Robert Weller: Obama Makes It Difficult for Pfc. Manning to Get Fair Trial

[The Northerner]

Now some may read that headline and think it is a non-starter because with a year past since he was first detained in the WikiLeaks case, his constitutional right to a speedy trial has been ignored. Under the Constitution that should have occurred within six months of his detention on May 26 of last year, the Uniform Code of Military Justice is said to be even stricter, though it has a way out.

President Obama, as a lawyer and therefore an officer of the country, should not be commenting on the Manning case at all. No question about that.

Even more importantly, as president his statements clearly amount to undue command influence. No question about that either.

And in an interview with Logan Price of the Bradley Manning Support Network, Obama made reference to the special rules covering military trials under the Uniform Code Of Military Justice.

Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-weller/obama-makes-it-difficult-_b_854124.html

[gateley]

1. I heard a clip of Obama saying (purportedly about Manning, but I can't be sure) --

"he broke the law". Wherever I heard it, the commentator said "He's supposed to be a constitutional expert."

Even if he believes that, that's no excuse for not stepping in about the conditions of Manning's treatment.

This is an issue that really pisses me off. I can't believe that Obama was naive enough to believe the Petagon's assurances that he was being treated fairly while in confinement.

[TheWraith]

2. How exactly is he being treated unfairly? nt

[in_cog_ni_to]

3. "The inhumane conditions of Bradley Manning's detention"

The inhumane conditions of Bradley Manning's detention
By Glenn Greenwald

The inhumane conditions of Bradley Manning's detention
Reuters/Jonathon Burch/AP/Salon


<snip>

From the beginning of his detention, Manning has been held in intensive solitary confinement. For 23 out of 24 hours every day -- for seven straight months and counting -- he sits completely alone in his cell. Even inside his cell, his activities are heavily restricted; he's barred even from exercising and is under constant surveillance to enforce those restrictions. For reasons that appear completely punitive, he's being denied many of the most basic attributes of civilized imprisonment, including even a pillow or sheets for his bed (he is not and never has been on suicide watch). For the one hour per day when he is freed from this isolation, he is barred from accessing any news or current events programs. Lt. Villiard protested that the conditions are not "like jail movies where someone gets thrown into the hole," but confirmed that he is in solitary confinement, entirely alone in his cell except for the one hour per day he is taken out.

In sum, Manning has been subjected for many months without pause to inhumane, personality-erasing, soul-destroying, insanity-inducing conditions of isolation similar to those perfected at America's Supermax prison in Florence, Colorado: all without so much as having been convicted of anything. And as is true of many prisoners subjected to warped treatment of this sort, the brig's medical personnel now administer regular doses of anti-depressants to Manning to prevent his brain from snapping from the effects of this isolation.

Just by itself, the type of prolonged solitary confinement to which Manning has been subjected for many months is widely viewed around the world as highly injurious, inhumane, punitive, and arguably even a form of torture. In his widely praised March, 2009 New Yorker article -- entitled "Is Long-Term Solitary Confinement Torture?" -- the surgeon and journalist Atul Gawande assembled expert opinion and personal anecdotes to demonstrate that, as he put it, "all human beings experience isolation as torture." By itself, prolonged solitary confinement routinely destroys a person’s mind and drives them into insanity. A March, 2010 article in The Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law explains that "solitary confinement is recognized as difficult to withstand; indeed, psychological stressors such as isolation can be as clinically distressing as physical torture."

For that reason, many Western nations -- and even some non-Western nations notorious for human rights abuses -- refuse to employ prolonged solitary confinement except in the most extreme cases of prisoner violence. "It’s an awful thing, solitary," John McCain wrote of his experience in isolated confinement in Vietnam. “It crushes your spirit." As Gawande documented: "A U.S. military study of almost a hundred and fifty naval aviators returned from imprisonment in Vietnam . . . reported that they found social isolation to be as torturous and agonizing as any physical abuse they suffered." Gawande explained that America’s application of this form of torture to its own citizens is what spawned the torture regime which President Obama vowed to end:<snip>

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/12/14/manning

[gateley]

5. I don't know about now that he's been transferred, but solitary, having to stand

nude, stuff like that.

/snip Army Pfc. Bradley Manning, who is facing court-martial for leaking military reports and diplomatic cables to WikiLeaks, is being held in solitary confinement in Quantico brig in Virginia. Each night, he is forced to strip naked and sleep in a gown made of coarse material. He has been made to stand naked in the morning as other inmates walked by and looked. As journalist Lance Tapley documents in his chapter on torture in the supermax prisons in The United States and Torture, solitary confinement can lead to hallucinations and suicide; it is considered to be torture. Manning’s forced nudity amounts to humiliating and degrading treatment, in violation of U.S. and international law./snip

http://www.saltlaw.org/blog/2011/04/20/bradley-manning-treatment-reveals-continued-government-complicity-in-torture-by-marjorie-cohn-american-constitution-society-book-talk/

/snip He was placed on suicide watch for two days last week against the wishes of the jail's psychiatrist, lawyer David E. Coombs told the The Washington Post.

Salon's Glenn Greenwald argued that the conditions in which Manning is held "constitute cruel and inhumane treatment and, by the standards of many nations, even torture." /snip

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/01/24/amnesty-international-condemns-inhumane-treatment-bradley-manning/

/ssnip Obama said Friday that he had asked and the Pentagon assured him that Manning's confinement was appropriate. He declined to be more specific. Obama spoke at a White House news conference. /snip

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/03/11/obama-bradley-manning-tre_n_834669.html

Are you saying such treatment of one of our own citizens by our own government is acceptable?

Edit for links

[xchrom]

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