Yep, you read that right. Seven hours standing naked. And it get better: “According to First Lieutenant Brian Villard, a Marine spokesman, the decision was ‘not punitive’ and done in accordance with Brig rules“.
What is amazing here is not only that this type of torture is apparently legal, but that it is not even a disciplinary punishment.
The list of US and international conventions, law, and treaties this kind of barbarity violates is too long to list here, let’s just say that stripping naked is clearly a form of abuse and standing to attention for seven hours a form of torture. No civilized country on the planet would deny that.
But then, this is the USA were even climate change and evolution are considered highly disputable.
The US corporate Ziomedia, of course, doesn’t give a damn about Manning. They are too busy covering Biden’s discussions with Russian human rights groups in Moscow, I suppose.
In the meantime, Bradley Manning is reportedly ‘catatonic’.
Remember how Abu Ghraib was considered the result of the actions of a “few bad apples” (only privates and NCOs, of course)? If anything, the Bradley case proves that the entire US basket is rotten to the core.
Who disputes climate change?
@Anonymous: many, if not most, US right wingers…
No, there are many, right, left and sideways who question AGW, a term which has slowly and imperceptibly (for those who aren’t paying attention) been replaced by “climate change” in a way that Orwell would have been quick to see. It leads people to say incredibly odd things, like “right wingers don’t believe in climate change.”
Climage change is not such a drop drop dead certain case. The buildup of CO2 is a certain case. Climate change resulting from it- we dont know the magnitude OR the sign of the change globally. Aerosols and clouds and feedback effects regarding water vapor, particulate and soot levels etc all create great uncertainty in the effect. Go to the web site climateAudit. It technical but essential to understand the politics of the thing.
http://climateaudit.org/
The math used by the pro warming crowd is very problematic. Dr. Mann et.al has made some very serious technical (mathematical modeling) errors.
Dr. Wegman, a real statistician, has been very critical of the crowd at East Anglica and Dr. Mann etc. If there is warming, it has not been demonstrated with sufficient margin of certainty to justify draconian economic steps being contemplated in it’s name. I have no dog in this fight except for the science of it, and visit realclimate (the pro warming other side) and climateaudit, read both sides, and you will see who is honest and who is not. NASA just lost the GLORY satellite which was
supposed to explore some of these issues, but it fell into the ocean and did not achieve orbit. Until the word is in, I smell the powerful reek of cultural, political, and economic forces stridently asserting the science is in. It is not. In the days of Chaucer, it was warmer than it is today- the famous medieval warming period. Nobody knows why. Not CO2.
We honestly don’t know if the big CO2 increase will cause climate change, but water vapor and methane are both far more potent greenhouse gases, and soot certainly is powerful in climate change. There is just too much uncertainty to begin selling carbon credits unless you are Al Gore or a scientist with a c arrear as a Cassandra on the line with all funding and fame that accrues to that. Be very careful to outright media lies in the popular science press regarding ice at the poles etc. Up at one pole, down at the other. This CO2 only model is junk science.
@MYSELF: oh Saker, you idiot, next time keep your mouth shut and don’t raise topics which are only controversial in the USA… [wince, sigh, rolleyes…]
@EVERYBODY: guys! guyyyyssss!!
Can we please discuss Bradley Manning and human rights?!
go to climateaudit, and realclimate and compare them.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Wegman
Dr. Wegman is not an Luddite or a crackpot, and if you are willing to dare question the official 911 story, you should question authority and conventional wisdom on this too.
@oldman:if you are willing to dare question the official 911 story, you should question authority and conventional wisdom on this too.
please do not tell me what I should or should not do, ok?
The fact that 9/11 was an inside job is not a ‘USA only’ topic. Climate change denial is. I am not interested in ‘USA only’ topics – they can be discussed on ‘USA only’ fora. Now *please* let’s stop on this topic, ok?
LOL, Saker, you brought “climate change” into this! AGW is a topic in Britain, Australia, Germany, New Zealand, it’s not US only.
“Climate change denial”, there you go again! If I may be so bold, would you please, at least, tighten up on your rhetoric. Most skeptical scientists don’t even deny that humanity has an effect on the weather! In fact it is they who pointed out that most land based thermometers are situated in urban areas and are subject to urban heat islands. Most have no problem pointing to provable human caused weather effects, usually involving land use issues, like the cutting of forests around Kilimanjaro or glacier melt likely caused by soot, which should please the the carbon fetishists because it is also known as “carbon black”.
As for Manning you’re right, his case is a suitable symbol, and one that is good for any situation where there is an information war waged against us and where there are people who are willing to fight it. I’m not so sure that Manning actually is responsible for the main leaks.
@anonymous1646:you brought “climate change” into this!
LOL, yes I did, and I have been kicking my butt for doing so every since. But yes, absolutely most definitely my fault:
mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa!
[sounds of fists banging my chest in the background…]
“Climate change denial”, there you go again! If I may be so bold, would you please, at least, tighten up on your rhetoric
Hold on, amigo! I did not speak of “Climate change denial”. But I did say “USA only topic”.
Ok, I am too deep into this buy now to dodge the issue, so let me speak my mind.
The ‘climate change denial” (your words) phenomena is a made to order by, and paid for, the US corporations. Furthermore, I need no proof that the climate is changing from some external source: I observe it myself. The city were I used to live as a kid had all teenagers going skying every winter week-end to a local mountain. Now there has been no snow there for years, as for the glaciers, they are almost gone. That leaves the cause for the warming for last. At this point, I say its common sense and basic conservation of energy issues.
Done.
I am NOT, repeat, NOT talking about this anymore here. If some are dead set into preaching “climate change is a commie myth” around here, let them take they soapboxes, a deep breath, and go ahead. They know I asked them not to and they choose to ignore it. That is, I suppose, their right.
I just spend several weeks being polispammed (my own term for ‘political spam’) by C.H. and his campaign against Iran, I will most definitely survive another polispam campaign on climate topics.
And since I am to idiot who started it all – I deserve the pain I suppose ;-)
Cheers!
The Saker
Oh man, you know Saker, I’ve gotten into more heartache and hassle over this single issue than anything, I’ve been trashed, called an oil company shill and actually threatened, all by the “left”, so I understand how you feel even if we have opposing views on the evidence, this is after all about scientific evidence, not politics, or it should be. Anyway, all I can say, aside wishing you would be more specific in your approach is that I hope you find the time to re-investigate the issue, and only one more thing… you did say, your words: “climate change denial”, to wit: “The fact that 9/11 was an inside job is not a ‘USA only’ topic. Climate change denial is.” So, with that I shall leave the topic and I wish you only the best. By the way “polispam” is a good one!
Biden lecturing Russia about Human Rights LOL! isn’t that a farce given US policy of genocide against Russia and Russian interests since the collapse of the USSR under the rule of one of the most ruthless Oligarchicies the world has ever seen who are citizens of another country and the same cut as there Bolshevik forefathers and everything else.
Not mention what they have been doing internationally since the collapse of the USSR especially since 9/11.
It helps when the “human rights” groups are controlled by western interests like MI6 Amnesty International and George Soros Human Rights Watch.
@VINEYARDSAKER:
Actually historically it is right wing fascists that have supported Green policy as a means of population control to reduce the means of which developing states can power the development of there growing economies which you can’t do with solar panels and wind farms.
Those who advocate green energy policy are also advocates of population control.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXYodhq7OI4#t=0m48s
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TTd5fKYcR3M
@anonymous20:59:you did say, your words: “climate change denial”, to wit: “The fact that 9/11 was an inside job is not a ‘USA only’ topic. Climate change denial is.”
Dude, I said that in the COMMENTS section, not in the original post!!
Anyway, to tell you the truth, I am not really averse to listening to a good solid argument denying global warming or claiming that this is a natural phenomenon which has nothing to do with human civilization. After all, the fact that an argument is ‘USA only’ does not necessarily imply that it is wrong.
Let me share with you one of my worst crimethinks(in the hope that nobody else will notice it!). I don’t really believe in speciation. No, let me rephrase that. I have so far never seen any evidence which would indicate that speciation is something real.
And I actually did look into whether the moon landings were real or not. I also looked into Roswell. This is just so show that I know that a negative cannot be proven.
But global warming is something which I experienced many times in my own life (I live in Florida). Could it be ‘natural’ and not man-made? Yeah, I guess. But considering what our ‘civilization’ releases on a daily bases into the athmosphere I really see Occam’s razor telling us that we are doing it.
Lastly, even if we are NOT responsible for global warming, we are for SURE responsible for the fact that our international economy is based in capitalist rules, in other words, infiniate growth in a finite environment. That is what a malignant tumor is.
So global warming, peak oil, or moral decay – pick your favorite diagnosis – we fucked up the planet and we are gonna pay for it, that is for sure.
So forgive me if I simplyu don’t want to spend much time on affirming or denying one of the many causes of our own death.
Cheers (nontheless)!
The Saker