I don't know if you can read the Christian Science Monitor series on Jose Padilla without crying for the man and for the the United States of America. These are an important read:
As a US citizen, Mr. Padilla enjoyed a right against forced self-incrimination. But this constitutional guarantee vanished the instant President Bush declared him an enemy combatant.
Padilla was delivered to the US Naval Consolidated Brig in Charleston, S.C., where he was held not only in solitary confinement but as the sole detainee in a high-security wing of the prison. Fifteen other cells sat empty around him.
The purpose of the extraordinary privacy, according to experts familiar with the technique, was to eliminate the possibility of human contact. No voices in the hallway. No conversations with other prisoners. No tapping out messages on the walls. No ability to maintain a sense of human connection, a sense of place or time.
In essence, experts say, the US government was trying to break Padilla's silence by plunging him into a mental twilight zone.
When suspected Al Qaeda operative Jose Padilla was whisked from the criminal justice system to military custody in June 2002, it was done for a key purpose – to break his will to remain silent.
As a US citizen, Mr. Padilla enjoyed a right against forced self-incrimination. But this constitutional guarantee vanished the instant President Bush declared him an enemy combatant.
... at the height of the Abu Ghraib scandal and with Padilla's case pending at the Supreme Court, the Justice Department held a highly unusual press conference. Officials announced that after two years of interrogation, Padilla had confessed to involvement in the dirty-bomb plot and other activities with Al Qaeda.
“We now know much of what Jose Padilla knows. And what we have learned confirms that the president of the United States made the right call,” said James Comey, then deputy attorney general at the Justice Department.
At its root, US treatment of Padilla shows the inclination to do anything to break the silence of a suspected terrorist, even it means violating such basic citizen rights as protection against self-incrimination and harsh interrogation, as well as the right to a trial.
The odd trajectory of this case also shows the bob-and-weave tactics used by the administration to avoid constitutional challenges to the way it handles terror suspects.
At first, Padilla's rights were protected because he was detained under the criminal-justice system. But then he was labeled an enemy combatant and put under military control, like noncitizen detainees at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. When the courts appeared close to challenging his status, the Bush administration switched him back to a criminal court and lessened the charges to one of merely supporting Al Qaeda.
Guilty or not, Padilla deserves the same rule of law that any US citizen can expect. America can't win a global war to defend its values by stepping on them. As Army Capt. Ian Fishback wrote to Sen. John McCain after witnessing US military abuses in Afghanistan: “I would rather die fighting than give up even the smallest part of the idea that is America.”
One protection from Islamic terrorists lies in clinging to the civic virtues that terrorists seek to end. Such values are a source of safety and should not be eroded in trying to kill, capture – or prosecute – suspected terrorists.
One of America's strengths in this war lies in being able to rally other nations to its side by upholding universal principles. That same strength also weakens terrorists.
The jury may well find Padilla guilty, but it may also see the injustice done in his case, and decide otherwise.
Victory in war is sometimes a victory simply for the rule of law.
Under what notion can you defend the treatment of Padilla? It isn't only a question of violating the Geneva Conventions against torture, our own laws against torture, but also, the plain language of the US Constitution:
[In Article I.] The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases or Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it. [which has happened only once, briefly, during the Civil War]
AMENDMENT V. No person ... shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law;
AMENDMENT VIII. Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.
The constitution gives the president the power of commander in chief over the armies but doesn't give with that the power to suspend any of the constitution.
[Article I.] Section. 2. The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States;
With over half the country believing that Bush and/or Cheney and/or Gonzales should be impeached (see here, here and here), and both the ABA and APA taking action (see following and here) at least it hasn't entirely escaped notice:
Back on July 21, President Bush issued an Executive Order which gave cover to a series of brutal interrogation and detention practices to be used by the Central Intelligence Agency at black sites. Now the nation’s organized bar and its psychologists’ association are both saying: “no” and directing their members not to comply with the order.
Perhaps someday, when we're through this horrible period, history will look at the post-9/11 Bush America as America's loss of innocence. If we clean up, restore constitutional rights and impose laws and oversight to reduce the possibility of new transgressions, we may be able to hold our heads up again, but with the wisdom of the fallen and redeemed knowing how easily a country can be lead astray.
One of the great questions is, when a Democratic president is elected in 2008 and assumes office in January, 2009, how quickly will the new president both rectify errors and lift the secrecy veil so we know what happened, by whom and to whom? The office of the president is going to need a “truth and reconciliation” with the American people and their constitution.
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