Strange twist in Padilla case

If you’re looking for pieces on Jack Idema and his team, please click on this link.

Ok, you’ve got this guy who’s been held as an enemy combatant although he’s a US citizen, with the ACLU screaming bloody hell about his “rights” being denied.

Listen. When you join the forces of the enemy, you’ve waived your rights as US citizen because you’ve joined the enemy!

Now you’ve got the fact that he was indicted, but…now it seems as though they’re going to rule out the testimony of two Al Qaeda terrorists because the two whiners were ’subjected to harsh questioning.’ Well booohoo!

The Qaeda members were Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, believed to be the mastermind of the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and Abu Zubaydah, a top recruiter, who gave their accounts to American questioners in 2002 and 2003. The two continue to be held in secret prisons by the CIA, whose internal reviews have raised questions about their treatment and credibility, the officials said.

One review, completed in the spring of 2004 by the CIA inspector general, found that Mohammed had been subjected to excessive use of a technique involving near-drowning [known as waterboarding] in the first months after his capture, according to US intelligence officials.

To my way of thinking, terrorists deserve to be taken into the back and shot in the head. We are AT WAR. War is a war of attrition where you KILL THE ENEMY. Padilla identifies with the enemy, that much is clear. So what’s the problem?

From the Superpatriots website:

Terrorists don’t wear uniforms, have ID Cards, carry their weapons openly, wear unit patches (what would it say? AQ Killer Group with two burning towers as a logo?), or any of the other things required by Rule 4, except that they might be subordinate to a commander (like bin Laden, Hekmatyar, Mullah Omar, etc). But being subordinate to a madman does give rise to Geneva Conventions protections, you need to follow all of the requirements of Rule 4.

Some people say that one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter. Cute saying, but not legally correct. Freedom fighters and guerillas, historically, wear uniforms- no matter how ragged or mismatched, they carry their arms openly, rarely target civilian women and children, have military ranks and often have Identity Cards. Examples include; Tito’s resistance in WWII, Cuba- 1950’s, Dominican Republic- 1960’s, Nicaraguan Sandinistas- 1970’s, the Salvadoran FMLN and the US backed Contras in the 1980’s, Karen Rebels-1990’s, and Commander Massoud’s Mujahadeen resistance against the Soviets between 1980 and 1989, and Massoud’s Northern Alliance resistance against he Taliban between 1996-2005.

On the flip side, you have the Taliban, al-Qaida, and other terrorist organizations, which do none of these things. Nor do they abide by or follow the Rules of Land Warfare {GC Article 4 ß 2 (d)}. Terrorists indiscriminately kill women and children through acts of terror. Terrorists behead their hostages (as compared to Jack, who was denounced by the Taliban Judge/bomber he captured for failing to allow the terrorist to use the bathroom for a full twelve hours). Terrorists are defined as people who engage in “the calculated use of violence or threat of violence to inculcate fear; intended to coerce or intimidate governments or societies in the pursuit of goals that are general political, religious, or ideological (US Army Special Forces Force Protection Handbook; Joint Pub 1-02 dated March 23, 1994)

The Detroit Free Press reported that the charges against Padilla did include conspiring to murder, kidnap, and maim Americans overseas and of providing material support to terrorists. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said Padilla had traveled overseas for training to fight in “violent jihad” and was part of a terrorist support cell that operated in the United States.

Oh, but they were subjected to “harsh questioning”. Give me a freakin’ break.

I suppose we should give them an ice cream cone and take them to a movie. We’re already treating the terrorists at Gitmo better than we treat our own soldiers–their meals on average per day cost $4 a day to $3.60–the average meal cost per day for convicts costs $2.78 per day. The average cost of meals served the terrorists at Gitmo costs $12.68 per day.

Since when do we give preferential treatment to TERRORISTS? This is absolutely astonishing…but there are many more examples of it. They get a brand new Qu’ran, they get 24 hour access to an Imam, they get a new prayer rug, they get a sign in their cell that points to mecca, they get a prayer cap, etc., etc.. It’s ridiculous!

This reminds me of the terrorists that supposedly were “hanging upside down” in the basement of Jack’s safe house. Interesting that the journalists who reported the lies of these terrorists forgot to mention that there was no basement in that house. Also interesting that they didn’t report that Specats and SF Ops have about 50 of those safehouses in and around Kabul.

When all was said and done, these people admitted that no torture occurred, but still maintained that Jack didn’t allow them to pee for 12 hours, so they whined about THAT. That’s just a wee bit different than being electrocuted, or having boiling water poured on you, like they originally claimed. That is, in fact, what happened to Jack and his men at Saderat immediately after they were taken into custody, but I don’t hear the human rights activists complaining about THOSE injustices.

Idema was tortured with boiling water, starvation, threats of death, and assault with various implements (such as wire cables and rubber whips), resulting in broken ribs, a separated sternum, torn rotator cuffs, hemorrhaged eyes, multiple concussions, lacerations, contusions, and bruises. Although the U.S. Embassy later had medical reports indicating the extent of the torture, Sandra Ingram, Assistant U.S. Consul DOS Kabul, ordered the reports rewritten to tone down the extent of the injuries.

And let’s not forget how they were treated at Thanksgiving:

Thanksgiving for Jack Idema, Captain Bennett, Lt Banderas, and Journalist Carabello went like this: Ten US Special Operations Soldiers were threatened by the Dept of State with Article 15’s (low level court martials) if they brought Turkey to Pulacharke Prison on Thanksgiving.

If that’s not enough,

US Consul Addie Harchick visted them, refused them mail, and then tried to drive away with the water the Marines sent them, until an Afghan General had his bodyguards block the Embassy car and force them to deliver the water. One of the State Dept Security officers told the story at bar last night, and it made the boys sitting there listening f***ing sick. We treated Nazi POWs better than this.

Now denying them water might not seem to be a big deal, but it really is and this is part of the reason why.

Without water, they will be forced to drink local water which contains microorganisms and bacteria fatal to American citizens and forces in Central West Asia. Although ciprofloxacin can be administered to combat the severe dysentery, vomiting, and eventually death* that will occur as the result of the denial of drinking water, two problems make this solution untenable. First, ciprofloxacin is not readily available, the US Embassy has already refused to supply drugs to them, and the FBI confiscated the medical and surgical kits they possessed to avoid any link to the United States government.** Second, because Idema has operated in Afghanistan for more than three years, he has already used ciprofloxacin extensively and is not a suitable candidate for continued long-term use. The same situation would apply to Bennett and Caraballo if they were to be forced into long-term use of ciprofloxacin. Therefore, the denial of water is not only completely retaliatory and nefarious, but brutally vindictive and unwarranted.

Something’s terribly wrong here, and part if it has to do with the leftists who are supporting the rights of the enemy versus truly supporting our troops and the people who are fighting the WOT on our behalf.

Update 11/28: What I forgot to mention is–Padilla’s right to Habeas Corpus is being hotly contested in court. However, Idema’s right to Habeas Corpus has been denied because the courts have “lost the file”. This is very telling as to what America’s policy in Afghanistan really is. If Padilla is an American citizen but is also an alleged terrorist; he is afforded the rights of Habeas Corpus through the courts. Idema is an American citizen who has been fighting Al Qaeda and the Taliban, yet his rights are being denied through the technicality of “losing the file”. Does anyone see a problem here?

X Posted at Kender’s Musings, Stop the ACLU, The Wide Awakes

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