George Monbiot is a meticulous researcher. Every piece he pens is littered with numbers, appertaining to a lengthy list of references at the bottom of the page. As such, his work can be trusted. It is fact, not opinion.
His latest article: “The Darkest Corner of the Mind”, discusses America’s latest techniques for destroying human beings. He cites the case of Jose Padilla:
“Last week, defence lawyers acting for Jose Padilla, a US citizen detained as an “enemy combatant”, released a video showing a mission fraught with deadly risk – taking him to the prison dentist. A group of masked guards in riot gear shackled his legs and hands, blindfolded him with black-out goggles and shut off his hearing with headphones, then marched him down the prison corridor.
Is Padilla really that dangerous? Far from it: his warders describe him as so docile and inactive that he could be mistaken for “a piece of furniture”. The purpose of these measures appeared to be to sustain the regime under which he had lived for over three years: total sensory deprivation. He had been kept in a blacked-out cell, unable to see or hear anything beyond it. Most importantly, he had no human contact, except for being bounced off the walls from time to time by his interrogators. As a result, he appears to have lost his mind. I don’t mean this metaphorically. I mean that his mind is no longer there.
The forensic psychiatrist who examined him says that he “does not appreciate the nature and consequences of the proceedings against him, is unable to render assistance to counsel, and has impairments in reasoning as the result of a mental illness, i.e., post-traumatic stress disorder, complicated by the neuropsychiatric effects of prolonged isolation.” Jose Padilla appears to have been lobotomised: not medically, but socially.
Jose Padilla is only one subject scrutinised by Monbiot. He also analyses the all-to-common practice of penal solitary confinement in the US. In concluding, he states:
“If we were to judge the United States by its penal policies, we would perceive a strange beast: a Christian society that believes in neither forgiveness nor redemption.”
Read the rest of George Monbiot’s article, as published today in the Guardian newpaper, at his blog – HERE.
Filed under: Mental torture