Posts
Which Path For the Right?By E.J. Dionne, Jr.
By Amy Goodman
The Billionaires’ Long GameBy Robert Reich
Israel’s Apartheid Deepens, Along With Its Global IsolationBy Juan Cole
Christie Addresses Weight Criticism, PolitiFact’s ‘Lie of the Year’ Revealed, and More Assad Fires Scud Missiles at Rebels, U.S. Reports The Rich, Conservative Push for Right-to-Work (Video) The Pope’s First Tweets Jon Stewart Nearly Quit ‘The Daily Show’ Because of ‘Asshole’ Colleagues Scalia’s Anti-Gay Marriage Rant, Nate Silver on Hillary’s 2016 Prospects, and More
Sarah Silverman Pro-Choice Video Tells ‘Bros’ to Stand Up for the Ladies Watch: Fox News Contributor Gets Punched in Face During Michigan Union Protest The Revolution Continues in Challenge to Morsi Moyers and Sanders on America’s Media Oligopoly
Fighting Manifest DestinyBy Jonathan Yardley Glenn Greenwald Condemns ‘Zero Dark Thirty’ Torture Porn
Psy Shames Himself With Unqualified Apology (Video)
By Alexander Reed Kelly Reports of Publishing’s Death Are Exaggerated
By Susan Zakin
The Questions Education Reformers Aren’t AskingDig led by Mike Rose Gore Vidal: His Life and Legacy
Dig led by Truthdig Staff
advertisement-->
A History of Modern Palestine: One Land, Two PeoplesBy Ilan Pappe
advertisement
-->
Golf Shirt$23
advertisement
-->
Jr. Ringer T-Shirt$20
Email 
Print 
ShareTweet
Posted on Dec 12, 2012 
By Amy Goodman
Pfc. Bradley Manning was finally allowed to speak publicly, in his own defense, in a preliminary hearing of his court-martial. Manning is the alleged source of the largest intelligence leak in U.S. history. He was an intelligence analyst in the U.S. Army, with top-secret clearance, deployed in Iraq. In April 2010, the whistle-blower website WikiLeaks released a U.S. military video of an Apache helicopter in Baghdad killing a dozen civilians below, including two Reuters employees, a videographer and his driver. One month after the video was released, Manning was arrested in Iraq, charged with leaking the video and hundreds of thousands more documents. Thus began his ordeal of cruel, degrading imprisonment in solitary confinement that many claim was torture, from his detention in Kuwait to months in the military brig in Quantico, Va. Facing global condemnation, the U.S. military transferred Manning to less-abusive detention at Fort Leavenworth, Kan.
As he now faces 22 counts in a court martial that could land him in prison for the rest of his life, his lawyer argued in court that the case should be thrown out, based on his unlawful pretrial punishment.
Veteran constitutional attorney Michael Ratner was in the courtroom at Fort Meade, Md., that day Manning took the stand. He described the scene: “It was one of the most dramatic courtroom scenes I’ve ever been in. ... When Bradley opened his mouth, he was not nervous. The testimony was incredibly moving, an emotional roller coaster for all of us, but particularly, obviously, for Bradley and what he went through. But it was so horrible what happened to him over a two-year period. He described it in great detail in a way that was articulate, smart, self-aware.”
Ratner said Manning described being kept in a cage in Kuwait: “There were two cages. He said they were like animal cages. They were in a tent alone, just these two cages, side by side. One of them had whatever possessions he may have had; one of them, he was in, with a little bed for a rack and a toilet, dark, in this cage for almost two months.” Ratner quoted Manning from his testimony, recalling his words: “For me, I stopped keeping track. I didn’t know whether night was day or day was night. And my world became very, very small. It became these cages.” Ratner added, “It almost destroyed him.”
After Kuwait, Manning was shipped to a brig in Quantico. Manning’s civilian defense attorney, David Coombs, said earlier this month: “Brad’s treatment at Quantico will forever be etched, I believe, in our nation’s history, as a disgraceful moment in time. Not only was it stupid and counterproductive. It was criminal.” The United Nations special rapporteur on torture, Juan Mendez, attempted to visit Manning, but then refused when the military said it could surveil and record the visit. He reported: “Solitary confinement is a harsh measure which may cause serious psychological and physiological adverse effects on individuals regardless of their specific conditions.”
Advertisement
This first phase of the court-martial, which Coombs calls “the unlawful pretrial punishment motion phase,” considered a defense motion to throw out the entire case. While that is unlikely, observers say, the defense asked, as an alternative, that the court consider crediting Manning with 10 days’ reduction from any eventual sentence for each day he spent suffering cruel and degrading punishment in Kuwait and Quantico, which could in theory trim six years from his prison time.
Bradley Manning is charged with releasing the WikiLeaks trove of documents, which included the Baghdad massacre video, two separate, massive tranches of documents relating to U.S. military records from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, and, perhaps most importantly, the huge release of more than 250,000 U.S. State Department cables, dubbed “Cablegate.” In an August 2010 assessment, then-Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said the document release “has not revealed any sensitive intelligence sources and methods compromised by the disclosure.” Manning has offered to plead guilty to releasing the documents, but not to the more serious charges of espionage or aiding the enemy.
Manning turns 25, in prison, Dec. 17, which is also the second anniversary of the day a young Tunisian set himself on fire in protest of his country’s corrupt government, sparking the Arab Spring. A year ago, as Time magazine named the protester as the “Person of the Year,” legendary Pentagon Papers whistle-blower Daniel Ellsberg offered praise that rings true today: “The Time magazine cover gives protester, an anonymous protester, as ‘Person of the Year,’ but it is possible to put a face and a name to that picture of ‘Person of the Year.’ And the American face I would put on that is Private Bradley Manning.”
Denis Moynihan contributed research to this column.
Amy Goodman is the host of “Democracy Now!,” a daily international TV/radio news hour airing on more than 1,000 stations in North America. She is the author of “Breaking the Sound Barrier,” recently released in paperback and now a New York Times best-seller.
© 2012 Amy Goodman
Distributed by King Features Syndicate
TAGS: afghanistan amy goodman bradley manning bradley manning trial democracy government history iraq law military pentagon torture war whistle-blower whistle-blowers wikileaks
Related Entries
Which Path For the Right?
Israel’s Apartheid Deepens, Along With Its Global Isolation Anyone Else Find the Threat of Syrian Chemical Weapons Eerily Familiar?
Glenn Greenwald Condemns ‘Zero Dark Thirty’ Torture Porn 
Email to a friend Get truth delivered to
your inbox every week.
Next item: Which Path For the Right?
New and Improved Comments
If you have trouble leaving a comment, review this help page. Still having problems? Let us know. If you find yourself moderated, take a moment to review our comment policy.
Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus.
Get Truthdig in your inbox
Newsletter
Become a Fan
Follow Us
Subscribe
CloseGive the gift of independent journalism.
Support Truthdig by making a donation of at least $25 in someone's name, and we'll send him or her a signed letter of appreciation from our publisher.
With your support, we've been able to pay writers such as Chris Hedges, Col. Ann Wright, Mr. Fish and Nomi Prins.
We've sent reporters around the world, from Afghanistan to Cairo to Cuba.
Thanks to you, our mission to find and publish a range of insightful opinion and analysis from a progressive point of view continues.
Support Truthdig
HOME|Digs|Reports|Arts & Culture|Uncovered|Ear to the Ground|A/V Booth|CartoonsTags|Bazaar|Podcast|About Us|Contact Us|User Agreement|Privacy Policy|FAQ: Comments and Moderation | Google+ Google+
A Progressive Journal of News and Opinion. Editor, Robert Scheer. Publisher, Zuade Kaufman.© 2012 Truthdig, LLC. All rights reserved. Web site development by Hop Studios
View the Original article
0 comments:
Post a Comment