All right, y'all, welcome back to the show.
It's Anti-War Radio.
Introducing Empty Wheel, Marcy Wheeler, blogger at FireDogLake.com.
EmptyWheel.
FireDogLake.com.
And check out this audio via a YouTube embedded right there at her site.
And then second question, the State Department spokesman, P.J. Crowley, said the treatment of Bradley Manning by the Pentagon is ridiculous and counterproductive and stupid.
And I'm wondering if you agree with that.
Thank you, sir.
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.
I think I gave you an answer to the substantive issue.
Well, Empty Wheel, what you got to say about that?
Well, President Obama is now endorsing the use of a tactic introduced at Gitmo for use with an American soldier on US soil.
Amazing, isn't it?
I like the nonchalance with which that entire conversation is being carried out.
Certainly, there's no doubt that this is all up to him.
He can talk like this is somebody else's decision.
Oh, yeah, gee, I asked the Pentagon this and that, but he's the one, isn't he, the president?
He's the one.
And in his answer, he appealed to the basic standards of DOD.
And we know that forced nudity was introduced at Gitmo in 2002 as part of their standard operating procedure for use with detainees.
Well, now, is it clear, though, that he's not just hiding behind the precautionary anti-suicide measures and that kind of thing?
Or is he really saying that, yes, we have imported the Guantanamo system to the US.
We might as well bolt him to the floor or whatever we want now.
Well, he's not admitting that.
But I mean, to buy that we had to take Bradley Manning's boxer shorts away from him to protect him from injuring himself, you would have to buy that boxer shorts are a danger to somebody under constant surveillance.
I don't buy that.
Sorry.
I'm trying real hard, but no.
I mean, that's the thing is what people forget is that he was already being made to sleep in his boxers.
So what is different is that they, because he asked why he is still on preventive injury watch and said, well, I could commit suicide with my flip flops or my boxers.
They used that as an excuse to use the force nudity that they first introduced it.
Well, they didn't first introduce it at Gitmo.
We know they first introduced it with Abu Zubaydah.
And the other stunning thing about this, Scott, is that the terms that the former commander of the Brig used with Manning when he first took away his underwear, he said, I'm, for all intents and purposes, your God, are precisely the term that Abu Zubaydah's interrogators used when they started taking away his clothes in 2002.
It's about being God with these people.
God, it's like they're the Williamson County Sheriff's Department or something.
Out of control completely.
Well, so now it's pretty remarkable, isn't it, that PJ Crowley, the State Department spokesperson, he went on the record condemning what they're doing to Bradley Manning, yeah?
Yeah, and there are two things to remember about that.
One is when he answered that question, this was a question he was asked at MIT.
And he prefaced it by saying, and I'm quoting from somebody's transcript from a guy named Ethan Zuckerman who put this transcript up, I've been 26 years in the Air Force.
So what he's saying is he's got a background in the military and he doesn't buy this kind of treatment of a military detainee.
And the other thing I think that you need to keep in mind is that the big scandal, if there is one, is that Manning is alleged to have released all these State Department cables.
He got them off of DOD's computers.
So we're beginning to get into a pissing match between DOD and State Department because DOD, and I think the State Department is right to be angry about this, DOD didn't have some of the most basic security procedures in place.
They were hit by malware in 2008 using precisely the same techniques that Manning was alleged to have used with this leak.
That is, using jump drives, using thumb drives to get stuff on and off the computer.
At that point, they said, we're banning them.
No more use, and they'll never be back in use on classified computers.
Well, that's precisely how Manning is alleged to have downloaded all of these files, including all the State Department files.
And the State Department, I think, is rightly pissed about the fact that DOD has done this.
And now the State Department, which is making a big effort to support human rights around the world, is being made to look hypocritical because in our own country, on our own soil, we're using Gitmo tactics against our own people.
Well, it really is amazing.
I wonder, what benefit does Obama, the chief torturer here, think that this serves?
I mean, for his own purposes.
You know, well, as part of our torture regime, when they introduced forced nudity, it was all about this learned helplessness, right?
The whole theory was, we need to make these detainees believe that we are God.
And once they do, they will tell us whatever we want them to know.
And keep in mind that DOD and DOJ still haven't been able to use Manning to get to Julian Assange.
They still haven't been able to come up with any kind of criminal theory that they can use to prosecute Assange, partly because Assange was basically acting like any other journalist.
And to go after Assange, they'd have to use some whack-a-mole theory that just wouldn't work.
So they are still trying to get Manning to, you know, we assume they're still trying to get Manning to break and to say, I'll give you Julian Assange so long as you cut my time in jail.
And they're using the tactics that they used with detainees that were so horrible.
So it's just like with the torture of Sheik Al-Libi by the puppet dictatorship in Egypt.
It was all about getting him to lie about Saddam Hussein and his supposed friendship with al-Qaeda.
In this case, they're trying to get Manning to lie.
That's why they're torturing him.
Right.
That's what it's good for.
Well, whether or not they're trying to get him to lie, they're using the same techniques of interrogation.
I mean, there's no allegation they're using waterboarding.
There's no allegation they're using mock burial like they did with Sheik Al-Libi.
But it is clear.
I mean, they're using the same terms to describe the forced nudity that they're using with Bradley Manning that they used with Abu Dhabi.
I mean, that that track is clear.
It's all about playing God.
It's all about playing God.
And so and so the fact that that that genealogy is so clear, I think it should be horrible.
I mean, it should be, you know, no matter what you think about what Bradley Manning is alleged to have done.
We just can't.
I mean, it should be horrible, even on an abstract level, that this is still considered a standard procedure in our military detention.
Doesn't matter whether it's Manning or anyone else.
We were supposed to have gotten rid of that.
Obama said second day of his presidency, we're going to get rid of this.
And today he stood up in front of the press corps and said, well, DOD told me it was standard operating procedure.
And so that's OK.
Yeah, well, and so I guess, you know, his hands are clean then.
You know, that's what the generals say.
That's kind of my favorite part of it, is that sort of Clintonian slipperiness where, oh, you know, I asked Tony Lake why we were negotiating with and trying to arrest the same Somali warlord on the same day.
And and I'm as confused as you.
It's Tony Lake's responsibility, I guess.
You know, at least George Bush say, yeah, that's right.
I tortured him.
Yeah, that's right.
I lied you into war.
What?
You know, doesn't hide behind lawyer language like that.
You know, who knows?
Maybe Obama will come back in a week and say, oh, my gosh, I had no idea that forced nudity isn't necessary for Pete.
You know, like that, that we really need to protect against a five foot three man hurting himself with his boxer shorts.
Maybe he'll come back and play dumb in a week.
But if it's true that that, you know, that Obama is responsible at this point, he owns it.
He has adopted a tactic that we hated Bush doing.
Obama owns it at this point.
And and just real quick here, sort of a yes, no.
As we go out to break here, Marcy, is it the case, as far as you know, that they're still have him naked without his even flip flops and underwear at this point?
They've given him a robe like a hospital gown.
All right.
We'll be right back with Marcy Wheeler.
Empty wheel dot FireDogLake.com.
All right, y'all, welcome back to the show.
It's anti-war radio.
We're talking with Marcy Wheeler, known as Empty Wheel.
She writes for FireDogLake primarily.
EmptyWheel.
FireDogLake.com also contributes to Daily Kos and to The Huffington Post, as well as The Guardian online.
And we're talking about the humiliating and degrading treatment of Bradley Manning, still awaiting trial on charges of downloading and distributing classified information, providing aid to the enemy, as they say, in the new charges.
But, you know, I was wondering, Marcy, if you've seen any reporting about whether his treatment compares to other soldiers facing military charges and court martial being held at either Quantico or other places?
Is the, you know, the degrading treatment of Bradley Manning in the name of suicide precautions a really unprecedented type of thing going on here?
They do this from time to time if they really hate somebody or what?
Well, it's different with Manning.
You'll see Jeff Morrell, who's the Department of Defense spokesperson, and frankly, Obama did this to some degree in the comment that you quoted as well.
They always they they like to say, well, Manning's a max detainee and his treatment is just like every other max detainee at Quantico.
Well, Manning's either the only or one of only two max detainees at Quantico right now and has been.
That's true from the entire time he's been there.
And whether or not you think that that what he did justifies him being under max detention, what DOD loves to do is to say anything else we can't talk about for privacy concerns.
And what they're then doing is avoiding any discussion about you described the suicide watch.
What what what he's under is prevention of injury watch.
When he first came in, he was on suicide watch.
Then they moved him down to prevention of injury watch.
And the reason that's significant is for two reasons.
One is that taking away of his boxer shorts was done in the name of prevention of injury watch.
Again, they say that they think he's going to hurt himself with his flip flops and his boxer shorts.
So you have to, first of all, think whether that's credible.
You said you don't.
I don't think that's credible either.
But the other thing that's really interesting is that we know between August and January.
So this is two months old now data.
In that time frame, the Briggs psychiatrist recommended that Manning be moved off of prevention of injury watch 16 times.
So the shrinks don't think that he's a risk to himself.
Which leads you to believe that what DOD is doing is keeping him on prevention of injury watch because they have the authority to do that in spite of what the shrink says about Manning.
And then by doing that, they get to say, well, privacy prevents me from saying anything about this.
Or as Obama said, I can't go into details about some of their concerns, but some of this has to do with private Manning safety as well.
I mean, they're hiding the most abusive part of this treatment, the forced nudity behind the prevention of injury watch.
And then there's the whole question.
If someone was really suicidal, do you think the thing to do is to take his underwear and make him stand at attention naked?
Well, if you're trying to drive him crazy, I mean, that's the thing.
This whole thing kind of reminds me of Waco where they're like, these people are crazy.
So we'll play the sounds of rabbits being skinned alive all night and shine hot lights in their windows 24 hours a day and drive tanks over the graves of their dead out in the front yard over and over again and try and drive them crazy enough that, you know, hopefully we'll get the whole thing to blow up somehow.
You know, they're trying to drive this kid crazy.
And then they're saying, oh, look how crazy he is.
We got to take his underwear away.
Yeah, we got to take his underwear away.
I mean, they're like, this is the mentality of like third graders, right?
Oh, look, he's a nerd.
Let's take his underwear away and make him more miserable.
Right.
Well, and of course, it makes sense, right?
As as as you were talking about earlier, this is part of the deliberate CIA program of torture is it's just one part of it.
But it's the whole theory is learned helplessness.
Make a prostrate beaten less than human man.
Lay there and submit to your overwhelming authority or something like, man, that sounds like something out of the Soviet Union.
There's one more thing that that's probably really important for your readers to know.
One of the other things we learned in the last couple of days, and this comes from a narrative that Manning wrote about his own treatment, is the day that the former brig commander first said, I'm going to be your God and first took away his underwear.
It was a day when there were people protesting at Quantico about his treatment.
So Manning, at least, seems to believe that this was retaliation against him because American citizens think we're better than that.
Amazing.
And now you you referred there and this is something we talked about on the show before, but you referred to the different levels of so-called protective custody that is under here and how they had him up on suicide watch, which was an even tighter level of control.
And then but somebody got fired over that.
And then they rolled it back to just, you know, injury precautions or whatever.
Like you say, right.
Yeah.
Prevention of injury.
Yeah.
They rolled it back in August.
So, you know, he he was brought to the US in July, rolled it back in August.
But as I said, 16 times between July and late January, the the the psychiatrist said he's not he's not a risk to himself.
Now, I should say in December at the time, you know, one other detail about this is David House, who is a friend of Manning.
One of the few people who has visited him.
He said that Manning was catatonic in December.
There is one point in December where the where the psychiatrist said he's in bad shape, let's put him on P.O.I.
And with that exception, the other 16 times the Briggs psychiatrist commented on Manning's psychological well-being.
He said the guy is not a harm to himself and he took him off.
He took he withdrew that that recommendation.
I believe it was even still in December.
So so it's clear that the psychiatrist is diligently trying to do assessments of whether Manning's going to hurt himself or not.
And he doesn't care because P.O.I. gives them an excuse to do things like take his underwear away.
And then gives the president a way to say, well, I can't talk about what's really going on with them because it's privacy issues, you know, but they say they're doing it not to hurt him.
And now Obama's basically on the record thinking that a five foot three guy who's lighter than me is going to hurt himself with his boxer shorts.
That's what the leader of the free world is standing by.
Yeah, the free world's that what they call it.
That's funny.
Yeah.
You know, the world where they take your underwear.
Yeah.
Hey, you know, I wonder, you know, I do understand that if you're in the military, you're not allowed to, you know, give quotes to reporters saying how you don't respect the authority of the civilian president, things like that.
You sign away your freedom of speech in that sense.
You sign away your right to a speedy trial, to a speedy court martial when you join the army here again.
Here again, they're using his psychological.
They're they're they're using psychology as a weapon, which is what people we've done with their torture regime.
I mean, they've got the psychiatric psychologists to build their torture regime, and now they're using it as a way to get around the regular means of doing things, because when Manning was first detained, his attorney did ask for evaluation and DOD hadn't given him that.
And several months ago, his attorney said, OK, I give up.
Let's just move to trial.
And DOD is now they're the ones who are responsible for stalling, but they're still saying we're waiting on some kind of assessment for Manning, some kind of psychological assessment.
So right now, DOD is responsible for the stall.
And presumably they're stalling because they don't have the evidence that they want against Manning.
I mean, I think they're still relying on pretty unreliable evidence from Adrian Lambo.
And so I think they're trying to to to draw out this time frame.
I'm sorry, we got to stop it there.
It's EmptyWheel.
FireDogLake.com for Marcy Wheeler's wonderful blog.
Thank you very much for your time.
Thanks.
