# Jose Padilla driven mad by military torture? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 22, 2007, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jose-padilla-driven-mad-by-military-torture/393255 "2007-02-22T18:29:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2007, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jose-padilla-driven-mad-by-military-torture/393255/1 "2007-02-22T18:29:36Z")
[That’s what his lawyers are trying to prove,](http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/breaking_news/16751513.htm) anyway: [Jose Padilla](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jos%C3%A9_Padilla_%28alleged_supporter_of_terrorism%29) was so mentally traumatized by his treatment in Navy brigs that he is not competent to assist in his own defense. The [Navy jailers who had charge of him will be called to testify,](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/17/AR2007021700526.html) despite bitter protests by the government’s lawyers. Is there anything to this? ---
**Author:** ![leo\_rider](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/85f322/32.png) [@leo\_rider](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/leo_rider)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2007, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jose-padilla-driven-mad-by-military-torture/393255/2 "2007-02-22T18:38:01Z")
What’s the question you’re asking? Can tortured people go mad? Become paranoid? Sure. Would his jailers know something about his treatment and condition? Of course. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2007, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jose-padilla-driven-mad-by-military-torture/393255/3 "2007-02-22T18:55:09Z")
[QUOTE=leo rider] What’s the question you’re asking? Can tortured people go mad? Become paranoid? Sure. Would his jailers know something about his treatment and condition? Of course. [/QUOTE] The question is, is Padilla shamming, or is he really mentally ill? If the latter, does that result from his treatment while detained, or from something else? And in either case, is he competent to be tried? ---
**Author:** ![PatriotX](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c4cdca/32.png) [@PatriotX](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatriotX)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2007, 5:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jose-padilla-driven-mad-by-military-torture/393255/4 "2007-02-23T05:33:32Z")
The Kubark manual repeatedly warns against the dangers of driving subjects over the edge. Apparently, balmy folks don’t provide the good intel. Has Padilla gone round the bend? Dunno. I haven’t seen him. Has anyone seen him? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2007, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jose-padilla-driven-mad-by-military-torture/393255/5 "2007-02-26T21:50:21Z")
[Relevant article from _The Nation:_](http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070312/klein) > [@](#): > > Something remarkable is going on in a Miami courtroom. The cruel methods US interrogators have used since September 11 to “break” prisoners are finally being put on trial. > > This was not supposed to happen. The Bush Administration’s plan was to put José Padilla on trial for allegedly being part of a network linked to international terrorists. But Padilla’s lawyers are arguing that he is not fit to stand trial because he has been driven insane by the government. > > Arrested in May 2002 at Chicago’s O’Hare airport, Padilla, a Brooklyn-born former gang member, was classified as an “enemy combatant” and taken to a Navy prison in Charleston, South Carolina. He was kept in a 9-by-7-foot cell with no natural light, no clock and no calendar. Whenever Padilla left the cell, he was shackled and suited in heavy goggles and headphones. Padilla was kept under these conditions for 1,307 days. He was forbidden contact with anyone but his interrogators, who punctured the extreme sensory deprivation with sensory overload, blasting him with harsh lights and pounding sounds. Padilla also says he was injected with a “truth serum,” a substance his lawyers believe was LSD or PCP. ---
**Author:** ![lowbrass](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/dc4da7/32.png) [@lowbrass](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lowbrass)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2007, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jose-padilla-driven-mad-by-military-torture/393255/6 "2007-02-26T22:31:11Z")
This is truly sickening. ---
**Author:** ![Gala\_Matrix\_Fire](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/4da419/32.png) [@Gala\_Matrix\_Fire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gala_Matrix_Fire)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2007, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jose-padilla-driven-mad-by-military-torture/393255/7 "2007-02-26T22:31:56Z")
Damn. This is an interesting story. I’d like to have more to add to your thread, but I have no idea what really happened to Padilla. But I wanted to assure you that despite the paltry replies to this topic, people are interested in the story. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2007, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jose-padilla-driven-mad-by-military-torture/393255/8 "2007-02-26T22:39:39Z")
IIRC, the CIA, back in the '50s or '60s, experimented with LSD as a “truth serum.” The results were disappointing. It does break down the subject’s resistance, as expected, but . . . INTERROGATOR: How many Soviet troops are in place in Cuba? SUBJECT: Hey, man, have you ever **really** looked at your hands? ---
**Author:** ![PatriotX](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c4cdca/32.png) [@PatriotX](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatriotX)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2007, 2:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jose-padilla-driven-mad-by-military-torture/393255/9 "2007-02-27T02:25:03Z")
A “must read” for anyone interested in torture, interrogation and intel acquisition [Educing Information: Interrogation: Science and Art—Foundations for the Future, … the Intelligence Science Board on Educing Information](http://www.fas.org/irp/dni/educing.pdf) Especially relevant is this section: 1. KUBARK Counterintelligence Interrogation Review: Observations of an Interrogator – Lessons Learned and Avenues for Further Research Steven M. Kleinman [INDENT]Colonel Steven M. Kleinman, USAFR, serves as the Reserve Senior Intelligence Officer and Mobilization Augmentee to the Director, Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance, HQ Air Force Special Operations Command. Col Kleinman formerly served as Director, Air Force Combat Interrogation Course and as DOD Senior Intelligence Offi cer for Special Survival Training. A graduate of the Joint Military Intelligence College, he received a Master of Science of Strategic Intelligence in August 2002. He is an independent contractor for the MITRE Corporation, where he has worked in support of the Intelligence Science Board’s Study on Educing Information.[/INDENT] \*\* [KUBARK Manual](http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB27/01-01.htm) [Hanns Scharff](http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22Hanns+Scharff%22&btnG=Search)\*\* ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2007, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jose-padilla-driven-mad-by-military-torture/393255/10 "2007-03-01T18:35:14Z")
Well, [the judge has ruled Padilla competent to stand trial and assist his own counsel.](http://www.canada.com/topics/news/world/story.html?id=8a978273-8e87-4e1e-84c6-b0ef49a5e5e4&k=1927) The story doesn’t say whether his lawyers plan to appeal that ruling. ---
**Author:** ![dart](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/7bcc69/32.png) [@dart](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dart)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2007, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jose-padilla-driven-mad-by-military-torture/393255/11 "2007-03-02T23:46:29Z")
I forget where I read this (probably the NYT) but apparently he believes that his lawyers are part of a larger government conspiracy out to get him and he has sided with his former captors. Clearly something’s wrong there. ---
**Author:** ![Sevastopol](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/cdc98d/32.png) [@Sevastopol](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sevastopol)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2007, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jose-padilla-driven-mad-by-military-torture/393255/12 "2007-03-02T23:55:58Z")
I remember a time not long ago when the whiff of a suggestion that the US military methodically and regularly engages in torture would provoke howls of outrage and angered demands for the names of those who had called the honor of its members into question. Now, it’s run of the mill. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2007, 12:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jose-padilla-driven-mad-by-military-torture/393255/13 "2007-03-03T00:10:20Z")
[QUOTE=dart] I forget where I read this (probably the NYT) but apparently he believes that his lawyers are part of a larger government conspiracy out to get him and he has sided with his former captors. Clearly something’s wrong there. [/QUOTE] Yeah, it’s called Stockholm Syndrome. But it won’t fly as an insanity defense, just ask Patty Hearst. ---
**Author:** ![MovieMogul](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f08c70/32.png) [@MovieMogul](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MovieMogul)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2007, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jose-padilla-driven-mad-by-military-torture/393255/14 "2007-03-05T20:57:03Z")
Well, well, looks like a key video involving Padilla’s “interrogation” has gone…[missing](http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17389175/site/newsweek/print/1/displaymode/1098/): > [@](#): > > The missing DVD dates from March 2, 2004. It contains a video of the last interrogation session of Padilla, then a declared ‘enemy combatant’ under an order from President Bush, while he was being held in military custody at a U.S. Navy brig in Charleston, S.C. But in recent days, in the course of an unusual court hearing about Padilla’s mental condition, a government lawyer disclosed to a surprised courtroom that the Defense Intelligence Agency — which had custody of the evidence — was no longer able to locate the DVD. As a result, it was not included in a packet of classified DVDs that was recently turned over to defense lawyers under orders from Judge Cooke. > > The disclosure that the Pentagon had lost a potentially important piece of evidence in one of the U.S. government’s highest-profile terrorism cases was met with claims of incredulity by some defense lawyers and human-rights groups monitoring the case. “This is the kind of thing you hear when you’re litigating cases in Egypt or Morocco or Karachi,” said John Sifton, a lawyer with Human Rights Watch, one of a number of groups that has criticized the U.S. government’s treatment of Padilla. “It is simply not credible that they would have lost this tape. The administration has shown repeatedly they are more interested in covering up abuses than getting to the bottom of whether people were abused.” Don’t know whether he’s “guilty” or not, but the entire way this has been handles strikes me as profoundly evil and un-American, and I hope that the one bright side to his horrible ordeal is that continued investigation results in additional illumination into how our government handles “enemies of the state”. To many of us, this is old news, but I think there’s still a lot of America who don’t want to believe or admit our government’s capable of such things, and the more incontrivertible exposure this gets, the more people will slowly understand what this administration truly stands for.