reproduction of the enemy

Reading accounts of the treatment of Padilla and the psychiatrist’s description of what remains today of the battered spirit of Jose Padilla, it is clear that the Bush Administration has fully availed itself of these concepts. The Jacoby Declaration makes clear that “breaking” the subject is in fact the object of the process. The psychiatrists’ report shows that Padilla was essentially brainwashed. He could not really even mount a defense to the charges against him because he loved George W. Bush and he found it physically impossible to oppose him.

And the charges brought against Padilla are “thought crimes.” He is accused of thinking bad thoughts about America and the Bush Administration. - Scott Horton - Harper's

So the part that almost makes me cry is that this man, who has been treated so abominably, still believes in the integrity of the Office of the President. And that the person sitting in the White House MUST be a person of fairness and justice, and that somehow he must not know what is happening to Mr. Padilla because surely if he did, it would not continue to happen. - Lokywoky - Jesus' General

I have to admit I got emotionally rattled by the piece over on Alternet about the case of Jose Padilla - our fellow citizen and accused "dirty bomber". It reads like a horror film or some black ops scenario dreamed up by James Ellroy. It is dark, dark stuff, complete with cliches - mind altering drugs, years in isolation (yes years), false sounds, and endless other forms of torture for a man who's real crime was a relationship to gang life and filling out an application to "study" terrorism abroad.

Padilla was surely a messed up guy, petty criminal type but the treatment he has received and the ensuing brainwashing and ultimate conviction of conspiracy should give everyone pause. The charges amount to an admission by the government that they don't have real proof of anything - just a gut instinct about what might have happened and who he might have been in contact with. Match that with the new FISA regulations and our evolving environment starts to taste a little bit like the Inquisitions of the past where everyone saw there neighbor as a witch or satanic cohort and were quickly put to torture for their shape shifting associations and coerced into confessions.

The Padilla case is constructed, shaped and vetted by brainwashing. Helmut at Phronesisaical aptly calls it a reproduction of the enemy . Our ability to distinguish between the real and artifice is again severely compromised.

Well said.


image, titled "Solitary Confinement," from wolispace]