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March 6th, 2012 
FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda Juan Ernesto Mendez says he is not convinced with the US authorities’ explanation regarding Manning’s prolonged solitary confinement at Quantico prison. Manning was kept there for 8 months before being transferred to another prison in Kansas.
He is accused of handing over classified US documents to the whistleblower website, WikiLeaks, when he was an intelligence analyst in Iraq. The leaked military documents shed light on civilian deaths in US wars. Manning is expected to face court martial later this year.
Press TV talks with Interview with Edward Spannaus, a legal affairs editor with the Executive Intelligence Review, to shed further light on the issue. Below is the transcription of the interview:
Press TV: Despite what the UN special rapporteur on torture says, this will have absolutely no impact on Manning’s court martial now, would it?
Spannaus: No, it makes no difference and this is another example of the Obama administration doing things often in excess of what the Bush administration did. There is no reason to treat them in that way.
I do not agree with a lot of what he did in fact. I think there is a good reason for confidentiality in diplomatic communications but to subject him to this kind of treatment is very unnecessary and it is another example of the hypocrisy of the Obama administration.
Press TV: The treatment of Manning sheds further light on the US’ violations of human rights in its prison systems, and not to mention that in detention camps like Guantanamo Bay. How long can the US continue as thus?
Spannaus: Well, there is nothing stopping it right now. I mean, everybody had hopes when Barack Obama was elected president. In fact, one of the reasons he was elected president was that he had promised to bring an end to these kinds of practices which had become notorious under the Bush and Cheney administration.
For eight years, we had this stuff. No one was held accountable and when Obama came in, he promised during his campaign to the people who were responsible for torture, for violations of the Geneva Conventions, violations of the Convention against Torture. These are all treaties that the US is a signatory to. Obama had promised the people would be held accountable.
Within the first year of taking office, he said no; we are going to look forward not backwards which meant that the people who were responsible for these things in the Bush administration were not held accountable and now the same practices are being continued under the Obama administration.
And what makes it worse is that it in effect legalizes these practices for a second administration to come in and not to prosecute and not to hold anybody accountable.
Press TV: The rapporteur was speaking on the sidelines of the UN Human Rights Council’s meeting in Geneva where the US’ human rights record has been called to question. But how far will diplomatic gestures such as this go?
Spannaus: I do not think its diplomatic gestures mean much. I mean there are many countries in the world that violate human rights. The United States is by no means the worst when it comes to human rights violations but that is not the standard. The US should be the best.
This country was founded to respect international law and the law of nations and for many years it did that. Now that no wonder is the case; we are not living up to our own standards and I think we have to get Obama out of there for many reasons including the fact that he could get us into World War III very immediately but also because of his record on Guantanamo on torture.
And as I said, essentially legalizing it and until we have a change of administration and also some pretty big changes in the US in the US Congress because they bear some responsibility for this also. But these practices will continue.
Press TV: Getting back to Bradley Manning and his treatment, the US is trying to make an example out of him for anyone who is thinking about leaking information like the violation of rights by the US during its wars.
Leaving sensitivities of confidentiality aside, where does this leave the issue of transparency on parts of governments?
Spannaus: One of the ironic things is that Obama of course came in promising that he was going to have the most transparent administrations in history. And in fact what he has done things, not just Bradley Manning, but there have been a whole series of cases of whistleblowers or people that have been criminal prosecution has been brought against government officials who provided information generally on illegal or improper activities to the news media.
This has been done about 5 or 6 times under Obama far more than it was done under the Bush-Cheney administration and it is an attempt to silence anybody who is in the government who has access to evidence of illegal or improper activities to silence them and to prevent them from disclosing this and making this public.
You have got a number of cases of this and as I say, Obama has gone further and his Justice Department has gone further than any other administration in history in suppressing these types of disclosures and that is one of the biggest blotches on the record of the Obama administration.
MSK/JR
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