{"id":4299,"date":"2011-03-14T05:07:07","date_gmt":"2011-03-14T12:07:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=4299"},"modified":"2011-03-14T05:07:07","modified_gmt":"2011-03-14T12:07:07","slug":"state-official-quits-over-manning-treatment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2011\/03\/14\/state-official-quits-over-manning-treatment\/","title":{"rendered":"State Official Quits over Manning Treatment"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of my biggest disappointment about the Obama Administration has been their response to whistle blowers in general and to the Wikileaks situation in specific.  The mistreatment of Bradley Manning has been what I would expect from Republicans, and it pains me to see Democrats endorsing it.  I am please to report that when Phillip J. Crowley resigned, under pressure I\u2019m sure, he refused to take back his statements critical of Manning\u2019s treatment.<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\"14Crowley\"<\/a>The State Department spokesman, Philip J. Crowley, resigned on Sunday, three days after publicly criticizing<\/a> the Pentagon as \u201cridiculous and counterproductive and stupid\u201d in its treatment of Pfc. Bradley E. Manning<\/strong>, the soldier imprisoned on charges of leaking classified government documents to the antisecrecy group WikiLeaks. <\/p>\n

Mr. Crowley\u2019s comments, which were made to a small group at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, stirred a political tempest in Washington and were rejected by President Obama at a news conference on Friday. Mr. Obama said the Pentagon had assured him that its procedures in Private Manning\u2019s confinement were \u201cappropriate and are meeting our basic standards.\u201d <\/strong><\/p>\n

White House officials were infuriated by the episode, administration officials said, which one described as \u201cthe last straw\u201d in a series of incautious remarks by Mr. Crowley. A retired Air Force officer, Mr. Crowley, 59, had a rocky tenure at the State Department, failing to establish close ties to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. <\/p>\n

In a one-paragraph statement<\/a>, Mrs. Clinton said she accepted Mr. Crowley\u2019s resignation with regret and praised him for his \u201cdeep devotion to public policy and public diplomacy.\u201d <\/p>\n

Mr. Crowley, in his statement, did not retract his critical comments about the Pentagon<\/strong>, which he said \u201cwere intended to highlight the broader, even strategic impact of discrete actions undertaken by national security agencies every day and their impact on our global standing and leadership.\u201d <\/p>\n

His remarks were first reported in a blog<\/a> by a BBC correspondent, Philippa Thomas, who said Mr. Crowley had added that Private Manning deserved to be in jail. Mr. Crowley declined to comment further. <\/p>\n

Private Manning\u2019s lawyer has complained about his treatment, including sometimes being deprived of his clothing, as a maximum security prisoner under restrictions intended to prevent self-injury, even though his supporters said there was no evidence that he was suicidal\u2026 [emphasis added<\/em>]<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Inserted from <NY Times<\/a>><\/p>\n

I will say one thing in Obama\u2019s defense.  The pentagon and the upper military chain of command were highly politicized during the Republican Regime under Bush.  That nest of vipers has been cleaned out, because Obama kept Bush\u2019s SecDef.  I think there is an excellent possibility that people responsible for Manning\u2019s abuse are lying to Obama about Manning\u2019s treatment, condition, or both.  While this may absolve Obama of blame, it does NOT absolve him of the responsibility to see to it that Manning receives the humane treatment that is a universal human right.<\/font><\/p>\n

I commend Mr. Crowley for his integrity.<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of my biggest disappointment about the Obama Administration has been their response to whistle blowers in general and to the Wikileaks situation in specific.  The mistreatment of Bradley Manning has been what I would expect from Republicans, and it pains me to see Democrats endorsing it.  I am please to report that when Phillip […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4299","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-5-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4299","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4299"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4299\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4299"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4299"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4299"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}