved. So why has the Bushvolk used Syria as an outpost for outsourcing torture? Talk about strange bedfellows!

Under the questionable practice known as extraordinary rendition, the Bush administration has allowed people to be arrested, kidnapped and held incommunicado in such non-democratic states as Syria.

We know this because Canada exposed this flawed practice after one of its citizens was held and tortured in Syria for a year and then released without charges.

Maher Arar was arrested and abducted Sept. 26, 2002 at New York's JFK Airport after returning from a trip to Tunisia. He was on the government Watch List, which is all that was needed to cause him to lose his freedom.

When he was released in 2003, the Canadian government investigated his confinement, found him to be innocent of the charges and publicly apologized for its role. In Syria, Arar was routinely beaten and kept in a windowless cell.

Along with vindicating Arar, Canadian officials publicly urged Congress to hold hearings and investigate these random extraordinary renditions along with the silent partners in this extrajudicial form of human trafficking.

Arar claims he was flown overseas in an executive aircraft. Whose plane was it? What defense contractor got this mass transit payout?

The Bushvolk at first denied the use of secret prisons overseas and publicly condemned such newspapers as the Washington Post that detailed black flights with detainees aboard.

The Republican-led Congress did nothing, as usual. Now that the Democrats are the majority, why won't they expose this hideous policy for what it is — immoral, undemocratic and un-American?

When it comes to torture, few can bring on the pain like Syria. Except maybe those folks with the dogs, black hoods and electrical cables at Abu Ghraib.

Does anyone else see a pattern here?

Syria is notorious for secret prisons where painful interrogations are held. Human rights activists estimate that perhaps as many as 200 people have been spirited away by U.S. operatives, hidden and tortured since 2001.

Wake me up when we get America back, please.

Doesn't it bother you that we are ruled by an imperial president who can have people locked up without charges, denied legal representation and a fair hearing, tortured and then set free as if nothing happened?

What was most amazing about the administration's criticism of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's April visit to Syria — something Republican lawmakers did before she got there — was the blatant hypocrisy behind it. Less amazing was how most of the media, used to being manipulated by the Bushvolk, again missed the bigger story.

It's not as though the administration's extraordinary rendition relationship with Syria was a big secret. The foreign press covered it when Arar was released. So did The New Yorker under the headline "Outsourcing Torture."

Oh, did I mention that Arar, though freed without charges, has sued our government? That's gratitude for you!

Since Pelosi's visit, the Bushvolk this month allowed Secretary of State Condi Rice to meet openly with the Syrian foreign minister in Egypt. But then Rice refused to be photographed with him. Isn't that always the case with dirty mistresses? Good enough to bed but not to wed.

Rhonda Chriss Lokeman (lokeman@kcstar.com) is a columnist for the Kansas City Star. To find out more about Rhonda Chriss Lokeman, and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

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