Advertisement

Bradley Manning Is Guilty of “Aiding the Enemy” -- If the Enemy Is Democracy

Of all the charges against Bradley Manning, the most pernicious -- and revealing -- is "aiding the enemy."

A blogger at _The New Yorker_, Amy Davidson, raised a pair of big questions that now loom over the courtroom at Fort Meade and over the entire country:

* "Would it aid the enemy, for example, to expose war crimes committed by American forces or lies told by the American government?"

* "In that case, who is aiding the enemy -- the whistleblower or the perpetrators themselves?"

When the deceptive operation of the warfare state can't stand the light of day, truth-tellers are a constant hazard. And culpability must stay turned on its head.

That's why accountability was upside-down when the U.S. Army prosecutor laid out the government’s case against Bradley Manning in an opening statement: "This is a case about a soldier who systematically harvested hundreds of thousands of classified documents and dumped them onto the Internet, into the hands of the enemy -- material he knew, based on his training, would put the lives of fellow soldiers at risk."

The Lever of Social Action

"Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world."

I think Archimedes was serious. I know _we_ need to be. Now is the time to choose our future, as the Earth Charter declares. This means thinking big: embracing a vision so enormous it overflows our sense of the possible. For instance:

"Beginning with even just a small group united behind a shared vision of how to end war by dismantling the war machine, it will be possible to rally the global community to the vision of a future in which war is no longer something we accept." So Judith Hand wrote recently at the blog A Future Without War [2].

"I believe," she went on, "the world is actually yearning for such a movement to begin. I also believe that when it does, we will move amazingly swiftly to achieve a worldview shift of epic, stunning, historical magnitude."

San Onofre is dead and so is nuclear power

From his California beach house at San Clemente, Richard Nixon once watched three reactors rise at nearby San Onofre. As of June 7, 2013, all three are permanently shut.

It’s a monumental victory for grassroots activism. it marks an epic transition in how we get our energy.

In the thick of the 1970s Arab oil embargo, Nixon said there’d be 1000 such reactors in the US by the year 2000.

As of today, there are 100.

Four have shut here this year. Citizen activism has put the "nuclear renaissance" into full retreat.

Just two of 54 reactors now operate in Japan, where Fukushima has joined Chernobyl and Three Mile Island in permanently scarring us all.

Germany is shutting its entire fleet and switching to renewables. France, once the poster child for the global reactor industry, is following suit. South Korea has just shut three due to fraudulent safety procedures. Massive demonstrations rage against reactors being built in India. Only the Koreans, Chinese and Russians remain at all serious about pushing ahead with this tragic technology.

Stop spying on Americans

Recent news stories have revealed the breathtaking scope of President Obama's indiscriminate spying on American citizens who aren't suspected of any wrongdoing. The government has been using data from Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, PalTalk, AOL, Skype, YouTube, Apple, to spy Americans.

There is something fundamentally un-American and deeply undemocratic about this kind of government surveillance. But since 9/11, we have seen first George W. Bush and now Barack Obama engage in shockingly broad executive power grabs that undermine our constitutionally protected civil liberties, all in the name of "national security."

President Obama is a constitutional scholar who ran on the platform of transparency in government. We don't believe he has the constitutional right to collect and examine the telephone records of virtually all Americans. But if he thinks that he has the authority to spy on Americans, he should acknowledge these programs and provide his legal rationale for them.

Demand President Obama acknowledge his administration's spying programs and provide a full legal justification for indiscriminately spying on Americans.

Obama must see Africa in new light

When President Obama and the first lady travel to Africa at the end of this month, they will receive a rapturous greeting. The president’s deep roots in Kenya, the land of his father, resonate throughout the continent. His success in the United States evokes pride and joy in Africa.

I write this from Nigeria, a country that has just celebrated its 14th year of democracy. President Obama’s election enabled Africans to see America in a new light. I hope his visit will enable Americans to see Africa with new eyes.

We know the problems of Africa: its poverty, corruption and conflict. After 246 years of the slave trade, 100 years of colonialism, African suffering and struggle are known. But perhaps the president’s visit will enable us to see the possibilities.

China escalates drug war into southeast Asia's Mekong River

BANGKOK, Thailand -- After executing four killers from Thailand, Laos and Myanmar last year, China's security forces have extended their reach by uniting those countries along the Mekong River in a "war on drugs" and arrested 812 people in the narcotics-rich Golden Triangle.

China's new push into Southeast Asia is described as an anti-drug operation which began on April 19 and will end on June 20.

It includes protecting commerical and passenger ships on the Mekong River against thieves, kidnappers and guerrillas.

Up to now, security forces from China, Thailand, Myanmar and Laos said they confiscated more than two tons of drugs -- including heroin, opium and methamphetamines -- plus guns and ammunition.

The 812 arrests include citizens from all four countries, plus Vietnam, according to Lan Weihong, an officer at the Narcotics Department in China's powerful Public Security Ministry.

Mr. Lan made the announcement at their "command center...staffed by drug enforcement agents from all four countries," located in Jinghong, a Mekong River port in the southern province of Yunnan, China Daily reported on May 21.

True the Vote "just doesn't seem right": Criminal charges considered in special meeting

Did a right-wing election observer falsify election forms? The Columbus Free Press has learned that the Franklin County Board of Elections will consider referring an election observer affiliated with the voter suppression organization True the Vote for criminal prosecution. The special meeting is scheduled Thursday, June 6, 2013.

Prior to the 2012 presidential election in Columbus, True the Vote filed an application with the Franklin County Board of Elections to monitor polling places in the inner city. This application required signatures from local candidates on the ballot in the county or county political party officials to be valid.

The Franklin County Board of Elections determined that up to six of the signatures on the True the Vote application were probably forged. This type of political forgery is a fourth degree felony under Ohio law and carrying a penalty of up to 18 months of jail.

Eric Holder holds secret meeting with press about secret guidelines for prosecuting journalists who reveal secret human rights abuses

After two days of wrangling, several major mainstream media organizations agreed to meet Friday, May 31 with Attorney General Eric Holder to discuss the circumstances under which the Justice Department would imprison journalists for reporting on human rights abuses if that reporting is deemed to be damaging to national security. Neither the Columbus Free Press nor Wikileaks was invited to attend or offer comment.

Several news organizations, including the Associated Press and Fox News, both of whom have been placed under electronic surveillance, declined to attend the meeting because it would be secret and off the record. It is not known if the First Amendment was on the agenda, which was secret.

At the last moment, Holder loosened the rule for journalists attending the meeting, permitting them to interview each other after the meeting without threat of imprisonment. Three out of the five journalists who did attend spoke briefly with reporters. They have not yet been arrested.

Drones on trial

Part I
The President’s recent address concerning the War on Terror as it relates to drone warfare has supposedly set the stage for a revitalized American foreign policy. Whereas drone strikes merely described the previous administration’s handling of terrorist threats to the United States, this surreptitious war tactic has actually defined and illuminated the current Obama administration’s congruent pursuit. While acknowledging four American casualties, President Obama stridently defended the drone program as effective, moral, and legal. In his address’ most profound and chilling moment, the President reflected on the drones’ tendencies to cause civilian casualties. “For me, and those in my chain of command, these deaths will haunt us as long as we live," he said. Needless to emphasize further, the drone program is a serious matter that raises questions and requires a proper examination and understanding.

Hacktivist faces 10 years in plea agreement for exposing corporate spying on human rights activists

Hackivist Jeremy Hammond accepted a non-cooperating plea agreement Thursday, May 30 in the Stratfor case which could land him in prison for 10 years. Hammond was arrested in March 2012 for his role in the LulzSec hacking attacks on private security and public safety servers.

StratFor is the the trade name for Strategic Forecasting Inc., which bills itself as a private CIA. In documents released by Hammond to Wikileaks, it was revealed that StratFor was spying on ecological and corporate justice activists and marketing it's intelligence to major corporations and government agencies for a subscription fee that often ran to $40,000.

Hammond has spent 15 months in incarcerated without bail and the last several months in total isolation where he is restricted from family visits for 1 year and community visits for 2 years. Additionally, he may be required to pay up to $2.5 million in restitution to his victim, the private intelligence firm StatFor, for lost business and a judgement in civil action against them by their clients for failing to properly secure their private data.

Pages

Subscribe to ColumbusFreePress.com RSS