Andrew Sullivan just posted about “the terrible abuse of power and the constitution in the Padilla case, one of the most important cases in the history of American liberty”. He links to Dahlia Lithwick, who concludes that:
The destruction of Al Dossari, Jose Padilla, Zacarias Moussaoui, and some of our most basic civil liberties was never a purpose or a goal—it was a mere byproduct. The true purpose is more abstract and more tragic: To establish a clunky post-Watergate dream of an imperial presidency, whatever the human cost may be.
And I found myself wondering whether the deliberately inflicted mental breakdown of Padilla was simply a distraction: a way of getting people arguing whether sensory deprivation and isolation deserves the label “torture”, and thereby overlooking the far more far-reaching constitutional question. I ask myself whether this administration is capable of such a deeply cynical and amoral move – torture as a PR ploy – and it’s hard to resist an affirmative answer.