I think what you describe and what’s described in the article are both “torture.” What’s the issue?

We should also go back in time and torture Rosa Parks. She broke the law too.

[/sarcasm]

When government goes off the rails and starts invading countries (e.g. Yemen) without telling the people, it’s heroic to leak that information. Laws or not.

I didn’t say anyone needed to go to war over Gilad Shalit — although Hamas is at war already.

But protesting the actions of Hamas is not at all like protesting North Korea. Hamas has a few supporters in the U.S. It has many more who are sympathetic to their cause. Consider the difficulty that some people had in publicly acknowledging that Hamas is a terrorist organization.

Hamas gets a lot of support from Iran, which has considerable ties to Venezuela (including military ties). Venezuela has a lot of supporters everywhere — most of whom would otherwise claim to care about human rights. Hamas is not at all isolated like North Korea.

People could speak out if they chose do so so. They just choose not to.

At this rate (certainly,if *I* was Pfc. Manning)he’s going to tell ‘them’ anything they want to know to get out of this hell.

For those of you who feel it isn’t torture: I challenge you to imitate his conditions for 72hrs. I know you can’t. Because it’s TORTURE.

What those intractable foreign squabbles have to do with how the Fed Gov treats Pfc. Manning, US citizen, soldier, and prisoner, is unclear to me.

As indeed is what you hope to add to this thread, by bringing them up at all.

Threadjack?

Oddly enough, boingboing has Shalit’s picture on an article today.

So, then, I suppose you consider waterboarding to also -not- be torture? After all, the prisoner is clothed, fed and medically cared for before, during & after the practice. Typically, waterboarding only lasts a few minutes (believe I read a report that even the strongest prisoners can only stand about 1-2 minutes before they spill the beans) – I mean, a couple of minutes of waterboarding doesn’t constitute torture, right? No physical scars, no bleeding…

We all know proper torture last days & days & weeks & months, involving iron maidens & water wheels & gloomy castles…& leaves physical scars. Anything short of that is just fun ‘n games.

To deprive Manning of exercise, the company of other people, information, the proper sleeping environment, etc. is a subtle form of torture – but still torture nonetheless – as it is designed to cause emotional & physical distress & injury. The sheer crushing despair caused by isolation is enough to push anyone to their emotional limits.

The answer to your question is, yes, it is torture. Yes, McCain thought it was the most difficult thing to endure. Yes, we have lots of information that it has lasting deleterious effects.

I’m curious why you might want such “tools” to be disregarded as torture. What motivation would you have to de-list such things from the range of barbaric activities other than to normalise them.

In addition, I’m profoundly curious if you are paid to write on this blog.

There is documentary evidence of their affiliations and contributions to Libertarian candidates and causes.

This is credible only under the “stopped clock” principle, and I do wholeheartedly wish the information came from other sources.

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/12/23/manning/index.html

read the story.

Although prolonged solitary confinement can unquestionably constitute torture (the surgeon and journalist Atul Gawande made the definitive, undeniable case for that last year in The New Yorker), I wasn’t prepared to state based on what I could confirm that the treatment of Manning met the legal definition of torture…edit for brevity…But others have made the argument persuasively that this is torture.

Ralph Lopez chided me for my equivocation on that question, assembling ample evidence to support his view that the treatment amounts to torture. Digby made a strong case that “locking up someone who has not presented any kind of threat to other prisoners and who has not been convicted of a crime for months on end in solitary confinement under tight restrictions is torture.”

I would advise everyone to turn the volume down from time to time, as the damage from repeated or constant exposure to higher volumes may cause severe hearing loss (or even complete deafness) over time.

When people upset about Manning’s treatment cite McCain’s captivity, and apparently think it’s comparable to what some blogger saw when he visited Manning, it’s fair to ask where they stood on other matters. Gilad Shalit one good example. There are too many others.

Bt ‘m nt tlkng th prpr wy t trt prsnr. ‘m tlkng bt trtr. ‘m sr wld hv n trbl fndng ny nmbr f psychlgsts wh wld ttst t th mntl ngsh xprnc by ny prsnr n ny f r prsns, ncldng mnmm scrty. ftr ll, thy r dnd thr frdm, nd thy my fc yrs nd yrs f sltn frm scty. Tht dsn’t mk t trtr.

One’s duty as a soldier never supercedes one’s duty as an American citizen. Soldiers do take on additional duties, but these duties are extra. They are on top of, not instead of, the duties we all have as Americans. This distinction has been lost, some would say purposefully swept under the rug, by the US Military over the years.

As American citizens it is our duty to speak out publically against injustice, particularly when it is coming from the upper levels of our own government and/or its agencies and departments. Becoming a soldier does not supercede that obligation, it does not eliminate it, and it can not constitutionally be defended even when the authority and credibility of that agency or department would be jeopardized as a result.

A case could be made for issues of national security, but I believe that case is flimsy at best. From a purely ethical standpoint, security always follows from justice. It does not, and can not precede it. If and when it does, the justice will invariably be corrupt and as a result the security will ultimately fail. Our constitution is designed around this concept, the system of checks and balances depends on it, and it is being deliberately undermined by our own government.

If that doesn’t scare you, it should.