US INTELLIGENCE VETERAN DEFENDS BRADLEY MANNIING

The story of Pfc Bradley Manning, the young US Army intelligence analyst allegedly responsible for leaking hundreds of thousands of classified documents to WikiLeaks, continues to act as a magnet for supporters worldwide, who are appalled by the accounts of his solitary confinement, and the humiliation to which he has recently been subjected, which has involved him sleeping naked at night, and having to stand naked outside his call during cell inspections in the morning, even though the alleged basis for this humiliation — that he is at risk of committing suicide — has been disproved by the miltary’s own records, in which his alleged propensity to commit suicide has been repeatedly challenged.

While sympathizing fully with Pfc Manning’s plight, I do hope that those supporting him will also realize that the humiliation to which he is being subjected, and its probable intent — to make him produce false confessions about his relationship with Julian Assange of WikiLeaks — is not unique, as it echoes the conditions in which prisoners in the “War on Terror” — at Guantánamo and elsewhere, including, in three instances, on the US mainland — were held by the Bush administration, whose detention also involved torture and abuse, and the creation of circumstances in which confessions would be produced, whether they were true or not.

This was part of a disgraceful policy that has not come to an end under President Obama, as Guantánamo is still open, and 172 men are held there, with the administration, Congress and the courts having all conspired to prevent the release of any of them (even though 89 of them have been cleared for release). In addition, at Bagram in Afghanistan, there are still men held who were seized up to nine years ago in other countries, and were rendered to Bagram (after a tour of a variety of secret CIA prisons), where they remain in a legal black hole.

While I encourage readers to spare a thought for those still held in Guantánamo and Bagram, I reiterate that I understand the significance of Bradley Manning’s plight, as it is unaccepable that the ill-treatment of such a prominent prisoner is continuing, despite international outrage, just as it is unacceptable that he has not yet been put forward for trial, as he has now been held for nearly a year, since his initial arrest in Kuwait last May.

In an important update to Manning’s story, the website The Western Front recently interviewed Evan Knappenberger, an Iraq War veteran and former Army intelligence specialist, who graduated from the same intelligence school as Manning, and who has some important insights: firstly, about how dehumanizing it was working as an intel analyst in Iraq, and how, at the same time, when it came to having access to classified documents on the Defense Department’s online network, “Army security is [or was] like a Band-Aid on a sunken chest wound.”

Knappenberger also explains how the leaking of information by Manning (if indeed it was him) “has raised consciousness quite a bit of the true nature of what’s going on,” adding that he is appalled by the military’s obsession with classifying as secret everything that takes place in its wars, and how he is also appalled that Manning, as a whistleblower, should have rights and protections that are denied to him, and also regards his treatment as a disgrace.

This is a powerful interview, and I do hope that you have the time to read it, and also to circulate it to others.