Letters to the Editor
susan sunflower
Published Letters: 1373 Editor's Choice: 29
-
'I might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb.'
[Read the article: The Padilla verdict]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]If the consequence of failure is the same in either case, then go for the option that yields the greatest reward if the venture succeeds.
I hope that as the appeals processes go forward, we will learn more as to how we came to this day. Just how defiant was Padilla 5 years ago.
Funny, when you have torture as a tool, you need not resort to "plea bargains" to gain cooperation.
Funny, most "successful" terrorist prosecutions have hingeed on the terrified accused "plea bargaining" to a lesser guilty plea to avoid the death penalty....
Funny, Moussaoui pled guilty ... didn't he? batshit crazy wannabe ...
Who is Juan Padilla? Who was Juan Padilla? Who will he become? Who can say when he will be allowed human contact, regain his humanity?
Dahlia Lithwick over at Slate a few days ago said that if the prosecuter succeeded in this case they would merely have convincted Padilla of being a wannabe ... a life sentence for a "wannabe" ...
Worse, imho, a life sentence for what amounts to a "thought crime" ...
All parents should be terrified for their children and, certainly, we should worry for ourselves. How we reverse all this "special case" machinery, I do not know particularly when much of America seemingly believes in its necessity.
See also: John Walker Lindh who pled guilty after being tortured and threatened with the death penalty.
Sacrificial lambs to what?
-
yes, Padilla is and was a "nobody"... how much of an actual threat he ever posed is suspect ....
[Read the article: The Padilla verdict]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]yes, surveillance "worked" .. he was "intercepted" before a crime was committed (or even planned or equipment assembled or necessary technical expertise obtained, etc.)...
I've never read anything that convinced me Padilla was ACTUALLY part of a GENUINE shadowy network of international terrorism ...
There will always be wannabes and copycats ... these people are not the movers and shakers ... (which doesn't mean that they are of zero risk, however, both their motivations and potential effectiveness are simply less ... they're followers, groupies, starry-eyed new converts)
Indefinite detention (and TORTURE) based on potential FUTURE bad acts??
no. that's excessive.
-
no matter how much the Muslim community may despite bin Ladin, Al-Qaeda and Terrorism ...
[Read the article: The Padilla verdict]
[Read more letters about this article: Here](and I assume most Moslems are just as self-involved and boring and don't-tread-on-me as most people) ... it's hard to see "your" people being selectively treated this way, with exceptional treatment, with exceptional laws, with exceptional sentences.
How would you feel if it were the "Italians" or the "Irish" or the "Bahai" or "Unitarians" ... it is very bad when the expectionation of equal justice under the law becomes an "old fashioned" idea.
Second, who's gonna rush to report "suspicious" activity ... or maybe bother to report it at all. It's one thing to report your local drug dealer or neightborhood fence for stolen good ... they just get busted, go away, do some time ... oh, and there are things like "crimes" and "evidence" and "sentencing guideline" ... who wants to risk sending somebody's kid, friend, sweetheat, cousin into this sort of tortured limbo ...
This is not the way to win the "heart and minds" or cooperation of the Arab/Muslim community ...
-
everytime I read of yet another failure of our vaunted "transparency" I want to call up Tom Friedman and ask ...
[Read the article: Panic on Wall Street]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]when his update on the Lexus and the Olive Tree is coming out ... since, in that, he argued that the world markets needed to emulate American transparency if they wanted to get the kind of investment they needed... to the point, irrc, that he recommended American accounting giants be employed until local clones could get properly trained and established along the lines of Arthur Anderson and Company.
I read about these "shenaningans" and wonder, "but, isn't that dishonesty somehow illegal?"
Tom's apparently on either vacation or a book tour (the world is flat has been issued in paperback -- a more tugid mass of self-important hot air I cannot recall encountering and finally returning to the library unread -- his "telling anecdote" format having lost its boyish charm ...)
I'm sure he'll get right on this story when he gets back .... unless some new "miracle" or "green" story doesn't edge out these petty transitional matters.
-
yes, what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas -- the high rollers expect to get comp'd for their losses ...
[Read the article: Panic on Wall Street]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]so what else is new ....
oh, you thought Wall Street wasn't Vegas -- think again.
Personally, I marvel daily at our accounting failures (and lack of "transparency") regarding billions unaccounted for in Iraq reconstruction funds (your tax dollars vanished)... somehow we even managed to fail to buying friends or influencing anyone much ...
must refresh memory on definition of "robber barons"
-
Exactly Lisa -- preventive detention ... as has become so acceptable to "three strikes" criminals and sex crimes ....
[Read the article: The Padilla verdict]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]and noncompliant infectious disease carriers .... mmm ....
who's next?
-
three things
[Read the article: The Padilla verdict]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]- Watched first half of "Judgement at Nuremburg" last night (it's long movie, I've seen the first half several times and never the end) ... highly recommended.
- I've been bothered with the question of why they bothered so with Jose Padilla ... I'm struck by the notion he was simply a guinea pig, a lab rat ... particularly "special" because he WAS an american (no one else could claim custody) and he spoke English (no translators), so little to no interference. I've also been struck at how little outrage I've heard expressed towards him as a "traitor" -- considering the outrage wrt John Walker Lindh. But he was "test case" of just how far they could go ... oh, and it appears they won. Gitmo is still in operation... doing something similar on a mass scale, despite -- despite - all the experts who say that torture produces unreliable information and that other interrogration techniques are more effective.
- Yes, in the last 6 years, there has been a global realignment that excludes or patronizes us ... and they get along without us very well, much of the time. They are afraid of us ... but they also know all about our dependence on China and the Saudis. Our next president is in for a bumpy ride. Let's hope Putin's patience holds out since he appears to most feel affronted by Bush/Cheney swordrattling. If we "pre-emptively" attack Iran, I cannot think of any country that will be on our side (a few extremist Israelis may be pleased, but that's not the same thing). Economically and geopolitically, it could easily be devastating to US.
oh, and "my bad" in the NYT, Petraeous says that Maliki approved arming the Sunni militias ... guess they had a little talk ...