FREE BRADLEY MANNING & LEAVE WIKILEAKS ALONE
24 Letters and Emails Sent So Far
No good deed goes unpunished, and that is especially true when it comes to whistleblowers who expose the murderous machinations of the US government: SPC Bradley Manning, a 22-year-old intelligence analyst stationed at Forward Operating Base Hammer in the vicinity of Baghdad, was arrested two weeks ago for having supposedly sent them to "Wikileaks," a whistleblower site,...the “Collateral Damage” video of US troops shooting Iraqi civilians. The video, which showed US pilots murdering unarmed Iraqis, including a journalist, in cold blood and laughing about it, was posted to Wikileaks a month ago, and caused an international sensation. On the home front, it focused attention on the war when the issue had gone quiescent, and forced “progressives” to recall one of the major issues that once fueled their movement during the Bush presidency. Now the feds are having their revenge, and just how this came about is ominously murky. Wired, which says Manning “boasted” about his deeds, reports:
“Manning came to the attention of the FBI and Army investigators after he contacted former hacker Adrian Lamo late last month over instant messenger and e-mail. Lamo had just been the subject of a Wired.com article. Very quickly in his exchange with the ex-hacker, Manning claimed to be the Wikileaks video leaker.
“’If you had unprecedented access to classified networks 14 hours a day 7 days a week for 8+ months, what would you do?’ Manning asked.”
Mr. Lamo is the archetypal creeper: previously known as the “homeless hacker,” he was sleeping in bus stations and under bridges, earlier in his career, and logging on to computers stealing information and wrecking networks. Caught hacking into Lexis-Nexis, the New York Times, and other sites, he was “turned,” and made the transition from hacker to “security expert” and, yes, self-described “journalist.” What he was, and is, is a professional snitch, working for the feds – I wonder how he paid off that $60,000 fine they slapped him with? – while all the time proclaiming his “patriotic” motives in turning in Manning. According to various puff pieces appearing in Wired and on Cnet, Lamo “agonized” over the decision, but in the end patriotism won out:
“I wouldn’t have done this if lives weren’t in danger. He was in a war zone and basically trying to vacuum up as much classified information as he could, and just throwing it up into the air.”
Yes, lives were and are in danger – the lives of Iraqis, Afghans, and other targets of our murderous rulers, whose war crimes are being committed in the dark. Manning’s “crime” is that he exposed them to the light. Manning also reportedly is the source of a video showing the massacre of innocent civilians in Garani, Afghanistan, which Wikileaks hinted at having possession of but has yet to release. Most intriguing, however, is that according to Lamo, Manning claimed to have leaked 260,000 diplomatic cables to Wikileaks – in effect, an inside history of recent US shenanigans
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When truths are too disturbing to conceal, downplay them, change the subject, and blame others, not responsible Washington officials and key allies, culpable politicians and media misinformation masters suppressing and misreporting the facts, their well-oiled spin machine counterattacking WikiLeaks - revelations too sensitive to explain, a potential game-changer otherwise, so pundits and reporters duck them.
Above all, WikiLeaks "Afghan War Diaries" are a powerful indictment of wars, their true face, the mindless daily slaughter and destruction too disturbing to reveal, for Julian Assange:
"the vast sweep of abuses, everyday squalor and carnage of war....one sort of kill after another every day going on and on and on....one damn thing after another....(endless) small events, the continuous deaths of children, insurgents, allied forces....(many) thousands" of war crimes needing exposure, accountability, and prosecutions.
The "Diaries" document them, suppressed by the major media, choosing embedded complicity and Pentagon handouts over real journalism, WikiLeaks "high quality material" and solid analysis their antidote, so far not enough to stop Congress.
One day after their release, following the Senate's passage days earlier on top of $130 billion already approved this year, the House overwhelmingly passed a $60 billion supplemental spending bill, including $37 billion for America's wars, mostly for 30,000 additional troops in Afghanistan. Obama tripled the force since taking office, now around 100,000 and increasing by about 2,000 a month, their numbers exceeded by private military and other contractors, making the annual cost per US soldier $1 million and rising, reason enough to end both wars and bring them home.
Yet more escalation is planned, breaking candidate Obama's October 27, 2007 pledge saying:
"I will promise you this, that if we have not gotten our troops out by the time I am president, it is the first thing I will do. I will get our troops home, We will bring an end to this war. You can take that to the bank," perhaps an insolvent one under FDIC receivership.
A day after the WikiLeaks release, he ignored old promises, evaded indictable war crimes evidence and a deepening unwinnable quagmire, urging the House authorize more supplemental funding, then engaged in contradictory, deceitful damage control saying:
"While I'm concerned about the disclosure of sensitive information from the battlefield that could potentially jeopardize individuals or operations, the fact is these documents don't reveal any issues that haven't already informed our public debate about Afghanistan. Indeed, they point to the same challenges that led me to conduct an extensive review of our policy last fall."
Instead of withdrawing as earlier promised, he plans escalation, the same Vietnam misjudgment, force levels there reaching 540,000 in December 1969, yet not enough to win, resulting
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