Besides, there’s always been a strained relationship between State and Defense. The only danger to him would be if the White House …..
6.
Social Outcast
A spokesman who speaks candidly? That’s the greatest sin in D.C.
7.
Poopyman
OTOH, if he had said the same thing on a surreptitiously recorded video by James O’Keefe, he would be well and truly screwed.
8.
Zifnab
And how long before Crowley is canned?
How quickly can we get O’Keefe out there in a pimp suite?
9.
BGinCHI
I first read the headline as “Why Does PJ Harvey Hate America?”
My quick answer was that it’s ok, she hates a lot of stuff.
10.
eemom
because JC never hat tips anybody, I will just take the liberty of reposting my earlier observation that Crowley is a half-assed mealy-mouth sell out corporatist for limiting his adjectives to “ridiculous, counterproductive and stupid”– instead of properly condemning the Manning situation as the worst atrocity ever perpetrated on US soil and demanding that Obama not only be impeached over it but extradited to the Hague to stand trial as a War Criminal.
11.
JWL
How long before his knee jerk supporters begin to hold the president responsible for the maltreatment of Manning?
12.
Martin
Wow. How shocking is honesty these days?
And McCain and Graham want to remove even more checks against how DOD acts. I wonder if this isn’t building into something. Usually these kinds of statements only happen when the internal debate is so heated that it can’t help but spill out.
Is there a reason why blogs seem to attract the most cynical of us? The president said that Crowley gave a hard hitting analysis from a PERSONAL viewpoint (paraphrasing)…he didn’t say he was WRONG just that his voice wasn’t one that spoke for the president.
I guess I’ll just wait before I start clutching my pearls and expecting the worst.
14.
nestor
Update VII: Now I see this clearly. My whole life is pointed in one direction. There never has been a choice for me.
@eemom: What are you talking about? I linked Greenwald, which is where I read it.
17.
Litlebritdifrnt
OT don’t know if anyone has posted this news yet but Maru the cat in Japan is safe. A tiny little ray of good news in the midst of a day of utter misery for so many.
18.
Mike Kay (Ding-Dong-Broder's Dead)
Oh, is this about Manning.
Bradley Manning’s father gave an interview to the PBS Newshour yesterday, saying he has visited his son 9 times in Quantico and that his son is being treated well.
Ooops. Looks like you know who forgot to coach him.
He also believes his son is innocent of the underlying charges.
19.
Martin
@BGinCHI: I read it first as Candy Crowley and assumed it was another CNN == teh stupid post.
20.
LGRooney
Per ABL’s instructions, shouldn’t Glenzilla stop bitching and start rah-rah-ing? Or is it okay to piss & moan when you have a big-enough platform?
21.
Mike Kay (Ding-Dong-Broder's Dead)
Manning’s father has screwed up the whole fabricated mistreatment narrative. Now how is you know who gonna raise money to pay her registrations tags?!
———————————————-
MARTIN SMITH: How many times have you visited him?
BRIAN MANNING: Approximately eight or nine times.
MARTIN SMITH: During those visits, has he ever mentioned any complaint of any kind to you?
BRIAN MANNING: No. I always, you know, am conscientious enough to look him straight in the eyes and ask him a direct question. How are they treating you? Are you sleeping? Is the food OK? And he’s always responded that: Things are just fine.
MARTIN SMITH: How does he look?
BRIAN MANNING: He looks good.
MARTIN SMITH: And he doesn’t complain about being shackled?
BRIAN MANNING: No. He doesn’t complain at all about anything.
MARTIN SMITH: It wouldn’t be surprising for somebody in solitary confinement to be suffering a bit.
BRIAN MANNING: Oh, I’m sure.
MARTIN SMITH: It’s surprising to me that you described him as somebody who’s doing well.
BRIAN MANNING: He comes across to me as doing well.
MARTIN SMITH: He’s in solitary confinement. That’s tremendously difficult, psychologically and physically.
BRIAN MANNING: I understand that.
MARTIN SMITH: So, are you surprised that he’s doing as well as he is?
BRIAN MANNING: I’m happy that he’s doing as well as he is.
MARTIN SMITH: So, is there any reason that Bradley wouldn’t confide in you if things were tough for him there?
BRIAN MANNING: No.
You really have to see the video to get the full impact.
How long before his knee jerk supporters begin to hold the president responsible for the maltreatment of Manning?
I lost track of the pronoun “his”.
Are you seriously asking when [r]obots are going to start holding President Obama responsible?
23.
Mike Kay (Ding-Dong-Broder's Dead)
Manning’s father has screwed up the whole fabricated mistreatment narrative. Now how is you know who gonna raise money to pay her registrations tags?!
———————————————-
MARTIN SMITH: How many times have you visited him?
BRIAN MANNING: Approximately eight or nine times.
MARTIN SMITH: During those visits, has he ever mentioned any complaint of any kind to you?
BRIAN MANNING: No. I always, you know, am conscientious enough to look him straight in the eyes and ask him a direct question. How are they treating you? Are you sleeping? Is the food OK? And he’s always responded that: Things are just fine.
MARTIN SMITH: How does he look?
BRIAN MANNING: He looks good.
MARTIN SMITH: And he doesn’t complain about being shackled?
BRIAN MANNING: No. He doesn’t complain at all about anything.
MARTIN SMITH: It wouldn’t be surprising for somebody in solitary confinement to be suffering a bit.
BRIAN MANNING: Oh, I’m sure.
MARTIN SMITH: It’s surprising to me that you described him as somebody who’s doing well.
BRIAN MANNING: He comes across to me as doing well.
MARTIN SMITH: He’s in solitary confinement. That’s tremendously difficult, psychologically and physically.
BRIAN MANNING: I understand that.
MARTIN SMITH: So, are you surprised that he’s doing as well as he is?
BRIAN MANNING: I’m happy that he’s doing as well as he is.
MARTIN SMITH: So, is there any reason that Bradley wouldn’t confide in you if things were tough for him there?
BRIAN MANNING: No.
You really have to see the video to get the full impact.
Or is it okay to piss & moan when you have a big-enough platform?
God no. The bigger the platform the less you should P&M according to ACL. Or you will be principally responsible for getting Godzilla elected. The actual Godzilla.
25.
General Stuck
Why is there no Front Page mention of what Manning’s father had to say, unless of course, he is an Obot?
26.
Mike from Philly
I for one certainly couldn’t envision a scenario where a government mendacious enough to enforce solitary confinement and forced nudity on someone who has not yet been found guilty of a crime wouldn’t coerce this man to appear on television and state everything is just super. Maybe they promised they’d actually bring him to trial.
coerce this man to appear on television and state everything is just super.
nah, there’s no paranoid lunacy among the anti-Obama crowd. None at all.
30.
Poopyman
@eemom: To be honest to JC, he’s completely democratic about it — in that it never happens. When he’s picked up on something I said, it’s only been links to other sites, not anything original by me.
For fuck’s sake, John Cole, can you please stop being led by the nose by Glenn Greenwald and his firebagger connections? Have you read the questions raised with this “reporting” on “The Reid Report”. Closed system and all that jazz.
Now if we want to talk about inhumane/cruel prison conditions or if the military penal system is even worse, then we can have a productive on-going discussion. But to rely on this closed coterie of “reporting” is just substituting emotional vomiting for 1 PERSON that is a cause celebre for a few leftists at the expense of a broader, more fundamental discussion.
P.S. I hope Crowley isn’t fired.
32.
Mike Kay (Ding-Dong-Broder's Dead)
@Mike from Philly: dude what are you smoking?! it’s producing some killa paranoia.
Snyder’s law gives the state government the power not only to break up unions, but to dissolve entire local governments and place appointed “Emergency Managers” in their stead. But that’s not all – whole cities could be eliminated if Emergency Managers and the governor choose to do so. And Snyder can fire elected officials unilaterally, without any input from voters. It doesn’t get much more anti-Democratic than that.
Except it does. The governor simply has to declare a financial emergency to invoke these powers – or he can hire a private company to declare financial emergency and take over oversight of the city. That’s right, a private corporation can declare your city in a state of financial emergency and send in its Emergency Manager, fire your elected officials, and reap the benefits of the ensuing state contracts.
34.
Mark S.
Uh-oh, in Update V President Obama says:
With respect to Private Manning, 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 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.
In various Manning threads, I’ve been informed that a) Obama probably never heard of Manning and b) any attempt by Obama to do anything in this case would destroy the fabric of time and space (something about Unlawful Command Influence, and somehow that would completely fuck up every military trial).
ETA: This also proves that President Obama reads GG and Firedoglake, since Glenn and Jane are the only people who have ever written about Manning.
35.
Pococurante
@John Cole: She’s afraid you’ll go all Arianna on her. BTW when do we commentators get our royalty check? I’ve checked my mail box everyday – nothing but pizza coupons.
Because Balloon Juice has been infiltrated by Fifth Columnists under the direction of threat-to-the-nation Jlann Gramwaldsher, and is now running psychological counteroperations to break the resolve of the true believers like yourself, Stuckie.
Apparently, the fabrication narrative conspiracy extends all the way to the top. And not just the “blog top,” but the actual top top. The State Department top.
Which means we’ve finally found the head evildoer at last, looking to bring that mothafucka Obama down.
Surprise, surprise. It’s Hillary, bitch. I KNEW IT! TO THE BARRICADES!!
How long before his knee jerk supporters begin to hold the president responsible for the maltreatment of Manning?
They already do, as has been well documented on every Manning thread.
Oh, wait, you meant _Obama’s_ knee jerk supporters? Well, I guess whose knee is jerking depends on the perspective.
38.
Social Outcast
Brian Manning also says he is shocked by the restrictive conditions of his son’s confinement. That includes being locked up alone 23 hours a day and having his clothing taken away at night. Pfc. Manning is given a suicide-proof smock to wear to bed.
“It’s shocking enough that I would come out of our silence as a family and say, ‘Now, then, you crossed the line. This is wrong,'” Brian Manning said.
39.
Mike Kay (Ding-Dong-Broder's Dead)
@Mark S.: whatz his name is up to update #5 already…. ahh, that’s so funny. Let me guess, not one of those 100,000 words address his Manning’s father interview.
40.
Corner Stone
@Mark S.: It’s simple ~ President Obama didn’t say that. End of thread.
41.
FlipYrWhig
@Mark S.: Funny, I thought in many Manning threads the operative theory was that Obama was deliberately instructing the brig to treat Manning as harshly as possible because of how little he cares about civil liberties.
42.
timb
@Poopyman: Not so much, unfortunately. The Prez was asked about it in a nationally broadcast press conference. How dare one speaks the truth.
the right wing’s outrage machine will be at 12 by Monday. impeachment hearing on Obama and Clinton will be in committee by Tuesday
43.
Mike Kay (Ding-Dong-Broder's Dead)
@Bob Loblaw: argue against his father all you want. it only discredits you.
Is he being lied to by his son, so he doesn’t worry?
9 visits in a year? It’s like he’s there all the time (or every 6 weeks….math was never my thing)
50.
General Stuck
Looks like the firebaggers on this thread are coming unglued at the increasing likelyhood we all might well have been conned by a handful of left wing bloggers as to Manning’s overall treatment in custody, to include the blogger of this blog. Other than maybe the recent stripping of clothes for formation, which is the only thing I can remember that was also mentioned by his lawyer.
This is gonna break your heart, Mike, but I couldn’t care less about Bradley Manning.
He defied and humiliated the bureaucracy, got caught, and will be sentenced to life in prison. The government is treating him the exact same way they do all major league spies against the country. I see no extraordinary malfeasance by the Obama administration. Hell, I’m not sure I see any malfeasance period when it comes to him. No politician gives a serious shit about prison conditions, federally, militarily, or (especially) at the state and civilian level. That’s a rabbit hole you’d have to be mental to venture down into.
I just like mocking you conspiracy theory zealots waging your little blog wars.
I will just take the liberty of reposting my earlier observation that Crowley is a half-assed mealy-mouth sell out corporatist for limiting his adjectives to “ridiculous, counterproductive and stupid”—instead of properly condemning the Manning situation as the worst atrocity ever perpetrated on US soil and demanding that Obama not only be impeached over it but extradited to the Hague to stand trial as a War Criminal.
man, eemom, you are just one nasty piece of work. You inexplicably feel compelled to vent your venom against observations that haven’t even been made yet. Feeling a tad defensive about O the Douche?
53.
dslak
If you read the interview with Manning’s father, it’s quite clear he thinks that his son is being mistreated. He says only that he “looks good” and that he can’t think of any reason why his son wouldn’t tell him if he were being mistreated. He does not make any claims about whether what is being done to Manning is a violation of US and international law, which is what Greenwald et al are exercised about.
54.
timb
When are the Firebaggers gonna officially line up for the primary challenger to Obama, so they can go away?
Actually it is worse than that. Obama is deliberately instructing the brig to treat Manning as harshly as possible in order to publicly FLAUNT how little he cares about civil liberties and thereby thumb his nose at the “progressive base.”
And as a way of saying “suck on it, beeyitches” to Hamsher and Greenwald personally. Also too.
Is there a reason why blogs seem to attract the most cynical of us?
Yes. My guess is it’s because blog readers are generally the most information hungry consumers, and therefore more informed. More information USUALLY leads to more realism. “Cynical” is just a deprecating term for “realistic.”
61.
LGRooney
@Bulworth: No, we don’t! And, we are # 1 in our ability to publish new editions of dictionaries. USA! USA! USA!
dude, there are medications that will help your condition.
64.
timb
@Mike Kay (Ding-Dong-Broder’s Dead): yes, by asking questions, I have attacked him. Did you enjoy your time as one of Hannity’s producers?
65.
eemom
I must say, this thread is already exceeding expectations.
Now all we need is for weepy little mcpsycho to pop up, like the little “good conscience” angel you see in cartoons.
66.
dslak
@Mike Kay (Ding-Dong-Broder’s Dead): For starters, perhaps you failed to read the headline on that article: “WikiLeaks Suspect’s Dad: Bradley Manning ‘Being Humiliated’ But ‘Looks Good.'”
It’s in small print, and easy to miss. Maybe Greenwald forced him to say it, though.
67.
dslak
Let’s also look at how the interview starts:
MARTIN SMITH: You decided that you wanted to sit down and talk today because you want to complain publicly about the conditions of his imprisonment.
BRIAN MANNING, father of Pvt. Bradley Manning: Yes.
nah, there’s no paranoid lunacy among the anti-Obama crowd. None at all.
well no, of course not, because if we’ve learned anything at all over the last 15 years or so, it’s that the U.S. government never does anything untoward or diabolical, and has no power whatsoever to coerce or spread false information.
Unlike the focus of your suppressed Sapphic obsession, Jane Hamsher, who is all powerful and omnipresent; and who for some reason really gets under yours skin to a level that is disturbingly out of all proportion to her influence.
69.
Mike Kay (Ding-Dong-Broder's Dead)
@dslak: it’s beyond odd that you would say that greenwald would know about mannings confinements, when glenn has never visited manning, while his father has 9 times.
all of glen’s information is 2nd hand viewed from Brazil. Manning’s father is actual pressing flesh.
70.
dslak
@Mike Kay (Ding-Dong-Broder’s Dead): Surely not quite as odd as someone who would read an interview where Manning’s father complains of how his son is being treated as an endorsement of said treatment.
In various Manning threads, I’ve been informed that a) Obama probably never heard of Manning and b) any attempt by Obama to do anything in this case would destroy the fabric of time and space (something about Unlawful Command Influence, and somehow that would completely fuck up every military trial).
People use this type of sneering straw man when they find themselves unable to rebut the actual arguments they object to.
…It’s not amphetamines is it? Because I’ve been popping greenies for years now, and that doesn’t seem to do the trick. Is it crack? Should I give that a shot?
@General Stuck: Jesus Christ Stuck, you’re an idiot. Solitary confinement itself is arguably a form of cruel and unusual punishment, with the emphasis on punishment. But since Manning is only charged, and not yet convicted, what he’s experiencing doesn’t even qualify on that basis. And the argument that this punishment is actually a suicide-watch safety concern is laughable.
Is his Dad a lawyer? Is he an expert on pre-trial detention?
He’s an expert on his son’s well-being, and on his son’s personality.
Is he being lied to by his son, so he doesn’t worry?
You think a torture victim – actually, I believe the term is “brutal torture” victim – could keep in together well enough that his own father wouldn’t see any evidence that he’s been harmed?
78.
Mike Kay (Ding-Dong-Broder's Dead)
@Stillwater: he’s not in solitary. he’s in maximum security. he’s not segregated, he’s being held in a cell block with 50 other prisoners.
79.
dslak
@Mike Kay (Ding-Dong-Broder’s Dead): How is it twisting the interview to point out that Manning’s father does, in fact, believe that his son is being mistreated? Or did you just skip those bits?
Solitary confinement itself is arguably a form of cruel and unusual punishment
Well, it can be. Solitary confinement is more like sleep deprivation or temperature control, than like waterboarding or beatings or electrical shocks, in that the differences in degree, duration, and intensity cause the treatment to range from completely innocuous through harsh, abusive, and even torturous. If you are waterboarded, you are being tortured when the first splash of water hits your throat. When you are being shocked, you are being tortured when the first jolt goes into your body. On the other hand, “forced standing” is not torture at all if it last 20 minutes, while can be extremely cruel and damaging if it last 48 hours. Keeping someone up until midnight asking them questions, after they had a full night’s sleep, isn’t abusive or torturous at all, while keeping them awake for four or five days is agonizing torture.
Keeping someone in “solitary” that actually includes regular visits, mail, access to a lawyer, and television hours may not count as anything worse than “unpleasant,” while the extreme, extended deprivation that, for instance, Jose Padilla endured was clearly abusive and may well amount to torture. It certainly did a job on Padilla, whose dad would have had absolutely no problem noticing that his son was in bad shape, from what I’ve read about him.
he came to a messy end
don’t think he will ever mend
86.
soonergrunt
@joe from Lowell:
@Mike Kay (Ding-Dong-Broder’s Dead):
You guys need to just stop with the common sense and facts. Those don’t play well on manning threads.
It makes you very unpopular with the cool kids.
@General Stuck: That turns out to be something he did–the standing naked at attention part. At least according to the article I read this morning that I linked in Mix’s tsunami thread. The same kind of thing that led him to the comment about strangling himself with his underwear that started the naked thing. He’s got spirit, no doubt about it. He’ll need it in the coming months.
While the whole denial of clothes thing is petty and stupid, and it lowers us, it’s not torture, and being kept in a cell where he can converse with other prisoners, speak to people, watch fucking television, and have Jane Fucking Hamsher come to visit him is not solitary confinement.
The poutrage is truly hilarious, especially from people who would hate him with every fiber of their beings if he had not broken the particular laws he broke.
At least Bob Loblaw, annoying little toerag he, is honest at #51 about it.
No, it’s not torture. Not even Amnesty calls it torture, and they aren’t shy about calling a spade a spade.
On the other that, there’s a difference between “not torture” and “appropriate treatment.”
The earlier, illegal suicide watch order (that wasn’t from a psychologist, as the regulations require) was completely out of bounds, and strongly suggests that pretexts are being used to screw with the guy.
I disagree. I’m an older, white and proud leftist. Here’s where I diverge from the cynics: cynicism, IMO, is not REALISM; it’s a shade short of nihilism.
Realism is understanding how government actually works. Too often my fellow compatriots look like they’re on the receiving end of the idealistic “revolutionaries” in the movie “Reds”. Ideologically pure but clueless.
9 visits in a year? It’s like he’s there all the time (or every 6 weeks….math was never my thing)
I know, I know…Isn’t it horrible that he’s only made the trip from Oklahoma to northeastern Virginia 9 times since, what, July? You’d think he’d do what the families of other detainees do: Sell the house, quit the job and move.
92.
Stillwater
@joe from Lowell: But Joe, the whole interview was premised around Brian Manning going public about his concerns regarding his son’s treatment.
MARTIN SMITH: You decided that you wanted to sit down and talk today because you want to complain publicly about the conditions of his imprisonment.
__
BRIAN MANNING, father of Pvt. Bradley Manning: Yes.
He’s responding to something here, something he’s seen or inferred, which clearly doesn’t fit the narrative of those defending… whatever it is they’re defending. (That he’s not being mistreated, I guess.)
“Cynical” is just a deprecating term for “realistic.”
No, it’s not. That’s just what faux-wordly poseurs tell themselves. It’s just the flip side of gullible, and it makes you an easy mark, because you are already emotionally committed to a storyline before you know the facts, just like a gullible true believer.
“Skeptical” is a good stance to take. Skepticism is an insistence on lots of information information before drawing a conclusion. Cynicism is just the belief that one doesn’t need plentiful, reliable information before drawing a conclusion, as long as it’s a negative conclusion, based on a reflexive belief that an interpretation or position must be right, if it matches one’s cynical assumptions.
The poutrage is truly hilarious, especially from people who would hate him with every fiber of their beings if he had not broken the particular laws he broke.
yes, funny how the same insect taking up the righteous cause of PFC Manning TODAY, was all “EVERYBODY in the military is a complicit cog in the machinery of evil and if you join the military you’re nothing more than a killer,” yesterday. Quite funny that.
96.
Mike Kay (Ding-Dong-Broder's Dead)
let me just repeat some facts.
1. He is not being held in solitary.
2. He is being held in maximum security, in a U-shaped cell block.
3. He is not in isolation, there are 50 other cells in his cell block.
4. His father has visited him 9 times during his 9 month confinement (9 times more than glenn and jane). He says he’s “happy” with his son’s treatment and Manning has never once issued a complaint to his father’s extensive questioning.
5. Manning, on his own, reported to attention in the nude. He was not asked to.
The video of Manning’s father interview is compelling and should be viewed and judged in it’s entirety.
His complaint is the forced public nudity, which the Pentagon claims was Bradley Manning’s choice.
98.
Stillwater
@joe from Lowell: Arguing with you guys is like herding cats. The context was the assertion that his son is in solitary, and that that’s difficult. The father agreed. What larger context do we need here? The whole discussion of the bottom part of the thread is to take the fathers words at face value, and that Bradley is ‘doing well’.
Well, according to eemom, GG is on a par with the Koch brothers for the title of “Evilest Person on the Planet.” She’s happy to see Manning being tortured and would like it if he was tortured a whole lot more. Possibly because she hates Wikileaks, but I think 90% of her reasoning is that if GG is defending him, he should be tortured for that alone.
At least, that is the impression she has given me every time the topic comes up.
On the other that, there’s a difference between “not torture” and “appropriate treatment.”
…
The earlier, illegal suicide watch order (that wasn’t from a psychologist, as the regulations require) was completely out of bounds, and strongly suggests that pretexts are being used to screw with the guy.
Absolutely. I’d even go you one farther and submit that the Quantico Marine Base Commander’s response (denial) the Manning Art. 138 appeal of his treatment was probably improper under the law. An impartial investigation, which a proper reaction to an Art. 138 filing would presumably include, would, I believe state pretty much what you just did, and the Commander would be bound by federal law, UCMJ, and USMC regulations to address that.
I’ve said earlier that I thought that the Convening Authority needed to remove Manning from the Quantico brig, citing loss of confidence in the Brig’s ability to fulfill it’s mission where Army Pre-trial confinees are concerned, but I don’t know where they’d put him.
She’s happy to see Manning being tortured and would like it if he was tortured a whole lot more. Possibly because she hates Wikileaks, but I think 90% of her reasoning is that if GG is defending him, he should be tortured for that alone.
Stop pretending you can read my mind, twat. It’s above your grade level.
Yeah, because there’s never any chance that Dad complaining in public will create an even more difficult situation for Pvt. Manning, is there? Or that worse conditions might result from Pvt. Manning complaining to his Dad because no one in the military would be so crass as to monitor all his conversations with visitors other than his lawyers, right?
Yeah, that’s never happened before.
106.
Bob Loblaw
This comment section just kills me. Without fail.
The point, as usual, is completely missed.
What we can now infer is a few things:
Either the upper echelon of the civilian bureaucracy (including the Assistant SoS) is (a) spectacularly misinformed about the conduct of another branch and running their mouths off about it, (b) dubious as to the legitimacy (or perhaps even legality) of another branch of the government’s conduct but internally silenced, or (c) not only aware of the work being done by Bloodthirsty Ideological Opponents and Saboteurs of the Administration, but sympathetic and respectful towards it and willing to collaborate with these alleged villains to conduct end-around policy change.
Shattered narratives everywhere. But keep at it diehards of both persuasions. You have shown your quality.
Arguing with you guys, on the other hand, is like herding cattle; it really is only on side of this debate where there are shades of opinion.
The context was the assertion that his son is in solitary, and that that’s difficult. The father agreed. What larger context do we need here?
How about the context of the words you quoted?
MARTIN SMITH: It’s surprising to me that you described him as somebody who’s doing well.
BRIAN MANNING: He comes across to me as doing well.
MARTIN SMITH: He’s in solitary confinement. That’s tremendously difficult, psychologically and physically.
BRIAN MANNING: I understand that.
He had JUST STATED, in the VERY LAST THING HE SAID, that his son was doing well, and when Smith prodded him to make sure, Manning confirmed it.
You know this. The fact that you felt the need to edit the interview so closely, to leave out what he had just said in order to change its meaning, shows that you did this on purpose.
Don’t weasel away now and pretend that Manning’s father’s intent in doing the interview obviates the man’s own, repeated, confirmed statement of his position.
The earlier, illegal suicide watch order (that wasn’t from a psychologist, as the regulations require) was completely out of bounds, and strongly suggests that pretexts are being used to screw with the guy.
And how much of this is the guards over-indulging their prerogatives? A friend of mine is a guard in a super-max facility, and there seems to be a lot of back-and-forth between the prisoners and guards that the warden never hears about.
Well, according to eemom, GG is on a par with the Koch brothers for the title of “Evilest Person on the Planet.” She’s happy to see Manning being tortured and would like it if he was tortured a whole lot more. Possibly because she hates Wikileaks, but I think 90% of her reasoning is that if GG is defending him, he should be tortured for that alone.
This is the type of straw man one invents when the actual arguments one disputes are beyond one’s ability to rebut.
No, it’s not torture, solitary confinement. If it was true solitary, it would be, but there is plenty of sensory stimuli to put it out of the torture zone. And i was talking about all the other bullshit deprivations you clowns and your prog heroes have been feeding us that turned out to be false info.
Deal with it, like a man, and not and idiotic hack.
111.
Mike Kay (Ding-Dong-Broder's Dead)
@geg6: on the contrary, going on tee vee and complaining would have created greater media attention and stronger pressure to relieve a negative situation.
Look, I realize this interview is a blow to the blog narrative coming from Brazil, so it triggers immediate defensiveness, denial, and even conspiracy theories to bridge the now debunked elements of abuse. But at some point you have to come to grips with that there has been no factual foundation for the prior narrative.
Yeah, because there’s never any chance that Dad complaining in public will create an even more difficult situation for Pvt. Manning, is there? Or that worse conditions might result from Pvt. Manning complaining to his Dad because no one in the military would be so crass as to monitor all his conversations with visitors other than his lawyers, right?
This doesn’t make any sense. Mr. Manning went on national television and complained about his son’s treatment.
“AAARRRGHHH!” all you want, but following the Harold Ford/MTP/Egypt comments that blew the “can’t watch or read the news” meme out of the water, you have to admit that their some fishiness in Team Manning’s arguments.
115.
dslak
It’s worth noting that “Gleen Greenwald lives in Brazil” isn’t a refutation of anything he’s said.
It’s worth noting that “Gleen Greenwald lives in Brazil” isn’t a refutation of anything he’s said.
No, the report about Manning watching Meet the Press refutes something he said. Manning’s father’s report about his son’s condition refutes other things Greenwald has said.
Pointing out that Greenwald is opinion from Brazil, based on second-hand information, is just an explanation for why he keeps being refuted.
117.
Mike Kay (Ding-Dong-Broder's Dead)
@dslak:see, this is what I thought. This has nothing to do with Manning, and everything to do with Dear Leader glenn/jane.
I like to refer back to the original source of the meaning of Cynicism, as a base for understanding what people think they mean by the term as it is generally used today:
From Wikipedia:
The term originally derives from an ancient Greece philosophers group called the Cynics who rejected all conventions, whether of religion, manners, housing, dress, or decency, advocating the pursuit of virtue in a simple and unmaterialistic lifestyle. By the 19th century, emphasis on the negative aspects of Cynic philosophy led to the modern understanding of cynicism to mean a disposition to disbelieve in the sincerity or goodness of human motives and actions. Modern cynicism, as a product of mass society, is a distrust toward professed ethical and social values, especially when there are high expectations concerning society, institutions and authorities which are unfulfilled.
119.
dslak
@joe from Lowell:
But is Greenwald mistaken on the fundamental issue? That is, is he mistaken in his claim that Manning is being criminally mistreated, and perhaps for political reasons?
Brain Manning doesn’t indicate that in his interview, yet there are some here saying that he does.
The term originally derives from an ancient Greece philosophers group called the Cynics who rejected all conventions, whether of religion, manners, housing, dress, or decency, advocating the pursuit of virtue in a simple and unmaterialistic lifestyle. By the 19th century, emphasis on the negative aspects of Cynic philosophy led to the modern understanding of cynicism to mean a disposition to disbelieve in the sincerity or goodness of human motives and actions. Modern cynicism, as a product of mass society, is a distrust toward professed ethical and social values, especially when there are high expectations concerning society, institutions and authorities which are unfulfilled.
Joe, you don’t get to just make up your own definition and impose it on me. But thanks.
A bit funny for the guy who accuses everyone who disagrees with him of being some kind of Greenwald/Hamsher cultist complaining that Greenwald isn’t the issue, though.
122.
Draylon Hogg
@105
Ye Gods what are you saying?
The American military is renowned for its subtlety.
Remember this classic?
“It became necessary to destroy the town to save it”
Okay, so someone there was caught over-indulging his prerogatives and was relieved from duty by his superiors. My point being that the problem could very, very well be at brig level, and not above. The Commandant of the Marines doesn’t have to put up with detainees directly, nor is he dealing with them for hours a day. Jailers do.
So here’s Manning, a guy the jailers have been ordered to protect so he can be delivered to his court martial, and there’s a lot of pressure on them, and Manning is constantly cracking wise to the point their sick and fucking tired of him, then he makes a remark about committing suicide with the elastic waist band of his underwear? “Fuck you, pal! Even if we think you’re probably joking, you don’t get your underwear tonight. We’ll dig up something appropriate to wear in the morning, but it’s lights out NOW. I’d rather catch shit for THIS tomorrow than catch shit forever in case you did something to yourself. Asshole”
124.
Canadian Observer
I see joe from Lowell continues to (not) surprise in his utter blindness to his country’s slide into Fascism.
funny how the same insect taking up the righteous cause of PFC Manning TODAY, was all “EVERYBODY in the military is a complicit cog in the machinery of evil and if you join the military you’re nothing more than a killer,” yesterday. Quite funny that.
surely even YOU can acknowledge the difference between finding yourself in a corrupt, murderous institution and doing something to oppose the same, even at the cost of your freedom and potentially your life, such as Manning did; and serving that institution faithfully, even in the face of same knowledge until retirement, and then sucking on the gov teet in the form of a pension from same murderous institution while you sit on your fat ass, as does your buddy SG.
I have to admit, I really don’t understand what you guys are arguing here. It seems like a determined effort to merely prove GG wrong, rather than any consideration of whether Manning is in fact being mistreated or not. And of course, this goes along with idea that the argument is intended to pre-empt that possibility from being discussed out of a reflexive desire to defend Obama from imagined slings and arrows.
What rational, curious person give’s a rats ass about any of those issues? Manning either is, or isn’t, being subject to abusive detention in advance of his trial. Obama either is, or isn’t complicit in this. All these issues stand alone.
But I think what @Bob Loblaw says at the link is instructive, given the comments made today by Crowley, who explicitly admitted that the received treatment is less than appropriate.
Now, let the tortured reading of ‘less than appropriate’ begin.
127.
Omnes Omnibus
@Draylon Hogg: Ypres involved some awfully subtle thinking on the part of the British General staff. Sorry, the shot was there; I had to take it. I actually tend to agree with your point.
surely even YOU can acknowledge the difference between finding yourself in a corrupt, murderous institution and doing something to oppose the same, even at the cost of your freedom and potentially your life, such as Manning did…
Yeah, I’m sur that Manning was shocked to no end when he found out that he wasn’t assigned to the 97th Gardening and Landscaping Division.
How possible is it that Manning, who didn’t really want to join the Army in the first place, has been doing anything possible to get out in the most comfortable way possible, and that misleading Team Manning so that they can positively spin his case isn’t outside the realm of possibilities?
Yeah, I’m sur that Manning was shocked to no end when he found out that he wasn’t assigned to the 97th Gardening and Landscaping Division.
So pithy.
you don’t think a LOT of ignorant, innocent kids go into the military with stars in their eyes, full of the propaganda they’ve been fed all their lives, and then discover the reality is 180 from what they imagined it to be?
Manning saw corruption, lies, random murder and chose to try to do something about it. He is a hero. You are a military macho wannabe.
Does Mike Kay, amidst all the triumphalism, have an explanation for PJ Crowley’s statements? Are we to assume that the State Department’s leading spokesman gets all his information from Greenwald and Hamsher, and is mistaken just like they are?
And you know exactly what’s happening because…? Underpants gnomes?
137.
dslak
@Tim: Focusing on Manning’s character avoids the main issue, though. Regardless of the merit of what he’s done, there are laws about how people held in the custody of the United States military and government ought to be treated, and it seems like those are being violated here.
138.
Mike Kay (Ding-Dong-Broder's Dead)
@Svensker: have they visited manning? the answer is no.
you don’t think a LOT of ignorant, innocent kids go into the military with stars in their eyes, full of the propaganda they’ve been fed all their lives, and then discover the reality is 180 from what they imagined it to be?
Oh, sure, I think a lot of kids do. I don’t think so many do it when the country is fighting in two unpopular wars (Manning enliste in ’07). I think even less kids who have worked at Starbucks and A&F would tend to do so at any point.
Have you? You seem awfully sure of your ability to know what’s going on.
Are you planning a sternly worded letter to Amnesty explaining that they are being played by Glenn/Jane?
145.
RP
OH MY GOD.
With all of the horrible s*** that’s going on in this country and around the world, I cannot believe anyone would spend more than 5 minutes discussing Bradley F***ing Manning’s treatment in prison.
But calling me a twat is in the fine tradition of debate.
Got it.
147.
Stillwater
@dslak: Radley Balko thinks Manning isn’t being treated well, either. I wonder if he knows GG lives in Brazil?
148.
Omnes Omnibus
@Draylon Hogg: That is, of course, one interpretation. Back to your original point though, the military, of whatever country, is generally not renowned for the level of subtle thinking of which the commenter was accusing it. The military is tool, much like a hammer, good at what it does but not necessarily good at other things.
149.
dslak
@RP: I categorically oppose forcing you to read this thread, and support your freedom to read other threads dealing with topics important to you.
150.
soonergrunt
@RP: We don’t have that here. Go to another thread.
@geg6: It’s right up there with “the military mind is sick!”
You obviously don’t know any kids of age to sign up, do you?
I do. They are just as wide-eyed and innocent as kids are when they sign up in peacetime. Perhaps even more, after the last ten years of military fetishism.
So you’re saying that the State Department spokesperson is in on the ruse?
I don’t think Crowley knows any more about it than does Greenwald, whose info all seems to be coming second-hand through Coombs and House.
The Hamsher detention is this whole thing in a microcosm. “ZOMG! I was detained for trying to visit Manning!” Except that Jane had expired Oregon plates on her car, and a DC driving license, and was trying to get into a highly secured military base.
“ZOMG, Manning is in solitary!” He’s not.
“ZOMG, Manning can’t watch the news!” He can.
“ZOMG, Manning is forced to stand at attention naked- in front of (yecch!) GIRLS!” But that isn’t true.
Look, WikiLeaks might have lofty, altruistic goals. That doesn’t mean they vet their sources for the same sort of moral and ethical character.
But calling me a twat is in the fine tradition of debate.
Got it.
It’s only ok for EEEEEMOMEEEE to call you a “twat.” If anybody else uses a vaginally-inspired word they will be denounced by the EM as a raging sexist pig unfit to live.
But eemom, being a Twat-American, gets to say whatever she wants, you see.
You obviously don’t know any kids of age to sign up, do you?
Yeah, my kid- 21 today!- and his buddies.
I was getting pressured by dad and an uncle to sign up in ’85. I didn’t do it. Some of my buddies did, some had positive experiences, some had negative experiences…But the ones I talk to today say they wouldn’t have signed up in ’05. Not a onme of them.
Well, as a pacifist, I have no problem with the idea that the military mind is sick. It is. It leads to all sorts of evil in this world. Probably no more than religion, but that is not enough to recommend it.
You served in the military, I get it. I know lots of people who have and I have no problem with them as individuals. I help veterans every single day on the job and support them with money and time on my off hours. What I do have a problem with is the military mindset that says force is always the proper response and the more the better, that women in the military are there to be raped and abused, that gays in the military are there to be humiliated and debased, and that it’s funny and fun to mistreat prisoners of any nationality, especially when said prisoners are soldiers who have not yet been convicted. And the evidence shows that many of these are a bedrock part of the military mindset.
Eh, you’re right. I mean, not that you argued this view. But really, an official spokesperson for a major department prolly isn’t required to know very much of anything. Especially in a tiny, inconsequential department like State. They just go about their business, telling people what they want to hear, just making shit up as they go. No worries.
I just have a question: do the circles in your arguments ever make noise when they collide?
That’s your buddies. The ones who are now a whole lot older than your 21-year-old. I’m also guessing that your 21-year-old came from a family that didn’t need the Post 9/11 GI Bill to pay for his college, so he had no reason to even look into signing up. You really are out of your depth here in this argument. Some of these kids sign up so that their families don’t have their mouths to fill, leaving less for everyone else.
161.
soonergrunt
@geg6: I can only hope that you don’t get many veterans to ‘help’ or that somebody checks behind you. You can’t possibly hold those beliefs, that “these a bedrock part of the military mindset” and actually help them. If you honestly think that, then you should detest them and doing everything you can to thwart them, if you fancy yourself a moral being.
I don’t honestly know anyone who thinks the way you seem to think that we think, it being a bedrock part of the military mindset. I know plenty of fools and jackasses who think that those things are a bedrock part of the military mind set. I know a few conservatives, some of whom are military personnel or veterans for whom those things are a bedrock part of their mindset, but it is intellectual laziness to equate the two. I’ll give you credit for honesty on that front, though.
I’m also guessing that your 21-year-old came from a family that didn’t need the Post 9/11 GI Bill to pay for his college..
You’d be wrong. Dad is running to work now.
I know a lot of kids of the age and insufficient means who have had their chance to sign up and said, “Fuck that!” In fact, I’m going to work with them in a few minutes.
No, it’s not torture. Not even Amnesty calls it torture, and they aren’t shy about calling a spade a spade.
“Amnesty International is concerned that the conditions inflicted on Bradley Manning, the soldier accused of leaking information to Wikileaks, are unnecessarily severe and amount to inhumane treatment by the US authorities. Bradley Manning has not been convicted of any offence, but military authorities appear to be using all available means to punish him while in detention. The conditions under which Bradley Manning is held appear to breach the USA’s human rights obligations.” Amnesty Int’l
But I guess inhumane treatment==torture so what do they know, amirite?
The man is the Assistant Secretary of State. He’s Clinton’s right hand man. Either he’s being accused of spectacular ignorance here, or there’s some crazy mendaciousness being played out.
That could never happen. Because President Obama is so pro-human rights and all.
169.
RP
@dslak: And I support your freedom to participate in this thread. I also support my freedom to say that the fascination with Manning is bizarre.
170.
dslak
@RP: Except that isn’t what you said. You said that the people posting on the matter here lack perspective. But I fail to see how your post is more important than anything else going on in the world right now.
Awhile ago I lost a son with military background to jail suicide. He managed it quite handily though he wasn’t under suicide watch. It wasn’t a demostration “accident” it was quite deliberate, premeditated, and worked exactly as he intended. Someone who knows how and is quite determined doesn’t need many resources to get there.
As for Manning, anything the military does beyond protecting him is out of bounds, considering the body – way out of bounds. I’m sure there is some real temptation to go too far … if that has happened it needs to stop and probably, given the suspicions, the military needs to move Manning to a place not under a cloud.
I’d say the chances are real good that Manning will have quite a bit of time to consider whether what he’s done is worth it to him in light of the cost. Those are the sorts of things you get to do if you decide your morals outweigh the law.
based on your comments, you’re not my intellectual equal.
Though you are certainly more than my equal in foul-mouthery, which makes it particularly hilarious to see you clutch your self-righteous pearls over twat twat TWAT.
And as for “debate,” if you think that fetishistic speculation about why I “want Manning to be tortured” is debate…..well, as the kitty says, ur doing it wrong.
But I guess inhumane treatment==torture so what do they know, amirite?
Unlike our media, Amnesty International never hesitates to call torture what it is, so if they meant “torture,” they would say torture and not pussyfoot around with “inhumane treatment.”
Here’s a link to a PDF of one of their recent papers about Guantanamo — they have no problem at all saying flat out that Bush established a torture regime there.
In an exclusive “Frontline” interview this week with correspondent Martin Smith, Bradley Manning’s father, Brian Manning, talked for the first time about his son’s incarceration.
MARTIN SMITH: You decided that you wanted to sit down and talk today because you want to complain publicly about the conditions of his imprisonment.
BRIAN MANNING, father of Pvt. Bradley Manning: Yes.
MARTIN SMITH: And those conditions are?
BRIAN MANNING: Well, he’s being — his clothing is being taken away from him, and he’s being humiliated by having to stand at attention in front of people, male or female that I — as far as I know, you know, that are fully clothed.
MARTIN SMITH: Who tells you that?
BRIAN MANNING: I read it in the statement that was put out by his civilian attorney.
I mean, this is someone that has not been — you know, gone to trial or been convicted of anything. And that’s prompted me to — you know, to come out and go forward. I mean, they worry about people down in — you know, in a base in Cuba, but here they are, have someone in, you know, on our own soil and under their own control, and they’re treating him this way.
I mean, it’s — you know, I just can’t believe — you just can’t believe it. I mean, it’s shocking enough that I would come out of, you know, our silence, as a family, and say, you know, now then this — you know, you have crossed the line. This is wrong.
KWAME HOLMAN: Today, the NewsHour asked the military for a response to Brian Manning’s assertions.
A statement from the Department of Defense said in part: “The circumstances of PFC Manning’s pretrial confinement are regularly reviewed, and complies in all respects with U.S. law and Department of Defense regulations.
“In recent days, as the result of concerns for PFC Manning’s personal safety, his undergarments were taken from him during sleeping hours. He was not made to stand naked for morning count, but on one day, he chose to do so. There were no female personnel present at the time. PFC Manning has since been issued a garment to sleep in at night. He is clothed in a standard jumpsuit during the day. None of the conditions under which PFC Manning is held are punitive in nature.”
In his interview with “Frontline,” Brian Manning says he saw no signs of suicidal intentions in his son.
That is, is he mistaken in his claim that Manning is being criminally mistreated, and perhaps for political reasons?
To the first question, I don’t know. I’m concerned about some of the things I’ve learned, but I’ve also come to be deeply suspicious about the claims being made.
To the second part, almost certainly not. Even if we were to take the accusations at face value, Manning’s treatment wouldn’t be any different from that experienced by other big-time espionage suspects like Alrich Ames, James Hansen, or the Walkers after they were arrested.
Joe, you don’t get to just make up your own definition and impose it on me. But thanks.
How about looking in the dictionary then?
cyn·i·cism (sn-szm)
n.
1. An attitude of scornful or jaded negativity, especially a general distrust of the integrity or professed motives of others: the public cynicism aroused by governmental scandals.
2. A scornfully or jadedly negative comment or act:
There is exactly one of us who has made up their own definition of this term, and it ain’t me, babe.
My point being that the problem could very, very well be at brig level, and not above.
Ah, ok. I thought, with the use of “guards,” you were talking about the inappropriate actions being brought about by actual guards who got carried away on the spot, as opposed to following official orders from the superior officer.
I agree, there doesn’t appear to be any evidence at all for the conspiracy theory about the White House ordering harsh treatment. Even Greenwald has now backed off his earlier accusations, and is now phrasing his criticism as “Obama isn’t getting involved to remedy the problem,” instead of “Obama ordered the problem.”
I have to admit, I really don’t understand what you guys are arguing here. It seems like a determined effort to merely prove GG wrong, rather than any consideration of whether Manning is in fact being mistreated or not.
I’m sure it “seems” like that to you. Once you’ve decided that the issue is about angels vs demons, and if I’m not with you than I’m with the terrorists, then anything I write questioning the revealed wisdom makes me the enemy. Have you considered the possibility that there are a lot of holes in the story, and that one can draw a conclusion about its credibility based on the strength of the case itself, rather than by adherence to one team or another?
And of course, this goes along with idea that the argument is intended to pre-empt that possibility from being discussed out of a reflexive desire to defend Obama from imagined slings and arrows.
I see the answer to my question is “No, I haven’t considered that.”
@geg6: I haven’t the foggiest idea what you’re babbling about. Please don’t interpret this as a request to have you explain.
@Corner Stone: So, you confirmed what I wrote to the person who claimed that Manning was being tortured – that is, that I was right, he was wrong, and Amnesty backed me up that he was not – and then, since what I wrote was shown to be right, you decided to make something up and pretend it has even the slightest relationship to my actual argument.
So, let me get this straight. I wrote:
No, it’s not torture. Not even Amnesty calls it torture, and they aren’t shy about calling a spade a spade.
On the other that, there’s a difference between “not torture” and “appropriate treatment.”
The earlier, illegal suicide watch order (that wasn’t from a psychologist, as the regulations require) was completely out of bounds, and strongly suggests that pretexts are being used to screw with the guy.
And you managed to interpret that as But I guess inhumane treatment==torture so what do they know, amirite?
That’s just pathetic. Did you lose a bet, with the stakes being that you now have to make yourself look like a disingenuous moron on the internet?
The man is the Assistant Secretary of State. He’s Clinton’s right hand man. Either he’s being accused of spectacular ignorance here, or there’s some crazy mendaciousness being played out.
Are you under the impression that Marine brig staff report on prisoner conditions to the State Department?
182.
Corner Stone
@joe from Lowell: Speaking of pathetic. Amnesty quite clearly called it “inhumane treatment” which most sentient beings don’t waste time trying to parse out from “torture”. But you go ahead friend, keep parsing it up.
Apparently the only two allowable choices are “there’s nothing wrong with his treatment” or “he’s being tortured!” Saying that Manning is being treated like crap but that it doesn’t reach the level of what, say, Maher Arar was forced to endure is apparently the same as saying everything is okey-dokey.
There is exactly one of us who has made up their own definition of this term, and it ain’t me, babe.
when you called me “babe” I felt tingles in my special areas.
THIS, from Dictionary.com, is the rough definition of “cynic” to which I ascribe:
( initial capital letter ) one of a sect of Greek philosophers, 4th century b.c., who advocated the doctrines that virtue is the only good, that the essence of virtue is self-control, and that surrender to any external influence is beneath human dignity.
And yes, you did select the definition you like and attempt to apply it to me. But I get to choose the one that fits.
The State Department and Pentagon are eternal rivals and sometimes outright enemies, war and peace and the tension betwixt the two I suppose. There is really not much doubt in my mind that GG on teevee every few days making allegations got their attention. and maybe the statements of Manning’s lawyer.
Of course that was before Manning’s dad went on Newshour.
edit – and when Amnesty Inter. got involved, they likely felt the need to respond in some way to the allegations.
So when David House came out a little while back and said that Manning- whom he’d never met in person, face-to-face before Manning was moved to Quantico- looked like a terible, tortured mess, was he lying? Because if you keep going with that interview:
MARTIN SMITH: How many times have you visited him?
BRIAN MANNING: Approximately eight or nine times.
MARTIN SMITH: During those visits, has he ever mentioned any complaint of any kind to you?
BRIAN MANNING: No. I always, you know, am conscientious enough to look him straight in the eyes and ask him a direct question. How are they treating you? Are you sleeping? Is the food OK? And he’s always responded that: Things are just fine.
MARTIN SMITH: How does he look?
BRIAN MANNING: He looks good.
MARTIN SMITH: And he doesn’t complain about being shackled?
BRIAN MANNING: No. He doesn’t complain at all about anything.
MARTIN SMITH: It wouldn’t be surprising for somebody in solitary confinement to be suffering a bit.
BRIAN MANNING: Oh, I’m sure.
MARTIN SMITH: It’s surprising to me that you described him as somebody who’s doing well.
BRIAN MANNING: He comes across to me as doing well.
MARTIN SMITH: He’s in solitary confinement. That’s tremendously difficult, psychologically and physically.
BRIAN MANNING: I understand that.
MARTIN SMITH: So, are you surprised that he’s doing as well as he is?
BRIAN MANNING: I’m happy that he’s doing as well as he is.
MARTIN SMITH: So, is there any reason that Bradley wouldn’t confide in you if things were tough for him there?
BRIAN MANNING: No.
188.
sparky
congratulations, JC! one of the more nauseating threads in quite some time. reading this is like reading red state with better typing, thus way scarier.
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Dennis SGMM
I’m certain that his (contrite) resignation has already been provided to him.
Corner Stone
More like how long before he issues an abject and complete apology, then resigns?
Poopyman
Lost in the other news of the day.
Lucky him!
Yutsano
@Poopyman: Woot for dead news Friday no?
Poopyman
Besides, there’s always been a strained relationship between State and Defense. The only danger to him would be if the White House …..
Social Outcast
A spokesman who speaks candidly? That’s the greatest sin in D.C.
Poopyman
OTOH, if he had said the same thing on a surreptitiously recorded video by James O’Keefe, he would be well and truly screwed.
Zifnab
How quickly can we get O’Keefe out there in a pimp suite?
BGinCHI
I first read the headline as “Why Does PJ Harvey Hate America?”
My quick answer was that it’s ok, she hates a lot of stuff.
eemom
because JC never hat tips anybody, I will just take the liberty of reposting my earlier observation that Crowley is a half-assed mealy-mouth sell out corporatist for limiting his adjectives to “ridiculous, counterproductive and stupid”– instead of properly condemning the Manning situation as the worst atrocity ever perpetrated on US soil and demanding that Obama not only be impeached over it but extradited to the Hague to stand trial as a War Criminal.
JWL
How long before his knee jerk supporters begin to hold the president responsible for the maltreatment of Manning?
Martin
Wow. How shocking is honesty these days?
And McCain and Graham want to remove even more checks against how DOD acts. I wonder if this isn’t building into something. Usually these kinds of statements only happen when the internal debate is so heated that it can’t help but spill out.
Pamela F
Is there a reason why blogs seem to attract the most cynical of us? The president said that Crowley gave a hard hitting analysis from a PERSONAL viewpoint (paraphrasing)…he didn’t say he was WRONG just that his voice wasn’t one that spoke for the president.
I guess I’ll just wait before I start clutching my pearls and expecting the worst.
nestor
Update VII: Now I see this clearly. My whole life is pointed in one direction. There never has been a choice for me.
General Stuck
But what does Nick Gillespie think? Or Sully?
John Cole
@eemom: What are you talking about? I linked Greenwald, which is where I read it.
Litlebritdifrnt
OT don’t know if anyone has posted this news yet but Maru the cat in Japan is safe. A tiny little ray of good news in the midst of a day of utter misery for so many.
Mike Kay (Ding-Dong-Broder's Dead)
Oh, is this about Manning.
Bradley Manning’s father gave an interview to the PBS Newshour yesterday, saying he has visited his son 9 times in Quantico and that his son is being treated well.
Ooops. Looks like you know who forgot to coach him.
He also believes his son is innocent of the underlying charges.
Martin
@BGinCHI: I read it first as Candy Crowley and assumed it was another CNN == teh stupid post.
LGRooney
Per ABL’s instructions, shouldn’t Glenzilla stop bitching and start rah-rah-ing? Or is it okay to piss & moan when you have a big-enough platform?
Mike Kay (Ding-Dong-Broder's Dead)
Manning’s father has screwed up the whole fabricated mistreatment narrative. Now how is you know who gonna raise money to pay her registrations tags?!
———————————————-
MARTIN SMITH: How many times have you visited him?
BRIAN MANNING: Approximately eight or nine times.
MARTIN SMITH: During those visits, has he ever mentioned any complaint of any kind to you?
BRIAN MANNING: No. I always, you know, am conscientious enough to look him straight in the eyes and ask him a direct question. How are they treating you? Are you sleeping? Is the food OK? And he’s always responded that: Things are just fine.
MARTIN SMITH: How does he look?
BRIAN MANNING: He looks good.
MARTIN SMITH: And he doesn’t complain about being shackled?
BRIAN MANNING: No. He doesn’t complain at all about anything.
MARTIN SMITH: It wouldn’t be surprising for somebody in solitary confinement to be suffering a bit.
BRIAN MANNING: Oh, I’m sure.
MARTIN SMITH: It’s surprising to me that you described him as somebody who’s doing well.
BRIAN MANNING: He comes across to me as doing well.
MARTIN SMITH: He’s in solitary confinement. That’s tremendously difficult, psychologically and physically.
BRIAN MANNING: I understand that.
MARTIN SMITH: So, are you surprised that he’s doing as well as he is?
BRIAN MANNING: I’m happy that he’s doing as well as he is.
MARTIN SMITH: So, is there any reason that Bradley wouldn’t confide in you if things were tough for him there?
BRIAN MANNING: No.
You really have to see the video to get the full impact.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/law/jan-june11/wikileaks_03-10.html
Corner Stone
@JWL:
I lost track of the pronoun “his”.
Are you seriously asking when [r]obots are going to start holding President Obama responsible?
Mike Kay (Ding-Dong-Broder's Dead)
Manning’s father has screwed up the whole fabricated mistreatment narrative. Now how is you know who gonna raise money to pay her registrations tags?!
———————————————-
MARTIN SMITH: How many times have you visited him?
BRIAN MANNING: Approximately eight or nine times.
MARTIN SMITH: During those visits, has he ever mentioned any complaint of any kind to you?
BRIAN MANNING: No. I always, you know, am conscientious enough to look him straight in the eyes and ask him a direct question. How are they treating you? Are you sleeping? Is the food OK? And he’s always responded that: Things are just fine.
MARTIN SMITH: How does he look?
BRIAN MANNING: He looks good.
MARTIN SMITH: And he doesn’t complain about being shackled?
BRIAN MANNING: No. He doesn’t complain at all about anything.
MARTIN SMITH: It wouldn’t be surprising for somebody in solitary confinement to be suffering a bit.
BRIAN MANNING: Oh, I’m sure.
MARTIN SMITH: It’s surprising to me that you described him as somebody who’s doing well.
BRIAN MANNING: He comes across to me as doing well.
MARTIN SMITH: He’s in solitary confinement. That’s tremendously difficult, psychologically and physically.
BRIAN MANNING: I understand that.
MARTIN SMITH: So, are you surprised that he’s doing as well as he is?
BRIAN MANNING: I’m happy that he’s doing as well as he is.
MARTIN SMITH: So, is there any reason that Bradley wouldn’t confide in you if things were tough for him there?
BRIAN MANNING: No.
You really have to see the video to get the full impact.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/law/jan-june11/wikileaks_03-10.html
The interview was a complete unmitigated disaster. Combs is incompetent to have let this happen.
Corner Stone
@LGRooney:
God no. The bigger the platform the less you should P&M according to ACL. Or you will be principally responsible for getting Godzilla elected. The actual Godzilla.
General Stuck
Why is there no Front Page mention of what Manning’s father had to say, unless of course, he is an Obot?
Mike from Philly
I for one certainly couldn’t envision a scenario where a government mendacious enough to enforce solitary confinement and forced nudity on someone who has not yet been found guilty of a crime wouldn’t coerce this man to appear on television and state everything is just super. Maybe they promised they’d actually bring him to trial.
Fuck this country.
eemom
@General Stuck:
cuz John Cole doesn’t know what a “hat tip” is.
Mike Kay (Ding-Dong-Broder's Dead)
@General Stuck: it doesn’t fit the narrative of Cole’s buddies.
You can see from Martin Smith’s entire line of questioning and responses, he’s now completely skeptical of Combs’s “mistreatment” narrative.
eemom
@Mike from Philly:
nah, there’s no paranoid lunacy among the anti-Obama crowd. None at all.
Poopyman
@eemom: To be honest to JC, he’s completely democratic about it — in that it never happens. When he’s picked up on something I said, it’s only been links to other sites, not anything original by me.
IOW, no big deal.
Pamela F
@Mike Kay (Ding-Dong-Broder’s Dead):
For fuck’s sake, John Cole, can you please stop being led by the nose by Glenn Greenwald and his firebagger connections? Have you read the questions raised with this “reporting” on “The Reid Report”. Closed system and all that jazz.
Now if we want to talk about inhumane/cruel prison conditions or if the military penal system is even worse, then we can have a productive on-going discussion. But to rely on this closed coterie of “reporting” is just substituting emotional vomiting for 1 PERSON that is a cause celebre for a few leftists at the expense of a broader, more fundamental discussion.
P.S. I hope Crowley isn’t fired.
Mike Kay (Ding-Dong-Broder's Dead)
@Mike from Philly: dude what are you smoking?! it’s producing some killa paranoia.
Pococurante
The governor of Michigan is taking over the state. That’s no exaggeration.
Mark S.
Uh-oh, in Update V President Obama says:
In various Manning threads, I’ve been informed that a) Obama probably never heard of Manning and b) any attempt by Obama to do anything in this case would destroy the fabric of time and space (something about Unlawful Command Influence, and somehow that would completely fuck up every military trial).
ETA: This also proves that President Obama reads GG and Firedoglake, since Glenn and Jane are the only people who have ever written about Manning.
Pococurante
@John Cole: She’s afraid you’ll go all Arianna on her. BTW when do we commentators get our royalty check? I’ve checked my mail box everyday – nothing but pizza coupons.
Bob Loblaw
@General Stuck:
Because Balloon Juice has been infiltrated by Fifth Columnists under the direction of threat-to-the-nation Jlann Gramwaldsher, and is now running psychological counteroperations to break the resolve of the true believers like yourself, Stuckie.
The project is now blown.
@Mike Kay (Ding-Dong-Broder’s Dead):
Apparently, the fabrication narrative conspiracy extends all the way to the top. And not just the “blog top,” but the actual top top. The State Department top.
Which means we’ve finally found the head evildoer at last, looking to bring that mothafucka Obama down.
Surprise, surprise. It’s Hillary, bitch. I KNEW IT! TO THE BARRICADES!!
FlipYrWhig
@JWL:
They already do, as has been well documented on every Manning thread.
Oh, wait, you meant _Obama’s_ knee jerk supporters? Well, I guess whose knee is jerking depends on the perspective.
Social Outcast
Brian Manning also says he is shocked by the restrictive conditions of his son’s confinement. That includes being locked up alone 23 hours a day and having his clothing taken away at night. Pfc. Manning is given a suicide-proof smock to wear to bed.
“It’s shocking enough that I would come out of our silence as a family and say, ‘Now, then, you crossed the line. This is wrong,'” Brian Manning said.
Mike Kay (Ding-Dong-Broder's Dead)
@Mark S.: whatz his name is up to update #5 already…. ahh, that’s so funny. Let me guess, not one of those 100,000 words address his Manning’s father interview.
Corner Stone
@Mark S.: It’s simple ~ President Obama didn’t say that. End of thread.
FlipYrWhig
@Mark S.: Funny, I thought in many Manning threads the operative theory was that Obama was deliberately instructing the brig to treat Manning as harshly as possible because of how little he cares about civil liberties.
timb
@Poopyman: Not so much, unfortunately. The Prez was asked about it in a nationally broadcast press conference. How dare one speaks the truth.
the right wing’s outrage machine will be at 12 by Monday. impeachment hearing on Obama and Clinton will be in committee by Tuesday
Mike Kay (Ding-Dong-Broder's Dead)
@Bob Loblaw: argue against his father all you want. it only discredits you.
timb
@eemom: Crowley is Glen Greenwald?
Corner Stone
@Mark S.:
Dammit! I’ve already given out my “Boom! Roasted!” award for today.
Maybe I’ll go with, “Oooo, fucking clownshoes!”
eemom
@Pococurante:
I just think John missed that day of Internet Tradition Awareness School, which is kind of funny. I’m not weeping into my pillow about it.
To the contrary, best to stay UNDER the radar….
General Stuck
@Bob Loblaw:
I asked an honest question that was an obvious one, you piece of shit.
Bulworth
All I know is that we don’t torture.
Also, too, why does Amnesty International hate America?
timb
@Mike Kay (Ding-Dong-Broder’s Dead): Is his Dad a lawyer? Is he an expert on pre-trial detention?
Is he being lied to by his son, so he doesn’t worry?
9 visits in a year? It’s like he’s there all the time (or every 6 weeks….math was never my thing)
General Stuck
Looks like the firebaggers on this thread are coming unglued at the increasing likelyhood we all might well have been conned by a handful of left wing bloggers as to Manning’s overall treatment in custody, to include the blogger of this blog. Other than maybe the recent stripping of clothes for formation, which is the only thing I can remember that was also mentioned by his lawyer.
Bob Loblaw
@Mike Kay (Ding-Dong-Broder’s Dead):
This is gonna break your heart, Mike, but I couldn’t care less about Bradley Manning.
He defied and humiliated the bureaucracy, got caught, and will be sentenced to life in prison. The government is treating him the exact same way they do all major league spies against the country. I see no extraordinary malfeasance by the Obama administration. Hell, I’m not sure I see any malfeasance period when it comes to him. No politician gives a serious shit about prison conditions, federally, militarily, or (especially) at the state and civilian level. That’s a rabbit hole you’d have to be mental to venture down into.
I just like mocking you conspiracy theory zealots waging your little blog wars.
Tim
@eemom:
man, eemom, you are just one nasty piece of work. You inexplicably feel compelled to vent your venom against observations that haven’t even been made yet. Feeling a tad defensive about O the Douche?
dslak
If you read the interview with Manning’s father, it’s quite clear he thinks that his son is being mistreated. He says only that he “looks good” and that he can’t think of any reason why his son wouldn’t tell him if he were being mistreated. He does not make any claims about whether what is being done to Manning is a violation of US and international law, which is what Greenwald et al are exercised about.
timb
When are the Firebaggers gonna officially line up for the primary challenger to Obama, so they can go away?
eemom
@FlipYrWhig:
Actually it is worse than that. Obama is deliberately instructing the brig to treat Manning as harshly as possible in order to publicly FLAUNT how little he cares about civil liberties and thereby thumb his nose at the “progressive base.”
And as a way of saying “suck on it, beeyitches” to Hamsher and Greenwald personally. Also too.
Tim
@JWL:
Considering that he could put an end to it yesterday, that’s when his responsibility clicked into active mode.
Mike Kay (Ding-Dong-Broder's Dead)
@timb: yes, yes. discredit his father. trash him. do what ever you have to save whathername’s from embarrassment.
eemom
@Tim:
go away, cockroach.
Mike Kay (Ding-Dong-Broder's Dead)
@dslak:
hahahahahahhahahahhahahahha
yeah, it’s so clear that he repeatedly said the opposite.
hahahahahahhahahahhahahahha
Tim
@Pamela F:
Yes. My guess is it’s because blog readers are generally the most information hungry consumers, and therefore more informed. More information USUALLY leads to more realism. “Cynical” is just a deprecating term for “realistic.”
LGRooney
@Bulworth: No, we don’t! And, we are # 1 in our ability to publish new editions of dictionaries. USA! USA! USA!
Mark S.
@Corner Stone:
It just proves that Obama needs to get out more and stop spending so much time on blogs. The rest of the country doesn’t care about this issue.
Mike Kay (Ding-Dong-Broder's Dead)
@Bob Loblaw:
dude, there are medications that will help your condition.
timb
@Mike Kay (Ding-Dong-Broder’s Dead): yes, by asking questions, I have attacked him. Did you enjoy your time as one of Hannity’s producers?
eemom
I must say, this thread is already exceeding expectations.
Now all we need is for weepy little mcpsycho to pop up, like the little “good conscience” angel you see in cartoons.
dslak
@Mike Kay (Ding-Dong-Broder’s Dead): For starters, perhaps you failed to read the headline on that article: “WikiLeaks Suspect’s Dad: Bradley Manning ‘Being Humiliated’ But ‘Looks Good.'”
It’s in small print, and easy to miss. Maybe Greenwald forced him to say it, though.
dslak
Let’s also look at how the interview starts:
Tim
@eemom:
well no, of course not, because if we’ve learned anything at all over the last 15 years or so, it’s that the U.S. government never does anything untoward or diabolical, and has no power whatsoever to coerce or spread false information.
Unlike the focus of your suppressed Sapphic obsession, Jane Hamsher, who is all powerful and omnipresent; and who for some reason really gets under yours skin to a level that is disturbingly out of all proportion to her influence.
Mike Kay (Ding-Dong-Broder's Dead)
@dslak: it’s beyond odd that you would say that greenwald would know about mannings confinements, when glenn has never visited manning, while his father has 9 times.
all of glen’s information is 2nd hand viewed from Brazil. Manning’s father is actual pressing flesh.
dslak
@Mike Kay (Ding-Dong-Broder’s Dead): Surely not quite as odd as someone who would read an interview where Manning’s father complains of how his son is being treated as an endorsement of said treatment.
joe from Lowell
@Mark S.:
People use this type of sneering straw man when they find themselves unable to rebut the actual arguments they object to.
Bob Loblaw
@Mike Kay (Ding-Dong-Broder’s Dead):
They have a pill for apathy now?
…It’s not amphetamines is it? Because I’ve been popping greenies for years now, and that doesn’t seem to do the trick. Is it crack? Should I give that a shot?
joe from Lowell
@Bob Loblaw: This, too.
Stillwater
@General Stuck: Jesus Christ Stuck, you’re an idiot. Solitary confinement itself is arguably a form of cruel and unusual punishment, with the emphasis on punishment. But since Manning is only charged, and not yet convicted, what he’s experiencing doesn’t even qualify on that basis. And the argument that this punishment is actually a suicide-watch safety concern is laughable.
Tim
@eemom:
you are so weak
Mike Kay (Ding-Dong-Broder's Dead)
@dslak: twist the interview anyway you want. too bad for manning others won’t.
joe from Lowell
@timb:
He’s an expert on his son’s well-being, and on his son’s personality.
You think a torture victim – actually, I believe the term is “brutal torture” victim – could keep in together well enough that his own father wouldn’t see any evidence that he’s been harmed?
Mike Kay (Ding-Dong-Broder's Dead)
@Stillwater: he’s not in solitary. he’s in maximum security. he’s not segregated, he’s being held in a cell block with 50 other prisoners.
dslak
@Mike Kay (Ding-Dong-Broder’s Dead): How is it twisting the interview to point out that Manning’s father does, in fact, believe that his son is being mistreated? Or did you just skip those bits?
Stillwater
@Mike Kay (Ding-Dong-Broder’s Dead):
Which piece of the interview do you want to cherry pick?
dslak
@Stillwater: Just the bit where Brian Manning seems to be saying that his son is being treated fairly and humanely, of course.
Mike Kay (Ding-Dong-Broder's Dead)
@timb:
that’s 9 more than glen. that’s 9 more than jane.
Manning was arrested 9 months ago, not a year.
If you guys had a good case, you wouldn’t have to make up facts. Instead you only have a narrative spun by someone who lives in Brazil.
joe from Lowell
@Stillwater:
Well, it can be. Solitary confinement is more like sleep deprivation or temperature control, than like waterboarding or beatings or electrical shocks, in that the differences in degree, duration, and intensity cause the treatment to range from completely innocuous through harsh, abusive, and even torturous. If you are waterboarded, you are being tortured when the first splash of water hits your throat. When you are being shocked, you are being tortured when the first jolt goes into your body. On the other hand, “forced standing” is not torture at all if it last 20 minutes, while can be extremely cruel and damaging if it last 48 hours. Keeping someone up until midnight asking them questions, after they had a full night’s sleep, isn’t abusive or torturous at all, while keeping them awake for four or five days is agonizing torture.
Keeping someone in “solitary” that actually includes regular visits, mail, access to a lawyer, and television hours may not count as anything worse than “unpleasant,” while the extreme, extended deprivation that, for instance, Jose Padilla endured was clearly abusive and may well amount to torture. It certainly did a job on Padilla, whose dad would have had absolutely no problem noticing that his son was in bad shape, from what I’ve read about him.
eemom
@Tim:
talk to the shoe. Crunch.
eemom
he came to a messy end
don’t think he will ever mend
soonergrunt
@joe from Lowell:
@Mike Kay (Ding-Dong-Broder’s Dead):
You guys need to just stop with the common sense and facts. Those don’t play well on manning threads.
It makes you very unpopular with the cool kids.
@General Stuck: That turns out to be something he did–the standing naked at attention part. At least according to the article I read this morning that I linked in Mix’s tsunami thread. The same kind of thing that led him to the comment about strangling himself with his underwear that started the naked thing. He’s got spirit, no doubt about it. He’ll need it in the coming months.
While the whole denial of clothes thing is petty and stupid, and it lowers us, it’s not torture, and being kept in a cell where he can converse with other prisoners, speak to people, watch fucking television, and have Jane Fucking Hamsher come to visit him is not solitary confinement.
The poutrage is truly hilarious, especially from people who would hate him with every fiber of their beings if he had not broken the particular laws he broke.
At least Bob Loblaw, annoying little toerag he, is honest at #51 about it.
joe from Lowell
@Stillwater: You took that completely out of context.
Manning pere had just said that his son was not being mistreated, and his “I understand that” is a confirmation of what he just said.
Mike Kay (Ding-Dong-Broder's Dead)
@soonergrunt:
Yup. he was being a wise ass, which is fine, but then his lawyer turned into something it wasn’t. I can only imagine why.
joe from Lowell
@soonergrunt:
No, it’s not torture. Not even Amnesty calls it torture, and they aren’t shy about calling a spade a spade.
On the other that, there’s a difference between “not torture” and “appropriate treatment.”
The earlier, illegal suicide watch order (that wasn’t from a psychologist, as the regulations require) was completely out of bounds, and strongly suggests that pretexts are being used to screw with the guy.
Pamela F
@Tim:
I disagree. I’m an older, white and proud leftist. Here’s where I diverge from the cynics: cynicism, IMO, is not REALISM; it’s a shade short of nihilism.
Realism is understanding how government actually works. Too often my fellow compatriots look like they’re on the receiving end of the idealistic “revolutionaries” in the movie “Reds”. Ideologically pure but clueless.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@timb:
I know, I know…Isn’t it horrible that he’s only made the trip from Oklahoma to northeastern Virginia 9 times since, what, July? You’d think he’d do what the families of other detainees do: Sell the house, quit the job and move.
Stillwater
@joe from Lowell: But Joe, the whole interview was premised around Brian Manning going public about his concerns regarding his son’s treatment.
He’s responding to something here, something he’s seen or inferred, which clearly doesn’t fit the narrative of those defending… whatever it is they’re defending. (That he’s not being mistreated, I guess.)
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@General Stuck:
And the Pentagon is claiming that he wasn’t forced to stand at attention nude, but that he decided to do so himself- once.
This is reminding me more and more of the “not allowed to watch or read the news” meme, which seems to have been false, too.
joe from Lowell
@Tim:
No, it’s not. That’s just what faux-wordly poseurs tell themselves. It’s just the flip side of gullible, and it makes you an easy mark, because you are already emotionally committed to a storyline before you know the facts, just like a gullible true believer.
“Skeptical” is a good stance to take. Skepticism is an insistence on lots of information information before drawing a conclusion. Cynicism is just the belief that one doesn’t need plentiful, reliable information before drawing a conclusion, as long as it’s a negative conclusion, based on a reflexive belief that an interpretation or position must be right, if it matches one’s cynical assumptions.
eemom
@soonergrunt:
yes, funny how the same insect taking up the righteous cause of PFC Manning TODAY, was all “EVERYBODY in the military is a complicit cog in the machinery of evil and if you join the military you’re nothing more than a killer,” yesterday. Quite funny that.
Mike Kay (Ding-Dong-Broder's Dead)
let me just repeat some facts.
1. He is not being held in solitary.
2. He is being held in maximum security, in a U-shaped cell block.
3. He is not in isolation, there are 50 other cells in his cell block.
4. His father has visited him 9 times during his 9 month confinement (9 times more than glenn and jane). He says he’s “happy” with his son’s treatment and Manning has never once issued a complaint to his father’s extensive questioning.
5. Manning, on his own, reported to attention in the nude. He was not asked to.
The video of Manning’s father interview is compelling and should be viewed and judged in it’s entirety.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/law/jan-june11/wikileaks_03-10.html
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@Stillwater:
His complaint is the forced public nudity, which the Pentagon claims was Bradley Manning’s choice.
Stillwater
@joe from Lowell: Arguing with you guys is like herding cats. The context was the assertion that his son is in solitary, and that that’s difficult. The father agreed. What larger context do we need here? The whole discussion of the bottom part of the thread is to take the fathers words at face value, and that Bradley is ‘doing well’.
geg6
@John Cole:
Well, according to eemom, GG is on a par with the Koch brothers for the title of “Evilest Person on the Planet.” She’s happy to see Manning being tortured and would like it if he was tortured a whole lot more. Possibly because she hates Wikileaks, but I think 90% of her reasoning is that if GG is defending him, he should be tortured for that alone.
At least, that is the impression she has given me every time the topic comes up.
Stillwater
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again): AAARRRGHHH!
joe from Lowell
@Stillwater:
One can object to Manning’s treatment without believing he is being tortured, or even harmed, by it.
And you still ripped that quote out of context for the purpose of misrepresenting the point the elder Manning was making.
soonergrunt
@joe from Lowell:
Absolutely. I’d even go you one farther and submit that the Quantico Marine Base Commander’s response (denial) the Manning Art. 138 appeal of his treatment was probably improper under the law. An impartial investigation, which a proper reaction to an Art. 138 filing would presumably include, would, I believe state pretty much what you just did, and the Commander would be bound by federal law, UCMJ, and USMC regulations to address that.
I’ve said earlier that I thought that the Convening Authority needed to remove Manning from the Quantico brig, citing loss of confidence in the Brig’s ability to fulfill it’s mission where Army Pre-trial confinees are concerned, but I don’t know where they’d put him.
Mike Kay (Ding-Dong-Broder's Dead)
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again):
The thing is, all these memes have come from people who have NEVER visited him or communicated with him.
eemom
@geg6:
Stop pretending you can read my mind, twat. It’s above your grade level.
geg6
@Mike Kay (Ding-Dong-Broder’s Dead):
Yeah, because there’s never any chance that Dad complaining in public will create an even more difficult situation for Pvt. Manning, is there? Or that worse conditions might result from Pvt. Manning complaining to his Dad because no one in the military would be so crass as to monitor all his conversations with visitors other than his lawyers, right?
Yeah, that’s never happened before.
Bob Loblaw
This comment section just kills me. Without fail.
The point, as usual, is completely missed.
What we can now infer is a few things:
Either the upper echelon of the civilian bureaucracy (including the Assistant SoS) is (a) spectacularly misinformed about the conduct of another branch and running their mouths off about it, (b) dubious as to the legitimacy (or perhaps even legality) of another branch of the government’s conduct but internally silenced, or (c) not only aware of the work being done by Bloodthirsty Ideological Opponents and Saboteurs of the Administration, but sympathetic and respectful towards it and willing to collaborate with these alleged villains to conduct end-around policy change.
Shattered narratives everywhere. But keep at it diehards of both persuasions. You have shown your quality.
joe from Lowell
@Stillwater:
Arguing with you guys, on the other hand, is like herding cattle; it really is only on side of this debate where there are shades of opinion.
How about the context of the words you quoted?
He had JUST STATED, in the VERY LAST THING HE SAID, that his son was doing well, and when Smith prodded him to make sure, Manning confirmed it.
You know this. The fact that you felt the need to edit the interview so closely, to leave out what he had just said in order to change its meaning, shows that you did this on purpose.
Don’t weasel away now and pretend that Manning’s father’s intent in doing the interview obviates the man’s own, repeated, confirmed statement of his position.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@joe from Lowell:
And how much of this is the guards over-indulging their prerogatives? A friend of mine is a guard in a super-max facility, and there seems to be a lot of back-and-forth between the prisoners and guards that the warden never hears about.
joe from Lowell
@geg6:
This is the type of straw man one invents when the actual arguments one disputes are beyond one’s ability to rebut.
General Stuck
@Stillwater:
No, it’s not torture, solitary confinement. If it was true solitary, it would be, but there is plenty of sensory stimuli to put it out of the torture zone. And i was talking about all the other bullshit deprivations you clowns and your prog heroes have been feeding us that turned out to be false info.
Deal with it, like a man, and not and idiotic hack.
Mike Kay (Ding-Dong-Broder's Dead)
@geg6: on the contrary, going on tee vee and complaining would have created greater media attention and stronger pressure to relieve a negative situation.
Look, I realize this interview is a blow to the blog narrative coming from Brazil, so it triggers immediate defensiveness, denial, and even conspiracy theories to bridge the now debunked elements of abuse. But at some point you have to come to grips with that there has been no factual foundation for the prior narrative.
joe from Lowell
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again):
It was the since-dismissed base commander who gave that order.
joe from Lowell
@geg6:
This doesn’t make any sense. Mr. Manning went on national television and complained about his son’s treatment.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@Stillwater:
“AAARRRGHHH!” all you want, but following the Harold Ford/MTP/Egypt comments that blew the “can’t watch or read the news” meme out of the water, you have to admit that their some fishiness in Team Manning’s arguments.
dslak
It’s worth noting that “Gleen Greenwald lives in Brazil” isn’t a refutation of anything he’s said.
joe from Lowell
@dslak:
No, the report about Manning watching Meet the Press refutes something he said. Manning’s father’s report about his son’s condition refutes other things Greenwald has said.
Pointing out that Greenwald is opinion from Brazil, based on second-hand information, is just an explanation for why he keeps being refuted.
Mike Kay (Ding-Dong-Broder's Dead)
@dslak:see, this is what I thought. This has nothing to do with Manning, and everything to do with Dear Leader glenn/jane.
Tim
@Pamela F:
I like to refer back to the original source of the meaning of Cynicism, as a base for understanding what people think they mean by the term as it is generally used today:
From Wikipedia:
The term originally derives from an ancient Greece philosophers group called the Cynics who rejected all conventions, whether of religion, manners, housing, dress, or decency, advocating the pursuit of virtue in a simple and unmaterialistic lifestyle. By the 19th century, emphasis on the negative aspects of Cynic philosophy led to the modern understanding of cynicism to mean a disposition to disbelieve in the sincerity or goodness of human motives and actions. Modern cynicism, as a product of mass society, is a distrust toward professed ethical and social values, especially when there are high expectations concerning society, institutions and authorities which are unfulfilled.
dslak
@joe from Lowell:
But is Greenwald mistaken on the fundamental issue? That is, is he mistaken in his claim that Manning is being criminally mistreated, and perhaps for political reasons?
Brain Manning doesn’t indicate that in his interview, yet there are some here saying that he does.
Tim
@joe from Lowell:
The term originally derives from an ancient Greece philosophers group called the Cynics who rejected all conventions, whether of religion, manners, housing, dress, or decency, advocating the pursuit of virtue in a simple and unmaterialistic lifestyle. By the 19th century, emphasis on the negative aspects of Cynic philosophy led to the modern understanding of cynicism to mean a disposition to disbelieve in the sincerity or goodness of human motives and actions. Modern cynicism, as a product of mass society, is a distrust toward professed ethical and social values, especially when there are high expectations concerning society, institutions and authorities which are unfulfilled.
Joe, you don’t get to just make up your own definition and impose it on me. But thanks.
dslak
@Mike Kay (Ding-Dong-Broder’s Dead): And what does anything I’ve said have to do with them, exactly?
A bit funny for the guy who accuses everyone who disagrees with him of being some kind of Greenwald/Hamsher cultist complaining that Greenwald isn’t the issue, though.
Draylon Hogg
@105
Ye Gods what are you saying?
The American military is renowned for its subtlety.
Remember this classic?
“It became necessary to destroy the town to save it”
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@joe from Lowell:
Okay, so someone there was caught over-indulging his prerogatives and was relieved from duty by his superiors. My point being that the problem could very, very well be at brig level, and not above. The Commandant of the Marines doesn’t have to put up with detainees directly, nor is he dealing with them for hours a day. Jailers do.
So here’s Manning, a guy the jailers have been ordered to protect so he can be delivered to his court martial, and there’s a lot of pressure on them, and Manning is constantly cracking wise to the point their sick and fucking tired of him, then he makes a remark about committing suicide with the elastic waist band of his underwear? “Fuck you, pal! Even if we think you’re probably joking, you don’t get your underwear tonight. We’ll dig up something appropriate to wear in the morning, but it’s lights out NOW. I’d rather catch shit for THIS tomorrow than catch shit forever in case you did something to yourself. Asshole”
Canadian Observer
I see joe from Lowell continues to (not) surprise in his utter blindness to his country’s slide into Fascism.
Tim
@eemom:
eeemom, you ignorant putz:
surely even YOU can acknowledge the difference between finding yourself in a corrupt, murderous institution and doing something to oppose the same, even at the cost of your freedom and potentially your life, such as Manning did; and serving that institution faithfully, even in the face of same knowledge until retirement, and then sucking on the gov teet in the form of a pension from same murderous institution while you sit on your fat ass, as does your buddy SG.
Stillwater
@General Stuck: @joe from Lowell:
I have to admit, I really don’t understand what you guys are arguing here. It seems like a determined effort to merely prove GG wrong, rather than any consideration of whether Manning is in fact being mistreated or not. And of course, this goes along with idea that the argument is intended to pre-empt that possibility from being discussed out of a reflexive desire to defend Obama from imagined slings and arrows.
What rational, curious person give’s a rats ass about any of those issues? Manning either is, or isn’t, being subject to abusive detention in advance of his trial. Obama either is, or isn’t complicit in this. All these issues stand alone.
But I think what @Bob Loblaw says at the link is instructive, given the comments made today by Crowley, who explicitly admitted that the received treatment is less than appropriate.
Now, let the tortured reading of ‘less than appropriate’ begin.
Omnes Omnibus
@Draylon Hogg: Ypres involved some awfully subtle thinking on the part of the British General staff. Sorry, the shot was there; I had to take it. I actually tend to agree with your point.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@Tim:
Yeah, I’m sur that Manning was shocked to no end when he found out that he wasn’t assigned to the 97th Gardening and Landscaping Division.
Svensker
@Mike Kay (Ding-Dong-Broder’s Dead):
Perhaps you should contact Amnesty Int’l and set them straight.
Draylon Hogg
“Doing well” is surely subject to context?
My friend in Iraq waved a white flag at an American helicopter and the gunner didn’t annihilate him. He’s doing well.
My Saudi Arabian cousin learned to fly a plane in three months. He’s doing well.
My American cousin came back from a lengthy tour of Iraq and hasn’t gone postal yet. He’s doing well.
My friend is a homosexual who works for homophobic Goldbug Ron Paul. He’s doing well.
dslak
Even Manning’s dad admits that the reading isn’t tortured. And Glenn Greenwald lives in Brazil!
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@Stillwater:
How possible is it that Manning, who didn’t really want to join the Army in the first place, has been doing anything possible to get out in the most comfortable way possible, and that misleading Team Manning so that they can positively spin his case isn’t outside the realm of possibilities?
In other words: You’re getting played.
Tim
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again):
So pithy.
you don’t think a LOT of ignorant, innocent kids go into the military with stars in their eyes, full of the propaganda they’ve been fed all their lives, and then discover the reality is 180 from what they imagined it to be?
Manning saw corruption, lies, random murder and chose to try to do something about it. He is a hero. You are a military macho wannabe.
Svensker
@geg6:
That’s two of us.
Steve
Does Mike Kay, amidst all the triumphalism, have an explanation for PJ Crowley’s statements? Are we to assume that the State Department’s leading spokesman gets all his information from Greenwald and Hamsher, and is mistaken just like they are?
Svensker
@Mike Kay (Ding-Dong-Broder’s Dead):
And you know exactly what’s happening because…? Underpants gnomes?
dslak
@Tim: Focusing on Manning’s character avoids the main issue, though. Regardless of the merit of what he’s done, there are laws about how people held in the custody of the United States military and government ought to be treated, and it seems like those are being violated here.
Mike Kay (Ding-Dong-Broder's Dead)
@Svensker: have they visited manning? the answer is no.
Svensker
@Stillwater:
This. A thousand times this.
Draylon Hogg
@126
Lions led by donkeys old chap.
Was Ypres in that war where America sat back for a few years making a fortune out of supplying guns to all sides?
Stillwater
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again): So you’re saying that the State Department spokesperson is in on the ruse? That’s diabolical, bro!
geg6
@eemom:
Honey, I’m just as educated as you are, so I’m not sure what “grade level” you might be discussing.
And why not just go whole hog and call me a c*nt? Too pussy to do it?
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@Tim:
Oh, sure, I think a lot of kids do. I don’t think so many do it when the country is fighting in two unpopular wars (Manning enliste in ’07). I think even less kids who have worked at Starbucks and A&F would tend to do so at any point.
Svensker
@Mike Kay (Ding-Dong-Broder’s Dead):
Have you? You seem awfully sure of your ability to know what’s going on.
Are you planning a sternly worded letter to Amnesty explaining that they are being played by Glenn/Jane?
RP
OH MY GOD.
With all of the horrible s*** that’s going on in this country and around the world, I cannot believe anyone would spend more than 5 minutes discussing Bradley F***ing Manning’s treatment in prison.
PERSPECTIVE, PLEASE.
geg6
@joe from Lowell:
But calling me a twat is in the fine tradition of debate.
Got it.
Stillwater
@dslak: Radley Balko thinks Manning isn’t being treated well, either. I wonder if he knows GG lives in Brazil?
Omnes Omnibus
@Draylon Hogg: That is, of course, one interpretation. Back to your original point though, the military, of whatever country, is generally not renowned for the level of subtle thinking of which the commenter was accusing it. The military is tool, much like a hammer, good at what it does but not necessarily good at other things.
dslak
@RP: I categorically oppose forcing you to read this thread, and support your freedom to read other threads dealing with topics important to you.
soonergrunt
@RP: We don’t have that here. Go to another thread.
@geg6: It’s right up there with “the military mind is sick!”
Tim
@Svensker:
Make that three.
geg6
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again):
You obviously don’t know any kids of age to sign up, do you?
I do. They are just as wide-eyed and innocent as kids are when they sign up in peacetime. Perhaps even more, after the last ten years of military fetishism.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@Stillwater:
I don’t think Crowley knows any more about it than does Greenwald, whose info all seems to be coming second-hand through Coombs and House.
The Hamsher detention is this whole thing in a microcosm. “ZOMG! I was detained for trying to visit Manning!” Except that Jane had expired Oregon plates on her car, and a DC driving license, and was trying to get into a highly secured military base.
“ZOMG, Manning is in solitary!” He’s not.
“ZOMG, Manning can’t watch the news!” He can.
“ZOMG, Manning is forced to stand at attention naked- in front of (yecch!) GIRLS!” But that isn’t true.
Look, WikiLeaks might have lofty, altruistic goals. That doesn’t mean they vet their sources for the same sort of moral and ethical character.
Tim
@geg6:
Got it.
It’s only ok for EEEEEMOMEEEE to call you a “twat.” If anybody else uses a vaginally-inspired word they will be denounced by the EM as a raging sexist pig unfit to live.
But eemom, being a Twat-American, gets to say whatever she wants, you see.
Tim
@soonergrunt:
Hit a nerve, didn’t I? Even though, of course, I never said any such thing.
Could you please define “the military Mind?” thank you.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@geg6:
Yeah, my kid- 21 today!- and his buddies.
I was getting pressured by dad and an uncle to sign up in ’85. I didn’t do it. Some of my buddies did, some had positive experiences, some had negative experiences…But the ones I talk to today say they wouldn’t have signed up in ’05. Not a onme of them.
Omnes Omnibus
@Tim: It’s not always all about you. Sorry, dear.
geg6
@soonergrunt:
Well, as a pacifist, I have no problem with the idea that the military mind is sick. It is. It leads to all sorts of evil in this world. Probably no more than religion, but that is not enough to recommend it.
You served in the military, I get it. I know lots of people who have and I have no problem with them as individuals. I help veterans every single day on the job and support them with money and time on my off hours. What I do have a problem with is the military mindset that says force is always the proper response and the more the better, that women in the military are there to be raped and abused, that gays in the military are there to be humiliated and debased, and that it’s funny and fun to mistreat prisoners of any nationality, especially when said prisoners are soldiers who have not yet been convicted. And the evidence shows that many of these are a bedrock part of the military mindset.
Stillwater
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again): I don’t think Crowley knows any more about it than does Greenwald
Eh, you’re right. I mean, not that you argued this view. But really, an official spokesperson for a major department prolly isn’t required to know very much of anything. Especially in a tiny, inconsequential department like State. They just go about their business, telling people what they want to hear, just making shit up as they go. No worries.
I just have a question: do the circles in your arguments ever make noise when they collide?
geg6
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again):
That’s your buddies. The ones who are now a whole lot older than your 21-year-old. I’m also guessing that your 21-year-old came from a family that didn’t need the Post 9/11 GI Bill to pay for his college, so he had no reason to even look into signing up. You really are out of your depth here in this argument. Some of these kids sign up so that their families don’t have their mouths to fill, leaving less for everyone else.
soonergrunt
@geg6: I can only hope that you don’t get many veterans to ‘help’ or that somebody checks behind you. You can’t possibly hold those beliefs, that “these a bedrock part of the military mindset” and actually help them. If you honestly think that, then you should detest them and doing everything you can to thwart them, if you fancy yourself a moral being.
I don’t honestly know anyone who thinks the way you seem to think that we think, it being a bedrock part of the military mindset. I know plenty of fools and jackasses who think that those things are a bedrock part of the military mind set. I know a few conservatives, some of whom are military personnel or veterans for whom those things are a bedrock part of their mindset, but it is intellectual laziness to equate the two. I’ll give you credit for honesty on that front, though.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
You’d be wrong. Dad is running to work now.
I know a lot of kids of the age and insufficient means who have had their chance to sign up and said, “Fuck that!” In fact, I’m going to work with them in a few minutes.
TTFN!
Corner Stone
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again):
This is fascinating.
Corner Stone
@RP: OTHER THINGS!!
Corner Stone
@joe from Lowell:
“Amnesty International is concerned that the conditions inflicted on Bradley Manning, the soldier accused of leaking information to Wikileaks, are unnecessarily severe and amount to inhumane treatment by the US authorities. Bradley Manning has not been convicted of any offence, but military authorities appear to be using all available means to punish him while in detention. The conditions under which Bradley Manning is held appear to breach the USA’s human rights obligations.”
Amnesty Int’l
But I guess inhumane treatment==torture so what do they know, amirite?
Tim
@Omnes Omnibus:
is your name ‘soonergrunt?’ Dear?
Bob Loblaw
@Corner Stone:
It really fucking is.
The man is the Assistant Secretary of State. He’s Clinton’s right hand man. Either he’s being accused of spectacular ignorance here, or there’s some crazy mendaciousness being played out.
Master of Karate and Friendship
That could never happen. Because President Obama is so pro-human rights and all.
RP
@dslak: And I support your freedom to participate in this thread. I also support my freedom to say that the fascination with Manning is bizarre.
dslak
@RP: Except that isn’t what you said. You said that the people posting on the matter here lack perspective. But I fail to see how your post is more important than anything else going on in the world right now.
Chuck Butcher
Awhile ago I lost a son with military background to jail suicide. He managed it quite handily though he wasn’t under suicide watch. It wasn’t a demostration “accident” it was quite deliberate, premeditated, and worked exactly as he intended. Someone who knows how and is quite determined doesn’t need many resources to get there.
As for Manning, anything the military does beyond protecting him is out of bounds, considering the body – way out of bounds. I’m sure there is some real temptation to go too far … if that has happened it needs to stop and probably, given the suspicions, the military needs to move Manning to a place not under a cloud.
I’d say the chances are real good that Manning will have quite a bit of time to consider whether what he’s done is worth it to him in light of the cost. Those are the sorts of things you get to do if you decide your morals outweigh the law.
eemom
@geg6:
based on your comments, you’re not my intellectual equal.
Though you are certainly more than my equal in foul-mouthery, which makes it particularly hilarious to see you clutch your self-righteous pearls over twat twat TWAT.
And as for “debate,” if you think that fetishistic speculation about why I “want Manning to be tortured” is debate…..well, as the kitty says, ur doing it wrong.
Mnemosyne
@Corner Stone:
Unlike our media, Amnesty International never hesitates to call torture what it is, so if they meant “torture,” they would say torture and not pussyfoot around with “inhumane treatment.”
Here’s a link to a PDF of one of their recent papers about Guantanamo — they have no problem at all saying flat out that Bush established a torture regime there.
Mo's Bike Shop
So much fail in this thread:
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/law/jan-june11/wikileaks_03-10.html
In an exclusive “Frontline” interview this week with correspondent Martin Smith, Bradley Manning’s father, Brian Manning, talked for the first time about his son’s incarceration.
MARTIN SMITH: You decided that you wanted to sit down and talk today because you want to complain publicly about the conditions of his imprisonment.
BRIAN MANNING, father of Pvt. Bradley Manning: Yes.
MARTIN SMITH: And those conditions are?
BRIAN MANNING: Well, he’s being — his clothing is being taken away from him, and he’s being humiliated by having to stand at attention in front of people, male or female that I — as far as I know, you know, that are fully clothed.
MARTIN SMITH: Who tells you that?
BRIAN MANNING: I read it in the statement that was put out by his civilian attorney.
I mean, this is someone that has not been — you know, gone to trial or been convicted of anything. And that’s prompted me to — you know, to come out and go forward. I mean, they worry about people down in — you know, in a base in Cuba, but here they are, have someone in, you know, on our own soil and under their own control, and they’re treating him this way.
I mean, it’s — you know, I just can’t believe — you just can’t believe it. I mean, it’s shocking enough that I would come out of, you know, our silence, as a family, and say, you know, now then this — you know, you have crossed the line. This is wrong.
KWAME HOLMAN: Today, the NewsHour asked the military for a response to Brian Manning’s assertions.
A statement from the Department of Defense said in part: “The circumstances of PFC Manning’s pretrial confinement are regularly reviewed, and complies in all respects with U.S. law and Department of Defense regulations.
“In recent days, as the result of concerns for PFC Manning’s personal safety, his undergarments were taken from him during sleeping hours. He was not made to stand naked for morning count, but on one day, he chose to do so. There were no female personnel present at the time. PFC Manning has since been issued a garment to sleep in at night. He is clothed in a standard jumpsuit during the day. None of the conditions under which PFC Manning is held are punitive in nature.”
In his interview with “Frontline,” Brian Manning says he saw no signs of suicidal intentions in his son.
joe from Lowell
@dslak:
To the first question, I don’t know. I’m concerned about some of the things I’ve learned, but I’ve also come to be deeply suspicious about the claims being made.
To the second part, almost certainly not. Even if we were to take the accusations at face value, Manning’s treatment wouldn’t be any different from that experienced by other big-time espionage suspects like Alrich Ames, James Hansen, or the Walkers after they were arrested.
joe from Lowell
@Tim:
How about looking in the dictionary then?
cyn·i·cism (sn-szm)
n.
1. An attitude of scornful or jaded negativity, especially a general distrust of the integrity or professed motives of others: the public cynicism aroused by governmental scandals.
2. A scornfully or jadedly negative comment or act:
There is exactly one of us who has made up their own definition of this term, and it ain’t me, babe.
“But thanks.”
joe from Lowell
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again):
Ah, ok. I thought, with the use of “guards,” you were talking about the inappropriate actions being brought about by actual guards who got carried away on the spot, as opposed to following official orders from the superior officer.
I agree, there doesn’t appear to be any evidence at all for the conspiracy theory about the White House ordering harsh treatment. Even Greenwald has now backed off his earlier accusations, and is now phrasing his criticism as “Obama isn’t getting involved to remedy the problem,” instead of “Obama ordered the problem.”
joe from Lowell
@Canadian Observer:
Tell me, did another freshman in your dorm tell you write this when you couldn’t come up with any reasons why anything I wrote was wrong?
joe from Lowell
@Stillwater:
I’m sure it “seems” like that to you. Once you’ve decided that the issue is about angels vs demons, and if I’m not with you than I’m with the terrorists, then anything I write questioning the revealed wisdom makes me the enemy. Have you considered the possibility that there are a lot of holes in the story, and that one can draw a conclusion about its credibility based on the strength of the case itself, rather than by adherence to one team or another?
I see the answer to my question is “No, I haven’t considered that.”
joe from Lowell
@geg6: I haven’t the foggiest idea what you’re babbling about. Please don’t interpret this as a request to have you explain.
@Corner Stone: So, you confirmed what I wrote to the person who claimed that Manning was being tortured – that is, that I was right, he was wrong, and Amnesty backed me up that he was not – and then, since what I wrote was shown to be right, you decided to make something up and pretend it has even the slightest relationship to my actual argument.
So, let me get this straight. I wrote:
No, it’s not torture. Not even Amnesty calls it torture, and they aren’t shy about calling a spade a spade.
On the other that, there’s a difference between “not torture” and “appropriate treatment.”
The earlier, illegal suicide watch order (that wasn’t from a psychologist, as the regulations require) was completely out of bounds, and strongly suggests that pretexts are being used to screw with the guy.
And you managed to interpret that as But I guess inhumane treatment==torture so what do they know, amirite?
That’s just pathetic. Did you lose a bet, with the stakes being that you now have to make yourself look like a disingenuous moron on the internet?
joe from Lowell
@Bob Loblaw:
Are you under the impression that Marine brig staff report on prisoner conditions to the State Department?
Corner Stone
@joe from Lowell: Speaking of pathetic. Amnesty quite clearly called it “inhumane treatment” which most sentient beings don’t waste time trying to parse out from “torture”. But you go ahead friend, keep parsing it up.
Mnemosyne
@joe from Lowell:
Apparently the only two allowable choices are “there’s nothing wrong with his treatment” or “he’s being tortured!” Saying that Manning is being treated like crap but that it doesn’t reach the level of what, say, Maher Arar was forced to endure is apparently the same as saying everything is okey-dokey.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@joe from Lowell:
This!
Tim
@joe from Lowell:
when you called me “babe” I felt tingles in my special areas.
THIS, from Dictionary.com, is the rough definition of “cynic” to which I ascribe:
( initial capital letter ) one of a sect of Greek philosophers, 4th century b.c., who advocated the doctrines that virtue is the only good, that the essence of virtue is self-control, and that surrender to any external influence is beneath human dignity.
And yes, you did select the definition you like and attempt to apply it to me. But I get to choose the one that fits.
General Stuck
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again):
The State Department and Pentagon are eternal rivals and sometimes outright enemies, war and peace and the tension betwixt the two I suppose. There is really not much doubt in my mind that GG on teevee every few days making allegations got their attention. and maybe the statements of Manning’s lawyer.
Of course that was before Manning’s dad went on Newshour.
edit – and when Amnesty Inter. got involved, they likely felt the need to respond in some way to the allegations.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@Mo’s Bike Shop:
So when David House came out a little while back and said that Manning- whom he’d never met in person, face-to-face before Manning was moved to Quantico- looked like a terible, tortured mess, was he lying? Because if you keep going with that interview:
MARTIN SMITH: How many times have you visited him?
BRIAN MANNING: Approximately eight or nine times.
MARTIN SMITH: During those visits, has he ever mentioned any complaint of any kind to you?
BRIAN MANNING: No. I always, you know, am conscientious enough to look him straight in the eyes and ask him a direct question. How are they treating you? Are you sleeping? Is the food OK? And he’s always responded that: Things are just fine.
MARTIN SMITH: How does he look?
BRIAN MANNING: He looks good.
MARTIN SMITH: And he doesn’t complain about being shackled?
BRIAN MANNING: No. He doesn’t complain at all about anything.
MARTIN SMITH: It wouldn’t be surprising for somebody in solitary confinement to be suffering a bit.
BRIAN MANNING: Oh, I’m sure.
MARTIN SMITH: It’s surprising to me that you described him as somebody who’s doing well.
BRIAN MANNING: He comes across to me as doing well.
MARTIN SMITH: He’s in solitary confinement. That’s tremendously difficult, psychologically and physically.
BRIAN MANNING: I understand that.
MARTIN SMITH: So, are you surprised that he’s doing as well as he is?
BRIAN MANNING: I’m happy that he’s doing as well as he is.
MARTIN SMITH: So, is there any reason that Bradley wouldn’t confide in you if things were tough for him there?
BRIAN MANNING: No.
sparky
congratulations, JC! one of the more nauseating threads in quite some time. reading this is like reading red state with better typing, thus way scarier.