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Jose Padilla, We’re All in Trouble Here

By Jim Rinnert

The Supreme Court heard arguments Tuesday by lawyers representing José Padilla, a client they have not been permitted to meet or talk to. Padilla’s public defenders argued that the High Court should let stand a decision by the 2nd U.S. Court of Appeals that Padilla should be released or charged within 30 days of that court order. (The administration has asked for, and received, a stay of that release order pending the appeal to the High Court.)

José Padilla, you’ll remember, is that American-turned-al-Qaeda-terrorist detained in May 2002 as a witness in connection with the terrorist attacks of 9/11. But you’ll remember him more specifically for allegedly planning to detonate a “dirty bomb.” For the 18 months since, Padilla has been held without charge, without a day in court and without access to his attorneys. The Justice and Defense departments claim in Rumsfeld v. Padilla that by declaring Padilla an “enemy combatant,” the president has the authority to hold him indefinitely, or as long as the war persists, without charge or due process of law. The federal appeals court order challenges the Bush administration’s claim of such wide-sweeping authority to limit constitutional rights.

For these 18 months the Padilla case received little public notice—because little information was available to press, public or his lawyers. But back in June 2002, Attorney General John Ashcroft staged a news conference that made Padilla’s arrest out to be a major event in the war against terrorism.

But in selecting and delivering Padilla to the press June 9, 2002, the Justice Department’s purpose was to break the legs of another big story that had been heating up the media for the previous two weeks. In giving up José Padilla to the press Ashcroft tipped the administration’s hand, showing how low Bush and his people would go in using fear to manipulate the people and the press for political gain—and how far they would go in suspending citizens’ rights in the name of fighting terror.

The Padilla case, then and now, is the Bush administration’s most blatant, cynical, destructive and telling use of the politics of fear. If you don’t count his later lying the country into an illegal pre-emptive war in Iraq.

A dirty trick

The morning we first heard the name José Padilla I was flipping through TV news channels as his name and picture and some carefully chosen if sketchy items from his resumé were ladled out piecemeal by the excited media.

ï Piece #1: A man, Abhullah al-Muhajir, 31. was arrested at O’Hare airport. An al qaeda-trained terrorist, he was planning to detonate a “dirty bomb”—a device that spreads radiation when it explodes.

My TV news sources (NBC Today, CNN, MSNBC, CNN Headline News— I’ve put a “parental control” hex on Fox News to keep its obscenity off my screen) gave us the same tantalizing bites of information that June morning. And, as if in lockstep (certainly coming from the same news briefing), all added the terrifying definition of what a dirty bomb is. No more than a dollop of news there, but it was a real waker-upper.

Americans, still new to feeling the jitters from terrorism on the home front, woke up nervous that morning as the news put us instantly in touch with a collective fear deep-planted in our psyches by 9/11 and the TV images of people-filled planes crashing into tall skyscrapers, of men and women throwing themselves out of the towering inferno, and now, yikes!, radioactive devices at O’Hare Airport?!

Well, no, actually.

ï Piece #2: Abhullah al-Muhajir (a.k.a. José Padilla, an American citizen, Hispanic) had been arrested at O’Hare back in May, about a month before this “breaking” news announcement. And no, he didn’t have a dirty bomb with him. He was found to have been planning to make a dirty bomb but had not acquired the necessary materials. He had, incidentally, not been charged.

My spin-detecting antennae began vibrating. What was there about this arrest, made a month ago, that would necessitate a news conference from Moscow, where Ashcroft was on a goodwill tour, trying to sell the U.S. war on terror to the Russians?

Later that same morning we were given this bit of background:

ï Piece #3: Jose Padilla was from Chicago, where he had formerly been a gang-banger. He was later incarcerated for thuggery in Florida, during which prison time he converted to Islam. After his release he travelled to Pakistan and then to Afghanistan where he allegedly trained with al-Qaeda. OK, so he didn’t actually have the materials for making a dirty bomb, but he had been trained to make one and, in Ashcroft’s national-security police state, that counts as the same thing.

By this time my antennae were doing a tail-wags-the-dog number and I was as excited as the TV reporters. Why was Ashcroft announcing this now—a month after the fact? Why a press conference (from Moscow) where Ashcroft—his face increasingly familiar since 9/11 from his televised pronouncements of Constitution-smashing actions taken in the name of the war against terror—drops this series of explosively-cooked bites into reporters’ hungry mouths on a Monday, the first day of a new news cycle?

Timing is everything. For the two weeks preceding this big item, TV news and talk shows competed in taking sniping jabs at the agencies of CIA Director George Tenet and FBI Director Robert Mueller for possible intelligence lapses—lapses that, some critics were now saying, had allowed 9/11 to happen. The media—which before this recent focus on the intelligence directors had aired little but praise for the administration’s every move in its war against terror—was suddenly whipped up, casting aspersions, busily, visibly (in their tardiness, almost risibly) waking up the nation to the placing of blame for the national disaster of 9/11.

The directors’ meager but pointed defense was that under the constraints Congress and popular opinion had placed on snooping, and, frankly, for fear of their agents being caught and killed, they had refrained from actually placing field agents within the actual groups that were known to have actual hatred in their hearts against the United States. Barring a more “on-the-ground” approach, their information gathering had been, well, virtual. Lots of satellite pictures to study; world-scale eavesdropping; information received in trade from our more down-and-dirty friends at Mosad, M-I5 and whatever the redesignated KGB calls itself. Incidentally, they whined, scrambling for traction, we need that Patriot Act to help us overcome these limitations and fears and get back into the fray.

For two weeks the media had been televising pictures of these head spooks coming and going to hearings on Capitol Hill, pictures of key intelligence operatives being grilled for the cameras by stern-looking subcommittee members and pictures of “expert” commentators endlessly speculating, though skirting the obvious: For years the agencies had been operating like secret boys’ clubs, cooking questionable evidence to suit political expediencies. And the media—reacting to criticism that they’d been soft on recent Ashcroftian “anti-terrorist” measures—was now ostentatiously critical. Frowning anchors asked hard questions, showing us that the media would no longer be taking it easy on the government’s goons; there would be no more of this long-running display of sycophancy.

What was the administration to do? Who could come up with the bait needed to distract the press and the people and who could save the day?

The man for the job

Let’s see. Donald Rumsfeld wasn’t the right go-to guy for a delicate job like this. His Pentagon had come up with a couple of clinkers: First there was the “Office of Strategic Influence,” exposed a few months earlier by the New York Times as a project to provide false information to journalists both abroad and at home. Rumsfeld would have institutionalized this kind of business-as-usual perfidy and given it its own office suite. Exposed, however, the Office of Strategic Influence was quietly closed. The work goes on, of course—but without its own letterhead. And then there was that “terror exchange” John Poindexter came up with, a Web site where you could place bets on where and how severe the next terror strike would be. What incredulously cold-blooded stupidity was that? No, Poindexter, whom the administration has kept around either out of nostalgia for his criminal (later pardoned) participation in the Contragate heyday of earlier Republican administrations or because he knows where some of the bodies are buried—Poindexter was probably not the guy to go to for bright ideas.

What about W’s evangelical friends (the ones who aren’t in office in Washington)? Any inspiration from them? No? They must have been tied up manipulating affairs in the Mideast in their efforts to bring on the “end days.”

What about Bush’s partner-in-crimes-against-the-Constitution John Ashcroft? True, he had been taking some heat for his profiled dragnets, for holding the Guantanamo prisoners in indefinite, incommunicado limbo, for refusing even to reveal their names. John’s the man! And once again he proved himself the right guy for a dirty, ideological job. After a lot of digging his people came up with something almost serendipitously suitable, an arrest only a few weeks old and still juicy: an al-Qaeda-trained American who had access to plans to build a radiation-spreading explosive device. Dirty bomb! Nuclear radiation! Al-Qaeda-trained terrorist! The country’s busiest airport! It seemed tailored to make a splashy news drop, and they could play up the FBI’s work in tracking and nailing the guy. Hold the presses, folks, we’ve found our bait and Attorney General Ashcroft is taking a news conference—from Moscow!

And the bait was perfect, so juicy that Justice would risk revealing the pesky fact (“pesky” because of the legal complications that would follow) that this was an arrest of an American citizen on American soil who was being held without charge and without the benefit of counsel. Sure, the ACLU would make a stink later about things like rights and due process, but for the moment, it was perfect. Given the Bush/Ashcroftian penchant for secrecy, it’s unclear whether we would ever have heard about this guy if using him had not been a timely and necessary distraction.

Nevertheless, not surprisingly, the ploy worked. Tenet and Mueller suddenly dropped off the news beat. Except that:

ï Incidental piece #4: The FBI (working with, or not, agents of Pakistani intelligence) did a fine bit of detecting in stopping this dangerous terrorist. (Unspoken message to the media: this puts check and checkmate to your hounding of our hard-working intelligence agencies.)

ï Incidental piece #5: At the time of his arrest, José Padilla apparently had come to Chicago to visit family. He has kids living in the area.

Since that June morning José Padilla has become, for me, a silent and invisible emblem of the Bush administration’s dangerous abuses of power. My worry now over José is on two counts: For one, the administration’s use of his case reveals that we have, at the highest level of government, lawless individuals cynical, depraved and callous enough to use, for its own narrow political expediency, the citizenry’s own deep, 9/11-heightened concerns over public safety and well-being. This use of information—to spread fear among the population—is, in fact, the definition of terrorism. The second, more far-reaching, concern is the administration’s assault on our rights as U.S. citizens.

Playing the rights-revoked card

The Justice Department’s handling of the Padilla case is only one of the administration’s uses of the politics of fear to create and maintain a climate in which they can more easily and successfully pursue their ends. By now we know what those ends are: tighter social controls; the right to hold “suspicious” people without arraignment or recourse to legal process, even denying them counsel; the self-declared right to wage pre-emptive war; deficit spending to fund tax breaks and war, deliberately leaving scant room in the budget for social programs like health care, education, jobs; more tax cuts favoring Bush’s own class (the rich) and, the following spring, most egregiously, and in the name of fighting terror and avenging 9/11, the rush to war to topple Saddam Hussein (a war justified with lies and fear-mongering misinformation about weapons of mass destruction and links to terror).

But I’m getting ahead of myself. This was 18 months ago, before the public relations effort to sell a war Bush was determined to fight even before his administration took its power. Back then, the falsification of “intelligence” to stampede the country and Congress into the Iraq mess was still ahead of us.

Since his detainment José Padilla has lost any legal status as a U.S. citizen. His rights have been taken away. By labeling this petty thug an “enemy combatant,” Ashcroft claims, the Bush administration has the right to hold Padilla in a South Carolina brig as long as they want without charge, without access to counsel. and without a hearing in court before a judge and jury, things we previously understood to be the legal rights of every American citizen, whatever the crime, whatever the circumstances. Bush and Ashcroft also have claimed, through the courts, that those courts have no authority to deny the executive branch the authority it’s claiming for itself.

The Bush team players have been very unhappy with the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals for the limits that appellate court would place on the president. They much prefer the ruling of the U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals in the case of Yaser Esam Hamdi. Hamdi is an American of Saudi descent captured fighting for the Taliban against the Kurdish Northern Alliance, who were being assisted by U.S. military. As reported by the New York Times last December, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals “accepted a two-page declaration by a Pentagon official as a ‘sufficient basis’ for concluding that Hamdi’s confinement was within the president’s constitutional authority as commander in chief.” The appeals court declared that “no further factual inquiry is necessary or proper.” An appeal was filed to the Supreme Court, and the justices have announced that they’ll hear the case.

The administration is making an effort to link the Padilla and Hamdi cases before the High Court. But there are some subtle differences in the two cases: Hamdi was clearly fighting for the “enemy,” and his combat-related crime is clear, if arguable; Padilla, from what we can make out, was indeed mixed up with the enemy and probably would have very much liked to blow up something American (and some American citizens as well). Though there was no combat, per se, there were clearly some chargeable offenses committed. Why doesn’t Justice charge him and try him?

The administration has said that the silence around Padilla’s case is due to the fact that information about Padilla’s involvement with al-Qaeda came from Abu Zubaydah, a senior al-Qaeda figure captured by U.S. authorities in Afghanistan. They say that to reveal information obtained during interrogation of Abu Zubaydah after his capture would jeopardize U.S. security interests. More likely it’s because bringing Padilla’s case to trial would reveal the Justice Department’s illegal maneuvering and manipulating of this guy since that morning in June. More than likely, a day in court would reveal that the big breaking-news of 18 months ago was little more than smoke and mirrors, purposeful obfuscation.

Since then the nation has moved on. It’s generally understood and accepted that intelligence was cooked to drive the country into war with Iraq. We’ve forgotten those early rumblings in the first two weeks of June 2002 that our intelligence was not all that intelligent and could be used to whatever purpose seen fit by the likes of George Bush, Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, John Ashcroft, Donald Rumsfeld, Condolesa Rice, Paul Wolfowitz, Eliot Abrams (another pardoned criminal of Iran/contra infamy), Richard (“Prince of Darkness”) Perle, et al. It should also be generally understood and recognized that the Bush administration will do whatever it finds politically and, especially, ideologically expedient to retain and use power. When Bush took the oath of office three years ago to “uphold and defend” the Constitution, he must have been referring to the Constitution as he and his cronies would like to see it, not the one our founding fathers actually gave us.

The Padilla case, which the High Court is expected to announce any day that it will hear, concerns not only the rights of detainees, but the right of federal courts to monitor and rule on actions and authority assumed by the executive branch At stake is nothing less than the president’s authority to strip Americans of one of their most basic and precious citizen rights: the right of due process of law. Unfortunately, we’ve seen this High Court predisposed to act in favor of Bush, predisposed enough to put him in office without a popular mandate.

Around the same time the Padilla dirty-bomb scare was getting wide play, while I was trawling channels I caught Gore Vidal saying on a CNN show hosted by a rude bow-tied conservative pundit, that when this is all over we’ll be seeing George W. Bush impeached for his violations against the Constitution of the United States of America.

We must do all that we can to hasten the day.

Jim Rinnert is the art director at In These Times.

More information about Jim Rinnert

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  • Reader Comments

    Mr. Rinnert:
    Thank you for your recent article on the dastards at the top.  I’ve recently reclaimed that N*t**n cover picture of Alfred E. Bush and that “worry” was on the button.

    But-- and this may be very low stuff, a spew --

    I don’t connect to Warden Askrak’s effect on the populace.  Actually, I’m taking this opportunity to tell you and anyone who reads this that I don’t understand the widespread idea that Americans became fearful after 9-11, since, well, I immediately thought ‘the chickens are coming home to roost’.  It was when I heard some one of our betters ensconced at the Heritage Institute warn *on September 11, 2001* that Americans would have to re-evaluate the efficacy of their civil liberties that I became scared, feeling the imminent threat. It has only been chapter after chapter of *1984* since then, for me.  It’s *Brazil*, which was originally depicted as a comedy.  I had to get out before the ending.

    Well, the newts who noodle the newds might share a gasp when Askrak efflates.  They’re so close to the real thing.  They’ve learned to think alike.  A dirty bomb? We’ve had them since the ‘40s.  They’ve been called such things as the Nevada Test Site, Love Canal, Bhopal, Three Mile Island, Rocky Flats, and that little DEA area off Long Island that might have been working on White Nile Virus--well, just those, surely, and maybe a few more that weren’t important enough to put on the newds --Amcits all have got some different living through chemistry since our government took such interests in protecting us and our corporations have improved our waste. I know, who knew? Not threatening enough? Nader warned back in the ‘70s that if a nuke plant went up for whatever reason, we’d have instant martial law (who knew)? Crazy spoiler nudnick.
    But a warning from Askrak frightening? NOT EVEN--especially from that profligate psychopath.  EVERYTHING he does is a threat to our individual and collective well-being, surmounted only by the masters of war.
    Hasten the day, yes--if we can get there.

    Posted by Ruwood on Feb 6, 2004 at 3:09 PM

    Whoops, not “DEA site” but Plum Island.  See this:  http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=03/04/07/0413213&mode=thread d&tid=5

    Posted by Ruwood on Feb 6, 2004 at 4:03 PM

    Its better to die on your feet than live on your knees.

    The dark forces of reactionary dominion are poised.  Even school children in Ca. are being asked to verify references Dubbya made in the State of U. address in the Bible.  A school project. Kids who decline are held for detention for a week.

    And the abyss yawns....

    IF WE ACCEPT WHAT THEY ARE GIVING US WE DESERVE WHAT WE GET.

    Resist.  Resist any way you can, no matter how small.

    daigu

    Posted by daigu on Feb 7, 2004 at 2:32 AM

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Appeared in the March 1, 2004 Issue
Also by Jim Rinnert
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