The Daily Beast
Tortured by al-Qaeda, he saw the same madness in the riots of the Capitol
Jim Cole / AP After locking his body in a truck tire. After handcuffing his hands behind his back, he turned him over so that his weight rested on his knees and forehead. After they pour water over him, he strikes his feet and hands with steel cables. It was when Theo Padnos admitted that he helped the CIA kill Islamic State terrorist Anwar al-Awlaki was homosexual, that he helped the CIA get the goods on Al Qaeda in Syria, and that he wanted Syrian women rape. The ideal martyr in an Islamic state is someone who takes himself completely out of action, ”said Padnos, whose new book, Blindfold: A Memoir of Capture, Torture and Enlightenment, recounts his nearly two years in prison. by al-Qaeda in Syria. ‘[The torturer] does his piece without emotion. The vast majority of them viewed torture as work they had to do to purge Syria of bad elements that had crept into the country during the time of the Assads. Padnos, an Arabic-speaking writer, traveled to Syria in late 2012 with the aim of walking along the Syrian-Turkish border and reporting on how the uprising against the Assad regime is affecting the average citizen. He has been to Syria and is even studying at an Islamic religious school in Damascus. But the Syria he knew no longer exists, and in the book he is the first to admit that his underestimation of the situation in 2012, and his lack of a press pass – he had no order – was which got him into trouble .Detainees Describing an American presence in their torture chambers “I thought I knew Syria so well that I could get along with everyone,” Padnos says. ‘But the whole country was obviously undergoing a radical psychological transformation. Something happened in the countryside that changed the whole complexion of society. Padnos decided to sneak into Syria from Antakya, Turkey, with a group of men he thought were smugglers. But those companions kidnapped him, and eventually he was handed over to Jebhat al-Nusra, the Syrian al Qaeda franchise. Padnos is thrown into a cell in the basement of Aleppo Eye Hospital and begins with an odyssey that sees him being transferred to the basement of a villa, then a grocery store, a warehouse basement, a basement of Aleppo’s motor vehicle department, a housekeeper’s closet, one in a farmhouse and towards the end of his imprisonment, a soft villa where he was given some liberties and was in fact under house arrest. Through all these things he is regularly tortured and referred to by his captives with such charming names as pig, donkey, insect and filth. “There is a psychological sense of terror and despair about such situations,” Padnos said. “You do not know how long it will take and where it will go. They can drag it out for months. “But, he adds in the book: ‘Once you know the rules, life in our society, even in its worst places, can be bearable.’ Padnos says his kidnappers told him they hate it. the West because of his arrogance, his preoccupation with sex and the alleged submission to the Jews. Some wanted to establish a centuries-old Islamic dream, where Muslims would live in harmony with the country and themselves, invincible before Islam’s enemies, and at the same time with the Koran. Padnos admits that some of their grievances made sense, that ‘they feel oppressed in their own countries. An important grievance is that Islam as a religion was not the power it used to be, but that it does not offer justice as it used to. ” In this respect, the longing for a purer, fairer Islamic society reflects in some ways the anger of the mob that stormed the US Capitol on January 6th. “The most important comparison is the radicalization of normal people,” Padnos says. “What has happened in Syria is that large sections of the population have radicalized. Most of these MAGA guys believe they are on a spiritual quest to make America great. They have surrendered themselves to an authority they really do not understand. Here it’s Donald Trump, there it’s ISIS. It’s the crowd element that’s scary. During his time in captivity, Padnos became accustomed to what he called ‘welcoming parties’ – the blows he received when he entered a new prison – and began to think of his constant attempts to get rid of lice. as a ‘leisure activity’. He realized that his guards were often bored, and to alleviate their boredom, they abused him. He also had an extremely controversial relationship with one fellow cellmate, Matt Schrier, a photojournalist who converted to Islam while in prison. ‘Matt hated me for refusing to repent, because I felt I was more than willing to put the good in an al Qaeda suicide bomber than I was to spend a moment in conversation with him, and because I knew the secret of his bad faith. (Schrier acknowledged that his conversion to Islam had improved relations with his abductors.) Padnos was finally released in August 2014, thanks to a ransom paid by the Qatari government, which he said ‘probably started the problem; they sent many weapons to Syria that ended up in the hands of the radicals. They had the idea to sponsor a revolution in Syria [but] they armed the people who tortured me. Padnos was forced to rely on Qatari greatness because the United States has a policy of not negotiating with terrorists, something the former prisoner gets angry about when it comes to the subject. “I negotiated with terrorists every day,” he says. ‘I have had no moral problems talking to anyone when it comes to the life of an American citizen. The US will talk to them, but they will not make any concessions to terrorists. You can understand why Padnos feels that way – any hostage probably feels the same – and still do not agree with him. But there are more important and more sobering lessons that Padnos wants readers to take away from Blindfold: ‘I want readers to see that a strange psychological phenomenon has taken over large parts of the landscape. They call it a caliphate, I call it a mass madness. This is The Handmaid’s Tale, a nightmare society where women are sex slaves and people are tortured in public squares. Yet Padnos made it safely back to Vermont, saying that, if nothing else, the experience made him understand “how fragile life was. I have a second chance at life, and I will not again. such a cavalier risk in my life. I went through it happier than I was before, and I was eager to live. “Read more at The Daily Beast. Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside delves deeper into the stories that matter to you. Learn more.