July 4th reprieve for Bradley Manning after prosecution rests

By Rady Ananda
COTO Report

As the nation readies itself for its annual celebration of freedom, the modern U.S. government seeking to severely punish hero whistleblower, Bradley Manning, rested its case prosecuting him for 21 charges, including ‘aiding the enemy’ which carries a life sentence. The court martial is being held at Fort Meade in Maryland and is expected to end in August.

Top image: In this June 5, 2013 photo Army Pfc. Bradley Manning is escorted out of a courthouse in Fort Meade, Md., after the third day of his court martial.  In June 2010, Army Pfc. Bradley Manning was arrested for giving WikiLeaks more than 700,000 classified battlefield reports, diplomatic cables and video clips while working as an intelligence analyst in Baghdad. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)

RT: Indefinite Detention, Bradley Manning and US Constitution

By RTAmerica

On Dec. 15, the US Congress voted to pass the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012. The 86 to 13 vote will allow the indefinite detention and torture of American citizens at home and abroad without a trial. The NDAA gives more power to the military and government and President Obama at one point said would veto the bill but he has changed his mind. Jason Leopold, deputy managing editor for TruthOut.Org, joins us to discuss this Act.

Wired publishes the full Manning-Lamo chat logs

By Glenn Greenwald
Salon.com

The concern was that Wired was concealing material to glorify and shield its source, Poulsen’s long-time associate Adrian Lamo, in a way that distorted the truth and, independently, denied the public important context for what happened here. Wired’s release of the full chat logs leaves no doubt that those concerns were justified, and that Wired was less than honest about what it was concealing, writes Glenn Greenwald.

Panetta’s latest lie connecting Iraq to 9/11 and WMDs; Bradley Manning Update

By Keith Olbermann
Countdown with Olbermann

“So if [Leon Panetta] is trying to remind us of the lying and the cheating, which I participated in, in the previous Administration, more power to him.” ~Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, former State Dept. Chief of Staff, on Leon Panetta’s latest lie to the troops that we invaded Iraq because of WMDs and 9/11.

In addition to the propaganda, Col. Wilkerson discusses the unconscionable treatment of Bradley Manning who allegedly leaked diplomatic cables to WikiLeaks.

The Patriot Act: When Truth Becomes Treason

By Susan Lindauer

Many Americans think they understand the dangers of the Patriot Act, which Congress has vowed to extend 4 more years in a vote later this week. Trust me when I say, Americans are not nearly frightened enough. Unfortunately, Bradley Manning is also subject to some of these rules, so it’s important for his supporters to understand what he’s facing.

Ever wonder why the truth about 9/11 never got exposed? Why Americans don’t have a clue about leadership fraud surrounding the War on Terror? Why Americans don’t know if the 9/11 investigation was really successful? Why the Iraqi Peace Option draws a blank? Somebody has known the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden— or his grave—for the past 10 years. But nobody’s talking to the people.

In significant part, that’s because of the Patriot Act— a law that equates free speech with sedition. It’s got a big agenda, with 7,000 pages of Machiavellian code designed to interrupt individual questioning of government policy. In this brave new world, free speech under the Bill of Rights effectively has been declared a threat to government controls for maintaining stability. And the Patriot Act has become the premiere weapon to attack whistle blowers and dissidents who challenge the comfort of political leaders hiding inconvenient truths from the public. It’s all the rage on Capitol Hill, as leaders strive to score TV ratings, while demogauging their “outstanding leadership performance” on everything from national security to environmental policy.

10 Indications the United States Is a Dictatorship

By Activist Post

For a people to be free, they must first be honest with themselves, their government, and the world at large. History is filled with stories of free nations that fell under the spell cast by their governments who exploited the threat of terror.

In fact, numerous presidents in American history already have used various specific threats to sidestep their Constitutional restraints. Today we are entering a nebulous world where our “enemy” cannot be defined, has no particular allegiance to one country, and is able to adopt new leaders at will. Rather than encourage a sense of resilience and independence in its citizens, America has chosen to amplify the terror threat in order to concentrate power in the hands of the State. The very first signpost on this historically familiar road to tyranny is an atmosphere of hate, suspicion, and vindictiveness. It first begins as an outwardly directed aggression and then rather abruptly turns inward upon itself.

The good news is that freedom is won and lost in our hearts and minds. It is for this reason that we must state the obvious: we have clearly passed through the first “atmospheric” stage of approaching dictatorship, and have now entered the second — the open behavior of a dictatorship in the United States.

New Assange Interview on Banksters, Cablegate, India

By Times of India

This 20-minute interview of Julian Assange reveals how Swiss banks help criminals hide assets, how public support of Wikileaks protects them from the US, and how Bradley Manning’s plight is kept in the public mind. Of note, Assange describes a recent Obama fundraiser where 12 people each paid $5,000 to attend, and then all stood up together to protest the treatment of Bradley Manning.

Wikileaks Guantánamo files: Torture, kidnapping kids, elderly and others

By David Leigh, James Ball, Ian Cobain and Jason Burke
The Guardian UK

• Innocent people interrogated for years on slimmest pretexts
• Children, elderly and mentally ill among those wrongfully held
• 172 prisoners remain, some with no prospect of trial or release
• Interactive guide to all 779 detainees

More than 700 leaked secret files on the Guantánamo detainees lay bare the inner workings of America’s controversial prison camp in Cuba.

The Democrats’ False Flag Candidate

By Numerian
The Agonist

This is a political crime of deception, an enormous bait and switch, in which liberals and quite a few independents were misled by a serial liar who purposely characterized himself as a reformer…

Did you receive your email from Barack Obama yet? If you are a Democrat, or on his campaign mailing list, the president has promised you are going to be the first to know when he formally launches his reelection campaign. It could be any moment now; apparently the White House is waiting for a slow news day when Libya and Fukushima and Congressional budget negotiations aren’t dominating the media agenda. Once the news is out, you are expected as a loyal Obama supporter to start sending in campaign donations and begin attending campaign organization meetings.

The problem is, if you are a liberal, the chances are pretty high that you haven’t forgotten that the White House thinks of you as “fucking retarded”.

Barack “I’d kill for a peace prize” Obama

By William Blum
Anti Empire Report

Is anyone keeping count?

I am. Libya makes six.

Six countries that Barack H. Obama has waged war against in his 26 months in office. (To anyone who disputes that dropping bombs on a populated land is act of war, I would ask what they think of the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor.)

America’s first black president now invades Africa.

Bradley Manning Now “Catatonic”; Obama ENOUGH!

By Ralph Lopez

March 09, 2011 “War Is A Crime” — As Obama’s crime of the destruction of Bradley Manning continues to unfold before our very eyes, Manning friend David House now tells us that over 8 months in isolation with movement and sleep restrictions placed on him have been having their intended effect. House has told MSNBC that by the end of January Manning appeared “catatonic” and that he had “severe problems communicating,” with it having taken House nearly 45 minutes on a recent visit to engage in any meaningful way (video below.) House said Manning’s demeanor was as “if he had just woken up and didn’t know what was going on around him.” Manning was “utterly exhausted physically and mentally…it was difficult to have any kind of social engagement.”

Also, a full month after Congressman Dennis Kucinich formally requested a visit, the Army has stalled on the request.

All for the crime of reporting war crimes and criminal behavior even among the highest-ranking military officials in Iraq.

Bradley Manning charged with 22 crimes including capital offense ‘Aiding the Enemy’

Faces 22 additional charges, including capitol offense for aiding the enemy

Statements by Manning’s lawyer and by WikiLeaks follows this Wired report. ~Ed.

By Kim Zetter
Wired

The Army has filed 22 new charges against suspected WikiLeaks source Bradley Manning, among them a capital offense for which the government said it would not seek the death penalty. The charges, filed Tuesday but disclosed only Wednesday, include aiding the enemy, theft of public property or records, computer fraud, transmitting defense information and wrongfully causing intelligence to be published on the internet knowing it would be accessible to the enemy. The aiding the enemy charge is a capital offense which potentially carries the death penalty.

PayPal cuts service to support effort for alleged WikiLeaks whistle-blower

By Jeff Paterson
Bradley Manning Support Network

The online payment provider PayPal has frozen the account of Courage to Resist, which in collaboration with the Bradley Manning Support Network is currently raising funds in support of U.S. Army Pfc. Bradley Manning. PayPal was one way people–especially international residents–were able to contribute to the grassroots effort supporting the accused WikiLeaks whistle-blower.

“We’ve been in discussions with PayPal for weeks, and by their own admission there’s no legal obligation for them to close down our account,” noted Loraine Reitman of the Bradley Manning Support Network (Support Network). “This was an internal policy decision by PayPal.”

Military puts Bradley Manning on suicide watch; denies visitation

By Kevin Zeese
Bradley Manning Support Network

Military officials at Marine Corps Base Quantico yesterday increased the isolation of accused WikiLeaks whistle-blower U.S. Army Pfc. Bradley Manning by detaining Manning’s friend and regular visitor David House at the base entrance until visiting hours were over. House was accompanied by Jane Hamsher of Firedoglake.com, a website that has collected 42,000 signatures on a petition calling for improvements to the conditions of Manning’s detention, which constitute extreme and illegal pre-trial punishment.

Wikileaks, the United States, Sweden, and Devil’s Island

By William Blum
Anti Empire Report

December 16 … I’m standing in the snow in front of the White House … Standing with Veterans for Peace … I’m only a veteran of standing in front of the White House; the first time was February 1965, handing out flyers against the war in Vietnam. I was working for the State Department at the time and my biggest fear was that someone from that noble institution would pass by and recognize me.

A Nobel Peace Prize Winner Torturing Bradley Manning

By Chris Floyd
Empire Burlesque

Tonight, in the tenth year of the 21st century, the government of the United States is torturing a young man — one of its own soldiers — whom it has incarcerated but not indicted. He has been held in solitary confinement for months on end, subjected to techniques of sleep deprivation taken from the Soviet gulag, denied almost all human contact except from interrogators, constantly harassed by guards to whom he must answer every few minutes — all in an attempt to break his mind, destroy his will, degrade his humanity and force him to “confess” to a broader “conspiracy” against state power.

His name is Bradley Manning. He is 23 years old. The “crime” he is accused of committing is releasing video evidence of an American atrocity committed years ago in Iraq: the murder of Iraqi civilians by helicopter gunships. Under the American system of jurisprudence, of course, he is considered innocent until proven guilty of this heinous ‘crime’ of truth-telling. He has not been tried or convicted of this charge, or any other crime.

2011: A Brave New Dystopia

By Chris Hedges
TruthDig

The two greatest visions of a future dystopia were George Orwell’s “1984” and Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World.” The debate, between those who watched our descent towards corporate totalitarianism, was who was right. Would we be, as Orwell wrote, dominated by a repressive surveillance and security state that used crude and violent forms of control? Or would we be, as Huxley envisioned, entranced by entertainment and spectacle, captivated by technology and seduced by profligate consumption to embrace our own oppression? It turns out Orwell and Huxley were both right. Huxley saw the first stage of our enslavement. Orwell saw the second.

Cell life for whistleblower Bradley Manning

By David E. Coombs

PFC Manning is currently being held in maximum custody. Since arriving at the Quantico Confinement Facility in July of 2010, he has been held under Prevention of Injury (POI) watch.

His cell is approximately six feet wide and twelve feet in length. The cell has a bed, a drinking fountain, and a toilet.

Jailing a whistleblower: Inhumane conditions of Bradley Manning’s detention

The private — accused of leaking to WikiLeaks — endures conditions many would call cruel, and possibly torture

By Glenn Greenwald
Salon

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.

Veterans for Peace Protest War outside White House (Video)

By Malak Behrouznami
The Real News Network

Protesting wars, resisters also called for the release of Bradley Manning and issued their support for Julian Assange and WikiLeaks.