Padilla on for trial

Pity poor Jose Padilla. The judge rejected his motion to dismiss based on the grounds of being tortured for over three years and he must stand trial on the government's charges. The judge ruled he can't use the torture defense unless the prosecution uses any statements he made, against him.

The government says it doesn't intend to use any and I'll just bet they won't. The last thing they want is for the gruesome details of government sponsored torture to be laid out in detail in open court. So what are they charging him with, you ask?

Padilla was initially arrested in 2002 on suspicion of an al-Qaida plot to detonate a radioactive "dirty bomb" in a U.S. city, but that charge is not part of the Miami criminal case. Prosecutors do claim that Padilla filled out a form in 2000 to join an al-Qaida training camp in Afghanistan.

Poor Padilla. The most dangerous "enemy combatant" in the US. So dangerous he had to be yanked abruptly off the street, denied due process, held in isolation and brutally interrogated for over three years, is going to be convicted of filling out an application for terrorist training school. Clearly he didn't even send it in if the government has it.

Padilla, whom I remind you is an American citizen, was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. I'm not saying he might not be guilty of something, but it surely wasn't terrorism. He was grabbed as a PR ploy six months into the Iraq war, when public support for the "war on terror" was initially flagging

In a way, it doesn't matter what happens at trial. This decision lets the government off scot-free. Meanwhile, Padilla will be paying for the rest of his life, with his sanity, no matter what the final verdict.