It Can Happen Here
In a grotesque display of irony, White House Press Secretary Dana Perino recently condemned actions by the Junta against citizens in Myanmar.
The administration is "distressed…about very innocent people being thrown into detention, where they could be held for years without representation or charges.”[AG1]
Yes, quite "distressing" indeed.
Surely, that type of thing could never happened here, right? Wrong. It already has, to a US citizen no less.
With the passage of the Military Commissions Act in October of 2006, this administration claimed it could deny the right to trial to whomever the president declares ‘an enemy combatant.’
That means President Bush, or Clinton, or Giuliani can decide the Bill of Rights doesn't apply to you whenever he or she says so.
In existence from the days of the Magna Carta 800 years ago, the writ of habeas corpus was guaranteed even under the King of England.
Then came the case of José Padilla, an US citizen branded by the administration as the ‘dirty bomber.’
Apprehended in 2002 with no charges filed against him, Padilla was dragged away to a Navy brig where he would be stripped of all human dignity and methodically tortured to the point of "irreversible psychological damage."
For three and a half years, Padilla’s completely isolated detention consisted of a 7 x 9 foot windowless cell, bright lights on for days, no mattress on his steel bed, no pillows, sheets, clocks, calendars, radio, television, telephone calls, and no visitors -- including a lawyer -- or human contact other than his interrogators for almost 2 years, according to the Christian Science Monitor.
He was regularly assaulted, hooded while held in extreme stress positions, threatened with imminent executions, subjected to extreme temperatures, and even given LSD and PCP during some of his interrogations.
Experts agree the prolonged periods of isolation and sensory deprivation will drive a prisoner insane.
"What the government [was] attempting to do,” says Dr. Stuart Grassian, nationally recognized expert on solitary confinement, “[was] create an atmosphere of dependency and terror."
Ironically, techniques like these are banned under the US Army Field Manual primarily because their efficacy is questionable, to say nothing of their morality.
These methods are adapted from the same ones the Soviets used on political dissidents and the North Koreans on US POWs, methods that the US once condemned, according to the Monitor.
Some officials say however, these methods are vital and do not go far enough.
“Anything that threatens the perceived dependency and trust between the subject and interrogator directly threatens the value of interrogation as an intelligence-gathering tool,” said Vice Admiral Lowell Jacoby, head of the Defense Intelligence Agency.
Jacoby goes on to claim that the introduction of legal counsel "may substantially harm our national security interests.” [AG2]
Legal counsel a threat to national security[AG3] ? “Anything that threatens” the trust and dependency? Like the Bill of Rights and Due Process?
Those chilling remarks are literally straight from George Orwell's 1984. In fact José Padilla is eerily similar to Winston Smith in that in the end they both deeply sympathize with and are terrified of the government that destroyed them.
While it may be true that Padilla was no Boy Scout, even psychopath's like Ted Bundy and Green River killer weren't treated so inhumanely.
The moment that the he declared Padilla an ‘enemy combatant,’ Bush had essentially repealed the foundation of constitution and the Bill of Rights as he saw fit, assuming powers that surpassed the King of England.
“[The administration argued that] the President always knows best...,” says Yale law professor Jack Balkan, continuing that these powers are that "of a dictator in an authoritarian regime. They are the powers of the old Soviet Union.”
Padilla was finally convicted in what can only be described as a show trial based on dubious evidence and vague charges of conspiracy. They had nothing to do with the original sensational accusations.
It is shocking that there is little outcry from our leaders that a US citizen was held for 3 1/2 years without Due Process, denied habeas corpus and his constitutional rights, and tortured to the point of brain damage, all before being charged with the crime.
The Padilla conviction was a pyrrhic victory for this administration but ultimately is a shameful and ominous day for our constitution, our republic, and the sacred principles of our nation.
It must never happen again.
