[lbo-talk] Class war and the war on terror

[joanna]

*A tale of two cases in US “war on terror”: Jose Padilla and Chiquita 
Brands*
*http://www.wsws.org/articles/2007/mar2007/chiq-m24_prn.shtml*
*By Bill Van Auken*
*24 March 2007*
*
*
*Two recent cases prosecuted by the US Justice Department involving 
charges of providing material aid to a foreign terrorist organization 
have led to startlingly different results for the defendants.*
*In the first, the accused was seized by federal agents at a US airport, 
vilified as a mass murderer by the US attorney general in a nationally 
broadcast press conference and then held in solitary confinement without 
charges or the right to see a lawyer or have contact with family members 
for more than three years. During this period, he underwent sensory 
deprivation and outright torture that, his lawyers argue, left him 
mentally damaged and incompetent to stand trial.*
*While federal prosecutors now portray the defendant as merely a 
low-level courier, working for others, they still want to jail him for 
life.*
*In the second instance, the individual defendants have never even been 
named, much less publicly denounced by the attorney general. The sole 
mention of the ultimate punishment for their crime came in the form of a 
discreet posting on the Justice Department web site.*
*The defendants in this second case are part of a major multinational 
operation and admit to funneling millions of dollars abroad to finance a 
murderous terrorist organization. Yet they were allowed to reach a 
pre-trial plea bargain that included as the penalty a fine amounting to 
0.55 percent of their annual revenue. The organization that financed the 
foreign terrorists has boasted publicly that its global operations have 
not been affected in the slightest.*
[snip]