Dear Mr. President,
Hendrik Hertzberg has written an unflattering piece in this week’s New Yorker about your cave-in on Guantanamo Bay prison. He mentions four of your campaign promises–close Guantanamo; prosecute accused terrorists in civilian courts rather than by military commissions; end indefinite detention without indictment or trial; and put a definitive end to the use of torture–and goes on to say that you kept only the last one, the first three, through fecklessness, ineptitude and political cowardice, still exist. Not all your fault, plenty of blame to go around–Democrats, Republicans and your Administration alike–but I believe he is mistaken in giving you a pass on the torture promise. While not waterboarded like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed nor beaten or held in stressful positions for extended periods of time or threatened with imminent death or physical violence, Pfc. Bradley Manning has been held in solitary confinement for 260 days under Maximum Custody and POI conditions, humiliated and psychologically abused. All that’s missing is a black hood and electrical wires attached to his genitals. Manning is a political prisoner being punished for blowing the whistle on atrocities and war crimes by the military and leaking diplomatic cables detailing the duplicity and corruption of governments around the world. The conditions under which he is held have been defined as torture by psychologist and lawyer groups; even military psychiatrists call his treatment unnecessary. And yet, there you stand excusing it, blowing it off, saying the Pentagon assured you that Manning’s treatment is “appropriate and meets our basic standards.” Whose standards are these, Mr. President? The military’s stonewalling, denying Kucinich and UN and Amnesty International representatives an official visit to Manning is outrageous. The collapse of your efforts to close Guantanamo, Hertzberg calls a failure and a shame. I would put your treatment of Manning in the same category. Hertzberg contrasts the humane treatment of 400,000 German prisoners held on American soil during World War II with the shameful treatment of 172 Guantanamo prisoners, the hysteria and fear, the cowardice of politicians who imposed a ban on civilian trials for terrorists or even transporting them to U.S. prisons. The present generation, in contrast to the Greatest Generation, I call the Least Generation, a Generation of Moral Cowards, and you, Mr. President, are its symbolic leader.
Free Bradley Manning!
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