Padilla and American justice

Jose Padilla
Here’s the problem: Many important issues are dropped from the news or commentary because there is a lack of public outcry. In other words, if an issue does not interest the public enough to get them to respond with letters to the editors,( in enough volume to convince an editor it is important), or phone calls, or some other type of response to an issue, then the people who make the decisions to air or print news about that subject will disregard it. Its intrinisic value as critical to , say, American freedoms, policy, constitutional issues, even life and death are secondary to whether or not a “pubic outcry” exists large enough to justify continuing the story, or even disclosing it in the first place. A case in point is the Jose Padilla arrest, detention and trial. No legal experts, constitutional scholars, or historians would deny the importance of this case to not just the “war on terror”, but to the very basic and fundamental bedrock concepts that make America what it claims to be: a nation unique in its love and respect for human individuality, human rights, human privacy, human dignity and the law. These basic concepts are stated quite clearly and bluntly in America’s constitution, the final say, the highest law of the land. The founders stated, and history and Supreme Courts have agreed through the years that no one can be deprived of life or liberty without due process. That if you are accused of a crime you must be presented the evidence against you and be confronted by your accusers; that there can be no cruel or unusual punishment; and that you can not be thrown in a dungeon until the authorities decide, if ever, that you may receive a hearing, or a trial, or even a lawyer. These seminal and well thought out tenets did not appear in black and white in the Constitution as mere after thoughts, or simple panderings to the left- they evolved out of the minds of men who knew history, understood the abuses of the power of a state, a king, or a cabal, and from their experience and awareness of how easy the power of the state can override the rights of individuals and what evils that can produce, they decided to enumerate and spell out the specific rights so that there would be no grey area, no misinterpretation of intent, no confusion about what rights American citizens would enjoy. Hence the Bill of Rights.
No one would doubt or question the importance of these issues, but we find, in the main stream media- the national newspapers, the networks, the major cable stations- no coverage of this important issue. Jose Padilla, possibly a criminal intent on doing harm to his fellow citizens, is nevertheless an American citizen. He deserves, as you and I do, to be treated with the fairness that even the lowest common criminal in all of American history has received- to wit: no cruel and unusual punishment, no deprivation of representation, not being thrown into a dungeon and disappeared. Yet this is exactly what happened. I won’t recite all the details of his cruel and unusual punishment other than to remind us all that solitary confinement for years with no human contact except an infrequent government interrogator, being housed in a 24-7 lights on 9by 7 cell in a brig on a military base with a metal cot might qualify as torture. What is torture? There are legal definitions, but I suggest that anything done to others that we would not want done to ourselves might be a benchmark. If you are innocent until proven guilty of a crime, not suspected, then under what authority can you be mistreated to try and make you appear guilty?
Jose Padilla, according to the Christian Science Monitor, one of the few papers to cover this story, was a street kid in Chicago who found Islam while incarcerated and began a study of the religion which led him to travel to Afghanistan and other countries. In another time and circumstance this might be construed as a gangbanger turning his life around and trying to make something of himself. But now it appears he was joining the radical fundalmentalists who aimed to fight America. But if that was the case why would he hestitate to go to Afghanistan and fight for the Taliban when we invaded that country? Instead he came up with an idea to try and get out of that part of the world and go home. He suggested, according to the Monitor, that a dirty bomb be used and that he would go back home and work on it. How do we know this? According to the Monitor, KSM, Khalled Sheik Mohammed told his interrogators about this. He also said that it was doubted at the time that Padilla had the knowledge or ability to accomplish this. Many problems arise from both Padilla’s alleged plot and KSM’s information. Since KSM was affiliated with Pakistan’s ISI, the security agency with close connections to our CIA, and which had sent 100,000 dollars to Mohammned Atta, one of the alleged hijackers, and since KSM was subjected to the same if not worse treatment as Padilla, how reliable is his story? At the least, Padilla should have been afforded legal representation to counter any charges arising from this allegation. But instead he was held for 43 months, mostly in isolation, until, as psychiatrists have stated, he was damaged mentally. What a travesty of justice to us all.