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The inhumane conditions of Bradley Manning's detention
51–56 of 56 posts
Re: The inhumane conditions of Bradley Manning's detention
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
The original penitentiaries were actually designed as all solitary -- the idea was that an inmate, isolated from the corruption of the world, would find their innate inner goodness and spend the time praying - hence the "penitent" part of "penitentiary. This place http://www.easternstate.org/ is a fascinating place to visit -- it's the model for many many prisons around the world still in use today. The idea of putti…
It's actually quite clear -- group housing doesn't inherently drive most people insane after months. Solitary confinement does. http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/03/30/090330fa_fact_... Change it from less than 1 hour of contact per day to something like 4, and I doubt it would be harmful.
Perhaps I should clarify, one of the outstanding issues with the group environment in modern prisons is the highly unsupervised nature of it all. Prisoners form prison gangs, establish strict social rules, violence becomes the norm, gang rape is used as a control mechanism,...etc. A shocking number of first time prisoners end up deep in bizarre race segregated gangs, or if they aren't strong enough, used as sexual barter pieces for stronger prisoners. The list goes on and on.
Guards are there to keep them in the facility, and more or less from killing each other, but that's about it (and the guards are often as much the ones causing the problems as the prisoners).
Most people don't realize the prisons these days are largely like this: http://www.buzzfeed.com/sgtdopushups/cop-killer-updates-face...
So what I mean is that it's not clear, from a correctional standpoint, that the modern group environment is a safer or more sane environment than the original isolation concept. To my understanding, the main reason prisons have largely moved to a social environment had more to do with cost than perceived harm from extended isolation.
I won't dispute that extended solitary is also mentally damaging...but your idea of more solitary than today for the typical prisoner, and a few hours of contact, is pretty sound to me.
Re: The inhumane conditions of Bradley Manning's detention
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is a chicken/egg problem. If someone had leaked the truth prior to the Iraq/Afghanistan wars, then over 100K people would be alive today who were killed, some of whom are American soldiers. I'd argue that the wars and inappropriate secrecy have done incalculable harm to American national security by creating for us many new enemies, people who had probably admired the US until one of their friends or relatives w…
Misconduct by the U.S., perceived or real, does not cancel out the harm done by Manning's leaks. He just piled extra suffering and death on top of the old. Given the conditions that led up to the war in Afghanistan, no amount of leaks could have prevented it. I will concede that particular well-timed leaks might have prevented the Iraq war. However, this is not several years ago, this is now: war is not a state funct…
As for imperial motivations, I think that's the strongest claim I made.
I think there are generally two perspectives on US intervention in Iraq and Afghanistan:
The idealist perspective is that we invaded to thwart evil and to decrease the chances of domestic terrorism in the US.
The realist perspective is that wars are not about good and evil but about land and resources, and that the rest of the rhetoric is just a veneer added to help sell the war.
Iraq is the most valuable piece of land in the middle east. Afghanistan is also tremendously valuable. Perhaps my mention of them being the 51st and 52nd US states was hyperbole, but clearly the US wants to install client regimes in both places.
What are the characteristics of a client regime? Democracy is not usually valued all that much (hence our removal of democratically elected leaders around the world), thuggery is tolerated (hence the bribing of Afghan warlords, etc.) and all that is expected is that the state do the US's bidding in exchange for military protection and often aid.
In terms of military strategy, all this makes sense. You want to use soft power... better to bribe some warlords than to risk American lives, etc. Better to install a client regime that will prevent a possible enemy from consolidating power, etc.
The issue I have with this is that most people fail to see this as the brutal power projection of a massive empire.
In my opinion, we can't have it both ways... we can't be a pluralistic, free society and also cause so much suffering via our imperial "churn".
If you read the essay that Condi wrote in Foreign Affairs a few years ago in which she described in detail the "Bush Doctrine", you'll notice that she musters her significant academic training in an attempt to merge the notion of free society values with imperial power projection.
In my view, any explanation boils down to saying "We're going to civilize those savages, even if we have to kill quite a few to do so".
At this point, the side-effects of past Imperial actions are nearly impossible to differentiate from organic events. What we do know is that Al Qaida was largely a consequence of US efforts to use soft power to kick the Soviets out of Afghanistan, that Saddam had received significant military aid from the US, and that the US overthrew democratically elected regimes in Iran.
None of it was done for any abstract value such as freedom, but simply to control a very valuable area and attempt to create client regimes there (or prevent others from doing so), since such machinations are cheaper than US soldiers' lives and represent the use of "economy of force" compared to all-out war/conquest.
Re: The inhumane conditions of Bradley Manning's detention
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's actually quite clear -- group housing doesn't inherently drive most people insane after months. Solitary confinement does. http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/03/30/090330fa_fact_... Change it from less than 1 hour of contact per day to something like 4, and I doubt it would be harmful.
Perhaps I should clarify, one of the outstanding issues with the group environment in modern prisons is the highly unsupervised nature of it all. Prisoners form prison gangs, establish strict social rules, violence becomes the norm, gang rape is used as a control mechanism,...etc. A shocking number of first time prisoners end up deep in bizarre race segregated gangs, or if they aren't strong enough, used as sexual ba…
Fair enough -- I didn't mean to claim the normal way of dumping everyone into general population with minimal supervision is a good idea at all. Prison is awful primarily because of the other people in prison -- both the prisoners and guards. But the problem is in the details, not in allowing interaction and groups at all.
Re: The inhumane conditions of Bradley Manning's detention
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not a contest.
I think icegreentea might be wondering why there is outrage now, when this sort of thing has been going on for really a long time. eg. A fellow Australian (David Hicks) was held for years at Guantanamo without charge or trial. Rightly or wrongly, it feels like: no one cared then, why care now?
I was outraged then and I'm outraged now.
Do I seriously need to reference all the other things that disgust me whenever I say something disgusts me? Nonsense.
Re: The inhumane conditions of Bradley Manning's detention
#56This is utterly shocking. I had no idea that solitary confinement was used in cases other than to prevent physical harm to an inmate or to prevent violence. It looks like the technique is being used the same way as a "stress position" to slowly turn Manning into a hopeless wreck willing to say anything to see the light of day again. Regardless of what Manning did (and regardless of whether or not I find it offensive)…
" I had no idea that solitary confinement was used in cases other than to prevent physical harm to an inmate or to prevent violence." Given which way the winds are obviously blowing around here, I fully expect to get downvoted into oblivion for what I'm about to say, but it needs to be said: There are other valid reasons. In this particular case, the detainee is a demonstrated security risk. At this point I'm sure th…
In this particular case, the detainee is a demonstrated security risk. At this point I'm sure that people will be inclined to point out that he hasn't yet been convicted of anything. True. But the bar for "demonstrated security risk" is in a very different place from the bar for "guilty."
How did you make that distinction? He's not guilty, but he's a "demonstrated security risk" by virtue of what - the lack of a guilty verdict for allegedly being a demonstrated security risk? You can't have it both ways - he's either not proven guilty and therefore should not be treated as if he is a known threat to others or he has been tried and proven guilty. For all the evidence you've seen, not even being a judge, all charges could be false. At this time you have no idea other than a preexisting, evidence free belief based on things you've heard from some (mostly anonymous) government officials quoted in some random news article. And until you have further details, I can't see any logic beyond sadism or a misunderstanding of the concept of innocent until proven guilty that would allow you to support the reported treatment of Manning.