This shameful abuse of Bradley Manning

[CHIMO]

President Obama tells us that he's asked the Pentagon whether the conditions of confinement of Bradley Manning, the soldier charged with leaking state secrets, "are appropriate and are meeting our basic standards. They assure me that they are."

If Obama believes that, he'll believe anything. I would hope he would know better than to ask the perpetrators whether they've been behaving appropriately. I can just hear President Nixon saying to a press conference the same thing: "I was assured by the the White House Plumbers that their burglary of the office of Daniel Ellsberg's doctor in Los Angeles was appropriate and met basic standards."

When that criminal behaviour ordered from the Oval Office came out, Nixon faced impeachment and had to resign. Well, times have changed. But if President Obama really doesn't yet know the actual conditions of Manning's detention – if he really believes, as he's said, that "some of this has to do with Private Manning's wellbeing", despite the contrary judgments of the prison psychologist – then he's being lied to, and he needs to get a grip on his administration.

If he does know, and agrees that it's appropriate or even legal, that doesn't speak well for his memory of the courses he taught on constitutional law.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/mar/11/bradley-manning-wikileaks

[Fuddnik]

1. Who is the Defense Departments lawyer?

John Yoo? Jay Bybee? Rumsfeld?

[pacalo]

2. Bradley's treatment may well be "meeting our standards", considering how low our standards

have sunk under the boy king's reign. Doesn't Obama know that descriptions of Bradley's treatment is being communicated over the internet? That we might be smart enough to recognize torture when it's been described to us? I just don't get the lying when the facts are in full view.

[Demeter]

3. He Doesn't Really Care

About anything.