I would submit that all this gives a powerful indicator to those people who are wavering as to which of the parties might invite our trust in this situation.
The authorities have demonstrated over and over again in this case just how compromised their integrity is.
This has OUR name on it; we have to show them that there are too many of us for them to ignore: now is the time to BUILD SUPPORT like never before; this is OUR STORY, not just Brad’s and Julian’s; get the word out wherever you go; study to understand the issues; stand on the streets handing out leaflets; do mass emails; tell all your groups: work, clubs, churches etc and KEEP ON AT THEM – this is LIFE and DEATH; our civilisation’s life and death as well as the key protaganists’
DONT LET THEM GET AWAY WITH THIS – your voice counts whether you speak or stay silent
2011-03-03 21:51
Mark Dixon
It was my understanding that when a soldier is in the stockade or brig he is supposed to be in uniform. If he’s nude he’s out of uniform. Surely, that’s not the uniform of the day for prisoners in that brig. So they’re violating their own rules.
2011-03-03 21:58
CirceThemis
There’s no question of heroism in all this. It’s a matter of common decency. That’s an idea which may make some people smile, but the only means of fighting a plague is – common decency- Camus The Plague
You can write to the UN which apparently launched an investigation in December 2010. I found this precedent letter on the Internet. It’s well written.
Special Rapporteur on Torture
c/o Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights
United Nations Office at Geneva
CH-1211 Geneva 10, Switzerland
E-mail: urgent-action@ohchr.org
a. Full name of the victim:
Bradley E. Manning (born 17 December 1987), Private First Class (PFC), United States Army
b. Date on which the incident(s) of torture occurred (at least as to the month and year):
Ongoing from May, 2010.
The following is a summary of the conditions under which PFC Manning is being held, which in the opinion of experts and even International Law, constitute torture:
”Bradley Manning, the 22-year-old U.S. Army Private accused of leaking classified documents to WikiLeaks, has never been convicted of that crime, nor of any other crime. Despite that, he has been detained at the U.S. Marine brig in Quantico, Virginia for five months — and for two months before that in a military jail in Kuwait — under conditions that constitute cruel and inhumane treatment and, by the standards of many nations, even torture. Interviews with several people directly familiar with the conditions of Manning’s detention, ultimately including a Quantico brig official (Lt. Brian Villiard) who confirmed much of what they conveyed, establishes that the accused leaker is subjected to detention conditions likely to create long-term psychological injuries”
c. Place where the person was seized (city, province, etc.) And location at which the torture was carried out (if known):
* Camp Arifjan, a military jail in Kuwait
* U.S. Marine brig in Quantico, Virginia
”Manning was arrested by agents of the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Command in May 2010 and held in pre-trial confinement in a military jail at Camp Arifjan in Kuwait.”
d. Indication of the forces carrying out the torture:
The President of the United States, The Congress of The United States, The United States State Department, The United States Justice Department, The United States Department of Defense, The United States Army, The United States Navy, The United States Marine Corps. All of the above are responsible for this illegal activity.
Furthermore, the torture of PFC Manning is not an isolated incident, rather, it is part of a policy shift that has been documented in The United States over the course of at least two Administrations, those of George W. Bush and Barack Obama.
For example, The United States has been found by the United Nations Committee against Torture to be responsible for:
* the US opinion that the Geneva Convention does not apply to, and would undermine, its War on Terror
* the US attempt to sidestep provisions of the Convention by applying it only to US territory, rather than areas under US control
* the fact that detainees are not always registered, depriving them of safeguards against acts of torture
* allegations of secret detention facilities which are not accessible to the International Red Cross
* the US refusal to comment over the existence of such facilities, and the allegations of torture and cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment which have emanated from them
* the US involvement in enforced disappearances and its refusal to accept that this is a form of torture
* the rendition of subjects, without judicial procedure, to states where they face a real risk of torture
* the use of secret ‘diplomatic assurances’ to justify deporting detainees to country’s with poor human rights records
* the indefinite detention of prisoners without charge at Guantanamo Bay without legal safeguards or judicial assessment of justification
* the inadequate training provided to police and military personnel on the UN’s prohibition of torture
* the 2002 authorization of the use of interrogation techniques, such as water-boarding, shackling, sexual humiliation, and dogs, which have resulted in the deaths of some detainees
* the apparent impunity of police and military personnel accused of torture and not prosecuted
* the lenient sentences given to many people convicted of torture
* the proposal to withdraw the right of habeas corpus to Guantanamo detainees
* the difficulties that victims of abuse have faced in obtaining redress and compensation
* the apparent failure to ban evidence obtained under torture from being used at military commissions, and the limitations placed on the right of detainees to complain
* substantiated information which indicates that US sanctioned executions can be accompanied by severe pain and suffering
* numerous, reliable reports of sexual assault of detainees and sexual violence perpetrated by detainees on each other, to which ‘persons of differing sexual orientation’ are particularly vulnerable
* the humiliation of female prisoners and the shackling of female detainees during childbirth
* the large number of children sentenced to life imprisonment
* the extensive use of electro-shock devices which have caused several deaths
* the harsh regime imposed in ‘supermaximum’ security prisons, and prolonged isolation periods which may be used as a form of punishment
* reports of brutality and excessive force used by law enforcement officers and the numerous allegations of the ill-treatment of racial minorities, migrants and homosexuals which have not been properly investigated.
e. Description of the form of torture used and any injury suffered as a result;
* PFC Manning has been placed in a form of solitary confinement that is cruel and unusual. This is a term utilized within US Constitutional Law, and US citizens are supposed to enjoy protection against this form of treatment.
The US Supreme Court has had occasion to adjudicate on this issue. As long ago as 1890, the US Supreme Court wrote:
”A considerable number of prisoners fell, after even a short confinement, into a semifatuous condition, from which it was next to impossible to arouse them, and others became violently insane; others still, committed suicide; while those who stood the ordeal better were not generally reformed, and in most cases did not recover sufficient mental activity to be of any subsequent service to the community. (In re Medley, 1890)”
Please see:
The Psychological Effects of Solitary Confinement on Prisoners in Supermax Units
Reviewing What We Know and Recommending What Should Change
by Bruce A. Arrigo, The University of North Carolina at Charlotte, barrigo@email.uncc.edu
and Jennifer Leslie Bullock, The University of North Carolina at Charlotte
”Since his arrest in May, Manning has been a model detainee, without any episodes of violence or disciplinary problems. He nonetheless was declared from the start to be a ”Maximum Custody Detainee,” the highest and most repressive level of military detention, which then became the basis for the series of inhumane measures imposed on him.”
* Manning’s solitary confinement is known to cause permanent psychological and physical damage and is designed to inflict pain:
This is an excerpt from an interview with psychologist Dr. Atul Gawande on the effects of solitary confinement that can be considered as torture for their psychological and physically damaging effects:
”JUAN GONZALEZ: Well, Glenn, in January we interviewed Atul Gawande, a practicing surgeon in Boston and a staff writer at The New Yorker magazine. We asked him to talk about the effects of solitary confinement on prisoners.
DR. ATUL GAWANDE: The science of what happens to people deprived of social contact, is they have to fight for their sanity. And many lose their sanity. That reality, that we are social beings in our physiology, led me to ask the question, is solitary confinement, the way we’re practicing it now, torture? And you can’t read the cases—and I describe the cases of both hostages and people who are in prisons—and conclude that, number one, those experiences are different. They’re the same. Number two, you can’t conclude that it’s not torture.
What we have observed—and we’ve learned this from both hostages and from prisoners—is that you, first of all, you begin to lose the speed of thinking. You slow down to the point of needing sleep for hours a day and yet being tired. And then it advances to a point where you can dissociate, you begin losing touch with reality. One prisoner I spoke to, for example, after three months, you’re allowed to get a television, which he looked forward to as a chance for maybe a kind of social connection in the world. But by that point, he found the television was talking to him, asking him to kill people, and he had to stow it underneath his bunk just to be able to survive and live through this.”
* Manning's solitary confinement is designed to coerce "cooperation" with the Authorities:
Understanding the linkage between the US Government's intense interest in finding legal means to prosecute Wikileaks founder Julian Assange and the case of PFC Manning, it is possible to conclude that the torture of PFC Manning is being conducted in an effort to coerce him to testify against Assange.
This is from an article in the New York Times of 15 December 2010 by Charlie Savage:
U.S. Tries to Build Case for Conspiracy by WikiLeaks
"...Still, prosecutors would most likely need more than a chat transcript laying out such claims to implicate Mr. Assange, Professor Richman said. Even if prosecutors could prove that it was Private Manning writing the messages to Mr. Lamo, a court might deem the whole discussion as inadmissible hearsay evidence.
Prosecutors could overcome that hurdle if they obtain other evidence about any early contacts — especially if they could persuade Private Manning to testify against Mr. Assange. But two members of a support network set up to raise money for his legal defense, Jeff Paterson and David House, said Private Manning had declined to cooperate with investigators since his arrest in May. "
I have just brushed the surface of available material and easily found several references to the use of solitary confinement being a potential violation of International Law. Here are a few examples:
”the Convention Against Torture, defines torture as “any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted” for certain specified purposes, including punishment.”
and from the same source:
”The European Court of Human Rights has rejected several challenges to solitary confinement under Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which prohibits torture and inhuman or degrading treatment. However, while denying particular claims, it has stated that solitary confinement is sometimes prohibited depending on the circumstances. Relevant circumstances include the length of the solitary confinement (indefinite length is prohibited), the extremeness of the isolation (“complete sensory isolation, coupled with total social isolation” is categorically prohibited), the reasons for prisoner’s isolation, and whether the prisoner receives appropriate psychological monitoring and treatment. Likewise, the U.N. Human Rights Committee has stated that “prolonged solitary confinement” may violate Article 7 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which forbids torture and cruel, inhuman, or degrading punishment.”
I am an individual. My Name is…………………… My address is………………………
I will leave the rest of this form unfilled, as I am not in a position to do more than to refer you to more press reports.
I urge you to please take this matter up and pursue all available avenues to stop the continuing violations of International Law that are ongoing against PFC Manning.
At this point, I feel that the mechanisms of an international body such as yours are my only recourse.
Thank you for your consideration of this serious matter.
2011-03-03 22:26
Cole
Bradley Manning took a great risk to provide us with incontrovertible evidence that the American government has and continues to commit war crimes and crimes against humanity. He is now being humiliated and tortured by police state thugs whose wages and benefits are paid for by the taxpaying citizens of this country. We are responsible.
Unless we want to join the Good Germans who stood by during the rise of the Nazi terror apparatus in the 1930s, we will organize in such numbers that the government will be forced to treat Manning with the dignity and respect all human beings deserve. And we will celebrate the day that he is honored for serving his country with such bravery and distinction.
Cheney and Bush — they are the criminals, as the entire world knows. Even Obama, the fraud.
2011-03-04 00:38
Emlix
The Americans really are a bunch of utter lunatics. They are far, far worse, in every respect, from human rights to propagandizing, than the ”terrorists” and bogey men they claim to be protecting us from. I would rather have Bin Laden to dinner than any of these mendacious, scaremongering, concentration camp running, moronic sadists. I’m not frightened of ”The Terrorists”, because they don’t really exist. But Americans exist and I am frightened of them.
My duty as an American citizen, who cares deeply about our country and people, is to speak up for the sake of our country and its principles, which are for truth and justness and human decency.
My conscience is speaking on behalf of Private 1st Class Bradley E. Manning, a soldier being held in inhumane conditions in the United States Marine Corps Quantico Brig in Virgina. The reports of the conditions of his confinement are un-American. They resemble the conditions found in repressed countries using inhumane treatment, those same conditions that United States leaders are quick to call horrible and deplorable.
Our country needs the truth for its own betterment. Intelligence agencies which also consist of Wall Street lawyers and corporate heads, and whose influences steer towards manipulating the playing field to where their own best interests come first, have already wreaked havoc upon the state of our country.
We suffer the loss of our soldiers’ lives and health in wars where their enemies are the same fighters that our intelligence agency encouraged and funded years ago, being formed overseas to fight another country in an earlier era.
Just as Church and State do not mix well, neither does the Military and Wall Street Corporatism. And no matter how hard a higher echelon of ties, tries to hide those enmeshments, it still shows. We don’t have to look far to see the effects it has had.
Our country’s lifetime has gotten to the point where its health now needs the truth for its future well-being. Nothing else will be able to continue to replace that. See the facts for yourself. There are those of high level status who remain in denial, believing that they can ultimately manipulate situations into some sort of silver lining, while failing to realize that their own denial does our country no good.
Our country needs its people’s conscientiousness. It needs its people exposing the truth. Our country does not deserve to become known as the quick cover-up capital of the world. Nor does it deserve to be influenced into being another inhumane treatment facilitator either. For those ways and means to become a policy of our country’s officials, just shows the weakness of conscience, which falls by following the methods of repressed lesser countries, rather than leading the way through the strength of truth and fairness.
No human deserves inhumane treatment. And no one in our country who exposes the truth deserves inhumane treatment. And our military does not deserve inhumane treatment amongst one another.
Truth is not our country’s enemy. Falsehoods may consider the truth to be an enemy, but our country and its principles don’t. Our country’s principles need the truth. For without the truth, our country’s principles will cease to be.
All around the world there are humans being persecuted for exposing the truth. When there is a human in the Quantico Brig in Virginia being persecuted for exposing the truth, it just shows how well lies have taken hold. And our country and military and citizens don’t deserve that.
You Sir, are in a position to intervene and stop the unfair and inhumane treatment of Pvt. Manning, and righten that unconstitutional dire situation. You Sir, are in a position to show our country, and the rest of world, that the United States Military is not like the military of repressed lesser countries.
You Sir, are in a position to let our country and the world see, that you are on the side of truth and decency.
Please intervene to stop the unfair and inhumane treatment of Private 1st Class Bradley E. Manning.
Sincerely,
Sally Kline
(This letter will be sent to officials today.)
2011-03-04 05:15
Aki
I’ve just written (but not yet sent) a letter to Obama, please someone take a look if it’s good american english.
I’d also appreciate a list of further e-mail-addies as well as postal adresses that the letter would make sense to be sent to.
Thx
Aki
—————————
Achim Keiper
Journalist
PF 1708
D-77907 Germany
Dear Mr. Obama,
Me and many other people over here in Germany are deeply concerned about the circumstances in which accused ”whistleblower” Bradley Manning ist being held in custody.
Depriving a person of sleep, depriving a person of communication, depriving
a person of outdoors, making a person sleep without clothes below a
carpet-like tissue – we are seeing all this as a measure detrimental to the
call for human rights and proper treatment of humans, that you and your
government currently are sending to countries far away from the US.
The case of Bradley Manning is getting *very* much attention here in
Germany. He has been, and continues to be, on the front pages of daily
newspapers as well as the biggest weekly magazines. For a mass of people he
is becoming a touch-stone for how serious US-politicians are in putting into practice their intends for a non-violent treatment of prisoners of any kind.
Let me assure you that the positive view that many germans have about the US suffers a lot through the continuous flow of news about Brad Manning’s
treatment. I live on the french boarder, and I know that the same ist true
for a lot of people in our neighbouring-country, France.
Especially after the end of Guantanamo there was hope for a big change in
respect of a more respectful dealing with inmates of any kind.
Please put an end to Brad Manning’s current, physically and psychologically damaging treatment, so that the current picture of the US as a country which is speaking with two tongues, may be corrected.
Sincerely,
Achim Keiper
2011-03-04 05:53
Roman Visinski
Good Luck for You and your Freinds.
Human rights.we will work for it
Bradley Manning is being tortured inhumanely in his cell. He is a prisoner of conscience who like Xiaobo, deserves Nobel Prize for Peace.
What is Amnesty International doing in this case? In that respect what is the difference between USA and KSA?
Dr. S M Babulanam
2011-03-04 08:46
violetwhite
Aki -
I think your letter is good English; and makes a really good point.
’tissue’ maybe should be ‘material’
but the BIG thing you will (very very sadly) need to change is ‘after the end of Guatanamo’- because GUATANAMO HAS STILL NOT BEEN CLOSED – in fact a law has recently been passed (and signed by Barack Obama) which effectively prevents measures to shut it down; there are 173 inmates still trapped there -
‘Today is the 9th anniversary of the opening of Guantánamo Bay and marks two years since President Obama promised to close the prison and seek justice for its inmates. Yet instead of closing the prison, last Friday President Obama signed a bill blocking its closure and condemning its prisoners to indefinite detention without trial.
The 173 prisoners still trapped inside now have little hope of either trial or release after the US Congress inserted provisions into the bill that are explicitly designed to prevent even cleared prisoners from leaving.’
It is a great letter, though; send it! xxxxxxxxxxx
2011-03-04 10:55
Aki
Thanks for your correction on Guantanamo, I must have been into wishful-thinking in this.
Having read more about Guantanamo now and about how powerful right-whing lobbies in the US are able to act, I again can’t but ponder about wether the main problem for progressive forces is the two-party-system, that in my eyes is undemocratic (i.e. the choice between crap and crap). If you would have more parties in competition, moderate forces would be more powerful, I think;
I have started a facebook group called ”Give Bradley Manning the Nobel Peace Prize”. Please consider joining.
In some ways the title of the group is tongue in cheek, since there are so many people powerfully advocating for peace and taking courageous principled stands at great personal risk similar to the action Bradley Manning took.
Ultimately though, if Manning were to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, it would send such a powerful signal to the mindset that is carrying out these absurd wars and criminally killing and persecuting innocent people, the intention of the group is completely earnest.
No doubt this will lead to him being kept constantly naked and given OTHER Abu Ghraib ”treatments.”
Fascist pigs!
2011-03-04 18:01
BRENT RHEAULT
When an individual is taken into custody, he becomes a ward of the state and has an inalienable human right to expect the state to CARE for him since he has had his power to care for himself removed by that state. The state, for its part, has the obligation to, without delay, charge him and try him, fairly and openly, for all to see.
Bradley Manning is being abused severely by the state; this must end immediately. All fair-minded persons call upon the Government of the USA to end this abuse forthwith.
Try Mr. Bradley or release him. Until you do, stop torturing him.
For pity’s sake, what has become of america when mail such as this is called for? Do the right thing.
As a scientist I adore USA for the achievements in science, specially in Astronomy. But I recall the years 1930s when Germany was a paradigm in Science. Einstein also had that illusion at that time and he left his family for Germany.
All the symptoms of USA today is ill omen. Now it needs only a National Socialist Party and a leader like Hitler. Tea-party may grow but Sarah Palin is unfit to become Hitler. She can become God Mother of a US Hitler to come. He will utter the updated password ”biscuit” to set the updated ”little boy” and ”fatman” in action to take of us to Heaven all together.
every day intensifies
their wrath poured out on you
they strip you
in a 12 x 6
like kids
they fix their broken pride
by breaking you
care so much they concentrate their fate in you
hating you
as though their souls depend on it
they send you endless missives of their bile
revile and batter you
as though their blows could make you
take it back again
retract and swallow down again
your penny whistle witness to the hell in them
as if persistence could dispel in them
the demons you’ve disturbed in them
the darkness that was feasting on the heart of them
that ate the light in them
that you have torched into a blaze upon a hill
against the blackest of our deaths
and into which
you stepped yourself
and still they think that killing you
is all they really have to do
to vacuum up the secrets
freefalling
Filthy
from the shelf
violetwhite2011
2011-03-05 07:29
Susan King
I am so outraged at the continuing abusive nature of those under the banner of the US Government. This torture cannot continue, if Bradley Manning dies of hypothermia or his mental states deteriorates you the US Government and those who sanctioned it will go down in history worldwide as torturers . You will eventually be held accountable. This image will stick with you throughout your life and beyond.
the naked truth … (WikiLeaks suspect -Bradley Manning- made to sleep naked (by the US government/military))
~
As I worried, the US government wants to kill Bradley Manning as part of a new charge ”aiding the enemy” …
~
This thing about leaving you naked in a solitary cell is standard police b#llsh!t, the ”state security” police did to me in Villa Marista (Cuba), yet I worry about his mental health and safety after being under harassment by the US government/military for such a long time
~
While reading the headline of this piece of news a great idea crossed my mind …
~
WHY DON’T WE STAGE A -NAKED- MANIFESTATION IN SUPPORT OF BRADLEY MANNING AND HIS CORAGEOUS ACT DEFENDING THE TRUTH AND AGAINST ABUSES OF THE US GOVERNMENT/MILITARY!!!
~
picturethehomeless(.org) does similar things here in NYC. They sleep on the street in mass in front of the buildings of greedy landlords, who keep buildings empty for decades
~
As you know the US goverment not only plays master to their dogs, but they also mess with our access to the Internet …
~
Please, spread the word!
~
Satyagraha, and Peace and Love again, carajos!!
C
You suggest naked demostration in protest of the savage acts against Bradley Menning.
I recall a poem I remember that I learnt at the age of seven.
Once upon a time a man was bitten by a dog on his way home. He could reach home with a severe pain. He narrated to his family that he was bitten by a dog on his way home. His five years old daughter became very angry over the dog and said, ”Dad, why did you let the dog go away unhurt, had you not teeth too?”
The father laughed and said, ”The dog did what fits the dog. To bite back a dog does not fit a man.”
So, those who have imprisoned Bradely Manning are mad dogs.
Humanist scientist Stephen Hawking has fears that the primitive aggressive genes of Homo sapiens is incompetible with the technical development. The risk for self-destruction is much higher than that of celestial catastrophe.
Newton calculated Doom day in 2060. If the evil force of USA becomes fascist Demoncracy as Germany in 1930s, the fear of Stephen Hawking is alarming! The gene manipulated Homo sapiens behaving as mad dogs torturing Bradely Manning is the symptom of that great catastrophe ahead. If we can free Bradley Mannings and imprison those mad dog gene carrying creatures looking like Homo sapiens, then the Earth can be rescued.
So, a naked protest is like biting back a mad dog!
Bradely Manning is living Prometheus.
Dear Dr. S M Babulanam,
~
> You suggest naked demostration in protest of the savage acts against Bradley Menning.
~
Yes, I do!
~
> I recall a poem … ”The dog did what fits the dog. To bite back a dog does not fit a man.”
~
I liked that poem and it’s moral (besides I understand the ”don’t upset the dogs”
mindset), yet Manning’s action made me recall another poem written by Bertolt Brecht ”General, your tank is a powerful vehicle” (here is an excerpt):
~
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
~
General, your tank is a powerful vehicle.
It smashes down forests and crushes a hundred men.
But it has one defect:
It needs a driver.
General, your bomber is powerful.
It flies faster than a storm and carries more than an elephant.
But it has one defect:
It needs a mechanic.
General, man is very useful.
He can fly and he can kill.
But he has one defect:
He can think.
~
youtube.com/watch?v=cpBoq83WjPo
~
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
~
To the ”[S|]He can think”, I would explicitly and/or suggestively add in a poetic way ”[S|]He can feel”, ”[S|]He is human …” (I think Brecht has it in there and I do like to leave Goya-like (unfinished) touches in art, but sometimes you must dangle people’s own sh!t on their faces for them to be able to smell it (but well, it is not my poem ))
~
and another, counter-argumenting question would be, what are we going to do then?
~
> Hawking, Newton, …
~
OK, regardless of what all those big and honorable minds said, silly me thinks/says we should go out there and demonstrate against ”our rulers” (you call them ”dogs”), but ”dogs” actually are nice and friendly animals. They don’t murderously invade and occupy countries with ”their allies” in order ”to save democracy” …
~
I think they (the US government/military/police/) are just entertaining an illusion of security (an a moronic one at that). I am myself a technical person and I am not naive at all about police b#llsh!t
~ http://ipsoscustodes.wordpress.com/
~
but my technical smarts and sense of reality resist believing that the US government after spying pretty much on every molecule of the known universe, employing all their technical gears (which they apparently love due to their lack of brains), paying their extensive network of snitches and ”collaborators” (out of US tax payers pockets) and ”under ‘God’s’ leading guidance” have been basically looking for just one person for more than two decades!!! (or have they become more than one by now?)
~
Part of how desperately they need to guard their illusion is by their ongoing Nazi-like engagement, actually way more abusive that what Nazis did on a number of counts, at the very least Nazis didn’t ”spread democracy” to countries which could not defend themselves on an equal basis, acted and articulated their b#llsh!ting craze and ”philosophies” in the open and their killing rate (including people inhumanely killed in concentration camps) was a joke compared to what the US government/military (”our heroes” (as Prs. Obama calls them (I don’t get why people relate Obama to Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King? Heck, not even to the ideals his own mother stood for!))) has been doing in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, …
~
Maybe they are too busy, as they themselves say, listening to ”‘God’ blessing them”, ”protecting the ‘free’ world”, being ”the land of the ‘free’ and the ‘brave’”, … That to me is amazing and scary at the same time. How far can stupidity/abuse go? and it is not just a technical matter, but a very fundamentally moral one as well.
~
WHY SHOULD INNOCENT PEOPLE IN THOSE COUNTRIES PAY FOR THE US GOVERNMENT/MILITARY/POLICE BEING SUCH INEPT MORONS?
~
But, hey! ”Look at what happened in Frankfurt!!!” (as they say (not at WHAT -WE- DO!!!)) that is why US gov goes berserk about Julian Assange … Here in the states people what such things:
~ http://collateralmurder.com/
~
as if it is some media thing, not as something they are themselves (their own government is) doing it
~
Thank you very much and again, Satyagraha, and Peace and Love again, carajos!!
~
C
~
We at the Church I am a member of here in Harlem/NYC (http://stmarysharlem.wordpress.com/) are very socially oriented and are very much against the war … These are discusions that started from this thread, so I’ll keep it here in case I post some comments in reference to it
~
Sorry for getting a bit abusive, guys!
~
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
> I find the translation of the Brecht poem to leave me wondering if that’s really what he said.
~
About Brecht’s poem; I do speak German (I went to school in Germany (in fact eine Samlung of my German poems was published)) and I can tell you that that was a word-by-word literal translation of his poem
~
Deutsche Kriegsfibel aus den Svendborger Gedichten von Bertolt Brecht. Svendborg in Dänemark war von 1933 bis 1938 dessen erste längere Station im Exil. Auswahl und Einrichtung der Gedichte durch den Komponisten.
~
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
~
General, dein Tank ist ein starker Wagen.
Er bricht Wälder nieder. Er zermalmt hundert Menschen.
Aber er hat einen Fehler: Er braucht einen Fahrer.
General, dein Bombenflugzeug ist stark.
Es fliegt schneller als der Sturm und trägt mehr als ein Elefant.
Aber es hat einen Fehler: Es braucht einen Monteur.
General, der Mensch ist sehr brauchbar.
Er kann fliegen, er kann töten.
Aber er hat einen Fehler …
Er kann denken.
~
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
~
> It seems a bit simplistic to be sure and I would have to know more what’s behind Brecht’s intentions.
~
What’s behind Brecht’s intentions he himself explicitly wrote/expressed in his poem, no? Part of his ”intentions” definitely relates to his personal biographical life, as someone who didn’t seem to like a bit the militarism of his countrymen
~
About: ”Democracy may not be a perfect system of gov’t but it sure beats a lot of other forms of gov’t”.
~
All I would say right now is that after growing up in Castro/communist Cuba and living in the states for 15 years, I have grown thoroughly tired of ”philosophies” and ”politics”/politicians. And with ”politicians” I mean of all talks and walks including ”Obama”, ”Putin”, ”Chavez”, ”Sarkozy”…
~
It all boils down to ”quality of implementation” issues. What is the point of, say, having a ”free” media, when Bradly Manning is in prison, pretty much awaiting a death penalty or a life sentence for doing the job that ”journalists”/the media should be doing?!? ”Representative Democracy” to me more of another way of lying and entertaining illusions, fencing people’s minds … if people pay their taxes directly why ”democratically” electing a government to play with it as they please?
~
At the end of the day what matter are people!
~
> … the US gov’t does cross lines of ethical and moral decency in its quest to ”save the world from dictatorships and such”
~
Actually the US gov backs plenty of dictatorships and abuses when it serves their purpose. They, all of a sudden @@, realized Hosni Mubarak was a ruthless dictator (after supporting him/his regime for 3 decades ) and not long ago the Thai military brutally abused protesters, but the US gov backed them (always taking care of ”looking good” illusions) because they are ”allies” … and yes regarding Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, … I think it is about time the US gov starts talking sense to themselves, but they are not going to freely do it out of their good senses as the good fellows they are, people like Bradly Manning and the rest of us must throw their sh!t back on their faces and stand in their ways, for them to start making sense of themselves …
~
C
2011-03-06 20:48
ron norris
Much of this talk is foolish , some is very, very, good and helpful. Please take this issue seriously and do not lighten it with unwise words. This man is paying a heavy price eaCH SEC. MIN. HR. DAY, WEEK MO. 10 MONTHS. NOW Seek truth and speak truth words of truth change things.
Bradley Manning Support Network - All material on this website is released into the public domain unless otherwise indicated. Link and attribution appreciated. - Free Bradley Manning.
I would submit that all this gives a powerful indicator to those people who are wavering as to which of the parties might invite our trust in this situation.
The authorities have demonstrated over and over again in this case just how compromised their integrity is.
This has OUR name on it; we have to show them that there are too many of us for them to ignore: now is the time to BUILD SUPPORT like never before; this is OUR STORY, not just Brad’s and Julian’s; get the word out wherever you go; study to understand the issues; stand on the streets handing out leaflets; do mass emails; tell all your groups: work, clubs, churches etc and KEEP ON AT THEM – this is LIFE and DEATH; our civilisation’s life and death as well as the key protaganists’
Someone started this on Change -
PLEASE SIGN;
http://www.change.org/petitions/tell-the-us-government-we-dont-support-prosecution-or-the-death-penalty-for-pfc-bradley-manning#?opt_new=t&opt_fb=t
DONT LET THEM GET AWAY WITH THIS – your voice counts whether you speak or stay silent
It was my understanding that when a soldier is in the stockade or brig he is supposed to be in uniform. If he’s nude he’s out of uniform. Surely, that’s not the uniform of the day for prisoners in that brig. So they’re violating their own rules.
There’s no question of heroism in all this. It’s a matter of common decency. That’s an idea which may make some people smile, but the only means of fighting a plague is – common decency- Camus The Plague
You can write to the UN which apparently launched an investigation in December 2010. I found this precedent letter on the Internet. It’s well written.
Special Rapporteur on Torture
c/o Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights
United Nations Office at Geneva
CH-1211 Geneva 10, Switzerland
E-mail: urgent-action@ohchr.org
a. Full name of the victim:
Bradley E. Manning (born 17 December 1987), Private First Class (PFC), United States Army
b. Date on which the incident(s) of torture occurred (at least as to the month and year):
Ongoing from May, 2010.
The following is a summary of the conditions under which PFC Manning is being held, which in the opinion of experts and even International Law, constitute torture:
”Bradley Manning, the 22-year-old U.S. Army Private accused of leaking classified documents to WikiLeaks, has never been convicted of that crime, nor of any other crime. Despite that, he has been detained at the U.S. Marine brig in Quantico, Virginia for five months — and for two months before that in a military jail in Kuwait — under conditions that constitute cruel and inhumane treatment and, by the standards of many nations, even torture. Interviews with several people directly familiar with the conditions of Manning’s detention, ultimately including a Quantico brig official (Lt. Brian Villiard) who confirmed much of what they conveyed, establishes that the accused leaker is subjected to detention conditions likely to create long-term psychological injuries”
source: [http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/12/14/manning/]
Journalist Glenn Greenwald has investigated and published an extensive report on this issue. Please refer to this article in full for more details:
[http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/12/14/manning/]
c. Place where the person was seized (city, province, etc.) And location at which the torture was carried out (if known):
* Camp Arifjan, a military jail in Kuwait
* U.S. Marine brig in Quantico, Virginia
”Manning was arrested by agents of the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Command in May 2010 and held in pre-trial confinement in a military jail at Camp Arifjan in Kuwait.”
source: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bradley_Manning#Arrest_and_criminal_charges]
d. Indication of the forces carrying out the torture:
The President of the United States, The Congress of The United States, The United States State Department, The United States Justice Department, The United States Department of Defense, The United States Army, The United States Navy, The United States Marine Corps. All of the above are responsible for this illegal activity.
Furthermore, the torture of PFC Manning is not an isolated incident, rather, it is part of a policy shift that has been documented in The United States over the course of at least two Administrations, those of George W. Bush and Barack Obama.
For example, The United States has been found by the United Nations Committee against Torture to be responsible for:
* the US opinion that the Geneva Convention does not apply to, and would undermine, its War on Terror
* the US attempt to sidestep provisions of the Convention by applying it only to US territory, rather than areas under US control
* the fact that detainees are not always registered, depriving them of safeguards against acts of torture
* allegations of secret detention facilities which are not accessible to the International Red Cross
* the US refusal to comment over the existence of such facilities, and the allegations of torture and cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment which have emanated from them
* the US involvement in enforced disappearances and its refusal to accept that this is a form of torture
* the rendition of subjects, without judicial procedure, to states where they face a real risk of torture
* the use of secret ‘diplomatic assurances’ to justify deporting detainees to country’s with poor human rights records
* the indefinite detention of prisoners without charge at Guantanamo Bay without legal safeguards or judicial assessment of justification
* the inadequate training provided to police and military personnel on the UN’s prohibition of torture
* the 2002 authorization of the use of interrogation techniques, such as water-boarding, shackling, sexual humiliation, and dogs, which have resulted in the deaths of some detainees
* the apparent impunity of police and military personnel accused of torture and not prosecuted
* the lenient sentences given to many people convicted of torture
* the proposal to withdraw the right of habeas corpus to Guantanamo detainees
* the difficulties that victims of abuse have faced in obtaining redress and compensation
* the apparent failure to ban evidence obtained under torture from being used at military commissions, and the limitations placed on the right of detainees to complain
* substantiated information which indicates that US sanctioned executions can be accompanied by severe pain and suffering
* numerous, reliable reports of sexual assault of detainees and sexual violence perpetrated by detainees on each other, to which ‘persons of differing sexual orientation’ are particularly vulnerable
* the humiliation of female prisoners and the shackling of female detainees during childbirth
* the large number of children sentenced to life imprisonment
* the extensive use of electro-shock devices which have caused several deaths
* the harsh regime imposed in ‘supermaximum’ security prisons, and prolonged isolation periods which may be used as a form of punishment
* reports of brutality and excessive force used by law enforcement officers and the numerous allegations of the ill-treatment of racial minorities, migrants and homosexuals which have not been properly investigated.
source: [http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article721761.ece]
e. Description of the form of torture used and any injury suffered as a result;
* PFC Manning has been placed in a form of solitary confinement that is cruel and unusual. This is a term utilized within US Constitutional Law, and US citizens are supposed to enjoy protection against this form of treatment.
The US Supreme Court has had occasion to adjudicate on this issue. As long ago as 1890, the US Supreme Court wrote:
”A considerable number of prisoners fell, after even a short confinement, into a semifatuous condition, from which it was next to impossible to arouse them, and others became violently insane; others still, committed suicide; while those who stood the ordeal better were not generally reformed, and in most cases did not recover sufficient mental activity to be of any subsequent service to the community. (In re Medley, 1890)”
Please see:
The Psychological Effects of Solitary Confinement on Prisoners in Supermax Units
Reviewing What We Know and Recommending What Should Change
by Bruce A. Arrigo, The University of North Carolina at Charlotte, barrigo@email.uncc.edu
and Jennifer Leslie Bullock, The University of North Carolina at Charlotte
source: [http://ijo.sagepub.com/content/52/6/622.refs]
* Manning’s solitary confinement is punitive:
”Since his arrest in May, Manning has been a model detainee, without any episodes of violence or disciplinary problems. He nonetheless was declared from the start to be a ”Maximum Custody Detainee,” the highest and most repressive level of military detention, which then became the basis for the series of inhumane measures imposed on him.”
source: [http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/12/14/manning/]
* Manning’s solitary confinement is known to cause permanent psychological and physical damage and is designed to inflict pain:
This is an excerpt from an interview with psychologist Dr. Atul Gawande on the effects of solitary confinement that can be considered as torture for their psychological and physically damaging effects:
”JUAN GONZALEZ: Well, Glenn, in January we interviewed Atul Gawande, a practicing surgeon in Boston and a staff writer at The New Yorker magazine. We asked him to talk about the effects of solitary confinement on prisoners.
DR. ATUL GAWANDE: The science of what happens to people deprived of social contact, is they have to fight for their sanity. And many lose their sanity. That reality, that we are social beings in our physiology, led me to ask the question, is solitary confinement, the way we’re practicing it now, torture? And you can’t read the cases—and I describe the cases of both hostages and people who are in prisons—and conclude that, number one, those experiences are different. They’re the same. Number two, you can’t conclude that it’s not torture.
What we have observed—and we’ve learned this from both hostages and from prisoners—is that you, first of all, you begin to lose the speed of thinking. You slow down to the point of needing sleep for hours a day and yet being tired. And then it advances to a point where you can dissociate, you begin losing touch with reality. One prisoner I spoke to, for example, after three months, you’re allowed to get a television, which he looked forward to as a chance for maybe a kind of social connection in the world. But by that point, he found the television was talking to him, asking him to kill people, and he had to stow it underneath his bunk just to be able to survive and live through this.”
source: [http://www.democracynow.org/2010/12/16/alleged_wikileaks_whistleblower_bradley_manning_imprisoned]
[see also: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tu4xGI4CKLQ
* Manning's solitary confinement is designed to coerce "cooperation" with the Authorities:
Understanding the linkage between the US Government's intense interest in finding legal means to prosecute Wikileaks founder Julian Assange and the case of PFC Manning, it is possible to conclude that the torture of PFC Manning is being conducted in an effort to coerce him to testify against Assange.
This is from an article in the New York Times of 15 December 2010 by Charlie Savage:
U.S. Tries to Build Case for Conspiracy by WikiLeaks
"...Still, prosecutors would most likely need more than a chat transcript laying out such claims to implicate Mr. Assange, Professor Richman said. Even if prosecutors could prove that it was Private Manning writing the messages to Mr. Lamo, a court might deem the whole discussion as inadmissible hearsay evidence.
Prosecutors could overcome that hurdle if they obtain other evidence about any early contacts — especially if they could persuade Private Manning to testify against Mr. Assange. But two members of a support network set up to raise money for his legal defense, Jeff Paterson and David House, said Private Manning had declined to cooperate with investigators since his arrest in May. "
source: [http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/16/world/16wiki.html?_r=1&hp]
I have just brushed the surface of available material and easily found several references to the use of solitary confinement being a potential violation of International Law. Here are a few examples:
”the Convention Against Torture, defines torture as “any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted” for certain specified purposes, including punishment.”
and from the same source:
”The European Court of Human Rights has rejected several challenges to solitary confinement under Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which prohibits torture and inhuman or degrading treatment. However, while denying particular claims, it has stated that solitary confinement is sometimes prohibited depending on the circumstances. Relevant circumstances include the length of the solitary confinement (indefinite length is prohibited), the extremeness of the isolation (“complete sensory isolation, coupled with total social isolation” is categorically prohibited), the reasons for prisoner’s isolation, and whether the prisoner receives appropriate psychological monitoring and treatment. Likewise, the U.N. Human Rights Committee has stated that “prolonged solitary confinement” may violate Article 7 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which forbids torture and cruel, inhuman, or degrading punishment.”
source: [http://www.concurringopinions.com/archives/2009/04/solitary_confin_1.html]
I am an individual. My Name is…………………… My address is………………………
I will leave the rest of this form unfilled, as I am not in a position to do more than to refer you to more press reports.
I urge you to please take this matter up and pursue all available avenues to stop the continuing violations of International Law that are ongoing against PFC Manning.
At this point, I feel that the mechanisms of an international body such as yours are my only recourse.
Thank you for your consideration of this serious matter.
Bradley Manning took a great risk to provide us with incontrovertible evidence that the American government has and continues to commit war crimes and crimes against humanity. He is now being humiliated and tortured by police state thugs whose wages and benefits are paid for by the taxpaying citizens of this country. We are responsible.
Unless we want to join the Good Germans who stood by during the rise of the Nazi terror apparatus in the 1930s, we will organize in such numbers that the government will be forced to treat Manning with the dignity and respect all human beings deserve. And we will celebrate the day that he is honored for serving his country with such bravery and distinction.
Cheney and Bush — they are the criminals, as the entire world knows. Even Obama, the fraud.
The Americans really are a bunch of utter lunatics. They are far, far worse, in every respect, from human rights to propagandizing, than the ”terrorists” and bogey men they claim to be protecting us from. I would rather have Bin Laden to dinner than any of these mendacious, scaremongering, concentration camp running, moronic sadists. I’m not frightened of ”The Terrorists”, because they don’t really exist. But Americans exist and I am frightened of them.
Dear Sir,
My duty as an American citizen, who cares deeply about our country and people, is to speak up for the sake of our country and its principles, which are for truth and justness and human decency.
My conscience is speaking on behalf of Private 1st Class Bradley E. Manning, a soldier being held in inhumane conditions in the United States Marine Corps Quantico Brig in Virgina. The reports of the conditions of his confinement are un-American. They resemble the conditions found in repressed countries using inhumane treatment, those same conditions that United States leaders are quick to call horrible and deplorable.
Our country needs the truth for its own betterment. Intelligence agencies which also consist of Wall Street lawyers and corporate heads, and whose influences steer towards manipulating the playing field to where their own best interests come first, have already wreaked havoc upon the state of our country.
We suffer the loss of our soldiers’ lives and health in wars where their enemies are the same fighters that our intelligence agency encouraged and funded years ago, being formed overseas to fight another country in an earlier era.
Just as Church and State do not mix well, neither does the Military and Wall Street Corporatism. And no matter how hard a higher echelon of ties, tries to hide those enmeshments, it still shows. We don’t have to look far to see the effects it has had.
Our country’s lifetime has gotten to the point where its health now needs the truth for its future well-being. Nothing else will be able to continue to replace that. See the facts for yourself. There are those of high level status who remain in denial, believing that they can ultimately manipulate situations into some sort of silver lining, while failing to realize that their own denial does our country no good.
Our country needs its people’s conscientiousness. It needs its people exposing the truth. Our country does not deserve to become known as the quick cover-up capital of the world. Nor does it deserve to be influenced into being another inhumane treatment facilitator either. For those ways and means to become a policy of our country’s officials, just shows the weakness of conscience, which falls by following the methods of repressed lesser countries, rather than leading the way through the strength of truth and fairness.
No human deserves inhumane treatment. And no one in our country who exposes the truth deserves inhumane treatment. And our military does not deserve inhumane treatment amongst one another.
Truth is not our country’s enemy. Falsehoods may consider the truth to be an enemy, but our country and its principles don’t. Our country’s principles need the truth. For without the truth, our country’s principles will cease to be.
All around the world there are humans being persecuted for exposing the truth. When there is a human in the Quantico Brig in Virginia being persecuted for exposing the truth, it just shows how well lies have taken hold. And our country and military and citizens don’t deserve that.
You Sir, are in a position to intervene and stop the unfair and inhumane treatment of Pvt. Manning, and righten that unconstitutional dire situation. You Sir, are in a position to show our country, and the rest of world, that the United States Military is not like the military of repressed lesser countries.
You Sir, are in a position to let our country and the world see, that you are on the side of truth and decency.
Please intervene to stop the unfair and inhumane treatment of Private 1st Class Bradley E. Manning.
Sincerely,
Sally Kline
(This letter will be sent to officials today.)
I’ve just written (but not yet sent) a letter to Obama, please someone take a look if it’s good american english.
I’d also appreciate a list of further e-mail-addies as well as postal adresses that the letter would make sense to be sent to.
Thx
Aki
—————————
Achim Keiper
Journalist
PF 1708
D-77907 Germany
Dear Mr. Obama,
Me and many other people over here in Germany are deeply concerned about the circumstances in which accused ”whistleblower” Bradley Manning ist being held in custody.
Depriving a person of sleep, depriving a person of communication, depriving
a person of outdoors, making a person sleep without clothes below a
carpet-like tissue – we are seeing all this as a measure detrimental to the
call for human rights and proper treatment of humans, that you and your
government currently are sending to countries far away from the US.
The case of Bradley Manning is getting *very* much attention here in
Germany. He has been, and continues to be, on the front pages of daily
newspapers as well as the biggest weekly magazines. For a mass of people he
is becoming a touch-stone for how serious US-politicians are in putting into practice their intends for a non-violent treatment of prisoners of any kind.
Let me assure you that the positive view that many germans have about the US suffers a lot through the continuous flow of news about Brad Manning’s
treatment. I live on the french boarder, and I know that the same ist true
for a lot of people in our neighbouring-country, France.
Especially after the end of Guantanamo there was hope for a big change in
respect of a more respectful dealing with inmates of any kind.
Please put an end to Brad Manning’s current, physically and psychologically damaging treatment, so that the current picture of the US as a country which is speaking with two tongues, may be corrected.
Sincerely,
Achim Keiper
Good Luck for You and your Freinds.
Human rights.we will work for it
tank you
Roman Visinski
madmax
Letter to Amnesty International, Sweden
Bradley Manning is being tortured inhumanely in his cell. He is a prisoner of conscience who like Xiaobo, deserves Nobel Prize for Peace.
What is Amnesty International doing in this case? In that respect what is the difference between USA and KSA?
Dr. S M Babulanam
Aki -
I think your letter is good English; and makes a really good point.
’tissue’ maybe should be ‘material’
but the BIG thing you will (very very sadly) need to change is ‘after the end of Guatanamo’- because GUATANAMO HAS STILL NOT BEEN CLOSED – in fact a law has recently been passed (and signed by Barack Obama) which effectively prevents measures to shut it down; there are 173 inmates still trapped there -
REPRIEVE (http://www.reprieve.org.uk/)wrote on 11th Jan this year:
‘Today is the 9th anniversary of the opening of Guantánamo Bay and marks two years since President Obama promised to close the prison and seek justice for its inmates. Yet instead of closing the prison, last Friday President Obama signed a bill blocking its closure and condemning its prisoners to indefinite detention without trial.
The 173 prisoners still trapped inside now have little hope of either trial or release after the US Congress inserted provisions into the bill that are explicitly designed to prevent even cleared prisoners from leaving.’
It is a great letter, though; send it! xxxxxxxxxxx
Thanks for your correction on Guantanamo, I must have been into wishful-thinking in this.
Having read more about Guantanamo now and about how powerful right-whing lobbies in the US are able to act, I again can’t but ponder about wether the main problem for progressive forces is the two-party-system, that in my eyes is undemocratic (i.e. the choice between crap and crap). If you would have more parties in competition, moderate forces would be more powerful, I think;
I have started a facebook group called ”Give Bradley Manning the Nobel Peace Prize”. Please consider joining.
In some ways the title of the group is tongue in cheek, since there are so many people powerfully advocating for peace and taking courageous principled stands at great personal risk similar to the action Bradley Manning took.
Ultimately though, if Manning were to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, it would send such a powerful signal to the mindset that is carrying out these absurd wars and criminally killing and persecuting innocent people, the intention of the group is completely earnest.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.html?id=827203757#!/home.html?sk=group_200719129943208
They stripped him naked again last night.
http://www.armycourtmartialdefense.info/search/label/Manning%20Case
No doubt this will lead to him being kept constantly naked and given OTHER Abu Ghraib ”treatments.”
Fascist pigs!
When an individual is taken into custody, he becomes a ward of the state and has an inalienable human right to expect the state to CARE for him since he has had his power to care for himself removed by that state. The state, for its part, has the obligation to, without delay, charge him and try him, fairly and openly, for all to see.
Bradley Manning is being abused severely by the state; this must end immediately. All fair-minded persons call upon the Government of the USA to end this abuse forthwith.
Try Mr. Bradley or release him. Until you do, stop torturing him.
For pity’s sake, what has become of america when mail such as this is called for? Do the right thing.
Whither USA!
As a scientist I adore USA for the achievements in science, specially in Astronomy. But I recall the years 1930s when Germany was a paradigm in Science. Einstein also had that illusion at that time and he left his family for Germany.
All the symptoms of USA today is ill omen. Now it needs only a National Socialist Party and a leader like Hitler. Tea-party may grow but Sarah Palin is unfit to become Hitler. She can become God Mother of a US Hitler to come. He will utter the updated password ”biscuit” to set the updated ”little boy” and ”fatman” in action to take of us to Heaven all together.
Whither USA!
Dr. S M Babulanam
bengaliska@gmail.com
REVISION OF PREVIOUSLY POSTED POEM:
WITNESS
it costs you
every day intensifies
their wrath poured out on you
they strip you
in a 12 x 6
like kids
they fix their broken pride
by breaking you
care so much they concentrate their fate in you
hating you
as though their souls depend on it
they send you endless missives of their bile
revile and batter you
as though their blows could make you
take it back again
retract and swallow down again
your penny whistle witness to the hell in them
as if persistence could dispel in them
the demons you’ve disturbed in them
the darkness that was feasting on the heart of them
that ate the light in them
that you have torched into a blaze upon a hill
against the blackest of our deaths
and into which
you stepped yourself
and still they think that killing you
is all they really have to do
to vacuum up the secrets
freefalling
Filthy
from the shelf
violetwhite2011
I am so outraged at the continuing abusive nature of those under the banner of the US Government. This torture cannot continue, if Bradley Manning dies of hypothermia or his mental states deteriorates you the US Government and those who sanctioned it will go down in history worldwide as torturers . You will eventually be held accountable. This image will stick with you throughout your life and beyond.
the naked truth … (WikiLeaks suspect -Bradley Manning- made to sleep naked (by the US government/military))
~
As I worried, the US government wants to kill Bradley Manning as part of a new charge ”aiding the enemy” …
~
This thing about leaving you naked in a solitary cell is standard police b#llsh!t, the ”state security” police did to me in Villa Marista (Cuba), yet I worry about his mental health and safety after being under harassment by the US government/military for such a long time
~
While reading the headline of this piece of news a great idea crossed my mind …
~
WHY DON’T WE STAGE A -NAKED- MANIFESTATION IN SUPPORT OF BRADLEY MANNING AND HIS CORAGEOUS ACT DEFENDING THE TRUTH AND AGAINST ABUSES OF THE US GOVERNMENT/MILITARY!!!
~
picturethehomeless(.org) does similar things here in NYC. They sleep on the street in mass in front of the buildings of greedy landlords, who keep buildings empty for decades
~
As you know the US goverment not only plays master to their dogs, but they also mess with our access to the Internet …
~
Please, spread the word!
~
Satyagraha, and Peace and Love again, carajos!!
C
Ricardo Lopez,
You suggest naked demostration in protest of the savage acts against Bradley Menning.
I recall a poem I remember that I learnt at the age of seven.
Once upon a time a man was bitten by a dog on his way home. He could reach home with a severe pain. He narrated to his family that he was bitten by a dog on his way home. His five years old daughter became very angry over the dog and said, ”Dad, why did you let the dog go away unhurt, had you not teeth too?”
The father laughed and said, ”The dog did what fits the dog. To bite back a dog does not fit a man.”
So, those who have imprisoned Bradely Manning are mad dogs.
Humanist scientist Stephen Hawking has fears that the primitive aggressive genes of Homo sapiens is incompetible with the technical development. The risk for self-destruction is much higher than that of celestial catastrophe.
Newton calculated Doom day in 2060. If the evil force of USA becomes fascist Demoncracy as Germany in 1930s, the fear of Stephen Hawking is alarming! The gene manipulated Homo sapiens behaving as mad dogs torturing Bradely Manning is the symptom of that great catastrophe ahead. If we can free Bradley Mannings and imprison those mad dog gene carrying creatures looking like Homo sapiens, then the Earth can be rescued.
So, a naked protest is like biting back a mad dog!
Bradely Manning is living Prometheus.
bengaliska@gmail.com
Dear Dr. S M Babulanam,
~
> You suggest naked demostration in protest of the savage acts against Bradley Menning.
~
Yes, I do!
~
> I recall a poem … ”The dog did what fits the dog. To bite back a dog does not fit a man.”
~
I liked that poem and it’s moral (besides I understand the ”don’t upset the dogs”
mindset), yet Manning’s action made me recall another poem written by Bertolt Brecht ”General, your tank is a powerful vehicle” (here is an excerpt):
~
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
~
General, your tank is a powerful vehicle.
It smashes down forests and crushes a hundred men.
But it has one defect:
It needs a driver.
General, your bomber is powerful.
It flies faster than a storm and carries more than an elephant.
But it has one defect:
It needs a mechanic.
General, man is very useful.
))
He can fly and he can kill.
But he has one defect:
He can think.
~
youtube.com/watch?v=cpBoq83WjPo
~
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
~
To the ”[S|]He can think”, I would explicitly and/or suggestively add in a poetic way ”[S|]He can feel”, ”[S|]He is human …” (I think Brecht has it in there and I do like to leave Goya-like (unfinished) touches in art, but sometimes you must dangle people’s own sh!t on their faces for them to be able to smell it (but well, it is not my poem
~
and another, counter-argumenting question would be, what are we going to do then?
~
> Hawking, Newton, …
~
OK, regardless of what all those big and honorable minds said, silly me thinks/says we should go out there and demonstrate against ”our rulers” (you call them ”dogs”), but ”dogs” actually are nice and friendly animals. They don’t murderously invade and occupy countries with ”their allies” in order ”to save democracy” …
~
I think they (the US government/military/police/) are just entertaining an illusion of security (an a moronic one at that). I am myself a technical person and I am not naive at all about police b#llsh!t
~
http://ipsoscustodes.wordpress.com/
~
but my technical smarts and sense of reality resist believing that the US government after spying pretty much on every molecule of the known universe, employing all their technical gears (which they apparently love due to their lack of brains), paying their extensive network of snitches and ”collaborators” (out of US tax payers pockets) and ”under ‘God’s’ leading guidance” have been basically looking for just one person for more than two decades!!! (or have they become more than one by now?)
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Part of how desperately they need to guard their illusion is by their ongoing Nazi-like engagement, actually way more abusive that what Nazis did on a number of counts, at the very least Nazis didn’t ”spread democracy” to countries which could not defend themselves on an equal basis, acted and articulated their b#llsh!ting craze and ”philosophies” in the open and their killing rate (including people inhumanely killed in concentration camps) was a joke compared to what the US government/military (”our heroes” (as Prs. Obama calls them (I don’t get why people relate Obama to Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King? Heck, not even to the ideals his own mother stood for!))) has been doing in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, …
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Maybe they are too busy, as they themselves say, listening to ”‘God’ blessing them”, ”protecting the ‘free’ world”, being ”the land of the ‘free’ and the ‘brave’”, … That to me is amazing and scary at the same time. How far can stupidity/abuse go? and it is not just a technical matter, but a very fundamentally moral one as well.
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WHY SHOULD INNOCENT PEOPLE IN THOSE COUNTRIES PAY FOR THE US GOVERNMENT/MILITARY/POLICE BEING SUCH INEPT MORONS?
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But, hey! ”Look at what happened in Frankfurt!!!” (as they say (not at WHAT -WE- DO!!!)) that is why US gov goes berserk about Julian Assange … Here in the states people what such things:
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http://collateralmurder.com/
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as if it is some media thing, not as something they are themselves (their own government is) doing it
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Thank you very much and again, Satyagraha, and Peace and Love again, carajos!!
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C
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We at the Church I am a member of here in Harlem/NYC (http://stmarysharlem.wordpress.com/) are very socially oriented and are very much against the war … These are discusions that started from this thread, so I’ll keep it here in case I post some comments in reference to it
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Sorry for getting a bit abusive, guys!
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> I find the translation of the Brecht poem to leave me wondering if that’s really what he said.
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About Brecht’s poem; I do speak German (I went to school in Germany (in fact eine Samlung of my German poems was published)) and I can tell you that that was a word-by-word literal translation of his poem
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Deutsche Kriegsfibel aus den Svendborger Gedichten von Bertolt Brecht. Svendborg in Dänemark war von 1933 bis 1938 dessen erste längere Station im Exil. Auswahl und Einrichtung der Gedichte durch den Komponisten.
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General, dein Tank ist ein starker Wagen.
Er bricht Wälder nieder. Er zermalmt hundert Menschen.
Aber er hat einen Fehler: Er braucht einen Fahrer.
General, dein Bombenflugzeug ist stark.
Es fliegt schneller als der Sturm und trägt mehr als ein Elefant.
Aber es hat einen Fehler: Es braucht einen Monteur.
General, der Mensch ist sehr brauchbar.
Er kann fliegen, er kann töten.
Aber er hat einen Fehler …
Er kann denken.
Part of his ”intentions” definitely relates to his personal biographical life, as someone who didn’t seem to like a bit the militarism of his countrymen
) and not long ago the Thai military brutally abused protesters, but the US gov backed them (always taking care of ”looking good” illusions) because they are ”allies” … and yes regarding Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, … I think it is about time the US gov starts talking sense to themselves, but they are not going to freely do it out of their good senses as the good fellows they are, people like Bradly Manning and the rest of us must throw their sh!t back on their faces and stand in their ways, for them to start making sense of themselves …
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> It seems a bit simplistic to be sure and I would have to know more what’s behind Brecht’s intentions.
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What’s behind Brecht’s intentions he himself explicitly wrote/expressed in his poem, no?
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About: ”Democracy may not be a perfect system of gov’t but it sure beats a lot of other forms of gov’t”.
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All I would say right now is that after growing up in Castro/communist Cuba and living in the states for 15 years, I have grown thoroughly tired of ”philosophies” and ”politics”/politicians. And with ”politicians” I mean of all talks and walks including ”Obama”, ”Putin”, ”Chavez”, ”Sarkozy”…
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It all boils down to ”quality of implementation” issues. What is the point of, say, having a ”free” media, when Bradly Manning is in prison, pretty much awaiting a death penalty or a life sentence for doing the job that ”journalists”/the media should be doing?!? ”Representative Democracy” to me more of another way of lying and entertaining illusions, fencing people’s minds … if people pay their taxes directly why ”democratically” electing a government to play with it as they please?
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At the end of the day what matter are people!
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> … the US gov’t does cross lines of ethical and moral decency in its quest to ”save the world from dictatorships and such”
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Actually the US gov backs plenty of dictatorships and abuses when it serves their purpose. They, all of a sudden @@, realized Hosni Mubarak was a ruthless dictator (after supporting him/his regime for 3 decades
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C
Much of this talk is foolish , some is very, very, good and helpful. Please take this issue seriously and do not lighten it with unwise words. This man is paying a heavy price eaCH SEC. MIN. HR. DAY, WEEK MO. 10 MONTHS. NOW Seek truth and speak truth words of truth change things.