Prisoner of conscience Brad Manning isn't the only one stripped bare. Our government's true identity is fully exposed in his ordeal as well.
On February 4, Dennis Kucinich asked DOD to allow him to visit Bradley Manning so he could assess his conditions of confinement. On February 8, Robert Gates wrote Kucinich a short note telling him we was referring his request to Secretary of the Army, John McHugh. In a letter dated February 24–but apparently not received in Kucinich’s office until March 1–McHugh told Kucinich he was referring his request to the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Legislative Affairs.In short, a full month after the date when a member of Congress requested a visit with Manning, DOD is still stalling on a real response with bureaucratic buck-passing.
As far as I know, Kucinich is the only person in our government, including President Peace Laureate, who has expressed any concern about the treatment of Pvt. Manning (and he only after many months and an increased international expression of concern). Where is Bernie Sanders? Where is Barney Frank? President Peace Laureate has shown his colors long ago and our Congress is overwhelming made up of syncophants and moral degenerates, so I’m not surprised about any of them, but what about these other guys? I thought they had courage and at least some moral integrity.
The conditions that Pvt. Manning has been held under have been outrageous from the start. He has suffered shackling, solitary confinement and he has not been allowed normal contact with visitors and the outside world. His visitors have been denied access to him and now the latest humiliating tactic being used by the Department of Defense is to force Pvt. Manning to strip naked in his cell for hours![...]
How can a detainee who has not been convicted of anything and has been an exemplary prisoner be subjected to this kind of treatment?
As of this date, Manning has been tried for nothing. As of this date, Manning has been convicted of nothing.[...]
The victim can never escape these lacerating questions:
How is it possible that human beings could treat another person in this manner?
How can I survive in a world in which such cruelties not only occur with soul-destroying regularity, but in which these cruelties are considered necessary and moral?
If the victim should conclude that he cannot survive in such a world -- and how can we be surprised that this should be his judgment? -- his soul will be lost. Even if his body continues to function, he will survive in a world rendered eternally bleak, with terror lurking in every moment. The possibility of joy is extinguished.
This is evil.
[...]
A Marine spokesman says that "[Manning’s] underwear was taken away from him as a precaution to ensure that he did not injure himself."
But [...] Manning "has not been elevated to the more restrictive 'suicide watch' conditions."
As I understand it, the reason for this distinction is that if they put Manning on suicide watch, they have to have a psychiatrist’s recommendation, and the psychiatrists all say he is not suicidal. Therefore, the brig officers are not protecting Manning from himself. They are quite simply intentionally humiliating him and trying to break him. I imagine that by now (approaching one year of solitary, humiliating treatment), Manning’s mindset must be similar to that of POWs in foreign countries, and he must surely see his cagers as the enemy.
[Quoting Manning’s lawyer:] “If a person is at risk of self-harm, then you get them treatment, you get them to a mental health professional and address the issue — you don’t strip them,” he said, adding in a separate telephone interview, “There is no excuse, no justification to having a soldier stand at attention naked. There can be no mental health reason for that.”[...]
[T] hese cruelties and the purported "justifications" offered by the military, all in a notably high profile case, definitively put the lie to the propaganda spewed by the U.S. government in response to the torture, including sexual humiliation, revealed at Abu Ghraib: that such incidents were an "aberration" perpetrated by a few "bad apples." [... ]No honest observer can regard these actions of the U.S. government and its military as "aberrations": these actions are brazenly offered as U.S. government policy.
Fascism has come to America.And no, it didn't come in jackboots. It didn't come in massed, marching ranks. It didn't come in greasy-haired frothers ranting on a stage.
It came with cool. It came with savvy. It came wearing the mask of past evils redeemed by the image of a persecuted minority elevated to power. It came spouting scripture, hugging bright children, quoting pop music, sporting pricey leisure threads.[...]
And in the guise of a young, hip, educated progressive, it has just now declared that anyone who reveals any hidden evil committed by the fascist state is subject to prosecution for a capital crime. That's right. It has revealed that you -- you American citizen, you patriot, you believer in goodness and justice and genuine democracy -- you can be killed by the government if you tell the truth.
[...]
Although American officials have repeatedly said that none of leaks attributed to Manning and to WikiLeaks have caused any bodily harm to any agent of American imperial power around the world, Manning is being accused of "threatening national security" and "aiding the enemy."
[...]
It could not be clearer. The release of any information that the American government declares might be of any use whatsoever to any possible "hostile" force -- real, imagined, or possibly run by American provocateurs -- somewhere in the world at some point in time is a crime that can be punishable by death. Thus any person or any entity that reveals embarrassing or criminal facts that the government wishes to keep hidden now stands in the shadow of death.
"Good corporal, good corporal, don't you know the fate
Of all those who speak the hard truth to the State
And all who trouble the people's sweet dreams?
They're mocked into scorn and torn apart at the seams...."--Chris Floyd
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