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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsBradley Manning: A Tale Of Liberty Lost In America - Glenn Greenwald/TheNation
Bradley Manning: a tale of liberty lost in AmericaGlenn Greenwald - TheNation
December 02, 2012
<snip>
Over the past two and a half years, all of which he has spent in a military prison, much has been said about Bradley MBradley Manning: a tale of liberty lost in Americaanning, but nothing has been heard from him. That changed on Thursday, when the 23-year-old US army private accused of leaking classified documents to WikiLeaks testified at his court martial proceeding about the conditions of his detention.
The oppressive, borderline-torturous measures to which he was subjected, including prolonged solitary confinement and forced nudity, have been known for some time. A formal UN investigation denounced those conditions as “cruel and inhuman”. President Obama’s state department spokesman, retired air force colonel PJ Crowley, resigned after publicly condemning Manning’s treatment. A prison psychologist testified this week that Manning’s conditions were more damaging than those found on death row, or at Guantánamo Bay.
Still, hearing the accused whistleblower’s description of this abuse in his own words viscerally conveyed its horror. Reporting from the hearing, the Guardian’s Ed Pilkington quoted Manning: “If I needed toilet paper I would stand to attention and shout: ‘Detainee Manning requests toilet paper!’” And: “I was authorised to have 20 minutes sunshine, in chains, every 24 hours.” Early in his detention, Manning recalled, “I had pretty much given up. I thought I was going to die in this eight by eight animal cage.”
The repressive treatment of Bradley Manning is one of the disgraces of Obama’s first term and highlights many of the dynamics shaping his presidency. The president not only defended Manning’s treatment but also, as commander-in-chief of the court martial judges, improperly decreed Manning’s guilt when he asserted in an interview that he “broke the law”.
Worse, Manning is charged not only with disclosing classified information, but also the capital offence of “aiding the enemy”, for which the death penalty can be imposed (military prosecutors are requesting “only” life in prison). The government’s radical theory is that, although Manning had no intent to do so, the leaked information could have helped al-Qaeda, a theory that essentially equates any disclosure of classified information - by any whistleblower, or a newspaper - with treason.
Whatever one thinks of Manning’s alleged acts...
<snip>
More: http://www.nation.com.pk/pakistan-news-newspaper-daily-english-online/international/02-Dec-2012/bradley-manning-a-tale-of-liberty-lost-in-america
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JaneyVee
(19,877 posts)no one should be treated that way, if in fact those are the facts. He should be on psych ward receiving mental health care.
teddy51
(3,491 posts)certainly no doubt does now.
JaneyVee
(19,877 posts)this was a bad judgement call by the commanding officer.
WillyT
(72,631 posts)
JaneyVee
(19,877 posts)he should have been cleaning toilet bowls for the army. The army has lots of toilet bowls and someone needs to clean them. Although sticky notes are pretty obvious, even from across the room cleaning toilet bowls. Yes, he most likely committed a crime, but regardless, he shouldn't be treated inhumanely.
DevonRex
(22,541 posts)allowed him anywhere near classified info? Do you mean because he's a Private? If so, then you are completely clueless about MI and may want to hold off on discussion until you have done a bit of research. Start with the 98 series of MOS in the Army: 98G, 98C and 98X.
These are enlisted MI jobs for which a TSSI clearance is necessary. You can look that up too.
There are actually quite a few of us on DU who hold TSSI clearances and who were either 98Gs or 98Xs. Probably one or two Charlies and maybe a 97 Bravo or two as well.
JaneyVee
(19,877 posts)DevonRex
(22,541 posts)to the military.
Access to classified information has nothing to do with rank. I tried to point you to that fact with my first post.
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)WITHOUT saying that Manning wasn't fit to do anything in life but clean toilets. He doesn't deserve any more insults and humiliation.
99th_Monkey
(19,326 posts)JaneyVee
(19,877 posts)and a paycheck. It is noble.
nadinbrzezinski
(154,021 posts)The treatment has been so egregious that under the UCMJ the case should have been dropped due to punishment in the pre-trial phase. This is why the defense asked for this. The case is so high profile, it won't happen.
JaneyVee
(19,877 posts)He should be receiving psychiatric care but the fact is, is that the very people who are in charge of his well-being (soldiers & officers) are the ones who despise him so much because they view him as the enemy. It's sad, he shouldn't even be in this situation.
nadinbrzezinski
(154,021 posts)The problem is not the leaks, but what he leaked...very embarrassing. Why they will go as far as they are.
Luminous Animal
(27,310 posts)He is supremely mentally fit for trial. All witnesses at the trial have stated that he is strong, clear, intelligent, and calmly self-aware.
If you think expressing ones doubts and anxieties about ones overt gender assignment means mentally unfit, then you are wrong. If you think that expressing feelings of suicide while be locked incommunicado in an 8 foot cubic cage for two months (his original incarceration in Kuwait before being sent to Quantimo) means mentally unfit. Then you are wrong.
JaneyVee
(19,877 posts)punching his female Army commanding officer in the face, behaving oddly & erratically, being reprimanded for posting sensitive info on a Youtube channel, etc. etc.
Luminous Animal
(27,310 posts)Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)
The wrong was in the what the military was doing, not the fact that he let the world KNOW about it.
JaneyVee
(19,877 posts)I don't even think there should be a trial.
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)n/t.
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)It is about what the treatment of Manning in prison says about the moral state of the leadership of our country and whether Manning's trial could be more than just a kangaroo court.
The real issue is not Manning's mental incompetency but the Obama administration's moral incompetency and whether that incompetency is so extreme that it makes a fair trial impossible.
It is immoral to place a small, relatively weak young man like Manning in a tiny cell, 8 by 8, force him to strip naked, require him to ask for toilet paper and demean him in numerous other ways, allow him to see only 20 minutes of sunlight a day and then in chains -- when he poses no physical threat to anyone. It is cruel and unusual punishment and for a man who has not yet been convicted of anything. I have read that lack of sunlight and vitamin D in and of itself can cause serious illness and physical problems.
If you have ever read the book The Shock Doctrine or any literature on brainwashing techniques or the shock torture used in experiments by people commissioned by our military in the 1960s (according to news reports about the torture of prisoners under the Bush administration), then you will recognize that the kind of sensory deprivation that Manning has been subjected to can lead to memory loss and confusion.
Sensory deprivation may even be a means to try to reconstruct a person's memories -- to change testimony perhaps?
To rely on the testimony of a prisoner who has been subjected to the torture of sensory deprivation about any memory that could have been "reconstructed" in his mind should not be permitted in any kind of court.
The military has made such a mess of the Manning case. There is probably no way that he can ever get a fair trial or that we will be able to find out what really happened in the case. There appears to be a major cover-up that has created a suspicion or possibility of subornation of perjury. We will never know for sure, and if you can't know for sure, there should be no trial. Any trial that would be held at this time, after so much pre-trial sensory deprivation and humiliation would appear to the world to be a sham and an injustice.
It isn't a matter of Manning's sanity but rather of tampering with the evidence, meaning his memory, and therefore with his testimony.
A kangaroo court.
Smarmie Doofus
(14,498 posts)>>There appears to be a major cover-up that has created a suspicion or possibility of subornation of perjury>>>>
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)obtain certain testimony from him, perhaps even by reconstructing or changing the patterns of his memory or his ability to remember things.
I could be very wrong about this, but I could be very right. That is why I say that the torture may be part of a cover-up and that the possibility of a cover-up creates the suspicion of the possibility of subornation of perjury.
Torture was used historically to force prisoners to confess to things they did not do. It was also a punishment, but it was used to obtain false confessions.
Sensory deprivation is used to confuse or obliterate a person's memory among other things.
KoKo
(84,711 posts)I don't think many here knew about that and it's good to get it out there.
Luminous Animal
(27,310 posts)JaneyVee
(19,877 posts)Luminous Animal
(27,310 posts)Not that he is unfit for trial.
JaneyVee
(19,877 posts)I'm actually trying to LESSEN his blame. What he did was wrong, but nothing he did deserves to be treated inhumanely.
rhett o rick
(55,981 posts)MotherPetrie
(3,145 posts)
defacto7
(14,162 posts)
patrice
(47,992 posts)civilian law have received this kind of concern and whether association with Assange, with Greenwald cheer leading in the background, somehow makes Manning more worthy of President Obama's intervention, so Obama should act on Manning's behalf regardless of how many other such victims would formulate their cases, or should Obama just decree that all of them be released.
Is it what Manning released that somehow makes him more deserving, so those other wrecked lives of the emotionally and functionally incompetent have no human rights in and of themselves, except for what they deliver to the public and political motives of others? Even though human rights need no further justification, what was the constructive effect of what Manning delivered to Assange?
It's wrong for the military to treat Manning disproportionately worse because they discriminate against the particular type of his actions compared to those of others. I feel sad for this lost and apparently confused "soul", but I'm confused too.
I just can't forget the fact that Manning did volunteer for the Army, raised his had, made a promise that informed him of the consequences of these kinds of actions. If the point is that he, any prisoner, should be treated as humanely as possible, that's a yes for me, but consequences there must be, or we'll have to reconsider consequences for everyone in similar situations. That's something that I could support, but it's also extremely unlikely, so I object to Manning's privileged martyr status, especially since the only thing that appears to support it is his celebrity associations.
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)No prisoner deserves to be treated like Manning has been treated, neither before nor after conviction.
Solitary confinement is difficult enough, but it should not be the job of the prisons or pre-trial jails to attempt to obliterate a prisoner's personality, perhaps their ability to remember accurately or to speak coherently through sensory deprivation and humiliation, especially before trial.
Manning is not more deserving than other prisoners. He is just better known.
In addition, there is a lot of sympathy for Manning because of the suspicion on our parts that many of the "secrets" he revealed were being kept secret simply because they were embarrassing to our military and also to our diplomatic corps, not because their secrecy had any strategic importance.
The disclosures of Manning reminded us of the corruption, immorality, cruelty, carelessness, moral laziness, error and bullying that occurs in war. It reminds us that the embedding of journalists with our troops has prevented us from seeing the ugliness of war and of what a nation like ours does to civilians when we fight a war.
Manning reminded us about the killing and death, of the suffering of innocent journalists, of small children in war. And since so few journalists have had the courage to talk graphically about the horror of war in recent years, we are very grateful to Manning for telling the truth.
So much silence and so many lies, and then there is Bradley Manning just telling the truth. It was just so honest and refreshing.
Yes. He is alleged to have broken his oath. And that is a serious matter. I agree with you on that.
But then, had he not broken his oath, we would not have the evidence of the crimes that he revealed, so that causes us to give him some credit along with condemnation.
We have to thank Manning for asking, with his revelations, the simple question: Is war worth it?
The answer is clearly no. In particular, the War in Iraq was not worth it. All the killing of innocents, of the merely angry who were not any real threat to our national security, the revenge, the heartlessness, the cunning, the use of weapons that dehumanize the victim and make them into computer targets.
So we are grateful to Manning in spite of his disloyalty because he went beyond his duty to a place of honesty. It's just so refreshing.
I think that if he committed a crime, he should have been treated with respect like the human being he is and given a fair trial. Under the circumstances and after what he has been through, he cannot be given a fair trial. The military justice system is more on trial here than is Bradley Manning. It's a real shame.
Lucinda
(31,170 posts)♥
Luminous Animal
(27,310 posts)KoKo
(84,711 posts)Greenwald's interest is the Constitution and Civil Liberties. He has every right to report on Bradley Manning. If Madonna came out and supported Manning, that would be "celebrity." Just saying.
Also, if Assange's defense (if he's hijacked to US to stand trial as terrorist) is tied to Manning's case then Assange and his lawyer have every reason to be involved in what goes on with Manning. Assange is not a celebrity, he's someone who is defending himself against charges whom another country wants to charge with leaking documents that were embarrassing to US and other Countries diplomatic interactions.
graham4anything
(11,464 posts)How much money is Greedwald making off this?
patrice
(47,992 posts)as not being in the military.
The only thing each of us can do about that problem is to live much much more consciously ourselves and to support that effort in others, to just simply demand that difference and then try to punish everyone ELSE for not delivering YOUR ideal is the opposite of what needs to happen to make certain kinds of change real.
I am not impressed with Glenn Greenwald and, believe it or not, that's not about PO, for me. Greenwald just sets off ALL of my fascism alarms. Whether Greenwald admits the possibility or not, I regard him as very possibly "John the Baptist" to what Matt Taibbi calls the coming culture of the Archipelagos.
Luminous Animal
(27,310 posts)worldwide and UN condemnation and Manning's ultimate relief. Are you suggesting that Greenwald should have stayed silent? Greenwald continues to support Manning, continues to support Wikileaks, and continues support Assange. What hand could he possibly be biting?
More than a third of the NY Times reporting relied on "Cablegate" in the year following their release and they can't even be bothered to send a reporter (an act that their ombudsman condemns). How much money has the NY Times made off of Manning and Wikileaks?
7wo7rees
(5,128 posts)
grahamhgreen
(15,741 posts)Believe it.
coalition_unwilling
(14,180 posts)human rights violation among friends and Democrats?
(in case it's needed)
graham4anything
(11,464 posts)
the only liberty lost is the one Manning attempted to take from America.
actually, now, anytime I hear liberty or da constitution, I know its like when the tea party says it and I roll my eyes
manning is a great ct'er. His eyes see dead people and billion dollar book deals. He thinks he is da superstar.
oops, sorry brad, I am not following your breadcrumbs. Here's a quarter, matter of fact, no, I need the quarter more than you. You are on your own brad.
3000 REAL people died on 9-11.
people always seem to forget that to further a politcal cause and blame this person or that person or say this theory or that. No matter which way it happened, it happened and those people died.
And so did the nation's economy for a decade due to that one singular event
remember, without 9-11 none of what followed happened
in the great wars, they hung people early and often for treason.
too bad they didn't during the 1979 Hostage crisis before Reagan won office
when people attempt to take the world in their own hands and subvert the future.
but we go forward, not backward. This case is forward.
GUILTY. and America can sleep well.
that this person can attempt to plead through the press though shows how the 1st amendment works btw.
But we don't have to either believe him or care one word what he says
It wasn't his words but his actions
and actions have consequences, and what he did makes him guilty with the top punishment accorded as such.
imho
and let's get on to more important stuff, the social issues. War is hell, but somebody gotta do it and they always will. Nothing anyone does will change that, so let's do something we can change and that is social issues.
and what should be done is to bill the perps of 9-11 and the Brad's for money wasted on defending all this. Make them pay. Make a gov't civil case against them and require they pay back the billions they defrauded us with. Does AQ have the money to do so?
marmar
(79,512 posts)By exposing secrets that the American government had committed crimes, he attempted to take liberty from America?
I don't know whether to laugh or cry at the daft absurdity of that statement.
graham4anything
(11,464 posts)two wrongs do NOT make a right
even if right is wrong and left is right
he put the entire country in danger and no one asked for his help
anarchists are not welcome IMHO of course.
if one doesn't like a law, change it, don't break it.
Hydra
(14,459 posts)Because we wanted to know what our Gov't was doing that was illegal.
He did his duty and he's going to get burned because he felt a conflict between his oath and his need to bring this to light.
If you want an orderly country under an iron boot, go find yourself a Stalin to live under. Cemeteries are VERY orderly, and they don't talk back.
graham4anything
(11,464 posts)Hydra
(14,459 posts)The Obama Administration is chasing whistleblowers rather than fixing the waste they are exposing.
Way to chase the wrong car.
whistler162
(11,155 posts)
Octafish
(55,745 posts)Gee. In a democracy, how could We the People become the enemy?
Hydra
(14,459 posts)
raouldukelives
(5,178 posts)Could be directed at those who torture, target children & start false wars for profit.
NashvilleLefty
(811 posts)only denigrates the actual torture that other detainees experienced.
First of all, we have to consider Manning's history. Honestly, I don't see how he got in the position he did in the first place. He did have a history of doing damage to himself and others around him. If his superiors had done anything other than take the utmost precautions with him and he did something to himself, they would have been screwed. He "joked" that he could hang himself with his underwear. Good point. Was that a Joke, or could he have been serious? Don't take any chances. So, then he complained that he wasn't allowed to wear underwear.
His claims of "torture" basically fall in line with protective care. Was he water-boarded? No. Was he subjected to any other treatment recorded at Abu Grahib or GITMO as "torture"? No. He was put in solitary, and was forced to wear "scratchy" non-suicidal jumpsuits.
I'm sorry, but he had a history of "seeking attention" long before he ever joined the military. Please look into that, and what he put his parents through.
There is a difference between being tortured and being detained.