Padlla: the alleged crime now is filling out a form

Lew Koch in Miami:

"This is what we wind up with after spending $20 million in prosecuting Padilla — a goddam form handed to a CIA agent by a stranger appearing out of nowhere in Afghanistan? We are to believe that the stranger just happened to come upon piles and boxes of papers in an abandoned building. So he loaded it all up, in search of an American he might find and make a new buddy. He came upon a someone who just happened to be a CIA agent.... The agent didn't read or speak Aimaq or Ashkun or South Azerbaijani, or Western Balochi or Brahui or Darwazi or Domari, not a word of Eastern Farsi, Gawar-Bati. Grangali was unfamiliar to him as was Gujari, Hazaragi, Jakati, not even Kamviri, Karakalpak, Kati, Kazakh, Kirghiz (known as the five K's.) He didn't know Malakhel, Mogholi, Munji, (also known as the three M's) not even Ormuri, Pahlavani, Parachi, Parya, nor Northwest, Northeast, Southwest, Southeast Pashayi. Northern and Southern Pashto were unfamiliar and so too was Prasuni, Sanglechi-Ishkashimi, Savi, Shughni, Shumashti, (the four S's), Tangshewi, Tirahi, Tregami, Turkmen, Uyghur, Southern Uzbek, Waigali, Warduji, and Wotapuri-Katarqala. Nevertheless, this CIA agent finds a piece of paper that links Jose Padilla to al Qaeda...."

UPDATE. Lew expands in the Fidedoglake comments: they CLAIM they have ONE document with WHAT MAY OR MAY NOT HAVE HIS SIGNATURE/PRINTS ON IT. This, to my knowledge, is the SUM of the first-hand evidence against Padilla. Who knows who handled the documents from the time they were recovered till the time they were processed for identity. Who knows if it might not have been handed to Padilla at one point during the three and a half years in the brig. The interrogators could have handed something to him when he was masked and muffled. Who knows? That’s another reason I’d like to see the videotapes of his interrogation. The government is once again asking us to “trust us.” Fat f****** chance.

Views expressed on this page are those of the authors and not necessarily those of Campaign for America's Future or Institute for America's Future