Obama: Bradley Manning Treatment Appropriate

WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama says he's been assured by the Pentagon that the Army private suspected of giving classified information to the WikiLeaks website is being held in conditions that are "appropriate and meeting our basic standards."

Pfc. Bradley Manning's civilian lawyer disagrees and has said his client's clothing is being taken each night because of sarcastic comments he had made about using underwear to commit suicide. The lawyer has called the treatment degrading.

Amnesty International also says the treatment may violate Manning's human rights. He is being held at a Marine Corps brig in Quantico, Va.

Obama said Friday that he had asked and the Pentagon assured him that Manning's confinement was appropriate. He declined to be more specific. Obama spoke at a White House news conference.

Earlier in the day, blogger Philippa Thomas relayed remarks made by State Department and Hillary Clinton spokesman P.J. Crowley to a small audience at M.I.T. on Thursday characterizing the Pentagon's treatment of Manning as "ridiculous and counterproductive and stupid." He also reportedly added, "None the less Bradley Manning is in the right place."

In the wake of the comments coming to light, Crowley confirmed to Foreign Policy's Josh Rogin that the quotes reflect what he said. Rogin writes that Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell would not comment on the remarks.

Some Manning supporters defended the spokesman.

Daniel Ellsberg, who leaked the Pentagon Papers, a secret history of the Vietnam War, said Crowley was correct and that the Pentagon had deceived Obama with its assurances. Ellsberg was charged with espionage, but the case was thrown out amid disclosure of extensive government misconduct against Ellsberg.

"If he believes that, he'll believe anything," Ellsberg said by telephone from his home in Berkeley, Calif. "If he doesn't know what the actual conditions are, he needs to get a grip on his administration."

Jeff Paterson of Courage to Resist, an Oakland, Calif.-based group raising money for Manning's defense, said he was pleasantly surprised by Crowley's remarks and hopeful they could help change the conditions of Manning's confinement.

"If people know the truth, it is indefensible," Paterson said. "That's what our challenge is – to make people aware of what's really happening."

Comments

[PoliticalRockChick]

01:55 AM on 04/17/2011

Obama is such a disappointment. It's sad.

[johngary66]

05:22 AM on 04/12/2011

"Published on Monday, April 11, 2011 by The Guardian/UK
Bradley Manning: Top US legal Scholars Voice Outrage at 'Torture'
Obama professor among 250 experts who have signed letter condemning humiliation of alleged WikiLeaks source". One of the people who taught Obama Constitutional law now wonders if his former students actions with regard to Bradley Manning meet fundamental societal decency. I guess absolute power not only corrupts absolutely it also does so very quickly. We should not be talking about Obama's nomination for reelection, we should be talking about him joining Bush/Cheney in jail for continuing to allow torture of suspects under his jurisdiction. We should start by admitting he is not who he claimed to be. When he said instead of investigating Bush/Cheney we should be moving forward, I guess what he really meant was, I intend to follow closely in their foot steps. How can the Obamabots managed to be blind to everything this liar does?

[WierdWookie]

07:48 PM on 03/22/2011

Appropiate by whose standards, Mr. president? Just becuse the last administration left decency in the ditch, does not mean we all went down with it. Government cannot tell us to follow the same standard as do they. Mannings treatment is inhumane by any persons standard. Government has no place is deciding corrupt standards should be approved by all it's citizens.

[406stew]

06:58 PM on 03/22/2011

I think i have finally lost all HOPE for CHANGE:(

[kingbuzz]

09:51 PM on 03/19/2011

TROJANHORSE.

[kingbuzz]

09:51 PM on 03/19/2011

APOLOGIES PLEASE.

[riverhead]

12:26 PM on 03/19/2011

This is just terrible ... our government is acting like despots. Their trying to scare the people into submission by treating the prisoner this way, like they do in North Korea. This is not the country I want to live in, and I'm not leaving.

[Marlyn]

01:57 PM on 03/16/2011

"President Barack Obama says he's been assured by the Pentagon" ???

President Barack Obama again demonstrates that a President has very little real power.
The military runs this country.

[johngary66]

05:31 AM on 04/12/2011

BS Marylyn, Obama knows and has to approve of everything that is going on in this case. Quit trying to defend the indefensible action of a puppet of the Corporatocracy and the Military Industrial Complex. You can only pretend Obama is something he's not for so long before you become as guilty as he is. Willfull ignorance in not an excuse under the law.

[Thaigold]

11:59 AM on 03/16/2011

Back in the fifties it was fair and proper to keep little black american girls out of white schools in Little Rock Arkansas. It was deemed "appropriate." The more things change, the more they remain the same.

[Thaigold]

11:49 AM on 03/16/2011

Yep...sleeping naked in a USMC brig and being rattled and awakened by a brig turn-key, to insure his health, is certainly a unique way to incarcerate and protect a yet to be convicted enlisted man. His attorney is either a JAG climber, or has no political juice. Probably the latter.

[BobJacobson]

09:40 PM on 03/15/2011

Astounding. I am at a loss for words. This is our President, "leader of the 'free' world"?

[Marlyn]

01:58 PM on 03/16/2011

It's so sad.

[John Beatty]

02:27 PM on 03/15/2011

Why does Obama support torture? I feel like I'm watching the Bush Administration on repeat.

[Marlyn]

01:59 PM on 03/16/2011

I guess he wants a false confession that implicates Wikileaks.

[kenwulff]

10:50 AM on 03/15/2011

I post several comments saying I think it's wrong that Obama is supporting torture.
However the Huffington Post editors won't post them.

So the huffington post is saying that one can't criticize Obama even if he is advocating torture?
This is very anti-intellectual, dangerous, almost facist.
What happened to liberalism in America???

[Marlyn]

02:04 PM on 03/16/2011

"What happened to liberalism in America???"

What happened to Huffington Post is AOL. It is no longer liberal. Now HP is "Third Way", centrist, Blue Dog Democrats, old time conservatives.

[johngary66]

05:44 AM on 04/12/2011

Marlyn, I may have unfairly accused you of trying to defend Obama in a post after you said "President Barack Obama again demonstrat­es that a President has very little real power. The military runs this country. ". I took this to mean you were excusing the President because there was nothing he could do. I hope that was not what you meant because it would not be true. He may be a puppet but he still has the power to stop something like that if he wants too. He knew what he was getting into when he accepted millions of dollars from Wall Street to run for President. He could also refuse to run again in 2012. He has stated his intention to do just that.

[delta7777]

12:33 AM on 03/15/2011

.
Obama's declaration that Pvt Manning's treatment is appropriate
on the advice of the Pentagon
is tantamount to Obama being complicit in torture
as certainly as was the Bush administration's complicity
and authorization of waterboarding torture
on the basis of advice from the Office of Legal Counsel.
.
.

[PuffDragon]

04:56 PM on 03/14/2011

Oh, of course we can all trust whatever comes out of the Pentagon.

Even though the Pentagon hasn't passed an audit in 25 years. . .
I'm sure they are telling us all the truth.

[IMac]

08:55 AM on 04/25/2011

And congressmen and women are saying that the Pentogan is too big to audit - OMG is this what the US has fallen to?