Double Standards in the Global War on Terror

This is a provocative essay on GWOT policy that basically asks why the suspects in the FBI's anthrax investigation weren't kidnapped and tortured. After all, it was a bioweapon terror attack on institutions of American government, among others. The short practical answers are:

1) It was the FBI, not the CIA; and

2) To put it politely, they weren't the rootless, anonymous figures swept up into military detention.

Nevertheless, it is instructive to remember that this is where the Bush administration's terror policy should have led; in fact, where the Bush administration's terror policy did lead for Jose Padilla. Jose Padilla was a U.S. citizen. He was arrested in Chicago. Under the president's executive authority, he was declared an illegal enemy combatant and transferred to a military prison. The Bush administration argued that he was not entitled to trial in civilian courts. Padilla's legal history is a very tangled one by this stage, but it should be a reminder to us of the extraordinary powers the Bush administration has asserted.