The Padilla case proves the futility of mistreating prisoners
Of all the terrifically bad ideas implemented by the Bush administration since 9/11, probably the worst have involved torture. The decision to sideline criminal prosecutions and instead focus on “alternative interrogation” methods was wrongheaded from the get-go. It was wrongheaded as a tactical matter, wrongheaded as a legal matter, wrongheaded as an ethical matter, and wrongheaded as a matter of undermining world opinion. In fact the only thing the Bush administration has actually gotten right about torture is this one tiny truth: If you want to destroy someone—if that is your sole objective—torture works. So, why won’t the government even take credit for that?
That’s why it’s worth keeping an eye on the proceedings this week in Miami as federal Judge Marcia Cooke tries to determine whether the alleged “dirty bomber”—scratch that—alleged “apartment bomber”—um, scratch that—alleged terror conspirator Jose Padilla is mentally fit to stand trial. What the prosecution now claims almost defies credulity. They contend that Padilla is wholly unharmed—after spending 1,307 days in a 9-foot-by-7-foot cell in a Navy brig in South Carolina, where he says he was, among other things, deprived of sleep, light, sight, sound, shackled in stress positions, injected with “truth serum,” and isolated for extended stretches of time. It’s better than that. According to the government, Padilla is faking his craziness.
He has been described by some prison staff as behaving like “a piece of furniture.”
[…]
Most unnervingly, they assert that the abuse he suffered—which they can’t quite bring themselves to deny—is “irrelevant to the criminal case against him.”
I remember an interview or speech back in the late 80’s by someone who witnessed a US torturer at work in South America during the Nicaraguan war. The guy seemed like a normal family man when he stopped to talk to his son on the phone, until he quickly went back to torturing someone picked up off the street randomly. The idea was to toss the mutilated body back on the street as part of a warning to not aid the Sandinistas. At least now we only torture people who really did something. Right?
Just to pre-empt all those republicans who immediately leap in with the “country X tortures much worse than we do” – so what? You really want to aim for “Better than Saudi Arabia or North Korea” ?
Okay this is interesting:
*** Good information from torture??
1) Torture yes — possibly discover new information, or false information. But you are getting some information (some is better than nothing crowd is happy). What is the quantified quality of that information under torture? Lets say 60% is good, and 40% is false (I do not know as I have not researched what torture will provide, but maybe 20% is good and 80% false). This is why it seems we allow torture.
2) Torture no — discover no new information at all. 100% nothing.
*** Ethical problem, which causes more revenge driven folks, when they discover the torture??
1) Torture yes — just another excuse to hate, and to beat the drum of revenge. But do these folks have the moral direction to say “no to torture”, and “no to revenge”? I think we are expecting too much.
2) Torture no — an easy fix to just say “never torture”, to a problem that is not easy, when information is needed. We need to take the “high road” and never torture? Do we not need to take the even higher road and say “never get into the situation where we think we need to torture”. That is a harder path to take, that we should expect that idea to be shouted by the “no torture” crowd.
They don’t torture to gain information. Even the Catholic inquisitors knew hundreds of years ago that information extracted by torture is unreliable. Torture is done for political reasons. They can, you know they can, and you’re afraid of them. That’s power. And that’s the whole point.
I for one feel safer. with an obvious covert operator like Padilla out of commission, apartment dwellers across the nation can sleep soundly.
now, if only we can catch more of those guys without a US criminal record, and are better trained in espionage. we just might win this war on terror.
#4,
I for one feel safer. with an obvious covert operator like Padilla out of commission, apartment dwellers across the nation can sleep soundly.
What a sick phuk !!! You sleep better ? That comment makes too many people sleep less soundly. Never knowing if the government will come calling at 4:00 AM with a SWAT team. Never knowing if you will ever be charged with a crime. Never knowing if Habeas Corpus will be suspended in your case. Never knowing how your family is.
It is the assholes like you who are the terrorists. You are the ones that have put fear into all Americans. It is a sad thing to wish for, but I hope you too end up like Padilla some day. You and all the other terrorists. And if you ever see the light of day again, I sure hope you and your like minded terrorists understand the United States Constitution a little better.
I have lived in countries that use torture and have seen how it wrecks the whole legal system.
Torture not only means that innocent people go to jail, it also means that criminals go free.
Whenever there is a high-profile crime, the police round up some poor sap who they torture into confession. They run his picture in the paper to show how efficient the police are. Meanwhile, the actual guilty person is free to victimize more people.
Yeah Padilla is being railroaded. He dropped all his violent gang days that got him sent to jail after he found Islam. He was just engaged in tourism when he visited Egypt, Saudi Aragia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Iraq. I can’t believe the government held him after he came back from his trip overseas. His association with Hassoun was just a friendship with another Muslim who was also railroaded.
Have you guys (and gals) noticed that the ones tortured are not white?
Mr. Fusion please reread my previous post in light of the following: I am fully aware that the government has no longer charged Mr. Padilla with plotting to blow up apartments, or trying to get a dirty bomb. also, I thought Ashcroft was an idiot for covering the statue of Justice simply because it was naked.
lastly, I will work harder on letting my sarcasm show in my posts. than you.
It’s time to begin assembling a blue ribbon legal team to bring the Neocon/Zionist/Christian-fanatic scoff-law criminals to justice.
Executives of the IMF and World bank whose policies plunder the resources of third world countries while enriching their corrupt power structure should be included as targets for investigation as well as the merchants of death now profiteering from the wars their colleagues have instigated.
As long as we permit a corrupt aristocracy to sit in control and use money as a weapon of mass destruction, the majority of the world’s population will suffer poverty, servitude, disease and death.
Intentionally withholding the fruits of modern science from benefiting mankind as a whole should rightfully be considered a crime against humanity and the perpetrators hung by the neck until dead.
Creatures who commit such crimes have no potential for rehabilitation. They must be eliminated from the gene pool for humanity to progress to a “Golden Age” of cooperation rather than the current zeigeist of exploitation.
If we allow the current trend to continue, we will decend into another Dark Age from which it may take many hundreds of years to emerge.
I’d feel better about torture of i knew that there was some “ichi the killer” shit goin down (boiling oil, hooks, knived & whips, etc).
#9, chitown, reread Fusion’s post in light of the fact that he’s being sarcastic. He’s glad Padilla’s in jail.
Padilla’s situation is the number one reason why I’ve lost all hope in the US political system. Remember all politicians talking about him during the presidential election and the midterm election? Me either. It is just incredibly sad that I can’t think of one politician running for election that had the guts to bring up the fact that an American citizen was held in a military prison for years without being charged and the government fought tooth and nail to prevent him from even having access to a lawyer. There are enormous injustices going on in our country today and the people who are supposed to be serving us are too afraid to bring up the real issues and take a stand. They would rather sit around and debate about pointless non-binding resolutions than actually debate the way that American citizens are being treated. We are living in a country where anyone can be declared an “enemy combatant” and locked up for years without being charged with a crime and no one in Washington DC seems to care.