The Hollywood Liberal

An Unconscionable Stain on the Fabric of American Democracy

OP-ED News
Soon after his arrest, Padilla was designated an “unlawful enemy combatant” for the sole purpose of allowing the Bush Administration to do what they wished to him without fear of oversight, reprisal or restriction. He was “disappeared” to a brig off the coast of South Carolina where he was kept for years without contact and without legal representation. Habeas Corpus was eradicated; a key lynchpin of democratic societies for over 800 years. In an attempt to break his will, Padilla was subjected to complete and abject isolation for years. He was tortured. Plain and simple; he was tortured. I do not care how many times Bush likes to say “we don’t torture”; Jose Padilla was routinely and purposefully tortured for a period of years. The result was not a broken will but a broken human being. He was essentially driven mad, as policy. No court was allowed to oversee or check the new unlimited power of the would be tyrant. Only when it became obvious to the administration that the Supreme Court would demand that Padilla be tried or released did Bush bother to take Mr. Padilla to trial. When the administration did, they took a shell of a human being to trial, not for the crimes they alleged when they arrested him for, but rather for activities that he and friends of his engaged in during the 1990’s.

Did you get that America? Do you fully comprehend what happened? A United States citizen was arrested for alleged crimes, was stripped of all rights as a citizen, dumped into isolation in prison for years with no legal representation, and only when the hand of the administration was forced he was brought to trial for completely different crimes, discovered after the fact and after years of being tortured. That is not due process. That is not even remotely just. It has been compared to governmental behavior found during the height of the Soviet Union. Even the conservative Cato Institute had to lament that “for those of us concerned about the rule of law, the Padilla episode is not the way America is supposed to work.”

This entry was posted on Monday, August 20th, 2007 at 6:27 am and is filed under H.L. News, Main Blog (All Posts). You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.