I don't think Manning's treatment constitutes torture. The reason is because the conditions under which he is confined are not in and of themselves illegal or torturous. Prisoners can be held in those conditions when the circumstances warrant it. In my view, "torture" is doing things that would never be acceptable under any conditions like threatening to kill a prisoner or their family, waterboarding, physical torture, etc. The simple fact of being in a max custody status and under prevention-of-injury watch is not torture.

Instead of torture, the disconnect here (and I recommend everyone read Manning's Lawyers' blog) is that Manning is being held in a higher state of confinement than is warranted for someone in his circumstances. Namely, he's being held in a "prevention of injury" status that is specifically designed to restrict his activities to such an extent that he's unable to injure himself. It's designed for prisoners who might hurt themselves. The problem with that is that he's been cleared psychologically on several occasions and so there is not clear justification for keeping him at the higher level of confinement. The brig has not given any alternative justification for the high-level confinement.

Maybe the brig and the government has a valid reason, but so far they haven't, to my knowledge, provided one. To my mind, this isn't torture at all, but it could well be illegal and a violation of UCMJ article 13. The thing is, Manning will get his day in court - his lawyer will probably file an article 13 motion and this whole thing will be legally adjudicated.

Finally, I say all this as someone who takes the unauthorized disclosure of classified information very seriously. Personally, I hope Manning gets put away for a long time but IMO the actions taken by the brig are not only unjustified, but stupid given the support they've given Manning. He's now a kind of hero to many people and he's got a lot of people paying money for his legal defense, etc. - and for what? No good reason that I can see. Maybe the brig was stupidly trying to punish him, or maybe they just wanted to CYA and make sure that nothing would happen to a high-profile prisoner, but either way, this is certainly an "own goal" by the government even if it's not torture.