2011-03-04 Is Bradley Manning being treated like a Guantanamo detainee?

Former Pfc. Bradley Manning, the soldier accused of leaking classified information (specifically a video showing U.S. military in Iraq firing on civilians and two journalists), continues to experience intense solitary confinement in the Quantico Marine Brig in Virginia. The accused military whistleblower, whom the army filed 22 additional charges against days ago, was reportedly stripped naked March 2 of all his clothing and forced to remain in his cell naked for the next seven hours until early in the morning on March 3.


Coombs writes on his blog that a wake-up call was sounded at 5:00 am, "Manning was forced to stand naked at the front of his cell," a Duty Brig Supervisor arrived and Manning "was called to attention," a detainee count was conducted and afterwards Manning was told to sit on his bed, and minutes later his clothing was returned.


This is "degrading treatment," Coombs concludes, that is "inexcusable and without jurisdiction." This is "an embarrassment to our military justice system and should not be tolerated...No other detainee at the Brig is forced to endure this type of isolation and humiliation." But, no other detainee is at the center of a case that US military and government officials seem to have decided to use as an example case that could put in fear in any other military or government official who might seek to disseminate information to any organization like WikiLeaks in the future.


Indeed, since being put in the brig, the military has sought to break the spirit of Manning. David House, a close friend and frequent visitor at Quantico, described visiting Manning and how in the last months he has gone from someone who could carry a conversation to a person who is in an utterly catatonic state. House believe


House began to visit Manning in September. By late November, it became clear that he was more and more often too exhausted to talk with House during visits. 
 

The military is under a lot of pressure to link Manning to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, which they have been unable to do. Recent charges suggest they may be trying to implicitly link him to WikiLeaks. The Article 104 charge of "aiding the enemy" might indicate the military or government considers Wikileaks to be "the enemy." But, it also could mean that the military or government thinks simply giving this to a media or news organization to be published is "aiding the enemy" because, when published, the contents were made available to members of the Taliban, al Qaeda, etc enabling enemies to use the information against the US.

 
A charge of "aiding the enemy" does give the military the ability to give Manning the death penalty if convicted on that charge. Military lawyer Jon Shelburne does not think there is any real reason right now to believe that the chief military officer will go back on what he has indicated and give Manning the death penalty. However, he admits until the trial is complete there's no way to be certain that would not be considered more seriously.


Most importantly, Shelburne adds, the charge of "aiding the enemy" now makes it possible for the military to possibly give Manning life in prison without parole.

 
The military has placed Manning under a "prevention of injury order," which means he has been put on suicide watch. This gives the military the authority to subject Manning to harsher confinement conditions and restrictions--not allowed to socialize or eat with other detainees, not allowed to work in the brig, not allowed to exercise and be out of cell except for one hour every day, only allowed to exercise by walking in circles, etc. And, all of these conditions are conditions which Geoff Morrell, the Pentagon's press secretary, has consistently downplayed or outright lied about when talking to media during press conferences.


Morrell has said he is being treated the same as other detainees. House contends a "word game" is being played. Manning is the only "maximum security detainee" in Quantico. When officials say that he isn't being treated any differently than other detainees, military is essentially saying "he is treated the same as himself."


The nature of solitary confinement makes it increasingly possible for one to say that he is being broken down like a detainee might be broken down at Guantanamo Bay prison. David Frakt, lawyer for detainee Mohamed Jawad (who was accused of attempted murder after he threw a grenade at a passing American convoy on December 17, 2002), explained in his closing argument before a military commission  how solitary confinement or isolation was used against Jawad. He described two periods, one that appeared to be standard practice and another that he says "was ordered by intelligence officials upon the recommendation of the Behavioral Science Consultation Team psychologist to socially, physically and linguistically isolate this teenage boy in order to create complete dependence on his interrogator."

"This period of segregation occurred from September 17 to October 16, 2003 and was specifically intended to break Mr. Jawad and to devastate him emotionally. The isolation failed in its purpose of persuading Mr. Jawad to admit throwing the hand grenade; he continued to assert his innocence. But it did have the other desired effect of causing emotional devastation. Prison records indicate that he tried to commit suicide on December 25, 2003"

Assange reacted to the latest charges and the military's ongoing treatment of Manning saying they were "trying to make an example" out of Manning.


That might be the case. Daniel Ellsberg, who leaked the Pentagon Papers, points out the Obama Administration has gone after five whistleblowers, nearly twice as many whistleblowers as all previous US presidents combined. And, he notes the military appears to be seeking to discipline Manning and mount a prosecution that under civilian law in America would be nearly impossible.


Ellsberg is struck by the thought that if executed Manning would be the first American to be executed for giving information to Americans since Nathan Hale. He recalled that Nathan Hale said, "I regret that I have but one life to give," and compared him to Manning who in the chat logs indicated he was prepared to go to jail for life or be executed.


The intention of Manning is clearly alleged in the Wired Magazine chat logs between Manning and hacker and federal informant Adrian Lamo. The logs, Ellsberg notes, indicate that Manning had no intention of aiding any enemy. He believed that by releasing the information he would be promoting debate and discussion on events and issues that were being kept secret.


Professor Kevin Jon Heller, who is cited in Glenn Greenwald's post on the military's new charges against Manning, writes in reaction to the charges, "if the mere act of ensuring that harmful information is published on the internet qualifies either as indirectly "giving intelligence to the enemy' (if the military can prove an enemy actually accessed the information) or as indirectly "communicating with the enemy' (because any reasonable person knows that enemies can access information on the internet), there is no relevant factual difference between Manning and a media organization that published the relevant information." This is exactly what Greenwald sought to emphasize in his post on Salon.com.


The Obama Administration, however, has not treated media organizations as if they are acting recklessly, unprofessionally or in a manner that could be considered helpful to "the enemy." Executive editor of the New York Times Bill Keller has recounted, "[T]he Obama administration's reaction was different. It was, for the most part, sober and professional. The Obama White House, while strongly condemning WikiLeaks for making the documents public, did not seek an injunction to halt publication. There was no Oval Office lecture. On the contrary, in our discussions before publication of our articles, White House officials, while challenging somaterial, thanked us for handling the documents with care."


Keller, instead, has concluded, "The official fury of the US government was directed at the presumed source, Bradley Manning, and, most of all, WikiLeaks. The government was not interested in quarreling with the media organizations involved."


A forthcoming report from the Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review written by Yochai Benkler highlights this conclusion. Benkler reacts, "It appears as though the Administration either really did not fear disclosure, as long as it was by organizations it felt were within its comfort zone, or was using the distinction and relative social-cultural weakness of Wikileaks to keep the established media players at the table and, perhaps, more cooperative with the Administration's needs."


It should therefore be said that media organizations have directly benefited from the material that Manning leaked, if he is in fact the one who leaked the information. The New York Times and The Guardian have both had members of the news organization write books now that are being sold for profit. News organizations, including but not limited to those two outlets, have cited cables widely in coverage of current Middle Eastern and North African events. Read any report and chances are somewhere a few paragraphs down a cable is cited to color coverage of the ongoing uprisings and conflicts.


Yet, the media continues to approach Manning's inhumane treatment with cynical disbelief or chooses to keep a distance from the story.


There is no consideration of the fact that how he is being treated is darkly similar to how "enemy combatants" are being treated at Guantanamo (and perhaps that's because many in the US media are not appalled by the US government's treatment of Gitmo detainees or feel that socioculturally the press cannot display rage against a government that has tortured and abused human beings at the prison).


The media never had much use for the war logs as they put journalists and pundits in a position of challenging the Pentagon, Bush and Obama Administration's official narrative on the wars, but the fact that Manning has been denied a speedy trial and has had his due process rights infringed upon and continues to face solitary confinement that is tantamount to torture does not stop the media from using cables as a substitute for not having foreign correspondents available to cover certain stories.


They don't probe allegations from Amnesty International that the military has not provided "formal reasons" for his "maximum security classification or the prevention of injury assignment and that efforts by his counsel to challenge these assignments through administrative procedures have thus far failed to elicit a response." They don't demonstrate any interest in the fact that the UN Office on Torture is investigating the military's treatment of Manning.