He is most likely under 24/7 video surveillance, so suicide would be difficult if not impossible. Call me paranoid, but I immediately saw ominous implications in the Pentagon putting out this story. Of the 22-year-old, openly gay Manning the Herald Sun writes:
A US soldier in military custody on charges of illegally disseminating a classified video to whistleblower website WikiLeaks was placed on suicide watch after being transferred today from Kuwait to Quantico, Virginia, Fox News Channel said.
Private Bradley Manning, 22, is expected to be tried in the Washington, DC area on charges that stem from the release of a video showing a US military helicopter firing on a group of people in Baghdad. Two Reuters journalists and seven others were killed in the 2007 incident.
We don't know from Bradley if he is considering suicide, of course, because no one can talk to Bradley, not even his lawyer. He is being held incommunicado. The UK Guardian reports:
[Wikileaks founder Julian] Assange said WikiLeaks had hired three US criminal lawyers to defend Manning but that they had been granted no access to him.
So what is really going on, no one knows.
Meanwhile the Hypocrisy Circus in its ugliest form, clowns with bloody fangs holding aloft the bodies of dead Afghan children and American soldiers, whirls along. Charges of "traitor" plaster the Internet and Manning's Facebook page (outnumbered 20 to 1 by expressions of support) even as the media completely ignores the larger treason uncovered by the release of over 90,000 classified documents by Wikileaks, according to the Pentagon, possibly also leaked by Manning. An ABC News report entitled "WikiLeaks Data Seem to Show Pakistan Helped Attack American Troops" says:
"Perhaps the single most damming collection of data in a massive trove of secret documents from Afghanistan released by the website WikiLeaks is some 180 files that seem to show Pakistan's premiere intelligence service, the ISI, helping the Afghan insurgency attack American troops. The United States provides more than a billion dollars to Pakistan each year for help in fighting terrorism, but the papers seem to link the ISI with major Afghan insurgent commanders..."
This is straight out a grim, blackest-of-humor Joseph Heller anti-war novel. Billions of dollars going to an "ally" playing us on both sides of the fence, and it's an Army private who is endangering America. Not a single news outlet has picked up on this, not even a single progressive op-ed writer.
Whatever Bradley did or didn't do, it cannot compare to the bottomless well of the U.S. Treasury being put at the disposal of those who attack American troops, troops who believe they are in Afghanistan to do an important job. This follows hard on the heels of another revelation which has dropped from view in the mounting outrage at the 22-year-old private, the revelation by the Tierney report that the Pentagon, through its "protection payments" to Taliban insurgents for safe passage of truck convoys, is financing the purchase of explosives for IEDs, weapons, and ammunition for insurgent fighters in amounts which rival the Taliban's profits from opium. The military knew about it, knows about it, and it's still happening, because there is no other way to get supplies through.
Rep. Tierney's subcommittee report tells us that:
"...contractors self-reported to the military that they were being extorted by warlords for protection payments for safe passage and that these payments were "funding the insurgency," [but] they were largely met with indifference and inaction."
No less than Secretary of State Hillary Clinton herself is aware of the practice, which provides the Taliban with between $100 million to $400 million a year in funds, and they ain't using it to buy green tea. Clinton said in testimony before Congress last November:
"You offload a ship in Karachi and by the time whatever it is – you know, muffins for our soldiers’ breakfasts or anti-IED equipment – gets to where we’re headed, it goes through a lot of hands. And one of the major sources of funding for the Taliban is the protection money."
But never mind. Get the private.
Although Manning cannot speak for himself, being in isolation and all, the lurid headlines have begun which aim to detail his "rage" toward society and other apparently unattractive qualities. The UK Guardian gets the scoop: "Suspect Blasted Army, Society on Facebook." To buttress the word "blasted" the Guardian cites a comment of Manning's on his Facebook that he was "not a piece of equipment" and was "beyond frustrated with people and society at large". He also made a joke about "military intelligence" being an oxymoron. The report notes that Manning was "livid" after being lectured by an ex-boyfriend.
There is a pipeline worth hundreds of millions of U.S. taxpayer dollars running straight through Islamabad to insurgents in the Afghan countryside, and another running to insurgents through the trucking contracts which resupply 200 American bases. Knowledge of one of these pipelines, whose end results are death, missing limbs, and brain rattle injuries to American soldiers, runs all the way to the Secretary of State. Billions upon billions are being made by Halliburton, Dyncorp, and the kinds of companies who'll give David Petreaus a nice cushy job once he gets tired of generaling.
Oh fuck it never mind. Get the private.
If we try and convict Bradley Manning, then we must try and convict Secretary of Defense Robert Gates as well, on the evidence contained in Tierney report, for aiding and abetting the enemy.
CONTACT THE WHITE HOUSE, ALLOW BRADLEY TO SEE HIS LAWYERS.
BRADLEY MANNING SUPPORT NETWORK ON FACEBOOK