1984 & Counting
After three-and-a-half years in a military brig somewhere in South Carolina (U.S. Guv is reticent about disclosing Gulagian addresses in or out of the country), then another year as a guest of the Federal District Court in Miami, Jose Padilla, 36, was convicted of "terrorism," and is expected to be sentenced to life imprisonment. For being an "enemy combatant." He'd gone to Egypt a while back to study the Koran as a Muslim convert, and apparently applied to an Al Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan in 2000. Made it to Cairo, but not up to those scary mountain fastnesses, where Al-Zwahiri & Bin Laden, the deadly soft-shoe act, do their devilish thing.
Former Attorney General John Ashcroft, then a full subscriber to the Cheney / Bush / Rove / Perle / Rumsfeld / Wolfowitz geopolitical weltanschauung, announced Padilla's "capture" at O'Hare airport in Chicago in May 2002, interrupting a trip to Moscow to do it, as further proof that U.S. Guv was acting with dispatch to catch up on the horrific attacks Qaeda was undertaking, "an unfolding terrorist plot to attack the U.S. [again] by exploding a radioactive dirty bomb." This one, Ashcroft said, was capable of being even more deadly than the 9/11 atrocities -- causing "mass death and injuries" to Chicago's unsuspecting White Sox fans, Playboy bunnies, etc.
Strangely though, the 'dirty bomb' accusations, the result of information extracted in various ways from other terrorism suspects in foreign lands (free of the restraints imposed even in such places as Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo), were not part of the bill of particulars against Padilla in Miami. Prosecutors didn't even refer to them, standards of proof and perception having risen substantially since the halcyon 9/11 days when the president swore that "those who knocked these buildings down will hear from us soon," and the country's blood was righteously up. Instead, the guilty verdict that Padilla received after a single day of deliberation by the Miami jury, was cobbled together expediently by attaching his case to that of two other terrorist suspects, Adham Hassoun and Kifah Jayyousi, two Middle-Easterners operating in South Florida as alleged support group cell members dedicated to providing money, recruits and supplies to Islamic extremists around the world. U. S. Guv's proof that Padilla, an unstable Hispanic gang member from Chicago's tough South Side, was really a Qaeda homie? He'd met Hassoun at a mosque in Broward County! Jose had wanted to go to Afghanistan and learn to fire recoil-less rifles . . .
Dr. Angela Hogarty of Columbia, a forensic psychiatrist whom the Federal District Court allowed to examine Padilla for 27 hours prior to his Miami trial, has indicated that her patient may have suffered from 'borderline personality' before his interest in Islam, and said that Jose's 40-odd months of total isolation, sleep deprivation, psychological battering by "trained" interviewers "determined to break his personality down, to reduce him to a point where he'd renounce himself and accept the government's view of what he'd been doing," constituted "mental torture," and obviated the proceedings: "He clearly suffered from cognitive dysfunction, loss of memory, severe depression and panic attacks" -- exactly the kinds of things that veterans returning from the Iraq War endure, many without adequate help. In its rush to justify its Iraq invasion, the Bush administration was looking for "evidence" to support its claim that Al Qaeda, the Taliban, Hezbollah, Hamas and other extremist groups, were somehow part of a cogent World War III of Terror. That could somehow be confronted in conventional, more or less rational, terms. Instead of the messy, fragmented lives people like Padilla -- a minor criminal looking for a rationale for his dysfunctional life -- really represented.
Gordon D. Johndroe, a White House spokesman, said: "Jose Padilla received a fair trial and a just verdict." A female member of the jury, though prevented from commenting at the courthouse, having been shunted out a side entrance and discouraged from speaking to the press, admitted in a phone conversation that she'd all but made up her mind before deliberations began: "[But] we had to be sure," she said later in Spanish. "We wanted to make sure we went through all the evidence. But the evidence was strong, and we all agreed on that."
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steamboat.
Welcome to facism. If the government does it, it's not illegal. What a country.
At one time the United States was respected. Now were are just feared like the bully in the school yard. We, The U.S. has lost all respect and credibility in the world. If we are to regain this respect then we must change regimes and put the PEOPLE back in charge.
Wrong! You want respect and a decline in fear? Then pull America back to an America First mode. Our youth have bled and died while our national wealth has declined all in the name of world cooperation but the world has not cooperated, instead stood by holding our coat while we did the battling, solved their problems, and they laughed into their sleeves. Change regimes? Fine, but get nationalists who want to restore America for Americans, get the jobs back, re ignite industries that once led the world, then stand for the helpless as we once did before we got snookered into sending our youth to die.
I am terribly uncomfortable with the Padilla verdict, especially with how it was reached.
A day and a half (12 hours) to sift through three months of testimony, on eleven charges shared by three individuals?
One of the things that jumps out at me in this post is the way that virtually all of the US response to Al-Queda has been military in nature. Instead of treating attacks on the United States (at home and abroad) by Al-Queda as a problem rooted in a complex political, cultural and criminal context that required a response using both military and law enforcement assets, the Bush administration decided that it would be much easier to let the Pentagon handle everything. The end result is this present mess, in which more people distrust the government and we can never really be sure whether someone is actually a terrorist threat,the hapless victim of an over-zealous White House, or something in between.
Actually, that's not entirely true. They're using intelligence assets to track their movements. They're using a vastly ramped-up HUMINT program to infiltrate their networks and radical mosques. They've also used countless freezes on their financial assets to hinder their cash flow. What the news mostly focuses on, however, is the actual military action since it is the most "glorious" to watch on the boob tube.
What about the neglect of Isreal/Palestine? Is this not a cancer in the middle of all the issues in the middle east? Is there any solution without addressing these real & preceived isses?
When all that you've got is a hammer, well, then everything must be a nail.
When all that you've got is a hammer, well, then everything must be a thumb.
I would love to see what crimes cct1984 and the intellectu
I could care less about Jose Padilla personally, but what was done to him is reprehensible. I can't believe what this country has become over the last seven years. Here's an exercise for all you Bush apologists: every time this administration does something, ask yourselves how you would react if it had been done by Clinton. It's funny how Cheney's assessment of an Iraq occupation during the first Gulf War has come back to haunt him. He was 100% right then, and now he has confirmed it. I only wish the criminals in office could suffer what others have because of their policies.
Hear, hear. After all that time in stir, after all that mental torture, Padilla would say he's working for Ming the Merciless if you asked him to. And fingerprints on one piece of paper? They could have put that in his hands while he had those blacked-out goggles and headphones on, while they transported him in belly chain, leg irons and with a full array of armored guards to the dentist.
Jury of his peers? No. He was tried in Broward County, one of the most repressive, Republican counties in Florida (Florida..
Instead let's talk about putting on trial people who we CAN make a solid case against. George Bush. Dick Cheney. Alberto Gonzales. Their crimes, crimes that have actually LED to the deaths of thousands of Americans, can be listed and documented and PROVEN. Corrpution with impunity should not the the role of government. Impeach. NOW.
(And why is it that the right-wingnuts are always such bad spellers, with only a passing knowledge of grammar and punctuation?)
Well, to be fair, it's not just right-wingnuts that are bad spellers with horrible punctuation. I've seen plenty of emotional, yet incoherent posts made by people from the far right and far left. Most are simply writing out of extreme anger and could care less about a few misspellings here and there.
Isn’t a trial by jury what the left has been screaming for!! Yet, when the jury rules against the accused you cry foul…what gives. You can’t have your cake and eat it too. The man was found guilty by a jury of his peers and quite frankly deserves to spend the rest of his life behind bars; he is a threat to the safety of people in this country. I find it strange that you are so dismissive of Padilla’s desire to go to an Al-Qaeda camp in Afghanistan to learn to fire a recoilless rifle (among other things)—must be the normal thing to do for “unstable” gang members from Chicago. Jose Padilla should’ve chose a better vacation plan...he deserved what he got.
Great point....N
It seems surprising that people could have problems with this point, but liberals, I would have thought all americans, but apparently not, are happy when people are found guilty because the evidence presented in a court shows them to be guilty beyond any reasonable doubt.
It is true that there have been cases in which people have been railroaded by "juries of their peers" and liberals do not support this.
Possibly your confusion comes from the fact that liberals do not like to see people convicted without serious trials, the two of you have assumed the consequent and therefore think that liberals are committed to the view that any jury trial is a fair one.
But liberals do not have to share your poor logical skills.
I am less bothered by the claim above that the juror had made up her mind before deliberation, since this still means after the evidence was presented. But it is a serious worry that Padilla was tortured into a level of mental illness in which he could not have helped in defending himself. If that is true, then this trial was a mockery. Maybe Padilla coincidentally was guilty and deserves this punishment. But if he was not capable of helping his defense, then his actually being guilty would not have much to do with his being convicted. And crazy liberal that I am, I do find that troubling.
Stripped to its barest essentials, Jose Padilla was found guilty and sentenced to spend the rest of his life in prison for filling out an application to go to a terrorist training camp. Without ever actually making it there and committing no further acts of terrorism, does the punishment in his case fit the crime?
He was found guilty by a JURY OF HIS PEERS. A very fair and American way....As far as I'm concerned, Padilla should have been doing life anyway. In his past, he was convicted of murdering a boy in an ally in Chicago. I suppose a liberal parole board let him out because of his age and crowding, what have you......A
He was released by a legal parole board. A very fair and American way. You complain that he was released due to overcrowding - would you be willing to see drug laws changed so that non-violent offenders weren't taking up space better used for murderers?
Secondly, can we conclude from your attitude that you would be okay with your loved ones being hidden away without trial for 3 1/2 years if the government said they were doing something wrong? Even if, years later, they were charged with doing something completely different? You would find that fair, would you?
And the torture, or, excuse me, "enhanced interrogation techniques," wouldn't bother you either? After all, Padilla is an American citizen, so what goes for him - goes for anybody. How much incarcertaion without a trial would be acceptable for your loved ones, Steamboat? How many stress positions, or days without sleep, or who knows what else (since much of what he endured is still a "national security" secret) are you willing to accept for them?
The question isn't whether he was a terrorist or not. He may well have been everything Ashcroft said he was, but he is still an American citizen, and as such, both the 5th and 8th amendements should apply to him. Or are those only reserved for *your* loved ones?
Mr. Lombardi you are a disgrace.
You malign 12 American jurors for finding on evidence a terrorist guilty.
It is your type who let the terrorists into America on 9 11 and then lost track of them as they were not "terrorists".
How someone so inhuman could make light of Chicago being contaminated by a radioactive bomb is has no defense. You are making jokes about bleeding gums, hair falling out, tumors, cancer and intestinal bleeding.
There is nothing funny about that no more than your making a convicted terrorist out to be just a Muslim worshipper.
The only justice in the things you have sown is when the terrorists are not stopped by the fine people of the FBI that the terrorists will contaminate the area where you and the cheering bloggers here exist as liberals live in the urban areas. That way those simple relands people will not be slaughtered for your protecting terrorists and attacking this government.
Make certain though Mr. Lombardi that you defend the bombers then too as you take in breaths of plutonium and anthrax as they were just "terrorists" too who only went to Egypt to study but never made it to the mountains.
Probably because the terrorists are learning it now in compounds in America thanks to learned people like you.
LaC, normally I don't see eye to eye with you at all. But on this one, yeah. It was pretty disgraceful to make fun of the people in Chicago. I guess Mr. Lombardi wouldn't give a damn what happens to Chicago based on his denigrating description of Chicago's inhabitants. Not a White Sox fan, Mr. Lombardi? Guess that's a viable reason for not giving a damn about a dirty bomb exploding there.
On a different note, I don't think that the government handled the case appropriately. I've always been a strong opposer of torture. It's just my belief, so flame away. I take a more Socratic approach to torture. It's illegal. It's immoral. I don't think it's OK to just shut your eyes and pretend that it doesn't happen. There are no "ticking time-bomb" scenarios. The information produced from it is often unreliable and the limited amount of reliable information could also have been obtained through more conventional methods. I worked as an intelligence collector/analyst for the Army. There are plenty of ways to track WMDs besides relying on torture. Tighten our borders. Anyways, just my lowly two cents.
Mr Padilla was not tried nor convicted of the original charges brought against-that being the dirty bomber. I know it's not obvious from this current article, but, in essence, the government arrested a US citizen, held him without benefit of counsel, refused to formally charge him until the original lawsuit challenging his sustained detention ALMOST reached the Supreme Court and then pushed 3 relatively minor charges., of which he was found guilty but, in all likelihood, will have those convictions overturned.
Yes, fear terrorists
McCain just said today in an interview today hopconcerned (cynical( he was about North Korea in the peaceful deconstruction of their nuclear program, what with "Their Record" of "worse than Gulag treatment of political prisoners. He also laid the propaganda groundwork for future war and confrontation with China, especially if they attempt to own and operate acarrier based Navy. Which should we fear next Manchurian Candidate or MK Ultra Neocon?
I suppose the good news is that this poor man may be beyond suffering (as we know it.)
Another nail in the US coffin. You hold yourselves up to be better than "them" and yet in fact you are far worse.
(And no, I'm not talking about the WTC. That *was* an atrocity, no-one is denying that). Your govt has done more to radicalise Islam that Bin Laden ever did. He must thank Allah every day for the sterling work the US does to drive new terror recruits his way.
Sir, I wish I could disagree with you, but alas, you are correct. The cheney/bush administration has done more to endanger this country and to destroy the American way of life then any terrorist could ever hope to do. As Pogo once said, "We have met the enemy and he is us."
I fear that you are correct. We have indeed turned into the bad guys somewhere along the line. I think it has manifested under Bush but certain powers have been pushing us this way for a long time.
Sounds like the Governments case against KSM. Funny what a little waterboarding will do.
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