Security Theater, Quantico Version

Here’s what the MPs at Quantico do when they’ve been told by their brass — who are watching them like hawks — to detain visitors just long enough to keep them from seeing someone before visiting hours end:

Jane Hamsher January 23rd, 2011 at 8:16 pm 182

In response to yellowsnapdragon @ 172
(hide text)

Was there ever an answer to that question? And who made the decision?

No there was never an answer. Every time we asked to leave, they wanted something else.

Can we leave?

We need your registration again, Ma’am.

Again?

Yes, Ma’am. Please step over here while we look at it.

(20 min)

Mr. House, we need your Social Security number again.

Why are we being detained here?

We need your Social Security number again, sir.

That went on and on.

MPs: We Were Told To Do This (Or: ‘Expired Tabs’ My Ass)

As John Chandley noted in a Tweet earlier this evening, the AP story on the detention of David House and Jane Hamsher at Quantico, which prevented David House from seeing Bradley Manning for yet another week, leaves out a key fact — namely, that the MPs told House and Hamsher that they had been ordered to detain them. As Jane Hamsher tells it:

I am very happy that I went, and could be there to support David, because one of the first things the MPs said to us when we arrived — long before they asked for driver’s license, social security numbers, registration, phone numbers, quizzed us about the addresses on our licenses, etc, etc, was that they had orders to do all of this. Which means they were planning to detain us long before we got there. They were going to use any excuse to keep David from visiting Manning, and try to intimidate him from coming back.

In other words, the “expired tabs” excuse that the Quantico spokesman fed to the AP is beside the point. The MPs had orders to detain House and Hamsher, a detention that magically ended almost exactly when visiting hours did, keeping House from checking up on Manning and his deteriorating mental condition.

Oh, and by the way: I’m not going to post it online because it’s private information, but while Jane’s tabs were indeed a month out of date, she was able to provide proof of insurance, which I have seen.

The Slow Mental Torture of Bradley Manning

Quantico brass have apparently decided they’re going to harrass and deny visitation rights to the only person who they haven’t scared away from visiting Bradley Manning in solitary confinement:

At roughly 1:00 pm, upon driving onto the base at Quantico, David House and blogger Jane Hamsher were detained by military guards. House, who is on the Quantico Brig’s visitation list, has been visiting Bradley Manning in confinement since last September.

In December 2010, House came forward with testimony that he witnessed a deterioration in Manning’s physical and mental state due to the conditions of solitary confinement. House traveled to the Quantico brig to check up on Bradley’s well-being after a week in which Manning’s lawyer filed an Article 138 complaint over Manning’s mistreatment at Quantico. House and Hamsher also planned to deliver a 42,000 signature strong petition calling for an end to the inhumane conditions that Manning is being held. Upon arriving at the main entrance at Quantico, House and Hamsher were stopped and detained by military police who provided no explanation of detainment aside from a statement from one MP that his orders to detain had “come from the top.”

Manning is incarcerated because of the word of Adrian Lamo. It’s obvious to everyone who’s looked closely at Lamo’s evidence and actions that he is a grossly unreliable witness who cannot be put on the witness stand; therefore, the DOD’s game plan seems to be to break Bradley Manning in the hope that he’ll tell them what they want to hear. However, breaking people in this fashion doesn’t provide truthful testimony, or even coherent lies. Instead, it just wrecks them in such a way that they can’t be put back together again.

Thursday Evening News Roundup

— So much for Republican outreach to the Latino community. A group of conservative Hispanic business leaders set up a forum, the first Hispanic Leadership Network conference scheduled for next month in Miami, and promoted it as a way for Republican presidential hopefuls to interact with the community — and virtually all the big names — Romney, Thune, Daniels, Perry — flatly turned them down, with a number of others not bothering to respond even in the negative to the invitation. The only potential candidate to accept the invitation was Tim Pawlenty, who has less of a chance than I do of becoming president — and I have a feeling he probably only agreed to come as a favor to Norm Coleman, who helped organize the thing.

— Remember when a little bit (or even a lot) of snow didn’t faze state and local governments in Minnesota? Nowadays, budgets are so starved after decades of tax cutting that cities have to essentially pray it doesn’t snow.

— Check out the video of David House’s interview with Bradley Manning (and wonder at how Manning could be rotting in solitary confinement for seven months on the say-so of the somewhat dodgy Adrian Lamo).

Why Going After WikiLeaks Is Wrong

The US Government’s vicious attacks against WikiLeaks and its allies (an attack that includes the psychological undermining of PFC Bradley Manning, treatment that won’t get him to provide true and accurate information but will eventually destroy him mentally) only reinforces for observers the deep and searing hypocrisy of the US preaching on freedom, democracy and transparency to people it doesn’t like (such as the Iranian government) while allowing the hostile coup takeovers of countries like Honduras by people who are against democracy, freedom and transparency, and show that by their eagerness to kill thousands upon thousands of their own people.

It was already laughable, in light of what was already known about America’s foreign policy, for Hillary Clinton and Joe Lieberman to blather about how important it was for Iran, a nation they hate and want to destroy, to respect internet and other freedoms. Now that the US’ true attitudes towards freedom, democracy and transparency have been revealed for all to see, the wildly intemperate scorpionlike reaction of Clinton, Lieberman, Biden and most every other prominent American politician or government official just reinforces what we all knew.