Submitted by Lawrence Rafferty, (rafflaw), Guest Blogger
The nightmare started back in July of 2010. Pvt. Bradley Manning was arrested and detained in the Brig at the Quantico Marine Base on allegations that he stole and then leaked classified documents to Wikileaks. The conditions that Pvt. Manning has been held under have been outrageous from the start. He has suffered shackling, solitary confinement and he has not been allowed normal contact with visitors and the outside world. His visitors have been denied access to him and now the latest humiliating tactic being used by the Department of Defense is to force Pvt. Manning to strip naked in his cell for hours!
“All Americans should be horrified and outraged by yesterday’s revelations that PFC Bradley Manning, already being held under Maximum Security and a Prevention of Injury (POI) order, has now been forced to spend seven hours each night and morning stripped naked: Last night, PFC Manning was inexplicably stripped of all clothing by the Quantico Brig. He remained in his cell, naked, for the next seven hours. At 5:00 a.m., the Brig sounded the wake-up call for the detainees. At this point, PFC Manning was forced to stand naked at the front of his cell. The Duty Brig Supervisor (DBS) arrived shortly after 5:00 a.m. When he arrived, PFC Manning was called to attention. The DBS walked through the facility to conduct his detainee count. Afterwards, PFC Manning was told to sit on his bed. About ten minutes later, a guard came to his cell to return his clothing.” ‘ Firedoglake How can a detainee who has not been convicted of anything and has been an exemplary prisoner be subjected to this kind of treatment? It appears that this latest degrading treatment is in response to a remark made by Manning when his Article 138 request to be removed from the suicide watch was denied. David E. Combs, Esq.
‘“Brig officials notified defense lawyers that mental health providers were not consulted in deciding to strip manning of his clothes. “This type of degrading treatment is inexcusable and without justification. It is an embarrassment to our military justice system and should not be tolerated,” Coombs said. “No other detainee at the Brig is forced to endure this type of isolation and humiliation.”’ RawStory We have a situation where the United State government has been holding a prisoner who has only recently been charged with leaking classified documents and more recently the charges were amended to add in a charge of “aiding the enemy”. This is not some convicted killer that requires some tougher sanctions to keep him under control. This is a soldier who has been a model prisoner who just wants to be treated according to the law and according to normal military procedures.
Didn’t President Obama make it a campaign issue that he considered the Bush interrogation methods as torture and that those methods were illegal and that they would not be continued under his administration? I realize that the claim has been made that those methods have been outlawed at Gitmo, but I wonder why they haven’t been outlawed at Quantico? If Pvt. Manning is guilty of leaking classified documents, then prove it in a trial or court-martial.
Is there another reason why Manning has been the recipient of these harsh measures? Could the Obama Administration and the Department of Defense just be embarrassed that the leaked documents actually showed that they had been lying to the American people by taking official steps to prevent Bush-era torture from being investigated internationally? Anyone who reads about the horrible treatment that Private Manning has been receiving from our government, should be ashamed and outraged. What are we going to do about it?
Additional Sources: Emptywheel
Submitted by Lawrence Rafferty, (rafflaw), Guest Blogger
Gyges
I’m not trying to convince anyone. Everyone can make up their own mind. I just wanted to be sure everyone had read the attorney’s blog, and was not relying on what Greenwald, dailykos, firedoglake, etc. have interpreted for us in regard to what the facts are.
As I said, I’ve done a fair amount of reading in psychology including about isolation and sleep deprivation. I’ve also read a fair amount about media’s manipulation techniques – and experienced it over the past 65 years.
Pvt. Manning’s father has given an interview to Frontline which will run March 29. They showed a short portion of it this evening on the Jim Lehrer Show. It’s worth a look.
Gyges,
There is pretty solid evidence that what Pvt. Manning is suffering through is Torture.
Buckeye,
Might I suggest that you may bring more people around to your point of view if you offered something more than “I think X” as justification for it. I mean, those who call it torture have provided quotes from psychologists, international human rights organizations, and a Supreme Court Decision.
Elaine,
Great link to Glenn Greenwald and the discussion that solitary confinement can be considered physical torture.
Buckeye,
I’d say we’re all purveyors of our own opinions–some of us more passionate than others. Glenn is more articulate than most of us.
Elaine,
Yes, Glen is a passionate and articulate purveyor of his opinions. I’ve learned a great deal about Pvt. Manning by reading Glen’s critic’s opinions.
From Glenn Greenwald (Salon)
The inhumane conditions of Bradley Manning’s detention
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/12/14/manning
Excerpt:
In sum, Manning has been subjected for many months without pause to inhumane, personality-erasing, soul-destroying, insanity-inducing conditions of isolation similar to those perfected at America’s Supermax prison in Florence, Colorado: all without so much as having been convicted of anything. And as is true of many prisoners subjected to warped treatment of this sort, the brig’s medical personnel now administer regular doses of anti-depressants to Manning to prevent his brain from snapping from the effects of this isolation.
Just by itself, the type of prolonged solitary confinement to which Manning has been subjected for many months is widely viewed around the world as highly injurious, inhumane, punitive, and arguably even a form of torture. In his widely praised March, 2009 New Yorker article — entitled “Is Long-Term Solitary Confinement Torture?” — the surgeon and journalist Atul Gawande assembled expert opinion and personal anecdotes to demonstrate that, as he put it, “all human beings experience isolation as torture.” By itself, prolonged solitary confinement routinely destroys a person’s mind and drives them into insanity. A March, 2010 article in The Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law explains that “solitary confinement is recognized as difficult to withstand; indeed, psychological stressors such as isolation can be as clinically distressing as physical torture.”
For that reason, many Western nations — and even some non-Western nations notorious for human rights abuses — refuse to employ prolonged solitary confinement except in the most extreme cases of prisoner violence. “It’s an awful thing, solitary,” John McCain wrote of his experience in isolated confinement in Vietnam. “It crushes your spirit.” As Gawande documented: “A U.S. military study of almost a hundred and fifty naval aviators returned from imprisonment in Vietnam . . . reported that they found social isolation to be as torturous and agonizing as any physical abuse they suffered.” Gawande explained that America’s application of this form of torture to its own citizens is what spawned the torture regime which President Obama vowed to end:
This past year, both the Republican and the Democratic Presidential candidates came out firmly for banning torture and closing the facility in Guantánamo Bay, where hundreds of prisoners have been held in years-long isolation. Neither Barack Obama nor John McCain, however, addressed the question of whether prolonged solitary confinement is torture. . . .
This is the dark side of American exceptionalism. . . . Our willingness to discard these standards for American prisoners made it easy to discard the Geneva Conventions prohibiting similar treatment of foreign prisoners of war, to the detriment of America’s moral stature in the world. In much the same way that a previous generation of Americans countenanced legalized segregation, ours has countenanced legalized torture. And there is no clearer manifestation of this than our routine use of solitary confinement . . . .
It’s one thing to impose such punitive, barbaric measures on convicts who have proven to be violent when around other prisoners; at the Supermax in Florence, inmates convicted of the most heinous crimes and who pose a threat to prison order and the safety of others are subjected to worse treatment than what Manning experiences. But it’s another thing entirely to impose such conditions on individuals, like Manning, who have been convicted of nothing and have never demonstrated an iota of physical threat or disorder.
In 2006, a bipartisan National Commission on America’s Prisons was created and it called for the elimination of prolonged solitary confinement. Its Report documented that conditions whereby “prisoners end up locked in their cells 23 hours a day, every day. . . is so severe that people end up completely isolated, living in what can only be described as torturous conditions.” The Report documented numerous psychiatric studies of individuals held in prolonged isolation which demonstrate “a constellation of symptoms that includes overwhelming anxiety, confusion and hallucination, and sudden violent and self-destructive outbursts.” The above-referenced article from the Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law states: “Psychological effects can include anxiety, depression, anger, cognitive disturbances, perceptual distortions, obsessive thoughts, paranoia, and psychosis.”
When one exacerbates the harms of prolonged isolation with the other deprivations to which Manning is being subjected, long-term psychiatric and even physical impairment is likely. Gawande documents that “EEG studies going back to the nineteen-sixties have shown diffuse slowing of brain waves in prisoners after a week or more of solitary confinement.” Medical tests conducted in 1992 on Yugoslavian prisoners subjected to an average of six months of isolation — roughly the amount to which Manning has now been subjected — “revealed brain abnormalities months afterward; the most severe were found in prisoners who had endured either head trauma sufficient to render them unconscious or, yes, solitary confinement. Without sustained social interaction, the human brain may become as impaired as one that has incurred a traumatic injury.” Gawande’s article is filled with horrifying stories of individuals subjected to isolation similar to or even less enduring than Manning’s who have succumbed to extreme long-term psychological breakdown.
Manning is barred from communicating with any reporters, even indirectly, so nothing he has said can be quoted here. But David House, a 23-year-old MIT researcher who befriended Manning after his detention (and then had his laptops, camera and cellphone seized by Homeland Security when entering the U.S.) is one of the few people to have visited Manning several times at Quantico. He describes palpable changes in Manning’s physical appearance and behavior just over the course of the several months that he’s been visiting him. Like most individuals held in severe isolation, Manning sleeps much of the day, is particularly frustrated by the petty, vindictive denial of a pillow or sheets, and suffers from less and less outdoor time as part of his one-hour daily removal from his cage.
This is why the conditions under which Manning is being detained were once recognized in the U.S. — and are still recognized in many Western nations — as not only cruel and inhumane, but torture. More than a century ago, U.S. courts understood that solitary confinement was a barbaric punishment that severely harmed the mental and physical health of those subjected to it. The Supreme Court’s 1890 decision in In re Medley noted that as a result of solitary confinement as practiced in the early days of the United States, many “prisoners fell, after even a short confinement, into a semi-fatuous condition . . . and others became violently insane; others still, committed suicide; while those who stood the ordeal better . . . [often] did not recover sufficient mental activity to be of any subsequent service to the community.” And in its 1940 decision in Chambers v. Florida, the Court characterized prolonged solitary confinement as “torture” and compared it to “[t]he rack, the thumbscrew, [and] the wheel.”
rafflaw
After re-reading Mr. Coombs entries, I think we may have interpreted his words differently. I read that he was stripped but provided blankets. You may have read that he was left naked in a cold cell. There’s a world of difference, and a world of wrongful conduct, between the two.
Abu Graib was not just nakedness, it was forced sexual contact, dog collars, exposure to the opposite sex and worse. I don’t see any of that here. But, again, we don’t know – but we will eventually.
Let’s let it rest until we know more.
Thanks for your responses Buckeye! I think what we may be missing is how central forced nudity was to the Bush torture program. I will continue to update this thread as we learn more about Pvt. Manning. I don’t mean to suggest that you are not being honest, but that you were not stating all of what Mr. Combs stated on his blog.
You say I’m not being honest. Here’s what I said about Pvt. Manning’s treatment. It’s as honest as I can get. Sorry if it doesn’t satisfy you.
“I agree that this is inappropriate and should be stopped, but I’d call this mistreatment, not torture. The conduct seems designed to isolate and humiliate Pvt. Manning—which, while inappropriate, is not torture.”
“Yes, I’ve agreed that Pvt. Manning’s treatment may have been cruel and degrading. Again, we only know what his lawyer David Coombs asserts and his friend David House implies from conversations with Pvt. Manning. And I believe that his treatment should change and change immediately.”
“Being naked (under blankets) and forced to stand for morning inspection can be nothing but harrassment meant to degrade, but it’s not like being naked 24 hours a day in a cold environment.”
I THINK MUCH OF THE TREATMENT HAS BEEN UNNECESSARY, WAS DESIGNED TO ISOLATE AND HUMILIATE AND SHOULD CEASE IMMEDIATELY; BUT HAS NOT TOTALLY ISOLATED, HAS NOT CAUSED SLEEP DEPRIVATION, AND IS NOT TORTURE.
I think we’ve reached the end of any profitable discussion. I will wait until more information is available and will continue to follow Mr. Coombs blog.
Buckeye,
I already told you I read the blog and I also linked it to the original article and I also quoted from Attorney Combs blog which stated that the treatment was “degrading and humiliating” He also used the term “shameful” to describe the treatment.
Since you are not be honest about what Attorney Combs is stating, here it is again for you:
“Given these circumstances, the decision to strip PFC Manning of his clothing every night for an indefinite period of time is clearly punitive in nature. There is no mental health justification for the decision. There is no basis in logic for this decision. PFC Manning is under 24 hour surveillance, with guards never being more than a few feet away from his cell. PFC Manning is permitted to have his underwear and clothing during the day, with no apparent concern that he will harm himself during this time period. Moreover, if Brig officials were genuinely concerned about PFC Manning using either his underwear or flip-flops to harm himself (despite the recommendation of the Brig’s psychiatrist) they could undoubtedly provide him with clothing that would not, in their view, present a risk of self-harm. Indeed, Brig officials have provided him other items such as tear-resistant blankets and a mattress with a built-in pillow due to their purported concerns. The Brig’s treatment of PFC Manning is shameful. It is made even more so by the Brig hiding behind concerns for “[PFC] Manning’s privacy.” There is no justification, and there can be no justification, for treating a detainee in this degrading and humiliating manner.” “http://www.armycourtmartialdefense.info/2011/03/truth-behind-quantico-brigs-decision-to.html
Elaine M.
Do we know we can trust the psychiatrists/psychologists who have been “in the loop” at the brig where Bradley Manning is being held?
————————————————
I don’t know. They and the attorney have been saying Pvt. Manning’s status should be changed from Maximun to Medium security for quite some time. It’s the brig commander that refuses to do it. That would indicate to me that the psychiatrists are on the same page as the attorney.
I’m beginning to wonder if anyone other than myself has actually read the whole blog of the attorney. It states everything I’ve been saying. Mr. Coombs seems to be the most aware of Pvt. Manning’s situation – at least to me – which is why I’m sticking with him until we learn otherwise.
I’ve looked up David Chase. He’s a contributor at firedoglake along with Jane Hamsher. I’m not the only one that questions the way facts are presented at firedoglake, though I didn’t know about this site before today. shoq contends that (why does this keep popping up?) everyone should follow the money.
http://shoqvalue.com/regarding-team-bradley-manning
I don’t know the real skivy which is why I’m sticking to David Coombs blog and skeptical about others. Just sayin’
Great link Elaine!
Buckeye,
Sleeping naked is one thing when you have a choice and you are not behind bars, being forced to give up your clothes is part of a program to humiliate and denigrate the indivudual. It is not part and parcel of normal life behind bars. Even Mannings attorney thinks the treatment is degrading. “The Brig’s treatment of PFC Manning is shameful. It is made even more so by the Brig hiding behind concerns for “[PFC] Manning’s privacy.” There is no justification, and there can be no justification, for treating a detainee in this degrading and humiliating manner. “http://www.armycourtmartialdefense.info/2011/03/truth-behind-quantico-brigs-decision-to.html
Buckeye,
I know that psychologists were implicated/participated in the torturing/brutal interrogations of prisoners at Guantanamo, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Do we know we can trust the psychiatrists/psychologists who have been “in the loop” at the brig where Bradley Manning is being held?
*****
An Open Letter to Sharon Brehm, President of the American Psychological Association
On Psychologists and Torture
By STEPHEN SOLDZ, STEVE REISNER
and BRAD OLSON, et al.
http://counterpunch.org/apa06072007.html
Excerpt:
June 6, 2007
Sharon Brehm, Ph.D.
President
American Psychological Association
Dear President Brehm:
We write you as psychologists concerned about the participation of our profession in abusive interrogations of national security detainees at Guantánamo, in Iraq and Afghanistan, and at the so-called CIA “black sites.”
Our profession is founded on the fundamental ethical principle, enshrined as Principle A in our Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct: “Psychologists strive to benefit those with whom they work and take care to do no harm.” Irrefutable evidence now shows that psychologists participating in national security interrogations have systematically violated this principle. A recently declassified August 2006 report by the Department of Defense Office of the Inspector General (OIG) Review of DoD-Directed Investigations of Detainee Abuse-describes in detail how psychologists from the military’s Survival, Evasion Resistance, and Escape (SERE) program were instructed to apply their expertise in abusive interrogation techniques to interrogations being conducted by the DoD throughout all three theaters of the War on Terror (Guantánamo, Afghanistan, and Iraq).
SERE is the US military’s program designed to train Special Forces and other troops at high risk of capture to resist “breaking” during harsh interrogations conducted by a ruthless enemy. During SERE training, trainees are subjected to extensive abusive treatment, including sensory deprivation, sleep deprivation, isolation, cultural and sexual humiliation, and, in some cases, simulated drowning (“waterboarding”). By SERE’s own admission, these techniques are classified as torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment.
The OIG report details a number of trainings and consultations provided by SERE psychologists to psychologists and other personnel involved in interrogations, including those on the Behavioral Science Consultation Teams (BSCT), generally composed of and headed by psychologists. The OIG confirms repeated press accounts over the last two years that SERE techniques were “reverse engineered” by SERE psychologists in consultation with the BSCT psychologists and others, to develop and standardize a regime of psychological torture used by interrogators at Guantánamo, and in Iraq and Afghanistan. The OIG report states: “Counterresistance techniques [SERE] were introduced because personnel believed that interrogation methods used were no longer effective in obtaining useful information from some detainees.”
The OIG report also clearly reveals the central role of psychologists in these processes:
“On September 16, 2002, the Army Special Operations Command and the Joint Personnel Recovery Agency [the military unit containing SERE] co-hosted a SERE psychologist conference at Fort Bragg for JTF-170 [the military component responsible for interrogations at Guantánamo] interrogation personnel. The Army’s Behavioral Science Consultation Team from Guantánamo Bay also attended the conference. Joint Personnel Recovery Agency briefed JTF-170 representatives on the exploitation techniques and methods used in resistance (to interrogation) training at SERE schools. The JTF-170 personnel understood that they were to become familiar with SERE training and be capable of determining which SERE information and techniques might be useful in interrogations at Guantánamo. Guantánamo Behavioral Science Consultation Team personnel understood that they were to review documentation and standard operating procedures for SERE training in developing the standard operating procedure for the JTF-170, if the command approved those practices. The Army Special Operations Command was examining the role of interrogation support as a ‘SERE Psychologist competency area'” (p. 25, emphasis added).
It is now indisputable that psychologists and psychology were directly and officially responsible for the development and migration of abusive interrogation techniques, techniques which the International Committee of the Red Cross has labeled “tantamount to torture.” Reports of psychologists’ (along with other health professionals’) participation in abusive interrogations surfaced more than two years ago.
While other health professional associations expressed dismay when it was reported that their members had participated in these abuses and took principled stands against their members’ direct participation in interrogations, the APA undertook a campaign to support such involvement. In 2005, APA President Ron Levant created the PENS Task Force to assess the ethics of such participation. Six of the nine voting psychologist members selected for the task force were uniformed and civilian personnel from military and intelligence agencies, most with direct connections to national security interrogations. Perhaps most problematic, it is clear from the OIG Report that three of the PENS members were directly in the chain of command translating SERE techniques into harsh interrogation tactics. Although we cannot know exactly what each of these individuals did, their presence in the chain of command is troubling.
rafflaw
As far as I know his attorney is not part of the government and he’s the one I am following – not the government.
I know nothing about the friend but his version and the attorney’s version don’t mesh.
Many people sleep naked for hours. It’s the morning cell check that’s degrading.
The brig psychiatrists have constantly been in the loop, the commander simply hasn’t followed their advice.
We’ll have to agree to disagree about the value of a zombie prisoner in court.
I’ll wait to make a judgement – you go ahead without me.
Thanks.
Buckeye,
You seems to want to believe what the government information is on this case instead of from the witnesses to his cndition. Forcing someone to remain naked for hours is part of the torture and it was a central part of the Bush torture regime. They want a zombie to show up so that he cannot assist in his defense, much like they have done with other Gitmo detainees. There is a reason why the Brig is not following their own rules for the treatment being given to Pvt. Manning. They know the brig psychiatrist would not allow this activity so they keep him/her out of the loop.
rafflaw
Sorry, I didn’t read all the links you had listed prior to my first post.
I have trouble reconciling “near catatonic” with the psychiatrists evaluation that Pvt. Manning should be moved to Moderate incarceration. And I don’t know why what the friend says (if true) isn’t reflected in what the attorney says.
I have trouble reconciling “isolation” with near constant interaction with his guards, hearing others in the cell block, reading, watching TV, receiving visitors, making phone calls, and corresponding with his attorney and others. I have trouble reconciling “sleep deprivation” with night sleep interrupted only when certain conditions occur.
Being naked (under blankets) and forced to stand for morning inspection can be nothing but harrassment meant to degrade, but it’s not like being naked 24 hours a day in a cold environment.
I’ve read enough psychology to understand how severe sleep deprivation and complete isolation can affect someone’s mental state. I don’t see either in this case, but I know no more than anyone else about what is really going on. I’m inclined to take his attorney’s word because I assume he’s not going to make false charges which might prejudice this case.
I hadn’t known (none of the websites told us) that Pvt. Manning was suicidal before he allegedly did the deed. Perhaps that’s why he did it, if he did.
Again, why would they want a zombie to show up in the courtroom? That would be stupid, I’d think. I was told I wasn’t born in Missouri, but sometimes I think I must have been.
AY,
McCain was tortured and used to be against the so-called enhanced interrogation methods. He has since changed his tune!
Bush’s medical team decided that it is not torture so long as it does not lead to long term psychosis…..Can someone call John McCain and ask him if he was tortured… or was that acceptable under the Viet practices…
Buckeye,
Just because the attorney doesn’t call it torture, doesn’t discount the experts who consider sleep deprivation dangerous. Read what his visitors say about his mental condition. Did you read the last link and what it has hot say about isolation? Do you think the forced nudity which was one of the cornerstones of the Bush torture program, was used by accident? I do not think so.