A Visitor Watches Bradley Manning’s Mental Health Deteriorate

[steve2470]

http://my.firedoglake.com/ryangallagher/2011/03/07/a-visitor-watches-bradley-mannings-mental-health-deteriorate/

By: Ryan Gallagher Monday March 7, 2011 10:12 am

For over seven months, Manning has been detained in solitary confinement at a maximum security military brig in Virginia. He has been forced to endure widely condemned conditions and could face the death sentence as a result of charges recently leveled against him. He has yet to receive so much as a preliminary hearing.

House, who was born in Alabama, was brought up in a conservative household and was an Eagle Scout as a boy. He admits that growing up he “never really had any big doubts about the US govt or about the fact that people’s due process may be infringed upon.”

Consequently, the detainment and subsequent treatment of his friend, Manning, came as something of a shock and an awakening. He helped start the Bradley Manning Advocacy Fund and has appeared on television and radio talking about the treatment of the soldier. It has been a “very jarring” experience, he says.

Last week, as part of a media conference call with Pentagon Papers leaker Daniel Ellsberg and former Judge Advocate General Jon Shelburne, House spoke at length about his experiences visiting Manning. What he described was deeply troubling.

[tekisui]

1. They are breaking him. So sad.

[AsahinaKimi]

11. I don't think breaking him is their intention

They are finding a way to take away his existence, his life.

[Name removed]

2. Deleted message

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[midnight]

3. Why is this still going on? Take this young man to trial...

Let's try the facts... The way things are going down with this bizarre treatment of Bradley Manning it sounds like things are being cooked up... Ala Enron style....

[Miss_Underestimated]

4. I called my senators & rep today - none of them had released any statements

regarding this matter. Call your senators & representatives!!!!

[divine_truine]

5. Pfc Bradley Manning: PROTECTING THE COUNTRY FROM ENEMIES BOTH FOREIGN & DOMESTIC!

I beseech the GodDess of Liberty & Justice to intervene in this matter and provide the necessary protection/healing for him and for all prisoners who are held without due process nor the appropriate justice. Killing the messenger will not disappear the fact there were war crimes committed in our name and NO ONE AT THE TOP HAS BEEN HELD ACCOUNTABLE i.e. bush, cheney, rumsferatu, rice, powell, wolfowitz, card, gonzales et al & their minions.

[Mimosa]

6. Who's permitting this, Cheney? Bush?

Aren't they in the White House?

[markpkessinger]

7. Sadly ....

...too many Democrats are willing to give the current president a pass on this. And that is positively shameful!

[Mimosa]

8. Breaking US Code of Military Justice?

US Code of Military Justice; 813. ART. 13 PUNISHMENT PROHIBITED BEFORE TRIAL

No person, while being held for trial, may be subjected to punishment or penalty other than arrest or confinement upon the charges pending against him, nor shall the arrest or confinement imposed upon him be any more rigorous than the circumstances required to insure his presence, but he may be subjected to minor punishment during that period for infractions of discipline.

From the description it is possible Manning is being 'medicated.'.

[msongs]

9. meanwhile his boss is overseeing the murder of kids gathering firewood nt

[mmonk]

10. And he isn't Muslim.

Americans who like torture and other similarities we have with history's dark characters always agree to barbarism because they think it will be someone from a group of people they do not belong to.