Jul 08 2010

Obama’s Disgusting Prosecution of Bradley Manning

(11:00AM EST – promoted by Nightprowlkitty)

From Glenn Greenwald…

The U.S. today charged Bradley Manning with a variety of crimes relating to his alleged leaks of classified material to WikiLeaks, most prominently including the Apache attack video that spawned worldwide debate over the American occupation.

The only “weapon” visible in this video is a camera carried by Reuters photographer Namir Noor-Eldeen, who was 22 years old when he was murdered by the American occupation of Iraq.

namir_noor_eldeen
Namir Noor-Eldeen

Greenwald also provides a handy summary of the “rule of law” in America today.

If you torture people or eavesdrop on Americans without the warrants required by the criminal law, you receive Look-Forward Imperial Immunity.

* If you shoot and kill unarmed rescuers of the wounded while occupying their country and severely wound their unarmed children sitting in a van — or if you authorize that conduct — your actions are commended.

* If you help wreck the world economy with fraud and cause hundreds of millions of people untold suffering, you collect tens of millions of dollars in bonuses.

* If you disclose to the world evidence of war crimes, government lawbreaking, or serious corruption, or otherwise embarrass the U.S., you will be swiftly prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law and face decades in prison.

Namir Noor-Eldeen worked very close to the reality of our genocidal occupation of Iraq, and maybe the video-game idiot who killed him wasn’t entirely wrong when he “identified” Namir’s camera as a weapon…

But it was only a weapon against murder and endless war.

Namir2

by_namir
Two photos by Namir Noor-Eldeen

6 comments

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  1. More from the Guardian…

    Private Bradley Manning, who had a top-secret security clearance, has been held in military custody in Kuwait since his arrest in Iraq in May over the video, which caused great embarrassment to the US military establishment. It showed an air strike that killed a dozen people, including two Iraqis working for Reuters news agency. The air crew is heard falsely claiming to have encountered a firefight in Baghdad and then laughing at the dead. WikiLeaks gave the video the title Collateral Murder.

    WikiLeaks has since said it plans to release a second US military video that shows one of the deadliest US air strikes in Afghanistan, in which scores of children were believed to have been killed. The site’s founder, Julian Assange, said the organisation was still working to prepare the encrypted film of the bombing of the Afghan village of Garani in May 2009, in which the Afghan government said about 140 civilians died, including 92 children.

  2. Daniel Ellsberg:

    “For forty years I’ve hoped that someone would put out information on the scale that I did, but in a more timely way than I did, before I chose to do it in my time. And Manning would be the first person in forty years to have done that, if it is true that he’s put out a great raft of cables, which he regards as criminal. And I give him-I’m very gratified, if that’s the case. And I hope he’s not the last.”

    And

    In an interview with Democracy Now! last month, the Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg urged support for Manning should he turn out to be Wikileaks’ source.

    You can find it at Democracy Now

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