Crossposted at Docudharma.com
Fact: Of the 3 people who the Bush/Cheney Regime admits to waterboarding, American citizen Jose Padilla, who is accused of planning to obtain and detonate a dirty nuclear bomb in the USA has been imprisoned on American soil since May 8, 2002. They even put him on trial here. His case was heard by the Supreme Court, the highest court in the empire.
The strange thing is, the WMD that Padilla was accused of seeking was never found, have yet to surface and can not be proven through evidence.
That whole evidence thing isn't such a big deal though since we have denied American citizen Jose Padilla his Constitutional rights to a trial by jury.
Oh. About Jose Padilla. Did I mention he is almost certainly insane by now? 7 years of solitary confinement, torture and long periods of induced sensory deprivation will do that to a person over time, give or take a few years.
'Do you know where you are, Winston?' he said.
'I don't know. I can guess. In the Ministry of Love.'
'Do you know how long you have been here?'
'I don't know. Days, weeks, months -- I think it is months.'
'And why do you imagine that we bring people to this place?'
'To make them confess.'
'No, that is not the reason. Try again.'
'To punish them.'
'No!' exclaimed O'Brien. His voice had changed extraordinarily, and his face had suddenly become both stern and animated. 'No! Not merely to extract your confession, not to punish you. Shall I tell you why we have brought you here? To cure you! To make you sane! Will you understand, Winston, that no one whom we bring to this place ever leaves our hands uncured? We are not interested in those stupid crimes that you have committed. The Party is not interested in the overt act: the thought is all we care about. We do not merely destroy our enemies, we change them. Do you understand what I mean by that?'
1984 by George Orwell
Unprovable claims about WMD's make me think of something, but even though it is on the tip of my tongue I can't think of it right now. Damn, don't you hate that? Of course, by the time I remember it will not make a difference. Don't you hate it when that happens.
About Padilla.
Jose Padilla is the U.S. citizen who supposedly plotted to detonate a "dirty bomb." Since his capture -- not on the battlefields of Afghanistan or Iraq, but at Chicago's O'Hare Airport -- he has not been charged with any crime. Yet, for more than a year, Padilla has been held incommunicado in a South Carolina military brig.
~snip~
Essentially, on orders of the executive branch, anyone could wind up imprisoned by the military with no way to assert his innocence.
Cato Institute
South Carolina you say? I wonder if Senator Lindsey Graham (R-Secession) knew anything about this at the time?
If organ failure = torture, then not only is mental suffering induced by ones captors torture, but so is health care insurance as it is run for profit today.
In Padilla's SCOTUS case that decided he was competent to stand trial, the argument that defeated his claim on mental grounds was that he seemed okay. He seemed like he was paying attention. I do not think SCOTUS justices are psychologists, or if they think a person needs to be speaking in tongues, mumbling, shrieking violent or what to be crazy, but a person can be unhinged severely and somewhat function. Anyone who knows a lot of war vets knows that.
If organ failure is the line where torture begins, when does mental suffering equal torture?
A month?
A year?
7 years?
How many days in the Ministry Of Love are too many? I would say one is too much. Those who say no to that probably never imagined it would be they who may face their own worst fear in room 101 one day.
I would defend Jose Padilla over Joe Scarborough just for the fact that Jose may spare Joe, but Joe will certainly not spare Jose. We assume innocence until guilt is proven if we are to remain free. Otherwise guilt is a certainty, not only for the person in judgement, but also for those who judge.
Is it no surprise that those who cheer the gallows often find themselves brought before them.
While imprisoned in South Carolina, Florida and other undisclosed locations throughout America, Jose Padilla was unable to escape, unable to spread terrorism among other inmates, and unable to use the Constitutional rights granted to him and all American citizens under the Bill Of Rights.
Consider these Meme's Dead and Buried.