Community | March 13, 2011 | 82 comments

Obama White House Forces State Department Spokesman to Resign

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corderodedios
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2011/03/13/state-departments-p-j-crowley-st...

CNN sources revealed that State Department Spokesman PJ Crowley was forced to resign by the Obama White House after comments he made to a small group at MIT last week that were critical of the treatment of Bradley Manning, the serviceman accused of transferring secret documents to Wikileaks. Although Crowley qualified his remarks by stating that Manning "was in the right place" due to the "serious" nature of his alleged crimes, this did not prevent the White House from causing his resignation over his criticism of the conditions of imprisonment.

Manning is imprisoned at Quantico, Virginia pending investigation of the alleged crime of releasing diplomatic cables to the whistleblower website Wikileaks. Allegations that Manning has been subjected to torture and deprivation have recently surfaced.

In a later statement, Crowley said that his comments "were intended to highlight the broader, even strategic impact of discreet actions undertaken by national security agencies every day and their impact on our global standing and leadership".

"The exercise of power in today's challenging times and relentless media environment must be prudent and consistent with our laws and values," Crowley said. Crowley has also made clear he has the Obama administration's best interests at heart because any mistreatment of Manning could be damaging to President Obama.
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82 comments // Obama White House Forces State Department Spokesman to Resign

  • noxidereus
    • +1
      noxidereus  

    • http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2011/03/13/crowley

      "So, in Barack Obama's administration, it's perfectly acceptable to abuse an American citizen in detention who has been convicted of nothing by consigning him to 23-hour-a-day solitary confinement, barring him from exercising in his cell, punitively imposing "suicide watch" restrictions on him against the recommendations of brig psychiatrists, and subjecting him to prolonged, forced nudity designed to humiliate and degrade. But speaking out against that abuse is a firing offense. Good to know."

    • 1 year ago
  • Wicks934
    • 0
      Wicks934  

    • This is all too ridiculous. I have not heard who was responsible for the security of the leaked information. I mean, Manning is a "lowly" private, so how was he able to access the info. I think Manning has been chosen as the scape goat. He is a distraction so no one will ask, How was he able to do it?

    • 1 year ago
  • corderodedios
    • +2
      corderodedios  
    • Wicks934:

      Similarly, few focused on how 9 1 1 was allowed to happen when the Bush administration had been warned that adversaries were planning to fly planes into buildings. The situation is somewhat different here because members of the Bush administration (Cheney, Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld, and others) had previously put in print, through PNAC, a blueprint for American domination of the world that required implementation of such totalitarian conditions in the US that PNAC speculated in writing that execution of their plans would be unlikely except in the case of a "Pearl Harbor-type attack on the US." Thus primed, the Bush team's response was conditioned to allow, rather than prevent, attack by intrinsic bias. In Obama's case, while the response is that of a tyrant and the effect the same (diversion of public attention away from executive shortcomings such as incompetence or the perpetration of evil), the cause here is probably just stupidity. Have you noticed the goon squad that took over at the WH after Rahm's folks left?

    • 1 year ago
  • Wicks934
    • +2
      Wicks934  
    • corderodedios:

      You are right. I saw their site and their wish for a "Pearl Harbor type attack on the US". Funny, that they took that down after 9/11.....they obviously have a lot of stock in the industrial military complex.

    • 1 year ago
  • noxidereus
    • +2
      noxidereus  
    • Image

    • http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2011/03/14/manning

      The clarifying Manning/Crowley controversy - Glenn Greenwald, salon.com

      "It's long been obvious that the Obama administration's unprecedented war on whistleblowers "comes from the President himself," notwithstanding his campaign decree -- under the inspiring title "Protect Whistleblowers" -- that "such acts of courage and patriotism should be encouraged rather than stifled." The inhumane treatment of Manning plainly has two principal effects: it intimidates future would-be whistleblowers into knowing that they, too, will be abused without recourse, and it will break him psychologically (as prolonged solitary confinement and degrading treatment inevitably do) to render him incapable of a defense and to ensure he provides whatever statements they want about WikiLeaks. Other than Obama's tolerance for the same detainee abuse against which he campaigned and his ongoing subservience to the military that he supposedly "commands," it is the way in which this Manning/Crowley behavior bolsters the regime of secrecy and the President's obsessive attempts to destroy whistleblowing that makes this episode so important and so telling."

      ---

      Follow the link for more.

    • 1 year ago
  • Leen61
    • 0
      Leen61  
    • noxidereus:

      Thanks for posting this. I see alot of excellent posts here and it's nice to know that I'm not alone in seeing Obama's flaws. I don't avoid the harsh realities of this president.

    • 1 year ago
  • noxidereus
  • Leen61
  • afloyd60
    • +2
      afloyd60  

    • "Crowley has also made clear he has the Obama administration's best interests at heart because any mistreatment of Manning could be damaging to President Obama. "

      god forbid he did it for truth, justice, and the american way.

      "truth is treason in the empire of lies" -- ron paul

    • 1 year ago
  • Leen61
    • +2
      Leen61  

    • The Bush White House all over again. Say one "wrong" thing, you are out the door. Others this has happened to.....Van Jones and Shirley Sharrod. It's just ridiculous and it has the echoes of "don't say anything against me or tell me I'm wrong or you must see it my way." That's why I've heard this administration called "Bush/Bama." Sorry folks, but much is the same.

      Free Bradley Manning!

    • 1 year ago
  • Incredulous
  • Leen61
  • LivingPong
  • RaceBannon
    • +1
      RaceBannon  

    • politic aside, I just love photos of nazis marching you'd think these guys were rehearsing for a musical (just look at the soldier in the front of the troops). Sadly they were facists

    • 1 year ago
  • Incredulous
  • noxidereus
    • 0
      noxidereus  

    • Punishment of dissent is not a tenet of any form of democracy. It is a tenet of fascisms and dictatorships.

      If the American people were awake, we would hold the Obama White House accountable for it's undemocratic actions.

    • 1 year ago
  • cmc101
  • noxidereus
    • +1
      noxidereus  
    • cmc101:

      You're going to have to elaborate. Do you think punishment of dissent is a good thing? How do you feel that dissent should be handled?

      Or do you not like the smell of obvious truth?

    • 1 year ago
  • cmc101
  • noxidereus
  • cmc101
  • noxidereus
    • +1
      noxidereus  
    • cmc101:

      Campaign Obama disagrees with your employment philosophy, even though President Obama highly endorses it.

      Candidate Obama: "I don't want to have people who just agree with me. I want people who are continually pushing me out of my comfort zone."

    • 1 year ago
  • cmc101
    • 0
      cmc101  
    • noxidereus:

      There is a different for your wife to disagree with you about your personal sex life and you talk it over or she published it on the front page of the local newspaper.

    • 1 year ago
  • noxidereus
    • 0
      noxidereus  
    • cmc101:

      That analogy does not apply in the slightest. Not even close. Personal life cannot be compared to public officials who are accountable to the people.

      Step back for a minute and realize that you are defending Obama for firing someone for speaking out against the torture of an American. You prefer that they keep it hush, hush. You prefer that the people don't know what's going on. Just think about that for a minute.

      The state dept is accountable to us, the people. We have no King. We have no dictator. We are a republic.

    • 1 year ago
  • Angeliron
  • KSirys
    • +8
      KSirys  

    • That's what happens when you disagree with the government, right or wrong, you're only a puppet in their strategy.

    • 1 year ago
  • samthesixth
  • Leen61
  • theknopfknows
  • unimatrix0
  • noxidereus
    • 0
      noxidereus  
    • unimatrix0:

      You're smarter than that. Read the substance and don't focus on the superficial. You might like this take instead (from a liberal): http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2011/03/14/manning

      Here's a quote that may be of interest to you:

      "But the news isn't all bad for the President. Aside from his shrinking though still-vocal The-Leader-Can-Do-No-Wrong loyalists (whose mirror image counterparts stood behind George W. Bush to the end no matter what he did), Obama is finding support for his conduct in the Manning/Crowley episode from the Far Right."

    • 1 year ago
  • Incredulous
    • +5
      Incredulous  
    • unimatrix0:

      yes, because critical thinking does not allow us to object to the policies of those we wish to support...LOGICAL FAIL

      Voicing one's objections to the Obama administration's policies or decisions does not make one an Obama hater, regardless of the picture posted with an article. I want Obama to do better, and I would like to vote for him again, but it is my duty as a thinking, voting citizen to also employ critical thinking when it comes to the decisions he is making.

      Might help if you could get off your high horse long enough to try and figure out what's happening on the ground beneath you, before just writing other people or their postings off as haters or troll baiters.

    • 1 year ago
  • SFirman
  • Roldan
    • +7
      Roldan  

    • There was a time a couple of years ago when the United States -under Obama, had a chance to restore its image and regain its self-touted position of moral authority among civilized nations, a time when optimism could be breathed in the air and the majority thought that real change was coming in. After all, we had been promised it for almost a year, weren't we?

      But everything ended up being nothing more than an illusion of political transformation; the only thing that was real was the festive atmosphere of carnival, the balloons let loose that autumn night, the parties where young and old danced in the streets, the headlines heralding a new age, hope gleaming in every eye.

      Yes, Hope for Change was real, but guaranteed only by a slogan and tender words whispered in our ears as by a clever lover.

      Some changes were obtained. Significant changes some? Yes. Mediocre others? Yes.

      Having a Republican sector that wants to exterminate you in more ways than one and doesn’t give a flying fuck about the human condition doesn’t help you in achieving some of your promises? Yes.

      But one thing that needed to be changed, a condition that merits being fought to the last breath, the one thing that defines the moral character of a nation that praises itself champion of Human Rights, that has not changed, although it was a center piece in the banquet of promises we were fed:

      The closing of Guantánamo Bay and the serious review and change of The Rules For Treatment of Political Prisoners.

      Right now, as we write and read each other words, there are countless foreigners and United States citizens languishing incommunicado in supermax prisons, many of whom probably innocent but presumed guilty, with no recourse to the law, some probably hoping they could die rather than “live” another day under conditions which medieval tormentors only wish they could had come up with.

      Obama may be smarter than Bush (but then again, who isn’t?) but in many respects, is no better.

      ––––––––––––––––-
      [current background noise: Don’t Answer Me by Alan Parsons Project]

    • 1 year ago
  • wolfess
    • +6
      wolfess  
    • Roldan:

      Obama may be smarter than Bush (but then again, who isn’t?) but in many respects, is no better. And in being smarter, more dangerous. And more painful for me who believed his words to the point of campaigning for him.

    • 1 year ago
  • COMMONSENSEFORCOMMONGOOD_COM
    • +3
      COMMONSENSEFORCOMMONGOOD_COM  
    • Roldan:

      Nothing truly reforming will be accomplished until we have complete and total campaign finance reform, which won't happen until the public forces it on a congress steeping in payoffs. When legislators have nothing to loose from their votes, except our votes, we can have change.

    • 1 year ago
  • Roldan
    • 0
      Roldan  
    • wolfess:

      Exactly.

      The other one was dangerous because he was an idiot, and this one is dangerous because he's smart.

      In other words, we're in a lose-lose situation here.

    • 1 year ago
  • ampersand
    • +3
      ampersand  

    • Allow me to transpose my earlier comment from the article posted on this:
      "
      It's SOOOOO comforting to hear that President Obama "later insisted he had received assurances that the terms of Private Manning's confinement were "appropriate."
      Well, if he "received assurances," everything must be just peachy-keen.
      I think George Bush gave him the similar 'appropriate' assurances; "nothing to see here,... just move along..." that persuaded Mr. Obama to intervene with Spanish courts and prevent them indicting six Bush Administration officials for war crimes in 2009."
      So it goes....
      There is a difference between wanting justice, and demanding it.
      The former requires only a wish; the latter requires action.

    • 1 year ago
  • cmc101
  • noxidereus
    • +3
      noxidereus  
    • ampersand:

      "There is a difference between wanting justice, and demanding it.
      The former requires only a wish; the latter requires action."

      Obama's actions suggest neither the former, nor the latter.

      Obama is not being fooled by anyone. Persuaded, yeah probably, but he knows what's up.

    • 1 year ago
  • ampersand
    • 0
      ampersand  
    • noxidereus:

      I use the term "persuasion" ironically.
      Mr. Obama's form of persuasion, I think we have now all come to know, is based solely on calculation.
      His calculation is that he is safer not appearing to question the massive military component of our government and the interests that support it, over the ephermeral
      perceptions of the constitution.
      I hope he's wrong in this.

    • 1 year ago
  • skyeraider
  • SFirman
    • 0
      SFirman  
    • skyeraider:

      I will vote for President Obama again. The Republicans that may run are nothing to brag about. He kept his word on many things he promised. you need to tell me what president did everything they promished. It's only been two years and he had a full plate. No help from Repubs. repubs. blocked the closing of gitmo, but it will come. He has only finished part of the full plate. I have about two years to change my mind, but it wiil take something drastic to do that and the Repubs will have to come up with a very special, smart person.
      Any thing I post here is, but my opinion. Freedom of speech.

    • 1 year ago
  • lilacflower49
  • samthesixth
  • samthesixth
  • lilacflower49
  • samthesixth
  • riverdeer
  • lilacflower49
  • cmc101
    • 0
      cmc101  
    • lilacflower49:

      Right ON!!!!
      What grade of school did they pass? Ask them!! 5th graders knows that this was going to be tough they have to put up with what their parents say . their friends parents say their teacher say and principal say then they go home and listen relatives say that include their mother's family, their dads family this also include the step mom or step dad and older brothers ,sisters and included 1/2 brothers,sisters ,aunts uncles then come the talk shows, radio , tv talk shows news casters this include the whispering and shouting cussing and ranting,raving and praying on the cell phone. That is built in his or her day Then you blame the teacher that get payed too much because the teacher belongs to the wrong church , union and making their child stress out so much he or her can't pass the test that was given 5 times before the real test with the same questions .
      then you expect a our president elected by majority vote to heal the nation in one year before mid term when anyone convinced they voted with the wrong color ink with misspelled words, wrong berth state and not from the south or from the north . and this president speak with three syllable words not just four letters. Did I missed anything ?

    • 1 year ago
  • noxidereus
  • lilacflower49
  • SFirman
  • samthesixth
  • lilacflower49
  • SFirman
  • dinm76
    • +7
      dinm76  

    • The time will never be better for a true progressive liberal to run. The true progressives have been treated like crap from Obama and the rethugians are completely "off the farm nuts". Lets go for it and vote for a president who knows what it means to KEEP HIS/HER WORD to the people who vote them into office.
      Obama is a slick snake oil salesmen and he sold us a bill of goods. He dose not care about right and wrong, only whats good for him as a politician. I'm sick of politicians, I want a true STATESMAN for president.

    • 1 year ago
  • samthesixth
  • rebekkah1
  • SFirman
  • Prijedor
  • SFirman
  • lilacflower49
  • Prijedor
  • Janice_H
    • +4
      Janice_H  

    • Apparently Crowley's statements were true, and being fired for speaking the truth is Orwellian. Rep. Anthony Weiner, please challenge Obama in 2012!

    • 1 year ago
  • PressCore
    • -1
      PressCore  
    • Image
    • Janice_H:

      http://overstocked.com

      " The 1st casualty in any War is always the Truth. And in any culture so used
      to accepting war without end that makes deception so all pervasive, even one
      person simply stating the truth will always be viewed as a Revolutionary Act "
      The devil you say ! George Orwell ? Well fee, fi, foe., fum. I smell the blood
      of an Englishman !!! Yes, indeed. Noone need trade a cow for some magic
      beans to know that with 20 levels of security clearance above the presidency,
      once the military tells Nobama to jump, his only question to them will be how
      high ? and how soon ? Though Hitler & Goebels would have called out the
      author of that patheticly sanitized speech as a pussy excuse for an ubermench,

      I'm sure both are smiling up from Hell now at the great stides the military have
      made since 1944 when they first started to capture the super advanced tech
      Hitler's scientists were working on. Saw a History channel documentary which
      I recorded in my own version of the X files entitled: " An Alien History of Planet
      Earth ". A Brittish aerospace engineer/journalist set about to investigate what
      UFOlogists have uncovered over the past nearly 60 years since both English
      & American air force pilots first saw the " foo fighters " fly over Germany in
      1942. (Yet another History channel documentary " Aliens & the 3rd Reich "
      speculates with viable evidence whether genuine E.T.s made 1st contact with
      the Germans under the regime of the 3rd Reich. Because there are still German apparatus remains of anti gravity experiments featured in the Alien History doc.
      Even in 1943, the Philadelphia Experiment in invisible stealth to cloak navy ships proceeded w/Einstrein's assistance in achieving a trans dimensional jump. It's
      been speculated that the E.T.s might not have arrived from light years across
      space/time but from other dimensions.There was a flying flotilla wing of 10 E.T.s
      seen meandering over the Capitol bldg in D.C.,twice,in 1952 by Truman himself)

      When Wikileaks & Bradley Manning took it upon themselves to open the U.S.
      military to public scutiny, I doubt they could have forseen the extremes which
      the military would go to immitate the 3rd Reich whose work they've built on
      since 1944 when the D Day invasion of Normandy got them closer to seizing
      alien tech. The military has been using the UFO sightings as cover to discredit
      the tech they've reverse engineered from the Roswell crash. Though the foo
      fighters the air forces saw flying over Germany in 1942 are attributeable to
      genuine aliens, there are now American humans from this dimension on this
      planet flying experimental aircraft based on the saucer design. Project Aurora
      which one New Mexico police officer saw long, long ago near their White Sands
      installation has had a lot of refinements since. That anti grav super tech has
      been refined. The U.S. air force's super secret flying saucer uses a pulse
      detonation wave engine which leaves a donut shaped contrail behind it which
      has been photographed, and travels at-get this-8,000 miles an hour.

      You've heard of the Jules Verne classic Around the world in 80 days ? This
      baby can do the trip in 3 hours at the edge of space. The inertial dampeners
      on the Aurora air/space craft must realy be something to enable a human to
      withstand those G forces of sudden turns at that speed. Even the youngest
      pilots black out at such unnatural stresses on their bodies. The USAF's use
      of the SR 77 Blackbird in the 70s was so fast it could outrun even the Russians' airspace defense missles fired at it. And that's long since been retired. ( was
      a huge gas guzzler) Can you immage what flying Mach 13 would do to anyone ?

      When it comes to Nobama we all know he'll say one thing then do another.
      Don't look for any transparency when the military who rules him is prepared to
      violate the Geneva Convention and immitate German Nazis' torture methods to
      operate in secret. The Zen Bhuddist principle of yield and overcome isn't part
      of their operational vocabulary of terms. File this X factor under terms their
      civilian spin doctors understand like " flap potential" " plausible deniability"
      "ultra compartmentalized super top secret " If you realy want the big O go to overstocked.com. You can buy what they sell you. Red sun at night sailors
      delight. Red sun in morning sailors warning.

    • 1 year ago
  • SFirman
  • cmc101
  • Incredulous
  • cmc101
  • lilacflower49
  • lilacflower49
  • TheAmericanPatriot
  • Saladin
  • PoliticalAmazon
  • PressCore
    • +3
      PressCore  
    • PoliticalAmazon:

      If he realy were a man of the people, and not a sleazy politician with the
      price tag of an expensive call girl, yes he would have pulled stings to get
      Bradley Manning decent treatment. I hope the Dems have enough sense
      to nominate Dennis Cucinich for President in 2012. The last 3 elections
      have been a farce with either massive voting fraud at the machines, or
      fraud in the political parties choce of candidates. It's like they want people
      to not vote when they run candidates on a platform for change who instead
      only want to suck up the a corrupt status quo.

    • 1 year ago
  • SFirman
    • +1
      SFirman  
    • PoliticalAmazon:

      Do you really think he will be made to resign because of Manning. We don't even know if what they say about Manning is true. He will have his day in court. Till then he is innocent.

    • 1 year ago
  • Roldan
    • +1
      Roldan  
    • SFirman:

      "He will have his day in court."

      Oh, yeah? When? When he's so fucked up mentally that he'll be willing to confess to anything, even raping his own mother, his friends and the family pet?

      Before posting this I forgot to ask you: who the fok are you talking about having his day in court? Obama, Crowley or Manning?

      -------------------------------------
      [current background noise: Naive by The Kooks]

    • 1 year ago
  • SFirman
  • lilacflower49
  • SFirman
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