Episode 105: Tilo Jung Interviews Alexa O'Brien Re: "Pierre"

It was largely through Alexa's Twitter exchanges with "Pierre" (we don't know who is actually Twitting for Omidyar, but it is likely not himself) that the world and WikiLeaks learned, much to its amazement, that PayPal was not "blockading" WikiLeaks at all, pfft, what an idea, the very thought of it made "Pierre" shudder. Figuratively. Alexa and WikiLeaks probed and probed, but got no satisfactory response regarding this remarkable revision of history. All "Pierre" would say is that WikiLeaks should try setting up a PayPal account again, because there would be no "blockade." WikiLeaks apparently demurred. So it's on them, if they don't use PayPal, not "Pierre," for he is manfully not -- at all -- athwart the barricades.

In this episode of Jung und Naiv, the intrepid but disinterested Tilo interviews Alexa O'Brien about this and other matters of potential interest. I thought the close was priceless: she has enormous respect for Jeremy Scahill and Laura Poitras. Unmentioned is Greenwald. Skewer thrust, perhaps?



There is also a longer interview with Ms O'Brien mostly regarding the Manning revelations and trial.

The Bradley Manning Thing and Starship Troopers

Klendathu -- It's an Ugly System, a Bug System

"Starship Troopers" has been on heavy rotation one of the broadcast movie channels here, and I watched it the other day and had a good hoot over it. When the United States went to WAR!!! some years ago -- good heavens, more than a decade now -- I and others made many comparisons between the propaganda that suffuses Paul Verhoeven's film and what Americans were being subjected to in order to whip them to a frenzy of Muslim-Bug-Hate, and we commented about how much the images of the WAR!!! ON TERRA! and the WARR!!!! ON KLENDATHU! resembled one another. It was as if we were being made to live out this mockery of Heinlein's adolescent fantasy as re-configured by Verhoeven. Truth was stranger than fiction.

The book was published in 1959; the movie -- the original, not the sequels -- was released in 1997 not long after the Bosnia campaign; the WAR!!!! against Klendathu, er, Afghanistan was initiated in 2001 and quickly spread to Iraq and has now embroiled much of the Middle East and parts of Africa with no end in sight... here we are, so many years down the line, and so many young people can't really remember a time when we weren't fighting Klendathu/Bugs for some reason.

We have always been fighting Klendathu/Bugs in a way.

A young soldier named Bradley Manning is to be court-martialed for turning over massive amounts of military and State Department documents and communications, some of it classified, to WikiLeaks some years ago (we've lost track of the exact timelines now), a trial that has been delayed for an extraordinarily long time as the sides prepare and maneuver. The most recent phase involved a hearing on the conditions of Manning's confinement at the Quantico brig, conditions which were ridiculous when they weren't appalling, but conditions which are faced by tens of thousands of domestic prisoners, including children, every day. The hoopla over Manning's confinement conditions seemed to me to be over the top, in part because so many prisoners in America face similar conditions, and many of those prisoners have not been convicted any more than Manning has been convicted. There simply is no outcry, there's hardly any recognition that atrocious, indeed torturous, confinement conditions are standard operating procedure in America's vast and expanding prison/industrial complex.

Confinement conditions in Marine brigs have been notorious for brutality and psychological terror for decades. What was done to Manning, while atrocious, was actually mild compared to the treatment of some prisoners held in the brig for various offenses both pre and post conviction. I've reported previously that a relative faced far worse conditions, and for far longer, than Manning when he was held in the brig for four years on what I believe was either a completely bogus or completely political (ie: Marine Corps politics) criminal charge. This is how a formidable and corrupt system works and has worked for many long years. Where is the outcry?

Quite simply, there is no outcry beyond the highly select cohort of individuals who truly care about these things. Manning should not have been treated the way he was at Quantico, nor should anyone else face such treatment and worse in any part of the American Gulag, but the conditions faced by those not named Manning wasn't part of the general conversation and still isn't. Americans by and large are in complete denial about the prison/industrial system that holds millions of its citizens and foreigners under often appalling conditions, day in and day out, year in and year out. It is an out of control punishment system that gets more out of control and brutal as time goes by.

The hearing over Manning's confinement conditions has concluded; it was covered by Kevin Gozstola over at FDL and a few other reporters, notably not including the New York Times until a public outcry (and a rather harsh column by the paper's public editor) embarrassed the Gray Lady's Powers That Be enough to send someone to witness part of one day's testimony -- and then write inaccurately about it. There might be a ruling on the manner of Manning's Quantico stay sometime in January, but I won't hold my breath because this case has been delayed so many times for such a long time over all sorts of things, while Manning himself cools his heels at the Ft. Leavenworth facility awaiting a disposition that may never come.

Manning is accused of releasing hundreds of thousands of documents to WikiLeaks, some of which were classified "Secret" and above, but many of which were unclassified. The intranet system from which this material was obtained was not secure; there was little effort to make it secure for months after the alleged leak allegedly via Manning and his all-purpose thumb drive. Consequently, part of the defense argument has been that Manning's actions really couldn't constitute such a big security breech -- because there was so little security to begin with.

The argument of many of Manning's defenders has been that Manning is a Hero and therefore should not be subjected to... well, what, actually? Accusation? Trial? Law itself?

The central document that was released through WikiLeaks as a consequence of the actions Manning is accused of is the "Collateral Murder" helicopter gun-camera video of the slaughter of some dozen or so Iraqis gathered on a street that took place in New Baghdad in 2009 (October, if I recall correctly). It is classic "Death From Above" war-porn and could have been straight out of a movie like "Starship Troopers." It was hideous and disgusting to anyone with a shred of conscience. And it was run in heavy rotation on all the propaganda news outlets for weeks in April of 2010, in a sort of orgy of bloodletting visuals that led to fist-pumping celebrations of American Might.

As I pointed out at the time, this video, while horrible to witness, is one of any number of similar extermination-porn videos, American "Death From Above" videos, many of which were proudly released by the military itself. They're available on YouTube for anyone with an internet connection to view anytime they want. They are all very similar, very hideous, and very disgusting. Yet they caused little sensation and no general outcry when they were released. Like the "Collateral Murder" video, they inspired pride not revulsion in many if not most of those who saw them.

It was only when Manning allegedly provided WikiLeaks with the "Collateral Murder" video that a small but vocal segment of the public spoke out, claiming War Crimes and perfidy in the conduct of the Iraq Occupation, and by extension in the conduct of the various imperial wars of aggression in general. The vocal segment that spoke out against the slaughter depicted in the "Collateral Murder" video is now mostly focused on the outrage of the Drone Campaigns that have been expanded under Obama. While the outrage is not misplaced, the focus may well be far too narrow.

There are almost too many individual incidents of "Death From Above" during the constant WAR!!!! against "Klendathu" to count. The incidents are grotesque, but at some point the underlying issue needs addressing.

These incidents are happening because Our Government is intent on pursuing an Imperial Expansion objective, one that has been determined by those few individuals and interests that own and control the Government. The People never agreed to this Imperial Project; they are largely ignorant that it is going on. The People have no say in these matters in any case.

"Klendathu" has always been Our Enemy, and so it is today. If we want the incidents to stop, we have to stop the objectification of our Bug-Enemies, and furthermore we must stop the Imperial Expansion Project that allows and requires this endless horror to go on.

I don't know whether Manning had or has any of that in mind. He's a complex character whose motivations have never been entirely clear. At one time, it was claimed that his "torture" at Quantico was undertaken to extract information from him regarding WikiLeaks. That tack seems to have been dropped as it became clear that his treatment at Quantico was done because it could be done and not for any other reason at all. The brig commanders are brutal and not very bright thugs. Hello? This is news somehow?

WikiLeaks has largely faded (which is a whole other story). The Manning Thing was ostentatiously ignored by the New York Times, which was the exclusive US publisher of the WikiLeaks trove (allegedly from Manning) at one time. Coverage of the Manning Thing is still spotty. Imperial wars of aggression continue with occasional adjustments.

We are still at war with Klendathu. The Bugs are Still Out There...

"Death From Above"

[Sorry about the absence of links, have to see if I can add some later...]

How Fares Teh Hero Cult?

More than a year after Bradley Manning was rounded up in Iraq and held under some truly disgusting conditions at Quantico -- inspiring accusations from the "Progressive" Civil Liberties community that he was being tortured in order to extract information from him about WikiLeaks that could be used against Julian Assange -- I'm seeing somewhat more notice in the "progressive" blogosphere of the fact that prisoners by the tens of thousands are being held under appalling conditions in this country as a matter of course. This notice is particularly evident over at FDL where both Jeff Kaye and Kevin Gozstola have recently highlighted the hunger strike by prisoners at Pelican Bay and other facilities in California over their continuing mistreatment -- which some would call torture -- by their captors.

This notice that "it's more than just Manning" in the "progressive" blogosphere is welcome and long overdue. I've written about the gross mistreatment of prisoners in the United States -- whether or not they have been tried and convicted -- before, and I've pointed out, many times, here and in other fora, that Manning's case is emblematic of widespread mistreatment of captives within the prison/industrial complex that keeps growing in this country, and that people need to recognize that how he was being mistreated was not unusual at all.

It was closer to "typical."

In some of the comments I made on the topic, I mentioned a close relative who as a Marine was held for four years at Miramar in California, under conditions startlingly similar to those of Bradley Manning at Quantico, except that my relative had the shit beat out of him a couple of times by guards, which got him out of isolation for a time while his injuries healed. Other than that, there wasn't much difference in treatment. It was brutal, it was cruel, it involved intense isolation and constant indignity. And it went on for four long years, including the time prior to my relative's court martial and conviction on trumped up drug charges. If the stories I've been told about what "really" happened are true (and I have no way of knowing whether they are or not) then the whole thing was a purely political move by commanding officers to protect themselves from... exposure.

Anybody who has had a close brush with the relatively common practice in American brigs (Naval prisons) knows that what happened to Bradley Manning at Quantico followed a long history of abuse of brig prisoners that is in many ways part and parcel of the Traditions of the Navy and the Marine Corps.

In fact, this abuse has been written about for a long time, and it was dramatized by Kenneth H. Brown and staged by The Living Theatre in 1963 (revived off Broadway in 2007) and widely performed -- in full and in excerpt -- throughout the country during the Sixties and later.



My general point about the Manning Thing was that his treatment was not atypical, it was widely practiced in and out of the military system, and that what was being done to him specifically at Quantico was being done because it could be done. Not, as was being claimed, to "torture information" out of him. No, he was being abused because such abuse was part of the system holding him in custody. And if you read the investigative report (pdf) triggered by Manning's own complaints about his treatment and by the many protests over it, you'll see that for the most part, he was being treated "lawfully" and "according to protocol". There are brig manuals online (additionally) which detail pretty much exactly what was done to Manning at Quantico, and while it is indefensible, it is more or less routine. It isn't right, it isn't justice, but it is... procedure.

The Cult of the Hero requires that Bradley Manning -- or Julian Assange or whomever -- be considered apart from the common lot of accused or prisoners, and that's the primary reason why Manning's treatment was singled out for interest and protest -- and the relatively common similar treatment of other prisoners (even children and those who have not been charged or convicted) was typically either ignored or in some cases ("these are the worst of the worst, you know") justified.

The Hero is Special by definition.

Consequently, when profiles of Manning started appearing -- as on Frontline, and in New York Magazine (which I would remind readers is not the same as the New York Times with which it was widely confused in the many online denunciations of it over NYMag's "hit piece" on Manning) -- that detailed some of the "complicated" emotional and sexual identity issues Manning shared with Adrian Lamo (who eventually turned him in to authorities for unauthorized leakage of classified information and documents) and delved into his private as well as his more public life, his defenders and his cult went into turbo-drive denouncing those who would probe where they ought not to go.

(Did I mention that the relative who was held in brig confinement under conditions arguably worse than those of Manning, certainly physically and mentally worse, ultimately decided to change his gender? Well, who'dathunk? Right? He is now a she. And the Government paid for it. :-P)

Supposedly, none of a Hero's backstory matters in the least. The only thing that matters is that the Hero exposed the obscenities of the Government -- and in Manning's case, the military in which he served. How he got to that point is none of your business!!!!® SHUT UP!!!!™ Hit piece!!! SMEAR!!!!!!

Yes. Well.

Of course all of this presumes that Manning did this or that "exposure" he is accused of. Maybe he did; I don't know. But none of the Heroics he's accused of and worshiped as a Hero for has been adjudicated (fairly or not). Given the appalling lack of security on the classified information he is accused of leaking, it wouldn't be at all surprising if he either didn't do it, or if he did, if he wasn't the only one.

Time will tell. In the meantime, his Heroism depends on hearsay. And a rather touching faith and belief.

When Manning was transferred to Ft. Leavenworth some of the hysterics surrounding his incarceration abated. If now some of the attention that was focused on him and his situation alone has been broadened to include at least some of the tens of thousands of other prisoners held under equally horrific conditions, hurrah.

But I'm not going to hold my breath as long as attention can only be paid to Heroes.

And Another Thing.

Is that Frontline may have revived a story that had sunk from view, even for many of the WikiLeaks/Julian/Manning partisans.

When Manning was transferred to Ft. Leavenworth and his attorney said that his treatment would be far better than it had been at Quantico, almost all the steam went out of the "Free Bradley Manning" movement, much as running Julian to ground in Britain and putting him up at his supporter's country estate for the duration slowed the pace of and changed the focus of WikiLeaks leaks, and it had the effect of quieting the WikiLeaks/Julian partisans.

As many have noted, Julian's threats to leak the contents of a bank executive's hard drive, threats that seemed to have precipitated the all-out hunt for him and his subsequent surrender in London, never materialized.

Were deals made? Who knows?

The Frontline piece and its supporting materials online serves as an introduction to the story for those who haven't been following it closely, but it is far from complete -- something I think its producers will readily acknowledge -- and the followup, if there is any, could be quite extended. But the question is, why, when the story was on the verge of disappearing altogether, would Frontline choose to bring it up again and get the partisans all riled up over their "hatchet job?"

Are we witnessing those wheels within wheels again? Another false flag episode?

Designed to do what?

Can we put this into some kind of overall context?

Manning's father made an interesting comment in the post-show chat (in which both David House and Julian Assange claimed to participate.)

1:15


FRONTLINE:
Here's a question from Reddit user Clansky:
Do you think there is any hope Bradley will be released? Or do you think he'll be there forever? And to Brian, do you agree with what your son did?
1:16


Marcela Gaviria/Martin Smith:
Anything’s possible, but the prosecution’s case appears quite strong. Investigators say that that they have matched Manning’s computer to Lamo’s, verifying the authenticity of the chats. To be acquitted Manning’s lawyer would somehow have to prove that Manning had been framed and his computer had been tampered with.
1:17


Brian Manning:
I hope so as I do not think he was the leak.
1:17


Brian Manning:
I would not agree with anyone doing such acts.

"I do not think he was the leak."

Huh. The assumption is that Bradley Manning must be the leaker; he confessed in an online chat (via AOL!) with Adrian Lamo that he did the deed and was proud of it, and almost all his partisans (including the iconic Daniel Ellsberg) hail him a Hero for doing so. War crimes were revealed! Wars were brought to a screeching halt. HILLARY was embarrassed!!!!

Oh?

Actually no.

Not at all. If anything, there are more wars and more plans for more Imperial wars of aggression than before the releases from WikiLeaks. There have been no war crimes trials -- for Americans and their allies and mercenaries in the field -- and the extermination of the innocent continues apace, with or without bin Laden to justify it.

As for Hillary, so?

As I said at the time of its release, the "Collateral Murder" video that got the ball rolling on high-profiling the WikiLeaks/Manning matter was put into constant rotation on all the teevee news, to the point of saturation (much as the Mavi Marara video from the Israelis would be later), and the actions of the Death From Above helicopter squad that were shown over and over again were praised, not condemned, by the American people who saw the tapes -- actually they couldn't avoid them. Which I assumed was the point of showing the video in the first place: first, that they couldn't avoid it, and second that they would be filled with pride at the actions of their brave soldiers.

When I pointed out that the Pentagon had long been proudly releasing videos showing other similar exterminations so their "outrage" at the release of this one rang very hollow indeed, I was greeted with confusion to say the least. The Narrative was set by that time: WikiLeaks and Julian and whoever leaked the video were heroes documenting war crimes. Americans never would have known this was happening if it hadn't been for such heroes!

Well, except for the dozens of similar gun camera videos that the Pentagon had already released showing similar -- and in some cases even more gruesome -- slaughters of people on the ground -- I guess that's right. Except for that, the American People couldn't possibly have known this was going on.

For cripes sake, they knew -- and they loved it.

The "Collateral Murder" video had the same effect. But arguing that's the case when the Narrative says just the opposite -- that it revealed War Crimes most foul and the American People didn't know this was going on, and when they found out, they Turned Against the War(s)™ -- even though the empirical evidence says otherwise-- was generally met with either blank stares or active hostility and denunciation.

Because the implication was that the Pentagon was playing a game with the public here, and WikiLeaks wasn't what it purported to be. It might even be a false-flag/black op itself.

As more and more of the supposed Manning material was released -- the War Logs and then the State Department Cables -- it seemed more and more clear to me and some other observers that this whole thing was a highly engineered operation, by and for whom being the question.

In the aggregate, the War Logs didn't reveal much at all. They were too cryptic to be comprehended by civilians. They had to be selected and interpreted by The Media (which is a whole other issue) in order to be understood, and most of what they documented was routine, while many of the sensational events in the Logs had already been extensively reported, mostly in the same manner (though not in the same cryptic style) as they were reported to superiors in the Logs. The Logs made the Ragheads out to be far worse than had been previously reported. But are the Logs truthful? The problem with this kind of raw intelligence -- for that's what it is -- is that you don't know what's true and what's not, and it takes a very knowledgeable hand to sort through all the crap. There were and are very few such hands around.

The State Department Cables caused an international flap, to be sure, but it seems to have blown over nicely and Hillary is out there doing her job as if little or nothing had happened.

And they touched off the Arab Spring, and they got bin Laden, so what's the problem?

Actually, there isn't one -- at least not for our rulers. Is there?

This whole thing is very much Emmanuel Goldstein-esque -- which is why skeptics of many stripes refuse to take it at face value.

What is really going on is not something we can easily suss out.

The question, nevertheless, is what motivated Frontline to reopen the matter now? And who, ultimately, was behind it?

"I have QUESTIONS to ask!!!" Jiang Qing in "Madame Mao" by Thérèse Radic, 1986

Frontline Gets Around to the Manning/WikiLeaks Story

Actually, it was quite a good program to introduce the topic to those who probably haven't been following it closely. Which I would assume includes pretty much all Americans.

I was more interested in the reaction to it in the comments to the program and to some of the additional material online.

Many people were appreciative that the story was being told at all, but a significant contingent put on their High Dudgeon Drag and stormed around denouncing PBS and Frontline for their "hatchet job" and "hit piece," going on and on and on about how disreputable this kind of coverage is, etc., etc.

We've. Seen. It. All. Before.

It is routine whenever the topic of WikiLeaks arises for partisans, "team-members," and mindless loyalists to throw hissy-fits and temper tantrums if the story isn't sufficiently laudatory toward Julian Assange. Julian himself has done it many times.

In this psycho-drama, Bradley Manning is little more than a prop. It's always all about Julian and how earthshakingly selfless and heroic he is in the face of concerted State Power. Any hint that Julian may be human and not a superhero, may even have feet of clay, is met with relentless denunciations.

As for Manning, he is a support-player in Julian's psycho-drama at best. Julian refuses (no doubt on the advice of an attorney) to acknowledge any connection between himself/WikiLeaks and Bradley Manning, though there is some evidence he's wanted the story changed to suit his particular interests and needs. The Game is Julian playing cat-and-mouse with The Government (whichever Government); in that Game, people like Manning are collateral damage. Oh well, too bad, so sad.

One of the people who appeared in the documentary goes by the name of Emmanuel Goldstein. How cute. This person is actually one Eric Gordon Corley, hacker extraordinaire, but strangely, Frontline did not identify him as such. Emmanuel Goldstein, as we know, is the turncoat subject of the Two Minute Hate in 1984. In fact, for a time, at least until he was run to very plush ground in Britain, Julian Assange was the chosen Emmanuel Goldstein for our time. Once he was bagged, though...

...it was time for Bin Laden to get liquidated. And now they are going after Gaddafi, having already terminated one of his sons. I'm sure that Other Devils will arise as one-by-one, the old ones are eliminated.

This Frontline episode is being ritually denounced by what I assume are the usual crew of WikiLeaks supporters simply for not being laudatory enough of Julian on the one hand and for "smearing" Manning on the other by delving somewhat gingerly into his private life -- including his somewhat turbulent personality and his gayness.

An example of the commentary:

Greg K. 1 month ago
Kill the messenger much?

Very disheartening to see Frontline do such an irrelevant piece on such a hugely important story. Manning's personality and motives -- as well as his status as a hero or villain-- don't matter in the slightest. What does matter is the shifting of power dynamics brought about by communications technology, the leveling of the playing field between governments and individuals. Passive-aggressive hit pieces like this one only serve to obscure the issue.

Read more: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/wikileaks/bradley-manning/#disqus_thread#ixzz1NO04YR7p

There it is in a nutshell.

I'm pondering why it is so important for the mindless loyalists of Julian/WikiLeaks to repeat these charges again and again, no matter who publishes insufficiently laudatory pieces about Julian/WikiLeaks (and/or collateral damage like Manning) and no matter what those pieces say, and further, I'm wondering why it is so important for them (and Julian) to try to control the narrative so completely.

To me, this is just one of several signs that things are not -- at all -- what they seem to be with Julian and WikiLeaks, and that one should treat anything that comes out of their workshop with extreme skepticism.

Just as one should be skeptical of anything in the Major Mass Media.

What to do about Bradley Manning....

As has been clear from what I've written about it in the past, I'm not much of a Bradley Manning devotee.

As abusive as his situation is, I don't find it to be particularly unique. I have a close relative who spent four years in solitary confinement in Marine Corps brigs (including his pre-court-martial confinement), and the only times he was out of solitary were when he was hospitalized recovering from the injuries he sustained when the guards beat the living shit out of him. Many other military detainees, at home and abroad, can easily verify the commonality of gross human rights violations in military custody up to and including severe torture. At least from reports, Manning is not being subjected to the worst he could be under the military detention scheme now and for many years in place.

Meanwhile, there are tens of thousands of domestic prisoners, by far the majority of them in civilian custody, who are subjected to far worse treatment on an ongoing basis than anything that has been reportedly done to Bradley Manning in Marine Corps custody. And many of them -- hundreds at least, and perhaps thousands -- are in pre-trial custody and have been convicted of nothing on any given day. Many of those are children.

Therefore I am not about to single out Bradley Manning for special attention. His situation is deplorable. Yet so is the detention situation for tens of thousands, perhaps over a hundred thousand Americans in custody among the millions of incarcerated Americans.

Solitary Watch has established itself as the go-to resource for information and heartbreaking stories of what goes on in the dark recesses of our prison-industrial complex -- and what is being done about it.

The other day, Solitary Watch linked to a guest column in the New Jersey Star Ledger by George Hunsinger, a founder of the National Religious Campaign Against Torture. In it, he recognizes the plight of Bradley Manning as emblematic of the plight of so many Americans, many of them awaiting trial just as Manning is but none of them "deserving" the treatment they are experiencing. For there is no justification for tolerating torture.

I will excerpt the excerpt that appears in Solitary Watch:

The conditions under which Manning is being held are deplorable. No individual, whatever crime he may have committed, should be held in prolonged isolation or be routinely shamed through the use of unnecessary forced nakedness. And that’s the key point — no prisoners should suffer cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment — no matter who they are or what crime they may have committed.

I’m not qualified to speak for Bradley Manning. What I do know, however, is that there are thousands of prisoners throughout the country who face conditions that are similar to, or worse than, those Manning may be enduring. Unfortunately, however, those poor souls are almost completely ignored.

Many prisons contain units in which prisoners are held in isolation for prolonged periods of time (months or even years). The lack of human interaction is profoundly damaging to many of these prisoners — some suffer sufficiently to cause actual physical changes in the makeup of their brains.

Long-term solitary confinement is torture. It has been known to cause prisoners to go insane. And it is unnecessary. In many cases, prisoners are held in solitary confinement to punish them for minor infractions, because of the severe overcrowding of our prisons or other administrative reasons, or because they are mentally ill.

We need to think about what sort of people we want to be. Do we want to be a people who ignore torture that occurs here? Do we want to sit comfortably at home, knowing that somewhere not far away someone is being broken, his mind shattered, by a severe loneliness that has lasted for years?

It is one thing to punish a criminal. It is another to abuse him or her — to strip away his very humanity by denying him contact with all other humans. Solitary confinement can cause permanent damage. And let us remember that under the law, Manning, an American citizen, is still innocent until proved guilty.

It is our urgent responsibility to create a prison system where there is no place for such enforced suffering and where the rights of all citizens are upheld.

And that really is the point. It needs to be made over and over and over again. I'm glad to see that some of those who have been keening and rending their garments over the treatment of Bradley Manning have begun to recognize that what has been happening to him is symptomatic of widespread abuses of authority endemic to our prison system, and that the military is by no means an exception.

When the advocates for Bradley Manning educate themselves to the real horrors that are so deeply ingrained in our civilian and military prison system and clearly understand that as bad as things are for Bradley Manning, they are not unique but are pervasive, endemic, and brightline violations of human rights and dignity, affecting at a minimum tens of thousands and quite likely hundreds of thousands of people including children held in our extraordinarily bloated prison system, then maybe they'll be able to actively participate in changing this disgusting and inhumane system instead of just fretting themselves into paralysis over Bradley Manning.

“Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of my brothers and sisters, you did it to me.” -- Matthew 25:40

Here's a column by James Ridgeway and Jean Casella of Solitary Watch that appeared on Al Jazeera's website. It explains most of what Americans need to know about the topic.

Cruel and usual: US solitary confinement

As incarceration rates explode in the US, thousands are placed in solitary confinement, often without cause.

Give it a read. Then go forth armed and educated.

A Bradley Manning Action I Can Support

While I tend to share Solitary Watch's ambivalence toward the "left" blogosphere's sudden devotion to Human Rights -- when it comes to Bradley Manning and his conditions of custody at Quantico -- while essentially ignoring the plight of the tens of thousands of prisoners held in similar or worse conditions, even children held awaiting trial, some for more than a year, there was an action at Quantico the other day, a demonstration initially focused on Freedom for Bradley Manning, but one that eventually took up the cause of all the unjustly held and those held under the same sort of conditions (or worse conditions) Manning is being held under, and I can really get behind that.

It brings the spotlight to America's punishment obsessed "rule of law," that is for many, many of those it holds nothing but a human rights crime. Bradley Manning hasn't yet become a symbol of the many thousands who are held under similar conditions domestically and in our gulags overseas, but he could become that. And as the demonstration at Quantico showed, more and more people -- but not yet the "left" blogosphere -- are recognizing that.

It's a good thing.

Over at dKos, there is an eyewitness report of some of that was going on, and the lesson here is that -- sometimes -- Authority will back down.

It's a lesson that Americans have to learn again, though. They have forgotten so much.