Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
   -Pablo Picasso

For those wondering why I am continually questioning, this is why:

The veiled accusations and vehement denials would continue for nearly five years - despite official findings in 2001 that he had no terrorist links and in 2003 that authorities had violated his rights by colluding to keep him in custody.

Of the estimated 1,200 mostly Arab and Muslim men detained nationwide as potential suspects or witnesses in the Sept. 11 investigation, Benatta would earn a dubious distinction: Human rights groups say the former Algerian air force lieutenant was locked up the longest.

His Kafkaesque journey through the American justice system concluded July 20 when a deal was finalized for his return to Canada. In the words of his lawyer, the idea was to “turn back the clock” to when he first crossed the border.

But time did not stand still for Benatta: The clock ran for 1,780 days. The man detained at 27 was now 32.

Is this the same America that decried the Soviet Union and other oppressive states for “disappearing” people?

For those who say, “Well, you have to break some eggs to make an omlette, no sacrifice is too great to make for our security,” I must ask, whose sacrifice, only those of others, and only of our principles?

As I have written indirectly before, we have become a nation of cowards, we are not willing to sacrifice for our freedoms, we have become too sanguine in our successes, in our comfortable living rooms with our big screen televisions and DVD players and nice little suburban worlds that are only remotely impinged upon by the outside world on which we have such a great impact in ways unfathomable by us with our closed, complacent minds.

And when confronted by the madness of those willing to sacrifice all, including their children, we are uncomprehending because we cannot think outside our own narrow viewpoint; we cannot get outside our own comfortable heads to see the world at large and the insanity fostered by a cruel mixture of our actions with the context created by the history we refuse to learn, much less remember.

We are far too ready to throw our fundamental principles out the window.

Is this the legacy of those who risked their lives as traitors to the empire of King George III?

It appears so, fears fed by “leadership” that is more interested in keeping power than in doing what is right for the country.

A final note from the article on this crime we committed:

Though terrible, the Sept. 11 attacks “do not constitute an acceptable basis for abandoning our constitutional principles and rule of law by adopting an ‘end justifies the means’ philosophy,” Schroeder wrote. Based on that decision, another judge tossed out the case on Oct. 3, 2003.

Yet…

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