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America's Treatment of Detainees
Amnesty International has written a letter to Defense Secretary Robert Gates objecting to the conditions of Bradley Manning's detention, which was first reported here. The group denounces the oppressive conditions under which Manning is being held as "unnecessarily harsh and punitive," and further states they "appear to breach the USA’s obligations under international standards and treaties, including Article 10 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights." The letter describes Manning's treatment as particularly egregious "in view of the fact that he has no history of violence or disciplinary infractions and that he is a pre-trial detainee not yet convicted of any offence." Moreover:
The harsh conditions imposed on PFC Manning also undermine the principle of the presumption of innocence, which should be taken into account in the treatment of any person under arrest or awaiting trial. We are concerned that the effects of isolation and prolonged cellular confinement . . . may, further, undermine his ability to assist in his defence and thus his right to a fair trial.
The letter follows a report from Manning's lawyer, former Lt. Col. David Coombs, that the conditions of his detention temporarily worsened in the past week, prompting a formal complaint under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Amnesty's letter also follows a report that the U.N.'s leading official on torture is formally investigating the conditions of Manning's detention, a fact confirmed two weeks ago by The New York Times ("the United Nations’ special rapporteur on torture, Juan E. Mendez, [] said he had submitted a formal inquiry about the soldier’s treatment to the State Department").
Of course, caring what Amnesty International or the U.N. have to say about the conditions of America's detainees is so very 2004. Now, such a concern is -- to borrow a phrase from Alberto Gonazles -- a quaint and obsolete relic of the past.
Read the full article at Salon...
- Posted in
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45 Comments so far
Show AllI wonder if this escalation is offense as defense. It would be difficult for House to visit with a corpse if they had done Manning in with their "treatments". Hope I am wrong, I'd rather be happy than right.
Now it's time to push for Obama's impeachment for his refusal to enforce the law; indeed, for his steadfast determination to impede justice. I wonder foe the Law and Order Republicans now controlling the House will react, or will they also say Impeachment is off the table? Get on your local Teaparty blog and pose the same or similar question.
Heil O'Bomber! Or does the "i" come before the "e"? We better start learning such things.
The Democraps should initiate impeachment proceedings.
Isn't the problem the way the US treats all prisoners?
I read the New York Times article sourced by Glenn Greenwald, and it doesn't even mention the fact that Mr. Manning must sleep on a steel platform with no sheets or pillow.
"All the news that's fit to print" is the wrong motto for that outfit.
yes it is and often much worse. it's tough to focus on all the nasty stuff they are doing., and still stay on Bradley's case. But it does matter and it is right to do this. people have got way too comfortable with u.s. torture and brutality.
working on one single case helps to publicize and clarify how they are.
remember Jose Padilla? here's a guy never did anything and he's been driven batty from not much more than too much solitary. His case was mostly ignored by the media because it was right after 9/11 and those famously brave u.s.ans were cowering in their basements for fear another attack would come and would absolutely believe ANY charge against anyone- or even as in Jose's case, no charge.
finally out of loyalty I invite you all to consider the case of Aafia Sidiqui- probably the most relentlessly tortured soul in u.s. custody- a neuroscientist, mother of three, never did anything either. Aafia was prisoner 650 at Bagram, kept in solitary and was heard screaming at night. now she's serving what will no doubt amount to a life sentence fro one of the crudest frame up ever.
cageprisoners is where to go to stay on top of this stuff
"the mere possibility that some of these detainee deaths will be criminally investigated,"
only some?
This article could also be entitled, "Amnesty International sends a letter to the Gates of hell."
The purpose of Bradley Manning's torture is exposed in a recent conversation between John Pilger and Julian Assange who said,"'Cracking Bradley Manning is the first step [in building the prosecution's case against Assange],' Assange tells me. 'The aim clearly is to break him and force a confession that he somehow conspired with me to harm the national security of the United States. In fact, I'd never heard his name before it was published in the press.'" Please see the CD article, "WikiLeaks Defies the 'War on Hi-Tech Terror'" by John Pilger to get the full context of the quote.
The techniques perfected at Abu Ghraib, Bagram, and Guantanamo are now being brought to bear on Manning and other non-Muslim "terrorists" - a new category of terrorists known as "cyber-terrorist" in military jargon. Indications are that he may be succumbing as his mental health deteriorates. Eight months of solitary confinement can do a lot of psychological damage and he could be forced into false confession to stop the torture, as have so many detainees before him.
Those who continue to believe in human freedom and dignity must recognize how serious the stakes are in the WikiLeaks matter. Assange has identified a vulnerability in the Empire's control of information. The Tunisian revolution, which threatens to spread throughout the Arab world (already riots are breaking out in Algeria), was partially sparked by WikiLeaks. Information control plays a foundational role in corporate domination. Anything that exposes vulnerabilities in that control must be neutralized with all deliberate speed. That is why the national security state is in a frenzy over WikiLeaks.
John Pilger, in the article referenced above, has exposed the nature of the information warfare in which all of us are involved: "On 18 March 2008, a war on WikiLeaks was foretold in a secret Pentagon document prepared by the 'Cyber Counter-intelligence Assessments Branch'. US intelligence, it said, intended to destroy the feeling of 'trust' that is WikiLeaks's 'centre of gravity'. It planned to do this with threats of 'exposure [and] criminal prosecution'. Silencing and criminalising this rare source of independent journalism was the aim, smear the method. Hell hath no fury like imperial mafiosi scorned."
WikiLeaks must be discredited and its leader prosecuted because it exposes the true nature of the imperial mechanisms of power. The vulnerability which Assange has revealed must be exploited to the maximum extent possible by those who care about human freedom and dignity. To counter the "distrust" memes injected through the corporate-controlled media, we must promote a well-founded trust in WikiLeaks. And we must promote new versions of WikiLeaks, so that as soon as they crush one version, alternatives rise up.
Please consider supporting the Courage to Resist campaign for Bradley Manning at http://standwithbrad.org/ T-shirts, buttons, and stickers are available in quantity here: http://www.couragetoresist.org/x/content/view/851/124/
Let ten thousand WikiLeaks bloom!
BOYD: Thank you for your humanity, your caring, and the scholarship evidenced in this post.
Once again, I am going to speak in the voice of the mystics.
Can anyone in this forum REALLY explain how a tiny silicon chip can hold, translate, and relate coded information? I preference my post with that hypothetical question because a great many human inventions emulate things Nature has already figured out (and thus learned to enact).
Mystics believe that human brains hold cellular memory, inclusive of memories of former lifetimes. Much of this sentience is drummed out of young children in the way so many of us forget what we dreamt as soon as we wake in the morning, and start rushing about washing up and planning our tasks for the day.
Gregg Braden speaks of the universe itself as composed of responsive matter, that the ethers are alive with sentience. The concept of the Akashic Record, a "membrane" that retains all actions, even thoughts, forms the basis of the system known as karma.
Seeing how American figures of authority have increasingly identified with those historical forces that have grossly made use of the darkest abuses of power, I take solace in the realization that no deed goes without redress.
To those sick souls alone in isolated holding cells FREE to beat up weak persons largely held on false charges, and to those who treat human beings worse than stray dogs... there IS a price to be paid. The abject denial of their own basic humanity extended to all those unfortunate "others," may pass under the radar of human justice and its enforcement vehicles, but it IS recorded upon those same ethers that ultimately configure into the violator's karmic account. I am suggesting that always a silent witness prevails.
I PRAY that Bradley Manning will be able to retain hold of his mind. It's beyond painful to recognize that our nation's top brass have invested in studies focused on the ways and means to BREAK the human mind, the form of torture that leaves no ostensible signs of organ damage.
A recent CD article explained that US prisons now routinely place thousands into solitary confinement, sometimes for very small infringements of prison rules. Increasingly our nation, for all its boasts of freedom and democracy, resembles an incarcerated people experiencing virtual lockdown, in everything BUT name.
The Reckoning is soon.
Thanks for your spiritual analysis and support, SiouxRose. You are one of the bright lights of CD.
Like you, I believe that the deeds of the American authorities will provoke a nemesis that will be as painful as what they have inflicted on the weak and the innocent. We must constantly keep in mind that what these powers hate most is light. They can't operate effectively unless they control the dominant narrative of events. Let us hope that many new versions of WikiLeaks will arise, managed by those with the passion for truth of Pilger and Assange.
BOYD: Thank you, my friend.
It would be a lot easier for these "lights" to emerge IF a worldwide body, composed of lawyers, judges, and well-placed persons of conscience in other lands, got together and defined themselves as an entity that would back this new generation of whistle blowers.
Without such an entity, who has Julian Assange's back? The world stands by as Bradley Manning's mind is being burned away through the quiet torture of silence added to isolation tactics.
Perhaps that Spanish judge Garzon (?) who had the cajones to attempt to hold Bush to account for war crimes might begin forming the nucleus of this legal body.
There was a time when Switzerland was known as the Mecca for political asylum. Some nation or entity needs to grant the guarantee of legal and political cover (or protection) for those individuals who wish to follow in Mr. Assange's footsteps, while retaining their right to live!
I think most fear reprisals from the currently lawless U.S. government.
Do you agree?
Unfortunately, Baltasar Garzón appears to have been neutralized by pressure from the Obama administration on the Spanish government. He was "indicted last year for ignoring a 1977 amnesty law and exceeding his jurisdiction in his investigation of the alleged atrocities committed by Gen. Francisco Franco and his allies during the Spanish Civil War and under the Franco regime." Ironic, isn't it? Punished and threatened with prison for too much zeal against fascist atrocities.
Lawyers and judges from whatever country you care to choose can expect exactly the same treatment if they dare impugn the imperial right to torture who they want, where they want, when they want, as much as they want. U.S. courts in pursuit of evidence against Assange are now demanding twitter feeds from Icelandic lawmakers - and getting them. The Empire has no national boundaries.
However, I think there's hope in the vulnerability which Assange has exposed in the imperial control of information. This opening must be exploited to the maximum extent possible by those who care about human freedom and dignity. The lifeblood of the corporate state is information - that is why they must neutralize Assange and make sure no one tries to imitate Bradley Manning.
BOYD: Thank you for updating me on the facts around Garzon. I hope they ONLY "neutralize" Assange. Both men may yet end up martyrs, used as "examples" to silence others who may wish to lend their bravery to the defense of principles, the stated principles that support truly democratic societies.
I hate the US Prison System
and Police State USA
Johnny Cash and Joan Biaz recordings introduced me to that back in the day
The police brutality state continues to expand its jurisdiction, and the Empire brings techno-death and destruction wherever it goes.
And they take away a little more everyday. We'll all be secure when we've been wasted away.
Things just get worse and worse under the Obama administration. I never dreamed I'd see the day when this kind of thing could happen in the US.
The truth is very had to swallow, and the vast majority of Americans neither know nor care.
The circuses of the NFL playoffs are more important to most people.
Jim Shea
Sad to say the same thoughts occurred to me as I saw the low level of responses here today.
JIM: When I visit the Florida Keys (2-3 times a year) I am always struck by how indifferent people are to the declining state not only of the nation, but to their own ecosystems.
I've often thought of all the wasted energy diluted into alcohol on weekend nights in so many social interactions, or wasted on football on a massive collective scale. All that energy could be directed at MEANINGFUL change if the people really understood what was going on, and the degree to which their lives & livelihoods are being directly jeopardized.
It makes me think of those found in ruins in Pompeii, those on their way to the markeplace, clueless when the ash came down from the sky and paralyzed them into that freeze-frame for all of history to view. Maybe we'll never see IT coming. After all, the Florida Keys are a kind of ground zero for major climate change and everywhere I see huge vehicles huffing and puffing along US #1.
The whole point of the keys is to be away from it all.
It's not quite indifference, more intentional denial.
Don't Worry. Be happy.
A nice place in the winter, but it's no Provincetown or Fire Island.
I am one who believes Dubya is pale comparing Obama. It's so frustrating to see so many Dim. stills believe, or hope he'll turn around. What if he turns around, everything will be back to normal? Can anyone reason, home that was foreclosed, families separated, divorce or saving gone... will these return to the pre 2008 days?
I really worry that Bradley Manning is either dead or mentally close to it. After reading the twitter messages, i have 4 questions.
Are we to believe that tomorrow morning's news will tell us that Bradley Manning took his own life? Let's see, he shot himself in the back, or maybe you all gave him a flag and he hung himself with it? Oh wait, he signed a confession and you all forgot to take the pen back and he stabbed himself to death with it. He died from cholera, from an unknown source?
Will his only approved vistor for 5 months NOW be revealed by the military to be a terrorist, or are they just hauling the car away so they can disable it, or even preparing a bomb for the car?
Are the military people at Quantico the same torturing and murdering people that were killing at GITMO, and are these military people glenn beck fans?
Has a junta occurred and the White House and government powers been moved to Quantico? Which by the way, the grand jury trying to kill Julian and Quantico are BOTH in Virginia? If anything happens to Bradley Manning, the United States is no longer in charge of anything, and I will never believe them again about anything.
******I know I am sounding very freaked out and irrational , but so is the government. The state of the union speech will be very strange if anything happens to Bradly Manning.
Thank you Ammnesty International, for writing your concerns because I was beginning to doubt that you would do anything.
Thanks Glenn, Jane, Mr. House, and my prayers are for Bradley Manning and for his well-being. I hope all of the attention we can bring to bear on his detention will put the fear of God into the heart of the Secretary of the Navy who is ultimately responsible for this brig and for Bradley Mannings welfare. 'Unjustified Homicide' is what killed all of those Iraqi detainees under American jurisdiction and detention. This is a sign of corruption in the highest offices of the land. We need more truth tellers to come forward and show us through documents who is responsible and who is enabling these violations of human rights.
Hey Siouxrose, I've appreciated your posts many times and again here.Thank you for bringing the 'wisdom of the ages' into the forum. I would add to your cogent narrative that nations generate karma as well, hence: entire populations are karmically indebted by what their governments do. Thus, we are seeing the disintegration of the American empire as the karma that it has created is coming due. If the mystics are right, and all the ones I have investigated refer to the universal principle of Justice, as in "as you sow, so shall ye reap", then we can predict with certainty that Hell will be visited upon the US such that what has been happening in the past ten years will appear to be mere veils uncovering the least of the spectres that hale from the loveless inferno and are marching on Washington as we witness. This has been a curtain raiser to the main act! I lament for the deep folly of our current political culture.
RISING: I brought up the distinction between group/national and individual karma in this forum recently when someone tried to suggest I was blaming victims (via my references to the law of karma). I don't wish for HELL or damnation on America, and I know there ARE many good people, who I hope will be largely spared. A great many are ignorant in part because their media and social milieus have blinded them as to what's going on in our names.
However, there is the matter of ecocide which stands as a complement to war. Not only does the US make war its chief product, it arms the world; and we all know there are many unjust dictators who make use of these weapons to bludgeon their own people (along with their human rights). Then, too, there is the ceaseless war on Nature and all the kingdoms that together hold the web of life intact.
I believe materialism will be scaled back tremendously as the Earth, a blessed living Being, cannot support a world of 6 billion all aspiring (like Janis Joplin) to drive that Mercedes Benz.
Those who survive will learn to live (as Shadow Dancer frequently relates) like "The Tribes," and also learn, by necessity, to put into practice the wise axiom: "Live Simply, that others may simply live."
Although I am somewhat spoiled as a Westerner, I find that my needs really are simple. I gave up cell phone, cable TV, salon hair cuts, meat eating, and lots of other things so many maintain. My cost of living is very low; and I try to keep my ecological footprint small by only driving 2-3 days a week. Everything I buy in the way of clothes, furniture, books is second-hand. I think I have good taste, and find great things at bargain prices.
Your visceral scenario of blowback based on American indifference to the massive suffering its state-sponsored policies cause is a darker portrait than mine. It would mortify me to see that suffering come home; so I pray it does not. For many Americans, obese and clueless, not having gas for their vehicles may prove torture enough.
Better than hell, let us pray for massive enlightenment; that many Americans will spontaneously show the generosity so long repressed and reach out to their neighbors in Mexico & Haiti... and begin to give, and give back, what decades of confiscation took for itself.
If that type of altruism sprung forth, it would mitigate much of the karma... speaking on the soul level, no one truly has the power to take a life; for we are immortal beings. Prematurely stamping out the experience of this particular lifetime, of course, carries karmic weight. Yet in the fullness of time, even that trespass can be ameliorated by acts of selfless generosity. In some respects, that is the story of Moses. I look for opportunities to give. Carlos Casteneda's teacher Don Juan referred to that behavior as "making a payment to the spirit of mankind," an account, he further related, that tended to run low.
S.O.S - - - - - - Mayday Mayday Mayday
America needs Nelson Mandela to come visit Bradley Manning as fast as humanly possible. Ideally, Nelson should attempt to reach Bradley during the State of the Union message.
Citizens of the world: get this urgent word to Mr. Mandela, and Rev. Desmond Tutu, as fast as electrons can fly.
Hurry - - - and Pray for Bradley Manning.
Trylon
Update.
Last night I sent a screen shot of the above post to NELSONMANDELA.org in South Africa. I've made an effort to disseminate this SOS to prominently-known persons of conscience in other lands.
1) Effective Sunday 23 January 2011, Bradley Manning became Beyond the Help of Any American citizen, except the characterless President Barack Obama. Protest demonstrations, and petitions with thousands of signatures are meaningful to the signers but to others with guns and control, just the whine of a mosquito. Julian Assange has demonstrated that case convincingly.
2) At this point Bradley Manning can only be saved from psychological if not physical death by Citizens of the World who are internationally recognized as having ==Impeccable Character==. The first ones to come to my mind were Nelson Mandela and Rev. Desmond Tutu. I have issued a public call for their help, to which you are a witness. I am issuing a similar call to the Canadian statesman and humanist, the Hon. Stephen Lewis.
If such persons appeared at Quantico, demanding face-to-face contact with Bradley Manning then millions of people around the world would watch this LIVE on CNN. Should this reasonable request by reasonable people be refused, that refusal would reach seven continents in less than ten seconds.
When I was the age of Bradley Manning people came to =my rescue=. I wish there was a memorial for them on Constitution Mall: Norman Morrison, Dr. Benjamin Spock, Alice Herz, Dr. Howard B. Levy, Jessica Mitford, Howard Zinn, Martin Luther King, Jr, Daniel Ellsberg, and countless others. While I can never repay the full debt I owe them, this is what I can pay this month - not caring two cents if I am judged a nut case.
Trylon
TRYLON: I applaud the humanity of this post! And your idea is spot-on. How about a petition where many of us sign asking Nelson Mandela, Rev. Tuto and others if they would consider coming on-board?
ABUELO: Powerful post.
Can you imagine Nelson Mandela leading to Quantico a delegation of Representatives to the United Nations General Assembly - from countries all over the world?
Here is the email address to which I wrote [ nmf@nelsonmandela.org ]. Anyone who wants to can back my email up. Go see the Mandela website.
I am seriously concerned that Bradley could slip away from this side at ANY time.
Visions of him come unbidden as I wade through thick snow to keep filling my bird feeders. Feeding birds is my tithe. Barely 5 degrees here.
Trylon
So many wonderful posts here. Trylon,thank you for the email address for nmf. I fired one off immediately. As for Desmond Tutu, this url is the closest I could find to contact him: http://www.tutu.org/contact.php?msg=sent#anchor.
I will be trying to get contacts for others who have shown integrity over the years; I find many of those to whom I feel gratitude for their stances in the past have now passed on, such as Corrie Ten Boom, Kurt Vonnegut and others. Sioux Rose, I too believe "as you sow, so shall you reap", and I shudder for the vision of our potential collective fate. I trudge on with the idea imparted by the parable of Abraham as G~d directed him to leave Sodom and Gomorrah. That the acts of a few committed persons are enough to leverage or deflect the sanctions Universal Law would normally visit upon us.
Them and a few tens of thousands would actually be what it takes to be recognized.
You might get Ellsberg still.
Mandela is unlikely.
Tutu maybe.
But they would have to challenge the Nobel winnig President.
And I don't think he's rteally the forgiving type.
Obamafia.
Desmond Tutu is the author of a book on Torture. This gives him top credentials to speak to Bradley Manning in solitary confinement.
Desmond also wrote a book in September 2008 about =The Faith of Barack Obama=. Amazon has new copies and used copies of this hardcover book. Used copies are one cent. New copies are also one cent. I want to buy a copy for Bradley Manning, and I think I'm going with a NEW one.
Trylon
Wednesday: 26 Jan 2011
I received an email reply from the Nelson Mandela Foundation in Capetown. The boiler plate message referred me to a page on their website, with the following text.
=====
November 11, 2010 – Nelson Mandela receives at least 4,000 messages a month from people throughout the world. Many of these pay tribute to Mr Mandela and wish him well in his retirement. However, there are just as many requests: for his signature, a message of support, a public appearance or an interview. There are also continued injunctions for him to intervene in struggles around the world, and to endorse various causes.
As far back as 1999 Mr Mandela said the following in response to these calls: “I don’t want to reach 100 years whilst I am still trying to bring about a solution in some complicated international issue.”
Then, in 2004, he publicly announced his intention to step away from public life and tasked three organisations (the Nelson Mandela Foundation, the Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund and the Mandela Rhodes Foundation) with carrying on his humanitarian work.
Finally, in 2008, during his 90th birthday celebrations, he pointedly called on people everywhere to pick up the baton of leadership: “It’s in your hands to make the world a better place”.
In response to this call, the Nelson Mandela Foundation and it sister organisations implemented Mandela Day. This is a campaign that we hope will lead to a global movement of good, enabling individuals and organisations to start off with just 67 minutes of community service on Nelson Mandela’s birthday, and then start making every day a Mandela Day.
The Nelson Mandela Foundation would like to ask people everywhere to help make Madiba’s retirement a time of peace and tranquillity, and to once more note the following:
* He no longer grants interviews, nor does he respond to formal questions from the media, researchers or members of the public.
* Given the huge number of projects and causes he is asked to endorse, and the impossibility of selecting a few among the many worthy requests, he no longer provides messages of support, written or audio visual.
* Because of the sheer volume of requests for his autograph, he no longer signs books, memorabilia, photographs, etc. We therefore appeal to the public not to send items for him to sign as the Foundation cannot guarantee the safe return of this material.
Thank you for your continued support and your warm wishes to Mr Mandela.
Once more, we urge you to become part of the Mandela Day global movement for good. More information on how to participate can be found here.
==========
Trylon, in disappointment for Bradley.
SOME EDITORIAL THOUGHTS
The request of Nelson Mandela is eminently reasonable. May he live to age 100 in peace.
What distinguished Nelson Mandela across his life and humanitarian career was =character=. There were other persons as intelligent, visionary, and empathetic.
What distinguishes Bradley Manning from his age peers is =character=. For this possession of character Bradley is being tortured at the hands of military forces, in isolation from all but one American citizen, his lawyer.
Did Nelson Mandela display Bradley's degree of character at the age of twenty? Suppose Nelson had, and had been imprisoned at that age, but no person of social stature came to his physical or psychological rescue. Would Nelson have lived to age 92?
How long does Bradly Manning have to live, and what other expression of character might we see from him, if the Lilliputian Psychopaths harming him were obliged to stop?
Trylon
I, too, was extremely disappointed to receive the same response from Mandela's website spokesperson. I haven't heard from Desmond Tutu, yet. I'll let you know, then probably on a different article but related subject.
The more I read articles written by Glenn Greenwald,the more I am convinced he and other columnists like him are truly the conscience of America,that once was most admired in the world,and yet one hoped it would be so again as one covered what Glenn wrote and what Chris Hedges,Ralph Nader,Robert Scheer,Norman Solomon and Daniel Ellsberg also wrote.
Thank you,Glenn,for your straight talk that sustains hope for the underdogs whose intent was idealistic,but ended-up in detention,somewhere in a miserable prison.....
Greenwald is in the front rank of commentators these days, but there's a glaring problem with this and too many other articles about people being held against their will.
The correct term is 'prisoner.' Letting medieval jailers get away with plastic language like 'detainee,' 'rendition,' and other contemptuous dodges is self-defeating political cowardice.
This wasn't tolerated with torture. Whatever cutesy language the G launched at the public, it was still 'torture,' as in 'You're on the short list for The Hague, Madam Secretary.'
We also would have accepted "captive".
All the people I know of who hace managed to escape the guilag are nationals of countries other than Afghanistan or Iraq. And they have all been tortured, and the torture in one form or another never seems to stop. I'd like to see some reminder of the all the victims in the greater gulag- best guess around 60, 000 prisoners. 3 prisons above ground 2 in Iraq, Bagram and its soon to be opened annex are are locking up 30, 000 and there are unknown black sites, plus the happily reopened USSR prisons in eastern europe, and the prison ships.
and someone noticed the low level of participation here today. Come back the next time Andy Worthington that tireless truth teller, has a story about less well know prisoners. I remember one with zero comments. I opened mine with "well Andy it looks like it's just the 2 of us once again...."
but seriously folks, we must do better. This is one of the most huge enormous terror/war crimes they are doing. they should not be allowed to do it with impunity. Primarily because the victims have probably had their lives ruined and are still being tormented. But also because all this horror is shredding whatever values we ever had to rags and tatters.
Try to imagine our victims before you go to sleep tonight. Tell me karma stories. Read some of Andy's stories. visit cafgeprisoners once a week. Please.
Siouxrose, thanks for your response to my post, and it may be off the topic of Greenwald's article, however, i wanted to briefly say that i too do not wish to see the wrath of hell descending on the American people or any other people. I long and work towards seeing that day of a truely new age, where humanity has evolved to a general state of reverence and recognition of the preciousness of life in all Her manifold expressions and forms. Yet, we must come to recognize that as we, meaning the majority of our nations citizens, remain indifferent to the 'wrath of hell' that our leaders visit upon other nations and innocent children, women, and men, we have already succumbed to a 'hellish' state, and instead of bringing down 'heaven on earth', we have forged a 'hell on earth'. Our very indifference to the eco-systems and to the life spirit inhabiting the blue-green earth are testimonies, in themselves, of our collective psychosis. Should the needed medicine be taken and the people wake up and feel deep remorse for this indifference and make real efforts to correct their omissions, and ask for forgiveness from their victims and from the Creator, then the collective karmic debt weighedin by the scales of Divine Justice may be ameliorated through the principle of Grace. I also believe that those angelic souls and plain decent folks, who's psyches are still intact and healthy, who are working for the universal good of humanity, by lending their talents to the principles of Justice, whoever they are and wherever they live, are creating their own very good karma and are in the process of the evolution of consciousness....such as yourself! Thanks for being you! I do lookand work for that hopeful day of a possible collective awakening. By the way, I too gave up eating meat 39 years ago when i was 15. I co-founded a land cooperative here in Canada in the wilderness region of BC. We, my family and I and the community, lived off the grid for 10 years. However, six feet of snow for seven months of the year was unsustainable....I'm going to South America, I think most of those countries are on the right track, and i would love to lend my talents in support of their current cultural and political processes.
RISING DAWN: Thank you for the thoughtful post. I believe we're very much in synch in our beliefs.
There are a few in this forum who blame the left/progressives for not having an effective message. I think that is a BOGUS meme. The left so seldom gets a platform from which to impart its message; and the message is largely about social justice, equal access to opportunities for meaningful work, and intelligent policies that take climate into consideration before placing the abstraction of profit before all other ends as well as "means."
South America certainly is leading the way when it comes to fairer models of collective resource-sharing. My body did VERY poorly in Peru. I didn't have that response trekking in Nepal, so it's not just the matter of altitude. However, I, too am drawn to Latin and Indigenous cultures. Latins are so alive! Due to this force, they embody the principle of revolution. Most don't easily follow others' imposed orders. My experience in Puerto Rico led me to that observation.
The principle of Grace can and does over-ride karma; and that's why I related that enough acts of generosity could work to alter some of the karma America, as an entity, has developed due to wars based on resource-envy, rather than "the just war" principle based on necessity.
I look forward to interacting with you further in this forum. I am pressed for time at the moment. Good wishes to you, and wherever you endeavor to plant yourself. A strong seed that's intended to flower will generally find fertile soil in which to do so.
A great deal of law has been written around the Nuremberg Trials. Others know far more about it than I. The Nuremberg Defense argues that a soldier is not responsible for war crimes ordered by a superior officer. Command Responsibility argues that the superior officer is responsible for war crimes he ordered and/or carried out. The question is: Is there a Nuremberg principle that allows a soldier to refuse to carry out an illegal (war crimes) order? Or to expose what the soldier feels is a war crime? Cheney and Bush lied the U.S. into a war with Iraq, invading a non-belligerent foreign country, killing large numbers of that population; suspended habeas corpus; “legalized” torture; invented the contradictory term “illegal enemy combatant.” Bush/Cheney (Obama) covered up the truth to commit war crimes; Private Manning presumably revealed the truth to prevent or expose war crimes. Who is right? Can Manning argue some kind of Nuremberg principle in his own defense?
usmilitary.about.com/cs/militarylaw1/a/obeyingorders.htm
(google: disobey illegal orders)
Article 13 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice
Punishment
"No person, while being held for trial, may be subjected to punishment or penalty other than arrest or confinement upon the charges pending against him, nor shall the arrest or confinement imposed upon him be any more rigorous than the circumstances required to insure his presence, but he may be subjected to minor punishment during that period for infractions of discipline."