Last night, PFC Manning was inexplicably stripped of all clothing by the Quantico Brig. He remained in his cell, naked, for the next seven hours. At 5:00 a.m., the Brig sounded the wake-up call for the detainees. At this point, PFC Manning was forced to stand naked at the front of his cell.
The Duty Brig Supervisor (DBS) arrived shortly after 5:00 a.m. When he arrived, PFC Manning was called to attention. The DBS walked through the facility to conduct his detainee count. Afterwards, PFC Manning was told to sit on his bed. About ten minutes later, a guard came to his cell to return his clothing.
This type of degrading treatment is inexcusable and without justification. It is an embarrassment to our military justice system and should not be tolerated. PFC Manning has been told that the same thing will happen to him again tonight. No other detainee at the Brig is forced to endure this type of isolation and humiliation.This is just despicable and it gets continually worse. How far can they push a person before they break?
That Obama is allowing this, even passively, to continue is something I will never forgive him for. Manning is being tortured and accused of crimes which, barbarically, still hold a death penalty in the US because he allegedly leaked evidence that the US military was and continues to break domestic and international law. There is not any evidence of this leak having caused any injury to any soldier, and even if it had, it would still be the military’s and government’s fault and not (allegedly) Manning’s. You can’t do something massively illegal, illegally cover it up because of the potential consequences, and then blame the whistle-blower if those consequences actually happen (or in this case, DON’T!).
What the government is doing to Manning is punishing him for embarrassing the government. He’s a political prisoner being treated in an all-together fascist manner, a manner which Obama has at the very least done nothing to prevent, and may even have condoned. He’s an accessory to torture and I am filled with loathing and contempt for the way Obama has allowed himself to be stripped of his ethics (assuming he had them to begin with).
