🚀 go-pugleaf

*Why Jose Padilla's 17-Year Prison Sentence Should Shock and Disgust
all Americans*

*By Andy Worthington

23/01/08 "Huffington Post" -- - T*he news that US citizen Jose Padilla
has received a
prison sentence of 17 years and four months should provoke outrage in
the United States,
although it is unlikely that there will be much more than a whimper of
dissent.

The former gang member and convert to Islam - whose arrest in May 2002
was trumpeted by
then-Attorney General John Ashcroft as that of a "known terrorist,"
who was "exploring a
plan" to detonate a radioactive "dirty bomb" in a US city - was once
regarded as one of
the most dangerous terrorists ever apprehended on American soil.
Almost six years later,
as he received his sentence, he was not actually accused of lifting a
finger to harm even
a single US citizen.

While this is shocking enough in and of itself, Padilla's sentence -
in what at least one
perceptive commentator called "the most important case of our
lifetimes" - is
particularly shocking because it sends a clear message to the
president of the United
States that he can, if he wishes (and as he did with Padilla),
designate a US citizen as
an "enemy combatant," hold him without charge or trial in a naval brig
for 43 months, and
torture him - through the use of prolonged sensory deprivation and
solitary confinement -
to such an extent that, as the psychiatrist Dr. Angela Hegarty
explained after spending
22 hours with Padilla, "What happened at the brig was essentially the
destruction of a
human being's mind."
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Damn!!

How can it be possible that a person is tortured for 43 months, driven
insane and then sent to trial on charges other than that contained in
the claim that he was planning on setting off a "Dirty Bomb"?

Such suggests that the energy crisis has caused a panic in Washington
and that nothing will be permitted to stand in the way of America's
corporate demands for "More!".

Ergo, as stated in a previous post:

All should take note of each and evry Judge and Prosecutor who is
ignoring "The Rule Of Law" in order to convict and thereby control any
and all who might cause others to wake to the reality of the extent of
the crisis and what may well happen when 300 Million starving
Americans start to ask "why?" they were misled by their politicians.

Post their addresses to "Your Neighborhood Network" ( http://www.ynn.info
) in their applicable cities.  Your neighbors will thank you.

To a safer, saner and more caring world.

To Duty.

Daniel J. Lavigne, Founder
International Humanity House
http://www.taxrefusal.com
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        - The energy crisis -
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  - Prepare your family & neighbors -
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            -  Use YNN  -
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       -  http://www.ynn.us  -
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  - Click on your State, your City -
   & then, the "Politics" category.
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