Doing Nothing Is Now Supposed To Be Torture

Al Qaeda dirty bomb suspect Jose Padilla wasn't waterboarded by his interrogators at the US Navy brig in Charleston. He wasn't subjected to extreme heat and cold or long periods of forced wakefulness -- the new definition of torture, at least as it applies to America.

He certainly didn't have electrical wires jolting his genitals, or his appendages removed. He wasn't subjected to lengthy beatings, or forced to watch as his loved ones were murdered or raped -- the definition of torture as it applies to many nations the Left adores.

Yet, we're told, this American scum who turned against his country and plotted to kill his fellow countrymen by the thousands was tortured.

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. ...

Ultimately, he was housed in the same cell, alone in his wing, for three years and seven months, according to court documents.

That's from an article in the other CSM today that is anything but objective journalism. The sources are nearly entirely psychiatrists and others on Padilla's defense team and the tone is one of outrage barely suppressed in the interest of long-gone objectivity.

The article admits that the process "broke" Padilla, but doesn't go into how that benefitted our security. No word of what we learned in the process, no hint that operatives and networks of the enemy were identified; just paragraph after paragraph designed to make isolation the new cause celebre of the anti-terror bunch. They admit it worked, but they demand it be stopped.

There's also no word in the article of Padilla's mental state following his stay in intense isolation. All his psychiatrists are quoted on the effect it could have, not the effect it did have, and no government psychiatrists are quoted.

For sure, Padilla got treatment none of us would want to have -- but none of us have knowledge of the inner workings of al Qaeda penetration in the US that we refuse to disclose. I don't believe for a minute that his intense isolation, in which no one would even check in on him for days, lasted the three years and seven months mentioned in the quote above. The article is very cagey about that, never saying what time was spent in extreme isolation and what time was spent as the sole inmate on his wing, and there's a huge difference.

My guess is that periods of extreme isolation were mixed with periods of interaction to encourage Padilla to spill, but the article does not go into the overall process at all.

That fuzziness, that slanting, proves that the media are footsoldiers in the Left's campaign to take interrogation tools away from our military, for the weakening of America and benefit of our enemies.

When I was in j-school, one of my best profs made CSM required reading -- every one of her students had to prove we had a subscription. I loved the newspaper for the depth and diversity of its coverage of the world and the clarity of its writing, and it still has its shining moments.

But stories like this one show that even the mighty have fallen into the cesspool of Leftist advocacy journalism.

hat-tip: memeorandum