DYLAN: Welcome to Episode 39 of Radio Free Dylan. Our subject today: "The Abuse and Incarceration of Private Bradley Manning." Regardless of your views on his actions, I ask you to consider the state of American justice where depending on the political favor or lack thereof of a given individual when they have been charged but not tried. They can either be treated with great leniency or great abuse.

We talk a lot in this country about freedom and equality. We indict nations like China, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and so many others for their practice of political imprisonment or abuse of specific individuals that are seen to be a threat to society without any sort of trial. For those of you in the Bradley Manning case who would cite the Uniform Code of Military Justice, I would ask you to talk to your favorite JAG who will happily tell you that the treatment of this man in no way complies with that code.

And how does this President respond when forced to confront the truth as he was on Friday by Jake Tapper in that press conference, when he was forced to address comments by a spokesman at the State Department characterizing the treatment of Bradley Manning as “ridiculous and stupid?” Well, of course by firing the person who said it. Why on earth would you go out of your way to actually address or deal with any of the problems that consistently and at an expanding level plague this country, then to fire the people who tell the truth.

An unfortunate reality and one that there are far too many of us who are too aware of what the truth is for this to exist for too much longer.

Prior to PJ Crowley’s dismissal we had the opportunity to talk with Marcy Wheeler who is a reporter at Firedoglake.com who has been among the most aggressive in covering the unfolding events in America's abuse of this political prisoner which is the only real explanation for the deviance from the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

Marcy, do you think that's a fair characterization on my part? Is this man a political prisoner?

MARCY: Well, he's either a political prisoner or they’re using the same interrogation tactics they used with a bunch of terrorists to try and get to Julian Assange or maybe both.

DYLAN: And give us a sense of how wide the gap is between the Uniform Code of Military Justice which is what applies to any military individual when they've been charged with a crime and the treatment of this particular man, Private Manning.

MARCY: Well, the really important thing that's going on is the way the government is using the prevention of injury with Manning to both shield what they're doing to him from public discussion but also to justify in the name of psychology to do things that we know are part of their interrogation regime from Gitmo. So you'll see -- and we saw today President Obama say, “Well, then there's some other stuff I can't talk about. I can't talk about this because of privacy and morale.” They say that over and over and over again. And what they can't talk about is the prevention of injury watch that they have had Manning on since last August. In spite of the fact that on at least 16 occasions the brig psychiatrist has said that he doesn’t need to be on prevention of injury watch. And what they're doing in that case is, of late especially, this forced nudity which comes right out of their interrogation program.

DYLAN: Today was a big day actually, potentially for the American justice system and for that matter our view of ourselves as a just nation. When you look at Jake Tapper's question to the President in a press conference, he asked -- Jake works over at ABC as a White House correspondent -- asked the President if he agreed with the characterization of a State Department spokesman on Bradley Manning by the name of PJ Crowley. PJ Crowley at the State Department basically saying, and I'll quote him that “The treatment of Bradley Manning is ridiculous, counterproductive, and stupid. And I don’t know why the DOD is doing it.” Obama responded by saying, "With respect to Private Manning, I've actually asked the Pentagon whether or not the procedures have been taken in terms of his confinement are appropriate and are meeting our basic standards. They assure me that they are," that's President Obama speaking. He says, "I can't go into details about some of their concerns, but some of this has to do with Private Manning's safety as well." Why is there no recourse from the Uniform Code of Military Justice to assert that they are in clear violation of a number of sections, one of which says that an inmate is only to be held up to the point at which it is necessary to protect their own safety and not a single inch beyond that point?

MARCY: Actually, Manning made this point himself in his complaint, his Article 138 complaint about not being taken off prevention of injury watch. One reason you'll recall, Dylan, the brig commander a while back, as it turns out on a day where people were protesting Manning's treatment outside of Quantico, the brig commander put him on suicide watch, and that's what got him fired. That's what got him in trouble. As Manning points out, you need to actually care about what the psychological -- you have to consult with the psychologist, the psychiatrist before you do that. So that's why they've got him on prevention injury watch because there is much greater leeway for people just to arbitrarily say, "I'm going to take your underwear away." And the argument they're making is, you know, because they had already said to Manning, "Well, we're going to take all of your clothes at night except for your boxer shorts," and then Manning asked why he's being treated this way and in response, they took away his boxer shorts claiming that he could hurt himself with his boxer shorts. And today, the President of the United States got up and basically endorsed that view that a man -- he's something like 5'3" and lighter than I am -- could hurt himself with his own boxer shorts. And so we had to take them away from him.

DYLAN: And what does that say to you about our President that he endorses such a ridiculous point of view?

MARCY: I mean for starters it says he's giving the military way too much leeway. They said, "Well, this is standard operating procedure." And as I pointed out today in my blog, what they're doing to Manning, the forced nudity, goes right back to Gitmo and goes right back to the treatment they used with [0:05:56] [Inaudible]. So him giving -- he came in to office and on day 2 said, "We're going to close Gitmo. We're going to end these abusive techniques," and yet when DOD came to him and said, well, you know, it's all standard procedure to take away a man's underwear. The President just said, "Oh, okay."

DYLAN: And this really is what gets to me. If George W. Bush or a white Republican president was presiding over the identical treatment of Bradley Manning, do you believe that the behavior of democratic leadership would be different?

MARCY: Yeah. I mean I'm sure the behavior of the democratic leadership would be different. I suspect that this treatment of a military man in any case would have been treated differently 10 years ago, but the country seems to have lost its shame. But you're right, there are way too many democrats who are unwilling to criticize, you know -- and again, I've pointed out very clearly in 2002 at Gitmo, they had standard operating procedures that used stripping of detainees to "demonstrate the omnipotence of the captor." One thing that's come out this week is that the brig commander was telling Manning that he was, for all intents and purposes, Manning's god which is something that we know the interrogators have done as well. But we can trace this treatment right back to Bush's torture program ,and Obama endorsed it today, and yet democrats are for the most part silent.

DYLAN: And how do you explain that?

MARCY: You know, I just think there's too much kind of dainty treatment of the President on the part of democrats because they don’t want to criticize him, and certainly I mean among official democrats, among members of congress, among people like John Kerry who clearly would have opposed this treatment and people like Carl Levin who took the lead in investigating torture in Gitmo the first time. I think that there's just this sence that they didn’t want to be perceived to be easy on WikiLeaks in spite of the fact that WikiLeaks has exposed a lot of --

DYLAN: Who cares about WikiLeaks? What about the American Code of Justice?

MARCY: Yeah, precisely. I mean it's just -- at some point the constitution -- the 8th amendment needs to take precedence over party loyalty.

DYLAN: What has happened? Describe to me the deterioration in the American justice system over the past decade, that it's now politically acceptable by liberal democrats, libertarians, progressives, all sorts of folks to totally violate both the Civil Code of Justice in this country, in the case of Bradley Manning the Uniform Code of Military Justice, and apply this new third class that was never -- that has never been legislated and is still poorly defined as the Gitmo class, if you will, of prisoners arbitrarily to whoever they want to in which they get to do whatever they want and don’t have to try people.

MARCY: Yeah. I mean I think it's a combination of the tactics that Dick Cheney used with John Yoo to get lawyers to sign off on whatever he wanted to do. I think it’s decisions made in 2004 and 2006 not to do anything about the people who had exceeded the rule even John Yoo had put into place about torture. I mean John Yoo had said mock execution is illegal and yet when people used it with detainees. they weren’t prosecuted. And then you go forward to Obama's decision and Eric Holder’s decision not to prosecute Cheney and not to prosecute the rest of the torturers under the Bush administration. And so, you know, I think Obama's administration is in the position where they don’t have their moral high ground anymore. They don’t have the ability -- I mean they also didn’t fight when they had the opportunity two years ago to fight, to close Gitmo. They got into a squabble between Ram and Holder instead and never got around to actually explaining why it's morally important to close Gitmo. And once you give up on that battle, which I think the Obama administration did two years ago, then I think it's hard to find your moral ground, your standpoint from which you can say, "This is wrong."

DYLAN: And what is the implications for --

MARCY: I mean you need to question DOD and say, "How can it be that it’s standard procedure to claim a man's underwear is a threat to his safety?"

DYLAN: Right. But forget the nitty-gritty. We have two clear codes of conduct for justice in this country, one inside of the military and one outside of the military that theoretically provided opportunity for equal treatment and protection under the law for any and all American citizens and any and all American service members. Starting 10 years ago, we began with the creation of a third-class of prisoner in this country that was never legislated and never debated and allows no trials and god-like abuse and torture as you've described it. What are the implications for a nation that can arbitrarily decide to create a third class of prisoner with no legislative debate in which that third class of prisoner can be tortured and annihilated without trial?

MARCY: Well, I mean it means it could happen to any of us. I mean, yes, Manning is in the military which makes it a lot easier to put him into this kind of treatment. But Jose Padilla wasn’t, and he was held in a brig in worse conditions even than Manning for months on end without a lawyer. The executive order that Obama put out earlier in the week on indefinite detention, the standard for that is not "Are you a risk to the United States?" The standard for Obama's indefinite detention executive order is just "Do you need to be held to prevent a threat to the United States security?" And we know in the case of Yemeni detainees, they're not a threat. The reason the United States government won't release them is because of the conditions in Yemen itself. And so even the way the executive order is written, we are arguing we can hold people who are not themselves a threat, but just because of some defined boogeyman that the government has defined.

DYLAN: And what recourse to those of us who would -- before I get to the recourse, I'll give you two last questions, and we'll wrap this up. Compare this new third class of prisoner that was invented under George Bush and is being codified and perpetuated by Barack Obama; compare the treatment of the third class of prisoner in America whether it's Bradley Manning, Jose Padilla, or the guys at Gitmo; to the way, for instance, that the secret police in Egypt treat people, the Chinese treat their political prisoners, Saudi Arabia, countries that we would look down upon as having some sort of politically oppressive regimes -- compare their treatment of their political threats to the way we treat the third class of prisoner in America.

MARCY: Well, we don’t torture as badly as our Egyptian torture partners did and do or the Chinese for that matter.

DYLAN: Or the Saudis.

MARCY: And that’s -- or the Saudis.

DYLAN: Who are also our torture partners, by the way.

MARCY: That's what's separating us at this point. Some of the key -- some of the WikiLeaks -- it's very ironic. Some of the WikiLeaks cables that were released on Egypt talk about the state department describing Egypt as this terrible state of human rights abusers based on their indefinite military detention, and that's where we're at.

DYLAN: What's our recourse?

MARCY: I think we need to -- I mean this is one example where I think we really need to embarrass Obama and make him own this. I mean the fact that PJ Crowley said what he said and said it on the record, I think is a hint that the State Department realizes Crowley is put into a hypocritical position. Every day he goes out there and criticizes Libya or Egypt or Saudi Arabia or Bahrain or any of these other countries for the human rights abuses. At the same time, the rest of the country is watching what we're doing with Bradley Manning, and that's not a palatable position for the State Department to be in. so I think we need to be honest. I mean I think you and I are trying to do that. We need to be honest about what's going on in our own country so that that embarrassment forces the government to back off these fences.

DYLAN: It seems that the greatest barrier to doing that is the hypocrisy of people like John Kerryy, Nancy Pelosi, and Carl Levin and basically the democratic leadership that is so loyal to their beloved Obama, that barring spraying a room with poison gas, I'm not sure they are capable of criticizing the man.

MARCY: Yes, exactly. I mean and I think they need to hear from their constituents. I mean I think --

DYLAN: Marcy, congrats -- go ahead, finish your thought.

MARCY: Yeah. I just think -- I think that those of us with democratic representatives need to make it clear to them that this is -- Obama doesn’t get a free pass for the same things that Bush did.

DYLAN: And this is not a referendum on Bradley Manning or WikiLeaks. This is a referendum on the American Code of Justice and the ongoing perpetuation of a third class of prisoner who retains no rights, does not need to be tried and can be liberally tortured based on the discretion of people we don’t know who they are.

MARCY: Precisely.

DYLAN: Marcy, it's a pleasure. Congrats on the work you've done so far. Keep at them and keep us posted. Marcy Wheeler at Firedoglake.com. We'll take a break. We're back with my final thoughts right after this.

MARCY: Thanks, Dylan.

DYLAN: Bye, Marcy.

MARCY: Bye-bye.

[BREAK]

DYLAN: So before we wrap this up, the way that those who would abuse or were threatened politically by the information that exists in WikiLeaks which no one is denying as true, by the way. So no one is saying that's not valid. They're just saying you shouldn’t know that. Well, how is it that they collect all of our money in taxes, use it to bankroll, torturing dictators, and then when we find out that they're bankrolling, torturing dictators we're not supposed to know that. That's curious to begin with, is it not?

But before you get too caught up in whether Bradley Manning should have or shouldn’t have leaked that information or anything having to do with WikiLeaks, I want you to think about the country that you live in. I think about the country that I live in, and think about the judgment that we pass on other nations who use their government as a way to imprison and torture and detain individuals without trial because it is convenient for the incumbent government to do that. Is WikiLeaks a threat to our incumbent government that bases its policies and information on lies and misrepresentations that have been disclosed by WikiLeaks? By my measure, absolutely, he is a threat.

Is Bradley Manning the one responsible for doing that? I have no idea because they haven’t tried the man. He isn’t charged with it. But is it appropriate in our nation that an individual who is perceived to be a threat is able to be classified as a third class of prisoner, and then treated as described? That perhaps is the single most disturbing fact. For all of the disturbing things Barack Obama has done since he became the President of this country; from letting the banks get away with their massive theft and helping them cover it up, passing a piece of legislation that codifies that fact in the form of Dodd-Frank, from passing a healthcare bill that codified the health insurance monopolies while mandating everybody in America buy from a non-competitive monopoly while perpetuating an employer-based health insurance program that works to the disadvantage of every doctor and patient in America, this is the single most offensive thing President Barack Obama has done to date.

Wake up, people. I'm not Rush Limbaugh. I'm not some crazy right winger. I'm simply a man with eyes. And don’t let yourself be fooled by the liberal democratic branding that surrounds President Barack Obama. Because this man, as they say, if you walk like a duck, talk like a duck, and swim like a duck, you're probably a duck. And what we've got, ladies and gentleman, is clearly a corporatist president who is fully in favor of a third class of prisoner who can be tortured at will. He endorsed it in fact on Friday at the end of last week in a press conference explicitly when asked about Private Manning. We can do better. We are better. We just have to show it.

I am Dylan Ratigan. This has been another edition of Radio Free Dylan. I'll talk to you next time.