A few weeks ago, I linked to a terrible case of abuse in the War on Terror as brought to light by Bob Herbert of The New York Times. At the time the story was that U.S. officials had taken a Canadian citizen on a stopover at JFK airport and summarily deported him to Syria for torture based on a totally innocent link to someone who may have been involved with al-Qaeda.

In today's column - Thrown to the Wolves - the story changes slightly. It seems that the U.S. took action becuase "the Royal Canadian Mounted Police...set this entire fiasco in motion by forwarding bad information to American authorities".

The issue of extraordinary rendition apart, I think it was a terrible mistake by Mr. Herbert to have suggested earlier that the U.S. was arresting and sending to their possible deaths citizens of other countries becuase of an overzealous airport immigration officer. That sends a terrible message to the tens of millions of tourists who come here annually from other coutnries. I should have known that the story was a little more complicated than initially presented.

It seems that Maher Hara never should have gone through such a horrible experience, but I will reserve judgement on extraordinary rendition until someone presents me with a fuller picture of the process. One can always find one case gone wrong in any governmental process, from the execution of innocent people to the neglect of battered children due to improperly staffed child welfare programs. I'm wondering if Mr. Herbert can find any more cases, or is he just harping on the one case he did find? (This is his third column on the subject of Mr. Hara. Number two is here.)