U.S. Military Police Prevent Bradley Manning From Having Visitors

Torture was always seen as method used by authoritarian governments to assert control and intimidate its citizens and those who opposed the regime. Recent history has changed that with the revelations that the U.S. military and the C.I.A. had been torturing prisoners captured during President Bush’s war on terror. Memos written by lawyers working for the U.S. Department of Justice created the legal framework authorizing what they euphemistically called “enhanced interrogation protocols.” The use of physical torture on prisoners captured during Bush’s War on Terror: Including water boarding, hanging prisoners from ceilings by their arms and beatings. Torture isn’t just physical it is also physiological: Sleep depravation, solitary confinement, removable of all clothing, fake executions and using dogs as a means of intimidation.
People say elections have consequences and so they do allowing for leaders of different political ideologies to govern yet something’s sadly remain the same.

Bradley Manning is accused of leaking classified U.S. State Department and Department of Defense documents to Wikileaks, which covered the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan along with several hundred thousand diplomatic cables dating back to 2008. Manning a PFC was an intelligence annalist in Iraq until last May when he was arrested and taken to Kuwait where he was held for a month until his transfer to the U.S. Marine Corp base at Quantico Virginia where he has been held in solidarity confinement for the last 8 months even though he has never been convicted of any crime.
Amnesty International Issues Letter Concerning The Treatment of Bradley Manning

We understand that PFC Manning’s restrictive conditions of confinement are due to his classification as
a maximum custody detainee. This classification also means that – unlike medium security detainees
–- he is shackled at the hands and legs during approved social and family visits, despite all such visits
at the facility being non-contact. He is also shackled during attorney visits at the facility. We further
understand that PFC Manning, as a maximum custody detainee, is denied the opportunity for a work
assignment which would allow him to be out of his cell for most of the day. The United Nations (UN)
Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners (SMR), which are internationally recognized
guiding principles, provide inter alia that “Untried prisoners shall always be offered opportunity to
work” should they wish to undertake such activity (SMR Section C, rule 89).

Jane Hamsher of the American blog Firedog Lake and his friend David House attempted to visit Bradley Manning but were prevented from doing so by the military police.

I don’t think any of this had anything to do with me, or frankly the 42,000 petition signatures. The only thing I did was provide housing and transportation to David House, because he’s just out of college and Glenn Greenwald told him he could stay with me when he comes to visit Manning.

Everyone but David has stopped coming to see Bradley, and it takes a lot of courage to do what David is doing. It’s a very intimidating situation. So I try to support him by giving him a place to stay and driving him to the base when he comes to town. That’s really my only involvement.

There is no doubt in my mind that the primary objective of everything that happened today was to keep Bradley Manning from having the company of his only remaining visitor. The MPs told us they were ordered to do this, the brass showed up to make sure that they did, and they held us until 2:50 by repeatedly asking for information they already had whenever we asked to leave.