Playing God with Bradley Manning
Back in 2002, Gitmo’s Standard Operating Procedures advocated stripping detainees of clothing as a way of demonstrating the omnipotence of the captors.
In addition to degradation of the detainee, stripping can be used to demonstrate the omnipotence of the captor or to debilitate the detainee.
With Abu Zubaydah–as Jane Mayer has written–they explicitly tied this to becoming his “God.”
… the CIA interrogators also announced they planned to become Zubaydah’s “God.” They reportedly took his clothing as punishment, and reduced his human interaction to a single daily visit in which they would say simply, “You know what I want,” and then leave.
That’s striking given that–according to Bradley Manning’s Article 138 complaint, written in his own voice–Commander James Averhart put Manning on suicide watch on January 18 to demonstrate that he was, for all practical purposes, God.
After being returned to my cell, I started to read a book. About 30 minutes later, the PCF Commander, CWO4 James Averhart, came to my cell. He asked me what had happened during my recreation call. As I tried to explain to him what had occurred, CWO4 Averhart stopped me and said “I am the commander” and that “no one could tell him what to do.” He also said that he was, for all practical purposes, “God.” I responded by saying “you still have to follow Brig procedures.” I also said “everyone has a boss that they have to answer to.” As soon as I said this, CWO4 Averhart ordered that I be placed in Suicide Risk Status.
Following Averhart’s order that Manning be labeled a suicide risk, he ordered guards to take his clothing.
He instructed the guards to enter my cell and take all my clothing. At first I tried to reason with CWO4 Averhart by telling him that I had been a model detainee and by asking him to just tell me what he wanted me to do and that I would do it. However, I gave up trying to reason with him once the guards entered my cell and ordered me to strip. Instead, I lowered my head and starting taking off my clothes.
Manning’s Article 138 complaint shows far more. It shows how the Brig Psychiatrist recommended at least 16 times between August 27 and January 21 that Manning be removed from Prevention of Injury watch. It shows that the day Manning was placed on suicide watch, there was a protest in support of him outside of Quantico. According to Manning, the guards harassed him, demanding he respond to every order with “Aye” rather than “Yes.” And except for that day (when he said “Yes” instead of “Aye” and then asked Averhart why that was happening to him), Manning was never deemed to present disciplinary problem.
Manning also describes the whole reason he is now being stripped every night: because he again asked why he is being treated this way.
On March 2, I was informed of your decision regarding my Article 138 complaint. Understandably frustrated by this decision after enduring over seven months of unduly harsh confinement conditions, I asked the Brig Operations Officer, MSG Papakie, what I needed to do in order to be downgraded from Maximum Custody and POI Status. MSG Papakie responded by telling me that there was nothing I could do to downgrade my detainee status and that the Brig simply considered me a risk of self-harm. Out of frustration, I responded that the POI restrictions were absurd and sarcastically told him if I really wanted to harm myself, that I could conceivably do so with the elastic waistband of my underwear or with my flip-flops.
The government torture canon makes it clear: their plan to break prisoners requires prisoners learn helplessness. A key part of that is–as Averhart himself explicitly described it–playing God.
It is clear the government’s program of abuse remains the same. This is the procedure they used on Abu Zubaydah. It is the procedure they used in Gitmo. They are now using it on an American citizen detained on American soil.
And surprisingly, they’re still describing their abuse in the very same term: God.
I AM the face of torture, kinda flips the original meaning on it’s head.
Psycho-sexual jollies, yucking it up watching a fellow human squirm.
Here’s his lawyers post about it:
Article 138 Complaint; David E. Coombs; 3/10/11
[PS: bmaz has a comment there.]
It’s not torture if the American military is doing it to one of their own on American soil in a military prison.
Barack Obama is responsible for this atrocity. At least before him, we had Hope. Now we have none.
Rhymes better:
At least before him, we had Hope. Now we have nope
“Barack Obama is responsible for this atrocity. At least before him, we had Hope. Now we have “
noneHoaxActually Teddy, we have a four letter word in its place. Each day, the country keeps getting sicker and sicker.
Thank you for the continued Bradley Manning updates.
I can’t believe that I am still shocked by the sick depravity of Bradley’s treatment (and that of others) after all these years, but I am.
Justice delayed is justice denied. The rule of law in our country may well be dead.
I’m glad that you’re still shocked. It means that you still have a concience; you still have a sense of right and wrong.
Reading this is really painful.
I find it ironic that our commander in chief made an anti-bullying speech today.
Are they insisting he say “Aye” rather than “Yes” because they’re Marines?
During the significant amount of time I have spent on Army bases, I can’t recall a single instance of anybody saying “Ayee”.
“Aye aye” is of course naval language, and the Marines are part of the Department of the Navy.
What right do they have to insist an Army private like Manning use naval language?
Maybe one of the actual vets around here will weigh in, but my recollection from a few former Marine friends:
None. They are being assholes. And Marines say a simple “Yes, Sir” or “Yes, Ma’am.” E.g., in the ’70s, a mark of a Marine private who had been trained by an asshole was the use of the “Sir sandwich.”
Since PFC Manning probably knows all this, it is easy to imagine that he might be flat on “E” at last one day. I know just reading about it is enough to use up my last drop.
Amnesty Int’l urges support for WikiLeaks suspect LINK.
You had hope, but no… that wasn’t good enough for ya’s… So long came mr. wonderful promising hope and change!
well that was guilding the lilly, a bridge too far. Remember… “If it sounds too good, it must be con artist trick.” Hope and Change, that’s asking for the moon, so they gave us the moon. S/
Even those dedicated proprietors of fine torture, should be concerned about the publicity and over exposure of their special niche avocation, after all, nothing spoils the mood in a good… dank old… well equipped dungeon, like too much fresh air and sunlight. ( Excepting too much fresh air and blinding light… ) And so, they should ramp it back when they’re under so much ( too little) scrutiny as supposedly, M is getting to be
Why is stubborn intransigence trumping all else? Shouldn’t there be a little more dexterity and accomodation to public opinion than what is shown, by the administration and all down stream in his sphere of direct influence, as Unitary #1.
What is the payoff for being (tone deaf) obstinate, or just clueless? Doesn’t the baboon listen to his wife?
God, or the Red Queen from Wonderland; one of these, for sure:
“It’s too late to correct it,” said the Red Queen: “when you’ve once said a thing, that fixes it, and you must take the consequences.”
military top down orders are not to be questioned….playing god is what it is all about… honour is about not questioning this bullshit… down is up and up is down in military bizarro world…
having manning speak in his own voice is a very powerful
way to educate ordinary citizen who never hear this story.
these comments by manning absolutely cry out for a
youtube video
using voiceover,
with photos of the brig, the cell, averheart, denise barnes, et al., together with photos of events from iraq, afghan, egypt, yemen.
viz, ken burns’ pbs documentaries.
harpie@2
tx
harpie@6
infuriating.
i do not know how manning manages to control himself in the face of this tremendous personal injustice.
The answer is that when combined with many other techniques, you begin to go nuts. That seems to be the desired outcome, which itself is a criminal act on the part of this administration, from the guards to the CWO commander up the chain to the Pentagon chiefs and Mr. Obama.
Yes. Guards of GWOT detainees were taught to do the same things. [can’t rremeber exactly where I read that.] Dispicable.
I guess the protest outside the camp angered someone.
Me neither…
He wouldn’t be there without a steel spine and brass balls.(If, in fact, he’s guilty, better if he isn’t)
!,000s upon 1000s of others jelly spined cowards saw the same evidence and were good soldiers to the brass but not the constitution and it’s attendant treaties.
May the great I AM bless him, as if he already isn’t blessed.
The use of “aye” is Navy/Marine Corps lingo; “yes, sir” or “yes, chief” would be Army lingo. Changing terms for such routine, ingrained behavior is intended to disorient, to make the prisoner feel wrong, shamed, out of control. It’s a great example of the pettiness of this intentional harassment, which is all part of enhanced interrogation or verschaerfte Vernehmung techniques.
There’s only ONE person responsible for the way Manning’s being treated – Obama! He’s repeatedly shown he cares NOTHING about the ideals of the Democratic Party. But, is he receiving ANY pressure from the Democrats WE elected to see the rule of military law for charged, not convicted, U.S. soldiers is followed?
Still amazes me that we punish/torture an innocent man, and not only is there little outrage, but those on the right continue to show how un-American they are when the show support for punishing/torturing innocent people.
I don’t think the USG has ever been the saints many of us grew up believing, but I do believe we at one of the worst times in our history regarding the USG. Fascism is here and the only question is whether it’s here to stay or if it’s going to be a short term thing.
Perhaps not, but that it openly admits totorturing prisoners is still unbelievable to me.
An “innocent man”? You have got to be kidding me! This guy is a criminal and needs to be punished. He has stolen and disseminated government secrets and put lives at risk. I do hope they treatnhim well while they detain him, since I want him healthy enough to live out a very long life sentence behind bars.
Anybody see this yet…
Corps: WikiLeaks suspect gets sleeping smock
Go to whitehouse.gov and register your sentiments, now and often.
This is the message I just sent:
Bradley Manning!
What an embarrassment to our nation, the way this young man is being abused and tortured by our own military.
Mr. President, you are a disgrace to this nation, and to your office to sit back and allow this to occur on your watch.
You and your DOJ embarrass our country each day this travesty of justice is allowed to continue.
One phone call is all it would take, if you had the balls to do it.
Make it known that we are out here in support of Private Manning, and demand he be treated with dignity INSIDE the framework of the rule of law..
Thanks for the reminder. Done.
Manning’s father Brian makes a statement. And it appears there’s going to be a Frontline episode March 29th.
PBS now has an article on their Blog:
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/2011/03/exclusive-bradley-mannings-father-discusses-sons-incarceration-with-frontline.html
Yes, just read on twitter that pbs will air a frontline special on March 20 re Bradley Manning and his conditions of detention. Looks like the good guys are finally getting the message through. Let us hope it arrives in time.
Obummer won’t really even deal with the Senate over the budget, so why would he worry his “pretty little head” over the likes of some serf like Manning. Just bc Obama is the Commander in Chief, he probably doesn’t want to “disturb his beautiful mind” with considering intervening in Manning’s torture by the USMC on US soil at Quantico. Whyever should he do that??/s
I’m glad to see Amnesty International stepping up to the plate. I’ve been writing to them to get involved in this travesty, fwiw.
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2011/03/10/amnesty
From Amnesty International [through Greenwald]:
End the punitive detention of Bradley Manning
This is Obama’s doing. If you voted for him you can be forgiven. He lied. If you vote for him again you are a torturer just like him.
Yep. As W the dumber couldn’t recall: fool me once: shame on you. Fool me twice: shame on me. No votes for Obama from me, EVEN IF the only other choice is (shudder) the Actic Idiot.
Yep. Agreed.
Those of us (yes I was one) that voted for him in 2008 can say we were fooled because we were, he lied his ass off.
But no one can claim ignorance now. If you vote for Obama next year, that means you support Obama’s positions.
Torture, indefinite detention, rendition, tax breaks for millionaires, cutting social security, and bailing out TBTF entitities while doing nothing for ordinary folks in the second biggest economic collapse of our history.
If you vote for him next year, you own all of that. Wear it proudly.
Where the FUCK is Obama?
Oh, wait, I forgot… he wants this to be happening apparently.
Our bullshit Democratic president is now a member of the criminal class like his predecessor.
OBAMA IS A FRAUD.
DE_ELECT THIS HORRIBLE WAR MONGERING TORTURER who LIED his way into office and now thumbs his nose at everything decent.
One man helps start democracy through an entire region of the world by providing truth and is rewarded with torture and isolation
One man who continually drops bombs on innocents via drones and helps the rapacious capitalist in their evil endeavors was awarded a Peace Prize.
The world has changed.
Oh please. He is a criminal, not some saint of democratic liberation. He placed dozens of lives at risk and passed on secret information. I don’t give a damn if that info in your mind should be put out in pubic. What if I unilaterally decide your life’s secrets deserved publication? Should I have the right to put it on the net?
John Kerry, speaking on the Senate floor Tuesday morning, March 8, 2011 (in a 30-minute venting about the federal budget):
The Secretary of the Navy (Raymond Mabus, Jr.), the Chief of Naval Operations (Admiral Gary Roughead), and the Marine Corps Commandant (General James Amos) were all present at a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee that same morning, Tuesday, March 8th.
Neither Chairman Levin nor Ranking Member McCain said word one about Quantico’s treatment of Manning in their opening statements or in their opening questions, nor did the next seven questioners (Lieberman, Wicker, Reed, Collins, Webb, Scott Brown, Hagan), as of more than halfway through the hearing. I haven’t finished watching the whole hearing, the second half of which I caught intermittently live, to verify that not one single pertinent question was asked of these officials, or even a statement made for the record. But almost certainly no questions about the abusive detention conditions endured by the “exemplary” detainee Bradley Manning were asked by any member of this Armed Services oversight committee, of the Marine Corps/Navy leadership sitting before them, throughout Senator Levin’s solicitous, collegial committee chat with the Navy Brass, who were being fawned over and petted by everyone on the committee. Petted, at least, whenever the members weren’t busy frothing at the mouth to attack Libya because, to quote Senator Wicker’s taunting ‘moral’ calculus, “What options would Gaddafi have?” if the U.S./NATO unleashed enough overwhelming firepower to demolish Libya’s anti-aircraft installations and air fields near Tripoli.
[I credit Marine Corps Commandant James Amos here, for showing much more restraint, than our power-drunk, war-gaming Senators, and for displaying a responsible, very serious/perturbed reaction to their reckless suggestions about the U.S. imposing a no-fly zone over Libya. Only Senator Webb (D-Marine Corps), referencing Secretary Gates, questioned, in passing, the wisdom of such an optional use of offensive force by the United States, which Carl Levin went so far as to assert or imply was a decision for the President alone to make, under the War Powers Act, because, in Levin’s view, such a use of force would require only some sort of “consultation” with Congress.]
Boys and their War Toys. But it wasn’t just the Boys. Claire McCaskill was prostrating herself before the witnesses when I tuned in at one point later in the hearing and, in a telling example of our Constitutional oath-bound representatives at work, this is how Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire closed the day’s hearing (at the 197-minute mark), as the lone member of the Senate Armed Services Committee still in attendance:
Segment on Manning running on PBS News Hour right now. They’re doing a tease of the Frontline show later this week, running the interview with Manning’s father.
Indeed. The cardinal sin in the military is asking why. There is no why. But there is obedience to authority and orders. It is by submitting to this thoughtless, institutional requirement that soldiers pretend to escape the moral culpability of being murderers.
There was an interview with an Army captain serving in Afghanistan on an NPR segment a few weeks back. The officer very clearly laid out the personal, practical application and “logic” of this unquestioned, order-following dynamic, but without the self-reflection that might have allowed him to see the contradiction in his argument or the moral courage to think about what doing his job meant. Of course he couldn’t have done that. That’s the whole point of the trick. Paraphrased, his argument went like this: As soldiers, we do not think about the moral or political implications of what we are doing in Afghanistan. We only follow orders. And in following those orders, in unquestioningly deferring to authority up the chain of command, we ensure our unassailable moral righteousness.
Exactly.
Sorry I don’t have a link. Heard it in the car on the way to work.
If an officer or NCO doesn’t know the why, then he won’t be able to improvise a new plan when the old plan fails to work because of conditions on the ground. If he doesn’t know what the ultimate goal is, he can’t decide what new plan will get to that goal.
An inflexible army is a losing army.
Yeah, which may be just fine for the Afghans.
The why is removed and the handicap is made into a virtue. It was fascinating to hear it all laid out so well by this officer. At once he absolved himself of moral responsibility, turned it into a non-issue, by refusing to think about ethical or political issues, and then immediately established the moral correctness of his actions by deferring to his impeccable effort to follow the orders of those who were running the war, who by virtue of being in a position of authority over him could not act immorally. It’s a survival technique, to be sure. But it’s also mindless authoritarian bullshit.
Charles Dickens observations of American prisons and particularly solitary confinement:
http://victorianweb.org/authors/dickens/pva/pva344.html
Thanks. Great link.
Most timeless, apropos line (with the exception of EofH’s): “His name, and crime, and term of suffering, are unknown, even to the officer who delivers him his daily food.” Indeed.
powwow@38
very informative as usual (i won’t jinx you with “always”).
“…neither chairman levin nor ranking member mccain said one word about quantico’s treatment of manning… neither did the next seven questioners…”
well, could it be clearer, not that it hasn’t been clear earlier,
“the fix is in” on manning among the entire federal political establishment.
it should now be the number one priority of manning’s supporters doing investigative work on his case
to figure out exactly why this remarkable bi-partisan silence.
glenn greenwald offers “party allegiance” for democrats. of course.
but something else is at work, something deeper.
frankly, i cannot figure it out.
yes, of course, they are trying to break manning and force him to implicate assange.
but is this enough to warrant the entire federal political establishment unanimously supporting the “no marks”, psychological torture manning is being subjected to by the quantico brig’s jailers?
something else is going on.
what?
i don’t know.
but this mass silence among normally quarrelsome opponents
is an indicator of underlying fear.
“of what” is the question.
I know that with Jose Padilla, most of the focus went to the Mobbs declaration, but I have always found the declaration filed by Jacoby to be horrible and disturbing.
http://www.pegc.us/archive/Padilla_vs_Rumsfeld/Jacoby_declaration_20030109.pdf
He lent his name, office and uniform to a declaration against Padilla (who was not even military) being able to have a lawyer while being detained at the brig (or any other human contact – not even what little Manning is getting). After carefully saying he was not using any information obtained through interrogations (Pilate, wash thy hands) he stated his personal belief that giving Padilla access to counsel would endanger national security.
Then he goes on to explain why courts and the rule of law don’t have any business interfering in the detention of a US citizen by the military, without charges and under memos allowing for torture (ok, he doesn’t spell it out quite that way, but there it is): “Any interruption of the intelligence gathering process, especially from an external source, risks mission failure.” (no one asked to have him clarify that the mission was getting GWB re-elected and covering up war crimes).
“Developing the kind of relationship of
feartrust and dependency necessary for effective interrogations is a process that can take a significant amount of time. There are numerous examples of situations where interrogators have been unable to obtain valuable intelligence until months, or even years, after the intelligence process was begun. Anything that threatens the perceived dependency andfeartrust between the subject and interrogator directly threatens the value of interrogation as an intelligence gathering tool….Any insertion of counsel into the subject-interrogator relationship, for example-even if only for a limited dw-ation or for a specific purpose-can undo months of work and may permanently shut down the interrogation process. Therefore, it is critical to minimize external influences on the interrogation process. Indeed, foreign governments have used these techniques against captured DoD personnel.”Yes, because other foreign governments do it to captured military personnel, that’s a perfectly fine reason to do it to US citizens on US soil who are not military. I think the Declaration of Independence and Constitution were based on principles like that – you know, because King George did it, it’s like, ya know, good stuff. Or sumpin.
“Unlike any previous conflict, we face a foe that knows no borders and perceives all Americans, wherever they may be, as target of opportunity . . . the intelligence cycle is continuous. This dynamic is
especially important in the War on Terrorism. There is a constant need to ask detainees new lines of questions as additional detainees are taken into custody and new information is obtained from them [i.e., if one person has been tortured into saying something, it helps to have someone else tortured into backing it up] … The United States is now engaged in a robust [robust defined as freezing a man to death, paying bounties for civilians to ship to torture sites for “mosaic” interrgations of the human trafficking vitims, torturing, disappearing, sodomizing, and creating black prisons for] program of interrogating individuals who have been identified [by a guy we paid to make the identification, no matter how ludicrous] as enemy combatants [keeping in mind that by now the CIA had issued its 8-2002 memo that a huge chunk of the detainees at GITMO in the military interrogation process were just unlucky schmucks].
“The results of these interrogations have provided vital information to the President,military commanders, and others involved in the War on Terrorism. It is estimated that more than 100 additional attacks on the United States and its interests have been thwarted since 11 September 2001 by the effective intelligence gathering efforts of the Intelligence Community and others.
In fact, Padilla’s capture and detention were the direct result of such effective intelligence gathering efforts. The information leading to Padilla’s capture came from a variety of sources over time, including the interrogation of other detainees. Knowledge of and disruption of al Qaida’s plot to detonate a “dirty bomb” or arrange for other attacks within the United States may not have occurred absent the interrogation teclmiques described above.”
Since he’s referring to Zubaydan and Binyam Mohamed, those techniques include taking a crazy guy and making him crazier by continuous torture until he coughs up on thing after another to make the torture stop, and razoring genitals in Morrocco because a guy visited a spoof “how to make a bomb by spinning a bucket around your head” site.
So according to Jacoby, anyone an American president declares and “enemy combatant” in any kind of non-uniformed war, on drugs, on terror, on partisanship, on foot odors, etc. – that person can be disappeared by the military, even a US citizen on US soil, and with no oversight of any kind, based merely on a president’s say so (or someone saying that the president said so) and a court can’t interfere because it would hurt the complete and total, personality anhiliative, dependency they are going to impose, dependency that will make anyone say antyhing.
“The President [not a court, not even intelligence guys willing to put their name to what they are doing] has determined that Padilla is closely associated with [they new he wasn’t a member] al Qaida, an international terrorist organization with which the United States is at war. The President has further determined that Padilla possesses intelligence, including intelligence about personnel and activities of a1 Qaida, that, if communicated to the United States, would aid our efforts to prevent further attacks by al Qaida on the United States, its armed forces, other government personnel, or its citizens.”
So, based on a presidential determination in an undeclared war – the military can disappear a citizen and reduce them mentally to a state of total dependency through any means they choose to get them to say whatever the interrogator wants said, and Jaboby was unblinking about that being spiffy.
Imagine a member of the military saying that about a US citizen being disappeared by the military based on things they were able to get two tortured guys, one crazy, to say. That it’s only when the military can make an American citizen realize that there is no help on the way, that the military will have felt like it’s done its job. I still think it’s one of the worst things I’ve read in all the pieces of paper that have been produced. Shameless.
Well, that is poetry — of the “a terrible beauty is born” kind.
Like everyone else here, I’m just beside myself with grief and rage. I don’t know how to express anything else usefully.
mary@45
padilla’s treatment is a template for tyranny.
one next time?
four?
fourty?
four hundred?
four thousand? demonstrators?
and note well,
this involved the WILLING cooperation of the u.s. military – its acquiescence, its facilities, and its trained soldiers –
in the torturous detention of an american CIVILIAN – an american civilian detained under circumstances of hysterical fear-rhetoric employed by the american president, the dept of homeland security, and the attorney general, head of the u.s. dep’t of “justice”,
and speciouslly labelled “an enemy combatant” by the highest level of civilian american officials solely to justify his detainment by the american military.
i end as i began,
a perfect template for tyranny.
– George Orwell
It looks to me as though we’ve reached the future. Doesn’t it make you long for the good old days?
“It’s lonely here, there’s no one left to torture . . .”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0s4g1Yh5vw
Some pretty sick motherfuckers.
The dream and delusion of omnipotence has destroyed far better societies than our own.
I’m reminded of the epigraph oft repeated in Malcolm Lowry’s Under the Volcano:
Thanks for the excellent post, EW, and the excellent comments by all.
Important reporting in The Nation.
Gitmo in the Heartland
http://bit.ly/eYMwKM
“They are now using it on an American citizen detained on American soil.”
Obama – Torture, America soiled.