Un-American conduct

Tuesday, December 5, 2006

THE WAY Jose Padilla, a U.S. citizen, has been treated by the federal government thoroughly besmirches the principles it purports to uphold.

Every revelation about Padilla casts a pall over not only the legality, but also the morality of the detention process established by the Bush administration, allegedly in the defense of the American homeland's security.

Padilla was originally accused of the most outrageous crimes -- including plotting to detonate a "dirty bomb" on U.S. soil.

A belated criminal indictment against Padilla makes no mention of any specific terrorist plot or of any "dirty bombs." But the United States continues to treat him as if he is one of the most dangerous people on the planet.

We are not saying Padilla is an innocent man. But because he has been held in virtual isolation for nearly five years, who could possibly know what he may or may not have done?

A video made by his U.S. captors show him being treated in ways that are too reminiscent of the conduct of some of the enemies we are trying to defeat. When being transferred for a medical appointment, for example, Padilla was put in chains, his eyes covered with blackened goggles and his ears with sound-proof ear muffs.

That is the least of it. A 22-hour exam by the director of forensic psychiatry at the Creedmoor Psychiatric Center in Queens, N.Y., found he is suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder "complicated by the neuropsychiatric effects of prolonged isolation" -- and now "lacks the capacity to assist in his own defense."

Keeping a citizen -- or non-citizen for that matter -- in virtual solitary confinement for five years, without charges being brought against him for most of that time, and breaking him until he is unable to assist in his own defense, is not the American way.