And so Galileo was shown the instruments of persuasion ... and he was persuaded...

The story below is pathetic; it would be funny as a Monty Python sketch except it deals with such dreadful matters.

As mentioned on this blog, when I saw the testimony where Omar Khadr clearly identified Maher Arar as an al-Qaeda operative I paused and wondered (albeit momentarily) if there was something to the allegations against Arar. I was taken about and taken in (at least enough to wonder).

But now it seems that even with all the interrogations and coercion Khadr didn't finger Arar the way the agent testified. Khadr's (alleged -- I am not sure he actually said anything) story can't work on the time line and to say Arar "looked familiar" means nothing at all.

This story proves coerced evidence is of no value; it also suggests the case against Khadr is pretty thin. If there was a decent case against Khadr why bother making a supper out of deadend statements?

Under Stalin 'wreckers' confessed to crimes so bizarre that some useful idiots in the West believed them to be true -- no one would confess to something so foolish were it false. The Inquisition obtained confessions of secret Jewish rites among what otherwise seemed to be devote Catholic subjects of Spain. Witchcraft trials featured confessions where Satan danced with witches while a human flesh stew bubbled away over a merry fire.

Torture leads to information that is, generally, useless; that's why sophisticated interrogations seldom use torture even when available. Torture is good to ensure a story put to the witness is repeated back to the interrogator. But such evidence is worth nothing except for public relations.

U.S. NAVAL BASE GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba

-- Omar Khadr's terrorism-linked "identification" of Maher Arar emerged Tuesday as less emphatic than testimony before a Guantanamo Bay military hearing suggested the day before.Notes taken at an FBI interview of the Canadian-born terror suspect following his 2002 capture in Afghanistan show Mr. Khadr stated only that Mr. Arar -- whose 2002 deportation and torture in Syria has come to symbolize excess in the war on terror -- "looked familiar."

The notes go on to say that "in time" Mr. Khadr "stated he felt he had seen" Mr. Arar, the hearing heard.FBI special agent Robert Fuller, who led the interview of the then-15-year-old, said that "in time" denoted "a couple of minutes."

"We gave him an opportunity to think about it," Mr. Fuller testified.The FBI agent was firm Monday in saying Mr. Khadr identified Mr. Arar by name when shown a photograph of the former computer engineer, who lives in Ottawa.

Mr. Fuller added that Mr. Khadr claimed to have seen Mr. Arar at an al-Qaeda-run "safe house" near Kabul "on several occasions" -- and also said he "might have seen him" at an al-Qaeda training camp.

But another portion of the notes speaks about the timeline in which Mr. Khadr eventually said he may have seen Mr. Arar in Afghanistan.It was sometime between late September and early October, 2001 -- a period a Canadian inquiry has since determined that Mr. Arar was in North America.

James Morton