Those who employ deceit and injustice to gain truth and justice fill their bellies with sand to quench their thirst. No good can come of such tactics, whatever those in power might think.

From In These Times:

Interrogations Behind Barbed Wire

His psychiatrists call it “Groundhog Day.�

José Padilla—the once-renowned “dirty bomber� who is now little more than a dim light in the government’s galaxy of desperadoes—has spent almost five years in solitary confinement. Whenever his lawyers attempt to discuss his case with him, he has the same response, begging them over and over again not to. When they try, his face seizes in tics and his body contorts uncontrollably.

“Mr. Padilla may be suffering from some form of brain injury,� writes a forensic psychiatrist who evaluated him for his lawyers. His story illuminates what has happened to many prisoners of America’s war on terror.

In addition to being tormented psychologically, Padilla and other Guantánamo detainees say the U.S. military has drugged them against their will. Each new disclosure of U.S. treatment of detainees hints at a continuing fascination in the intelligence community with developing and employing interrogation techniques that arise from a long and spotty history—techniques intelligence research says cannot be depended on to extract reliable information. [full text]