Mr. Padilla Deserves His Dollar

The WaPo, for all its "liberal" pretensions, is at heart a statist rag, as evidenced by the fact that this editorial asserts that "a judge's decision to allow accused 'dirty-bomber' Jose Padilla to proceed with a lawsuit against Mr. Yoo is troubling" — Padilla v. Yoo. From the article:

Mr. Padilla, a U.S. citizen, was detained in 2002 after law-enforcement officials suspected him of plotting to detonate a radiological "dirty bomb" in the United States. Mr. Padilla was never tried for this alleged offense; he was instead labeled an enemy combatant and imprisoned in a South Carolina brig without access to counsel or any semblance of due process. Mr. Padilla alleges in his lawsuit that he was subjected to harsh treatment -- from extreme temperatures to sleep and sensory deprivation to solitary confinement -- that violated his constitutional rights and amounted to torture. Mr. Padilla claims that Mr. Yoo should be held personally liable because his legal work on terrorism issues set the foundation for such abuses. Mr. Padilla was ultimately charged and convicted in federal court on terrorism-related charges having nothing to do with the alleged dirty-bomb plot, but not before spending nearly five years in a legal netherworld. Mr. Padilla is seeking $1 in damages -- an amount that his lawyers say proves Mr. Padilla is not in this for the money.

The editorialists assert that the defendant "provided key -- and, [they] believe, wrong -- legal advice that gave the Bush administration cover for many of its dubious 'war on terror' policies" and "disagree profoundly with Mr. Yoo's expansive views of executive power," yet suggest that "[a]llowing Mr. Padilla's case to proceed could have a chilling effect on the ability of government lawyers to give candid, good-faith advice for fear of being held personally liable."

The defendant went far beyond offering "candid, good-faith advice" to shaping policy and providing legal loopholes. In Jane Mayer's The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How The War on Terror Turned into a War on American Ideals we learn that "Justice Department lawyer John Yoo rejected any constraints on the treatment of prisoners or limitations on presidential power in fighting terrorism, while less militant administration lawyers invoked the Constitution and international law to oppose their initiatives." Paul Craig Roberts reminded us that he "stands outside the Anglo-American legal tradition" and "believes a president of the US can initiate war, even on false pretenses, and then use the war he starts as cover for depriving US citizens of habeas corpus protection" — John Yoo, Totalitarian.

"It takes an indescribably authoritarian mind to believe that one's own Government should have the power to put people in cages for life without having to provide them any meaningful opportunity to prove that they did not do what they are accused of," said Glenn Greenwald — John Yoo's ongoing falsehoods in service of limitless government power. Jennifer Van Bergen described him as the man who "opened the door to such abuse of the laws that some detainees were actually murdered" — The High Crimes of John Yoo. James Bovard noted that "no one has done more pimping for president-as-Supreme-Leader than John Yoo, the former Justice Department official who helped create the 'commander-in-chief override' doctrine, unleashing presidents from the confines of the law" — He Wrote the Book on Torture.

José Padilla, a Nuyorican, was at least born within our borders, albeit a grandchild of William McKinley's un-American imperialism. John Yoo, in contrast was born under US-sponsored Park Chung-hee's military dictatorship. Whatever different paths they chose, neither were heirs to our Anglo-American civilization and its ideals. Blowback comes to mind with both men, who perhaps should never have been American citizens in the first place.