It's not just long term solitary confinement, Obama has consented to the psychological torture of Manning to wreck his mind and be susceptible to "suggestions" from Obama's "friends". The type of maximum security incarceration, isolation from the outside world, solitary confinement, daily humiliation from the guards, being forced to stand at attention every 5 minutes, stripping down naked daily and also having to stand at attention naked every morning outside his cell for the guards to parade past him, forced into a 6 x 12 ft closet for 23 hours+ a day with no windows or natural light with only a single book and magazine, etc.... is all done to make Manning lose conciousness of the outside world and lose track of time and what day it is. This type of treatment can break people and make them insane. It's the type of punishment that a serial murderer that beats up other prisoners while already in prison gets.
Detention at Marine Corps Base Quantico
On July 29, 2010, Manning was moved from Kuwait to the Marine Corps Base Quantico, Virginia, and classified as a "maximum custody detainee" held under a "Prevention of Injury" assignment until April 2011. At Quantico he was detained in a 6 x 12 ft cell, with no window, furnished with a bed, toilet and sink, and with meals taken in his cell. According to The Washington Post, the facility had 30 cells built in a U shape, and although the detainees could talk to one another, they were unable to see each other, according to his lawyer, David Coombs, a former military attorney and member of the United States Army Reserve. Coombs said in December 2010 that the guards were professional, and had not tried to bully, harass, or embarrass Manning. He was allowed outside his cell to walk for up to one hour a day, shackled. There was access to television for limited periods when it was placed in the corridor outside his cell. He was allowed to keep one book and one magazine in his cell—according to Leigh and Harding, he requested Immanuel Kant's Critique of Pure Reason (1781)—but otherwise no writing materials, though access to them was given during allotted times. He was shackled during visits.[31]
A Prevention of Injury order is one stop short of suicide watch. It entails checks by guards every five minutes, and no sleeping during the day. His lawyer said he was not allowed to sleep between 5 am (7 am at weekends) and 8 pm, and if he tried to, was made to stand or sit up. He was required to remain visible at all times, including at night, which entailed no access to sheets, no pillow except one built into his mattress, and a blanket designed not to be shredded. Until March 2011 he was required to sleep in boxer shorts, and had experienced chafing of the skin from the heavy blanket.[31] On March 2, he was told that an Article 138 complaint filed in January by his lawyer—asking that he be removed from maximum custody and prevention-of-injury watch—had been denied. His lawyer said Manning subsequently joked to the guards that, if he wanted to harm himself, he could do so "with the elastic waistband of his underwear or with his flip-flops." This resulted in him being required to sleep without clothing and present himself naked outside his cell for morning inspection, which his lawyer described as ritual humiliation, though from around March 10 onwards he was given a wrap-around smock with Velco fasteners to sleep in. In response to the incident, the brig psychiatrist classified him as at low risk of suicide.[32]
[edit]Manning letter from jail
Manning's lawyer released an 11-page letter from Manning on March 10, 2011, written to the U.S. military in response to their decision to retain his Prevention of Injury status. In the letter, he described having been placed on suicide watch for three days in January, and having had his clothing removed, apart from underwear, as well as prescription eyeglasses; he said the loss of the latter forced him to sit in "essential blindness." He wrote that he believed this was done as retribution for a protest his supporters had held outside the jail the day before; he alleged that, just before the suicide watch began, the guards began harassing him and issuing conflicting orders, telling him to turn left, then not to turn left. He also described being required to sleep without clothes and stand naked for morning parade: "The guard told me to stand at parade rest, with my hands behind my back and my legs spaced shoulder width apart. I stood at "parade rest" for about three minutes until the DBS [duty brig supervisor] arrived. ... The DBS looked at me, paused for a moment, and then continued to the next detainee's cell. I was incredibly embarrassed at having all these people stare at me naked. ..." He wrote that the smock he was later given to wear at night was coarse and uncomfortable, and that he regarded the removal of his other clothing as unlawful pretrial punishment.[33]
[edit]Complaints about detention, government response
The conditions of his detention prompted international concern. David House, the computer scientist allowed to visit him twice a month, said in December 2010 that he had watched Manning change from an intelligent young man to someone who appeared catatonic and had difficulty conducting a conversation. Democratic Rep. Dennis Kucinich and Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg, a WikiLeaks volunteer, compared the treatment to what happened inside the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. Ellsberg wrote that it amounted to "no-touch torture", and that its purpose was to demoralize Manning so he would implicate Wikileaks and Julian Assange.[34]
A Quantico spokesman said in January 2011 that allegations of mistreatment were "poppycock," and that Manning had been designated "maximum custody" because his escape would pose a national security risk. The spokesman said Manning could talk to guards and prisoners in other cells, though he could not see the prisoners, and left his cell for a daily hour of exercise, and for showers, phone calls, meetings with his lawyer, and weekend visits by friends and relatives. Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell and Pentagon General Counsel Jeh Johnson visited Quantico in February 2011 to examine the conditions of the detention. Morrell said he was impressed by the professionalism of the staff, and that Manning's housing and treatment were appropriate. He said: "It just so happens that the configuration of the brig is that every individual is confined to his or her own cell. He's being provided well-balanced, nutritious meals three times a day. He receives visitors and mail, and can write letters. He routinely meets with doctors, as well as his attorney. He's allowed to make telephone calls. And he is being treated just like every other detainee in the brig."[35]
Juan E. Mendez, a United Nations Special Rapporteur on torture, submitted an inquiry about Manning to the U.S. State Department around January 2011, and in April accused the government of prevarication in response to his request for an unmonitored meeting with Manning, saying he was deeply disappointed and frustrated.[36] Amnesty International issued a complaint to the U.S. Secretary of Defense, and asked the British government to intervene on the grounds that Manning is a British national by descent through his Welsh mother. The British Embassy in Washington expressed concern to the State Department in March; Manning's case was raised in the British parliament by Labour MP Ann Clwyd, who is Welsh; and in April Manning's mother asked that British consular officials visit him in prison.[37] In March, State Department spokesman Philip J. Crowley, speaking to a small audience, called Manning's treatment "ridiculous and counterproductive and stupid"; he resigned two days later, reportedly under pressure from the White House. His remark, described as a personal opinion, prompted reporters to ask President Obama to comment on Manning's detention at a news conference; he replied: "... I have actually 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. They assured 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."[38]
In April, 295 American legal scholars signed a letter published in the New York Review of Books objecting to the conditions of Manning's detention. Signatories included Bruce Ackerman of Yale Law School, Yochai Benkler of Harvard Law School, and Laurence Tribe, also of Harvard; Tribe taught constitutional law to Barack Obama and worked until the beginning of 2011 as an adviser in the Justice Department. The letter said the conditions of the detention were a violation of the U.S. Constitution, specifically the Eighth Amendment's prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment, and the Fifth Amendment's guarantee against punishment without trial, and that if the conditions continue they may amount to a violation of the criminal statute against torture: "procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or the personality."[5]
