NELLIE AT DANCING WITH DERRIDA raises an excellent point about the Bush administration's saber-rattling at Syria. Bush and Condi Rice implied that Syria was involved in the murder of Lebanon's former prime minister (as they probably were), and accused Syria of aiding the insurgents in Iraq, of supporting terrorism, and of oppressing the Lebanese people by refusing to withdraw its military from Lebanon. So if Syria is so awful, why did the Bush administration hand over Maher Arar, a Canadian citizen born in Syria, to that very same Syrian government to be imprisoned and tortured? The Bush administration's condemnation of Syria is hypocritical not just on the level of having the same policies in Iraq that Syria has in Lebanon, but also (as Nellie points out) on the level of renditioning Arar to that very country that Bush condemns so strongly for its human rights violations.