Stop the torture of Bradley Manning

Full article

I have no doubt that some here will defend this.

I agree. Le'ts get him tried then fried.

He's one of theirs (ARMY) so in effect they will try to get him to squeal using every legal means possible. Being miltary I feel zero pity on him.
He knew full well what he was doing was wrong, period.

In our business leaking information can have dire consequences. It's not like he's insider trading or infiltrating KFC to steal their secret recipe.
Those things can have severe economic consequences, but not a "life and death" situation per se. It's not like he accidently messed up - he deliberately fucked his own country.

Our business is literally "life and death" for the most part. He took an oath to his country, and (more importantly) he could have endangered other miltary + civilians. We have our own rules laws for a reason - he joined us, and in doing so is commited to following our laws under contract. He wasn't drafted - he signed on the dotted line.

Are they trying to make an example of him? Most likely, but that is their perogative. Anyone who thinks this dirtbag should be coddled needs to go on a hunger strike or something to protest his treatment.

And yes, unit commanders wil put someone on "suicide watch" at the drop of a hat because The Army has a huge suicide problem, and that commander is the first line of defense. They don't have time to get proper authorization because anyone suspected of being suicidal could endager others as well.

To recap: he willingly joined up agreeing to our terms of employment, and violated our trust, and must suffer the consequences.

Even without having been tried, presumably.

Oh, and he's a hero, FYI.

I would want more information before passing judgment. The article obviously is biased and cannot be trusted, as seen by the statement that he is "effectively blind" without glasses. No eyesight that is so poor that it can honestly be called "effectively blind" can be corrected enough that a person can read an ordinary book or magazine simply with glasses. So since there is that clear example of distorted, sensationalist rhetoric, I would need confirmation from a trustworthy source concerning the rest.

Even from this article, however, I am not sure that the treatment can be called "torture" without depriving that term of a lot of it meaning. That does not mean the treatment is appropriate (I know the strawman approach of Wordforge: "Oh, so you're okay with people being treated like this") but simply that, although all torture is inappropriate, not everything that is inapropriate is torture.

Question: Are you opposed to anyone being restrained in their movements (arrested, questioned, detained, locked up...) before trial?

Totally irrelevent appeal to emotion. You, of all people, should know better than that.

The assertion is that he said that he was effectively blind without glasses. That is not sensationalist, it is simply reporting a fact.

As for torture, there is such a thing as psychological torture, and I think we should recognise the psychological impact of this kind of treatment, and the potential effect on others who Manning is being asked to incriminate.

Not entirely.

Not an appeal to emotion, since it is not part of any argument that I have made, just an aside.

Bradley is being tortured and no one can deny that unless he has a political axe to grind against the Wikileaks situation. If he committed any crimes, he still possesses some basic human rights, even under the UCMJ. Sometimes, the US behaves like a banana republic.

I think the US is showing what awaits anyone who dares go against the regime.

Scummy traitor treated far better than he deserves. Should be the title of his thread. :smoking:

Well, he would have been if he had killed you!!

In one sense alone, I actually agree with Rick here. Manning needs to be put on trial for his crimes. The concept of fair and speedy trials has gotten really lax, IMO, and we need to get the ball rolling on his trial.

Then again, if this type of incarceration and treatment (assuming it's all being objectively reported here and not sensationalist as Async pointed out) is OK then the death penalty seems the only place to go if he's convicted. If he's the traitor he appears to be, then I've got no problem with that, though.

If by "hero" you mean like in this famous pic?

Anyway, I can't expect people who have never made a long-term commitment to an organization who's very existence depends on everyone bring their "A game" to grasp the concept. And if this was a banana republic he would have been executed almost on the spot and everyone knows it. Our military should be transparent, we get it. They should vote (from private thru to general) on every mission they undertake, we get it.

trying to figure out how "fucking traitor" translates to "hero" for anyone but the enemy who the fucking traitor helped.

That would be RickyRetardo that constantly attacks the hand that keeps him safe and enables him to post his 's

Imagine if RD's mother went over to London (for example) for a few days holiday / shopping, and while there was blown up and killed, because she was in the wrong place at the wrong time - walking past some otherwise innocuous installation that, investigation subsequently revealed, the Islamists targeted because it was on the list of "valuable targets" released by Wikileaks after they got them from Pvt. Manning.

I wonder if he'd come on here again and start praising Bradley "The Hero" Manning.

I've never heard of this guy but it's obvious a lot of you have. What did he do? Once I know that I'll have an opinion on his treatment.

The guy posted on Facebook he had nothing to live for before his little downloading regimen - because his boyfriend left him. He's under psychological counciling, and the army base in question lost another guy earlier in the year to suicide and they are under orders to make sure they take every precaution so it doesn't happen again, especially with this guy, because of the political nature of this issue.

In addition he's allowed visitors (which is how we know of this), he's allowed books, he can watch TV. And I certainly don't equate 'MP checking on him every 5 mins' with no human contact, if that's true.

Lastly, he's not in gen pop because soliders don't like guys that betray them, and they are worried that another prisoner will cause him harm.

The only caveat I have with all of this is that he should have faced trial by now. There's been way too much of that nonsense.

He's the guy that downloaded all the top secret information and turned it over to Julian Assange. Evidently because his boyfriend broke up with him.

Of course, his alleged crime shouldn't have anything in theory to do with his treatment while awaiting trial.

The shittiest thing about all this is because we have soldiers we can't trust all the great work they did to make information available even at the lowest levels now has to be scrapped. Little doubt some poor schmuck is going to get killed because of this guy.

"The enemy" by that standard would appear to be the general public, who because of the actions of Manning, Assange and others, now have a fuller knowledge of what is being done in their name.

To be a "fucking traitor" to the kind of militaristic Heinlein-esque ideal that the likes of oldfella, Captain J or Bock promote, whereby the views of those on whose behalf the military acts ought to be disregarded is a worthy goal in itself.
And an oath to do something that is unjust should not be upheld.

Notwithstanding all of this, it is alarming how many knuckle-draggers don't even care about the mans right to a trial or who find this sort of lengthy treatment appropriate for a man who has not been convicted of anything.

Not allowed to exercise in his cell, have more than one book at a time or wear his glasses? Justifiable to prevent suicide? Really? Get the fuck out of my face with that shit.

Did you have an American boyfriend who broke up with you, Rick? Is that where all this ire toward the US came from?

Maybe you should buy a quart of Ben & Jerry's Chocolate Fudge Brownie. It'll actually be much more satisfying than cozying up to a fucking traitor.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_watch

Well, Rick, I happen to work for a defense contractor, and we've been taught the difference between "right to know" and "need to know" and "fucking traitor."

Somebody uses the word "torture" a bit too easily.

By the DoD, no doubt.

We get it, Henry. The US = bad, and anything that undermines the central US authority = good. State secrets are just crimes waiting to be exposed. There's no need to bother with the pretense of anything more complex than that, or to pretend that you don't give a pass to nations which better suit your own political leanings.

No, you don't, given the simplifications and inaccuracies which follow this. If I thought that the US was bad, I wouldn't spend so much of my holiday time there, for instance.

Sure you would. Lots of people do exactly that. Hate us but crave what we have. My "simplifications" just cut through the fog of academic rationalizations and double standards you use to justify yourself.

If you really were scared of the "evil" U.S. you certainly wouldn't spend so much time running it down. You, as is your right under our laws and Constitution, do an awful lot of that. And yet you still feel free to vacation here. Your actions speak louder than your words...