Maher Arar's Nightmare

The developments reported in the Sept. 19 front-page article "Canadian Was Falsely Accused, Panel Says," on the U.S. government's deportation of Canadian citizen Maher Arar to Syria, where he was tortured, is but the latest twist in this man's tragedy. Questions about what happened remain:

· Why did the United States get involved in the case in the first place? Mr. Arar would have been in this country for a few minutes to change planes on his way home to Canada; he was not even going to leave the premises of John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York.

· What danger was Mr. Arar to the United States that he had to be seized and sent off to Syria?

· Why didn't the United States just make sure that Canadian authorities knew what plane he was on and let them handle their own case?

· The article says that after his release, Mr. Arar tried to sue the U.S. government over his treatment but that the case was dismissed by a judge who cited national security interests. What national security concerns could be involved in an innocent man being picked up in transit at an airport and sent off to be tortured? Just how much judicial leeway is the government getting in its claims of national security?

· Finally, while he was imprisoned, Mr. Arar confessed to having been trained in Afghanistan, a country he has never even visited. A keystone of the Bush administration's so-called anti-terrorism policy is coerced interrogation. Here is yet another instance of the value of information obtained that way.

MYRON BECKENSTEIN

University Park

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I remember during the Iranian hostage crisis more than two decades ago how grateful Americans were to Canadians for sheltering U.S. diplomats and getting them safely out of Iran.

The way the United States has treated the rest of the world lately, I am afraid any American facing the same danger today wouldn't find refuge but a door slammed in his or her face.

ANDREW HUSTON

Washington