I pray for Bradley Manning's safety every day--and Julian Assange too.

The best defense is a good offense, ask Eren Watada. I hope Mannings lawyers
can figure out how to put the war itself on trial. It is germain because if the war
can be proven illegal then Manning was complying with the UCMJ by exposing
criminal activity. No declaration of war and no authorization by the UN.
Constitutionally the UN charter is the law of the land because it is a treaty.

We should all remember what Hitler (Sorry for the overused 'Nazi' comparisons.) did as he saw that his empire would not stand. The coward hid in a bunker and ordered Germany's bridges, factories and infrastructure destroyed because the people of Germany weren't "good enough" to win the war for him. We seem to be proceeding that way in slow motion. I just can't comprehend the things happening here anymore. Americans worry about getting the new IPad, but don't think about soldiers killing themselves from fighting a war that is illegal. I don't know what to say anymore.
IB

Neocon America = Fascist America

Manning may be accused of "aiding the enemy," but the U.S. Congress never declared a state of war in the cases of Afghanistan and Iraq. The Constitution states that only Congress has the power to declare war. There is no "unitary executive" powers mentioned at all by the Constitution. The closest legal clarification is the War Powers Act, requiring the President to certify his deployment of troops within 90 days to Congress. To my knowledge, that's never happened in the case of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Afghanistan never attacked the United States. A small band of cabalists from Saudi Arabia, namely Al Qaida, is the group that Bush said was responsible. Instead, Bush attacked the Taliban, who weren't responsible for the 9-11 attacks at all.

The wars are also illegal. Under Geneva Conventions that the United States supposedly upholds, attacking another state in order to wage a preventive war (in the case of Iraq) is a war crime. Once again, militarily attacking a state like Afghanistan because of a criminal faction in that state is not justified under international law. Police action is the usual step.

And the military took seven months to come up with these charges? Why hasn't Manning been considered for bail? Why hasn't this case come before a judge? Why is he kept in solitary confinement? Clearly, Manning's habeas corpus rights have been violated, along with his due process rights.

As someone has pointed out, former Veep Dick Cheney, via Scooter, leaked classified information (Valerie Plame's identity as a CIA agent). The government used to hound ex-CIA agent Philip Agee over that kind of thing, but Cheney was never even indicted. The diplomatic cables Manning is accused of leaking were even less critical than disclosing the names of undercover agents or quislings in Afghanistan. The cables mostly contain the musings by diplomats playing nice to dictators - and we already know that's U.S. policy. No secret there, except to the unwitting American public.

So they have charges against Manning, but no court date? This is the kind of "justice" Moammar might dish out in Libya, or some third-world dictatorship might do the like. What a fucked up country we've got here in the United States. The vindictive Obama administration and the Pentagon may be playing with fire here. People do have a snapping point.

Why?

I understand, the military had every opportunity to edit any names out that would put people in harms way, and they opted out. They can't accuse Wikileaks of this. Bradley Manning should be out of prison.

love your enemies - but never aid them!

The chief role of our president is national security. There have been no successful terrorist attacks on U.S. soil since 9/11/2001. Iraq without Saddam is becoming ever safer for their citizens. Compared to the 20th century, this century is becoming ever less violent. Let's give credit where credit is due.

Posted by ianplank "BOYCOTT all goverment jobs, and military positions. (period!!!). Tell everyone you know to JUST QUIT. "
--Great idea. However, you forgot to include directions on how to pay my mortgage without a job.

"The most serious of the new charges is "aiding the enemy," a capital offense which carries a potential death sentence."

This just means that the enemy is concepts like "knowledge" and "truth".

Can you lawyers tell us how we can sue these bastards? And I'm talking about everyone from Bush and his adolescent neo-cons to Manning's adolescent jailors/torturers. Class action suit? In what court? How do we present the truth so that a jury of these guys' peers can look them in the eye and tell them they're wrong and must pay for it? How do we get HEARD? How do we get real JUSTICE?

Because if we the people don't get heard in courts of law pretty soon, we are going to fuc this country up big time.

The AmeriKKKan police-state is terrified that more whistle blowers will continue to expose the criminal enterprise known as the military industrial komplex. Manning will continue to be dealt with harshly as an example as to the consequences of crossing the most brutal and powerful corporate-controlled government in the world.

General strikes, boycotts, non-violent resistance.
God damn AmeriKKKa1

"We Have Met The Enemy and He Is Us" ~ Walt Kelly (via Pogo)
Apparently men (and women) of conscience are America's enemy...."we" certainly have not elected any (or appointed any to positions of power) in a very long time.
Manning is a victim of his own misplaced faith in our government ...his belief that if only "they" had all the information, "they" would do the right thing. Either that or he was willing to be a martyr to bring crimes against humanity to light...
Conscience is something that cannot be buried or destroyed in some people.

The fact that American presidents/government have brought TORTURE back
is about keeping their secrets, keeping other truth-tellers from telling what
they know --

and about intimidating the American public. We can become another Libya
soon -- or we can become today's Libya, facing down the fascists -- !

For a very short time, we had a hint of an ethical and compassionate US
government -- but from the very beginning elite right wingers have been
waiting to overtake democracy with their fascism.

The Mordechai Vununu of America....As a non American I cannot understand the absolute thirst for revenge ...On the International scene its this thirst that has hindered any relationship with Iran Or Cuba .....I thought that the world would enter a new and humanised form with Obama but I would sooner see George Bush back ...at least we knew what was there ...Now I am hoping for Sarah Palin ..WHY? Well I am secretly hoping America will implode and this will ensure my own country ceases to be subservient to it and the continual Americanisation across the board will cease...HK

The Taliban were on the CIA payroll ,-were called --Freedom Fighters by Bush Sr. & Reagan, Saddam was on the payroll friend of Bush for 8 yrs.--Bush Jr. lied, over millions died including little children, so why are the Bushs, Chaney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Rove, to name a few allowed to run free??? We the people should make a citizens arrest for the astrocities committed.

Maybe it's time for a no-fly zone over this tortuous regime? Obama, dictators are removed.

My love goes out to Manning.

God I HATE THIS COUNTRY!!!

Can someone please wipe it and state #51 Israel off the map??

The republicans are trying to break the unions and privatize schools, and cut family planning and food for pregnant women and their children under 5, Head start, enviormental programs, under the guise of reducing the deficit while actually adding to the deficit by cutting the taxes of the rich and giving subsidies to oil companies that making trillions in profit. These republicans are the enemy because they are helping Osama bin Laden terrorize Americans. Americans will be terrorized that they will be hungry, sick, disabled, lacking clean water, food, air, access to health care, education, higher education, job security, bargaining rights. It is the republicans who are terrorizing Americans . If the GOP budget goes through and Walker wins and spreads his tactics there will be far more deaths caused by poverty, sickness, hunger and disease than were ever caused by foreign terrorist. Bradley Manning has not betrayed the U.S. people or worked to help the enemy. The very people who are demanding his death are the real enemy.

Why didn't Pollard the Israeli spy get the Death Penalty? He did real damage.

Can it get any better? Possible death sentence for Manning, while the mass murderers of the bush regime walk around and give autographs. Any country that is as f*cked up as the US deserves to disappear into thin air. Period. Fortunately though, that's exactly what a growing number of political analysts and scientists predict. For all what it's worth.
Again and again and again I will ask you to study German history - 1933 to 1945. The solutions or the lack thereof are contained in its history.
So no more: "I didn't know that all this was happening!"

President Obama:

Progressives voted for you and worked to get you elected. We got a lot of broken promises in return. At least give us back our heroes, Bradley Manning and Julian Assange.

(A letter sent to officials and the president.)

Dear Sir,

My duty as an American citizen, who cares deeply about our country and people, is to speak up for the sake of our country and its principles, which are for truth and justness and human decency.

My conscience is speaking on behalf of Private 1st Class Bradley E. Manning, a soldier being held in inhumane conditions in the United States Marine Corps Quantico Brig in Virgina. The reports of the conditions of his confinement are un-American. They resemble the conditions found in repressed countries using inhumane treatment, those same conditions that United States leaders are quick to call horrible and deplorable.

Our country needs the truth for its own betterment. Intelligence agencies which also consist of Wall Street lawyers and corporate heads, and whose influences steer towards manipulating the playing field to where their own best interests come first, have already wreaked havoc upon the state of our country.

We suffer the loss of our soldiers' lives and health in wars where their enemies are the same fighters that our intelligence agency encouraged and funded years ago, being formed overseas to fight another country in an earlier era.

Just as Church and State do not mix well, neither does the Military and Wall Street Corporatism. And no matter how hard a higher echelon of ties, tries to hide those enmeshments, it still shows. We don't have to look far to see the effects it has had.

Our country's lifetime has gotten to the point where its health now needs the truth for its future well-being. Nothing else will be able to continue to replace that. See the facts for yourself. There are those of high level status who remain in denial, believing that they can ultimately manipulate situations into some sort of silver lining, while failing to realize that their own denial does our country no good.

Our country needs its people's conscientiousness. It needs its people exposing the truth. Our country does not deserve to become known as the quick cover-up capital of the world. Nor does it deserve to be influenced into being another inhumane treatment facilitator either. For those ways and means to become a policy of our country's officials, just shows the weakness of conscience, which falls by following the methods of repressed lesser countries, rather than leading the way through the strength of truth and fairness.

No human deserves inhumane treatment. And no one in our country who exposes the truth deserves inhumane treatment. And our military does not deserve inhumane treatment amongst one another.

Truth is not our country's enemy. Falsehoods may consider the truth to be an enemy, but our country and its principles don't. Our country's principles need the truth. For without the truth, our country's principles will cease to be.

All around the world there are humans being persecuted for exposing the truth. When there is a human in the Quantico Brig in Virginia being persecuted for exposing the truth, it just shows how well lies have taken hold. And our country and military and citizens don't deserve that.

You Sir, are in a position to intervene and stop the unfair and inhumane treatment of Pvt. Manning, and righten that unconstitutional dire situation. You Sir, are in a position to show our country, and the rest of world, that the United States Military is not like the military of repressed lesser countries.

You Sir, are in a position to let our country and the world see, that you are on the side of truth and decency.

Please intervene to stop the unfair and inhumane treatment of Private 1st Class Bradley E. Manning.

Sincerely,

Sally Kline

(Had posted this elsewhere and would like to share it here too.)

This guy broke the law. I know you lefties don't like to think that laws apply to you, but they do. But it doesn't sit well to believe that he did anything wrong because you hate the U.S.

So if you illegally give information, which is not yours to give, to a 3rd party, you become subject to treason if you're in the military and you give away military information.

End of story...confined for life or death...he made the choice to give the information away AND he will pay the price for doing so.

So sit back, go enjoy a latte and thank god you are free thanks to your government, constitution and military!

Or don't, move to Cuba...or China...or any place where you think you'll have a better life then the one you're living now.

I'm with 'Stonepig' on this matter of Manning eventually being able to sue the U.S. military and government.
I'm also of the mind that if there's a jot of justice left in the moral shit-heap America's made of itself, or in the world America so criminally brutalizes, the United States will rue the day it locked up Bradley Manning, and will rue the day any number of other atrocities have been allowed to come to pass, such as the day after the mid-term election four years ago when that traitor Pelosi declared, as virtually her very first act as new Babbler (or Madam) of the Very Shabby Corporate Whorehouse Formerly Known As The House of Representatives, 'prosecution (of the Bush gang) is off the table.' That bitch ought to've been charged there and then, but of course, there are no laws in America providing for this, just as there was no moral fibre or courage or basic integrity in the population as a whole to prevent Bush from reaching the WH in the first place or impeaching him. And just as there is no courage or committment to all those so-called American values to force Obama, even at this late stage, to go after the Bush gang.
And of course we know full well why he doesn't. He's tarred with the same brush. He's part of the problem, and the 'presidency' is just a shill for the puppetmasters - the same ones who pull both Bush's and Obama's strings.
All that's left is for people to write, blog, investigate, make documentaries, scream in the streets, stage protests, defend Wisconsin's workers, call for the heads of the bank CEOs, chase the Geithners and Bernankes, et. al., through the streets, generally make a lot of noise, find the spine to boycott corporations, publically repudiate all this political correctness and call the savagely ignorant right wing media mob for the assholes they are, and, above all - WAKE THE FUCK UP.
Now, with Manning locked and tortured in solitary confinement; this bullshit attempt to get at Julian Assange; the bank and insurance companies laughing at the citizenry and kicking them in the face while robbing them blind; the continuing pair of illegal wars (or is it 37?); the unconscionable assault on Planned Parenthood; the continued corporate whoring and war-mongering of The Great Disappointer, Obama, while he defends his actions as being necessary for 'national security', while destroying that very security from within by means of his toilet-paper health bill, etc., etc., etc.; the filthy evangelizing and 'christianizing' of the military; the demonizing of public sector union workers amongst the whole of the population; and the rest of the long list of other assaults and crimes against humanity, decency and basic rights going on in America, how much more shit has to hit the fan before the American people do an Egypt, or a Libya?
Meanwhile, such straight talk as this will be demonized, because progressivism, according to some, is okay as long as all the language is clean, no-one is called any names, and we don't say anything too insulting. I.E. you can have your 'free speech' as long as we all conspire to delude ourselves into thinking that we have or share a sanity or civility that is actually rapidly disappearing, as many are driven mad by all the imbecility, crimes, evil and bullshit going on.