Tag: Bradley Manning

Cross posted from The Stars Hollow Gazette

One of the many things that PFC. Bradley Manning has been accused of is the release of the “Collateral Murder” video which depicted the indiscriminate murder of innocent civilians and two Reuters journalists by an Apache helicopter crew in a suburb of Baghdad. Now former soldiers who were members of the ground troops are coming forward and speaking out about the video, illegal orders and how the media is unfairly depicting Manning to to cover up war crimes. These brave men are calling Manning a hero if he is indeed the person who released that video.

One of the responses was a criticism of how Manning is being used to propagandized the war by journalists, specifically referencing a personal profile of Manning by Stephen Fishman in the New York magazine. The article written by former Army Specialist Ethan McCord, who served in Bravo Company 2-16, the ground troops involved in the “Collateral Murder” video, is published in its entirety by Glenn Greenwald. Here is just a little of what Spec. McCord wrote:

Serving with my unit 2nd battalion 16th infantry in New Baghdad Iraq, I vividly remember the moment in 2007, when our Battalion Commander walked into the room and announced our new rules of engagement:

“Listen up, new battalion SOP (standing operating procedure) from now on: Anytime your convoy gets hit by an IED, I want 360 degree rotational fire. You kill every [expletive] in the street!”

We weren’t trained extensively to recognize an unlawful order, or how to report one. But many of us could not believe what we had just been told to do. Those of us who knew it was morally wrong struggled to figure out a way to avoid shooting innocent civilians, while also dodging repercussions from the non-commissioned officers who enforced the policy. In such situations, we determined to fire our weapons, but into rooftops or abandoned vehicles, giving the impression that we were following procedure.

snip

The video released by WikiLeaks belongs in the public record. Covering up this incident is a matter deserving of criminal inquiry. Whoever revealed it is an American hero in my book.

snip

Fishman removes politics from a story that has everything to do with politics. The important public issues wrapped up with PFC Manning’s case include: transparency in government; the Obama Administration’s unprecedented pursuit of whistle-blowers; accountability of government and military in shaping and carrying out foreign policy; war crimes revealed in the WikiLeaks documents; the catalyzing role these revelations played in democratic movements across the Middle East; and more.

Demonizing and discrediting those who expose the criminality and corruption is now the weapon of choice by journalists and the media that wish to be subservient to a corrupt government. As Greenwald said in his article:

Who needs White House fear-mongers, propagandists, plumbers and character assassins when so many in the establishment press compete so vigorously to perform those functions instead?

Manning is now being held at Ft. Leavenworth, KS after being subjected to months of conditions that amounted to torture in the brig at Quantico Marine Base. The U.N.’s top official on torture, Juan Mendez, announced last December that his office would formally investigate those conditions and has repeated requested private access to talk to Manning. He has been repeatedly refused permission by the Obama administration. Mendez is publicly accusing the Obama administration of violating U.N. rules. Considering the Obama administrations attack on whistle blowers and the continued refusal to prosecute the crimes they expose, they are very likely afraid of what Manning would say to Mendez.

Cross posted from The Stars Hollow Gazette

I’m not a lawyer. I don’t even pretend to be one on the Internet but the above statement, according to the Constitution of the United States, is just so egregiously wrong that it is hard to believe that it was uttered by a lawyer much less one that purports to be a “Constitutional Law Professor” and sits in the Oval Office. If I were a lawyer, I’d be embarrassed by this man claim to be a member of my profession. As a citizen of the Unites States, I am more than embarrassed, I am ashamed.

Not just worse than Bush but worse than Richard Nixon, too. I can’t imagine Eric Holder telling Obama to say he “mispoke”.

Teddy Partridge: On Bradley Manning’s Guilt, Who Will Be Barack Obama’s John Mitchell?

Immediately upon reading Michael Whitney’s post about President Barack Obama’s statement to Logan Price about Bradley – “we are a nation of laws…. he broke the law!” – I was reminded of Richard Nixon’s statement about Charles Manson in the midst of his trial:

   “Here was a man who was guilty, directly or indirectly, of eight murders without reason.”

What I didn’t recall from that time was that John Mitchell, easily American history’s crookedest Attorney General ever, was at Nixon’s side when he made that statement in Denver. He recognized right away that there was a serious problem with Nixon’s statement:

   “This has got to be clarified,” he told Presidential Aide John Ehrlichman immediately afterward.

Even in an era of news moving only as fast as the wire services, reporters rushed to telephones and the story moved. In half an hour, White House press secretary Ron Ziegler appeared before reporters:

   After some minutes of verbal fencing, Ziegler agreed that Nixon’s words about Manson should be retracted. When Ziegler told Nixon what had happened, the President was surprised: “I said ‘charged,’ ” he replied.

Which, of course, Nixon had not said. And, as in Obama’s case, there was video.

   During the 3½-hour flight back to Washington, Mitchell persuaded Nixon to put out a statement backing Ziegler up. It read in part: “The last thing I would do is prejudice the legal rights of any person in any circumstances. I do not know and did not intend to speculate as to whether or not the Tate defendants are guilty, in fact, or not.”

Michael Whitney: Obama on Manning: “He Broke the Law.” So Much for that Trial?

This is the President of the United States speaking about a US military soldier detained for almost a year on charges of leaking classified (but not top secret, the level of files released by Ellsberg) documents. Manning’s lawyer is considering considered (corrected: his transfer made the writ moot) filing a writ of habeus corpus for the length of time and totality of abuse suffered by Manning while in military custody.

President Obama has already made up his mind. He thinks Manning “broke the law.” It’s no wonder he considered Manning’s abuse to “meet our basic standards” when he thinks Manning is already guilty.

This is vile.

As a reminder: the Pentagon plans to hold Manning indefinitely. Might as well, since they think he’s guilty already.

Glen Greenwald: President Obama Speaks on Manning and the Rule of Law

But even more fascinating is Obama’s invocation of America’s status as a “nation of laws” to justify why Manning must be punished. That would be a very moving homage to the sanctity of the rule of law — if not for the fact that the person invoking it is the same one who has repeatedly engaged in the most extraordinary efforts to shield Bush officials from judicial scrutiny, investigation, and prosecution of every kind for their war crimes and surveillance felonies. Indeed, the Orwellian platitude used by Obama to justify that immunity — Look Forward, Not Backward — is one of the greatest expressions of presidential lawlessness since Richard Nixon told David Frost that “it’s not illegal if the President does it.”

But it’s long been clear that this is Obama’s understanding of “a nation of laws”: the most powerful political and financial elites who commit the most egregious crimes are to be shielded from the consequences of their lawbreaking — see his vote in favor of retroactive telecom immunity, his protection of Bush war criminals, and the way in which Wall Street executives were permitted to plunder with impunity — while the most powerless figures (such as a 23-year-old Army Private and a slew of other low-level whistleblowers) who expose the corruption and criminality of those elites are to be mercilessly punished. And, of course, our nation’s lowest persona non grata group — accused Muslim Terrorists — are simply to be encaged for life without any charges. Merciless, due-process-free punishment is for the powerless; full-scale immunity is for the powerful. “Nation of laws” indeed.

And lest we forget that last year this same president appointed himself not only judge and jury but executioner as well.

U.S. Approves Targeted Killing of American Cleric

By Scott Shane, April 6, 2010

WASHINGTON – The Obama administration has taken the extraordinary step of authorizing the targeted killing of an American citizen, the radical Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, who is believed to have shifted from encouraging attacks on the United States to directly participating in them, intelligence and counterterrorism officials said Tuesday.

The Bush/Cheney cabal may have shredded the Constitution, this president wants to bury it.

Cross posted from The Stars Hollow Gazette

Barack now not only owns two wars, a failing economic policy but torture policy as well. After saying that the treatment of Pfc. Bradley Manning was “ridiculous, counterproductive and stupid”, State Department Spokesperson, P.J. Crowley, was forced to resign early this morning. Some may not remember Richard M. Nixon’s firing of Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox and the resignations of Attorney General Elliot Richardson and Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus on October 20, 1973 during the Watergate scandal but it precipitated a firestorm in Congress and the eventual resignation of Nixon from office. I doubt that either the Republicans or the Democrats are that principled these days, this does, however speak volumes about Barack and his loyal supporters who have the audacity to call themselves progressive and liberals.

Glen Greenwald also reminds of the Bush administration “firings” and what Barack had asked us to do:

Remember when the Bush administration punished Gen. Eric Shinseki for his public (and prescient) dissent on the Rumsfeld/Wolfowitz plan for Iraq, and all good Democrats thought that was so awful, such a terrible sign of the administration’s refusal to tolerate any open debate? And then there was that time when Bush fired his White House economic adviser, Lawrence Lindsey, for publicly suggesting that the Iraq War might cost $100 billion, prompting similar cries of outrage from Democrats about how the GOP crushes internal debate and dissent. Obama’s conduct seems quite far from the time during the campaign when Obama-fawning journalists like Time‘s Joe Klein were hailing him for wanting a “team of rivals”, and Obama was saying things like this: “I don’t want to have people who just agree with me. I want people who are continually pushing me out of my comfort zone.”

He further makes the point that Barack has now embraced the policies of of those who instituted world wide torture and illegal eavesdropping. He has refused to prosecute them and given them cover of full presidential immunity and given cover to Manning’s abusers. Yet from the apologists, we get lockstep support of the very same policies that they said they would not tolerate and tell those of us who dare call out Barack, to STFU because he’s a Democrat.

Besides embracing Reagan and his economic, anti-worker policies, he’s now taken a page from Nixon’s playbook. Where is Barack’s sense of justice? His sense of morality? His support of the law and the Constitution? Nixon would be proud.

Cross posted from The Stars Hollow Gazette

Up Date below.

Barack says it’s OK to torture an American soldier who is being held in isolation on an American military base on American soil just miles from the White House. Why? Because the Pentagon said it is. Sound familiar? It should because, just a very short 26 months ago, the other guy who said torture was OK left the White House. It appears he was replaced with his ideological clone, and now, fellow war criminal, Barack who has taken torture, detention and rendition even further than Dick even could have imagined.

State Department spokesperson, P. J. Crowley, who was speaking to a small group at MIT discussing “the new media and the foreign policy”, he let was queried by a young man about Wikileaks:

Charlie deTar: There’s an elephant in the room during this discussion: Wikileaks. The US government is torturing a whistleblower in prison right now. How do we resolve a conversation about the future of new media in diplomacy with the government’s actions regarding Wikileaks?

PJC: “I spent 26 years in the air force. What is happening to Manning is ridiculous, counterproductive and stupid, and I don’t know why the DoD is doing it.

Then today at a press conference on the disaster in Japan, ABC News White House correspondent pulled his cajones out of the lock box in his boss’s office, asking Barack about P.J.’s condemnation of Bradley’s treatment. Barack’s response:

With respect to Private Manning, I have actually asked the Pentagon whether or not the procedures that have been taken in terms of his confinement are appropriate and are meeting our basic standards. They assure me that they are. I can’t go into details about some of their concerns, but some of this has to do with Private Manning’s safety as well. [my emphasis]

So, let me get this straight, the basic standard of treatment of an innocent man who has yet to be formerly charges for eight months is to apply the standards that were condemned at Abu Grab and Guantanamo in 2002?  

Speaking at an MIT seminar in Boston, Assistant Secretary Of State For Public Affairs P.J. Crowley 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 defense,” he said.

And how did the Torturer-in-Chief respond to those charges?

Obama declined to “go into details” about the detention of Private Bradley Manning but said that he “actually asked the Pentagon whether or not the procedures that have been taken in terms of his confinement are appropriate and are meeting our basic standards.”

“They assured me that they are,” Obama said.

Asked about Crowley’s comments at his press conference, Obama didn’t mention the spokesman. “I can’t go into details about some of their concerns, but some of this has to do with Private Manning’s safety as well,” Obama said.

Obama “actually asked” about the brutal mistreatment of Bradley Manning!

HARHARHARHAR!!!

Barack Obama! What a fucking bum!

Bradley Manning is now forced to sleep naked and stand naked for inspection in a prison corridor every day, after 10 months of solitary confinement where he isn’t even allowed to exercise in his cell, and all the rest of it.

The Marines claim to be worried that Manning might commit suicide with his underwear, although he can’t be placed under an official suicide watch, because none of the psychiatrists and psychologists at Quantico will certify that Manning is really at risk for suicide.

After 10 months of brutalization, even a few  devoted cheerleaders for Obama are getting a wee bit nervous!

UCLA Professor Mark Kleiman — who last year hailed Barack Obama as “the greatest moral leader of our lifetime” — wrote last night:

The United States Army is so concerned about Bradley Manning’s health that it is subjecting him to a regime designed to drive him insane. . . .

This is a total disgrace. It shouldn’t be happening in this country. You can’t be unaware of this, Mr. President. Silence gives consent.

And now Senator John Kerry speaks out about the brutalization of Bradley Manning.

“There are concerns about what is happening, but a strong argument is being made that they’re trying to preserve his safety, they don’t want him harming himself, and using his own clothing to hang himself, or do something like that,” said Kerry. “That’s happened in prison before. I think it is possible to protect him, I think, and there are some legitimate reasons to believe that that may be true also. But I think that a lot of people are now reviewing this very, very closely, people have weighed in, myself included, I think that analyses are being made. There was a big article in the newspapers today examining it. And I’m convinced that there will be real scrutiny with respect to that issue.”

“People are reviewing this.”

“Analyses are being made.”

And that’s Senator John Kerry, a Democratic politician right out of the same mould as Barack Obama, with no more principles than a cockroach.  

Each of us can help in trying to alleviate or end the plight that PFC Bradley Manning finds himself in — that of total isolation for seven months running now, no sheets nor  pillows for his bed, unpermitted to exercise and is under constant surveillance.  The U.S. government is holding Manning under these deplorable conditions, supposedly, for his role in having sent various various TRUTHS to Wikileaks, concerning areas in our wars and otherwise, without any charges having been had or placed against him. (Some of which information was known to some of us before such revelations through our own truth-seeking, but not to Americans, in general!)

Thanks to David Swanson, published with his thanks to Ed Fisher, there is very complete information as to how WE may help this 23-year old Bradley Manning.

How to Report the Torture of Bradley Manning to the United Nations

Here is where you can report Bradley Manning’s torture to a higher legal authority than Eric “The Law Is What Obama Says It Is” Holder.

Sample information to include:

a. Full name of the victim:

Bradley E. Manning (born 17 December 1987), Private First Class (PFC), United States Army

b. Date on which the incident(s) of torture occurred (at least as to the month and year):

Ongoing from May, 2010.

The following is a summary of the conditions under which PFC Manning is being held, which in the opinion of experts and even International Law, constitute torture:

“Bradley Manning, the 22-year-old U.S. Army Private accused of leaking classified documents to WikiLeaks, has never been convicted of that crime, nor of any other crime. Despite that, he has been detained at the U.S. Marine brig in Quantico, Virginia for five months — and for two months before that in a military jail in Kuwait — under conditions that constitute cruel and inhumane treatment and, by the standards of many nations, even torture. Interviews with several people directly familiar with the conditions of Manning’s detention, ultimately including a Quantico brig official (Lt. Brian Villiard) who confirmed much of what they conveyed, establishes that the accused leaker is subjected to detention conditions likely to create long-term psychological injuries”  Salon

Journalist Glenn Greenwald has investigated and published an extensive report on this issue. Please refer to this article in full for more details: Salon

c. Place where the person was seized (city, province, etc.) And location at which the torture was carried out (if known):

* Camp Arifjan, a military jail in Kuwait

* U.S. Marine brig in Quantico, Virginia

“Manning was arrested by agents of the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Command in May 2010 and held in pre-trial confinement in a military jail at Camp Arifjan in Kuwait.”

source:

d. Indication of the forces carrying out the torture:

The President of the United States, The Congress of The United States, The United States State Department, The United States Justice Department, The United States Department of Defense, The United States Army, The United States Navy, The United States Marine Corps. All of the above are responsible for this illegal activity.

Furthermore, the torture of PFC Manning is not an isolated incident, rather, it is part of a policy shift that has been documented in The United States over the course of at least two Administrations, those of George W. Bush and Barack Obama.

For example, The United States has been found by the United Nations Committee against Torture to be responsible for:

* the US opinion that the Geneva Convention does not apply to, and would undermine, its War on Terror

* the US attempt to sidestep provisions of the Convention by applying it only to US territory, rather than areas under US control

* the fact that detainees are not always registered, depriving them of safeguards against acts of torture

* allegations of secret detention facilities which are not accessible to the International Red Cross

* the US refusal to comment over the existence of such facilities, and the allegations of torture and cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment which have emanated from them

* the US involvement in enforced disappearances and its refusal to accept that this is a form of torture

* the rendition of subjects, without judicial procedure, to states where they face a real risk of torture

* the use of secret ‘diplomatic assurances’ to justify deporting detainees to country’s with poor human rights records

* the indefinite detention of prisoners without charge at Guantanamo Bay without legal safeguards or judicial assessment of justification

* the inadequate training provided to police and military personnel on the UN’s prohibition of torture

* the 2002 authorization of the use of interrogation techniques, such as water-boarding, shackling, sexual humiliation, and dogs, which have resulted in the deaths of some detainees

* the apparent impunity of police and military personnel accused of torture and not prosecuted

* the lenient sentences given to many people convicted of torture

* the proposal to withdraw the right of habeas corpus to Guantanamo detainees

* the difficulties that victims of abuse have faced in obtaining redress and compensation

* the apparent failure to ban evidence obtained under torture from being used at military commissions, and the limitations placed on the right of detainees to complain

* substantiated information which indicates that US sanctioned executions can be accompanied by severe pain and suffering

* numerous, reliable reports of sexual assault of detainees and sexual violence perpetrated by detainees on each other, to which ‘persons of differing sexual orientation’ are particularly vulnerable

* the humiliation of female prisoners and the shackling of female detainees during childbirth

* the large number of children sentenced to life imprisonment

* the extensive use of electro-shock devices which have caused several deaths

* the harsh regime imposed in ‘supermaximum’ security prisons, and prolonged isolation periods which may be used as a form of punishment

* reports of brutality and excessive force used by law enforcement officers and the numerous allegations of the ill-treatment of racial minorities, migrants and homosexuals which have not been properly investigated.

source:

e. Description of the form of torture used and any injury suffered as a result;

* PFC Manning has been placed in a form of solitary confinement that is cruel and unusual. This is a term utilized within US Constitutional Law, and US citizens are supposed to enjoy protection against this form of treatment.

The US Supreme Court has had occasion to adjudicate on this issue. As long ago as 1890, the US Supreme Court wrote:

“A considerable number of prisoners fell, after even a short confinement, into a semifatuous condition, from which it was next to impossible to arouse them, and others became violently insane; others still, committed suicide; while those who stood the ordeal better were not generally reformed, and in most cases did not recover sufficient mental activity to be of any subsequent service to the community. (In re Medley, 1890)”

. . . . .

 

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.