Is this terrible treatment? Yes. Is it inhumane? Possibly. It's important to bear in mind several factors:
* PFC Bradley Manning signed up to all of this. He will have been aware of the treatment he should expect in this situation if he was exposed.
* He confessed. Innocent until guilty in a military scenario is different to a civilian scenario. Given that he's confessed guilt, there's little to defend.
* This is a military case, not a civilian one. Things are different. You might not agree with the way he's treated but there are specific rules and those rules are in place for a reason.
So to restate, he's being held without charges and psychologically tortured, but it's okay because he's in the military and the rules of the military say that's okay.
Would you support a military rule that required officers to eat ten newborn babes apiece to be eligible for promotion? Let's say it's a specific rule and it's in place for a reason.
> So to restate, he's being held without charges and psychologically tortured, but it's okay because he's in the military and the rules of the military say that's okay.
That's not what I'm saying. It's not psychological torture against someone who's completely unprepared for it and never signed up for it. It's imprisonment under the terms of a contract he willingly signed up for. He is being charged with breaking that contract in a manner where the rules and consequences are clear. That's the call he had to make, that's the trade-off he had to make and that's something he must've known before he did what he did, otherwise he's taken a massive uncalculated risk without thinking about the potential consequences.
He "signed up" for all this? Really? Can you point me to the document one signs when enlisting which say that they (the military) are allowed to do this?
Secondly: HE DID NOT CONFESS. Stop making shit up just because you feel like it.
I appreciate this is an emotional issue but your inflammatory response is unwarranted. Please try to keep debate civil here.
To answer your first part about enlisting. US Military Justice is covered by Congress, primarily through the Uniform Code of Military Justice (http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/ucmj.htm). As I've mentioned before, there will be a process for everything. It will be documented. They will follow it.
The standard enlistment/re-enlistment form DD Form 4/1 is used by all branches of the US Military (http://usmilitary.about.com/library/pdf/enlistment.pdf). In Section C, Clause 9 there's a whole load of stuff about being subject to military law, laws changing and still being applicable and being potentially up for court-martial. That's where it says they're allowed.
On your claim that he did not confess - he has not confessed in court, I do not know whether or not he has confessed to any military staff, but he has confessed to Adrian Lamo through various chat logs, which have since been turned over to wired magazine and partially published (http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/06/wikileaks-chat/). I don't have any confirmation that the logs themselves were provided to the military, although there is confirmation in that article that Adrian Lamo tipped off the FBI and Army.
When I see lies repeated again and again, without being challenged, it angers me.
You say "he did not confess in court". Followed by "I do not know whether he confessed to any military staff". And yet you continue to claim that "he confessed". Chat logs are not a confession! It just boggles the mind that any sane person would consider "chat logs" a confession! Especially on a site like Hacker News. How would you like it if you were locked up in solitary based on what you said on IRC?
So tell me, what is more inflammatory: The repeated lies by biased people who want to punish an INNOCENT man (remember "innocent until proven guilty"?) based on some stupid chat logs with a known felon; or calling out such lies?
I apologise if this was misleading. I can see how it can be interpreted as he confessed in court, but he's not had a hearing yet so he can't. He confessed to Adrian Lamo, who promptly turned the logs to wired magazine, who then published excerpts.
* PFC Bradley Manning signed up to all of this. He will have been aware of the treatment he should expect in this situation if he was exposed.
* He confessed. Innocent until guilty in a military scenario is different to a civilian scenario. Given that he's confessed guilt, there's little to defend.
* This is a military case, not a civilian one. Things are different. You might not agree with the way he's treated but there are specific rules and those rules are in place for a reason.