I really am just sick about this.  And maybe it's worse because I don't see someone who goes along with the Manning treatment (among other things) as being committed to a justice system that endeavors to uphold and strengthen democratic principles.

Glenn's reaction says it well:

Oh, that's very reassuring -- and such a very thorough and diligent effort by the President to ensure that detainees under his command aren't being abused.  He asked the Pentagon and they said everything was great -- what more is there to know?  Everyone knows that on questions of whether the military is abusing detainees, the authoritative source is . . . the military.  You just ask them if they're doing anything improper, and once they tell you that they're not, that's the end of the matter.  

I have no doubt that George Bush asked the DoD whether everything was being run professionally at Guantanamo and they assured him that they were.  Perhaps the reason there haven't been any Wall Street prosecutions is because Obama asked Jamie Dimon and Lloyd Blankfein if there was any fraud and those banking executives assured the President that there wasn't.

My position is pretty simple, really: we can't be a nation of do as I say, not as I do.  The stirring speeches, the invocation of democracy and patriotism, the lectures to other nations for their treatment of citizens - it all rings hollow if we aren't acting in accordance with our words.

I don't hate the military; I respect the service of those who have volunteered to do what our nation asks in service to this democracy.  I acknowledge and respect the experience of service, am willing to learn what that experience has entailed, the culture that surrounds the military.

I'm not willing to set my own beliefs and principles aside just because someone tells me, "well, that's just the way it is."  I'm not willing to blindly accept much of anything without some sort of independent supporting information.  I'm not in the military - I don't have to speak only when spoken to, or march in lock-step at someone's command.  I can and will question, I will ask for accountability, I will speak up when something doesn't make sense to me.

That doesn't make me a hater, doesn't mean I don't respect those who serve - but when the military betrays the trust of those willing to die in service to their country, they should not get anyone's respect.

It's clear that we see this situation with Manning differently, and it may be that those differences will never be resolved; I'm still willing to listen, to learn, but I am not willing to have my opinions be dismissed just because I don't have the same experiences as someone else.  

And realized that he's being treated like your average repeat offender in a maximum facility prison who gets in trouble for fighting or exhibits suicidal tendencies.

I mean let me get this straight: the torture he is enduring is that he has to strip down to nothing each night, show the guards he has no way of hurting himself and then sleep under a blanket. I mean I know people who have been to jail and had to do that.  

PJ Crowley:

PJ Crowley, the assistant secretary of state for public affairs at the US state department, has said Manning is being "mistreated" in the military brig at Quantico, Virginia. "What is being done to Bradley Manning is ridiculous and counterproductive and stupid on the part of the department of defence."

Crowley's comments are the first sign of a crack within the Obama administration over the handling of the WikiLeaks saga in which hundreds of thousands of confidential documents were handed to the website.

It is the first time anyone within the administration has expressed concern about Manning's treatment, which has included being held for 23 hours in solitary confinement in his cell and being stripped naked every night. Until now the US government had presented a united front, promising to aggressively pursue anyone involved in leaking state secrets. Clinton herself described the WikiLeaks material as "an attack on America" and said "we are taking aggressive steps" to hold those who leaked it to account.

Crowley, speaking at an MIT seminar in Boston, did say he believed Manning was "in the right place". He was presumably referring to Quantico, where the intelligence specialist has been held pending a court martial since July last year when he was arrested while serving in Iraq.

Crowley said: "There is sometimes a need for secrets for diplomatic progress to be made."

But when asked by one of the audience what he thought about the "elephant in the room" - the US "torturing a prisoner in a military brig", as the questioner put it - he replied without pausing that he thought the Pentagon's actions were "ridiculous and counterproductive and stupid".

First about "Command!"
The General directly in "command" of Abu Ghraib and the other associated officers didn't do their "due diligence" and inspect their facilities personally, regularly and as they like to say in the ground forces with "boots on the ground."  They should have walked the facilities and checked with the prisoners directly with the guards standing back away from the separating bars to allow privacy.
They should gone beyond the normal orders of the day, SOPs, and such, and have posted something like this in their office or wherever all the people could see it "every man and woman in this prison is under my personal charge whether they are guards or prisoners and all must be treated properly and fairly, otherwise someone will answer to me."
That said, Obama can't put his personal "boots" on the ground of every US facility in the world, but he should have said to the questioner "I hear you and I realize there is a lot of concern and I have in fact already had a man (or woman) look into it, and they are regularly scheduled to visit Bradley at the end of each month.  They are not available to talk to the press, but I have access to them at all times, and they are always available to Bradley's lawyers within a few hours notice.  Saying the "Pentagon," the "DOD" the "DOJ" is just too vague.
Personally I would make these people personally available to Bradley's parents on a regular basis too.
In fact there should be a Chaplin assigned to that unit that the parents can talk to.  That is SOP.

Personally I treated "my" ships and "my" power plants, etc., and every man and woman associated with those items that way.  The buck didn't stop with me because I went down to where the bucks were issued and paid out and laid hands on the equipment and the people.  Yes I might be lied to or deceived, and I still regret that $10,000 welder that was  stolen out from under my very own nose but I do grant that perfection is hard to obtain in this life. The Officer club, the Links and the Racquet Courts are great places to be but only after the work was done!

Now Anne, above, has some good details about Bradley's confinement but I would like to add a few more.  First Bradley is not in what is generally considered to be solitary confinement.  The cell he is in, is in a U shaped bank of cells and I can't remember from what I was told whether the whole bank is 7 cells or just one leg is seven cells and the whole bank is 14.  
The cells are arranged so that a prisoner can't get direct line of eye contact with another prisoner.  He can talk to a prisoner that is in the next cell, but there aren't any next door right now, and in fact the last two other prisoners that were in the unit had been shipped out the other day.  It is true that Bradley couldn't yell out to the prisoners when they were down the line for that might have been considered "disturbing."
Bradley has always had two blankets and to answer a comment Jeralyn made about why were blankets ok, but not underwear, these blankets are made of special non shred-able material.

I admit I don't understand the prohibition about exercising but chances are that they aren't just doing it to Bradley or maybe it relates to his status.  I will see if I can find out.

obama has so many 'serious disgraces', its really hard to single any out as the most disgraceful, there is:

• the order to assassinate an American citizen
  
• the cave on civilian trials for those still at Guantanimo
  
• the continued torture and rendition
  
• the abusive use of state's secrets to hide information from the public and obstruct justice
  
• protection of bush criminal and the numerous criminals 0f the bush administration from justice
  
• the undermining of universal healthcare, and protection and boost of insurance companies and pharmaceuticals
  
• embrace of indefinite detention without any due process
  
• "The Deal" robbing from Americans to give more of America's wealth to the already obscenely wealth and undermines the finances of social security
  
• creating an issue of social security finances when no problem exists.
  
• having a lying and dissembling Wall Street insiders for his economic team
  
• accepting a Nobel Prize for peace
  
• soooooo very many it goes on and on. its not possible to pick a most disgraceful