That the prosecution of Crocker ended so successfully points to what may ultimately be the most significant difference between the Crocker and Padilla cases. Crocker was investigated, prosecuted and detained in the old, pre-9/11 way, and his case has held up even as the Padilla prosecution has self-destructed.

—Salon, The Terrorist You've Never Heard of

Are our leaders stupid? Or just evil? Their actions either make no sense, or a very disturbing and deranged sense. Are they stupid and evil?

Yes.

In a Miami courtroom on Monday morning, defense lawyers for Jose Padilla ... will argue what could be a landmark motion. Padilla's defense attorneys are asking the presiding judge to dismiss the case on the grounds of "outrageous government conduct." The abuse Padilla has endured while in custody, they contend, has so scarred him that he can no longer even discuss the case against him. They believe he has been rendered incompetent to stand trial.

The logic of the federal government's response to the defense motion was stunningly cold. The U.S. Attorney's office agrees that Padilla needs his competency evaluated. We didn't torture him, argue the representatives of the U.S. government, but if we did, and it made him crazy -- well, then, no claims he makes about said torture can be trusted. He is, after all, mentally incompetent.

—Salon, The Terrorist You've Never Heard of

The entire article is really a must-read, but maybe you don't even need to. Maybe you already understand what the White, Imperialist underpinnings of this nation require to keep the Trains Running on Time. Maybe you already understand the plight of the Dark Goldstein, the Puerto Rican Christ, the yummy, browned cookie that all us safe Americans munch on to chase the fear from our bellies. We're just living an Ursula K. LeGuin story, and we've decided that the child given constant suffering in the bowels of the city is worth our collective security. After all, it's only one man, one man's mind, one man's life. (Well, one man, and whoever is innocent in Gitmo, and whomever else we don't know about in CIA holes in other countries, and the Mexicans packing meat are pretty suspect, too...okay, it's a lot of Brown people and more to come.) But this is our proud, free, nation we are talking about maintaining. So it's all worth it.

Padilla is forever scarred, says a psychiatrist who has examined him. He is paranoid, worried that if he so much as discusses what he went through in the Brig, he will be sent back, worried that letters from his mother are faked, worried that his lawyers are government plants. He will not discuss what happened to him in the "recreation" cage where he was occasionally taken, saying only that he begged his guards not to put him there. When he is asked by his attorneys to discuss his case he begs them not to -- 'please, please, please,' he says, according to the affidavit of a psychiatrist who examined him on behalf of the defense. When he does allow himself to be questioned by his attorneys, according to an affidavit filed by one, 'he often exhibits facial tics, unusual eye movements, and contortions of his body. The contortions are particularly poignant, since he is usually manacled and bound by a belly chain when he has meetings with counsel.'

—Salon, The Terrorist You've Never Heard of

It's just getting good! Don't stop now, Daddy! I'm not tired one bit. And I'm just starting to feel my patriotism rise. Whisper to me one more time about the Threat to My Freedoms. But skip to the good parts, like where the oily, brown lurker threatens Lady Liberty, but we get to him first and drive him absolutely insane feeding him acid in a cage, once he's done picking the Spinach and packing the meat and praying on planes and swearing on Korans. Go ahead, I'm ready. Hand on heart.