US Upholds Its Noble Tradition as a Torture Nation

From an article in Salon magazine by Glenn Greenwald:

Bradley Manning, the 22-year-old U.S. Army Private accused of leaking classified documents to WikiLeaks, has never been convicted of that crime, nor of any other crime. Despite that, he has been detained at the U.S. Marine brig in Quantico, Virginia for five months -- and for two months before that in a military jail in Kuwait -- under conditions that constitute cruel and inhumane treatment and, by the standards of many nations, even torture. Interviews with several people directly familiar with the conditions of Manning's detention, ultimately including a Quantico brig official (Lt. Brian Villiard) who confirmed much of what they conveyed, establishes that the accused leaker is subjected to detention conditions likely to create long-term psychological injuries.

Since his arrest in May, Manning has been a model detainee, without any episodes of violence or disciplinary problems. He nonetheless was declared from the start to be a "Maximum Custody Detainee," the highest and most repressive level of military detention, which then became the basis for the series of inhumane measures imposed on him.

From the beginning of his detention, Manning has been held in intensive solitary confinement. For 23 out of 24 hours every day -- for seven straight months and counting -- he sits completely alone in his cell. Even inside his cell, his activities are heavily restricted; he's barred even from exercising and is under constant surveillance to enforce those restrictions. For reasons that appear completely punitive, he's being denied many of the most basic attributes of civilized imprisonment, including even a pillow or sheets for his bed (he is not and never has been on suicide watch). For the one hour per day when he is freed from this isolation, he is barred from accessing any news or current events programs. Lt. Villiard protested that the conditions are not "like jail movies where someone gets thrown into the hole," but confirmed that he is in solitary confinement, entirely alone in his cell except for the one hour per day he is taken out.

In sum, Manning has been subjected for many months without pause to inhumane, personality-erasing, soul-destroying, insanity-inducing conditions of isolation similar to those perfected at America's Supermax prison in Florence, Colorado: all without so much as having been convicted of anything. And as is true of many prisoners subjected to warped treatment of this sort, the brig's medical personnel now administer regular doses of anti-depressants to Manning to prevent his brain from snapping from the effects of this isolation.

There is much, much more. Lots more depressing details. Go read the whole article.

I blame Obama. The "change you can believe in" guy. This is the brave new world he has helped create... funny, it is the same old corrupt, evil, mean-spirited, torture-filled world of George Bush. The joke is on the American electorate who in 2008 thought they voted to change US policies! Their votes didn't. (I have a mental picture of the vote-rigging in the recent Haitian elections. That is essentially what happened in the US. Except rather than having to stuff ballot boxes, they used mass communications to "sell" the electorate on lies and more lies.)

Nothing seems able to stop the descent into hell by the American government:

A March, 2010 article in The Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law explains that "solitary confinement is recognized as difficult to withstand; indeed, psychological stressors such as isolation can be as clinically distressing as physical torture."

For that reason, many Western nations -- and even some non-Western nations notorious for human rights abuses -- refuse to employ prolonged solitary confinement except in the most extreme cases of prisoner violence.

The US tortures "disposable" citizens of other countries in its foreign wars. The US is now are busy torturing its own citizens. And the US public is like sheep. They line up to be abused by TSA all in the name of "security". They ignore news report like that of the torture of Bradley Manning.

There is nothing quite as funny as a people who shout "give me liberty or give me death" heading willingly into concentration camps under the very leaders they elected. The Germans used the slogan "Arbeit Macht Frei". I'm guessing the American gulag will have signs like "Camp Infinite Liberty" and "Endless Justice and Freedom" as the slogans they hang over their concentration camps. And I'm sure the prisoners will sing "America the Beautiful" each day as they are tortured and forced to grovel on the ground in front of jack-booted thugs. Yes, this is the apotheosis of American "liberty". George Bush must be beaming. And I can see Barack Obama's head poking up over Bush's shoulder with a grin on his face. Yes... this is the "hope" they have brought the American people.

I believe that history will judge America harshly. I believe that Bradley Manning was trying to help the American people discover the monstrous misdeeds of their own government:

If one believes the authenticity of the highly edited chat logs of Manning's online conversations with Adrian Lamo that have been released by Wired (that magazine inexcusably continues to conceal large portions of those logs), Manning clearly believed that he was a whistle-blower acting with the noblest of motives, and probably was exactly that. If, for instance, he really is the leaker of the Apache helicopter attack video -- a video which sparked very rare and much-needed realization about the visceral truth of what American wars actually entail -- as well as the war and diplomatic cables revealing substantial government deceit, brutality, illegality and corruption, then he's quite similar to Daniel Ellsberg. Indeed, Ellsberg himself said the very same thing about Manning in June on Democracy Now in explaining why he considers the Army Private to be a "hero".