Reply #40: You're stretching ingenuity to its limits. Both Ellsburg and Manning [View All]

[coalition_unwilling]

'leaked' classified material to journalistic organizations. Ellsburg was not tortured while awaiting trial. Manning has been, based on what I've read, and only massive public outcry has forced the Pentagon to move him from Quantico's Torture Central to Leavenworth.

One principal difference between Ellsburg and Manning is that I'm convinced the government was torturing Manning to try to get him to turn state's evidence against Julian Assange and others at Wikileaks. There was comparatively little to be gained by torturing Ellsburg and, as monstrous as Nixon and his junta were (including, among others, that neo-fascist G. Gordon Liddy), they never sank to the level of torturing American citizens, as far as I know. As bad as Nixon and his junta were, they had nothing to gain from torturing Ellsburg.