DOWNLOADS: (187)

PLAYS: (831)

Embed

From this Friday's Real Time with Bill Maher on HBO: Assange urges leak of US drone rules:

WIKILEAKS founder Julian Assange has urged US officials to leak secret documents on drone strikes, saying that the broad discretion to kill citizens shows a "collapse" in the American system.

Assange, who has angered US officials by releasing thousands of secret memos, used a rare US television appearance to condemn President Barack Obama's controversial green light to kill American citizens who conspire with al-Qaeda.

"I can't see a greater collapse when the executive can kill its own citizens arbitrarily, at will, in secret, without any of the decision-making becoming public," Assange told the HBO talk show Real Time with Bill Maher.

"That's why we need organisations like WikiLeaks. I encourage anyone in the White House who has access to those rules and procedures, work them on over to us. We'll keep you secret and reveal it to the public."

Assange spoke to host Bill Maher, a supporter of WikiLeaks, by video link from Ecuador's embassy in London, where he has been holed up since June to avoid extradition to Sweden. Britain has refused him safe passage to Ecuador. Read on...

Full transcript below the fold.

Continue reading »

DOWNLOADS: (292)

PLAYS: (1367)

Embed

Judith Miller thinks that whole debate over torture is so yesterday. I wonder what other crimes Judith Miller thinks should be excused because someone promised not to do them again? Given her history of playing stenographer for the Bush administration with their push to invade Iraq, I would imagine that list is quite long.

MILLER: Yes, this is a replay of the old arguments we were having earlier on, before the election of Obama about what we did, why we did it. I think a couple of commentators pointed out that the techniques that were used under Bush, President Bush were not the techniques that were in place by the time he left office. And so you do have, we've had an evolution of thought about how you handle terrorism, what's appropriate, what's not. It was kind of a shame to see this whole thing come up again because pretty much the issue's been solved.

Sorry Judy, but it's not been solved when no one's been held accountable for it. And the people making an issue of it today are the endless supplies of Bushies running to the airways to try to justify their tactics that failed to catch bin Laden.

Miller also goes on to say that talking about whether torture worked or not is "not the only standard by which we judge something like this." Well that's right Judy, but the standard should be whether we're following the law or not.

Alan Colmes spoke up and asked a good question which is why are we bragging about torturing anybody in the first place? What's pitiful is after the last ten years of continually being propagandized by our media, the politicians and the movie and television industry, so much of the public does think it's perfectly acceptable to torture someone and that it actually yields reliable information.

Jim Pinkerton throws out the treatment of Bradley Manning as proof that the Obama administration is continuing Bush's practices and I'm with Alan Colmes, torture is not acceptable no matter who's running the country and I'm not about to defend the way Manning has been treated in custody just as Colmes wasn't. I'm also not going to play this all sides are equal game either when you look at the long list of atrocities that were committed under the Bush administration and hold up Manning's case as somehow equal to that as Pinkerton did here. It's just not. And there's nothing Pinkerton could say that would make me believe he's actually got one iota of concern for Bradley Manning. He deserves a speedy trial and we need to find out the truth about how he's been treated in custody. If Pinkerton is concerned for his well being, he sure as hell has not been advocating for it on Fox.

What's disgusting is that the fact that no one was held accountable for what happened during the Bush years, so now we've got these guys back on television instead of on trial and our media still defending their actions and calling waterboarding "enhanced interrogation" instead of what it is, torture.

DOWNLOADS: (152)

PLAYS: (313)

Embed

The former State Department spokesman told the BBC earlier today that he has no regrets in voicing his disapproval over the handling of Bradley Manning, the man accused of leaking secret cables to WikiLeaks.

Mr Crowley told the HARDtalk programme that the treatment of Bradley Manning was undermining "a very legitimate" effort to prosecute him.

Pte Manning has been held in shackles in solitary confinement.

Mr Crowley left the department after calling his treatment "stupid".

"I thought the treatment of Bradley Manning was undermining what I considered to be a very legitimate prosecution of an individual who has profoundly affected US national security," Mr Crowley said in his first public remarks since stepping down on 13 March.

He said he had not anticipated his criticism of another arm of the US government - the military - would spark such a controversy, and said it was appropriate for him to step down because his remarks had put President Barack Obama in a "difficult position".

"Quite honestly I didn't necessarily think the controversy would go as far as it did but I don't regret saying what I said," Mr Crowley said.

Furthter background here in this earlier post, P.J. Crowley resigns from U.S. State Dept for telling the truth.

DOWNLOADS: (281)

PLAYS: (1084)

Embed

Via Ed Henry at CNN:

WASHINGTON (CNN) - P.J. Crowley abruptly resigned Sunday as State Department spokesman over controversial comments he made about the Bradley Manning case.

Sources close to the matter said the resignation, first reported by CNN, came under pressure from the White House, where officials were furious about his suggestion that the Obama administration is mistreating Manning, the Army private who is being held in solitary confinement in Quantico, Virginia, under suspicion that he leaked highly classified State Department cables to the website Wikileaks.

Speaking to a small group at MIT last week, Crowley was asked about allegations that Manning is being tortured and kicked up a firestorm by answering that what is being done to Manning by Defense Department officials "is ridiculous and counterproductive and stupid."

Crowley did add that "nonetheless, Bradley Manning is in the right place" because of his alleged crimes, according to a blog post by BBC reporter Philippa Thomas, who was present at Crowley's talk.

Glenn Greenwald of Salon.com gives his acerbic take on the situation. Greenwald has been an outspoken critic of U.S. policy on torture and rendition, a policy he regards as duplicitous and hypocritical. Sadly, the Manning affair only reinforces that notion.

On Friday, State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley denounced the conditions of Bradley Manning's detention as "ridiculous, counterproductive and stupid," forcing President Obama to address those comments in a Press Conference and defend the treatment of Manning. Today, CNN reports, Crowley has "abruptly resigned" under "pressure from White House officials because of controversial comments he made last week about the Bradley Manning case." In other words, he was forced to "resign" -- i.e., fired.

So, in Barack Obama's administration, it's perfectly acceptable to abuse an American citizen in detention who has been convicted of nothing by consigning him to 23-hour-a-day solitary confinement, barring him from exercising in his cell, punitively imposing "suicide watch" restrictions on him against the recommendations of brig psychiatrists, and subjecting him to prolonged, forced nudity designed to humiliate and degrade. But speaking out against that abuse is a firing offense. Good to know. As Matt Yglesias just put it: "Sad statement about America that P.J. Crowley is the one being forced to resign over Bradley Manning." And as David Frum added: "Crowley firing: one more demonstration of my rule: Republican pols fear their base, Dem pols despise it."

John Amato:

When PJ made his remarks I mistakenly thought the administration wanted to get the overkill treatment Manning has been receiving by the military out there as they obviously try to break him so they can link Assange directly to the leaked documents, which can be used so Assange can be prosecuted in America without the President having to use his bully pulpit against the military. Obviously that wasn't the case. .

DOWNLOADS: (597)

PLAYS: (903)

Embed

The man suspected of leaking US military secrets about the Afghanistan war to WikiLeaks may have committed the crimes because he felt abused by the military, a CNN investigation found Monday.

Private Bradley Manning is being held at Quantico Marine Base on charges that he leaked a video of Afghan civilians being killed at the hands of the US military. Manning is also considered a person of interest in the probe into the war logs leak.

CNN's Chris Lawrence looked into Manning's past to try to get some idea why the soldier might have leaked sensitive war documents.

At the age of 13, Manning moved to Wales where his friends say he was bullied but stood up for himself. Even as a young man, he loved computers. "He was doing hard coding as in programming," said James Kirkpatrick, one of Manning's prep school friends. "Hard coding, sort of the most complicated stuff at the ages of 14, 15. He was a very clever guy."

CNN tracked down a former lover going by the pseudonym "Tim" that Manning met at a gay bar in Washington, DC.

"I would say that it started out as a physical relationship that turned into a friendship," Tim told Lawrence.

Tim talked to Manning about the positive experience coming from being gay in the military. He explained to Manning about the discipline he had learned while in service.

"He was very hurt as a person. He felt verbally, emotionally abused because of his sexuality," he said. "I thought maybe the Army could do for him what it had done to me."

Manning joined the military and found a very different experience. "Manning was verbally abused right from boot camp," reported Lawrence.

Tim explained that Manning had gotten into another relationship after joining the military that made him realize that the "don't ask, don't tell" policy was wrong. "Through him, Brad was able to discover that it was wrong, the discrimination. And how 'Don't ask, Don't tell' for example sort of created an atmosphere in which that could happen because of silence, you're required silence."

Manning took a stand on his Facebook page. He supported the repeal of California's ban on same-sex marriage and ending the "Don't ask, Don't tell" law.

"In my opinion, I feel sexuality, his own sexuality and what has happened to him in the military coupled with the policy of the military played a significant role and the reason to why he did what he did," explained Tim.