The Goggles were on Jose Padillia to keep him from blinking Code

[trumad]

via atrios:

http://www.news.com.au/common/imagedata/0,,5325104,00.jpg

Ann Althouse always has the capacity to completely and utterly astound me. There is always another layer of just plain nuts.

The pictures of Jose Padilla being led to the dentist in leg shackles and blackout goggles have provoked outrage and disgust and bafflement. Why the goggles? What's the point?

Althouse has an answer:

Perhaps there is a fear that he will communicate in code by blinking.

And upon being informed that this is, in fact, completely absurd, she becomes characteristically petulant:

I'm not saying Padilla deserves to be treated the way he has over the years, but I am responding to the assertion that there is absolutely no conceivable reason for blindfolding him. Plainly, I have refuted that.

Plainly. She was blinking when she typed it.

I fear there is not snark enough in all the world for Althouse.
http://whiskeyfire.typepad.com/whiskey_fire/2006/12/i_will_be_etern.html

[Suich]

1. Sheesh...I thought you were making a joke!

Hard to believe someone actually believes that.

:crazy:

[OzarkDem]

2. According to Centers for American Progress

they don't even have enough evidence to bring charges against him. From their email today

Under the Radar

HUMAN RIGHTS -- AFTER FOUR YEARS OF U.S. DETENTION, PADILLA MAY BE TOO UNFIT FOR CONVICTION: Jose Padilla, a U.S. citizen, has been detained for four years without formal charges, much of it in solitary confinement, and is now showing signs of psychological trauma, his lawyers say. The original accusations against him -- "about the dirty bomb, Al Qaeda connections and supposed plans to set off natural gas explosions in apartment buildings -- appear nowhere in the indictment against him." They were "fabrications or delusions or fantasies," Time magazine's Andrew Sullivan writes. Now, after several years of solitary detention and reported aggressive interrogation tactics, Padilla has "turned into a mental patient," potentially making conviction against him on any grounds impossible. During questioning, his lawyers say, "he often exhibits facial tics, unusual eye movements and contortions of his body." Sullivan writes, "Padilla, by all accounts, was a completely non-violent and docile prisoner every day of his incarceration. And yet they put him in body-manacles for four years, complete isolation and darkness, and even fitted him with night-goggles for a dental operation." (Pictures of Padilla's detention were made public on Friday.) Last year, Time magazine reported on similar circumstances experienced by another Bush administration detainee, Mohammed al-Qahtani: "At the end of months of sleep deprivation and other forms of torture, Qahtani, according to an FBI letter, 'was evidencing behavior consistent with extreme psychological trauma (talking to non existent people, reporting hearing voices, crouching in a cell covered with a sheet for hours on end).'"

[Freedom_from_Chains]

9. They never have had any evidence against him and

the alleged reason that he was taken into custody in the first place, I won't say arrested because they had no probable cause to arrest him, has all been thrown away and the charges they have against him now are something completely different. Why this has taken so long to get the publics attention is beyond me. I was outraged, not to mentioned terrified, when this first happened at the thought that our government had become such a dictatorial state that they didn't even try to make a pretense of following the Constitution.

[happyslug]

3. An American POW held iN North Vietnam did blink Morse code with his eyes

He blinked something like "Torture" to show why he was participating in a TV appearance. Maybe someone holding Padilla was afraid he do the same.

That was Jeremiah A. Denton, Jr.:
http://www.au.af.mil/au/goe/eaglebios/01bios/denton01.htm

[Radical Activist]

4. Yes, he blinked "torture"

That gives me the same suspicions.

[trumad]

5. Well--I doubt he knows morse code....

[shain from kane]

7. Which language would he have used? What dialect, idioms, idiots.

[happyslug]

11. My point was NOT that Padilla might know Morse Code...

But that his Guards were AFRAID that he did. Remember I am commenting on the fear of the GUARDS not Padilla.

[Kutjara]

6. Clearly, Padilla is such a dangerous cyborg killing machine...

...that, in addition to being shackled, blinded and deafened, it still takes three or four heavily armed men in full riot gear to move him. If not for these prudent precautions, the evil mutant Padilla would engage his Super Mind Flayer ability and turn everyone within a five mile radius into mindless zombie minions, ready to carry out his dastardly plans for world domination.

Methinks DHS and the military have been watching the X-Men movies a wee bit too much.

[shain from kane]

10. He's carrying a dirty bomb hidden in his femur.

[Fridays Child]

8. Maybe the blackout goggles were on him, in case he had x-ray vision.

There. Now, I, too, have refuted the assertion that there's no conceivable reason to blindfold him.

Bite me, Althouse.

[Wonk]

12. or...?

:eyes:

[Fridays Child]

14. Most al Qaeda operatives have super powers.

It's why we had to invade Iraq. (Courtesy of Bushlogic™)

x(

[MazeRat7]

13. Ok, I'll bite... any "official" explanation for the use of goggles ????

To not let him see anything on "the outside"... hummmm sounds like a form of torture to me...

Just asking.

MZr7

[Old and In the Way]

16. Well, one theory I've read is that since he's been in solitary, the light

would hurt his eyes. Of course, that doesn't explain the headphones.

Really, this is such an outrage and travesty of justice. This poor bastard is a US citizen who has not been charged with anything. This is an assault on all Americans. He deserves his day in court and we need to demand it. He is the ultimate 'political' prisoner.

[Canuckistanian]

15. Now all they need is a Hannibal Lecter facemask

Any part of his body could be used a deadly weapon, instantly killing body-armored guards with automatic weapons.

[kevinmc]

17. *blink* -SEND - *blink* - DONUTS -- *blink* -- JELLY .... n/t

[Ex Lion Tamer]

18. Damnit, this is serious!

We all know that evil terrorists have superhuman powers and should never be treated as human beings. They probably found out he's got some kind of atomic vision like that guy in the X Men.

Stop goofing around! You want them to destroy the world, don't you???

[ThatsMyBarack]

19. Can he see out of those?

They look like a blindfold to me.