The Deconstruction of a Human Being

Jose Padilla was held in a military brig in South Carolina for nearly four years.

His bed was a steel pallett. Sometimes he would have a pillow. Sometimes he would have a sheet. But eventually those things would be taken away.

His light would be left on for inteminable lengths of time, then suddenly go out. He would be left in utter darkness for another unknown length of time.

Clinicians have found that the sensory deprivation Jose Padilla suffered causes depression, psychotic episodes, suicidality, panic attacks and hallucinations...within days. Jose Padilla was in his 9x7 cell, with his only "outside" contact his interrigators, for four years.

There was no television, clocks or calendars. At times he would be in shackles, in such uncomfortable positions he could not lie down. Doors would slam over and over for hours, keeping him from sleep.

His interrogators made him sign his name "John Doe". They told him if he ever told anyone what happened to him, they would think he was crazy.

Jose Padilla would not be allowed to speak to or see his attorney for two years. Even then, he was not allowed to be alone with them for consultation, yet another violation of his rights.

There are other things that we will never know about what was done to Jose Padilla, because he was very uncooperative, even with the psychiatrist and lawyers who were trying to help him. The psychiatrist said he was utterly terrified, depressed. His reasoning skills were diminished,
his memory and attention-span impaired. He was, the psychiatrist concluded, brain damaged.

Jose Padilla was broken to the point that he angrily defended, whenever he heard them critisized, the very government and President who had broken him.

There is no telling how long he would have stayed in that hell, if a Supreme Court showdown had not forced Bush's hand. Rather than risk an adverse ruling that would cripple his power to torture other Americans similarly, Bush ordered that Jose Padilla be finally charged and sent to Miami to face trial for criminal conspiracy to commit murder abroad and to provide material support toward that goal.

Is Jose Padilla guilty? That is not my concern.

It is that an American citizen languished in a military prison, being subject to the most horrific psychological torture imagineable, without any regard for his rights, either as a citizen or a human being.

This is the legacy that George W. Bush is leaving us.

This is the monster that the American people are refusing to remove from office, by their failure to act.

This man's madness is on our heads.

May the gods, if they exist, forgive us and help us all.