***When The Blues Is Dues- When A Girl Has Got To Have It- Bessie Smith’s Put A Little Sugar In My Bowl-The X-Rated Version (Well PG Anyway)

… she admitted it, had admitted to herself earlier that evening, she needed, no, she wanted a man, a good man, hell, an average man, that night. She was tired of turning herself on her stomach in bed, her lonesome bed, and manipulating her tongue- wetted fingers deep down between her thighs rapidly for some thrills (rapidly, unlike some women, according to her girl talk friends, was the best way that she could get her thrills, slow just got her frustrated and a vibrator seemed silly the one time she had used it). That afternoon she had done the finger routine, had rolled on her stomach one more time but found that it did not satisfy her, did not satisfy her need for a man inside her, for that friction, for that flood wetness that a man gave her, for his jimson all sticky and wet that got her going again sometimes.

After a streak of bad breaks , bad karma, and bad, almost evil men she had, what did Bessie Smith call it in that gin house, barrelhouse song, oh yah, she had her wanting habits on. No question. She, before she got her current job working as a pool secretary, had been a waitress, a cocktail waitress, in a joint where every guy, married, single, a fag or two even, thought he could hit on her, and the management had expected her to take the cue, which she did for a while until she felt that she was nothing but low-priced whore and left. She had gone out with a few guys, a few big tippers, that management had said would help her out of her financial woes but she felt strange asking for money, although they gave it, gave it out of hand. And funny, she felt worse, when they did not offer her money, or she had to ask twice. Maybe there was a little whore in her, a little in every woman maybe every woman without a man, a steady man. Hell one guy did call her a whore, called her a whore one night when she was having her “friend” and just wanted to give him some skull. Apparently his wife didn’t like to give him head and so he thought every woman who did was a whore. Jesus. That guy though she made him pay, pay plenty for that remark. And he didn’t say a peep when he passed her the dough. Guys.

So fortified with a few shots of home scotch, high shelf-stuff some long ago guy, some guy with dough and maybe his own wanting habits on had brought along to seal the deal when she was on an earlier prowl, she went out, hailed the nearest cab, and went up to the Kit Kat Club all by her lonesome. If the sight of a good-looking dame with alabaster white skin, blue eyes, blond, real blonde, well, blonde with brownish highlights as she told the girls at the water cooler at work when they noticed, as they would, her new “color,” long legs and bedroom-begging hips ready to play house didn’t wake up some good, hell again, average guy, she swore she would go into a nunnery, well, maybe not a nunnery but do something like that to cure her itch and get back at those bastards, those evil guys, who took her for a ride and then left her flat.

The point was to be a little subtle when she got there, since a single woman looking like she looked, all long legs slinky dress, and looking like she was on the prowl, at that club meant only one thing and she would not have to draw the right guy a diagram to know what that thing was, if he was a right guy. She got out of the cab, paid off the cab driver and added a good tip for good luck and entered the club. No stranger she to the wilds of the Kit Kat Club, but previously she had been somebody’s“exclusive” (that “exclusive” was a story unto itself and the last damn time she would be somebody’s hands-off mistress while he was sitting at home most nights with wifey and she with just her wetted fingers for comfort), and so was a little hesitant as she headed to the bar, sat down at a corner stool, opened up her purse and pulled out a cigarette just like in the movies. No bites. No guy coming up out of nowhere to light the damn thing and make some small talk. She stood up for a moment to arrange her drink to give the boys a good look. Still no bite. A guy, a good-looking guy, looked in her direction, looked like a taker but then along came his honey from the Ladies’ Room and that dream flickered out.

Then from behind her came a soft male voice, not feminine, but soft, like the guy was a little unsure of himself. She turned in his direction and saw a fairly good-looking guy, maybe a professor over at Columbia or something like that from his airy look. He had asked if he could buy her a drink, she automatically said no, her womanly first response no, and then on some kind of cosmic whim, said hell, this guy is maybe it tonight. As she said, “yes scotch and water please” she thought how it was funny that guys always thought it was only them that were sex hunger and wouldn’t this professor be surprised at that if he knew his chances of getting laid tonight were looking better than when he, single man, came into the notorious Kit Kat Club.

As it turned out this guy wasn’t a professor but another one of those dime- a- dozen writers from down in the Village who are always trying to find themselves, and glad to tell you about the voyage. Although this guy turned out to have a big knowledge of blues stuff, stuff that she was interested in, stuff that if things worked out she might be able to get out from under that steno pool she was now imprisoned in and get a job in some club, maybe not the Kit Kat Club, but a club, as a torch singer. So they spent a lot of the talking about blues and jazz stuff, having some more loose scotches, and having a dance or two if the song was right. She noticed that when she danced with him he held her firmly but not tightly, the right way, and she also noticed that when they danced she was getting a little steamy, a little steamy in that old love puddle way. About two o’clock she asked him if he wanted to go home with her and before he said yes, she fairly drunk at that point, but also filled with hopeful desire that this guy would be alright, she asked him point blank as they entered a waiting cab if he “would put a little sugar in her bowl.” And knowing the exact meaning of that reference when they hit her place he did…

In Honor Of The 142^nd Anniversary Of The Paris Commune-On The Barricades- The Dwindling Days

Henri Broue was beside himself when he heard the alarm bell, the bell that was used to warn of impending danger in front of the barricades coming now from two sources, the dreaded Prussians who had the outpost fortresses of the city under their control and now the dreaded revamped Theirs governmental forces who were charging throughout the at various point. He thought back to late March, late March when the now fallen Jean-Paul Dubois had urged the section committee to pursue the Thiers troops and disband them before they had a chance to regroup in Versailles. But that fervent brave voice was not listened to was not heeded as the spirit of the time was not following a military bend but a good riddance to bad company feeling after Theirs and company had fled to Versailles. Now with the ringing of the alarm (three long gongs, repeated) they were back, back seeking revenge, seeking blood, seeking death.

Henri had been nothing but a young man the first time, his first time, on the barricades back in those bloody June Days of ’48 when all hell broke loose as the as the old forces tried to drown the new republic in blood, and did so. And hell that was only a republic, not even a workers republic like he and his comrades on barricade Marat (French Revolution, circa 1789, figured murdered by Corday) were trying to establish, establish through the German defeat, the starvation blockade, the perfidy of the Theirs government, their flight and now their vengeful return. The Commune had made some headway, had stabilized things for a while but they forgot a few things too, forgot they were not an isolated island in France but part of all France and should have fought, fought like hell to link up with the other communes in some kind of defensive league. Now they were being destroyed section by section without any outside help, without, as well, any forces to hold the Prussians at bay.

Henri Broue did not consider, despite his revolutionary past, himself a brave man, or a great military fighter although he accounted himself well back in the days. This he knew though, this he knew well, brave or a coward, he was going to be on barricade Marat just as long as he held breathe…

Pardon Private Bradley Manning Stand-Out-Central Square, Cambridge, Wednesdays, 5:00 PM -Update –March 26, 2013

Let’s Redouble Our Efforts To Free Private Bradley Manning-President Obama Pardon Bradley Manning -Make Every Town Square In America (And The World) A Bradley Manning Square From Boston To Berkeley to Berlin-Join Us In Central Square, Cambridge, Ma. For A Stand-Out For Bradley- Wednesdays From 5:00-6:00 PM
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Beginning in September 2011, in order to publicize Private Manning’s case locally, there have been weekly stand-outs (as well as other more ad hoc and sporadic events) in various locations in the Greater Boston area starting in Somerville across from the Davis Square Redline MBTA stop on Friday afternoons and later on Wednesdays. Lately this stand-out has been held each week on Wednesdays from 5:00 to 6:00 PM at Central Square, Cambridge, Ma. (small park at the corner of Massachusetts Avenue and Prospect Street just outside the Redline MBTA stop, renamed Manning Square for the duration of the stand-out) in order to continue to broaden our outreach. Join us there in calling for Private Manning’s freedom. President Obama Pardon Private Manning Now!
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Those who have followed the heroic Wikileaks whistle-blower Private Bradley Manning’s case over the past year or so, since about April 2012 when the pre-trial hearings began in earnest, know that last November the defendant offered to plead guilty to a few lesser included charges in his indictment, basically taking legal and political responsibility for the leaks to WikiLeaks that had been the subject of some of the government’s allegations against him. Without getting into the arcane legal maneuvering on this issue the idea was to cut across the government’s pretty solid case against him being the leaker of information and to have the now scheduled for June trial be focused on the substantial question of whether his actions constituted “material aid to terrorism” which could subject Private Manning to life in prison. We noted then that we needed to stay with Bradley on this and make sure people know that what he admitted to was that he disclosed information about American military atrocities in Iraq and Afghanistan and other diplomatic high crime and misdemeanors and only that. We also noted that he was, and is, frankly, in trouble, big trouble, and needs our support more than ever. Especially in light of the following:

After enduring nearly three years of detention, at times under torturous conditions, on February 28, 2013 Bradley Manning confessed that he had provided WikiLeaksa trove of military and diplomatic documents that exposed U.S. imperialist schemes and wartime atrocities. Private Manning’s guilty plea on ten of 22 counts against him could land him in prison for 20 years. A day after Bradley confessed, military prosecutors announced plans to try him on the remaining counts, including “aiding the enemy” and violating the Espionage Act. Trial is expected to begin in early June. If convicted on these charges, Bradley Manning faces life in prison.

In lifting a bit of the veil of secrecy and lies with which the government cover their depredations, Bradley Manning performed a great service to workers and oppressed around the world. All who oppose the imperialist barbarity and machinations revealed in the material he provided must join in demanding his immediate freedom. Also crucially important is the defense of Julian Assange against the vendetta by the U.S., Britain and their cohorts, who are attempting to railroad him to prison by one means or another for his role in running WikiLeaks.

In a 35-page statement he read to the military court after entering his plea (written summary available at the Bradley Manning Support Network and an audio transcript as well), Manning told of his journey from nearly being rejected in basic training to becoming an army intelligence analyst. In that capacity he came across mountains of evidence of U.S. duplicity and war crimes. The materials he provided to WikiLeaks included military logs documenting 120,000 civilian deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan and a formal military policy of covering up torture, rape and murder. A quarter-million diplomatic cables address all manner of lethal operations within U.S. client states, from the “drug war” in Mexico to drone strikes in Yemen. He also released files containing assessments of detainees held at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. These documents show that the government continued to hold many who, Manning stated, were believed or known to be innocent, as well as “low level foot soldiers that did not have useful intelligence.”

The Pentagon and the Obama Administration declared war against WikiLeaksfollowing the release of a video, now entitled Collateral Murder and widely available, conveyed by Manning, of a 2007 U.S. Apache helicopter airstrike in Iraq that killed at least 12 people, including two Reuters journalists. American forces are then shown firing on a van that pulled up to help the victims. Manning said he was most alarmed by the“bloodlust they appeared to have.” He described how instead of calling for medical attention for a seriously wounded individual trying to crawl to safety, an aerial crew team member “asks for the wounded person to pick up a weapon so that he can have a reason to engage.”

By January 2010, Manning said, he“began to become depressed with the situation that we found ourselves increasingly mired in year after year” and decided to make public many of the documents he had backed up as part of his work as an analyst. Manning first offered the materials to the Washington Post and the New York Times. Not getting anywhere with these pillars of the bourgeois press establishment, in February 2010 he made his first submission to WikiLeaks. He attached a note advising that “this is possibly one of the more significant documents of our time removing the fog of war and revealing the true nature of twenty-first century asymmetric warfare. Have a good day.”

The charge of “aiding the enemy”—i.e., Al Qaeda—is especially ominous. This used to mean things like military sabotage and handing over information on troop movements to a battlefield enemy. In Manning’s case, the prosecution claims that the very act of publicizing U.S. military and diplomatic activities, some of which took place years before, amounted to “indirect” communication with Al Qaeda. Manning told the court that he believed that public access to the information “could spark a domestic debate on the role of the military and our foreign policy in general.” He hoped that this “might cause society to reevaluate the need or even the desire to engage in counterterrorism and counterinsurgency operations that ignore the complex dynamics of the people living in the affected environment everyday.” But by the lights of the imperialists’ war on terror, any exposure of their depredations can be construed as support to the“terrorist” enemy, whoever that might be.

The Pentagon intends to call no fewer than 141 witnesses in its show trial, including four people to testify anonymously. One of them, designated as “John Doe,” is believed to be a Navy SEAL who participated in the raid that killed Osama bin Laden. “Doe” is alleged to have grabbed three disks from bin Laden’s Abbottabad, Pakistan, compound on which was stored four files’ worth of the WikiLeaksmaterial provided by Manning.

Nor do charges under the Espionage Act have to have anything to do with actual spying. The law was one of an array of measures adopted to criminalize antiwar activity after U.S. imperialism’s entry into the First World War. It mandated imprisonment for any act deemed to interfere with the recruitment of troops. Among its first and most prominent victims was Socialist Party spokesman Eugene V. Debs, who was jailed for a June 1918 speech at a workers’ rally in Canton, Ohio, where he denounced the war as capitalist slaughter and paid tribute to the leaders of the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution. Dozens of Industrial Workers of the World organizers were also thrown into prison.

In the early 1970s, the Nixon government tried, unsuccessfully, to use this law to go after Daniel Ellsberg, whose release of the Pentagon Papers to the New York Times shed light on the history of U.S. imperialism’s losing war against the Vietnamese workers and peasants. Obama has happily picked up Nixon’s mantle. Manning’s prosecution will be the sixth time the Obama administration has used the Espionage Act against the source of an unauthorized leak of classified information—more than the combined total under all prior administrations since the law’s enactment in 1917.
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The Private Bradley Manning case is headed toward an early summer trial now scheduled for June 2013. The news on his case over the past several months has centered on the many pre-trial motion hearings including recent defense motions to dismiss for lack of speedy trial. Private Manning’s pre-trial confinement is now at over 1000 days and will be over well over 1000 days by the time of trial. That dismissal motion has now been ruled on by Military Judge Lind. On February 26, 2013 she denied the defense’s motion for dismissal, the last serious chance for Bradley Manning to go free before the scheduled June trial. She ruled furthermore that the various delays by the government were inherent in the nature of this case and that the military authorities, except in one short instance, had been diligent in their efforts to move the proceedings along. For those of us with military experience this is a classic, if perverse, case of that old army slogan-“Hurry up, and wait.” This is definitely tough news for Private Manning although perhaps a good appeal point in some future civilian court review.

The defense had contended that the charges should be dismissed because the military by its own statutes (to speak nothing of that funny old constitutional right to a speedy trial guarantee that our plebeian forbears fought tooth and nail for against the bloody British and later made damn sure was included in the Amendments when the founding fathers“forgot” to include it in the main document) should have arraigned Private Manning within 120 days after his arrest. They hemmed and hawed for almost 600 days before deciding on the charges and a court martial. Nobody in the convening authority, as required by those same statutes, pushed the prosecution forward in a timely manner. In fact the court-martial convening authority, in the person of one Colonel Coffman, seemed to have seen his role as mere “yes man” to each of the government’s eight requests for delays without explanation (and without informing the defense in order to take their objection). Apparently the Colonel saw his role as a mere clearing agent for whatever excuse the government gave, mainly endless addition time for clearing various classified documents a process that need not have held up the proceedings. The defense made timely objection to each governmental request to no avail.

Testimony from military authorities at pre-trial hearings in November 2012 about the reasons for the lack of action ranged from the lame to the absurd (mainly negative responses to knowledge about why some additional delays were necessary. One “reason” sticks out as a reason for excusable delay -some officer needed to get his son to a swimming meet and was thus “unavailable” for a couple of days. I didn’t make this up. I don’t have that sense of the absurd. Jesus, a man was rotting in Obama’s jails and they let him rot because of some damn swim meet). The prosecution, obviously, argued that the government has moved might and main to move the case along and had merely waited until all leaked materials had been determined before proceeding. The judge saw it the government’s way and ruled according as noted above.
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The defense has also recently pursued a motion for a dismissal of the major charges (espionage/ indirect material aid to terrorists) on the basis of the minimal effect of any leaks on national security issues as against Private Manning’s claim that such knowledge was important to the public square (freedom of information issues important for us as well in order to know about what the hell the government is doing either in front of us, or behind our backs). Last summer witnesses from an alphabet soup list of government agencies (CIA, FBI, NSA, Military Intelligence, etc., etc.) testified that while the information leaked shouldn’t have been leaked that the effect on national security was de minimus. The Secretary of Defense at the time, Leon Panetta, also made a public statement to that effect. The prosecution argued, successfully at the time, that the mere fact of the leak of classified information caused irreparable harm to national security issues and Private Manning’s intent, even if noble, was not at issue.

The recent thrust of the motion to dismiss has centered on the defense’s contention that Private Manning consciously and carefully screened any material in his possession to avoid any conflict with national security and that most of the released material had been over-classified (received higher security level than necessary). Much of the materials leaked, as per those parts published widely in the aftermath of the disclosures by the New York Times and other major outlets, concerned reports of atrocities in Iraq and Afghanistan and diplomatic interchanges that reflected poorly on that profession. The Obama government has argued again that the mere fact of leaking was all that mattered. That motion has also not been fully ruled on and is now the subject of prosecution counter- motions and has been a cause for further trial delay.
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A defense motion for dismissal based on serious allegations of torturous behavior by the military authorities extending far up the chain of command (a three-star Army general, not the normal concern of someone so far up the chain in the matter of discipline for enlisted personal) while Private Manning was first detained in Kuwait and later at the Quantico Marine brig for about a year ending in April 2011 has now been ruled on. In late November and early December Private Manning himself, as well as others including senior military mental health workers, took the stand to detail those abuses over several days. Most important to the defense was the testimony by qualified military mental health professionals citing the constant willful failure of those who held Private Manning in close confinement to listen to, or act, on their recommendations during those periods

Judge Lind, the military judge who has heard all the pre-trial arguments in the case thus far, has essentially ruled unfavorably on that motion to dismiss given the potential life sentence Private Manning faces. As she announced at an early January pre-trial hearing the military acted illegally in some of its actions. While every Bradley Manning supporter should be heartened by the fact that the military judge ruled that he was subject to illegal behavior by the military during his pre-trial confinement her remedy, a 112 days reduction in any future sentence, is a mere slap on the wrist to the military authorities. No dismissal or, alternatively, no appropriate reduction (the asked for ten to one ratio for all his first year or so of illegal close confinement which would take years off any potential sentence) given the seriousness of the illegal behavior as the defense tirelessly argued for. And the result is a heavy-handed deterrent to any future military whistleblowers, who already are under enormous pressures to remain silent as a matter of course while in uniform, and others who seek to put the hard facts of future American military atrocities before the public.
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There has been increased media attention by mainstream outlets around the case (including the previously knowingly oblivious New York Times), as well as an important statement in November 2012 by three Nobel Peace Laureates (including Bishop Tutu from South Africa) calling on their fellow laureate, United States President Barack Obama, to free Private Manning from his jails. (Available on the Support Bradley Manning Network website.)
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On February 23, 2013, the 1000th day of Private Bradley Manning’s pre-trial confinement, an international day of solidarity was observed with over seventy stand-outs and other demonstration held in America and internationally. Bradley Manning and his courageous stand have not been forgotten. Go to the Bradley Manning Support Network for more details about the events of that day. Another international day of solidarity is scheduled for June 1, 2013 at Fort Meade, Maryland and elsewhere just before the scheduled start of his trial on June 3rd. Check the support network for updates on that event as well.
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Plan to come to Fort Meade outside of Washington, D.C. on June 1^st for an international day of solidarity with Bradley before his scheduled June 3^rd trial. If you can’t make it to Fort Meade plan a solidarity event locally in support of this brave whistle-blower.
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5 Ways To Support Heroic Wikileaks Whistle-blower Private Bradley Manning

*Urgent: The government has announced, in the wake of Bradley Manning’s admission of his part in the Wikileaks expose in open court on February 28th, its intention to continue to prosecute him for the major charges of “aiding the enemy” (Espionage Act) and “material aid to terrorism.” Everyone should contact the presiding officer of the court –martial process, General Linnington, at 1-202-685-2807 and tell him to drop those charges. Once Maj. Gen. Linnington’s voicemail box is full – you can also leave a message at the DOD: (703) 571-3343 – press “5″ to leave a comment.*If this mailbox is also full, leave the Department of Defense a written message. Do it today.

*Come to our stand-out in support of Private Bradley Manning in Central Square, Cambridge, Ma (corner of Massachusetts Avenue and Prospect Street near MBTA Redline station) every Wednesday between 5-6 PM. For other locations in Greater Boston, nationally, and internationally check the Bradley Manning Support Network -http://www.bradleymanning.org/ and for details of the current status of the case and future event updates as well. Also plan to come to Fort Meade outside of Washington, D.C. on June 1^st for an international day of solidarity with Bradley before his scheduled June 3^rd trial. If you can’t make it to Fort Meade plan a solidarity event locally in support of this brave whistle-blower.

*Contribute to the Bradley Manning Defense Fund- as the trial date approaches funds are urgently needed! The government has unlimited financial and personnel resources to prosecute Bradley. And the Obama government is fully using them. We have a fine defense civilian lawyer, David Coombs, many supporters throughout America and the world working hard for Bradley’s freedom, and the truth on our side. Still the hard reality of the American legal system, civilian or military, is that an adequate defense cost serious money. So help out with whatever you can spare. For link go to http://www.bradleymanning.org/

*Sign the online petition at the Bradley Manning Support Network (for link go to http://www.bradleymanning.org/ )to the Secretary of the Army to free Bradley Manning-1000 plus days is enough! The Secretary of the Army stands in the direct chain of command up to the President and can release Private Manning from pre-trial confinement and drop the charges against him at his discretion. For basically any reason that he wishes to-let us say 1000 plus days is enough. Join the over 25,000 supporters in the United States and throughout the world clamoring for Bradley’s well-deserved freedom.

*Call (Comments”202-456-1111), write The White House, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20500, e-mail-(http://www.whitehouse.gov’contact/submitquestions-and comments) the White House to demand President Obama pardon Bradley Manning- The presidential power to pardon is granted under Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution:

“The President…shall have power to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States, except in case of impeachment.”

In federal cases, and military cases are federal cases, the President of the United States can, under authority granted by the U.S. Constitution as stated above, pardon the guilty and the innocent, the convicted and those awaiting trial- former President Nixon and former Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger, for example among others, received such pardons for their heinous crimes- Now that Bradley Manning has pleaded guilty to some lesser charges and is subject to further prison time (up to 20 years) this pardon campaign is more necessary than ever. Free Bradley Manning! Free the whistleblower!

Lynne Stewart’s Life in Danger In order to receive urgently needed medical treatment for cancer that has spread to her lungs and back, 73-year-old radical lawyer Lynne Stewart requires immediate release from the federal dungeon in Texas where she is serving a ten-year sentence. The authorities have denied Stewart’s request to be transferred to the New York City hospital that previously treated her. Free Lynne Stewart now! Stewart was already battling breast cancer when she entered prison in 2009 after being convicted in 2005 for her zealous defense of her client, a blind Egyptian cleric imprisoned for an alleged plot to blow up New York City landmarks in the early 1990s. In 2010, a judge quadrupled her original 28-month sentence at the instigation of the Obama administration. As we noted then, “The resentencing is for all intents and purposes a death sentence” (WV No. 962, 30 July 2010). Convicted along with Stewart were her translator, Mohamed Yousry, who has finished his sentence, and her paralegal, Ahmed Abdel Sattar, who is locked up for 24 years. Stewart, Yousry and Abdel Sattar should never have been charged and should not have spent a minute in jail! The capitalist rulers have had it in for Stewart for her decades of vigorous legal defense of radicals, black militants and the poor. Indeed, the resentencing was explicitly based on her “lack of remorse” as well as draconian “anti-terror” guidelines that are part of a wholesale assault on civil liberties. Ralph Poynter, Stewart’s husband, has related that even in prison she has remained unbowed and given assistance to other prisoners appealing their sentences. Stewart also witnessed the death of a prisoner on dialysis while helping her try to get to the nurses’ quarters; the prisoner’s pleas for help had been ignored. Afterward, Stewart told her husband, “I do not want to go that way” (takingaimradio.com, 6 November 2011). Stewart’s daughter, Dr. Zenobia Brown, has noted that it took almost four months before Stewart was able to see an oncologist after the return of her cancer was detected. A January 21 letter by the Partisan Defense Committee to prison authorities demanded “that Lynne Stewart be released forthwith to receive all necessary medical care and be with her family.” We encourage others to send letters of protest to: Warden Joe Keffer, FMC Carswell, Federal Medical Center, P.O. Box 27137, Fort Worth, TX 76127; Charles E. Samuels, Jr., Director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons; and U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder. * * * (reprinted from Workers Vanguard No. 1016, 8 February 2013) Workers Vanguard is the newspaper of the Spartacist League with which the Partisan Defense Committee is affiliated.

Desmond Tutu Supports Lynne!

March 24th, 2013
Below find a short email from Bishop Desmond Tutu regarding a letter he received from Richard Falk and Ralph Schoenman asking him to sign the petition for Lynne:
Dear Friend,
It is devastating, totally unbelievable. Is this in a democracy, the only superpower? I am sad.
I will sign.
Praying God’s blessings on yr efforts.
+Desmond Tutu.
The letter from Richard and Ralph is below:
The Honorable Bishop Desmond Tutu
Dear Bishop Tutu,
Your moral authority in raising awareness and touching the conscience of people across the world, concerning prevailing injustice and assault upon human rights, emboldens us to enlist your support for the distinguished civil rights and civil liberties attorney Lynne Stewart, whose life is in imminent danger and epitomizes the plight of a courageous prisoner of conscience.
Lynne Stewart had been co-counsel with former Attorney General Ramsey Clark and noted civil liberties attorney Abdeen Jabaar for the Egyptian cleric Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman.
In 2002, George Bush’s Attorney General John Ashcroft charged Lynne Stewart with “material support to terrorism” solely for providing her client with a vigorous defense.
Due process itself and basic democratic rights have been violated, comprising an ominous threat to every attorney who would contemplate providing needed defense for vulnerable people targeted and demonized by the State. It is precisely in situations where lawyers take on politically sensitive clients that protection is most needed.
The government’s consequent vindictive prosecution and persecution of Lynne Stewart has breached all moral constraint, and illustrates the problem of providing unpopular defendants with their full legal rights.
Her bail was revoked even while her case was pending before the courts. A surgical procedure scheduled at Sloan Kettering Hospital in New York was thus delayed 18-months until the prison authorities finally arranged for the operation in a Fort Worth, Texas hospital.
Lynne Stewart also is suffering from breast cancer. Her cancer, previously in remission and monitored closely by her physicians at Sloan Kettering, not only has returned but has metastasized, spreading to her lymph nodes, shoulder, bones and lungs, creating a severe threat to her life.
Even when allowed access to prison medical facilities, 73-year old Lynne Stewart is shackled with ten pounds of chains at her wrists and feet. When hospitalized after surgical intervention or for the administration of chemotherapy, one wrist is shackled to a bedpost and an ankle to another. Given the political nature of her alleged “crime” and taking account of her health, such treatment amounts to a constitutional offense known in the United States as “cruel and unusual punishment.”
Lynne Stewart is in a seven-person cell at the Federal Medical Center, Carswell, Texas, with toilet and shower facilities difficult to reach as they are down a corridor and the dining facilities are even further away. These conditions are incompatible with appropriate treatment, recuperation from systemic disease and the prospect of survival.
Federal law itself mandates “compassionate release” for prisoners facing life-threatening illness, so that treatment commensurate with their condition may be secured in an environment of nurture and family emotional support indispensable to the prospect of recovery.
We ask your endorsement of the International Petition printed below as a matter of urgency and appeal to you to enlist the support of others.
We should be grateful for your suggestions concerning how to amplify this campaign. We should welcome any further advice that you might provide.
We share your conviction that world conscience so mobilized can speak truth to power and much look forward to hearing from you.
With our highest regard,
Sincerely,
Richard Falk
Milbank Professor of International Law Emeritus, Princeton University
Research Professor, Global Studies, University of California at Santa Barbara
Ralph Schoenman
Director, The Council on Human Needs

Exposed U.S. Imperialist Crimes-Hail Bradley Manning! Free Him Now!

Workers Vanguard No. 1019	8 March 2013

Exposed U.S. Imperialist Crimes-Hail Bradley Manning! Free Him Now!

After enduring nearly three years of detention, at times under torturous conditions, on February 28 Army Private Bradley Manning confessed that he had provided WikiLeaks a trove of military and diplomatic documents that exposed U.S. imperialist schemes and wartime atrocities. Manning’s guilty plea on ten of 22 counts against him could land him in prison for 20 years. But this pound of flesh is not enough for the imperialist rulers, who not only seek vengeance but are also determined to silence anyone perceived as an obstacle to their designs for world domination. A day after Manning confessed, military prosecutors announced plans to try him on the remaining counts, including “aiding the enemy” and violating the Espionage Act. Trial is expected to begin in early June. If convicted on these charges, Manning faces life in prison.

In lifting a bit of the veil of secrecy and lies with which the capitalist rulers cover their depredations, Bradley Manning performed a great service to workers and oppressed around the world. All who oppose the imperialist barbarity and machinations revealed in the material he provided must join in demanding his immediate freedom. Also crucially important is the defense of Julian Assange against the vendetta by the U.S., Britain and their cohorts, who are attempting to railroad him to prison by one means or another for his role in running WikiLeaks.

In a 35-page statement he read to the military court after entering his plea, Manning told of his journey from nearly being rejected in basic training to becoming an army intelligence analyst. In that capacity he came across mountains of evidence of U.S. duplicity and war crimes. The materials he provided to WikiLeaks included military logs documenting 120,000 civilian deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan and a formal military policy of covering up torture, rape and murder. A quarter-million diplomatic cables address all manner of lethal operations within U.S. client states, from the “drug war” in Mexico to drone strikes in Yemen. He also released files containing assessments of detainees held at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. These documents show that the government continued to hold many who, Manning stated, were believed or known to be innocent, as well as “low level foot soldiers that did not have useful intelligence.”

The Pentagon declared war against WikiLeaks following the release of a video, conveyed by Manning, of a 2007 U.S. Apache helicopter airstrike in Iraq that killed at least 12 people, including two Reuters journalists. American forces are then shown firing on a van that pulled up to help the victims. Manning said he was most alarmed by the “bloodlust they appeared to have.” He described how instead of calling for medical attention for a seriously wounded individual trying to crawl to safety, an aerial crew team member “asks for the wounded person to pick up a weapon so that he can have a reason to engage.”

By January 2010, Manning said, he “began to become depressed with the situation that we found ourselves increasingly mired in year after year” and decided to make public many of the documents he had backed up as part of his work as an analyst. Manning first offered the materials to the Washington Post and the New York Times. Not getting anywhere with these pillars of the bourgeois press establishment, in February 2010 he made his first submission to WikiLeaks. He attached a note advising that “this is possibly one of the more significant documents of our time removing the fog of war and revealing the true nature of twenty-first century asymmetric warfare. Have a good day.”

The charge of “aiding the enemy”—i.e., Al Qaeda—is especially ominous. This used to mean things like military sabotage and handing over information on troop movements to a battlefield enemy. In Manning’s case, the prosecution claims that the very act of publicizing U.S. military and diplomatic activities, some of which took place years before, amounted to “indirect” communication with Al Qaeda. Manning told the court that he believed that public access to the information “could spark a domestic debate on the role of the military and our foreign policy in general.” He hoped that this “might cause society to reevaluate the need or even the desire to engage in counterterrorism and counterinsurgency operations that ignore the complex dynamics of the people living in the affected environment everyday.” But by the lights of the imperialists’ war on terror, any exposure of their depredations can be construed as support to the “terrorist” enemy, whoever that might be.

The Pentagon intends to call no fewer than 141 witnesses in its show trial, including four people to testify anonymously. One of them, designated as “John Doe,” is believed to be a Navy SEAL who participated in the raid that killed Osama bin Laden. “Doe” is alleged to have grabbed three disks from bin Laden’s Abbottabad, Pakistan, compound on which was stored four files’ worth of the WikiLeaks material provided by Manning. Also reportedly retrieved from bin Laden’s hard drives was a trove of American porn videos. Are Obama & Co. planning to put the owners of Vivid Entertainment in the dock as well?

Nor do charges under the Espionage Act have to have anything to do with actual spying. The law was one of an array of measures adopted to criminalize antiwar activity after U.S. imperialism’s entry into the First World War. It mandated imprisonment for any act deemed to interfere with the recruitment of troops. Among its first and most prominent victims was Socialist Party spokesman Eugene V. Debs, who was jailed for a June 1918 speech at a workers’ rally in Canton, Ohio, where he denounced the war as capitalist slaughter and paid tribute to the leaders of the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution. Dozens of Industrial Workers of the World organizers were also thrown into prison. So broad was the law’s reach that Robert Goldstein, producer of the movie The Spirit of ’76, was convicted and originally sentenced to ten years on the grounds that the film’s depiction of the brutality of British soldiers during the American Revolution would undermine support for a U.S. wartime ally!

In the early 1970s, the Nixon government tried, unsuccessfully, to use this law to go after Daniel Ellsberg, whose release of the Pentagon Papers to the New York Times shed light on the history of U.S. imperialism’s losing war against the Vietnamese workers and peasants. Obama has happily picked up Nixon’s mantle. Manning’s prosecution will be the sixth time the Obama administration has used the Espionage Act against the source of an unauthorized leak of classified information—more than the combined total under all prior administrations since the law’s enactment in 1917. As we have repeatedly stressed, Barack Obama, who came into office with broad support from liberals and the left, is simply carrying out his duties as Commander-in-Chief, stepping up attacks on democratic rights to pave the way for further imperialist depredations and attacks on the workers and oppressed at home.

Noting his initial uncertainty about releasing the diplomatic cables, Manning remarked that he had “once read and used a quote on open diplomacy written after the First World War and how the world would be a better place if states would avoid making secret pacts and deals with and against each other.” He added, “I thought these cables were a prime example of a need for a more open diplomacy.”

Behind the imperialists’ diplomatic skullduggery—conducted at times with and at times against one another—is their drive to exploit the world’s workers and oppressed in accord with their distinct interests. The Obama administration’s vicious retaliation against both Manning and Assange shows that nothing in this regard has changed since revolutionary leader Leon Trotsky in November 1917 described secret diplomacy as “a necessary tool for a propertied minority which is compelled to deceive the majority in order to subject it to its interests.” Trotsky, co-leader with V.I. Lenin of the 1917 October Revolution, made this point in a statement he issued as Commissar for Foreign Affairs of the newly fledged Soviet workers state. Trotsky was announcing the publication and abrogation of secret treaties hatched by the prior tsarist regime as well as the bourgeois Provisional Government with their imperialist allies.

One of the first acts of the Soviet government was to issue a decree on peace removing Russia from the slaughter of interimperialist World War I and demanding of all belligerents a “just, democratic” peace without annexations or indemnities. The Soviet newspaper Izvestia soon began publication of treaties concluded during the war. Lenin and Trotsky’s Bolshevik Party was driven by the perspective of world proletarian revolution. Indeed, the October Revolution was a beacon of liberation for the exploited and oppressed in the advanced capitalist countries and in the colonial and semicolonial world. Along with the Soviet government’s renunciation of predatory agreements reached by prior regimes, the publication of the treaties helped spark waves of struggle by those under the boot heel of the imperialists, whose dirty deals were now laid bare.

For proletarian revolutionaries, the materials provided by Manning are of real value in opening the eyes of the world’s working people to the systematic violence and lies that prop up capitalist rule. Opponents of imperialist occupations and war must be won to the understanding that it will require a series of socialist revolutions to put an end to the capitalist order. It is to provide the necessary leadership to the proletariat in this struggle that we are committed to forging Leninist-Trotskyist parties around the world. 

Chris Hedges: we are all Bradley Manning

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Originally posted at TruthDig, reporter Chris Hedges recounts his experience sitting in the courtroom while Bradley Manning read his historic statement taking responsibility for releasing documents to WikiLeaks. Hedges says “the war against Bradley Manning is a war against us all.”

AP/Patrick Semansky

By Chris Hedges.
I was in a military courtroom at Fort Meade in Maryland on Thursday as Pfc. Bradley Manning admitted giving classified government documents to WikiLeaks. The hundreds of thousands of leaked documents exposed U.S. war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as government misconduct. A statement that Manning made to the court was a powerful and moving treatise on the importance of placing conscience above personal safety, the necessity of sacrificing careers and liberty for the public good, and the moral imperative of carrying out acts of defiance. Manning will surely pay with many years—perhaps his entire life—in prison. But we too will pay. The war against Bradley Manning is a war against us all.
This trial is not simply the prosecution of a 25-year-old soldier who had the temerity to report to the outside world the indiscriminate slaughter, war crimes, torture and abuse that are carried out by our government and our occupation forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. It is a concerted effort by the security and surveillance state to extinguish what is left of a free press, one that has the constitutional right to expose crimes by those in power. The lonely individuals who take personal risks so that the public can know the truth—the Daniel Ellsbergs, the Ron Ridenhours, the Deep Throats and the Bradley Mannings—are from now on to be charged with “aiding the enemy.” All those within the system who publicly reveal facts that challenge the official narrative will be imprisoned, as was John Kiriakou, the former CIA analyst who for exposing the U.S. government’s use of torture began serving a 30-month prison term the day Manning read his statement. There is a word for states that create these kinds of information vacuums: totalitarian.
The cowardice of The New York Times, El Pais, Der Spiegel and Le Monde, all of which used masses of the material Manning passed on to WikiLeaks and then callously turned their backs on him, is one of journalism’s greatest shames. These publications made little effort to cover Manning’s pretrial hearings, a failure that shows how bankrupt and anemic the commercial press has become. Rescuing what honor of our trade remains has been left to a handful of independent, often marginalized reporters and a small number of other individuals and groups—including Glenn Greenwald, Alexa O’Brien, Nathan Fuller, Kevin Gosztola (who writes for Firedog Lake), the Bradley Manning Support Network, political activist Kevin Zeese and the courtroom sketch artist Clark Stoeckley, along with The Guardian, which also published the WikiLeaks documents. But if our domesticated press institutions believe that by refusing to defend or report on Manning they will escape the wrath of the security and surveillance state, they are stunningly naive. This is a war that is being played for keeps. And the goal of the state is not simply to send Manning away for life. The state is also determined to extradite WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and try him in the United States on espionage or conspiracy charges. The state hopes to cement into place systems of information that will do little more than parrot official propaganda. This is why those with the computer skills to expose the power elite’s secrets, such as Aaron Swartz, who committed suicide in January, and Jeremy Hammond, who is facing up to 30 years in prison for allegedly hacking into the corporate security firm Stratfor, have been or are being ruthlessly hunted down and persecuted. It is why Vice President Joe Biden labeled Assange a “high-tech terrorist,”and it is why the Bradley Manning trial is one of the most important in American history.
The government has decided to press ahead with all 22 charges, including aiding the enemy (Article 104), stealing U.S. government property (18 USC 641), espionage (18 USC 793(e)) and computer crimes (18 USC 1030(a)(1))—the last notwithstanding the fact that Manning did not hack into government computers. The state will also prosecute him on charges of violating lawful general regulations (Article 92). The government has refused to settle for Manning’s admission of guilt on nine lesser offenses. Among these lesser offenses are unauthorized possession and willful communication of the video known as “Collateral Murder”; the Iraq War Logs; the Afghan War Diary; two CIA Red Cell Memos,including one entitled “Afghanistan: Sustaining West European Support for the NATO-Led Mission—Why Counting on Apathy Might Not Be Enough”; Guantanamo files; documents of a so-called Article 15-6 investigation into the May 2009 Garani massacrein Afghanistan’s Farah province; and a Department of Defense counterintelligence report, “WikiLeaks.org—An Online Reference to Foreign Intelligence Services, Insurgents, or Terrorist Groups?” as well as one violation of a lawful general order by wrongfully storing information.
Manning’s leaks, the government insists, are tantamount to support for al-Qaida and international terrorism. The government will attempt to prove this point by bringing into court an anonymous witness who most likely took part in the raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound in Pakistan. This witness will reportedly tell the court that copies of the leaked documents were found on bin Laden’s computer and assisted al-Qaida. This is an utterly spurious form of prosecution—as if any of us have control over the information we provide to the public and how it is used. Manning, for substantial amounts of money, could have sold the documents to governments or groups that are defined as the enemy. Instead he approached The Washington Post and The New York Times. When these newspapers rejected him, he sent the material anonymously to WikiLeaks.
The short, slightly built Manning told the military court Thursday about the emotional conflict he experienced when he matched what he knew about the war with the official version of the war. He said he became deeply disturbed while watching a videotaken from an Apache helicopter as it and another such craft joined in an attack on civilians in Baghdad in 2007. The banter among the crew members, who treated the murder and wounding of the terrified human beings, including children, in the street below as sport, revolted him. Among the dead was Reuters photojournalist Namir Noor-Eldeen and his driver, Saeed Chmagh. Reuters had repeatedly asked to see the video, and the Army had repeatedly refused to release it. [Click hereto see the “Collateral Murder” video.]
“Using Google I searched for the event by its date and general location,” Manning said in reading from a 35-page document that took nearly an hour to deliver. “I found several new accounts involving two Reuters employees who were killed during the aerial weapon team engagement. Another story explained that Reuters had requested a copy of the video under the Freedom of Information Act, or FOIA. Reuters wanted to view the video in order to be able to understand what had happened and to improve their safety practices in combat zones. A spokesperson for Reuters was quoted saying that the video might help avoid the reoccurrence of the tragedy and believed there was compelling need for the immediate release of the video.” [Alexa O’Brien, another journalist who attended Thursday’s proceedings, has provided a full transcript of Manning’s statement: Click here.]
“Despite the submission of the FOIA request, the news account explained that CENTCOM [Central Command] replied to Reuters stating that they could not give a time frame for considering a FOIA request and that the video might no longer exist,” Manning said. “Another story I found written a year later said that even though Reuters was still pursuing their request [the news organization] still did not receive a formal response or written determination in accordance with FOIA. The fact neither CENTCOM or Multi National Forces Iraq, or MNF-I, would not voluntarily release the video troubled me further. It was clear to me that the event happened because the aerial weapons team mistakenly identified Reuters employees as a potential threat and that the people in the bongo truck [van] were merely attempting to assist the wounded. The people in the van were not a threat but merely ‘good Samaritans.’ The most alarming aspect of the video to me, however, was the seemly delightful bloodlust they [the helicopter crew members] appeared to have.
“They dehumanized the individuals they were engaging and seemed to not value human life by referring to them as quote ‘dead bastards’ unquote and congratulating each other on the ability to kill in large numbers,” Manning said, speaking into a court microphone while seated at the defense table. “At one point in the video there is an individual on the ground attempting to crawl to safety. The individual is seriously wounded. Instead of calling for medical attention to the location, one of the aerial weapons team crew members verbally asks for the wounded person to pick up a weapon so that he can have a reason to engage. For me, this seems similar to a child torturing ants with a magnifying glass.
“While saddened by the aerial weapons team crew’s lack of concern about human life, I was disturbed by the response of the discovery of injured children at the scene. In the video, you can see the bongo truck driving up to assist the wounded individual. In response the aerial weapons team crew—as soon as the individuals are a threat, they repeatedly request authorization to fire on the bongo truck and once granted they engage the vehicle at least six times. Shortly after the second engagement, a mechanized infantry unit arrives at the scene. Within minutes, the aerial weapons team crew learns that children were in the van, and despite the injuries the crew exhibits no remorse. Instead, they downplay the significance of their actions, saying quote ‘Well, it’s their fault for bringing their kids into a battle’ unquote.
“The aerial weapons team crew members sound like they lack sympathy for the children or the parents. Later in a particularly disturbing manner, the aerial weapons team verbalizes enjoyment at the sight of one of the ground vehicles driving over a body—or one of the bodies. As I continued my research, I found an article discussing the book ‘The Good Soldiers,’ written by Washington Post writer David Finkel. In Mr. Finkel’s book, he writes about the aerial weapons team attack. As I read an online excerpt in Google Books, I followed Mr. Finkel’s account of the event belonging to the video. I quickly realize that Mr. Finkel was quoting, I feel in verbatim, the audio communications of the aerial weapons team crew. It is clear to me that Mr. Finkel obtained access and a copy of the video during his tenure as an embedded journalist. I was aghast at Mr. Finkel’s portrayal of the incident. Reading his account, one would believe the engagement was somehow justified as ‘payback’ for an earlier attack that led to the death of a soldier. Mr. Finkel ends his account of the engagement by discussing how a soldier finds an individual still alive from the attack. He writes that the soldier finds him and sees him gesture with his two forefingers together, a common method in the Middle East to communicate that they are friendly. However, instead of assisting him, the soldier makes an obscene gesture extending his middle finger. The individual apparently dies shortly thereafter. Reading this, I can only think of how this person was simply trying to help others, and then he quickly finds he needs help as well. To make matters worse, in the last moments of his life he continues to express his friendly gesture—his friendly intent—only to find himself receiving this well known gesture of unfriendliness. For me it’s all a big mess, and I am left wondering what these things mean, and how it all fits together. It burdens me emotionally. …
“I hoped that the public would be as alarmed as me about the conduct of the aerial weapons team crew members. I wanted the American public to know that not everyone in Iraq and Afghanistan are targets that needed to be neutralized, but rather people who were struggling to live in the pressure cooker environment of what we call asymmetric warfare. After the release I was encouraged by the response in the media and general public who observed the aerial weapons team video. As I hoped, others were just as troubled—if not more troubled than me by what they saw.”
Manning provided to the public the most important window into the inner workings of imperial power since the release of the Pentagon Papers. The routine use of torture, the detention of Iraqis who were innocent, the inhuman conditions within our secret detention facilities, the use of State Department officials as spies in the United Nations, the collusion with corporations to keep wages low in developing countries such as Haiti, and specific war crimes such as the missile strike on a house that killed seven childrenin Afghanistan would have remained hidden without Manning.
“I felt that we were risking so much for people that seemed unwilling to cooperate with us, leading to frustration and anger on both sides,” Manning said. “I began to become depressed with the situation that we found ourselves increasingly mired in year after year. The SigActs [significant-acts reports of the Army] documented this in great detail and provide a context of what we were seeing on the ground.
“In attempting to conduct counterterrorism, or CT, and counterinsurgency, COIN, operations we became obsessed with capturing and killing human targets on lists and being suspicious of and avoiding cooperation with our host nation partners, and ignoring the second- and third-order effects of accomplishing short-term goals and missions. I believe that if the general public, especially the American public, had access to the information contained within the CIDNE-I and CIDNE-A tables [a reference to military information] this could spark a domestic debate on the role of the military and our foreign policy in general as it related to Iraq and Afghanistan.
“I also believed the detailed analysis of the data over a long period of time by different sectors of society might cause society to re-evaluate the need or even the desire to engage in counterterrorism and counterinsurgency operations that ignore the complex dynamics of the people living in the affected environment every day.”
It is certain that with this “naked” plea Manning will serve perhaps as much as 20 years in prison. The judge, Col. Denise Lind, who will determine Manning’s sentence, warned him that the government could use his admissions to build a case for the more serious charges. Manning faces 90 years if he is convicted on the greater charge of espionage, and he faces life if convicted of aiding the enemy. Military prosecutors have made it clear they are out for blood. They said they will call 141 witnesses, including 15 who will charge that Manning caused harm to national interests; 33 witnesses, the government claims, will discuss information so sensitive or secret that it will require closed court sessions. Four witnesses—including, it appears, a Navy SEAL involved in the bin Laden raid—will give testimony anonymously. Army Maj. Ashden Fein, the lead prosecution attorney, has told the court that the government witnesses will discuss issues such as “injury and death to individuals” that resulted from the WikiLeaks disclosures, as well as how the “capability of the enemy increased in certain countries.” The government is preventingManning’s defense team from interviewing some of the witnesses before the trial.
When he was secretary of defense, Robert Gates saida Defense Department review determined that the publication of the Iraq War Logs and the Afghan War Diary had “not revealed any sensitive intelligence sources and methods.” In the trial, however, the government must prove only that the “disclosure could be potentially damaging to the United States” and need only provide “independent proof of at least potential harm to the national security” beyond mere security classification, writes law professor Geoffrey Stone.
The government reviews determined that the release of Department of State “diplomatic cables caused only limited damageto U.S. interests abroad despite the Obama administration’s public statements to the contrary,” according to Reuters. “We were told the impact [of WikiLeaks revelations] was embarrassing but not damaging,” a congressional official, briefed by the State Department, told Reuters. The “Obama administration felt compelled to say publicly that the revelations had seriously damaged American interests in order to bolster legal efforts to shut down the WikiLeaks website and bring charges against the leakers,” the official told the news outlet. Government prosecutors, strengthening their case further, have succeeded in blocking Manning’s lawyers from presenting evidence about the lack of real damage caused to U.S. interests by the leaks.
Manning has done what anyone with a conscience should have done. In the courtroom he exhibited—especially given the prolonged abuse he suffered during his thousand days inside the military prison system—poise, intelligence and dignity. He appealed to the best within us. And this is why the government fears him. America still produces heroes, some in uniform. But now we lock them up.
The court has not yet issued an official text of Bradley Manning’s statement. Thanks to Alexa O’Brien for providing a transcript.

Help organize a bus to Ft. Meade for June 1st! Protest for Army WikiLeaks whistle-blower Bradley Manning!

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June 1st will mark the beginning of Bradley Manning’s fourth year in prison and the start of his trial. The June 1st Ft. Meade protest for Bradley Manning, co-sponsored by Veterans for Peace and the Bradley Manning Support Network, will be the largest action of our campaign! We are calling for people everywhere to stand up for the Army whistle-blower who risked everything to give the public real facts about our government’s wars in the middle east and foreign policy worldwide. We’ll charter buses from both neighboring Washington D.C. and Baltimore, but we need activists in other cities to organize buses of their own. We can’t book buses, manage ticket sales or arrange housing for supporters from every city that wishes to attend. However, we will provide grants to help:

• Organize a bus with 40 or more people to attend the event on June 1st, and we’ll subsidize the trip in the amount of $500.

• Organize a van of 10 or more people, and we’ll subsidize the trip in the amount of $150.

You can find information on chartering buses on this website, though some local companies may be willing to offer better deals to non-profit causes. There are a number of online crowdfunding websites which could help in selling tickets, but most of them charge a small fee for their services. Asking local organizations to co-sponsor the bus may be a helpful option for funding the bus and/or selling tickets. (Here are a few organizations you can ask.)
Once a commitment has been made to booking a vehicle and a driver, we’ll do what we can to promote the details to other Bradley Manning supporters in your area so they’ll be able to join your “Bus for Bradley.” Please contact emma@bradleymanning.org with additional questions or if you intend to organize a group to come join us in June.
Thank you for supporting Bradley Manning!

June 1: Rally for Bradley Manning at Fort Meade

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By exposing the truth, Bradley Manning helped end a war based on lies. Join us June 1, 2013 to rally in support of Bradley Manning at Fort Meade.
By Nathan Fuller, Bradley Manning Support Network. March 21, 2013.

A still from the Collateral Murder video which exposed the murder of two Reuters journalists

This week, pundits across the political spectrum are searching for meaning in the tenth anniversary of the United States’ invasion of Iraq. The decade-long campaign of bombings and occupation left hundreds of thousands of Iraqis dead and millions wounded, displaced, or scarred. Justified with lies about biological and chemical weapons that never existed, the senseless war cost U.S. tax-payers more than 3 trillion dollars, and far more in blood and shame. Tens of thousands of US soldiers were wounded or killed, and to this day, $490 billion is owed to veterans.
Many credit President Obama with the decision to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq, and almost none mention the fact that it was cables provided by Bradley Manning and published by WikiLeaks that made Obama’s attempt to keep troops there past the 2011 deadline impossible. As CNN reported in October of that year,

[Iraq and U.S.] negotiations were strained following WikiLeaks’ release of a diplomatic cable that alleged Iraqi civilians, including children, were killed in a 2006 raid by American troops rather than in an airstrike as the U.S. military initially reported.

Obama had wanted to keep troops beyond President Bush’s 2011 deadline, but required the condition that all U.S. soldiers be guaranteed legal immunity for their actions. Upon reading the WikiLeaks-released cables, the Iraqi government refused.
By revealing the hidden realities of the Iraq War, Pfc. Bradley Manning achieved his noble goal of sparking domestic debate, and he helped begin the end of an aggressive, violent, and counterproductive war.
Here are a few of WikiLeaks’ revelations about the U.S war in Iraq:

• 15,000 more Iraqi civilians had been killed than were reported in any other count
• U.S. soldiers were formally commanded not to investigate reports of torture committed by the Iraqi Federal Police with whom they cooperated
• The American occupation of Iraq has failed to stabilize the widespread violence and corruption that has escalated following the destruction of Iraq’s infrastructure

Embarrassed by the exposure of its failures, the military is seeking to make an example of Bradley Manning, and for this reason we must thank, support, and defend him. The government has chosen to pursue all 22 counts, amounting to a life sentence without parole, against Bradley when his court-martial trial finally begins on June 3.
We’re calling on supporters to descend in droves to Ft. Meade, MD, on June 1, 2013. President Obama and Gen. Martin Dempsey have already deemed Bradley guilty, pressuring Judge Denise Lind to follow suit, making it impossible for Bradley to receive a fair trial. The military court has failed to repudiate Bradley’s unlawful torture and the violation of his right to a speedy trial. It has significantly hindered the defense’s ability to discuss both Bradley’s motive to expose wrongdoing and the fact that no harm has come from WikiLeaks’ publications. So we must support Bradley both inside and outside the courtroom. We must express our outrage at the government’s attempts to send this generation’s Daniel Ellsberg to jail for life. Bradley Manning put his life and liberty on the line to inform his fellow Americans about a disturbing war’s darkest secrets, and on June 1, we must return the favor.
Learn more about organizing a van or bus to Ft. Meade — grants are available.
If you can’t make it to Fort Meade, organize a solidarity event in your own community.