The Obama Administration has finally responded to the international outcry over the abuse of Bradley Manning. After State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley acknowledged the abuse, the Administration fired him with the apparent approval of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Now, everyone is in agreement: there is no problem in how Bradley Manning is being abused. That is particularly the case with former White House aide Mike Hammer who will replace Crowley. There’s a nice way to start a job — the replacement for the guy who dared to admit concerns over a human rights case.
International groups and civil libertarians have denounced the Obama Administration for the mistreatment of Manning, the Army private who is being held in solitary confinement in Quantico, Virginia.
In speaking to a group at MIT, Crowley said the treatment of Manning “is ridiculous and counterproductive and stupid.” Notably, he also said that Manning is legitimately under arrest for the alleged commission of the serious offense of leaking classified information.
Crowley is reportedly personally offended by the mistreatment of Manning — a sentiment that is not welcomed in this Administration any more than the last Administration.
Obama has assured the public that he has determined that Manning is being treated well. How? By asking the Defense Department, of course. They say that Manning is being treated well and that some of the conditions of his confinement are there to help him.
For her part, Hillary Clinton accepted Crowley’s resignation “with regret,” but there is no evidence that she fought to protect him from being forced out by the Administration.
Source: CNN
Obama clearly sided with the military on Bradley Manning and against what candidate Obama criticized.
rafflaw,
“Someone Obama will listen to needs to sit down with him and release all of the air from the bubble and explain to him that he is authorizing torture of an American citizen.”
I believe Obama already knows that the United States is torturing people–including an American citizen. He just won’t admit to it in public.
Elaine, Jimmy Carter was probably the last somewhat principled president we have had.
Swarthmore mom,
President Obama is in charge. He’s an intelligent, well-educated man. He’s to blame if he’s “been captured by the national security state.” He has not proven himself to be a man of principle–just another politician hoping to get elected to a second term.
While I don’t agree with the impeachment suggestion mentioned earlier, he is doing what the Dems do best. That is to run and hide from their own voters. Metro had it right when he asked why do they work so hard to screw with their base? Someone Obama will listen to needs to sit down with him and release all of the air from the bubble and explain to him that he is authorizing torture of an American citizen. I don’t who that person would be, but Holy Crap there has to be someone. If he keeps this up the Teapublicans will not only increase their gains they will destroy women’s rights and completely hand the country over to the corporations. And they won’t do it behind closed doors. They will do it with fanfare on the Capital steps.
I don’t think he lied during the campaign. I think he has been captured by the national security state.
I have been pondering over his “change” of world view. The only logical explanation I can come up with is that he stupidly kept on too many Bush hirelings and they keep him in an information bubble where what he knows is filtered through a Bush lens.
The only other explanation I have is that he lied through his teeth when on the campaign trail.
SL,
Just because St. Patty’s day is coming upon us it is not fair to make everyone Irish is it…You can’t even argue he is a Black Irish…those were of Spanish dissent… Now, if you wanna say that he is of the Bush Clan…. Not to be confused with the Klan….
I don’t think Obama equals Mubarek. I agree that what Obama is doing is terribly terribly wrong. I think Daryl Issa would like to start impeachment proceeding against Obama but more likely over his birth certificate not torture which Issa supports.
From the link provided by SwM:
“To lead the world, we must lead by example,” Candidate Obama said in October of 2007. “We must be willing to acknowledge our failings, not just trumpet our victories. And when I’m President, we’ll reject torture – without exception or equivocation.” (Obama)
Well … there goes leading the world.
Obama is wrong … period.
Torture is codified into law under Obama. Bush tried to hide it but under Obama there are no prosecutions and continued torture. The treatment of Manning is known to us because he’s on American soil and an American citizen.
I hope people keep up pressure for Manning and expand that pressure to our detainees in Gitmo, Bagram and other black holes. When torture becomes acceptable to the vast majority of American citizens, when the president makes it “legal” this nation has been degraded beyond recognition.
Obama should be impeached or forced to resign through the peaceful protest of our citizens, just as Mubarak was.
From Salon (3/14/2011)
The clarifying Manning/Crowley controversy
By Glenn Greenwald
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2011/03/14/manning/index.html
Excerpt:
The forced “resignation” of State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley — for the mortal sin of denouncing the abusive detention of Bradley Manning — has apparently proven to be a clarifying moment for many commentators about what the President is and how he functions in these areas. Writing at Time’s Swampland, Mark Benjamin identifies the real crux of the controversy:
Free speech advocates are shocked, and, as I wrote last week on TIME.com, concerned over Obama’s record as the most aggressive prosecutor of suspected government leakers in U.S. history.
Those advocates have wondered whether the penchant for secrecy in the Obama administration comes from the President, or those around him. Obama’s statement on Manning, followed by Crowley’s resignation, seem to suggest some of this comes from the President himself.
It’s long been obvious that the Obama administration’s unprecedented war on whistleblowers “comes from the President himself,” notwithstanding his campaign decree — under the inspiring title “Protect Whistleblowers” — that “such acts of courage and patriotism should be encouraged rather than stifled.” The inhumane treatment of Manning plainly has two principal effects: it intimidates future would-be whistleblowers into knowing that they, too, will be abused without recourse, and it will break him psychologically (as prolonged solitary confinement and degrading treatment inevitably do) to render him incapable of a defense and to ensure he provides whatever statements they want about WikiLeaks. Other than Obama’s tolerance for the same detainee abuse against which he campaigned and his ongoing subservience to the military that he supposedly “commands,” it is the way in which this Manning/Crowley behavior bolsters the regime of secrecy and the President’s obsessive attempts to destroy whistleblowing that makes this episode so important and so telling.
Denunciations of the President from his own supporters are as intensive and pervasive here as they have been for other prior incident, if not more so. Matt Yglesias wrote that “to hold a person without trial in solitary confinement under degrading conditions is a perversion of justice” and that it’s a “sad statement about America that P.J. Crowley is the one being forced to resign over Bradley Manning.” Andrew Sullivan — writing under the headline “Obama Owns the Treatment of Manning Now” — said that Crowley was forced out “for the offense of protesting against the sadistic military treatment of Bradley Manning,” that “the president has now put his personal weight behind prisoner abuse,” and that “Obama is directly responsible for the inhumane treatment of an American citizen.” Meanwhile, Ezra Klein previews his denunciation of the President’s treatment of Manning and Crowley by announcing that it’s his first ever lede “that isn’t about economic or domestic policy” but rather is “about right and wrong,” and then questions “whether the Obama administration is keeping sight of its values now that it holds power.” Those strong words are all from supporters of the President.
Elsewhere, The Philadelphia Daily News’ progressive columnist Will Bunch accuses Obama of “lying” during the campaign by firing Crowley and endorsing “the bizarre and immoral treatment of alleged Wikileaks leaker.” In The Guardian, Obama voter Daniel Ellsberg condemns “this shameful abuse of Bradley Manning,” arguing that it “amounts to torture” and “makes me feel ashamed for the [Marine] Corps,” in which Ellsberg served three years, including nine months at Quantico. Baltimore Sun columnist Ron Smith asks: “Why is the U.S. torturing Private Manning?,” while UCLA Professor Mark Kleiman — who only last year hailed Obama as “the greatest moral leader of our lifetime” and eagerly suggested on Friday (before Obama’s Press Conference) that Crowley was speaking for Obama — mocked Obama’s defense of the Manning treatment as “clueless on the Bush level” and now says of Crowley’s firing: “The Torturers Win One,” lamenting Obama’s overt support for a policy that is “unconscionable and un-American and borderline criminal.”
From The Boston Globe (3/14/2011)
State Dept. spokesman quits over remarks
Decried treatment of leaks suspect
By Farah Stockman
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2011/03/14/state_dept_spokesman_quits_over_remarks/
Excerpts:
The remarks, which Crowley later described as his personal opinion, were blogged by BBC reporter and Nieman fellow Philippa Thomas. The next day, CBS’s Political Hotsheet blogged about her report. So did Foreign Policy Magazine and Salon. On Friday, President Obama was asked about them at a White House press conference.
**********
But others say Crowley, a seasoned spokesman with more than 24,000 Twitter followers who frequently bantered with the press from the podium of the State Department briefing room, took a stand of conscience and knew the consequences.
“We are talking about a person who understands the current media environment,’’ said Siva Vaidhyanathan, professor of media studies at the University of Virginia, who said he heard about the remarks on Twitter within minutes. “If you want to get your message out, the old-fashioned way is to have a quiet discussion with a reporter as an exclusive. The new way is to let it boil up from the tweeters and the bloggers who are going to be in every university audience.’’
Vaidhyanathan said Crowley, who also served as spokesman for President Clinton’s National Security Council, would not have used the same blunt words at the State Department because it would have reflected poorly on Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.
**********
Thomas, one of about two dozen attendees at the seminar hosted by MIT’s Center for Future Civic Media, could not be reached for comment yesterday.
In her blog post she wrote that she made sure to ask Crowley whether the remarks could be on the record and that she would not have published them if he had refused.
Thomas wrote that Crowley made the remarks during an informal talk about the power of new media in response to a question about Manning’s treatment, which the questioner described as “torture.’’
“Crowley didn’t stop to think,’’ Thomas wrote.
What I don’t understand is why Obama is trying so hard to commit political suicide? Every day it gets harder to defend the guy and his administration. I never would have believed it but it looks like Bill Clinton was our last Democratic president I don’t know what Obama is but hes not my kind of Democrat.
“For her part, Hillary Clinton accepted Crowley’s resignation “with regret,” but there is no evidence that she fought to protect him from being forced out by the Administration.” This doesnt surprise me…the main reason I didn’t support or vote for Hillary is I believed she was way too much of a politician, and not in a good way…whereas ole Obama young, fresh, untainted by politics….haha I’m a fool…
The Obama administration did this by the book. By first labeling Bradley Manning “The Enemy” they laid the bricks for his unlawful treatment. I assume that when his treatment gets to soft there they will transfer him to a more harsh jailer:: Sheriff Joe of Maricopa County AZ.
And for the rest of us: We should know better than to expect our rulers to allow us to expose their wrongdoing.
Hey now, this guy had no idea what he was talking about. I mean, anyone can see that months of solitary confinement, interrupted sleep, humiliation, and psychological programing , and lack of physical exercise is necessary for the good of the Nation as well as Private Manning himself. If these steps weren’t taken he might be able build a mock dummy, and tunnel out of the high security prison The Shawshank Redemption style, and get accused of a crime again.
Remember, once someone in authority thinks you might have committed a crime, they get to do whatever they want with you. That’s how our system works.
SL:
The way things look.
“Round and round we goes, when we hits bottom, nobody knows”
Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to introduce the President of the United States – Barack H. O’Bush.
I expected this from the Bush Administration, not the Obama Administration.
Round and round we goes, when we hits bottom, nobody knows … but I suspect we’re close.
From Salon (3/13/2011)
WH forces P.J. Crowley to resign for condemning abuse of Manning
BY GLENN GREENWALD
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2011/03/13/crowley/index.html
Excerpt:
So, in Barack Obama’s administration, it’s perfectly acceptable to abuse an American citizen in detention who has been convicted of nothing by consigning him to 23-hour-a-day solitary confinement, barring him from exercising in his cell, punitively imposing “suicide watch” restrictions on him against the recommendations of brig psychiatrists, and subjecting him to prolonged, forced nudity designed to humiliate and degrade. But speaking out against that abuse is a firing offense. Good to know. As Matt Yglesias just put it: “Sad statement about America that P.J. Crowley is the one being forced to resign over Bradley Manning.” And as David Frum added: “Crowley firing: one more demonstration of my rule: Republican pols fear their base, Dem pols despise it.”
Of course, it’s also the case in Barack Obama’s world that those who instituted a worldwide torture and illegal eavesdropping regime are entitled to full-scale presidential immunity, while powerless individuals who blow the whistle on high-level wrongdoing and illegality are subjected to the most aggressive campaign of prosecution and persecution the country has ever seen. So protecting those who are abusing Manning, while firing Crowley for condemning the abuse, is perfectly consistent with the President’s sense of justice.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein “What would the Obama campaign say about the Obama administration?”