Obama or Manning: Who's the Real Criminal?

Dear Mr. President, 
Janet Reitman’s article on Bradley Manning in the March 14 Rolling Stone describes his 3-year ordeal at the hands of the U.S. government: “Though not the standard treatment for U.S. soldiers, even those accused of war crimes,” Reitman notes, “Obama administration officials deemed it ‘appropriate’ for Manning.” As I read the article, I wondered who ordered his harsh treatment, ordered him taken from an air-conditioned tent where other miscreants were held at Camp Arifjan and put in a Guantanamo–like steel cage for 6 weeks, kept in isolation and put on a reverse sleep cycle, allowed to sleep only in the mid-day, mid-summer heat of the Kuwait desert. Why was Manning, a U.S. Army private, transferred to the Marine brig at Quantico rather than an army stockade? Who ordered him put on suicide watch? Ordered he sit on the edge of his bunk all day, back rigid, not permitted to lie down or lean against a wall, a stress position used in torture? Who ordered him kept in solitary confinement with only a 20-minute “sunshine call” each day, taken out of his cell shackled, in restraints so top-heavy, guards had to hold this 5’ 2” 105 pound boy upright to keep him from toppling over? Then, declared non-suicidal by Navy psychiatrists, who let the officer in charge defy regulations and keep Manning on suicide watch for another week before classifying him POI, still subject to isolation, sleep deprivation, lack of exercise and communication, psychologically battered, badgered and humiliated? This 22-year-old Army intelligence analyst exposed war crimes, corruption, lies, and duplicity by his and other governments and was punished for his sins. It doesn’t matter that half of what Manning turned over to WikiLeaks was unclassified or that he selected only those documents that would cause no harm to his country. And it doesn’t matter that the UN’s annual report on human rights abuses declared Manning’s treatment inhumane and a violation of basic human rights. But it does matter that you could have stopped all this long ago and didn’t, that you are complicit in making Manning a warning to other potential whistleblowers and keeping him a political prisoner. You order the assassination of American citizens without due process, you order drone attacks knowing innocent civilians will be killed, why not torture, indefinite detention and mock justice for someone who embarrasses the power elite and shows the true face of war? You are the real criminal, Mr. President.