A Major First
I couldn’t believe my eyes when I read Rep. Adam Schiff’s editorial in Thursday’s Washington Times. Here’s what riveted my attention:
Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution provides that the Congress, not the president, has the power to make rules concerning captures and punishments, even in time of war. Yet since September 11, 2001, Congress has abdicated this responsibility and let the administration and courts cobble policy together piecemeal.
When did liberals worry about the literal interpretation of the U.S. Constitution? When did liberals worry about the legislature writing and passing legislation? When did liberals worry about the courts setting policy? This is definitely a ‘Stop the presses’ type of moment.
The next thing you know, they’ll start advocating the free exercise of religion or some other wacky thing.
U.S. citizen Jose Padilla, has been indefinitely detained without charge, under lock and key in a Navy brig, since June 2002. When an American can be plucked off the street in Chicago and detained without charge or regular access to a lawyer for more than three years, every citizen has reason for concern.
Talk about hyperbole. Mr. Schiff is pushing it when he says “When an American can be plucked off the street in Chicago and detained without charge or regular access to a lawyer for more than three years, every citizen has reason for concern,” he’s blowing things out of proportion. Other than Jose Padilla, name me another U.S. citizen that’s been “detained without charge or regular access to a lawyer” in the last half century?
Jose Padilla might be a U.S. citizen but he’s also a terrorist and an enemy combatant.
Cross-posted at ConfirmationWhoppers
November 11th, 2005 at 10:23 am
It’s always nice to bend the rules to fit one’s agenda. The fact remains, whether this bum is or isn’t on our side, he is still an AMERICAN! This administration needs to get off it’s (not so high) horse and face the music. Give us the proof of what you say he is. Proof governs.
November 11th, 2005 at 12:28 pm
Tony Salazar writes in his comments “Give us the proof of what you say he is. Proof governs.” Fine. Here’s proof Al-Qaeda’>from the BBC’s story:
He apparently dropped out of view after leaving the US in 1998. This, officials say, was when he first visited Afghanistan.
Norma Leon, the Padilla family’s former landlady, told the Chicago Sun-Times that Mr Padilla’s mother was worried because her son had left the country and become a member of a cult.
“She was scared for him,” Ms Leon told the newspaper.
In 2001, officials say, he made contact with Abu Zubaydah, a senior al-Qaeda commander who is in American custody and apparently co-operating with the FBI.
Al-Qaeda, the US authorities allege, asked Mr Padilla to go to Lahore in Pakistan, where he learnt how to make a dirty bomb.
In Karachi, Pakistan, he is alleged to have met several other al-Qaeda members.
Officials have not said whether these meetings took place before or after the 11 September attacks on the US.
On 8 May 2002, he was arrested after flying into Chicago’s O’Hare airport from Pakistan, for what the US authorities say was a reconnaissance mission.
or this from CNN:
In a document filed with the U.S. District Court in Lower Manhattan, prosecutors said Padilla’s status as an “enemy combatant” — which the government has cited as a constitutional reason to detain him — is not diminished by the fact that he is a U.S. citizen.
“Citizens who associate themselves with the enemy and with its aid, guidance and direction, enter this country bent on hostile acts, are enemy belligerents,” the document said.
The prosecutors said Padilla, 31, was trying to infiltrate the United States covertly for the al Qaeda terrorist network, which remains a “serious threat” to the United States. As such, he qualifies as an enemy combatant who is being held consistent with the laws of war.
“The authority of the United States to seize and detain enemy combatants is well settled — and vital to our core military objectives,” the document said. Unlawful combatants, it said, are “those who, during time of war, pass surreptitiously from enemy territory into our own for the commission of hostile acts involving destruction of life or property,” according to case law.
or this:
Perhaps having fulfilled all his traffic ambitions, Padilla was ready to move on to bigger and better things. In 1998, he abruptly left his wife and went to Egypt to “learn Arabic,” as he told acquaintances. His trip was sponsored by “friends.”
Following a well-established pattern among American al Qaeda recruits, Padilla traveled to Egypt largely as a waystation to the Pakistan-Afghanistan border region, a diversion designed to minimize suspicion from customs officials. He apparently married at some point along the way.
Once in Pakistan, Padilla changed his name once more, to Abdullah al-Muhajir, which translates as “Abdullah the Immigrant” (an improvement over Padilla’s boyhood nickname “Pucho,” which translates as “pudgy”).
Little has been disclosed about Padilla’s time in training, but when it was completed, the terrorist formerly known as Pucho was assigned to a task that, to all appearances, lay well beyond his limited skill set  obtaining uranium for use in a radiological dispersion device, or a “dirty bomb” which combines conventional explosives with radioactive toxins.
Abu Zubayda, the Qaeda lieutenant in charge of Padilla for at least some of his time in Pakistan, must surely have realized that Pucho was muy estupido. Time Magazine related an anecdote from early 2002 in which Padilla came to Zubayda proudly flourishing schematics to build a nuclear warhead… which he had found on the Internet. You can probably guess where this is going. Time called the plans “laughably inaccurate” and suggested they might have come from a parody Web site.
Despite the fact he was obviously no Ramzi Yousef, Padilla seemed to have inexplicably ingratiated into the very highest level of al Qaeda. Before his capture by U.S. forces shortly after the meeting cited above, Zubayda was a top al Qaeda planner. While in Pakistan, Padilla also reported to Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, al Qaeda’s No. 3 leader and the mastermind of the September 11 attacks.
Zubayda and Khalid Shaikh jointly sealed Padilla’s fate as 2002 moved forward. In April, it appears that Khalid Shaikh personally dispatched Padilla to the United States, with a few grand in cash to execute a mission. Abu Zubayda, in U.S. custody by this time, allegedly fingered Padilla as an “important” al Qaeda operative, providing color on the “dirty bomb” plot. By Zubayda’s account, which may not be reliable, Padilla’s assignment was to scout targets for a radiological dispersion attack.
If you want more proof, google Jose Padilla. There’s an abundance of information about him.
November 11th, 2005 at 9:56 pm
Give Jose Padilla a trial. If the prosecutor can prove Padilla is guilty, then throw Padilla in jail. BTW, Fitzgerald prosecuted the World Trade Center bombings and did an excellent job — you don’t have to worry about Omar Abdel Rahman ever walking the streets again.
But if we can’t prove this, then let him go. This is America. This is how America works. Have some faith in our justice system.