Full stop. This isn't about whether the punishment for losing your rifle is excessive, this is a black and white issue. Punishment before trial == wrong. Torture == wrong. Both are against the constitution.
And I bet nobody even gets in trouble for this.
Scared people are scary. Really scary, when backed far enough into a corner.
Enemy combatants belong to non-state actors, and so no treaties or guidelines apply to them. Last I checked Al doesn't Al Qaeda and the rest of the cavers don't get representatives in the UN.
http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/index.shtml Article 29(3)
These rights and freedoms may in no case be exercised contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.
See perhaps most recently _Boumediene v. Bush_ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boumediene_v._Bush
Namely that these enemy combatants do have rights under the Constitution in this case the right to a habeas petition.
The other relevant historic case-law here is _Yick Wo v. Hopkins (1886)_ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yick_Wo_v._Hopkins "these provisions [the Constitution] are universal in their application, to all persons within the territorial jurisdiction."
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The guards at the confinement facility are professional. At no time have they tried to bully, harass, or embarrass PFC Manning. Given the nature of their job, however, they do not engage in conversation with PFC Manning.
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He gets to watch TV, write letters, and have visitors on the weekends. He is isolated, but his treatment and living conditions are a far cry from torture.
According to Mssrs Rumsfeld and Cheney people that where waterboarded for up to 200 times where not tortured. According to the definition of torture in the civilized world this sure as hell was and is torture.
It's not a stretch to argue that solitary confinement equates torture.