The New York Times today gives a glimpse of the systematic destruction of a human being as they describe the routine treatment of U.S. citizen Jose Padilla, held for years without charges as an "enemy combatant" until the government, on the eve of a crucial court hearing challenging their ability to hold him without charges, decided to charge him after all.
The Times article describes the total isolation he was held in for three and a half years, before being charged:
One spring day during his three and a half years as an enemy combatant, Jose Padilla experienced a break from the monotony of his solitary confinement in a bare cell in the brig at the Naval Weapons Station in Charleston, S.C.
That day, Mr. Padilla, a Brooklyn-born Muslim convert whom the Bush administration had accused of plotting a dirty bomb attack and had detained without charges, got to go to the dentist.
"Today is May 21," a naval official declared to a camera videotaping the event. "Right now we're ready to do a root canal treatment on Jose Padilla, our enemy combatant."
Several guards in camouflage and riot gear approached cell No. 103. They unlocked a rectangular panel at the bottom of the door and Mr. Padilla's bare feet slid through, eerily disembodied. As one guard held down a foot with his black boot, the others shackled Mr. Padilla's legs. Next, his hands emerged through another hole to be manacled.
Wordlessly, the guards, pushing into the cell, chained Mr. Padilla's cuffed hands to a metal belt. Briefly, his expressionless eyes met the camera before he lowered his head submissively in expectation of what came next: noise-blocking headphones over his ears and blacked-out goggles over his eyes. Then the guards, whose faces were hidden behind plastic visors, marched their masked, clanking prisoner down the hall to his root canal.
This treatment as he was taken to the dentist was in order to continue the treatment that was his fate in his cell, day-in and day-out for months on end:
In the brig, Mr. Padilla was denied access to counsel for 21 months. Andrew Patel, one of his lawyers, said his isolation was not only severe but compounded by material and sensory deprivations. In an affidavit filed Friday, he alleged that Mr. Padilla was held alone in a 10-cell wing of the brig; that he had little human contact other than with his interrogators; that his cell was electronically monitored and his meals were passed to him through a slot in the door; that windows were blackened, and there was no clock or calendar; and that he slept on a steel platform after a foam mattress was taken from him, along with his copy of the Koran, "as part of an interrogation plan."
Was this treatment because Padilla was violent, a threat to the guards or to others? Evidently not:
One of Mr. Padilla's lawyers, Orlando do Campo, said, however, that Mr. Padilla was a "completely docile" prisoner. "There was not one disciplinary problem with Jose ever, not one citation, not one act of disobedience," said Mr. do Campo, who is a lawyer at the Miami federal public defender's office.
In his affidavit, Mr. Patel (another attorney) said, "I was told by members of the brig staff that Mr. Padilla's temperament was so docile and inactive that his behavior was like that of 'a piece of furniture.' "
Rather than any necessity to control him, Jose Padilla experienced the total isolation that is at the core of the U.S. government's decades-under-development program of psychological torture. According to Padilla's attorneys:
"his interrogations... included hooding, stress positions, assaults, threats of imminent execution and the administration of 'truth serums.'"
Compare this with Alfred McCoy's description of the CIA's psychological torture techniques:
While these CIA drug experiments led nowhere and the testing of electric shock as a technique led only to lawsuits, research into sensory deprivation proved fruitful indeed. In fact, this research produced a new psychological rather than physical method of torture, perhaps best described as "no-touch" torture.
Stephen Soldz is psychoanalyst, psychologist, public health researcher, and faculty member at the Institute for the Study of Violence of the Boston Graduate School of Psychoanalysis. He is a member of Roslindale Neighbors for Peace and Justice. He maintains the Psyche, Science, and Society blog.
Response to an email who says he's an "American First"
A reader writes to me, the editor, in response to this article. Our policy is that we reserve the right to post letters to the editor. This one seems best suited to be posted here, so here is his email, followed by my reply:
* * *
On 12/5/06, aerospaceftr wrote:
Note: this email is in response to an article called
The destruction of Jose Padilla
"Did the mechanisms of barbarity just grind ever onward after being set in motion by an administration determined to get the maximum press coverage out of this low-level arrest?"
What is barbaric to me is evidently different from what is barbaric to you. To me, it is barbaric to detonate a dirty bomb(or any other kind of bomb for that matter) for the purpose of maiming and killing innocent civilians. It is barbaric in my eyes for suicide bombers to enter produce markets where civilians are simply trying buy food and blow themselves up along with countless numbers of civilians. It is barbaric in my opinion to fly a jet liner into a high rise building and murder thousands of civilians who are simply working their jobs to try to better the lives of themselves and their families. I also believe it to be barbaric not to mention treasonous for citizens of our country to support these Muslim fundamentalist CRIMINALS.
How many criminal attacks do these people have to perpetrate against our country and our citizens to make the liberal left understand their mindset? What could your thought process possibly be? I can hear it now. "These are but a few radical individuals who committ these crimes" and other nonsense cliches along that thought process. I have news for you. It is not a few radical individuals. It is a war declared on America and Americans by Muslims around the world. They manipulate the news media time and time again even after their lies and deceptions surface. They continue to maim and kill everyday, yet our news media chooses to overlook that fact and instead helps them attempt to justify their behavior with ridiculous excuses and false stories of tragedy.
My heart does NOT bleed for Jose Padilla. My heart does not bleed for the detainees at Guantanamo Bay. My heart does not bleed for prisoners at secret CIA prisons around the world. My heart DOES bleed for all of those who have bled and died at the hands of these mentally deranged, terroristic morons who prey on innocent people all over the world. As should yours...
*********
My Reply
Okay, so you are a Muslim hater. Nice to hate and mistrust over a billion people. Congratulations.
And you said:
>>My heart DOES bleed for all of those who have bled and died at the hands of these mentally deranged, terroristic morons who prey on innocent people all over the world.
Are you talking about Bush and company, who have caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians and death or maiming of tens of thousands of Americans, or some of the soldiers who get their jollies raping and killing innocent Iraqis? Or maybe you are talking about the thugs who work for dictators who can now justify torture-- after all, the US does it-- when they torture people who protest for democracy and their right to practice their religion-- Baptists, Coptic Christians, etc.
There are consequences of destroying the constitution. Your support of the people who passed the MCA is already causing more women to be raped, more Christians to be beaten and tortured.
You say you put America first. Do you mean corporate America? Because I see the right wing destroying the bill of rights and the constitution, selling it out because of fear and over-hyped threats. Only a fool or a traitor thinks giving up our freedoms is a way to protect America. There's no wiggle room on that. Fools can wake up.
Rob Kall
by
Rob Kall (857 articles, 3983 quicklinks, 343 diaries, 1819 comments)
on Tuesday, December 5, 2006 at 7:36:06 AM
Yes, it is barbaric to detonate a dirty bomb or a car bomb. It was barbaric to fly airplanes into buildings. AND it is barbaric to treat ANYONE the way Padilla is being treated. Humanity is for all, just as freedom of speech is, above all, for the one who thinks differently.
BTW, there is no evidence Padilla had anything to do with dirty bombs. Years into his torture that charge just dissappeared. Poof! After all, it had served its PR function.
by
Stephen Soldz (69 articles, 0 quicklinks, 55 diaries, 23 comments)
on Tuesday, December 5, 2006 at 7:48:59 AM
Are these people treating Americans and others around the world with humanity? They ask for a double standard and we seem all to eager to oblige them. I am not an advocate of torture, but I ask myself daily what the real defintion of torture is. Is it treatment such as that received by Jose Padilla or is it the senseless violence, maiming and killing perpetrated by fundamentalist criminals. Is it both of these? Is one better or worse than the other? I'm torn by my own duality when it comes to answering these questions. The one thing I do know is that we as a country have to stand united with a firm resolve against all senseless violence and torture rather than helping to justify the actions radical, extremist criminals by blaming our own freely elected governmant.
by
Keith Asbell (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 3 comments)
on Tuesday, December 5, 2006 at 6:21:39 PM
Your response is typical of the far left. Misconstruing my comments and spinning them to fit your own beliefs is a tried and true leftist tactic. I am far from a hater of any ethnicity or religious group. The fact that Muslims have declared war on America and Americans is not disputable. It is a simple fact. The attacks have been going on for decades and no end to them is insight. This brings me to my second point. Another tactic of the left seems to be to attack and blame our nations president for all the worlds ills. This is exactly what I meant when I wrote "I also believe it to be barbaric not to mention treasonous for citizens of our country to support these Muslim fundamentalist CRIMINALS. How many criminal attacks do these people have to perpetrate against our country and our citizens to make the liberal left understand their mindset? ". By attacking our president and blaming our government for the criminal behavior of these people we only weaken our own country! My last point is a simple one. The BUSH administration has only been in office 6 years. Using your rationale, these criminals must have had an amazing foresight or extra sensory perception. They have been attacking our country and our citizens for over 25 years! I don't believe the BUSH administration was in power then. By the way, I'm sure it sounds to you like I'm a BUSH supporter and right wing republican. I am not. I am a supporter of the United States of America, the government of the United States of America and the people of the United States of America. Nothing more. Nothing less.
by
Keith Asbell (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 3 comments)
on Tuesday, December 5, 2006 at 6:02:49 PM
Your response is typical of the far left. Misconstruing my comments and spinning them to fit your own beliefs is a tried and true leftist tactic. I am far from a hater of any ethnicity or religious group. The fact that Muslims have declared war on America and Americans is not disputable. It is a simple fact. The attacks have been going on for decades and no end to them is insight. This brings me to my second point. Another tactic of the left seems to be to attack and blame our nations president for all the worlds ills. This is exactly what I meant when I wrote "I also believe it to be barbaric not to mention treasonous for citizens of our country to support these Muslim fundamentalist CRIMINALS. How many criminal attacks do these people have to perpetrate against our country and our citizens to make the liberal left understand their mindset? ". By attacking our president and blaming our government for the criminal behavior of these people we only weaken our own country! My last point is a simple one. The BUSH administration has only been in office 6 years. Using your rationale, these criminals must have had an amazing foresight or extra sensory perception. They have been attacking our country and our citizens for over 25 years! I don't believe the BUSH administration was in power then. By the way, I'm sure it sounds to you like I'm a BUSH supporter and right wing republican. I am not. I am a supporter of the United States of America, the government of the United States of America and the people of the United States of America. Nothing more. Nothing less.
by
Keith Asbell (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 3 comments)
on Tuesday, December 5, 2006 at 6:22:48 PM
5 comments
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