The American Enemy Combatant

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


Yesterday, the US government finally indicted the only American “enemy combatant” in the war on terror, Jose Padilla. But only after holding him for over three years, incommunicado, in a South Carolina military brig and denying him the basic legal rights guaranteed to all citizens.

The official charges are conspiring to commit murder and aid terrorists. According to Reuters, the indictment states that

The defendants…operated and participated in a North American support cell that sent money, physical assets and mujahideen recruits to overseas conflicts for the purposes of fighting a violent jihad.

Notably absent from the criminal accusation is any mention of his alleged plans to attack New York apartments or to detonate a “dirty bomb” within the US, both earlier advanced as primary allegations by Att. Gen. Gonzalez and Sec. of Defense Rumsfeld. In addition, there are indications that the evidence from a “top al Qaeda leader” was obtained though torture at the secret CIA “black-sites” abroad.

Yet, apart from the question of his guilt, is the legality of suspending a US citizen’s right to habeas corpus indefinitely, holding him incommunicado without either formal charges or access to his lawyers. The indictment, even if it is not revoked—as it could be at any time, should not distract from the means used to achieve it.

Jennifer Daskal, Advocacy Director for U.S. Programs at Human Rights Watch, said:

This speaks to who we are as a nation and what we value, that we’re still holding over five hundred detainees without charges for over three years. Padilla’s indictment doesn’t remove that. This is something that should concern all of us as Americans. We are a nation built on the rule of law. …Certainly, those who have engaged in terrorist activity should be held accountable. But like Padilla, these individuals should be charged, prosecuted, and given the opportunity to defend themselves.

Civil liberty and human rights groups have taken Padilla’s case as a touchstone for the strikes against the fundamental protections that define U.S. citizenship. In a press release yesterday, Human Rights First issued a reserved welcome:

It is long past time for Mr. Padilla to have his day in court. [However,] it remains to be seen whether it is possible now to repair the damage done to the rule of law and the cause of justice by the past years worth of indefinite detention, incommunicado interrogation, and denial of the most basic due process rights.

Over the past three years, Padilla’s case has gone through a series of courts that have flip-flopped in reconciling the Administration’s demand for nearly-unlimited flexibility in the war on terror and a citizen’s constitutional right to legal security. Rulings in his case concerning the legality of indefinitely detaining a US citizen incommunicado and without charges , have bounced between Federal Courts and US Appeals Courts, since he was seized from a Chicago airport as an “enemy-combatant” in 2002, and now sit before the Supreme Court.

The indictment was issued just six days before the Department of Justice was supposed to submit its arguments to the Court defending its anomalous procedures in detaining the American “enemy combatant.” Padilla’s lawyers assert that the timing of the indictment is intended to make moot the Supreme Court’s decision to review the legality of those actions.

Stanford Professor Jenny Martinez, who is part of the legal team representing Padilla, told the Washington Post, “If I were the government, I would not have expected to win in the Supreme Court. I think the government is clearly trying to evade Supreme Court review.

Martinez told the Post that they will be arguing for the Court to proceed with its review because his indictment is revocable and he his “enemy combatant” status is not yet officially removed. In previous cases, the Court has ruled to continue a review when an indictment was judged an act of “evading review” and that, therefore, the situation was “capable of repetition.” Naturally, Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez, denies any political strategy in the sudden indictment.

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate