I guess now that the brain wash for Americans has been completed. 

It upsets me that an American citizen can be deemed a "enemy combatant" by a small group of people.  He can be held without charges, detained without being able to question why.  He can be denied constitutional rights, and even his own dignity.  He can be tortured (because the "intent" is not to degrade him as defined in Article 6 of the Geneva Conventions, but to insure national security) and what he may say during "enhanced interrogation" can be held against him without regard to how it was obtained.  All of this by Americans on American soil.  He can be convicted on very thin evidence, and the prosecution can introduce "possibilities" (implying that Mr. Padilla used code words, and introducing a "prosecution edited and translated" video of Usama bin Laden) of the intent of the defendant without linking it directly to what he has been accused of.

The part that disheartens me most is that an American jury, those who depend on the perception of justice being fair and equal convicted him.  We, in this country are free of the police on every corner enforcement of law and order because we respect the authority of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.  We trust our law enforcement agencies and the courts because we belive that they will respect the documents we hold so dearly.  If our neighbour does us harm, we do not take revenge upon him, we take him to court and let the evidence speak for us.  The judge and jury will make a judgement based on the evidence, rather than who we are or what we believe.  At least for me, this trust is seriously breached.  I will probably continue to cooperate with the law, but not because I trust it, but fear it.  I don't belive that I am alone.

Mr Padilla was convicted not of what he did, but what he might do, or what he may have thought. (we don't know this, because we don't know what he might have said to make the oppressor stop)  He was taken off the streets because it was belived that he was a "potencial threat".  Are we seeing the beginning of "preventive detention"?

We seem to be making great strides in blurring the line between being Muslim and being a terrorist.  There is no great outrage (as with the Don Imus flap) over the degradation of Muslim people in general in the media.  People like (the right wing pundits) can say what they will about Muslims and Arabs, and life goes on in America.  

I personally belive that this case has set the stage for "preventive detention" (internment) for another group of people in America.  Pretty much now, Americans can, and probably will for the most part, look the other way as they see fellow Americans being marched off to camps.  they will understand that if they interrupt, they will be joining them.

It is a sad day.  God help us. 

Zanubiyah