Jose Padilla Case

Attorney and Future of Freedom Foundation President Jacob Hornberger shares his thoughts on the recently filed civil lawsuit by convicted Al Qaeda sympathizer Jose Padilla, who is suing Bush Administration lawyer John Yoo for allegedly ordering the “torture” against Padilla.

There are several issues here. First, to be considered “torture,” actions should include the deliberate infliction of severe pain and/or physical dismemberment, with visible signs of such treatment, such as scars, the drawing of blood, etc. Therefore, “sensory deprivation,” “isolation” and “waterboarding,” or simulated drowning, are not “torture.” Those treatments may cause “emotional anguish,” but actual “torture” is a physical phenomenon.

Also, we need to separate criminal investigations and questioning of suspects and prosecutions from wartime interrogations. Now, all human beings have basic human rights, but at a time of war “enemy combatants” taken from the battlefield do not have U.S. Constitutional Rights, including the “right to an attorney” and the right to be free from” cruel and unusual punishment,” not even actual American citizens who are overseas fighting in a war on behalf of the enemy. Can you imagine if Nazi soldiers captured during WWII had claimed those rights? Now, that’s what I think about that, but that view should not apply to any illegal or unconstitutional war waged by our country. Some people think that the war in  Iraq since 2003 has been “unconstitutional,” which it may be.

Regarding the Padilla case specifically, it is unfortunate that the U.S. Government, which had no substantive case against Padilla in the first place, managed to organize as completely biased a jury from the beginning, out to take revenge on the first person they could find based on post-911 emotion. If he were not an American citizen, I don’t know if he’d have any standing in his civil lawsuit. The fact that he is an American gives his case more weight.