The Boogeyman Under Bush’s Bed

By now everyone knows that a criminal court in Miami (Broward County, specifically, from which all the jurors were likely to be drawn), convicted Jose Padilla & 3 others of conspiracy to do all sorts of awful things.

Things that never actually happened, by the way.

Bush & Alberto Gonzales, especially (who took time out from his busy vacation schedule to issue a statement for the press), want y’all to know that you can sleep a lot more soundly tonight now that the “evildoers” have met justice.

However (there’s always a “however” with your Demon, isn’t there?) as a Demon with more than a passing interest in the law & legal procedure, I find this trial remarkable not for what happened in it, but for everything that didn’t. And if American citizens are truly worried that there are terrorists (or would-be terrorists, & there’s a difference, & not just of semantics) among us, the guilty verdict is no great cause for celebration.

It’s no exaggeration to say that if due process & evidence is compromised with respect to any of us, it can be compromised with respect to ALL of us.

Bush & Gonzales chose their American villian wisely in this case. A gangbanger with a criminal record who converted to Islam in prison, like many a disaffected minority before him, his glowering prison mug shot radiated sinister intent, & was duly splashed everywhere, as if an evil-looking countenance was justification enough for what followed.

Returning from Pakistan in 2002, Padilla was detained at the airport by the FBI. The Christian Science Monitor reports that in the FBI’s custody for a month, Padilla admitted nothing. CNN has a slightly different account, but both agree that President Bush declared him an “enemy combatant” & had him thrown in a Navy brig in South Carolina, where he, an American, remained, on American soil, for 3-1/2 years in solitary isolation & without access to a lawyer for 2 years. He was never formally charged with being an enemy combatant.

Neither did the jury address or adjudicate the issue of Padilla’s treatment in the brig. (”Although the issue of Padilla’s treatment in the brig arose briefly in the Miami case, no judge has ruled on its legality, ” according the Christian Science Monitor.)

Did the solitary confinement constitute torture?

In an article in the Christian Science Monitor published before the trial titled, “US Government Broke Padilla,” it was reported that:

“According to defense motions on file in the case, Padilla’s cell measured nine feet by seven feet. The windows were covered over. There was a toilet and sink. The steel bunk was missing its mattress.

“He had no pillow. No sheet. No clock. No calendar. No radio. No television. No telephone calls. No visitors. Even Padilla’s lawyer was prevented from seeing him for nearly two years.

For significant periods of time the Muslim convert was denied any reading material, including the Koran. The mirror on the wall was confiscated. Meals were slid through a slot in the door. The light in his cell was always on.

“Those who haven’t experienced solitary confinement can imagine that life locked in a small space would be inconvenient and boring. But according to a broad range of experts who have studied the issue, isolation can be psychologically devastating. Extreme isolation, in concert with other coercive techniques, can literally drive a person insane, these experts say. And that makes it a potential instrument of torture, they add.

“Interrogators say the whole point of an interrogation is to overcome a detainee’s will to resist. Some try to build rapport. Others prefer a tougher approach.

“‘These are interrogations, they are not job interviews. So there has to be a certain amount of unpleasantness about it,’ says David DeBatto, a retired Army counter-intelligence agent and former interrogator. ‘You have to set the tone and the atmosphere. Some of that can include sensory deprivation, which means [the subject] is in a closed room, there is no sound, and he stays in there for various amounts of time.’ At that point, the interrogator must make a crucial judgment. ‘The question is: How long is too long? Is it a day? Is it a week? Is it a month?’ Mr. DeBatto says.

“When then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld approved isolation as an aggressive interrogation technique for use at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, Defense Department lawyers included a warning. ‘This technique is not known to have been generally used for interrogation purposes for longer than 30 days,’ the April 2003 memo reads in part. Longer than that required Mr. Rumsfeld’s approval.

“By April 2003, Padilla had already spent 10 months in isolation at the brig. Ultimately, he was housed in the same cell, alone in his wing, for three years and seven months, according to court documents.

“‘I’m not a psychologist, but if he is not profoundly psychologically disturbed from that experience then he is a stronger man than me,’ says Steven Kleinman, a retired US Air Force Reserve colonel and former interrogator.

“Padilla was visited by a military psychologist upon his arrival at the Charleston brig in early June 2002. The brief screening report says Padilla was not experiencing any mental-health concerns. But he didn’t see another psychologist again for nearly two years, according to a report filed by psychologist Patricia Zapf of New York, who examined Padilla and his brig records at the request of Padilla’s lawyers in his ongoing trial.

“When the screening reports resumed in mid-2004, Padilla’s mood is described as ‘anxious’ and later as ‘elevated.’ There is no indication that he was given a full psychological evaluation, Ms. Zapf’s report says. “In my opinion, it appears unusual that someone held in solitary confinement for upwards of three years would not have undergone a more thorough and regular evaluation of [his] mental state.” The new Army Field Manual bars the use of isolation to achieve psychological disorientation through sensory deprivation. “Sensory deprivation is defined as an arranged situation causing significant psychological distress due to a prolonged absence, or significant reduction, of the usual external stimuli and perceptual opportunities,” the manual states. “Sensory deprivation may result in extreme anxiety, hallucinations, bizarre thoughts, depression, and anti-social behavior. Detainees will not be subject to sensory deprivation.’

“Despite the tough words, the field manual offers only a general prohibition. So-called coercive interrogation methods - including isolation - have been specially authorized for certain units in the military and the Central Intelligence Agency.

“The technique is not new. The Soviets used isolation and sensory deprivation to identify and discredit political dissidents. US prisoners of war confessed to nonexistent war crimes in the Korean War after similar treatment. [Emphasis mine.]

“Fear of “brainwashing” prompted the CIA and Defense Department to underwrite research in the 1950s and ’60s into the impact of isolation and sensory deprivation. The findings were included in a 1963 CIA handbook, later declassified. The book discusses the possible use of such techniques, including isolation. But it warns of the ‘profound moral objection’ of applying ‘duress past the point of irreversible psychological damage.’

[Padilla] “has ‘undergone a profound, tremendously prolonged psychological stress involving extended periods of utter isolation and deprivation,’ the psychiatrist writes. Grassian’s report concludes: “Given the extensive research on this issue, much of it funded by the United States government, it follows necessarily that the United States government was well aware of the likely consequences of its conduct in regard to Mr. Padilla.”

“Officials have repeatedly said that the US doesn’t use torture. “The Department of Defense policy is clear - we treat all detainees humanely,” says Navy Cmdr. J.D. Gordon, a Defense Department spokesman. “The United States operates safe, humane, and professional detention operations for unlawful enemy combatants who are providing valuable information in preventing further terrorist attacks.” He adds that no direct evidence has been presented that Padilla was tortured.

“In preparing his report, Grassian studied the daily activity log maintained by staff members working at the brig. He discovered a particularly intense period of isolation from late November 2002 to early April 2003. Padilla has referred to this period as the “terrible time.”

“It was not unusual for Mr. Padilla to go four, five, or six days without even brief [visual checks] by the brig staff, who were, in any event, under instruction not to converse with him,” Grassian writes. Other than the brief checks by brig guards, Padilla went through stretches of 34 days, 17 days and 15 days without any human contact, the report says. “And when he did have such contact, it was inevitably with an interrogator,” Grassian says.

“That was by design. Vice Adm. Lowell Jacoby, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, revealed a portion of the government’s interrogation strategy in a 2003 court affidavit. “The Defense Intelligence Agency’s approach to interrogation is largely dependent upon creating an atmosphere of dependency and trust between the subject and interrogator,” he wrote. “Anything that threatens the perceived dependency and trust between the subject and interrogator directly threatens the value of interrogation as an intelligence-gathering tool.” Admiral Jacoby wrote the affidavit to urge a New York federal court not to allow Padilla to consult his lawyer.

“Grassian, the psychiatrist, disagrees with Jacoby’s suggestion that Padilla’s isolation would build trust: “What the government is attempting to do is create an atmosphere of dependency and terror.”

“That’s what happened in Padilla’s case, says Grassian. “It is clear from examining Mr. Padilla that that limit was surpassed.”

http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0814/p11s01-usju.html?page=1

It is astonishing, in my opinion, that a conviction was reached on such exceedingly thin grounds, & shocking that the circumstances of the detention –its length, that is, deprived of counsel & evidence of torture kept out. But somehow courts don’t care to look too closely into the dark heart of matters where Bush’s Neverending War on Terror is concerned & see things for what they are. Even the Supreme Court sidestepped the question when Bush did a little *by now trademarked* end run around it & suddenly decided to switch venues (from indefinite military detention to a real court of law).

Again, only the Christian Science Monitor appears to have devoted adequate coverage to that fact. The rest of the media rolls merrily onn.

“Miami - Jose Padilla is known worldwide as the man who plotted with Al Qaeda to detonate a radiological “dirty bomb” in a major US city.

“He allegedly presented his plan to top Al Qaeda leaders Abu Zubaydah and 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. But according to US intelligence reports, both men doubted Mr. Padilla could pull off the attack.

“For his part, Padilla told military interrogators that he never intended to carry it out. The former Taco Bell employee made the proposal in early 2002 as a way to justify fleeing Pakistan to avoid being sent to combat US forces in Afghanistan, says a government account.

“So is Padilla - whose terror conspiracy case could go to a Miami jury Wednesday - a committed Al Qaeda operative, or merely a big-talking mujahideen wannabe who ultimately wanted to go home?

“The answer to that question is important. Padilla isn’t a run-of-the-mill enemy combatant apprehended on a foreign battlefield. He is a United States citizen, arrested on US soil, who was held in a military prison for 43 months and subjected to harsh interrogation techniques until he confessed.

“Padilla was given due process to file a lawsuit challenging his treatment by the government. But as an enemy combatant, he was stripped of every other constitutional protection and right…”

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