This is how they treat Americans

“One spring day during his three and a half years as an enemy combatant,” the New York Times reports, “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.”

Padilla was taken to the dentist that day and for whatever reason, his trip was videotaped. That tape is one of the few glimpses into his incarceration.

Padilla, an American citizen, was accused of plotting a dirty bomb attack but was not charged (his status has since been changed to criminal defendant and he awaits trial on other, lesser charges).

He was held for 21 months without seeing a lawyer. His interrogations included “hooding, stress positions, assaults, threats of imminent execution and the administration of ‘truth serums’,” according to his lawyers.

His lawyers also say he 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'”.

This is how they treat American citizens. How do you suppose they treat everyone else?

What if one day they “detain” you or me?

[tags]torture[/tags]