Wait, what?
WikiLeaks’ founder, Julian Assange, was released on bail by the High Court in London yesterday. Good news never lasts long though, as word is out today that US authorities are trying to prosecute him by offering Bradley Manning, the American soldier allegedly responsible for leaking hundreds of thousands of government documents, the possibility of a plea bargain if he names the WikiLeaks founder as a fellow conspirator.
American officials view persuading Pte Manning to give evidence that Mr Assange encouraged him to disseminate classified Pentagon and State Department files as crucial to any prospect of extraditing him for a successful prosecution. To facilitate that, Pte Manning may be moved from military to civilian custody, they say.
It is worth noting that Bradley Manning has been detained in inhumane conditions for around 7 months and is likely to have suffered long-term psychological injuries.
Manning has been subjected for many months without pause to inhumane, personality-erasing, soul-destroying, insanity-inducing conditions of isolation similar to those perfected at America’s Supermax prison in Florence, Colorado: all without so much as having been convicted of anything. And as is true of many prisoners subjected to warped treatment of this sort, the brig’s medical personnel now administer regular doses of anti-depressants to Manning to prevent his brain from snapping from the effects of this isolation.
Just by itself, the type of prolonged solitary confinement to which Manning has been subjected for many months is widely viewed around the world as highly injurious, inhumane, punitive, and arguably even a form of torture.
Now, if you torture a man long/hard enough (“that’s what she said!”), he’ll most likely say whatever you want him to say. So if Manning “confesses” and says that Julian Assange instructed him to steal documents/assisted him with the task, how would it at all be plausible? He’s being held in solitary confinement 23 hours a day, treated in ways that much of the civilized world considers to be torture. Wouldn’t that be identical to a confession under duress, like torture? If the US does go forward with this new plan it will become an even scarier place than it is now, one step closer to being a westernized China.
