Torture In Our Names
By The destruction of Jose Padilla’s mind. It’s difficult for me to find the words to speak about this. Digby:
I know that all the tough guys on the right will say that Padilla is just being a typical whining malcontent but I have a feeling that most of them would crumble into blubbering babies after five minutes in his position. This treatment is extremely inhumane. They basically blinded, deafened and then isolated him, essentially destroying his mind. There is no reason on earth to put those goggles and earphones on him to go to the dentist in the prison in South Carolina except to keep him from ever feeling like a normal human being, part of the natural world. It’s sick.
But, although this kind of torture is unjustifiable in any case, at least the state has an ironclad case that he’s an extremely dangerous terrorist, right? Right?
Mr. Padilla was added as a defendant in a terrorism conspiracy case already under way in Miami. The strong public accusations made during his military detention — about the dirty bomb, Al Qaeda connections and supposed plans to set off natural gas explosions in apartment buildings — appear nowhere in the indictment against him. The indictment does not allege any specific violent plot against America.
Disgrace is much too weak a word here.
…Prof. B. has more. As does Greenwald.
…and GFR.