July 22, 2009

Why Didn’t We Torture Bryant Neal Vinas?

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Some devil’s advocacy for people who think Jose Padilla was treated fairly: Former Long Island car wash employee Bryant Neal Vinas, 26, has been charged with participating in a rocket attack on US forces in Afghanistan. According to the charges, he’s a dangerous terrorist who trained with Al Qaeda and passed on information about the Long Island Rail Road and the New York City transit system. He is apparently cooperating with authorities.

If torture is such an effective tool, why didn’t we torture Vinas? How do we know he’s not holding something back? Padilla, another American citizen who was accused of conspiring with terrorists, had his mind essentially “destroyed” by sensory deprivation and solitary confinement. Padilla was held without a lawyer for nearly two years. He was allegedly forced to take LSD and PCP as “truth serums.” Does Vinas deserve better treatment than Padilla? If so, why? If Padilla did deserve to be treated as well as Vinas, why wasn’t he? Isn’t Vinas just as much an “enemy combatant” as Padilla was? Why does he deserve rights that Padilla wasn’t afforded? Who makes these decisions? Why do they seem so arbitrary?

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It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

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