NY Times Condemns the Treatment of Bradley Manning

Condemnation of the Obama administration comes from an editorial in the Los Angeles Times:

Editorial
Punishing Pfc. Manning

Former State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley was right to say that the Pentagon's treatment of Pfc. Bradley Manning is "ridiculous and counterproductive and stupid."

March 14, 2011

Illustrating the fact that telling the truth can be fatal in Washington, an Obama administration official has resigned after characterizing the Pentagon's handling of Pfc. Bradley Manning as "ridiculous and counterproductive and stupid." Former State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley was referring to the harsh treatment that has been visited on Manning, who is suspected of turning over several hundred thousand confidential documents to WikiLeaks.

And this editorial in the NY Times:

EDITORIAL
The Abuse of Private Manning

Published: March 14, 2011

Pfc. Bradley Manning, who has been imprisoned for nine months on charges of handing government files to WikiLeaks, has not even been tried let alone convicted. Yet the military has been treating him abusively, in a way that conjures creepy memories of how the Bush administration used to treat terror suspects. Inexplicably, it appears to have President Obama’s support to do so.

Private Manning is in solitary confinement at the Marine Corps brig in Quantico, Va. For one hour a day, he is allowed to walk around a room in shackles. He is forced to remove all his clothes every night. And every morning he is required to stand outside his cell, naked, until he passes inspection and is given his clothes back.

Military officials say, without explanation, that these precautions are necessary to prevent Private Manning from injuring himself. They have put him on “prevention of injury” watch, yet his lawyers say there is no indication that he is suicidal and the military has not placed him on a suicide watch. (He apparently made a sarcastic comment about suicide.)

Forced nudity is a classic humiliation technique. During the early years of the Bush administration’s war on terror, C.I.A. interrogators regularly stripped prisoners to break down barriers of resistance, increase compliance and extract information. One C.I.A. report from 2004 said that nudity, along with sleep deprivation and dietary manipulation, was used to create a mind-set in which the prisoner “learns to perceive and value his personal welfare, comfort and immediate needs more than the information he is protecting.”

Private Manning is not an enemy combatant, and there is no indication that the military is trying to extract information from him. Many military and government officials remain furious at the huge dump of classified materials to WikiLeaks. But if this treatment is someone’s way of expressing that emotion, it would be useful to revisit the presumption of innocence and the Constitutional protection against cruel and unusual punishment.

Philip Crowley, a State Department spokesman, committed the classic mistake of a Washington mouthpiece by telling the truth about Private Manning to a small group (including a blogger): that the military’s treatment of Private Manning was “ridiculous and counterproductive and stupid.” He resigned on Sunday.

Far more troubling is why President Obama, who has forcefully denounced prisoner abuse, is condoning this treatment. Last week, at a news conference, he said the Pentagon had assured him that the terms of the private’s confinement “are appropriate and are meeting our basic standards.” He said he could not go into details, but details are precisely what is needed to explain and correct an abuse that should never have begun.

The stark and ugly truth is that Obama is quite happy to continue the Bush torture policy. He may make statements to appease the left of the Democratic party, but in reality Obama stands shoulder-to-shoulder with George Bush in flaunting the standards of decency and the human rights of prisoners by backing up his military in torturing this guy who is not guilty of treason. He is guilty of being a whistle-blower. He is guilty of trying to get the military to do the right thing and when it wouldn't he released documents to make clear that the US military was flaunting the law and hiding the murder of civilians, particularly the Reuters News team in Baghdad.

If you want to see the "treason" simply click on this and watch as American troops whoop it up as they kill a news team and innocent civilians including the two children of a man who stopped his van to try and help those the American troops have killed. Listen while the Americans "celebrate". Then realize that Reuters, a very large organization, used all if its legal muscle to try and get this truth out, but the US military stone-walled. It was only via Bradley Manning that the American people can know just how trigger-happy and indifferent to civilian suffering the American troops were and are.

The "crime" of Bradley Manning is that he wants to truth to win. Obama, the US military, and the rest of the big wigs in Washington want to squash the truth so they can strut around pretending they are "noble warriors" out doing good deeds. They aren't.

If the US wanted to do a good deed, it could have supported the young people's uprisings throughout the Middle East. It didn't. It spent a trillion dollars destroying Iraq and Afghanistan and not bringing democracy or peace to anyone. But Obama won't lift a finger to help the popular uprisings in the Middle East.

The two "successes" are now being "rolled back" by authorities in those countries. And in the other countries they have gotten the "signal" from the Americans that it is open season on protester. So Gaddafi is rolling his military eastward and within a day or two will crush the uprising there and "elimate" tens of thousands of the pro-democracy youth of Libya. Thanks to Obama. In Bahrain, the royals there along with Saudi troops are now killing anybody that so much as stands up in public. Shoot first and ask questions later. Similarly in Yemen, the message has been received so the government is now shooting to kill demonstrators.

So much for the US government's "official support" for pro-democracy movements in the Middle East. The decision in Washington is "back to business as usual" and the support of the most brutal authoritarian regimes. That's Barak Obama's "Middle East policy".