The stakes here are high. Yet there are few voices sounding alarmed that the U.S. flying a stealth drone over Iran is reckless. This has echos of the May Day 1960 U-2 incident where the U.S. asserted the pilot of a "weather plane" had "difficulties with his oxygen equipment" and crashed. Except today's RQ-170 drones can do just fine without Gary Powers. When the Soviets recovered the U-2 Powers ejected from nearly intact, the best the U.S. could do was deplore what they imagined their Soviet counterparts in the KGB were doing to Powers in some rat hole Gulag in Siberia. At least the United States of America didn't do THAT. Now it's a little tougher to blur the distinction between the tortured and the torturers.

The Powers incident set back Russian-American relations by years that culminated with the nuclear stand-off with the Cuban Missile Crisis. Depending on what one believes, a steely JFK out maneuvered the war mongers. But does anyone see steel in President Obama when it comes to reigning the war machine in? Was it his pluck and steel that earned him the Nobel?

This from The Atlantic:

MICHAEL HIRSH

DEC 5 2011, 9:20 AM ET 50

Violent incidents between Iran and the West have been increasing

Two incidents that occurred on Sunday--Iran's claim of a shoot-down of a U.S. drone, and an explosion outside the British embassy in Bahrain--may have been unrelated. But they appear to add to growing evidence that an escalating covert war by the West is under way against Iran, and that Tehran is retaliating with greater intensity than ever.

Asked whether the United States, in cooperation with Israel, was now engaged in a covert war against Iran's nuclear program that may include the Stuxnet virus, the blowing-up of facilities and the assassination or kidnapping of scientists, one recently retired U.S. official privy to up-to-date intelligence would not deny it.

"It's safe to say the Israelis are very active," the official said, adding about U.S. efforts: "Everything that [GOP presidential candidate] Mitt Romney said we should be doing--tough sanctions, covert action and pressuring the international community -- are all of the things we are actually doing." Though the activities are classified, a senior Obama administration official also would not deny that such a program was under way. He indicated that the U.S. was not involved in every action, referring to recent alleged explosions at Isfahan and elsewhere. But, he added: "I wouldn't assume that everything we do is coordinated."

Former undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns, who oversaw America's Iran engagement during the Bush administration, asked Sunday about reports that the U.S. program began under George W. Bush, said he could not comment on intelligence matters.


Photos of an Iranian military base near Bid Kaneh in before (top) and after (bottom) a large explosion reportedly occurred, apparent damage from which can be seen / Institute for Science and International Security

In September, the head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, Fereydoun Abbasi-Davani, accused Great Britain, Israel and the U.S. of conducting attacks on him and other Iranian scientists."Six years ago the intelligence service of the UK began collecting information and data regarding my past, my family, the number of children," Abbasi-Davani told a news conference at the annual conference of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna. Abbasi-Davani, who was said to have been wounded in 2010 car bomb explosion, said the attacks were carried out by Israel with the "support of the intelligence services of the United States and England."

Last week, Iranian protesters stormed the British embassy in Tehran. Dominick Chilcott, Britain's ambassador to Iran, later said the attack occurred "with the acquiescence and the support of the state." Then, on Sunday, Bahrain's interior ministry announced that an explosion occurred inside a minibus parked near the British Embassy. There were no immediate reports of serious damage or injuries.

U.S. officials alleged in October that agents acting for Iran's Revolutionary Guard, which has increasingly exerted control over the Tehran regime, were involved in a plot to kill that Saudi ambassador to Washington in a restaurant. Iran denied the allegations. Then, on Sunday, in what have been another escalation, Iran's news agency reported that Iranian armed forces shot down an unmanned U.S. spy plane that illegally crossed the country's eastern border.

Responding to the Iranian report, NATO command in Afghanistan released a terse statement Sunday: "The UAV to which the Iranians are referring may be a US unarmed reconnaissance aircraft that had been flying a mission over western Afghanistan late last week. The operators of the UAV lost control of the aircraft and had been working to determine its status."

The White House declined to comment but officials did not seem unduly alarmed, suggesting that the drone's capture would not provide Iran with significant information about U.S. surveillance technology and techniques.

Trita Parsi, president of the National Iranian American Council in Washington, said the tit-for-tat incidents "add up to a very worrisome picture," in part because "the Iranians are absorbing all of these assassinations without seeing the pace of their nuclear program slow down to the extent it would be acceptable to the West." But if Iranian retaliations grow serious enough, he said, they could provide "the pretext for a much larger war" in which the Israelis, and possibly the Americans, launch a full attack on Iran.

Mark Hibbs, a nuclear expert at the Carnegie Endowment in Germany, says the intensity of the covert war indicates that this is where the U.S. and Israel are putting their energy for now. "If the U.S. or Israel were determined to take Iran's nuclear installations out they wouldn't be wasting time pinpointing individual scientists like this," he says. Still, he points out, that Israel's 1981 attack on Iraq's Osirak reactor was also preceded by assassination attempts on Iraqi scientists.

By accident or not, it's entirely possible the covert war could escalate into a real one, experts say. "I am less enthusiastic about how effective all this going to be than some people in the administration," says Matthew Bunn, a nuclear investigator at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government. Bunn says he has occasionally discussed the program with the Obama administration officials, and "some have broadly suggested they think this is major element of slowing down Iranian progress."

He's not so sure. "Take Stuxnet. It's possible that a thousand centrifuges went down" because of sabotage by the mystery computer virus _ a super sophisticated program said to have caused substantial parts of Iran's uranium enrichment program to self-destruct several years ago. "But Iran has a thousand more than they would require to enrich to highly enriched uranium" needed for a bomb. Bunn also notes that Iran is increasingly keeping its key scientists such as Mohsen Fakrizadeh, said to be the "Oppenheimer" of the Iranian program, hidden away from sight and burying its facilities deeper underground.

Beyond that, says Hibbs, "Some of the concern in the expert community is that in going this route we're unleashing forces we cannot control."

By Bill Quigley

December 01, 2011 Information Clearing House -- The Obama administration has affirmed, continued and expanded almost all of the draconian domestic civil liberties intrusions pioneered under the Bush administration. Here are twenty examples of serious assaults on the domestic rights to freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom of association, the right to privacy, the right to a fair trial, freedom of religion, and freedom of conscience that have occurred since the Obama administration has assumed power. Consider these and then decide if there is any fundamental difference between the Bush presidency and the Obama presidency in the area of domestic civil liberties.

Patriot Act

On May 27, 2011, President Obama, over widespread bipartisan objections, approved a Congressional four year extension of controversial parts of the Patriot Act that were set to expire. In March of 2010, Obama signed a similar extension of the Patriot Act for one year. These provisions allow the government, with permission from a special secret court, to seize records without the owner’s knowledge, conduct secret surveillance of suspicious people who have no known ties to terrorist groups and to obtain secret roving wiretaps on people.

Criminalization of Dissent and Militarization of the Police

Anyone who has gone to a peace or justice protest in recent years has seen it – local police have been turned into SWAT teams, and SWAT teams into heavily armored military. Officer Friendly or even Officer Unfriendly has given way to police uniformed like soldiers with SWAT shields, shin guards, heavy vests, military helmets, visors, and vastly increased firepower. Protest police sport ninja turtle-like outfits and are accompanied by helicopters, special tanks, and even sound blasting vehicles first used in Iraq. Wireless fingerprint scanners first used by troops in Iraq are now being utilized by local police departments to check motorists. Facial recognition software introduced in war zones is now being used in Arizona and other jurisdictions. Drones just like the ones used in Kosovo, Iraq and Afghanistan are being used along the Mexican and Canadian borders. These activities continue to expand under the Obama administration.

Wiretaps

Wiretaps for oral, electronic or wire communications, approved by federal and state courts, are at an all-time high. Wiretaps in year 2010 were up 34% from 2009, according to the Administrative Office of the US Courts.

Criminalization of Speech

Muslims in the US have been targeted by the Obama Department of Justice for inflammatory things they said or published on the internet. First Amendment protection of freedom of speech, most recently stated in a 1969 Supreme Court decision, Brandenberg v Ohio, says the government cannot punish inflammatory speech, even if it advocates violence unless it is likely to incite or produce such action. A Pakistani resident legally living in the US was indicted by the DOJ in September 2011 for uploading a video on YouTube. The DOJ said the video was supportive of terrorists even though nothing on the video called for violence. In July 2011, the DOJ indicted a former Penn State student for going onto websites and suggesting targets and for providing a link to an explosives course already posted on the internet.

Domestic Government Spying on Muslim Communities

In activities that offend freedom of religion, freedom of speech, and several other laws, the NYPD and the CIA have partnered to conduct intelligence operations against Muslim communities in New York and elsewhere. The CIA, which is prohibited from spying on Americans, works with the police on “human mapping”, commonly known as racial and religious profiling to spy on the Muslim community. Under the Obama administration, the Associated Press reported in August 2011, informants known as “mosque crawlers,” monitor sermons, bookstores and cafes.

Top Secret America

In July 2010, the Washington Post released “Top Secret America,” a series of articles detailing the results of a two year investigation into the rapidly expanding world of homeland security, intelligence and counter-terrorism. It found 1,271 government organizations and 1,931 private companies work on counterterrorism, homeland security and intelligence at about 10,000 locations across the US. Every single day, the National Security Agency intercepts and stores more than 1.7 billion emails, phone calls and other types of communications. The FBI has a secret database named Guardian that contains reports of suspicious activities filed from federal, state and local law enforcement. According to the Washington Post Guardian contained 161,948 files as of December 2009. From that database there have been 103 full investigations and at least five arrests the FBI reported. The Obama administration has done nothing to cut back on the secrecy.

Other Domestic Spying

There are at least 72 fusion centers across the US which collect local domestic police information and merge it into multi-jurisdictional intelligence centers, according to recent report by the ACLU. These centers share information from federal, state and local law enforcement and some private companies to secretly spy on Americans. These all continue to grow and flourish under the Obama administration.

Abusive FBI Intelligence Operations

The Electronic Frontier Foundation documented thousands of violations of the law by FBI intelligence operations from 2001 to 2008 and estimate that there are over 4000 such violations each year. President Obama issued an executive order to strengthen the Intelligence Oversight Board, an agency which is supposed to make sure the FBI, the CIA and other spy agencies are following the law. No other changes have been noticed.

Wikileaks

The publication of US diplomatic cables by Wikileaks and then by main stream news outlets sparked condemnation by Obama administration officials who said the publication of accurate government documents was nothing less than an attack on the United States. The Attorney General announced a criminal investigation and promised “this is not saber rattling.” Government officials warned State Department employees not to download the publicly available documents. A State Department official and Columbia officials warned students that discussing Wikileaks or linking documents to social networking sites could jeopardize their chances of getting a government job, a position that lasted several days until reversed by other Columbia officials. At the time this was written, the Obama administration continued to try to find ways to prosecute the publishers of Wikileaks.

Censorship of Books by the CIA

In 2011, the CIA demanded extensive cuts from a memoir by former FBI agent Ali H. Soufan, in part because it made the agency look bad. Soufan’s book detailed the use of torture methods on captured prisoners and mistakes that led to 9-11. Similarly, a 2011 book on interrogation methods by former CIA agent Glenn Carle was subjected to extensive black outs. The CIA under the Obama administration continues its push for censorship.

Blocking Publication of Photos of U.S. Soldiers Abusing Prisoners

In May 2009, President Obama reversed his position of three weeks earlier and refused to release photos of US soldiers abusing prisoners. In April 2009, the US Department of Defense told a federal court that it would release the photos. The photos were part of nearly 200 criminal investigations into abuses by soldiers.

Technological Spying

The Bay Area Transit System, in August 2011, hearing of rumors to protest against fatal shootings by their police, shut down cell service in four stations. Western companies sell email surveillance software to repressive regimes in China, Libya and Syria to use against protestors and human rights activists. Surveillance cameras monitor residents in high crime areas, street corners and other governmental buildings. Police department computers ask for and receive daily lists from utility companies with addresses and names of every home address in their area. Computers in police cars scan every license plate of every car they drive by. The Obama administration has made no serious effort to cut back these new technologies of spying on citizens.

Use of “State Secrets” to Shield Government and Others from review

When the Bush government was caught hiring private planes from a Boeing subsidiary to transport people for torture to other countries, the Bush administration successfully asked the federal trial court to dismiss a case by detainees tortured because having a trial would disclose “state secrets” and threaten national security. When President Obama was elected, the state secrets defense was reaffirmed in arguments before a federal appeals court. It continues to be a mainstay of the Obama administration effort to cloak their actions and the actions of the Bush administration in secrecy.

In another case, it became clear in 2005 that the Bush FBI was avoiding the Fourth Amendment requirement to seek judicial warrants to get telephone and internet records by going directly to the phone companies and asking for the records. The government and the companies, among other methods of surveillance, set up secret rooms where phone and internet traffic could be monitored. In 2008, the government granted the companies amnesty for violating the privacy rights of their customers. Customers sued anyway. But the Obama administration successfully argued to the district court, among other defenses, that disclosure would expose state secrets and should be dismissed. The case is now on appeal.

Material Support

The Obama administration successfully asked the US Supreme Court not to apply the First Amendment and to allow the government to criminalize humanitarian aid and legal activities of people providing advice or support to foreign organizations which are listed on the government list as terrorist organizations. The material support law can now be read to penalize people who provide humanitarian aid or human rights advocacy. The Obama administration Solicitor General argued to the court “when you help Hezbollah build homes, you are also helping Hezbollah build bombs.” The Court agreed with the Obama argument that national security trumps free speech in these circumstances.

Chicago Anti-war Grand Jury Investigation

In September 2010, FBI agents raided the homes of seven peace activists in Chicago, Minneapolis and Grand Rapids seizing computers, cell phones, passports, and records. More than 20 anti-war activists were issued federal grand jury subpoenas and more were questioned across the country. Some of those targeted were members of local labor unions, others members of organizations like the Arab American Action Network, the Columbia Action Network, the Twin Cities Anti-War Campaign and the Freedom Road Socialist Organization. Many were active internationally and visited resistance groups in Columbia and Palestine. Subpoenas directed people to bring anything related to trips to Columbia, Palestine, Jordan, Syria, Israel or the Middle East. In 2011, the home of a Los Angeles activist was raided and he was questioned about his connections with the September 2010 activists. All of these investigations are directed by the Obama administration.

Punishing Whistleblowers

The Obama administration has prosecuted five whistleblowers under the Espionage Act, more than all the other administrations in history put together. They charged a National Security Agency advisor with ten felonies under the Espionage Act for telling the press that government eavesdroppers were wasting hundreds of millions of dollars on misguided and failed projects. After their case collapsed, the government, which was chastised by the federal judge as engaging in unconscionable conduct allowed him to plead to a misdemeanor and walk. The administration has also prosecuted former members of the CIA, the State Department, and the FBI. They even tried to subpoena a journalist and one of the lawyers for the whistleblowers.

Bradley Manning

Army private Bradley Manning is accused of leaking thousands of government documents to Wikileaks. These documents expose untold numbers of lies by US government officials, wrongful killings of civilians, policies to ignore torture in Iraq, information about who is held at Guantanamo, cover ups of drone strikes and abuse of children and much more damaging information about US malfeasance. Though Daniel Ellsberg and other whistleblowers say Bradley is an American hero, the US government has jailed him and is threatening him with charges of espionage which may be punished by the death penalty. For months Manning was held in solitary confinement and forced by guards to sleep naked. When asked about how Manning was being held, President Obama personally defended the conditions of his confinement saying he had been assured they were appropriate and meeting our basic standards.

Solitary Confinement

At least 20,000 people are in solitary confinement in US jails and prisons, some estimate several times that many. Despite the fact that federal, state and local prisons and jails do not report actual numbers, academic research estimates tens of thousands are kept in cells for 23 to 24 hours a day in supermax units and prisons, in lockdown, in security housing units, in “the hole”, and in special management units or administrative segregation. Human Rights Watch reports that one-third to one-half of the prisoners in solitary are likely mentally ill. In May 2006, the UN Committee on Torture concluded that the United States should “review the regimen imposed on detainees in supermax prisons, in particular, the practice of prolonged isolation.” The Obama administration has taken no steps to cut back on the use of solitary confinement in federal, state or local jails and prisons.

Special Administrative Measures

Special Administrative Measures (SAMS) are extra harsh conditions of confinement imposed on prisoners (including pre-trial detainees) by the Attorney General. The U.S. Bureau of Prisons imposes restrictions such segregation and isolation from all other prisoners, and limitation or denial of contact with the outside world such as: no visitors except attorneys, no contact with news media, no use of phone, no correspondence, no contact with family, no communication with guards, 24 hour video surveillance and monitoring. The DOJ admitted in 2009 that several dozen prisoners, including several pre-trial detainees, mostly Muslims, were kept incommunicado under SAMS. If anything, the use of SAMS has increased under the Obama administration.

These twenty concrete examples document a sustained assault on domestic civil liberties in the United States under the Obama administration. Rhetoric aside, how different has Obama been from Bush in this area?

Bill is a human rights lawyer and law professor at Loyola University New Orleans. He also serves as Associate Legal Director of the Center for Constitutional Rights. He can be reached at Quigley77[at]gmail[dot]com

By the Bradley Manning Support Network. September 1, 2011

This article is a reference both for those who have just begun learning about PFC Bradley Manning’s case, and those who have been following it for awhile. It addresses several common misconceptions about the case. As an advocate for Bradley Manning, you can use the information in the article to educate others, whether speaking to them in-person or sharing relevant excerpts online.

Bradley Manning fits the definition of a whistle-blower (not a traitor).

In online discussions attributed to PFC Bradley Manning, he says that he hopes his actions will spur “discussion, debates, and reforms” and that he “want[s] people to know the truth, no matter who they are, because without information you cannot make informed decisions as a public.” This is the classic definition of a whistle-blower (a person who tells the public about alleged dishonest or illegal activities/misconduct occurring in a government department).

Unfortunately, the government is charging PFC Bradley Manning with “knowingly [giving] intelligence to the enemy, through indirect means,” under Article 104 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice — an allegation of treason and a capital offense. By this rational, scores of service-person-posted blogs, photos, and videos, would now be punishable by death—simply because they are accessible on the Internet. The charge against Bradley Manning appears to be about sending a message to other would-be whistle-blowers.

The Founding Fathers restricted the definition of treason in the U.S. Constitution to, “Treason against the United States shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort….” They did so because they wanted to prevent a repeat of England’s abuse of power.


It is inappropriate and abusive to attempt to use the Espionage Act against PFC Manning.

PFC Bradley Manning was given access to classified documents (of various levels of secrecy) as a military intelligence analyst. In the course of doing his job, it appears that he became aware of information that was classified not for legitimate purposes, but for purposes of political convenience. Releasing such information fits under the classic definition of whistle-blowing, not “spying.”

Espionage is associated with spying on, or for, potential or actual enemies, primarily for military purposes. No one believes that PFC Bradley Manning engaged in any such activities.

In the chat logs which allegedly record a conversation between PFC Bradley Manning and hacker Adrian Lamo—these chat logs serve as the primary known evidence in this case—Manning expresses a desire for the information to be in the public domain, as opposed to it being used to benefit any nation at the expense of another.

Bradley Manning: i mean what if i were someone more malicious
Bradley Manning: i could’ve sold to russia or china, and made bank?
Adrian Lamo: why didn’t you?
Bradley Manning: because it’s public data
Adian Lamo: i mean, the cables
Bradley Manning: it belongs in the public domain
Bradley Manning: information should be free
Bradley Manning: it belongs in the public domain
Bradley Manning: because another state would just take advantage of the information… try and get some edge
Bradley Manning: if its out in the open… it should be a public good
Bradley Manning: i couldn’t be a spy…
Bradley Manning: spies dont post things up for the world to see


The legality (or illegality) of releasing classified documents isn’t black and white.

In the United States, there is no Congressional law regarding the leaking of classified documents. Documents are classified, or declassified, according to Executive Orders, which apply only to those working for the government.

Furthermore, according to the 1971 Supreme Court Case New York Times Co. vs. United States, as well as President Obama’s Executive Orders, documents may not be classified to conceal embarrassing activity or violations of law, but only for national security reasons:

“In no case shall information be classified… in order to: conceal violations of law, inefficiency, or administrative error; prevent embarrassment to a person, organization, or agency… or prevent or delay the release of information that does not require protection in the interest of the national security.”

—Executive Order 13526, Sec. 1.7. Classification Prohibitions and Limitations

There were many documents released by WikiLeaks that were clearly not classified for reasons of national security. In fact, when asked about the leaks in November 2010, U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said, “Is this embarrassing? Yes. Is this awkward? Yes. Consequences for U.S. foreign policy? I think fairly modest.”

In the United States, the release of classified information is not, in general, illegal. A ‘patchwork’ of different laws criminalize disclosing certain types of classified information, and then only under certain circumstances.

PFC Bradley Manning faces a military court martial under the rules of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, primarily Articles 92 and 104. Article 92 generally covers any “failure to obey order or regulation”, and Article 134—generally known as the “catch all” article—criminalizes everything that would “prejudice good order and discipline… or was of a nature to bring discredit upon the armed forces.”

However, had Bradley Manning performed his job by continuing to hide information which could constitute evidence of human rights violations, he would have then been engaged in illegal activity according to international law (which the United States helped create after WWII). Nuremberg Principle IV states: “The fact that a person acted pursuant to order of his Government or of a superior does not relieve him from responsibility under international law provided a moral choice was in fact possible to him.”


Should one person be able to make the decision on what is classified and what is publicly released?

Which documents are classified, and which that are not, rests on the judgment of individuals most of the time. Thousands of U.S. government workers possess the power to classify documents at the “classified” and “secret” levels, the highest levels of secrecy of the documents released by WikiLeaks. Seventy-six million classification decisions were made in 2010 alone, eight times as many as in 2001. Additionally, The Information Security Oversight Office conducted a survey in 2009 in which they estimated that approximately 35% of documents which had been classified that year did not meet classification requirements.

The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) allows citizens to request declassification of documents that no longer must be kept classified. However, because of the large number of requests relative to the staff and resources available for reviewing the classification statuses of documents, this process can take years.

Upon enlisting in the armed forces, Bradley Manning took the following oath: “I, Bradley Manning, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same….”

This oath assumes that individual service people will act on their conscience to defend the U.S. Constitution, which holds government transparency and democracy as core principles.

In instances where there was a reasonable belief that crimes were committed and covered up, service members have an obligation to come forward with that information—regardless of conflicting rules and regulations. The “Collateral Murder” video is only one such example of evidence being hidden from view by classification for no legitimate reason. Yet Bradley Manning faces decades in prison for releasing that video alone!


Did Bradley Manning endanger lives?

To date, the government has made no allegation that any U.S. soldier, citizen, ally, or informant has been physically injured as a result of the revelations.

Many facts that the leaks brought to light about U.S military actions in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Yemen, for example, were already well known by citizens of those countries, experiencing the reality at their doorstep. The leaks served to inform the American people of aspects of the U.S. governments’ actions abroad that are not frequently covered by domestic mainstream news outlet (for example, the number of civilian casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the fact that there is an official military policy to ignore torture in Iraq).

The Iraq War Logs and the Afghan War Diary were comprised of years-old field reports written by combat troops in the midst of battle. Names of local persons are spelled phonetically in these reports, usually with general descriptions of region or cities. The majority of these names were redacted by WikiLeaks prior to release. The U.S. State Department has declared that of the non-redacted names, there was not enough identifying information released on any individual to justify taking preventive action.

Meanwhile, scores of U.S. and foreign citizens continue to die on a daily basis in these occupation zones due not to Bradley Manning, but due to the controversial policies that he exposed.


Did the documents reveal anything new or important?

While some of the revelations in the documents were previously suspected by academics or human rights advocates carefully studying these topics, the documents uncovered many details that were previously unknown. The documents give American citizens greater insight into the reasoning behind U.S. foreign policies than they have ever been privy to before. It is one thing to suspect something is occurring, but is another thing to have it confirmed by primary sources in the government.

At the end of April 2011, The Atlantic Wire published a study in which they found that for the first four months of 2011, nearly one-half of New York Times editions cited one or more of the leaked cables in their news stories. Many facts brought forth in the documents are of great significance to those working in the fields of foreign policy and human rights advocacy.

The leaked documents include information about the following:
1. There is an official policy to ignore torture in Iraq.
2. There is an official tally of civilian deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan.
3. Guantanamo prison has held mostly innocent people and low-level operatives.
4. The State Department authorized the theft of the UN Secretary General’s DNA.
5. The U.S. Government withheld information about the indiscriminate killing of Reuters journalists and
innocent Iraqi civilians.
6. The State Department backed corporate opposition to a Haitian minimum wage law.
7. The U.S. Government had long been faking its public support for Tunisian President Ben Ali.
8. U.S. officials were told to cover up evidence of child abuse by contractors in Afghanistan.
9. The Japanese and U.S. Governments had been warned about the seismic threat at Fukushima.
10. The Obama Administration allowed Yemen’s President to cover up a secret U.S. drone bombing
campaign.
11. Known Egyptian torturers received training from the FBI in Quantico, Virginia.

Please download our factsheet to learn more.


Did Bradley Manning leak documents “indiscriminately”?

PFC Bradley Manning held a Top Secret clearance while working as an army intelligence analyst in Iraq. Yet the vast majority of documents he is accused of leaking consisted of low-level classified documents—about half of the documents were even “unclassified”. Of those that were classified, most were simply “Confidential.” About 11,000 documents were “Secret.” None of the released documents were “Top Secret,” the highest classification. Bradley Manning clearly had access to a much larger number of documents than what was leaked.

President Obama encouraged the perception that Bradley Manning leaked documents indiscriminately when he declared in April, 2011 that Bradley Manning “dumped” information. He then went on to mistakenly declare that now widely-respected Pentagon Papers whistle-blower Daniel Ellsberg was “different” than Bradley Manning because Ellsberg didn’t release information that was classified in the same way. The fact is that Ellsberg released “Top Secret” information when he gave information to The New York Times, while Manning is only accused of releasing lower-level classified information. Daniel Ellsberg has also stated in interviews that alongside critical revelations the Pentagon Papers contained thousands of pages of information of little to no public significance. Like many other whistle-blowers, Ellsberg had to trust media organizations to do some of the sorting of an immense amount of data.

In the chat logs between Adrian Lamo and Bradley Manning, Manning allegedly describes the documents he was later accused of leaking, along with some reasons why he felt they needed to be public:

Bradley Manning: hypothetical question: if you had free reign over classified networks for long periods of time… say, 8-9 months… and you saw incredible things, awful things… things that belonged in the public domain, and not on some server stored in a dark room in Washington DC… what would you do?
Bradley Manning: or Guantanamo, Bagram, Bucca, Taji, VBC for that matter…
Bradley Manning: things that would have an impact on 6.7 billion people
Bradley Manning: say… a database of half a million events during the iraq war… from 2004 to 2009… with reports, date time groups, lat-lon locations, casualty figures… ? or 260,000 state department cables from embassies and consulates all over the world, explaining how the first world exploits the third, in detail, from an internal perspective?

Adrian Lamo: What sort of content?
Bradley Manning: uhm… crazy, almost criminal political backdealings… the non-PR-versions of world events and crises… uhm… all kinds of stuff like everything from the buildup to the Iraq War during Powell, to what the actual content of “aid packages” is: for instance, PR that the US is sending aid to pakistan includes funding for water/food/clothing… that much is true, it includes that, but the other 85% of it is for F-16 fighters and munitions to aid in the Afghanistan effort, so the US can call in Pakistanis to do aerial bombing instead of americans potentially killing civilians and creating a PR crisis
Bradley Manning: theres so much… it affects everybody on earth… everywhere there’s a US post… there’s a diplomatic scandal that will be revealed… Iceland, the Vatican, Spain, Brazil, Madascar, if its a country, and its recognized by the US as a country, its got dirt on it

Adrian Lamo: what kind of scandal?
Bradley Manning: hundreds of them
Adrian Lamo: like what? I’m genuinely curious about details.

Bradley Manning: uhmm… the Holy See and its position on the Vatican sex scandals
Adrian Lamo: play it by ear
Bradley Manning: the broiling one in Germany
Bradley Manning: im sorry, there’s so many… its impossible for any one human to read all quarter-million… and not feel overwhelmed… and possibly desensitized

Bradley Manning: Apache Weapons Team video of 12 JUL 07 airstrike on Reuters Journos… some sketchy but fairly normal street-folk… and civilians
…
Bradley Manning: at first glance… it was just a bunch of guys getting shot up by a helicopter… no big deal… about two dozen more where that came from right… but something struck me as odd with the van thing… and also the fact it was being stored in a JAG officer’s directory… so i looked into it… eventually tracked down the date, and then the exact GPS co-ord… and i was like… ok, so thats what happened… cool… then i went to the regular internet… and it was still on my mind… so i typed into goog… the date, and the location… and then i see this http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/13/world/middleeast/13iraq.html

Adrian Lamo: what do you consider the highlights?
Bradley Manning: The Gharani airstrike videos and full report, Iraq war event log, the “Gitmo Papers”, and State Department cable database


Should Bradley have gone through the chain of command in his attempt to report misconduct?

In the chat logs, Bradley Manning references an instance in which he had previously tried to alert his commanding officer about a war crime, and was reportedly told to “shut his mouth.”

Bradley Manning: i think the thing that got me the most… that made me rethink the world more than anything
Bradley Manning: was watching 15 detainees taken by the Iraqi Federal Police… for printing “anti-Iraqi literature”… the iraqi federal police wouldn’t cooperate with US forces, so i was instructed to investigate the matter, find out who the “bad guys” were, and how significant this was for the FPs… it turned out, they had printed a scholarly critique against PM Maliki… i had an interpreter read it for me… and when i found out that it was a benign political critique titled “Where did the money go?” and following the corruption trail within the PM’s cabinet… i immediately took that information and *ran* to the officer to explain what was going on… he didn’t want to hear any of it… he told me to shut up and explain how we could assist the FPs in finding *MORE* detainees…
everything started slipping after that… i saw things differently
Bradley Manning: i had always questioned the things worked, and investigated to find the truth… but that was a point where i was a *part* of something… i was actively involved in something that i was completely against…

Having tried to utilize the proper chain of command already, PFC Manning would have had compelling reason to believe that similar efforts would have been equally unsuccessful. Because the controversial policies PFC Manning is accused of revealing were made at various levels within the military and State Department, it would have been difficult, if not impossible to determine an appropriate level of authority that could have presided objectively over the information.


Did PFC Bradley Manning leak the documents because he was angry at the military about the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy?

PFC Bradley Manning seems to attribute his growing interest in politics to his experience as a gay man living under the Army’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” (DADT) policy. Most people, of course, begin looking at larger issues from their own personal perspective. However, no one has presented any evidence that indicates that PFC Manning was motivated by vengeance about DADT.

The chat logs PFC Manning mentions serving alongside many other gay service people. For example, he allegedly told Adrian Lamo:

Bradley Manning: DADT isnt really enforced
Bradley Manning: top interrogator here has a civil union in NJ

In conversations with gay activist Zinnia Jones, Bradley Manning is alleged to have expressed a desire that the military become a more welcoming place for all sorts of minorities to serve their country:

Bradley Manning: i actually believe what the army tries to make itself out to be: a diverse place full of people defending the country… male, female, black, white, gay, straight, christian, jewish, asian, old or young, it doesnt matter to me; we all wear the same green uniform… but its still a male-dominated, christian-right, oppressive organization, with a few hidden jems of diversity

In the Lamo-Manning chat logs, Bradley Manning allegedly discusses reasons for his changing views on U.S. foreign policies that are completely unrelated to his sexuality. For example, one pivotal experience for him was described above, a situation in which he was being asked to help arrest Iraqis making innocent critiques of corruption in their government.


Should Bradley Manning be punished, even if it was morally correct to release the information?

While Bradley Manning appears from the chat logs to have been aware of the risk of being imprisoned for life for his actions, that doesn’t mean that he should spend life in prison for doing the right thing. Due to a popular movement against the Vietnam War and misconduct by the presiding administration, Daniel Ellsberg never spent a day in jail for leaking the Pentagon Papers. Bradley Manning, on the other hand, has been imprisoned since May 2010, and for the first ten months he was subjected to extreme and torturous conditions which were declared unconstitutional by 300 top U.S. legal scholars. Although he has yet to be tried, Bradley Manning has already been subjected to substantial punishment for an alleged act of “civil disobedience” This is why we have no qualms about demanding Bradley Manning’s freedom.


PFC Bradley Manning’s alleged actions make America stronger.

Bradley Manning’s alleged actions place him firmly alongside Daniel Ellsberg and other prominent American whistle-blowers, which is to say Bradley is an American hero who stands accused of making our government officials more accountable to the public whom they serve. In these trying times, Americans would do well to remember the intentions of our forefathers. As founding father Patrick Henry stated in 1775, “The liberties of a people never were, nor ever will be, secure, when the transactions of their rulers may be concealed from them.”

Bradley Manning Support Network | Contact Us!
All material on this website is released into the public domain unless otherwise indicated. Link and attribution appreciated.

By Matthew Schofield | McClatchy Newspapers


A U.S. diplomatic cable made public by WikiLeaks provides evidence that U.S. troops executed at least 10 Iraqi civilians, including a woman in her 70s and a 5-month-old infant, then called in an airstrike to destroy the evidence, during a controversial 2006 incident in the central Iraqi town of Ishaqi.

The unclassified cable, which was posted on WikiLeaks' website last week, contained questions from a United Nations investigator about the incident, which had angered local Iraqi officials, who demanded some kind of action from their government. U.S. officials denied at the time that anything inappropriate had occurred.

But Philip Alston, the U.N.'s special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, said in a communication to American officials dated 12 days after the March 15, 2006, incident that autopsies performed in the Iraqi city of Tikrit showed that all the dead had been handcuffed and shot in the head. Among the dead were four women and five children. The children were all 5 years old or younger.

Reached by email Wednesday, Alston said that as of 2010 — the most recent data he had — U.S. officials hadn't responded to his request for information and that Iraq's government also hadn't been forthcoming. He said the lack of response from the United States "was the case with most of the letters to the U.S. in the 2006-2007 period," when fighting in Iraq peaked.

Alston said he could provide no further information on the incident. "The tragedy," he said, "is that this elaborate system of communications is in place but the (U.N.) Human Rights Council does nothing to follow up when states ignore issues raised with them."

The Pentagon didn't respond to a request for comment. At the time, American military officials in Iraq said the accounts of townspeople who witnessed the events were highly unlikely to be true, and they later said the incident didn't warrant further investigation. Military officials also refused to reveal which units might have been involved in the incident.

Iraq was fast descending into chaos in early 2006. An explosion that ripped through the Golden Dome Mosque that February had set off an orgy of violence between rival Sunni and Shiite Muslims, and Sunni insurgents, many aligned with al Qaida in Iraq, controlled large tracts of the countryside.

Ishaqi, about 80 miles northwest of Baghdad, not far from Saddam Hussein's hometown, Tikrit, was considered so dangerous at the time that U.S. military officials had classified all roads in the area as "black," meaning they were likely to be booby-trapped with roadside bombs.

The Ishaqi incident was unusual because it was brought to the world's attention by the Joint Coordination Center in Tikrit, a regional security center set up with American military assistance and staffed by U.S.-trained Iraqi police officers.

The original incident report was signed by an Iraqi police colonel and made even more noteworthy because U.S.-trained Iraqi police, including Brig. Gen. Issa al Juboori, who led the coordination center, were willing to speak about the investigation on the record even though it was critical of American forces.

Throughout the early investigation, U.S. military spokesmen said that an al Qaida in Iraq suspect had been seized from a first-floor room after a fierce fight that had left the house he was hiding in a pile of rubble.

But the diplomatic cable provides a different sequence of events and lends credence to townspeople's claims that American forces destroyed the house after its residents had been shot.

Alston initially posed his questions to the U.S. Embassy in Geneva, which passed them to Washington in the cable.

According to Alston's version of events, American troops approached a house in Ishaqi, which Alston refers to as "Al-Iss Haqi," that belonged to Faiz Harrat Al-Majma'ee, whom Alston identified as a farmer. The U.S. troops were met with gunfire, Alston said, that lasted about 25 minutes.

After the firefight ended, Alston wrote, the "troops entered the house, handcuffed all residents and executed all of them. After the initial MNF intervention, a U.S. air raid ensued that destroyed the house." The initials refer to the official name of the military coalition, the Multi-National Force.

Alston said "Iraqi TV stations broadcast from the scene and showed bodies of the victims (i.e. five children and four women) in the morgue of Tikrit. Autopsies carries (sic) out at the Tikrit Hospital's morgue revealed that all corpses were shot in the head and handcuffed."

The cable makes no mention any of the alleged shooting suspects being found or arrested at or near the house.

The cable closely tracks what neighbors told reporters for Knight Ridder at the time. (McClatchy purchased Knight Ridder in spring 2006.) Those neighbors said the U.S. troops had approached the house at 2:30 a.m. and a firefight ensued. In addition to exchanging gunfire with someone in the house, the American troops were supported by helicopter gunships, which fired on the house.

The cable also backs the original report from the Joint Coordination Center, which said U.S. forces entered the house while it was still standing. That first report noted: "The American forces gathered the family members in one room and executed 11 persons, including five children, four women and two men. Then they bombed the house, burned three vehicles and killed their animals."

The report was signed by Col. Fadhil Muhammed Khalaf, who was described in the document as the assistant chief of the Joint Coordination Center.

The cable also backs up the claims of the doctor who performed the autopsies, who told Knight Ridder "that all the victims had bullet shots in the head and all bodies were handcuffed."

The cable notes that "at least 10 persons, namely Mr. Faiz Hratt Khalaf, (aged 28), his wife Sumay'ya Abdul Razzaq Khuther (aged 24), their three children Hawra'a (aged 5) Aisha (aged 3) and Husam (5 months old), Faiz's mother Ms. Turkiya Majeed Ali (aged 74), Faiz's sister (name unknown), Faiz's nieces Asma'a Yousif Ma'arouf (aged 5 years old), and Usama Yousif Ma'arouf (aged 3 years), and a visiting relative Ms. Iqtisad Hameed Mehdi (aged 23) were killed during the raid."

(Schofield, an editorial writer at The Kansas City Star, was Berlin bureau chief and was on temporary assignment in Iraq at the time of the Ishaqi incident.)

READ THE CABLE:

Cable: massacre of Iraqi family by U.S. troops in 2006

Read more: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2011/08/31/122789/wikileaks-iraqi-children-in-us.html#storylink=omni_popular#ixzz1XJr1RWxn

by Noam Chomsky
(This article first appeared in Nation of Change)

This is the 10th anniversary of the horrendous atrocities of Sept. 11, 2001, which, it is commonly held, changed the world.

The impact of the attacks is not in doubt. Just keeping to western and central Asia: Afghanistan is barely surviving, Iraq has been devastated and Pakistan is edging closer to a disaster that could be catastrophic.

On May 1, 2011, the presumed mastermind of the crime, Osama bin Laden, was assassinated in Pakistan. The most immediate significant consequences have also occurred in Pakistan. There has been much discussion of Washington’s anger that Pakistan didn’t turn over bin Laden. Less has been said about the fury among Pakistanis that the U.S. invaded their territory to carry out a political assassination. Anti-American fervor had already intensified in Pakistan, and these events have stoked it further.

One of the leading specialists on Pakistan, British military historian Anatol Lieven, wrote in The National Interest in February that the war in Afghanistan is “destabilizing and radicalizing Pakistan, risking a geopolitical catastrophe for the United States – and the world – which would dwarf anything that could possibly occur in Afghanistan.”

At every level of society, Lieven writes, Pakistanis overwhelmingly sympathize with the Afghan Taliban, not because they like them but because “the Taliban are seen as a legitimate force of resistance against an alien occupation of the country,” much as the Afghan mujahedeen were perceived when they resisted the Russian occupation in the 1980s.

These feelings are shared by Pakistan’s military leaders, who bitterly resent U.S. pressures to sacrifice themselves in Washington’s war against the Taliban. Further bitterness comes from the terror attacks (drone warfare) by the U.S. within Pakistan, the frequency of which was sharply accelerated by President Obama; and from U.S. demands that the Pakistani army carry Washington’s war into tribal areas of Pakistan that had been pretty much left on their own, even under British rule.

The military is the stable institution in Pakistan, holding the country together. U.S. actions might “provoke a mutiny of parts of the military,” Lieven writes, in which case “the Pakistani state would collapse very quickly indeed, with all the disasters that this would entail.”

The potential disasters are drastically heightened by Pakistan’s huge, rapidly growing nuclear weapons arsenal, and by the country’s substantial jihadi movement.


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Both of these are legacies of the Reagan administration. Reagan officials pretended they did not know that Zia ul-Haq, the most vicious of Pakistan’s military dictators and a Washington favorite, was developing nuclear weapons and carrying out a program of radical Islamization of Pakistan with Saudi funding.

The catastrophe lurking in the background is that these two legacies might combine, with fissile materials leaking into the hands of jihadis. Thus we might see nuclear weapons, most likely “dirty bombs,” exploding in London and New York.

Lieven summarizes: “U.S. and British soldiers are in effect dying in Afghanistan in order to make the world more dangerous for American and British peoples.”

Surely Washington understands that U.S. operations in what has been christened “Afpak” – Afghanistan-Pakistan – might destabilize and radicalize Pakistan.

The most significant WikiLeaks documents to have been released so far are the cables from U.S. Ambassador Anne Patterson in Islamabad, who supports U.S. actions in Afpak but warns that they “risk destabilizing the Pakistani state, alienating both the civilian government and military leadership, and provoking a broader governance crisis in Pakistan â(euro) .125.”

Patterson writes of the possibility that “someone working in (Pakistani government) facilities could gradually smuggle enough fissile material out to eventually make a weapon,” a danger enhanced by “the vulnerability of weapons in transit.”

A number of analysts have observed that bin Laden won some major successes in his war against the United States.

As Eric S. Margolis writes in The American Conservative in May, “(bin Laden) repeatedly asserted that the only way to drive the U.S. from the Muslim world and defeat its satraps was by drawing Americans into a series of small but expensive wars that would ultimately bankrupt them.”

That Washington seemed bent on fulfilling bin Laden’s wishes was evident immediately after the 9/11 attacks.

In his 2004 book “Imperial Hubris,” Michael Scheuer, a senior CIA analyst who had tracked Osama bin Laden since 1996, explains: “Bin Laden has been precise in telling America the reasons he is waging war on us. (He) is out to drastically alter U.S. and Western policies toward the Islamic world,” and largely achieved his goal.

He continues: “U.S. forces and policies are completing the radicalization of the Islamic world, something Osama bin Laden has been trying to do with substantial but incomplete success since the early 1990s. As a result, I think it is fair to conclude that the United States of America remains bin Laden’s only indispensable ally.” And arguably remains so, even after his death.

The succession of horrors across the past decade leads to the question: Was there an alternative to the West’s response to the 9/11 attacks?

The jihadi movement, much of it highly critical of bin Laden, could have been split and undermined after 9/11, if the “crime against humanity,” as the attacks were rightly called, had been approached as a crime, with an international operation to apprehend the suspects. That was recognized at the time, but no such idea was even considered in the rush to war. It is worth adding that bin Laden was condemned in much of the Arab world for his part in the attacks.

By the time of his death, bin Laden had long been a fading presence, and in the previous months was eclipsed by the Arab Spring. His significance in the Arab world is captured by the headline in a New York Times article by Middle East specialist Gilles Kepel: “Bin Laden Was Dead Already.”

That headline might have been dated far earlier, had the U.S. not mobilized the jihadi movement with retaliatory attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq.

Within the jihadi movement, bin Laden was doubtless a venerated symbol but apparently didn’t play much more of a role for al-Qaida, this “network of networks,” as analysts call it, which undertake mostly independent operations.

Even the most obvious and elementary facts about the decade lead to bleak reflections when we consider 9/11 and its consequences, and what they portend for the future.

© 2011 Noam ChomskyDistributed by The New York Times Syndicate.

http://salon.com/a/sBUMfAA

A lawsuit between two aviation companies concerning a couple hundred thousand dollars in unpaid expenses has inadvertently led to the publicizing of a great deal of information about the CIA's extraordinary rendition program. (The program involved the illegal transport of thousands of terrorism suspects to secret CIA prisons in foreign nations and then to countries where suspects could be tortured. It is basically "kidnapping" followed by "torture" but the CIA did it so no one went to jail for it.)

The records from this lawsuit between two sub-contractors involved in the renditions will eventually be taught in an undergrad history course titled "America: Where It All Went Wrong." Detainees were transported by the same companies that fly billionaires on private jets to their resort vacations. (The CIA doesn't have an air force, so they relied on massive government contractor DynCorp, which... just rented some private planes.)

CIA provided the flights with letters from a fictional State Department official (the State Department was almost certainly not involved in the rendition program) providing diplomatic cover.

We learn that one the planes used to transport a suspect (Abu Omar, captured in Italy and tortured in Egypt) was owned by the co-owner of the Boston Red Sox. The plane sported a Red Sox logo on the tail. I mean a Yankees plane might've been more poetically apt but either way it seems like such a pat symbol of America's behavior in the wretched first decade of the 21st century that I'd roll my eyes at it if it turned up in a piece of fiction. An executive's private plane, sporting the logo of a rich baseball team and carrying an Imam captured overseas by the CIA, touches down in Egypt, a nation led by an American-backed strongman, where the Imam is to be tortured. What preachy liberal hack dreamed up that one? (The executive also owns part of Liverpool FC, because we can't forget Great Britain's help in all this.)

Then the hedge funds took an interest in privatized torture:

DynCorp was purchased in 2003 by Computer Sciences Corp., another leading federal contractor, in a $940 million merger. Computer Sciences Corp. then took on a supervising role in the rendition flights through 2006, according to invoices and emails in the court files. CSC sold three DynCorp units in 2005 to Veritas Capital Fund, a private equity firm, for $850 million, but retained ownership of other parts of the old company. Veritas in turn sold the restructured DynCorp — now known as DynCorp International — for about $1 billion in 2010 to Cerebrus Capital Management, another private equity fund.

So at least a couple rich people got even richer off of our national shame. There's an upside to everything.

* Alex Pareene writes about politics for Salon. Email him at apareene[at]salon[dot]com and follow him on Twitter @pareene More: Alex Pareene

Video: Activists Rally in Support of Cynthia McKinney's Truth Tour for Libya

On August 25, 2011, a rally was held at the Historic Union Baptist Church in Baltimore, MD. The principal speaker was ex-Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney. See: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPVJMSZsXeA Speaking in support of her "Truth Tour to Libya" were activists from a wide coalition of organizations. They included: the Rev. Cortly CD Witherspoon, Sharon Black, Fred Mason, Dr. W. Randy Short, Nick Powell, and others. The activists are featured on this video. The event was sponsored by the "International Action Center" and a coalition of peace and justice groups. To learn more, go to: http://www.iacenter.org/ See excerpts from Ms. McKinney's remarks at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPVJMSZsXeA

(This video runs for 57 minutes and 40 seconds.)

Video by Bill Hughes

U.S. court allows torture lawsuit against Rumsfeld

REUTERS AUGUST 8, 2011 2:03 PM

WASHINGTON - Two American men can go ahead with a civil lawsuit against former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, a U.S. appeals court said on Monday, over allegations they were tortured in Iraq at the hands of the U.S. military.

Donald Vance and Nathan Ertel sued in federal court seeking damages from Rumsfeld and unnamed others over their roles in developing, authorizing and using harsh interrogation techniques in Iraq against them, thus violating their rights.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, based in Chicago, upheld a decision by a federal judge in Illinois to allow the lawsuit to proceed despite efforts by the former Bush and current Obama administration to get the case dismissed.

The two men worked for a private security company in Iraq in 2006 and said they became concerned the firm was engaging in illegal bribery or other corruption activities. They notified U.S. authorities and began co-operating with them.

In early 2006, they were taken into custody by U.S. military forces and eventually taken to Camp Cropper near Baghdad's airport. Vance and Ertel claimed they were subjected to harsh interrogations and physical and emotional abuse.

Months later they said they were unceremoniously dropped at the airport and never charged with a crime. They sued, seeking unspecified damages and saying their constitutional rights had been violated and U.S. officials knew they were innocent.

The appeals court ruled that while it may have been unusual for Rumsfeld to be personally responsible for the treatment of detainees, the two men had sufficiently argued that the decisions were made at the highest levels of government.

"We agree with the district court that the plaintiffs have alleged sufficient facts to show that Secretary Rumsfeld personally established the relevant policies that caused the alleged violations of their constitutional rights during detention," the court ruled in a split decision.

The three-judge panel voted 2-1 to affirm the lower court ruling. Judge Daniel Manion dissented, saying Congress has yet to decide whether courts should have a role in deciding whether such claims against the U.S. military can be pursued.

A spokesman for the U.S. Justice Department, which has been representing the former defense secretary, had no immediate comment. The Justice Department could appeal to the full appeals court or to the U.S. Supreme Court.

There have been other lawsuits against Rumsfeld and the U.S. government over allegations of abuse and torture overseas, but most involved foreigners, not U.S. citizens, so federal courts have typically dismissed those cases.

A district judge in Washington last week allowed a similar case to proceed involving an American translator who worked in Iraq with the U.S. military and who said he was later detained and subjected to harsh interrogation techniques and abuse.

© Copyright (c) Reuters


Read more: http://www.vancouversun.com/news/court+allows+torture+lawsuit+against+Rumsfeld/5223743/story.html#ixzz1UTwm2rQj

A project of Fix Congress First, the Tea Party Patriots, and Harvard Law School

Democracy in America is stalled.

From the Right and the Left, citizens are increasingly coming to recognize that our Republic does not work as our Framers intended. Reform of any kind is stalled by a status quo that profits from blocking change. No side in the political debate benefits from this inertia.

The Framers created a method for escaping from captured government—an Article V Constitutional Convention. If two-thirds of the states pass resolutions calling for a convention, then all sides will have the opportunity to argue for the changes they believe will restore our Republic. Any amendment proposed must then be ratified by three fourths of the states to become law.

On September 24th, people from across America and across the political spectrum will convene at Harvard University to discuss the advisability and feasibility of organizing towards a Constitutional Convention. The conference's lead organizers are both proponents and opponents of an Article V convention and we actively encourage the participation of those who support a convention and those who oppose holding a convention at all.

Lawrence Lessig and Mark Meckler will co-chair the conference. Lawrence Lessig is the director of the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard University and the Roy L. Furman Professor of Law at Harvard Law School. He co-founded Change Congress, which aims to reduce the influence of private money in American politics. For more, see "How to sober up Washington"—an essay by Lessig and Mark McKinnon on corruption in Washington, voters' disillusionment, and the need for an Article V convention. Mark Meckler is the Co-Founder and a National Coordinator for Tea Party Patriots (along with his Co-Founder and fellow National Coordinator, Jenny Beth Martin), the largest grassroots tea party organization in the nation with over 3,500 chapters spanning every state.

Conference on the Constitutional Convention · Harvard Law School, September 24–25, 2011 · info[at]conconcon[dot]org

The Question Before the House:
Where does a war-weary populace turn to advance its clear anti-war priorities?

by Kevin Berends

In little more than two years President Barack Obama has violated the U.S. Constitution by:

1) Ordering military attacks on sovereign nations without Congressional authorization.

2) Issuing Executive Orders for the extra-judicial assassination of U.S. citizens in violation of guarantees of due process.

3) Presiding over military, paramilitary and intelligence service use of torture in violation of prohibitions against cruel and unusual treatment.

4) Ordering and attempting to assassinate foreign heads of state.

5) Obstructing justice by failing or refusing to investigate credible allegations of torture brought against the previous administration.

President Obama is the current occupant of the throne to the imperial presidency. The first four items above apply to Mr. Obama himself, while the last applies to alleged crimes that occurred during the presidency of George W. Bush, with substantial supporting evidence, that Mr. Obama has neglected to prosecute.

Article I of the U.S. Constitution grants the House of Representatives the "sole power of impeachment" and Article II states: “The president, the vice president and all civil officers of the United States shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other High crimes and Misdemeanors.” As commendable as efforts by some Congress members' adherence to the principles of the Constitution are, the lawsuit led by Congressman Dennis Kucinich and ten members against the White House is ill advised and imposes an unnecessary layer of process on the already difficult task of holding presidents accountable that could be accomplished under Articles I and II. New mechanisms are not needed. Political courage is.

So far, the House has served up three helpings of Constitutional capitulations to President Barack Obama’s unilateral ordering the attack on Libya: Last month’s House resolution disapproving of the president’s action on Libya and calling for details on its mission; The June 13 high theater when the House again ‘rebuked’ the president with a feather duster; And the symbolic finger wagging of Kucinich and his supporters, showing displeasure for the president's overreach.

This last whiff by Congress is a twofer that misses the mark of legal standing in the courts while simultaneously invoking the flaccid War Powers Resolution. Why Congress members trumpet righteousness in the courts while kissing the president’s imperial ring is worth some thought.

Since December 8, 1941 Congress has declared war exactly once—against Germany—on December 11, four days after Pearl Harbor. All subsequent military actions undertaken by the U.S. since then have been illegal. Korea, Vietnam, Grenada, Panama, Iraq, Afghanistan, Iraq redux—just to name a few—were never legally authorized by Congress, the War Powers Resolution notwithstanding.

The War Powers Resolution is a veiled capitulation of Congress’ two most potent powers: to declare war and the power of the purse. Not one penny gets spent without Congressional approval. Not one war gets waged. Period.

Our current constellation of Congressional fly weights prefers to give the President—as Commander-In-Chief of a military that could mop the floor with any other country on earth in 60 days—an additional 30 days to lay that country to waste before it will file a frivolous court case. The rest of the House prefers using strong language against the president warning him about the next time. The War Powers Resolution is, was and will always be a coward’s alibi for why Congress signed the check.

Articles I and II provide all the power Congress needs to control a recalcitrant president without court intercession. Indeed, courts are reluctant to step into the gaping maw Congress vacates when it does not exercise its Constitutional prerogatives. On February 18, 2000 the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled in Tom CAMPBELL, Member, U.S. House of Representatives, et al., Appellants, v. William Jefferson CLINTON, President of the United States, Appellee, that:

"A number of congressmen, led by Tom Campbell of California, filed suit claiming that the President violated the War Powers Resolution and the War Powers Clause of the Constitution by directing U.S. forces' participation in the recent NATO campaign in Yugoslavia. The district court dismissed for lack of standing [emphasis added]. We agree with the district court and therefore affirm."

The courts are unimpressed when Congressional timidity towards rogue presidents plops the stinking turd of oversight at the court’s doorstep. The separation of powers grants Congress no such expedient.

So where does a war-weary populace turn to advance its clear anti-war priorities?

Common sense (or naiveté) might suggest the attorney general would be interested in upholding the law of the land. This may have seemed especially attractive after candidate Obama’s oft-repeated harsh criticism of Mr. Bush’s war policies during the 2008 presidential campaign and even bolstered when early in his presidency Mr. Obama ordered the closing of Guantanamo Bay. Coupled with Attorney General Eric Holder’s announcement in the still early days of the administration of August 2009 that the Department of Justice would revisit the interrogation of detainees to determine if any laws were broken and it is understandable that for Americans concerned about their country’s use of torture there appeared to be hope and change in the air.

That announcement, however, was revealing for the way it narrowed the scope of the inquiry to

"reexamine previous decisions to decline prosecution in several cases related to the interrogation of certain detainees....the information known to me warrants opening a preliminary review into whether federal laws were violated in connection with the interrogation of specific detainees at overseas locations. ...I want to emphasize that neither the opening of a preliminary review nor, if evidence warrants it, the commencement of a full investigation, means that charges will necessarily follow."
Implied is the possibility for full investigations, but investigations into what? They would be limited to the reexamination of previously dismissed cases.

That announcement from two years ago made no mention of investigating the so-called 'Torture Memos,' no looking into high crimes and misdemeanors ordered, designed and implemented by senior government officials i.e. President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and their staffs. There was not even the equivalent of a John Dean—someone very high in the administration but not the president or vice president—left to slowly twist in the wind. No. As with the military's handling of the Abu Ghraib torture allegations, Mr. Holder preferred to dine lower on the food chain—much lower—where he would be sure not to find John Yoo or Condoleezza Rice.

Indeed, on June 30 Holder announced that the matter of investigating charges of war crimes committed during the previous administration is over. Only two isolated cases have been selected to represent the sum total of the U.S. Department of Justice’s inquiry into international, serious allegations of criminal behavior related to detainee interrogations. Some media outlets saw this as a severe restriction of the investigation, while others saw it—as the Washington Post reported it—as a widening of the investigation by Mr. Holder announcing that two of the previously dismissed cases would be fully investigated. Thus the Bush administration reaches bloody hands into the future implicating President Obama and Mr. Holder.

To repeat: Where does a war-weary populace turn to advance its clear anti-war priorities?

Grounded arguments have been made that several high-ranking members of the George W. Bush administration—including the president and vice president—committed war crimes. The appellation is also leveled against former Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld and Director of Central Intelligence, George Tenant. Roberto Gonzalez took no action to investigate the allegations, not to mention his conflicts of interest from serving a president who was implicated in the allegations and Mr. Gonzalez’s own signing off on the ‘Torture Memos.’

By many credible accounts innocent civilians have been held without charges, tortured and even killed by their U.S. captors. The allegations come from no less an authority than General Barry McCaffrey who said during an MSNBC interview: "We tortured people unmercifully. We probably murdered dozens of them during the course of that, both the armed forces and the C.I.A." Corroborating General McCaffrey is the report filed by Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba, who oversaw the official investigation into detainee abuse at Abu Ghraib: "There is no longer any doubt as to whether the current administration has committed war crimes. The only question that remains to be answered is whether those who ordered the use of torture will be held to account."

President Obama has endorsed many of the same illegal practices that the Bush administration initiated. To wit: 1) torture is still being carried out in Guantanamo Bay, Bagram Airfield and other so-called black sites including at sea aboard U.S. vessels; 2) President Obama has ordered the summary execution of U.S. citizens; 3) President Obama has attacked without Congressional authorization upwards of 75 countries, including Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen.

A frivolous lawsuit lacking standing in the courts is not the solution here.

Mr. Holder's reserving judicial process for but low level personnel represents of itself an impeachable offense. That his Department of Justice has directed so much of its energy, attention and resources against federal whistleblowers strikes a blow at the heart of the democratic process by stifling information that is vital to an informed electorate. Such retaliation against whistleblowers de facto represents obstruction of justice.

There is no more compelling an example of this than in the instance of Pfc. Bradley Manning who allegedly exposed war crimes committed by U.S. personnel in Iraq. With ample evidence that war crimes were committed in the content of that video—irrespective of who leaked it—the government's reaction has been limited to the arrest of Manning, his being held in deplorable conditions that many reputable organizations and distinguished public servants have excoriated as constituting torture.

Still, Mr. Holder has yet to indict any of the personnel involved in the incident depicted in the video. Incredulously, neither Pfc. Manning's superiors—the Adjutant General who had buried the video in his desk drawer—nor any in the chain of command responsible for the events captured on the video were among the cases Mr. Holder will pursue. The Attorney General needs to execute his vested authority or be removed or resign.

Mr. Obama has fully adopted the Bush assault on the U.S. Constitution. Since Mr. Bush was never challenged on his alleged impeachable offenses, it defaults to the current bearer of the doctrine to face rightful, constitutional challenges to their legality. Articles of impeachment supersede all other business in the House. Their effect is immediate.

It is completely understandable that Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez would not be interested in pursuing guilty parties among his cohorts in the Bush administration. President Nixon held out to the bitter end and stonewalled investigations until Judge John Sirica ordered the release of the secret audiotapes Nixon had used to record the events of his presidency. The process that culminated with the Supreme Court upholding Sirica’s ruling did not start with a lawsuit brought in lieu of impeachment proceedings, it came as the result of the White House stonewalling lawful Congressional oversight via the House Judiciary Committee looking into allegations of crimes.

President Nixon’s crimes pale in comparison to those alleged against George W. Bush and President Obama. Messrs Obama and Holder’s refusal to investigate threatens the integrity of the Constitution and, if left unaddressed, is likely to become accepted precedent.

Both Mr. Obama and Mr. Holder insist that we need not look backward but forward. Crimes, however, are only prosecuted after they are committed. We cannot convict someone of a crime they have yet to commit. Therefore, we must look back at the heinous origins of the current catastrophes still unfolding in the greater Middle East. By refusing to look backward and bring all those guilty to justice we guarantee that looking forward there will be worse behavior carried out by tyrants in pinstripes. Appeasement, as so many American tyrants like to say, never works.

Short of full accountability for all U.S. war criminals, there is no going forward.

The Attack on Libya is Not Merely a No Fly Zone—But an Intervention Into Libya

By Kevin Zeese

It was hard for some peace activists to look at the planned attack by Col. Gadhafi on Libyan rebels and oppose the no fly zone approved by the U.N. Col. Gadhafi is a vicious leader who promised to make the streets run red with blood so this was an issue that divided the peace community.

Regardless of how you felt about the original no fly zone, how you feel about the Gadhafi regime or the armed rebels fighting it, we should all recognize that the United States, United Kingdom and France are going further than a no fly zone and are intervening in a civil war for their own reasons that have nothing to do with defending democracy or other humanitarian goals. Already we are seeing evidence of the broader mission beyond a no fly zone.

- While in Egypt this week Secretary Gates hinted that the war in Libya may be open-ended.

- There is confusion about the goals in Libya. Does it include removal of Gadhafi as President Obama and Secretary Clinton have said? Putting in place a democracy? Reaching those goals is beyond the UN mandate and will get the U.S. into another quagmire.

- While President Obama promised no troops on the ground in Libya, there are reports that there are already 2,000 marines on ships off of Libya.

- Special Forces are developing a role in Libya. Even before the UN resolution there were reports of U.S. “advisors” on the ground in Libya in early March and Special Forces fighting with rebels in late February, a month before the mandate.

- The U.S. is planning on sending National Guard troops to Libya. Is a longer war planned than has been admitted?

- It is becoming more evident that this is a foreign intervention into a civil war and we've had enough experience with that to know that it will not end well. And, there is strong evidence that if this is not already one, it will become a civil war because of foreign intervention.

- Due to the expansion of the attack beyond a no fly zone, which the Arab League originally called for, the Arab League now opposes the intervention because it is not a legitimate “no fly zone.” As the Arab League president said, “What is happening in Libya differs from the aim of imposing a no-fly zone, and what we want is the protection of civilians and not the bombardment of more civilians.”

- The “hidden agenda” of oil is rearing its ugly head again. Would the U.S. be in Libya if it produced asparagus? Why isn’t the U.S. opposing dictators in Bahrain, Yemen and Saudi Arabia? Now that the Libyan Air Force has been made unable to fight, what is the purpose of the ongoing bombardment?

- And, how many civilians will the U.S. kill to save civilians from being killed? Already there are reports of widespread civilian deaths as well as mistaken civilian deaths. Secretary Gates’ denial of civilian deaths are hard to believe when nearly 200 missiles have been launched into Libya.

The Libyan attack raises a persistent issue in U.S. foreign policy. The U.S. trained the Libyan military and provided them with weapons, including $15 million in arms sales in FY 2009 alone. Now the U.S. military is destroying that same military and the weapons the U.S. sold them. Should the U.S., the largest arms merchant in the world which sells nearly 70% of all weapons, be selling weapons to despots, dictators and royalists who do not have the support of their people? Doesn’t this ensure rebellions seeking democracy will be met with lethal force and the U.S. may need to intervene for “humanitarian” reasons? President Obama has produced record arms sales, in particular the largest arms sale in history to one country with $60 billion in sales to Saudi Arabia, another unpopular regime among its people.

Finally, the Constitutional issue of unilateral military attacks on countries that are not a threat to the United States was violated by the attack on Libya and needs to be faced up to. When he was running for office, candidate Obama correctly said: “The President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation.” James Madison, the father of the U.S. Constitution wrote in 1795 that Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution, which put the power to declare war and fund war in the hands of the legislature, was the most important clause of the constitution.

“The Constitution expressly and exclusively vests in the Legislature the power of declaring a state of war [and] the power of raising armies. A delegation of such powers [to the president] would have struck, not only at the fabric of our Constitution, but at the foundation of all well organized and well checked governments. The separation of the power of declaring war from that of conducting it, is wisely contrived to exclude the danger of its being declared for the sake of its being conducted.”

The founders had seen monarchs unilaterally declare war resulting in mass deaths and economic ruin. Indeed, the U.S. with an already fragile economy and stretched thin military faces those risks with the Libyan war. Already the U.S. has used more than 150 Tomahawk Cruise missiles against Libya, each one costing $1.5 million. On the first day the U.S. spent an estimated $100 million on the Libyan attack. And, people are estimating that the U.S. will spend $1 billion in Libya in a very short time. This will all be borrowed money and comes at a time when austerity measures are being put in place by state and federal governments cutting basic services.

Please call President Obama and give him your thoughts about Libya. Tell him to avoid mission creep and another military quagmire. The White House switchboard is 202-456-1414.

Kevin Zeese is co-founder of Voters For Peace and directs Come Home America which brings people from across the political spectrum to oppose war and empire.cal spectrum to oppose war and empire.

How WikiLeaks is democratizing journalism, redistributing power and increasing transparency

By Kevin Zeese

If there were ever a doubt about whether the editor-in-chief of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, is a journalist, recent events erase all those doubts and put him at the forefront of a movement to democratize journalism and empower people. [Read More]

The budget battle in Congress is getting ugly fast. Both the Republicans and Democrats are focused on cutting the deficit and both are cutting programs essential to the health and welfare of Americans. [Read More]

By Kevin Zeese

President Obama and the Congress have taken 66% of discretionary spending in the federal budget off the table – the Security Budget – while proposing a freeze to the rest of the budget and deep cuts to some programs that provide necessities for the American people. His budget crystalizes a choice that U.S. presidents have been making since President Eisenhower warned of the military-industrial complex – investment in the military vs. investment in the civilian economy. [Read More]

On Tuesday, February 15th Secretary of State Hillary Clinton gave a speech on the importance of Freedom of Speech in the Internet age. She focused her attention on foreign countries and chided them for curtailing the speech of their citizens. [Read More]