Revolution #015, September 25, 2005, posted at revcom.us
José Padilla is a U.S. citizen being held in indefinite detention, without charges, as part of the “War on Terror.” On September 9, the U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a lower court ruling that the President has no right to detain, as an “enemy combatant,” a U.S. citizen arrested in the U.S. in a civilian setting. The Appeals Court ruling wiped out the lower court ruling, again stripping Padilla of rights long considered fundamental—the right to a lawyer, to confront witnesses, or even to know what charges are being brought against you.
The response of major U.S. mainstream newspapers gives a sense of the enormity of what is at stake here. The Citizen-Times newspaper in Asheville, North Carolina opined that “If the detention of José Padilla is upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court, the United States will have slipped dangerously closer to being a police state.” The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel wrote that “All Americans should be terrified and outraged by the proposition that the federal government can safely be entrusted with the power to arrest U.S. citizens in this country and hold them in prison indefinitely—perhaps even for life —without even filing (much less proving) criminal charges against them.”
USA Today criticized the Appeals Court ruling as “shocking,” and warned that this ruling not only upheld what has been—and is continuing to be done—to Padilla, in terms of holding him without charges or trial, without the right to due process or any rights at all, in essence, but went further and “universalized” this. As the USA Today’s editorial put it:
"The Court said Congress has given the president authority to order the jailing of anyone anywhere for as long as he wishes, as long as he claims it’s connected to the war on terrorism.
"That sounds more like the power accorded a dictator than the president of the United States. Repeal of the Con-stitution’s Fourth, Fifth and Sixth amendments wasn’t part of the package when Congress passed that anti-terrorism resolution after the 9/11 attacks....
“But if Padilla, a U.S. citizen arrested on U.S. soil, can be held indefinitely without being charged, then no one’s liberty is secure.”
While the Appeals Court ruling will no doubt be appealed further, it must be soberly understood that precedents are being set that can and will—if not turned back by struggle that takes on the whole agenda that they are a part of—be used against progressive forces in general, and especially revolutionary forces.
As Martin Neimoller, a German pastor imprisoned by Hitler from 1937 to 1945, put it:
"First they came for the Communists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist.
"Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew.
"Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist.
"Then then came for the Catholics, and I didn’t speak up because I was a Protestant.
“Then they came for me, and by that time no one was left to speak up.”
The editorial comments from establishment newspapers highlight how draconian things have become. They also point to the rifts, fissures, and openings that can erupt in the status quo when rights that have been considered basic for centuries are torn up. All this further underlines the urgency and stakes of grasping and acting on the extremity of these times, and fighting to pull something radically positive out of them.