I thought it sounded familiar

Here’s Digby on the treatment of Bradley Manning:

Months and months of sleep deprivation and isolation cannot be justified for security reasons. This fellow isn't a commando. He isn't a professional spy. He's just some grunt who uploaded some electronic files. The only reasonable explanation for his treatment is that they are trying to get him to implicate someone else in his alleged crime. And that's the oldest reason for torture in the books. In the old days, they wanted their subjects to implicate Satan. Today it's Julian Assange.