Wednesday, November 05, 2003

I can't decide if this Washington Post story about a Canadian citizen who was detained at JFK and secretly "returned" to Syria, the land of his birth, to be tortured is more or less disturbing because he's Canadian. The principle--that naturalization counts for nothing--would be pretty horrible if applied to naturalized American citizens by America. But that America feels it has the right to manhandle a Canadian citizen--remember, folks, this is the country that so graciously took all our planes during the Sept. 11 attacks--speaks volumes about our new sense of isolationism. We did something similar with Berna Cruz at Chicago's airport. If we can't deal honorably with Canada, who can we deal with?