U.S. Army whistleblower Chelsea Manning began a hunger strike in military prison Friday, her attorneys confirmed.
“I need help. I am not getting any,” Manning wrote in a statement. “I was driven to suicide by the lack of care for my gender dysphoria that I have been desperate for. I didn’t get any. I still haven’t gotten any.”
Manning announced her identity as a transgender woman on Aug. 22, 2013, a day after she was sentenced to 35 years in military prison.
After attempting to commit suicide in July, Manning was informed by military officials that she was being investigated for “resisting the force cell move team,” “prohibited property,” and “conduct which threatens.” She is facing indefinite solitary confinement, or a return to maximum-security detention.
Starting on Friday, Manning said, she would not willingly consume any food or drink, except water and prescribed medications.
Manning also refused to “voluntarily cut or shorten her hair in any way.” Army officials repeatedly force Manning to cut her hair to “military standards” – an appearance that she says does not reflect her gender identity.
Human rights advocates have repeatedly raised concerns about Manning’s treatment in prison. After her arrest in 2010, she was subjected to solitary confinement for extended periods and repeatedly stripped naked in her cell. Her treatment was so bad that a State Department spokesperson spoke out against the Pentagon and described it as “ridiculous and counterproductive and stupid.”
Since her conviction, Manning has been repeatedly threatened with indefinite solitary confinement, for charges as frivolous as keeping an expired tube of toothpaste in her cell.
According to Manning’s statement Friday, she also filed a “do not resuscitate” letter with the prison’s medical team, which includes any attempt to force-feed her medically.
In January 2010, Manning sent hundreds of thousands of documents to Wikileaks about the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, revealing a dramatically higher number of civilian casualties than the Pentagon publicly acknowledged. The documents also included a video of Apache attack helicopters gunning down two journalists in Baghdad.
Manning was convicted of six counts of espionage in military court in 2013. Because she was indicted under the Espionage Act, she was not allowed to cite the public interest value of her disclosures as a defense. Manning’s lawyers appealed her conviction in May, calling it “grossly unfair and unprecedented.”
Manning has written numerous opinion columns in The Guardian from prison.
[Disclosure: First Look Media Works, Inc., publisher of The Intercept, made a $50,000 matching-fund donation to Chelsea Manning’s legal defense fund through its Press Freedom Litigation Fund, and Glenn Greenwald, a co-founding editor of The Intercept, donated $10,000.]
Top photo: The disciplinary barracks on the Fort Leavenworth army post.
Am I supposed to believe someone sent to prison and faces solitary confinement’s main source of depression is gender related. Maybe she convinced herself of that but if I had to bet I would think her main problem in her life is not be treated as a human being, not what gender she is treated as.
As usual, many of the comments I’m reading here are full of hate. I really feel for the individuals who write such horrible things, as I can only imagine how much hatred they direct at themselves! Many of them were doubtless abused as children, but if not, they were surely abused in many ways by our sick culture. I feel for them and really hope they seek help–both to reduce their own suffering and because their words are so harmful to others.
XY = Male. He is not a “she”.
Wrong. Gender identity had nothing to do with genes.
Why do you care so much about other’s identities? I agree she is a hero.
I’m sorry. They can’t punish her enough.
You should be sorry, for she is a hero to most of us.
AMEN …..
James Comey is a TRAITOR.
Chelsea Manning is a HERO.
Edward Snowden is a HERO.
If Chelsea Manning is mourning the loss of her dignity then the whole of our country can do the same. Nobody has any dignity left, just about nobody. Our ships are surrounded by Iranian boats and ridiculed. We have to pay ransom to get our spies back from Iran. Assad’s people go and bomb our friends whenever they feel like doing it. China does not send stairs for our world-champion President to disembark. That Filipino guy openly abuses him. Director Comey makes a fool of himself testifying the non-existent virtual virtues of his potential future boss, and who herself has entangled herself in a web of inextricable untruths. The Cuban fellow and our Saudi puppet do not bother to show up to receive our world champion at the airport. You can obviously see that Chelsea Manning’s predicament is minuscule compared to the humiliation the rest of us have to go through, if that is any comfort to her.
We don’t an option. We have to make America great again. It is going to solve a lot of the problems that everyone is facing today, thanks to champion leaders that conned us to elect them.
It’s easy to talk about making America “great again”, but you can’t just wave a magic wand and do it. China has more people, bigger economy, graduates four times more engineers, or is it six now, I forget, publishes much of the new research, and no longer has a technologically inferior military. And we couldn’t beat them back in Vietnam! Europe is no longer a broken battlefield desperate to sell their daughters for a candy bar and a smile from a heroic liberator. The U.S. is now in the position where Russia was in, of either following the trappings of power with unsustainable military expenditures or trying to reclaim some of the reality by building an economy. The U.S. is also in the position that Russia was in that the economy isn’t working due to fundamental philosophical problems: “intellectual property” simply does not work for health care, the market is completely insane at this point, and the country has to decide whether letting a virus come in and turn the children into cretins is actually a price worth paying for capitalistic virtue. We need some Deng to say it doesn’t matter if the cat is black or white as long as it catches mice.
So no, you can’t normalize relations with Iran to talk them out of developing nukes while saying they can’t ever get back the money they deposited in your bank. You can’t run around Syria giving orders for them to follow whichever lunatic you dislike least this week and expect them to obey. You can’t reasonably expect the Capitalist International not to back their candidate in the U.S. when they know to think locally and act globally. It’s not like in the old days where you could back a Somoza and expect him to keep everyone else in his country in line, right or wrong, for an appearance of respect. It’s time to give up the “superpower” illusion.
True, but your choice on Nov 8th can go a long way. And we are going to revoke this ridiculous application of the Espionage Act by our current World Champion, which is going to benefit people like Chelsea Manning.
The hair issue has nothing to do with prison or the innocence or guilt of Manning. It is solely a function of a military which, despite rudimentary progress, has failed to put the stake to the concept of “are women allowed to do this” and “are men allowed to do this”. So long as the military retains a stilted and confining notion of two homogeneous sexes with different roles and rights, any attempt to offer rights to transsexuals will be seen as “special rights” that non-transsexuals do not have. This is also true of discrimination by civilian employers, and was even enshrined in the proposed text of ENDA which would have allowed gender-specific requirements.
The only acceptable attitude for the military to have, whether we speak of its most decorated members or its most despised criminals, is that there simply is no discrimination by sex. They should not ask whether someone is male or female when making any rule. Oh, I understand there are matters of military expedience – if they really had a louse problem and they really couldn’t control it with simple chemicals, they could demand all their troops be short-haired, but then logically they should demand that of men and women equally. But of course in reality we know that they have some notion of hating “effeminacy”, and one cannot at once be LGBT-friendly or even woman-friendly and hate effeminacy.
To some this may seem a trivial issue, but let us remember that the War of Great Peace, perhaps the greatest deadliest war in all of history, was fought just for this right of people to grow the hair God gave them without being punished by shave-pated cretins. Look it up: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiping_Rebellion
she’s in PRISON for chrissakes. It’s supposed to be dehumanizing. Talk about playing the victim card. Too bad this country doesn’t favor an honor culture anymore.
People who believe this have such a big chunk of humanity missing that it’s embarrassing to share species with them (if, indeed, we do).
No, you jackass, it’s not supposed to be dehumanizing. It’s supposed to be rehabilitative. In Manning’s case, we’re talking about a political prisoner, no less. Even someone convicted of freaking espionage is typically considered a political prisoner under international standards, let alone someone who did something heroic like what Manning did.
hahahaha. you’re joking, right?
Yes, all those gladiator academies at the state and federal level are really all about rehabilitating the inmates for reintegration into polite society.
Prison in the US either destroys you – or it turns you into a destroyer of men.
I sent Chelsea Manning an article — which I have no way of knowing if she got, of course — about Pepe Mujica. I just wanted her to stay hopeful: I am sure he had some very dark days in isolation in prison in Uruguay, but he became the nation’s president as an old man. Nelson Mandela’s story is similar: charged, like Mujica, with terrorism (and more generally, like Manning, with high crimes against the state). I always think of that horribly true line from Tolstoy: “God sees the truth, but waits.”
Can she use the Hillary Clinton defense? Is not equal protection guaranteed and protected. Is it too late for her to be granted immunity as Hillary’s cronies received? Please stay strong and do not go on a hunger strike.
Not allowing more comments? Why?
Where is my comment?
Americans were/are very much aware of how much armed forces cover up. Soldiers talk, social media outs them, but Americans are more aware that murderers and rapists, especially those white, elite, do not serve a 1/4 of that sentence – or treatment -given to this individual. The accurate reports and statements of the torture she is receiving sets the tone and flames the fire for the civil unrest that is brewing in America. We Americans are proudly patriotic – but we are clearly intelligent enough to know that in this case, our Government was fueled purely by embarrassment at being caught with their arrogant pants down. This sentence and treatment for exposing their war crimes is seriously sick, and we Americans, including many in our government, know and will never blindly follow their lead. Let’s be clear, we will not suffer traitors. We are aware civilian casualties will occur in rightful combat, but obviously in this case, the human mind can only take so much, especially when they are witnessing and made aware that the killings were excessive, and occurred more out of maliciousness then strategy. This person’s sentencing appears to have been driven because she “Policed” the unregulated, and THAT is why the torture is overlooked and allowed. Her jailers are not being policed, which is opening the increasingly watchful eyes of Americans. If these actions/treatment is allowed to continue, history will begin to repeat itself.
I am in total disagreement with Manning’s imprisonment but equally dislike the sexism that this person is embracing as part of their sic gender identity.
“Manning also refused to “voluntarily cut or shorten her hair in any way.” Army officials repeatedly force Manning to cut her hair to “military standards” – an appearance that she says does not reflect her gender identity.”
A haircut has zero to do with gender. Need any of us list the myriad famous people and our mates who have long or short hair irrespective of sex (not gender). I am troubled that the political left is on the vanguard of astute political critique of some dangerous and draconian political measures by our government, yet so terribly regressive concering the politics of gender. It would behoove this writer to reflect upon feminist theoreis which exist for a reason. This sentiment feels patently sexist and one must wonder if we are not in a time warp.
Americans were/are very much aware of how much armed forces cover up. Soldiers talk, social media outs them, but Americans are more aware that murderers and rapists, especially those white, elite, do not serve a 1/4 of that sentence – or treatment -given to this individual. The accurate reports and statements of the torture she is receiving sets the tone and flames the fire for the civil unrest that is brewing in America. We Americans are proudly patriotic – but we are clearly intelligent enough to know that in this case, our Government was fueled purely by embarrassment at being caught with their arrogant pants down. This sentence and treatment for exposing their war crimes is seriously sick, and we Americans, including many in our government, know and will never blindly follow their lead. Let’s be clear, we will not suffer traitors. We are aware civilian casualties will occur in rightful combat, but obviously in this case, the human mind can only take so much, especially when they are witnessing and made aware that the killings were excessive, and occurred more out of maliciousness then strategy. This person’s sentencing appears to have been driven because she “Policed” the unregulated, and THAT is why the torture is overlooked and allowed. Her jailers are not being policed, which is opening the increasingly watchful eyes of Americans. If these actions/treatment is allowed to continue, history will begin to repeat itself
Americans were/are very much aware of how much armed forces cover up. Soldiers talk, social media outs them, but Americans are more aware that murderers and rapists, especially those white, elite, do not serve a 1/4 of that sentence – or treatment -given to this individual. The accurate reports and statements of the torture she is receiving sets the tone and flames the fire for the civil unrest that is brewing in America. We Americans are proudly patriotic – but we are clearly intelligent enough to know that in this case, our Government was fueled purely by embarrassment at being caught with their arrogant pants down. This sentence and treatment for exposing their war crimes is seriously sick, and we Americans, including many in our government, know and will never blindly follow their lead. Let’s be clear, we will not suffer traitors. We are aware civilian casualties will occur in rightful combat, but obviously in this case, the human mind can only take so much, especially when they are witnessing and made aware that the killings were excessive, and occurred more out of maliciousness then strategy. This person’s sentencing appears to have been driven because she “Policed” the unregulated, and THAT is why the torture is overlooked and allowed. Her jailers are not being policed, which is opening the increasingly watchful eyes of Americans. If these actions/treatment is allowed to continue, history will begin to repeat itself.
Those of us who care about Chelsea and have the time to comment here surely also have the time to send her a quick letter of support. Chelsea’s address is public information available on her website:
Chelsea E. Manning 89289
1300 North Warehouse Road
Fort Leavenworth, Kansas 66027-2304
????
Thank you so much, Cara! I thought I had the address in my files, but cannot find. I used to write her through lawyer Coombs.
She committed a high crime.
Not that the documents were top secret.
But that the documents embarrassed people.
The most powerful military power in the history of the world, and the country that has spied on more people than any country in history, and the country that was not founded as an oligarchy, but has become one …
That country will use any means – National Security threat, torture, the “law” to punish the gravest sin of all
telling the truth about those in power
How many years in the future will this empire be able to look back in shame on how they have treated Manning? Or maybe never ….
I don’t look for a good outcome of this confrontation …
Words are not enough to express the disgust this administration has inspired with the treatment of Chelsea, Snowden, and so many others.
But, corporate shills are corporate shills no matter how the try to disguise themselves. The politics of fear and lies are the only ones that work for these hacks.
The link in the sentence “In January 2010, Manning sent hundreds of thousands of documents to Wikileaks about the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, revealing a dramatically higher number of civilian casualties than the Pentagon publicly acknowledged.” leads to a dead end.
My sympathies with Manning, but this won’t work. Americans don’t have a conscience, and the few who do, wouldn’t have heard of her anyway. Sorry folks, but she is being driven into a corner they want to drive her in, backed by centuries of expertise in incarceration, torture and killing practised upon native Indians, which even Hitler studied in great detail while designing his infamous camps. Manning you are playing into their hands, there is nothing they would love more than to have you take your own life. I know it’s easy for me to be giving suggestions without experiencing the pain that you are in the hands of these subhumans, but if you are going the Gandhian route, go all the way, remain healthy, practise meditation as a way of alleviating the pain. These are strategies the baser lot of sub humans, I.e. the Administration (polite word for an Evil Regime) will not be able to comprehend. May God give you strength.
“…if you are going the Gandhian route, go all the way, remain healthy, practice meditation as a way of alleviating the pain.” This is great heart-felt advice. Please write Chelsea a brief letter of support and tell her this. See address above. Thanks for your comment.
This is so horrendous. I have such admiration and respect for Chelsea as well as ed and all of the other whistle-blowers who did what they did to protect me and my constitutional rights as a citizen.
I agree with all the comments below. That never happens. Others still suffering. Jeffrey Sterling being denied adequate medical care. Barrett Brown getting out soon, but Jeremy Hammond still in for a long time. Kiriakou survived, fortunately.
And this says nothing about the legacy political prisoners, like Leonard Peltier and Mumia Abu-Jamal, who has a death sentence from HepC. Obama’s clemency is meager at best.
That’s b/c Kiriakou isn’t a pussy, frankly.
Maybe Manning should buy John’s book about how to survive prison when it’s published.
i’d be interested in seeing how long you’re able to endure similar suffering.
Endure what Kiriakou went through, or what Manning is going through?
The principal circumstantial difference (besides one being in maximum security military custody, and one having been in low-security BoP custody) is that Kiriakou’s sentence was maxed at 30mos., whereas (at present) Manning can’t hope for release until having served a minimum of eight years.
Manning is just weak. Suspect the only reason she hadn’t attempted to kill herself before now is that she was too well guarded (like in Quantico when they had her on POI status).
Doubt Kiriakou would’ve tried to kill himself even after six years. He has a family, kids, loving wife, strong faith, etc…all things to live for.
Manning has what? Her victimhood?
Obama will either pardon or work out a plea for Snowden before he behaves like other than a monster where Chelsea is concerned. With Holder having recently said some nice things now about Snowden, and especially if Oliver Stone’s film out next week is popular, he might to climb on the Snowden-is-now-a-good-guy bandwagon.
Chelsea doesn’t have any similar dynamics going for her. This is as enraging as it is heartbreaking.
(Altho, a pardoned Ed Snowden, back here in the U.S., could be an effective advocate for Chelsea.)
“pardon or work out a plea”
Don’t count on it. Obama has spent years trying to prosecute whistleblowers.
“Obama will either pardon or work out a plea for Snowden before he behaves like other than a monster where Chelsea is concerned.”
There’s no evidence of this happening. Sorry. I understand your hope and optimism, but it’s not warranted here.
Maybe he’ll be pardoned in several more years or something, but not anytime soon.
You misread me. The operative word in my first sentence is “before.” There’s evidence of Obama pivoting to some left positions in his last year or so in office. That’s almost certainly a “protect the legacy” thing as he sees the drift of attitudes vis-a-vis certain people and issues.
I’m not especially optimistic that he will do right by Snowden; I’m simply certain that he’d do that well, well before he’d end the inhuman and repugnant suffering he’s imposing on Chelsea Manning.
Tell it straight Mona, this little contrived exchange is nothing more than another pitch for a movie that features…
Given Manning’s repeated erratic behaviour by putting the blame for his problems solely on the government than on a glitch by mother nature and poor parenting, he will hardly be eligible for a reduced term. With every action of this public kind, he worsens his own situation. One nobody is to be blamed for but himself, since he committed the crimes.
We’ve been waiting on a Leonard Peltier pardon since the end of the Clinton presidency. All we got was a pardon for his crime pal Marc Rich. I appreciate optimism but for now I’m not holding my breath.
Echoing minecritter below, if you want Manning pardoned (and Edward Snowden not only pardoned but given a place in the Administration), vote for Jill Stein.
Chelsea Manning deserves nothing but thanks for what she did, and obviously the establishment is deliberately and tortuously assaulting her sensitive nature to break her into pieces – just as they have done in varying degrees systematically since first getting her in their clutches.
It was her sensitive nature that compelled her to expose the wrongdoing she did, so this is doubly cruel.
Jill Stein 2016
Exactly right. With malice aforethought.
Chelsea Manning is a hero, even more so because it must have been excruciatingly painful for her find the courage to take the action she took, while dealing with her gender dysphoria in an extraordinarily hostile environment.
Why would Trump pardon Manning?
An odd, nonsense reason to vote Stein.
Dear Chelsea,
You joined the Army, that was dumb, because the role of the Army is to MURDER people under the dubious legalities of War. And Iraq was most dubious and so you witnessed and participated in heinous murder. That’s what burns your arse: you joined the military of the most brutal nation on Earth and got mixed up in their hatefulness. Live with it. You took their pay and now you must pay. Eat your free dinner, do your time in your warm cell. Some of us have to go hungry and cold because we won’t join an army and murder people for a pay packet. Me, I have nothing, not a dime and never fired a round in my life. Suits me fine.
You did the right thing after doing the very very wrongest of things. The Army is for killers and thieves and shirkers who live off of other peoples’ taxes and people too desperate and incapable of making a buck any other way, not for good people with consciences. It’s going to hurt a while, but you slapped those cunts in the face and they don’t allow such behaviour.
That is the most bloodless, ignorant pile of shit Ive read here in quite some time. Chelsea Manning didn’t want to join the Army; her personal life was a mess, her sexual and gender identity and relationships with her parents causing all kinds of unpleasant issues. Her parents wanted her to sign up, so she did — what was she, 20?
But EVEN IF she’d been all gung-ho to go, what she did with the information she had took a tremendous act of courage. For which she’s being treated monstrously. How in the fuck can you just glibly and blithely reduce the indignities and tortures she’s now enduring — and is set to endure for decades — with crap about eating her “free dinners” and enjoying her “warm cell?” In goddam Leavenworth?!
WTF is the matter with you?
Hmmm… Bradley didn’t want to join the army, yet he/she did because his/her life was a mess? Not a very good defense for his/her current dilemma.
When exactly did Bradley inform his recruiter that he was having a gender identity crisis? Such an admission would have been immediate grounds for his rejection.
Well thought; but, you don’t know military recruiting in practice. In theory, you’re correct, along w/ any admission of drug abuse, mental instability of any sort, physical problems to include surgery, on and on… being disqualifying factors. Recruiters will tell you to hide these things or not want to know about them and shut you up. The military is less honorable and more thoroughly unscrupulous than you imagine.
Super-insane Horse out.
This is so horrifying and outrageous, and yet Obama keeps persecuting whistleblowers and torturing prisoners.
Among the MANY reasons I’ll be voting for Jill Stein is that she would use the power of presidential pardon to release Chelsea Manning and other political prisoners.
I’m with Jill too. She’s stands for the greater good so you don’t have to vote for the lesser evil. She’s willing to risk arrest to stand up with Native peoples (and ALL peoples) so that we can protect the water which we need to sustain life. Thats not only a gesture of solidarity but a commitment to defend the sacred earth.
The American republic officially died when we started locking up legal whistleblowers after 9/11. Apathy among Americans voters is extremely disappointing. Manning reported war crimes of assassinating journalists.
Shouldn’t there be war crimes indictments for Manning’s superiors and jailers?
Sure, you march round and I’ll bring the cuffs. The US Military hasn’t had one moment of dignity in its entire sordid history, so you have to be some kind of fool to sign up and think you’re going to chivalrously help keep the world charming and free for all the nice folk. The US Military has committed war crimes in every war it has fought in and has systematically conducted covert operations across the globe during “peacetime”, and when not personally engaged has offered training, resources and bases to some of the worst regimes in history. Just being a law-abiding taxpayer and voter makes Americans complicit, without being as dumb as Chelsea Manning and signing up and getting the uniform and the gun. Because Armies are about bullying and killing and helping others to do the same. The Gallant Knight is a lie – soldiers kill and terrorise and rob during war and at peace. They are completely unnecessary now in our modern world, yet the US continues to spend a trillion dollars a year, employing over 5 million people who cannot do an honest day’s work and struggle through life like the rest of us. FUCK THEM ALL. Americans love their military. It’s a sickness the world needs to rid itself of immediately.
And Chelsea Manning knows that and signed up anyway. So I at least thank her for trying to make some small amends.
you sound like fun
I always thought that the term “war crime” is an oxymoron. Wikipedia defines “war crime” as:
“…an act that constitutes a serious violation of the law of war that gives rise to individual criminal responsibility.[1] Examples of war crimes include intentionally killing civilians or prisoners, torture, destroying civilian property, taking hostages, perfidy, rape, using child soldiers, pillaging, declaring that no quarter will be given, and using weapons that cause superfluous injury or unnecessary suffering.”
Hmmm…. individual criminal responsibility? So, if one is drafted and forced to kill a predefined enemy of the state via an established chain of command, then the individual is absolved of all moral responsibility. In Vietnam, the US government would routinely label geographical grids “free fire zones.” These zones often harbored agrarian villagers whose families had inhabited the land for countless generations; on one day they were merely the innocent victims of communist aggression who were worthy of American protection, and then on the next, they were enemies of the state by virtue of the dole fact that they occupied land that was essential to the survival of their family.
Bradley Manning knowingly chose to hand his life over to circumstances that were latent with the potential of offending his nascent transsexual sensibilities. He had an above average intelligence and an advanced capacity to garner an understanding of the nature of the organizational code to which he was expected to conform. When is Chelsea going to stop blaming others and start acknowledging that Bradley’s own lack of good judgement resulted in her current circumstance?
Maybe not war crimes, but certainly violations of the law. P.J. Crowley, the former Assistant Secretary of State, resigned after pointing out Manning’s poor treatment. Further, Manning’s trial violated the Manual for Courts-Martial, with an exceptional delay prior to trial.
As for those who locked her up, be they the executive branch officials who sought to punish her, or the scumbag who claimed both counselor-client privilege and clergy privilege- and then broke both, the truth alone should sink them.