America's despicable, hypocritical persecution of Chelsea Manning
Chelsea Manning, the former U.S. Army private who was imprisoned for giving thousands of classified documents to WikiLeaks, was recently threatened with torture for supposedly violating the conditions of her detention.
As yet, the charges have not been officially verified. But Manning, who since her conviction has transitioned to female and been hired by The Guardian as a columnist, read the charges to one of her supporters, who posted them online. They are unbelievably petty. She is charged with: 1) sassing a guard; 2) spilling food on the floor; 3) possessing some books and magazines, including the Catilyn Jenner Vanity Fair issue; and 4) possessing an expired tube of toothpaste. There is to be a hearing on Aug. 18.
This is exactly the kind of trumped-up nonsense a pissed-off bureaucrat out for revenge would come up with. And as punishment, she apparently faces unlimited torture, in the form of "indefinite solitary confinement."
Contrast that with the treatment of David Petraeus, the former general and CIA chief, who leaked codeword-classified files to his biographer and lover, stored them in a totally unsecured location (his desk), and then lied about it to the FBI. Remember, these files were classified above Top Secret, while nothing Manning leaked was above Secret. What happened to him? After dozens of heavy-hitting elites wrote a letter to the sentencing judge begging for mercy — including former Sen. Joe Lieberman; Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Lindsey Graham; and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair — Petraeus got a piddling two years probation.
A just legal system would treat lawbreaking identically, regardless of the wealth and power of the accused."
It is simply beyond dispute that punishment is meted out in cases like this according to the social status of the defendant. Mike Mullen, a retired Navy admiral and former chairman of the Joint Chiefs, made this plea for leniency for Petraeus to the judge: "Dave is also humanly flawed, as many are, for which he has paid a huge price both personally and professionally."
Yet that Manning, too, is a flawed human being, that she has endured previous punishment, and that she has years of incarceration still ahead of her, are not enough to save her from threats of officially administered torture for having some toothpaste and a magazine in her prison cell. It's sick."
http://theweek.com/articles/571649/americas-despicable-hypocritical-persecution-chelsea-manning
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