Bradley Manning, who allegedly leaked hundreds of thousands of secret government documents to Julian Assange’s WikiLeaks, turn[ed] 23 in jail Friday.[...]
Manning asked for a list of books, which his family bought for him and will be delivered over the next few weeks to coincide with his birthday and Christmas. On the list?
• Decision Points, by George W. Bush
• Critique of Practical Reason, by Immanuel Kant
• Critique of Pure Reason, by Immanuel Kant
• Propaganda, by Edward Bernays
• The Selfish Gene, by Richard Dawkins
• A People’s History of the United States, by Howard Zinn
• The Art of War, by Sun Tzu
• The Good Soldiers, by David Finkel
• On War, by Gen. Carl von Clausewitz[...]
He isn’t allowed to exercise (Quantico officials dispute this), but he has started stretching and practicing yoga.
For an hour every day, a television is wheeled in front of his cell and he’s allowed to watch TV, including news, though usually local news, [attorney] Coombs told The Daily Beast. He is allowed to read the news as well. Courtesy of Coombs, Manning now has a subscription to his favorite magazine, Scientific American. The November “Hidden Worlds of Dark Matter” issue was his first.
[...]
What is clear today is that he’s being held in extraordinarily harsh conditions—notably harsher than Bryan Minkyu Martin, the naval intelligence specialist who allegedly tried to sell military secrets to an undercover FBI agent, and is currently being held awaiting trial, though not in solitary confinement. Manning, who has been convicted of nothing, has spent the better part of a year incommunicado, living the life of a man convicted of a heinous crime.
Beyond the obvious desire to make an example of Manning and Assange -- in order to bolster the climate of intimidation and fear to deter future whistle-blowers who would expose government corruption, deceit and illegality -- The Independent yesterday shed further light on one of the motives for the repressive conditions imposed on Manning: namely, that U.S. officials believe it is "crucial" to "persuade" Manning to testify against WikiLeaks if they are to convict Assange, i.e., to "persuade" Manning to say that WikiLeaks did not merely passively receive classified information, but actively provided Manning technical and other assistance in advance to access and disseminate classified information. The more inhumane the conditions are of Manning's detention, the greater pressure the Government can apply to induce him -- "persuade" him -- to testify how they need him to testify in order to prosecute Assange.
Do you think they’ll really let Manning have those books? At least they’ll probably let him have the first one.
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