23 year old Bradley Manning, a former intelligence analyst and private for the U.S. Army in Baghdad, has been charged with "aiding the enemy" for his involvement in the leak of confidential military information. He is charged for stealing State Dept. cables, Iraq and Afghanistan war logs, and a video of a U.S. Apache helicopter's unprovoked killing of over a dozen people in New Baghdad.1 This video was popularly labeled "collateral murder" by wikileaks. Reporters for Reuters were among those killed because their camera equipment was mistaken for an AK-47. Two children were also injured in the attack. Eyewitness and soldier Ethan McCord says that this sort of indiscriminate killing is an everyday occurance, elaborating on how justifications for firing upon civilians are justified by the ambiguous labeling of suspected Iraqis posing a "threat." His testimony is horrifying and deserves watching.2
While his case is being investigated, Manning is being confined in a marine brig in Quantico, Va.
Manning has been kept (for five months now) in solitary confinement where he is given one hour a day to exercise. Lately, he's was placed on "suicide watch" and was stripped naked for seven hours. This is a slight escalation to the usual stripping down to his boxers every night. I've never tried, but I imagine it would be difficult to hang one's self with a pair of boxer shorts.
Pentagon Press Secretary provides two major justifications for this imprisonment. One being that he poses a threat to his own health, although there has been no medical evidence to support that he's suicidal (other than the fact that he's being subjected to psychologically compromising confinement). The other justification would be that he poses a threat to national security. 3 Manning has been charged on accounts of "aiding the enemy" and the NYT reports speculations that the "enemy" in question is the wikileaks organization.4 Legal questions of who the enemy is becomes an important matter fPublish Postor debate.5
Manning's psychological and physical health are being compromised. His treatment is inhumane. Exposing even military atrocities is a noble effort and I can only pray that Manning finds strength in knowing he's a part of a just cause. For more information on who Manning is and how to help visit http://www.couragetoresist.org/x/.
Sources
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