Ray McGovern: The Humiliation of Bradley Manning
from Consortium News:
The Humiliation of Bradley Manning
November 28, 2012
Exclusive: The pre-trial hearing on Pvt. Bradley Mannings court martial for leaking classified documents about U.S. government wrongdoing has turned up evidence that even Mannings Marine jailers were worried about the controversy over his degrading treatment in their custody, reports ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern.
By Ray McGovern
It is a bitter irony that Army Pvt. Bradley Manning, whose conscience compelled him to leak evidence about the U.S. military brass ignoring evidence of torture in Iraq, was himself the victim of cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment while other military officers privately took note but did nothing.
That was one of the revelations at Mannings pre-trial hearing at Ft. Meade, Maryland, on Tuesday, as Mannings defense counsel David Coombs used e-mail exchanges to show Marine officers grousing that the Marines had been left holding the bag on Mannings detention at their base in Quantico, Virginia, though he was an Army soldier.
At Quantico, Manning, who is accused of giving hundreds of thousands of pages of classified material to WikiLeaks, was subjected to harsh treatment. He was locked in a 6-foot-by-8-foot cell for 23 hours a day and was kept naked for long periods. His incarceration led the UN Rapporteur for Torture to complain that Manning was being subjected to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.
According to the e-mail evidence, the controversy over the rough handling of Manning prompted Quantico commander, Marine Col. Daniel Choike, to complain bitterly that not one Army officer was in the chain of blame. Choikes lament prompted an e-mail reply from his commander, Lt. Gen. George Flynn, offering assurances that Choike and Quantico would not be left holding the bag. ..................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://consortiumnews.com/2012/11/28/the-humiliation-of-bradley-manning/
struggle4progress
(118,336 posts)Luminous Animal
(27,310 posts)then we should also believe he said this:
[If] you saw incredible things, awful things things that belonged in the public domain, and not on some server stored in a dark room in Washington, D.C. what would you do? Its important that it gets out it might actually change something hopefully worldwide discussion, debates, and reforms
http://my.firedoglake.com/centerforconstitutionalrights/2012/11/27/breaking-private-manning/
struggle4progress
(118,336 posts)all information should be available to the public: that's interesting, I suppose, but an abstract ideological commitment to non-secrecy isn't the same as a moral obligation to engage in a "massive data spillage", and he had been given additional training after an earlier security breach
~snip~
(02:26:01 PM) Manning: i dont believe in good guys versus bad guys anymore
i only a plethora of states acting in self interest
with varying ethics and moral standards of course, but self-interest nonetheless
~snip~
(02:12:23 PM) Manning: so
it was a massive data spillage
facilitated by numerous factors
both physically, technically, and culturally
~snip~
(02:24:46 PM) Manning: it belongs in the public domain
(02:25:15 PM) Manning: information should be free
(02:25:39 PM) Manning: it belongs in the public domain
~snip~
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/06/wikileaks-chat/