DOD Declares War on … Underwear

Charlie Savage just tweeted that the Abu Ghraib tactics will continue for Bradley Manning.

Quantico tells me Bradley Manning will now be stripped every night as a “precautionary measure” to prevent self-injury

Remember, Manning was already being forced to sleep in his underwear.

When PFC Manning goes to sleep, he is required to strip down to his boxer shorts and surrender his clothing to the guards. His clothing is returned to him the next morning.

So this new enforced nudity policy purports that Manning’s underwear are a danger to him.

DOD, protecting us from terrorists … and boxer shorts.

I’m imagining Osama bin Laden sitting in his cave laughing his ass off at the Marines that run Quantico, frightened over one pair of underwear. And imagining a new version of the Marine Hymn:

From the Halls of Montezuma, to cells of Quantico. We will fight our country’s battles against truth and underroos.

Now, frankly, humor may be the best way to cope with learning about this. But it’s not fair to the Marines that run Quantico to ask them to do something as absurd as this, to trump up some stupid excuse about the threat one man’s boxer shorts pose so they can justify stupid persecution.

Our Marines deserve better than this. Our country deserves better than this.