An Issue of "The Walrus" Part I

I bought an issue of the Canadian semi-alternative monthly The Walrus, and it was pretty good. They sent me a subscription offer in the mail because I subscribed to US mags, Harpers and Z Magazine last year (when I was flush with cash) but I had to turn 'em down because 1. I don't often get $80 free ones these days, and 2. They print a lot of boring shit that I disagree with and so won't even engage with.

But the one I had was pretty good.

There was a story about journalists' complicity with the smearing of Maher Arar, by the writer Andrew Mitrovica. It points out the (in retrospect, obvious) fact that while the RCMP and politicians were slandering an innocent man, there were journalists who were relaying this dubious information, and relaying it with suitably leading innuendoes, in order to paint the picture of a dangerous man apprehended by intrepid law and order public servants.

Mitrovica says that we ought to be hearing apologies from them, and wondering what sort of price they're going to pay for their role in the affair.

I conclude with this: There are still right-wingers out there who say that "We'll never really know just what the wiley Maher Arar was up to." Curiously enough, these are the same goof-balls who get indignant at the suggestion that their wet-dream of a politician, george w. bush, ever lied, even once, about anything.

Which is pathetic. Political executives with a documented contempt for the rule of law, and who refused to testify under oath, shit, even refused to speak to legislators without smarter (still stupid) guys with them, ... they get a pass, but an ordinary citizen who was sent to another country to be imprisoned in a box and routinely beaten, ... yeah, let's be extra-skeptical about him.

Anyone who says "I'm still not sure about Arar" should be forced to read the Arar Inquiry Report, in a Syrian prison cell, and they can tell us all about their doubts when they're finished.