Should Snowden Have Run Away?

[Octafish]

89. Ever hear of Bradley or Chelsea Manning?

THE TORTURE OF BRADLEY MANNING

After more than 900 days of detainment in United States military jails for allegedly disclosing state secrets, the haunting imprisonment of accused WikiLeaks source Pfc. Bradley Manning was discussed in court for the first time at the latest round of pretrial motion hearings that began on Nov. 27 in Fort Meade, MD. Below is an account of those court proceedings. The case will continue intermittently into 2013.

By Andrew Blake
Vice.com

EXCERPT...

When a forensic psychiatrist was eventually commissioned to assess Manning at the brig, repeated recommendations were made to remove him from protected watch, which left him forced to cover himself with only a suicide smock and bedding that resembled something between a cardboard box and a liquidation sale rug. Those professional suggestions were all ignored in favor of the guards’ own instincts. Many of those staffers testified that they were trained in corrections for one month at an Air Force base in Texas and rightfully admitted that the guidelines for dealing and assessing with a suicide case they were taught there were thrown out the window when Private Manning arrived.

On Saturday afternoon, five days into the latest round of hearings, Quantico Staff Sgt. Fuller acknowledged that he routinely signed off on keeping Pfc. Manning a max custody detainee, and cited his reasons specifically for the court.

“Those times that I actually did have interaction or communication with Manning, it seemed he was distant, withdrawn, or isolated. That gave me cause for concern,” he told the court. When asked him to explain why he was worried, Fuller said, “I’m not sure why. You really couldn’t get him to talk.”

Quantico guards also testified that for initial health evaluations, a dentist was the qualified physician tasked with assessing Manning’s mental wellbeing.

“Why were you getting weekly updates from a dentist as opposed getting them directly from a forensic psychiatrist?” Coombs asked Col. Choike.

“She was the commanding officer,” he said.

At Quantico, Pfc. Manning treatment wasn’t by the book: the sleep depravation and stripping of clothes; the humiliation; the taunts and mockery; the nine months of putting Pfc. Manning in protected custody citing concerns over suicide—concerns that were rebuffed relentlessly by both Pfc. Manning himself and qualified psychiatrists. That’s why Coombs is looking to have the case against his client thrown out, and Manning’s own testimony this week only accentuated the living nightmare he was made to endure for nearly a year while only a half-hour drive from the capital of the nation. As testimonies from Quantico staff, health professionals, and the private himself continued late into the night all week, often for hours without intermissions, more unraveled about not just the torturous conditions imposed on Pfc. Manning but the blatant mismanagement in the same institution he is accused of blowing the whistle on.

CONTINUED...

http://www.vice.com/en_ca/read/the-torture-of-bradley-manning