(I have often seen public figures speak as though the Guantanamo prisoners are guilty, which is denies them the presumption of innocence, but similar remarks about the Manning detention would take such misbehavior to a whole new level. BTW, Al, I think you understate the truth: the Oklahoma City Bomber was certainly treated more humanely than Bradley Manning is being treated.
What we’re seeing here is something that has been growing for many decades: the use of term “war” to excuse illegal behavior. The War on Drugs excuses, among many other things, the oppressive RICO Act, under which private property is unreasonably seized by government authorities without due process, on the theory that the property committed the crime, and property has no claim on due process. The War on Terror excuses the murder of myriad civilians in the middle east, the theory that persons detained abroad (as in Guantanamo or the CIA’s black site facilities) have no right to due process, Bradley Manning’s pretrial punishment, and the physical abuse of Ray McGovern by Hillary Clinton’s security people, and the unreasonable search of all electronic communications by the Bush and Obama administrations, among many other things.
But the central truth about our fascination with war is much worse than any of that. In the U.S., evidently *any* kind of war — even the war between Republicans and Democrats — excuses the high moral crimes of bearing false witness, election frauds, etc for which there never seems to be any accountability. We cannot hope to find our way if we keep blinding each other and/or sabotaging our policy-making processes. The saying “In war, truth is the first casualty” is at least 2500 years old, but we Americans have found a clever way to exploit that insight in the Information Age: “To kill the truth, have a war.” If there isn’t any war handy, just claim that there is one, and that everybody knows it. There will be one soon enough.
If truth is our friend, then war is our enemy. And that’s a fact!
]]>Money will help this effort, but bringing attention to collateral murder every chance you can get, show it to everyone, will get what needs to be done.
Wikileaks is the only hope, Bradley Manning, a real patriot!
The talking heads/politician have all positioned themselves on this issue, we know who they are, use the information against them.
Show your grama the collateral murder, show your radical right friends!! They can;t deny the obvious! Tell them why Bradley is in prison instead of a Jay Leno talk show!
Bradley Manning is getting the treatment of the Oklahoma City bomber!
]]>I am boycotting the USA, their products and I will NEVER visit the USA again until there are some MAJOR changes.
Grow up.
]]>Michael Brauckmann, Husum, Germany
]]>And we surely have, too, a tremendous debt of gratitude to David House for standing on the front line here in the name of all us.
BLESS YOU BRAD, FROM CORNWALL and THANK YOU, DAVID – GODSPEED and MUCH LOVE xxxxxx
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