Obama Goes Bush on Private Manning

I notice that it's not only the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the New Republic that have launched withering critiques of President Obama recently. I add my friend and esteemed blogosphere neighbor Cory Heidelberger.

President Obama's Defense Department is subjecting Private Bradley Manning, American citizen and soldier, to prolonged forced nudity and sleep deprivation. This treatment, for a man awaiting trial for the capital offense of revealing what our government actually says and does, is easily deemed an Orwellian disgrace, if not a violation of fundamental human rights, if not outright torture.

I am not sure that prolonged nudity and sleep deprivation necessarily constitute torture. In fact, that sounds a lot like Bill Clinton's stint as governor of Arkansas. I am sure that Manning's citizen-soldier status does not help build sympathy in this case and that he is not, in fact, facing trial for "the capital offense of revealing what our government actually says and does."

Manning is a traitor. He is so precisely because he is a citizen and solider. He is facing trial for illegally revealing top secret material. This is a grave offense. Manning could not know for certain to whom he was delivering the stolen material. Wikileaks publisher Julian Assange might well have been an agent of some hostile power like Iran, or Al Qaeda. The information might have been used to do serious damage to American interests and security. I gather that Manning will not be facing the death penalty, but that would not have been inappropriate.

Manning's crime was also an offense against the international system of diplomacy. Diplomats must be able to speak freely with one another behind closed doors. In some cases, that may make the difference between peace and war. Such meetings require confidentiality. Manning and Assange struck a blow against that system and so threatened pretty much everyone everywhere.

Private Manning has apparently been forced to sleep naked, according to the New York Times. The explanation is that the brig commander was concerned that Manning might try to hang himself with his own underwear. At least one pundit has had fun with this suggestion, but it is hardly nonsense. Suicide by hanging does not require a rope and seven feet of space. All it requires is a little pressure on the right parts of the neck. Private Manning is sleeping naked but not uncovered. He is allowed two blankets.

On the other hand, it is not so clear that this treatment is necessary and it's hard not to think that it may have the aim, if not of driving him crazy, at least of softening him up to the point that he is willing to testify against Mr. Assange. That comes close enough to torture and to that degree I concur with Mr. Justice Heidelberger.

As Cory notes, State Department spokesman P. J. Crowley was fired for publicly criticizing the military's treatment of Manning. That's actually a good sign. At least someone in the Administration is capable of exercising authority.

It probably wasn't the President. Jake Tapper has this at ABC News:

State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said this week that the treatment of Private Bradley Manning by the Pentagon is "ridiculous and counterproductive and stupid."

Asked by ABC News if he agreed with that, President Obama said Friday that he'd "asked the Pentagon whether or not the procedures that have been taken in terms of his confinement are appropriate and are meeting our basic standards."

Pentagon officials, he said, "assure me that they are. I can't go into details about some of their concerns, but some of this has to do with Private Manning's safety as well."

Cory and other critics of the Military in this case can interpret this in two ways. One is that the President made a decision: he deliberately endorsed the Military's conduct here. That is what Cory thinks. Bush has "snuck back into the White House." Another way to look at it is that President pretty much does what most of the people around him tell him to do. That's my guess, as he here merely repeats the Military's position. Take your pick. Either way, the President alone is responsible.

I would note one more thing. When Bush authorized the waterboarding of three Al Qaeda prisoners, his aim was to keep Al Qaeda from murdering more Americans. Assuming that Private Manning is indeed being tortured, with the President's approval, Obama's aim is to nail an Australian journalist.

Comments

[Miranda]

On the other hand, if conservatives back the "Bush is back in the White House" argument, we can win over the "Anyone-but-Bush" types in the next election!

[Joe]

The information that PFC Manning is accused of leaking is not top secret, it was low-level classified information. To call PFC Manning a traitor and say that he leaked the information based on what...a partial transcript of a chat log published by a "journalist" who at the very least had serious conflicts of interest with his source. I guess "innocent until proven guilty" does not exist in South Dakota. The silver lining is that someone who thinks as short-sidedly as you do can at least see the damage that the treatment PFC Manning is receiving is doing to this country is so many ways.

[Stephen Voss]

Please get a few basics straight.

1. Your outrage is fueled by your thought that Manning is a traitor. Just a dad-blamed minute there. He hasn't had a trial yet. That doesn't bother the North Koreans but it's supposed to bother us. For me the whole point is that Bush and Obama are happy to torture people before they're found guilty. Do you really want to replace "innocent until proven guilty" by North Korean practices?

2. And yes, it is torture. Look at the details - it's just the procedure we train our servicemen to withstand when foreign states capture them. The difference is that now it's the government you and I elected, like it or not, and no one thinks the wikileaks folks are about to blow up a building.

3. Any other day of the week you tear into the government when it rips up our freedoms. Today you label it treason. I'll tell you one thing. Wikileaks has done a huge favor to the tea party movement, by putting US govt abuses out on the line to dry in public. If you really care about reining in the government, you ought to thank Manning for putting a few thousand tools in your hands.

Obama represents everything I didn't like about Bush's excesses - plus a good helping of hypocrisy. One newspaper got it right - for politicians like them, it's ok to torture people, it's not ok to talk about it. This is not the America I grew up in ...

[BillW]

To a writer ensconced in his New York or Washington penthouse apartment who knows nothing of the routine hardships of the American military as they defend his right to vomit whatever he wants to on the OpEd pages, the treatment of Manning would understandably appear to be torture. These guys think a morning without their Starbucks latte is hardship, and their concept of making a real sacrifice on the altar of freedom is attending a protest march when it is raining. Compared to a year in a tent with constant firefights in a forward operating base in the snow covered mountains along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, naked and sleep deprived in a US prison cell sounds pretty good, but then the typical liberal would have no way of knowing that, would he?

To the liberal their anti-military ends justify any means. In fact, it doesn’t really matter whether Manning divulged the deepest state security secrets or the menu for lunch next week at Fort Bragg. It is a grave threat to American security for a soldier to deliberately obtain any information he knows to be off limits to him, and to pass it on to anyone. Every soldier knows that. Manning knew that and is now being held accountable for his actions. It is not up to Manning or the New York Times to decide what is acceptable to pass along to Wikileaks, and what is not. There is a well defined process within the military, over which our civilian Congress has oversight and control, to make those decisions.

At what point do the liberals wake up and see who they are in bed with? They side with an accused child molester against the US military, the gay rights crowd against the US military, terrorists being held at Gitmo against the US military, in fact just about anyone who wants to criticize and undermine the US military can find a staunch ally on the left.

[larry kurtz]

The hypocrisy of The Right is palpable: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93Contra_affair#Convictions.2C_pardons_and_reinstatements

Pick that Buick out of eye, Bill.

[caheidelberger]

I think one of the articles I read said that the Pentagon has said they do not have Manning on suicide watch. Sleep deprivation is a very potent weapon against a man's sanity. And Dr. Blanchard's final paragraph is very important: even if we can have some Jack-Bauer debate about the utility and morality of inflicting suffering on a detainee to get information, we gain nothing by inflicting such punishment (especially not pre-conviction) on Private Manning. The abuse of this detainee is wholly gratuitous.

[KB]

Joe: Individual soldiers do not get to decide what is confidential. Manning stole the information. It is quite possible that some of the released information resulted in real harm to persons or to American interests.

Mr. Voss: I am neither a jury nor a judge. Neither Mao, Hitler, nor Stalin have had a trial yet. I am free to reach conclusions about them as well.

Cory: I love you and salute you, but you speak out of faith rather than reason. I am opposed to torture. But the Jack Bauer scenario can't be discounted. If there really is a ticking bomb, letting it go off in the name of human rights will NOT advance the cause of human rights.

[larry kurtz]

I state that the Oliver North case creates a legitimate precedent for an individual soldier to decide what is confidential, Doc.

[larry kurtz]

Does the US Constitution survive an extinction level event?

[Mark Anderson]

Since none of us have the facts and perhaps never will, I have a simple question.
Private Manning released(perhaps), many illegal activities(purportedly), why isn't he a whistleblower rather than a traitor? Our author says he's a traitor, which I suppose, is to quell the debate about illegal activities that we are engaged in. By the way did you like the shooting to pieces, of the nine little boys in Afghanistan? Of course NATO did that, not us, lying about their ages also, the spinning started immediately. The reason I bring that up, is that our author only accuses the military of making Manning sleep naked. Of course they are doing much more than that. Is it of no importance? Why do you capitalize military, as Military? Is that proper, or is it a sign of deference?

[KB]

Mark: Whatever our sins may be, they do not exonerate Private Manning. I capitalize "military" in my post to make it clear that I am using it as noun. Why does this bother you? Do you hate our soldiers? Perhaps our personalities are less interesting than the issues at hand.

[larry kurtz]

He's not a traitor until he's convicted, Doc:

"Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, the committee's ranking member, asked why would DoD computers contain State Department diplomatic cables and be accessible to someone who wouldn't need that information to perform his job? Kennedy responded that the cables were on the DoD network so military intelligence officers could have access to them. Like the Internet, he said, some data on SIPRNet are protected by passwords, others are not. The cables were not password protected."

http://www.govinfosecurity.com/articles.php?art_id=3422&opg=1

[larry kurtz]

Richard Clarke seems to believe that there might be an adequate legal argument within this case to withstand the President's authority on Manning.

[BillW]

Larry,

The legacy of Oliver North is that he stood up straight before the American people and a joint Congressional Committee and told the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, and stood ready to accept the consequences of his actions.

Are you suggesting that Private Manning can weasel files out the back door of his barracks, and deny having done anything until he gets nailed red-handed, and do so without consequences based on Oliver North's legacy?

[larry kurtz]

I think Mr. Manning should be marched before a congressional hearing pdq.

[BillW]

Larry,

And I would agree that he should be given back his clothes for the hearing, but not until then.

[larry kurtz]

Imagine Ollie North in one of these: http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2011/03/15/dod-gives-manning-caveman-gown-says-theyre-not-humiliating-him/

[BillW]

As they say, Larry, the clothes make the man, but they still would have let him off the hook.

[Stephen Voss]

Ken, of course you have a right to an opinion about Manning. You might be right that he's a traitor. Or you might not. That's what trials are for.

I didn't come here to defend him. I came here to attack Obama. In the America I remember, the President didn't torture prisoners before their trials.

In my America -- I admit it was long ago and far away, I'm 70 years old -- it was little tinhorn dictators who did that. And every time they did it they told the world their victim was a traitor.

In the America I remember, the government acted like you're innocent till proven guilty. And the President remembered we'd signed on to a treaty making torture illegal. And if the government or the President forgot it, patriotic people reminded them this is supposed to be the land of the free.

I won't begrudge you the right to howl for Manning's blood, if you don't begrudge me some nostalgia for a country I used to know.

[Mark Anderson]

I've got to check this blog more often. I really like soldiers. I've had several for students over the years. Sometimes a question is just a question. Look at this site: http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/004573.html