This shameful abuse of Bradley Manning

The WikiLeaks suspect's mistreatment amounts to torture. Either President Obama knows this or he should make it his business

President Obama tells us that he's asked the Pentagon whether the conditions of confinement of Bradley Manning, the soldier charged with leaking state secrets, "are appropriate and are meeting our basic standards. They assure me that they are."

If Obama believes that, he'll believe anything. I would hope he would know better than to ask the perpetrators whether they've been behaving appropriately. I can just hear President Nixon saying to a press conference the same thing: "I was assured by the the White House Plumbers that their burglary of the office of Daniel Ellsberg's doctor in Los Angeles was appropriate and met basic standards."

When that criminal behaviour ordered from the Oval Office came out, Nixon faced impeachment and had to resign. Well, times have changed. But if President Obama really doesn't yet know the actual conditions of Manning's detention– if he really believes, as he's said, that "some of this [nudity, isolation, harassment, sleep-deprivation] has to do with Private Manning's wellbeing", despite the contrary judgments of the prison psychologist – then he's being lied to, and he needs to get a grip on his administration.

If he does know, and agrees that it's appropriate or even legal, that doesn't speak well for his memory of the courses he taught on constitutional law.

The president refused to comment on PJ Crowley's statement that the treatment of Manning is "ridiculous, counterproductive and stupid". Those words are true enough as far as they go – which is probably about as far as a state department spokesperson can allow himself to go in condemning actions of the defence department. But at least two other words are called for: abusive and illegal.

Crowley was responding to a question about the "torturing" of an American citizen, and, creditably, he didn't rebut that description. Prolonged isolation, sleep deprivation, nudity – that's right out of the manual of the CIA for "enhanced interrogation". We've seen it applied in Guantánamo and Abu Ghraib. It's what the CIA calls "no-touch torture ", and its purpose there, as in this case, is very clear: to demoralise someone to the point of offering a desired confession. That's what they are after, I suspect, with Manning. They don't care if the confession is true or false, so long as it implicates WikiLeaks in a way that will help them prosecute Julian Assange.

That's just my guess, as to their motives. But it does not affect the illegality of the behaviour. If I'm right, it's likely that such harsh treatment wasn't ordered at the level of a warrant officer or the brig commander. The fact that they have continued to inflict such suffering on the prisoner despite weeks of complaint from his defence counsel, harsh publicity and condemnation from organisations such as Amnesty International, suggests to me that it might have come from high levels of the defence department or the justice department, if not from the White House itself.

It's no coincidence that it's someone from the state department who has gone off-message to speak out about this. When a branch of the US government makes a mockery of our pretensions to honour the rule of law, specifically our obligation not to use torture, the state department bears the brunt of that, as it affects our standing in the world.

The fact that Manning's abusive mistreatment is going on at Quantico – where I spent nine months as a Marine officer in basic school – and that Marines are lying about it, makes me feel ashamed for the Corps. Just three years as an infantry officer was more than enough time for me to know that what is going on there is illegal behaviour that must be stopped and disciplined.

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MARCH 20 - Simultaneous Bradley Manning solidarity events (in other places than London & Quantico)!

THE CONCEPT OF SIMULTANEOUS EVENTS FOR MARCH 20 (and any other time!)

A mistake of the mainstream anti-war organisations is the "come to London or do nothing" maxim.
The idea that a "mass movement" has to be in one place at one time s a serious mistake.

This is how we simultaneously marked the 20th. anniversary of the start (Jan 15) of this now 20 year war on the people of Iraq...we marked it from the White House to London to Dublin to Wellington/NZ....
-scroll down the thread to see photos & reports of the J15 events
 http://www.indymedia.ie/article/98666?search_text=iraq+...rsary

IF YA CAN'T MAKE IT TO LONDON MARCH 20 CONSIDER STAGING A VIGIL, PICKET, WHATEVER/ WHERE EVER YOU ARE!

The MAIN March 20 event will be at Quantico, in England it will be outsdie the U.S. embassy, Grosvenor Square, Sunday March 20 2pm (and if ya can travel to it, do travel to it!).........

if ya can't travel... any public solidarity action on March 20 (no matter how big or small) is valuable...be sure to take a photo to circulate globally post-event)

...such an event (& announcing it asap time/place/ reporting on/ circulating it) in Wales will carry special meaning to Bradley because of his background,

one in Dublin will carry special meaning to the Irish Americans heading to Quantico, ....another in Glasgow will likewise nourish the Scottish Americans heading to Quantico etc.

*Detail on event at Quantico
 http://www.bradleymanning.org/16125/rally-for-bradley-q...h-20/

**Other March 20 confirmed events to coincide with return to Quantico

Fort Snelling
The Hague / Den Haag
London
Montreal
Natchez
Phoenix
Portland
Quantico Marine Base/Triangle ** FEATURED EVENT!**
San Diego
Toronto
Vancouver
Vienna
Washington DC
More detail on these individual events here.....
 http://www.bradleymanning.org/events/

*** Suggestions on how to stage a Bradley Manning solidarity event
 http://www.bradleymanning.org/16362/how-to-have-an-even...nnin/
Related Link:  http://www.indymedia.ie/article/98666?search_text=iraq+...rsary

PJ Crowley, Hillary Clinton's spokesman who spoke out against the treatment of Bradley Manning on Friday has been forced to resign following pressure from the Obama administration.Obama has received assurances from the Pentagon that Bradley's treatment is 'appropriate'!
Guradian
 http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/mar/13/pj-crowley-resigns-bradley-manning-remarks

Huffington Post
 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/03/13/pj-crowley-resigning-as-s_n_835077.html

(for Bradley Manning)

By Steven Corseri

"In another world they do not put a man to death for asking questions: assuredly not. ...
When my sons grow up...,
O my friends...,
I would have you trouble them, as I have troubled you,
if they seem to care about riches,
or anything, more than about virtue;
or if they pretend to be something when they are really nothing. ..."
--Socrates (from Plato's Apologia)


For speaking truth to power... a cold cell.
Naked now..., and yet, they fear you!
You watch a spider weave, perhaps recall
The crime scene, viewed on a monitor:

Men like puppets dancing in the dust, fired
On by U.S. drones; and the button-pushers
Laughing, ten thousand miles away--life reduced
To video porn, sordid and crazily robotic.

The robots shop, vote, fuck, kill, do business,
Take meetings, squawk endlessly democracy,
Free markets; get replaced--interchangeable--
In the Machine... until a voice says "No."

And the house of cards collapses; the dream
Recedes; the dark, stark landscape, revealed:
A people bought for bread and circuses--
Mostly circuses--more silouettes than people.

But the voice remains: Socrates in the agora;
Christ among the Pharisees;
Galileo Galilei; Paine and Thoreau;
Gandhi and King--questioning, exposing.

Now in the shackled world, a moan goes up
From the well of our debasement: Cease
And desist: the depredations; soul-murdering;
Earth-murdering. ... The implacable voice arising.

Out of the chrysalis of what has been,
A global being struggles to be free:
To extricate its wings from the wax of retributions;
To save the dying planet; to balance and revere.

Shia, Sunni; Christian, Jew; Buddhist, Hindu, pagan;
Male and female--fledging to resurge anew:
Out of the yearning cauldron of suffering
And endurance--diamond-cut humanity.
_______

About author Gary Steven Corseri has published/posted work at hundreds of periodicals and websites worldwide, including, The Smirking Chimp, The New York Times, Dissident Voice, L.A. Progressive, Information Clearing House, CounterPunch, Global Research, and The Village Voice. His books include the novels, A Fine Excess and Holy Grail, Holy Grail. His dramas have appeared on Atlanta-PBS, and he has performed at the Carter Presidential Library.