tagged w/ Military Industrial Complex
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Please support Wikileaks by donating.
Click here: http://213.251.145.96/support.html
Please sign the petition: https://secure.avaaz.org/en/wikileaks...
If you would like to become even more involved, then there may be a "support Wikileaks protest" near you.
Click here for details: http://wlcentral.org/events-protests
Here is a list of Wikileaks mirror sites:
http://wikileaks.ch/mirrors.html
After Effects template for opening by Kenzei via Video Hive.
The statistics of how many have died as a result of the war on terror is an estimate taken from http://www.unknownnews.net
It is hard to pin pinpoint just how many have died due to the fact that this information isn't released. estimates have the toll somewhere between
800,000 and 1,200,000
Requests under freedom of information act denied by Obama Administration should read 49% - for more info
http://hotair.com/archives/2010/03/16...
Another point to make is that the clip of Obama talking about different terrorists was an except taken from an interview with Bill O'Reilly where he was explaining the difference between terrorists in Iraq and Afghanistan.
However, i thought it was relevant as so much of the terminology in the media is focused around labelling wikileaks and it's people terrorists.
The song "Your the Voice" was by Coldplay featuring John Farnham - song was originally by John Farnham.
The clip was taken from a concert in Sydney "Sound Relief" where many bands came together to support people who were devastated by the Black Saturday fires. - of whom Coldplay were amongst them.
PLEASE POST THIS AROUND.
CheersPlease support Wikileaks by donating.
Click here: http://213.251.145.96/support.html... more
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An hour after the official ceremony marking the end of his 35-year career in the Air Force, General Gregory “Speedy’’ Martin returned to his quarters to swap his dress uniform for golf attire. He was ready for his first tee time as a retired four-star general.An hour after the official ceremony marking the end of his 35-year career in the Air... more
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Targeting Political Terrorism = LETS START HERE...
http://www.peopleokwithmurderingassange.com
Wikileaks today offered sympathy and condolences to the victims of the Tucson shooting together with best wishes for the recovery of U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords. Giffords, a democrat from Arizona's 8th district, was the target of a shooting spree at a Jan 8 political event in which six others were killed.
Tucson Sheriff Clarence Dupnik, leading the investigation into the Gifford shooting, said that "vitriolic rhetoric" intended to "inflame the public on a daily basis ... has [an] impact on people, especially who are unbalanced personalities to begin with." Dupnik also observed that officials and media personalities engaging in violent rhetoric "have to consider that they have some responsibility when incidents like this occur and may occur in the future."
WikiLeaks staff and contributors have also been the target of unprecedented violent rhetoric by US prominent media personalities, including Sarah Palin, who urged the US administration to “Hunt down the WikiLeaks chief like the Taliban”. Prominent US politician Mike Huckabee called for the execution of WikiLeaks spokesman Julian Assange on his Fox News program last November, and Fox News commentator Bob Beckel, referring to Assange, publicly called for people to "illegally shoot the son of a bitch." US radio personality Rush Limbaugh has called for pressure to "Give [Fox News President Roger] Ailes the order and [then] there is no Assange, I'll guarantee you, and there will be no fingerprints on it.", while the Washington Times columnist Jeffery T. Kuhner titled his column “Assassinate Assange” captioned with a picture Julian Assange overlayed with a gun site, blood spatters, and “WANTED DEAD or ALIVE” with the alive crossed out.
John Hawkins of Townhall.com has stated "If Julian Assange is shot in the head tomorrow or if his car is blown up when he turns the key, what message do you think that would send about releasing sensitive American data?"
Christian Whiton in a Fox News opinion piece called for violence against WikiLeaks publishers and editors, saying the US should "designate WikiLeaks and its officers as enemy combatants, paving the way for non-judicial actions against them."
WikiLeaks spokesman Julian Assange said: "No organisation anywhere in the world is a more devoted advocate of free speech than Wikileaks but when senior politicians and attention seeking media commentators call for specific individuals or groups of people to be killed they should be charged with incitement -- to murder. Those who call for an act of murder deserve as significant share of the guilt as those raising a gun to pull the trigger."
“WikiLeaks has many young staff, volunteers and supporters in the same geographic vicinity as these the broadcast or circulation of these incitements to kill. We have also seen mentally unstable people travel from the US and other counties to other locations. Consequently we have to engage in extreme security measures.”
“We call on US authorities and others to protect the rule of law by aggressively prosecuting these and similar incitements to kill. A civil nation of laws can not have prominent members of society constantly calling for the murder and assassination of other individuals or groups.”
More Examples:
http://townhall.com/columnists/JohnHawkins/2010/11/30/5_reasons_the_cia_should_have_already_killed_julian_assange/page/2
http://www.peopleokwithmurderingassange.com/Targeting Political Terrorism = LETS START HERE...... more
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David Rovics performs his newly written "Song for Bradley Manning" in this video.
Bradley E. Manning is a United States Army soldier who was charged in July 2010 with the unauthorized disclosure of U.S. classified information. He is being held in solitary confinement at the Marine Corps Brig, Quantico, Virginia, and is expected to face a court-martial in the spring of 2011.
Manning was assigned to a support battalion with the 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division, based at Contingency Operating Station Hammer, Iraq, which gave him access to SIPRNet—the Secret Internet Protocol Router Network—used by the U.S. Department of Defense and Department of State to transmit classified information. He was arrested in May 2010 after Adrian Lamo, a former computer hacker, reported to authorities that Manning had told him, during an online chat, that he had downloaded material from SIPRNet and passed it to Wikileaks. The material included the video of a July 2007 helicopter airstrike in Baghdad—the so-called "Collateral Murder" video, which Wikileaks published in April 2010—a video of the Granai airstrike, and a large number of diplomatic cables.
Long live Wikileaks! http://wikileaks.ch
Song by David Rovics http://davidrovics.com
This is a zgraphix production.
Produced by Jeff Zavala.
http://zgraphix.orgDavid Rovics performs his newly written "Song for Bradley Manning" in this... more
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By Julianne Escobedo Shepherd and Tana Ganeva, AlterNet
The corporate media's tendency to blare misinformation and outright fabrications has been particularly egregious in coverage of WikiLeaks. As Glenn Greenwald has argued, mainstream news outlets are parroting smears and falsehoods about the whistleblower site and its founder Julian Assange, helping to perpetuate a number of "zombie lies" -- misconceptions that refuse to die no matter how much they conflict with known reality, basic logic and well-publicized information.
Here are the bogus narratives that keep appearing in newspapers and on the airwaves.
1. Fearmongering that WikiLeaks revelations will result in deaths. So far there's no evidence that WikiLeaks' revelations have cost lives. In fact, right before the cables were released, Pentagon officials admitted there were no documented instances of people being killed because of information exposed by WikiLeaks' previous document releases (and unlike the diplomatic cables, the Afghanistan files were unredacted).
That's not to say that the exposure of secret government files can't somehow lead to someone, somewhere, someday, being hurt. But that's a pretty high bar to set, especially by a government engaged in multiple military operations -- many of them secret -- that lead to untold civilian casualties.
2. Spreading the lie that WikiLeaks posted all the cables. WikiLeaks has posted fewer than 2,000 of the 251,287 cables in its possession. The whistleblower released those documents in tandem with major news outlets including the Guardian, El Pais and Le Monde, and used most of the redactions employed by those papers to protect the identities of people whose lives could be endangered by exposure. The AP detailed this process in a December 3 article, but this did not stop officials and pundits from howling that WikiLeaks "indiscriminately" dumped all the cables online. Much of the media mindlessly repeated the claim.
Greenwald and others have battled to kill the myth that the whistleblower site threw up all the cables without taking any precautions to protect people, but it keeps coming up. Just this week NPR issued an apology for all the times contributors and guests have implied or outright voiced the falsehood that WikiLeaks blindly posted all the cables at once.
3. Falsely claiming that Assange has committed a crime regarding WikiLeaks. The State Department is working really hard to pin a crime on Julian Assange. The problem is that so far he doesn't appear to have broken any laws. Assange is not a U.S. citizen, he does not work for the U.S. government, and the documents WikiLeaks posted were procured by someone else. As Greenwald has repeatedly pointed out, it's not against the law to publish classified U.S. government information. If it were, hundreds of journalists would be in prison right now.
While the government tries to conjure up a legal justification for prosecuting Assange, the media is helping out by fanning the narrative that he's some criminal mastermind. Major outlets continue to host guests who accuse Assange of criminal behavior without quite specifying what his crime is. In a much derided CNN debate between Bush Homeland Security adviser Fran Townsend and Glenn Greenwald hosted by Jessica Yellin, Greenwald had to repeatedly bat away the assertion that Assange has "profited" from "criminal" acts.
The effort to tar Assange as a criminal -- spearheaded by government officials and helped along by the media -- may have a chilling effect on future whistleblowers.
4. Denying that WikiLeaks is a journalistic enterprise. Public officials and pundits continue to claim that WikiLeaks is not a journalistic outlet, even though it procured the scoop of a decade. But much of what WikiLeaks does is identical to the activities of other news sources. WikiLeaks receives secrets from anonymous sources, which it then reveals to the public -- news is nothing if not a checks and balances system for the government, a fundamental right of a free press. Secondly, it curates those secrets before revealing them -- a journalist selecting relevant and appropriate material from a confidential document is not that different from WikiLeaks redacting certain parts of the cables.
Because WikiLeaks’ actions fall under the First Amendment, all journalists should be outraged if the American government attempts to prosecute. If WikiLeaks is prosecuted for conducting a journalistic enterprise, what rights will be stripped from journalists in the future? One of the most respected journalistic institutions in the world, the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, is speaking out. Earlier this month, 20 faculty members drafted and signed a letter to President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder saying that WikiLeaks' prosecution will set a “dangerous precedent for reporters in any publication or medium, potentially chilling investigative journalism and other First Amendment-protected activity ... Prosecution in the Wikileaks case would greatly damage American standing in free-press debates worldwide and would dishearten those journalists looking to this nation for inspiration.”
The Walkley Foundation, an institution of journalism in Assange’s home of Australia, put it more succinctly in its own letter of support for WikiLeaks: “To aggressively attempt to shut WikiLeaks down, to threaten to prosecute those who publish official leaks, and to pressure companies to cease doing commercial business with WikiLeaks, is a serious threat to democracy, which relies on a free and fearless press.”
GO TO NEXT PAGE:
http://www.alternet.org/story/149369/By Julianne Escobedo Shepherd and Tana Ganeva, AlterNet
The corporate... more
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http://ow.ly/3zFed
S E C R E T SECTION 01 OF 03 TEL AVIV 002301GO TO DOCUMENT:
1. (S/NF) Summary: U.S. businesses allege that corruption by Israeli officials at Karni crossing is impeding their access to the Gaza market. As of late May 34 shipments of American goods, amounting to nearly USD 1.9 million dollars, have been waiting three to four months to cross into Gaza. U.S. distributors assert they are being asked to pay "special fees" which amount to as much as 75 times the standard processing fee as quoted by GOI officials. According to one major American distributor, corruption extends to Karni management and involves logistics companies working as middlemen for military and civilian officials at the terminal. An open and transparent truck registration system and the development and publication of clear procedures, charges and service standards for Karni would go a long way to fight corruption and advance the Agreement on Movement and Access, goal of effective service standards for the border crossings. End summary and comment.
------------------------- ALLEGATIONS OF CORRUPTION -------------------------
GO TO RELEASED DOCUMENT:
http://www.aftenposten.no/spesial/wikileaksdokumenter/article3974066.ecehttp://ow.ly/3zFed
S E C R E T SECTION 01 OF 03 TEL AVIV 002301GO TO DOCUMENT:... more
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Psychologists group deplores 'brutality' of Bradley Manning's prison conditions!
Rights advocates, government watchdogs and supporters of alleged WikiLeaks whistleblower Bradley Manning say they're becoming increasingly alarmed that the conditions under which the 22-year-old Army private is being held could amount to torture.
In the latest public pronouncements calling attention to Manning's plight, the Psychologists for Social Responsibility this week sent an open letter to Defense Secretary Robert Gates saying it is "deeply concerned" about Manning's confinement conditions at a military prison at Quantico, Va.
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"As an organization of psychologists and other mental health professionals, PsySR is aware that solitary confinement can have severely deleterious effects on the psychological well-being of those subjected to it," the group said. "We therefore call for a revision in the conditions of PFC Manning’s incarceration while he awaits trial, based on the exhaustive documentation and research that have determined that solitary confinement is, at the very least, a form of cruel, unusual and inhumane treatment in violation of U.S. law."
The letter deplores the "needless brutality" of Manning's conditions and says they undermine his right to a fair trial.
"Coercive conditions of detention also increase the likelihood of the prisoner 'cooperating' in order to improve those circumstances, even to the extent of giving false testimony," the letter said. "Thus, such harsh conditions are counter to the interests of justice."
A Quantico prison spokesman denied that Manning is being treated unduly harshly. "Pfc. Manning is not being treated any differently than any other maximum-custody detainee in the brig," Lt. Brian Villiard told msnbc.com on Thursday.
According to his lawyer, David E. Coombs, Manning has been held in maximum custody under a "prevention of injury" watch at the Marine Corps brig at Quantico since July, when he was charged with disclosing classified U.S. information. The military suspects Manning downloaded and leaked a video purportedly showing U.S. helicopters firing on civilians in Iraq on July 12, 2007.
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The U.S. military also suspects him of being the source of the leak of hundreds of thousands of diplomatic cables and other government documents to WikiLeaks, though no charges have been filed in that case.
Coombs says Manning is confined in a 6-by-12-foot cell with a bed, a drinking fountain and a toilet for about 23 hours a day. On a " typical day," he is awakened at 5 a.m. and is not allowed to sleep between 5 a.m. and 8 p.m.; if he tries to sleep during those hours, guards will make him sit up or stand. He eats all his meals in his cell. He is allowed one hour of "exercise" daily outside his cell, consisting of walking in figure eights in an empty room, according to Coombs. When he goes to sleep, he is required to strip down to his boxer shorts and give his clothing to the guards. He is not allowed to have any personal items in his cell.
Story: U.S. tells agencies: Watch 'insiders' to prevent new WikiLeaks
Coombs has said that Manning's confinement conditions amount to punishment, even though he has yet to go to trial.
David House, a 23-year-old MIT researcher who has visited Manning several times at Quantico, contends that because Manning is under a "prevention of injury" watch, he is subjected to conditions "far beyond" other maximum-custody prisoners at the brig.
Only on msnbc.com
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"Over the course of my visits to see Bradley in Quantico, it’s become increasingly clear that the severe, inhumane conditions of his detention are wearing on Manning. The extraordinary restrictions of Manning’s basic rights to sleep, exercise, and communicate under the Prevention of Injury order are unnecessary and should be lifted immediately," House wrote in a recent blog post.
The United Nations' top anti-torture envoy, Manfred Nowak, is looking into a complaint that the Army private is being mistreated in custody, his office confirmed late last month.
'Treated equally'
Villiard, the Quantico spokesman, denied that Manning is in "solitary confinement" and said his conditions are no different than the brig's other maximum custody detainees. All detainees at Quantico, like Manning, are either awaiting or undergoing trial.
"He lives in his own cell. He’s allowed to converse with other detainees if he chooses to do so," Villiard said, noting that the layout of the brig is such that detainees can hear but can't see each other.
"He is treated equally across the board as it relates to other detainees," Villiard said. "It’s a brig. I’m not a qualified person to talk about what is torture and what is not. It’s a military brig and it’s not being run any differently than any other military brig."
He said Manning receives "regular visits from both medical and psychological providers" to ensure his well-being.
The Washington Times reported Tuesday that the Army is assembling a special board to evaluate Manning's mental state.
Army spokesman Lt. Col. Robert Manning, no relation to Bradley Manning, told the newspaper that no further legal proceedings will happen until a recommendation is made on his fitness to stand trial.
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Bradley Manning's supporters and rights advocates have urged citizens to contact Quantico and ask that the restrictions of the "prevention of injury" order be lifted.
Villiard said Quantico has received "a good number" of phone calls from concerned citizens about Manning. He said most of them are relieved when base officials explain that Manning is not being treated any differently than other detainees.
"There’s nothing going on here that the Marine Corps has any reason to be concerned about and there's no reason for the civilian community to be concerned about, either," Villiard said.Psychologists group deplores 'brutality' of Bradley Manning's prison... more
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It is disappointing to see the same president who ran on his constitutional law professor bona fides devote so much time and effort to discrediting WikiLeaks and working up charges against its founder, Julian Assange. WikiLeaks, like the New York Times before it with the publication of the Pentagon Papers, has committed no crime. If the law of the land holds true, the administration will get nowhere with the foolish notion that Assange can be tried for conspiracy under the Espionage Act for doing what major media outlets do every day: publishing classified information about the government. The claim that somehow WikiLeaks is different because it allegedly encouraged sources to come forward is a red herring: even if the charge proves true, this is what journalists at every major media outlet in the country do every day.
Still, we wonder at those who assert that the cables "demonstrate no misconduct by the U.S." (Floyd Abrams) or "provide very little evidence of double-dealing or bad faith in U.S. foreign policy" (Gideon Rachman). In fact, the U.S. Embassy cables, like the Pentagon Papers, show our government involved in systemic wrongdoing and wide scale deception. They present irrefutable evidence that this administration and its predecessor have been tampering with other countries' legal systems to prevent prosecutions against government employees for committing human rights abuses and transgressing international law under often-secret post 9/11 policies.
This April 1, 2009 cable reveals the U.S. trying to derail the prosecution of the senior architects of the Bush administration's torture program in Spain. The U.S. frets that "The fact that this complaint targets former Administration legal officials may reflect a 'stepping-stone' strategy designed to pave the way for complaints against even more senior officials." When it looks to Chief Prosecutor Javier Zaragoza to stall or derail the proceedings, he reassures them: while "in all likelihood he would have no option but to open a case" he does not "envision indictments or arrest warrants in the near future." (Untrue, by the way. Zaragoza and the U.S. may have succeeded in stalling the investigation, but this week CCR will take the next steps toward encouraging the judge assigned to the case to move forward despite the failure of the U.S. to respond to his inquiries.)
This February 6, 2007 cable shows the previous administration trying to prevent Germany from prosecuting the 13 CIA agents who abducted German citizen Khaled el-Marsi and flew him to Afghanistan for interrogation as part of the U.S. "extraordinary rendition" program--only to discover after many months that they had the wrong man. In public, Angela Merkel's office called for an investigation while Munich prosecutors issued arrest warrants for the agents. In private, the German Justice Ministry and Foreign Ministry reassured an anxious US that they were not interested in pursuing the case.
Like the NYT when it published the Pentagon Papers, WikiLeaks has been accused of irresponsibly dumping a large cache of top secret documents into the public domain that compromise the safety of our country and our allies. In fact, despite the hysterical claims of a variety of elected officials, there's been absolutely no documentation of any resulting harm, unless one counts the embarrassment of having Russian Premier Minister Vladimir Putin make fun of U.S. officials for trying to suppress free speech. WikiLeaks has only released 1,974 of the 251,287 cables in its possession, and none were classified as "top secret" (over half were not subject to classification at all). Finally, while its offer to go over redactions with the State Department prior to publication was ignored, the five major newspapers that have been publishing the cables have gone to great lengths to communicate with each other and the State Department regarding redactions.
Our government, as journalist and constitutional lawyer Glenn Greenwald has noted, increasingly wishes to operate through a one-way mirror where all of its citizens' activities are open for surveillance while the activities of the government itself increasingly take place behind a wall of executive privilege, untouchable even by judicial oversight. But democracy demands the cleansing light of openness as a guard against the abuses of power. We should thank WikiLeaks for shedding light on governmental wrongdoing. Now let us hope that the U.S. public, as well as its politicians and media, will consider investigating these abuses at least as important as maligning the messenger.
Vince Warren is the Executive Director of the Center for Constitutional Rights
To Go To Article:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/vincent-warren/wikileaks-and-democracy_b_805498.htmlIt is disappointing to see the same president who ran on his constitutional law... more
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Julian Assange in conversation with John Pilger
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03 january 2011
Motion to Dismiss for Lack of Speedy Trial
The Sixth Amendment right to a speedy trial is applied to military jurisprudence through two separate and distinct provisions-- Rule for Court-Martial (R.C.M.) 707 and Article 10 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) (10 U.S.C. § 810). While both provisions seek to protect the same constitutional right, and while there is considerable overlap between the two, each provision has separate rules regarding when the protections attach and when they are breached.
Whether stemming from R.C.M. 707 or from Article 10 UCMJ, a motion to dismiss for lack of a speedy trial must be raised before the court-martial is adjourned, and it is waived by a guilty plea, as provided in R.C.M. 907(b)(2)(A) and 905(e). Once the issue is raised, the burden of persuasion rests with the government. R.C.M. 905(c)(2)(B). Before hearing on the motion, the parties may stipulate as to undisputed facts and dates of relevant pretrial events. The stipulation will provide the court a chronology detailing the processing of the case. R.C.M. 707(c)(2).
R.C.M. 707
R.C.M. 707 provides that charges against an accused must be dismissed if they are not brought to trial within 120 days of the earlier of preferral, pretrial confinement, or recall to active duty under R.C.M. 204. Arraignment equals trial under R.C.M. 904. The date the charge is preferred, pretrial restraint is imposed, or on which the accused is called to active duty does not count toward the 120 days. The date the accused is brought to trial does count. If the accused is released from pretrial confinement for a “significant period,” the time period runs from the earlier of preferral or re-imposition of restraint. United States v. Reynolds, 36 M.J. 1128 (A.C.M.R. 1993). A lesser form of restriction may be considered to be a release from confinement.
If charges are dismissed or a mistrial is granted, the speedy trial clock is reset to begin on; date of dismissal in cases where the accused remains in pretrial restraint; date of mistrial, or; earlier of re-preferral or imposition of restraint for all other cases. R.C.M. 707(b)(3)(A), United States v. Bolado, 34 M.J. 732 (N.M.C.M.R. 1991); aff’d, 36 M.J. 2 (C.M.A. 1992). If there is no re-preferral and the accused remains in pretrial confinement, then the time period starts the date the charges are dismissed or a mistrial is declared. If a rehearing is ordered or authorized by an appellate court, then there is a new 120-day period. See United States v. Becker, 53 M.J. 229 (C.A.A.F. 2000) (applying R.C.M. 707 timing requirements to a sentence rehearing but finding that remedy of dismissal of charges too severe).
A commander can dismiss charges even if there is an intent to re-institute charges at a later date. Dismissal of charges cannot, however, be a subterfuge to avoid the 120 day speedy trial clock. United States v. Robinson, 47 M.J. 506 (N.M.C.C.A. 1997). Factors courts will consider to decide if a dismissal is a subterfuge are: Convening Authority's intent, notice and documentation of action, restoration of rights and privileges of accused, prejudice to accused, and whether there were any amended or additional charges. See also United States v. Anderson, 50 M.J. 447 (C.A.A.F. 1999), wherein CAAF finds no subterfuge under the facts of the case and declares, contrary to the Government’s concession, that the speedy trial clock was restarted on the date of dismissal. Withdrawal by a commander under R.C.M. 604, however, does not toll running of speedy trial clock. United States v. Weatherspoon, 39 M.J. 762 (A.C.M.R. 1994); See United States v. Tippit, 65 M.J 69 (C.A.A.F. 2007) (based upon the SJA’s advice, the Special Court-Martial Convening Authority (SPCMCA) signed a withdrawal of charges – C.A.A.F. honored the SPCMCA intent to dismiss the charges despite the misnomer and found no violation of R.C.M. 707).
Some delays are excludable from the 120-day limit under R.C.M. 707. All periods of time during which appellate courts have issued stays in the proceedings, or the accused is hospitalized due to incompetence, or is otherwise in the custody of the Attorney General are excluded from the 120-day limit. If after commitment under R.C.M. 909(f), the accused is returned from the custody of the Attorney General to the custody of the general court-martial convening authority, a new 120-day time period begins upon such return.
Any pretrial delays granted by the convening authority before referral or by the military judge after referral are excluded. United States v. Lazauskas, 62 M.J. 39 (C.A.A.F. 2005). The convening authority may delegate the power to grant continuances to an Article 32 investigating officer. The Manual for Courts-Martial (M.C.M.) discussion of R.C.M. 707(c)(1) lists examples of when a pretrial delay might be granted. These include the need for: time to enable counsel to prepare for trial in complex cases; time to allow examination into the mental capacity of the accused; time to process a member of the reserve component to active duty for disciplinary action; time to complete other proceedings related to the case; time requested by the defense; time to secure the availability of the accused, substantial witnesses, or other evidence; time to obtain appropriate security clearances for access to classified information or time to declassify evidence; or additional time for other good cause.
Go to full article:
http://www.armycourtmartialdefense.info/2011/01/motion-to-dismiss-for-lack-of-speedy.html03 january 2011
Motion to Dismiss for Lack of Speedy Trial
The Sixth Amendment... more
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Obama Should Read WikiLeaks Documents
Monday 03 January 2011
by: Ray McGovern | Consortium News | Op-Ed
Perhaps President Barack Obama should give himself a waiver on the ban prohibiting U.S. government employees from downloading classified cables released by WikiLeaks, so he can better understand the futility of his Afghan War strategy.
For instance, if Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has hidden from him Ambassador Karl Eikenberry’s cables from Kabul, he might wish to search out KABUL 001892 of July 13, 2009, in which Eikenberry reports that Afghan President Hamid Karzai is “unable to grasp the most rudimentary principles of state building.”
And, while he’s at it, he should dig out the September 2009 cable from the U.S. Ambassador in Pakistan, Anne Patterson, in which she warns: “There is no chance that Pakistan will view enhanced assistance … as sufficient compensation for abandoning support to these [Taliban and similar] groups in Pakistan.”
The same conclusion is contained in the recent National Intelligence Estimates on Afghanistan and Pakistan. My advice to Obama would be: Don’t let anyone gist them for you; read at least the Key Judgments.
Yet, in his recent defense of his Afghanistan-Pakistan policy, Obama acted as if he didn’t know or understand the full import of these disclosures. Instead, he simply reiterated the “three areas of our strategy” in Afghanistan:
“To break the Taliban’s momentum and train Afghan forces so they can take the lead; to promote effective governance and development; and regional cooperation, especially with Pakistan, because our strategy has to succeed on both sides of the border.”
But the Taliban’s momentum has not been broken nor is it likely to be, Mr. President. And good luck with President Karzai on that “effective governance” thing, not to mention the part about getting cooperation from Pakistan.
Indeed, the real Achilles heel of Obama’s strategy, the true showstopper, is the forlorn hope of stronger cooperation with Pakistan.
Other WikiLeaks cables make Pakistan’s deep concern about the encroachment of India in Afghanistan unmistakably clear. In one cable, for example, Pakistani Army chief Gen. Ashfaq Kayani is reported to have been “utterly frank” about the consequences of a pro-India government coming to power in Kabul.
Kayani: “The Pakistani establishment will dramatically increase support for Taliban groups in Pakistan and Afghanistan … as an important counterweight.”
Go to the next Page:
http://www.truth-out.org/ray-mcgovern-obama-should-read-wikileaks-docs66524Obama Should Read WikiLeaks Documents
Monday 03 January 2011
by: Ray McGovern |... more
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Posted on January 4, 2011 by Crushing Bastards
Crew photo from my first deployment. The plane is a RC-135 "Rivet Joint."
I am a US Air Force Intelligence veteran of the war in Afghanistan and I support Wikileaks.
During my service I held a Top Secret security clearance and worked as an Afghan-Pashto linguist; my duties included consuming and producing a large number of intelligence reports. After reading many of the Iraq/Afghan/Cablegate logs I am compelled to inform my fellow citizens that I saw nothing in these logs that could endanger our troops or public servants.
Here’s what I did see: I saw Iraq war logs that painted a very bleak picture of the situation there which doesn’t match up with the “improved security” that’s been reported by the “Defense” Department for years. I saw proof of public officials acting dishonestly and abusing their posts. Overall, I saw an out of control government that is in over its head and does more to endanger the lives of its people than any publishing organization ever could.
I volunteered to protect this country under the impression that my government followed the will of the American People and adhered to the US Constitution. As it turns out, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were never constitutionally declared and despite public opinion being against the two wars they continue to grow more destructive. My experiences in these wars differed greatly from the propaganda the American people were sold by America’s mainstream media outlets; many times I would return from a mission to see wild inaccuracies being reported on Fox/CNN/MSNBC about the very operation I had just been supporting. Wikileaks has helped shine light on the true nature of these illegal wars and the policymakers that perpetuate them, for this I am thankful.
Speaking of policy makers that perpetuate war… Apparently, this nation is bankrupt. The US dollar, under the custodianship of Ben Bernanke’s Federal Reserve System, continues to lose its purchasing power as new dollars are printed to pay for warfare and corporate welfare (in the form of bailouts for bankers). We must recognize that printing more money will not solve our problems, it will only make Americans increasingly poorer. The foundation of America’s financial system is corrupt and dishonest; Wikileaks is also working to unmask this corrupt central-banking system.
For too long, bastards (using Julian Assange’s definition) have been able to use America’s good reputation as a cover for their misdeeds. These days, it seems that powerful interests wield more influence in Washington than the whole of the American electorate. These interests see the American people as nothing more than sheep to be fleeced and so they use their influence to make it easier for us to be held down. I support Wikileaks because I want to see these insidious influences exposed. My hope is that the 21st Century will be one of liberty and transparency, not of greater secrecy and slavish submission to authority.
Let it be known that there are many of us who will resist any attempts to stifle 1st Amendment protections; that America’s veterans take seriously their oaths to the US Constitution and will demand transparency and honesty from government officials; that America’s veterans stand ready to defend the ideals of a free society in the 21st century.
http://crushingbastards.org/blog/2011/01/04/i-am-a-us-air-force-intelligence-veteran-of-the-war-in-afghanistan-and-i-support-wikileaks/Posted on January 4, 2011 by Crushing Bastards
Crew photo from my first... more
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Wikileaks has shown that our government and military form a 'vast lying machine' that perpetrates mass murder in our name.
January 3, 2011
Do you believe that it is in Americans' interest to allow a small group of U.S. leaders to unilaterally murder, maim, imprison and/or torture anyone they choose anywhere in the world, without the knowledge let alone oversight of their citizens or the international community? And, despite their proven record of failure to protect America -- from Indochina to Iran to Iraq -- do you believe they should be permitted to clandestinely expand their war-making without informed public debate? If so, you are betraying the principles upon which America was founded, endangering your nation, and displaying a distinctly "unamerican" subservience to unaccountable authority. But if you oppose autocratic power, you are called to support Wikileaks and others trying to limit U.S. Executive Branch mass murder abroad and failure to protect Americans at home.
These two issues became officially linked for the first time when former U.S. Afghan commander General Stanley McChrystal explicitly stated that the murder of civilians increases rather than decreases the numbers of those committed to killing Americans, and actually implemented policies -- since reversed by General Petraeus -- to reduce U.S. murder of civilians. McChrystal said that “for every innocent person you kill, you create 10 new enemies." By so doing he made it clear that killing civilians is not only a moral and war crimes issue, but -- in today's interdependent world -- also threatens U.S. national security.
As important as is the issue of free speech, it is the question of whether the U.S. Executive is in fact protecting the American people through its mass murder abroad that really lies at the heart of the Wikileaks controversy. Executive Branch officials justify persecuting and threatening to murder Assange on the grounds that he has damaged U.S. "national security." If McChrystal is right, however, it is the past decade of U.S. Executive mass murder in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, now revealed beyond any doubt by Wikileaks, that is the real threat to U.S. national security.
The chilling fact is this: whether you believe that September 11, 2001 was due to incomprehensible fanaticism or genuine grievances, it seems likely that U.S. leaders’ murder of countless Muslims since 2001 will cause the next 9/11 should, God forbid, it occur, The recent suicide-bomber in Sweden who came perilously close to succeeding taped a message saying "so will your children, daughters, brothers, and sisters die, like our brothers, sisters, and children die." Similar sentiments were voiced by the Times Square bomber, and it is likely that those responsible for future American deaths will also be motivated by revenge for the hundreds of thousands of Muslims for whose deaths U.S. leaders are responsible since 2001.
This is not, of course, to justify such attacks. Any attacks on civilians, whether by the Taliban or General Petraeus, are totally unjustified and crimes of war. But if the issue is how best to enhance U.S. national security, it is critical to rationally discuss the most prudent and sensible means of preventing further attacks -- which in this case is to stop creating huge numbers of people who want to kill Americans. If General McChrystal is correct, every American should tremble at the long-term danger to America caused by the last decade of U.S. war-making in the Muslim world. If only 1/100th of 1% of the world's 1.6 billion Muslims are moved to want to attack America because of America's post-9/11 killing of Muslim civilians, for example, the U.S. Executive will have created a pool of 160,000 Muslims devoted to murdering Americans.
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http://www.alternet.org/story/149393/wikileaks_most_terrifying_revelation:_just_how_much_our_government_lies_to_usWikileaks has shown that our government and military form a 'vast lying... more
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by Sunny
3rd January, 2011 at 10:30 am
The US government is stepping up security in Afghanistan to stop smuggling, after WikiLeaks cables embarrassingly showed that millions of dollars were leaving the country by nefarious means.
According to a secret cable released by WikiLeaks, Ahmed Zia Massoud, a former Afghan vice president, visited the United Arab Emirates last year carrying $52 million in cash. Mr. Massoud has denied the report. Beyond the flow of money to Dubai, millions of dollars more are believed to be smuggled through border crossings, and American officials fear at least some of the money is being funneled to Afghan insurgents taking shelter in Pakistan’s tribal regions.
You’d think right-wingers in the US would be happy that someone is exposing their tax dollars being wasted, no? But that’s not even the big story….
The big story is that the New York Times has gone through the cables to expose this:
To a greater degree than previously known, diplomats are a big part of the sales force, according to hundreds of cables released by WikiLeaks, which describe politicking and cajoling at the highest levels. It is not surprising that the United States helps American companies doing business abroad, given that each sale is worth thousands of jobs and that their foreign competitors do the same. But like the other WikiLeaks cables, these offer a remarkably detailed look at what had previously been only glimpsed — in this case, the sales war between American diplomats and their European counterparts.
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The documents also suggest that demands for bribes, or at least payment to suspicious intermediaries who offer to serve as “agents,” still take place. Boeing says it is committed to avoiding any such corrupt practices.
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King Abdullah II of Jordan, a longtime ally and recipient of billions of dollars in United States aid, told the ambassador in 2004 that “even though the latest Airbus offer was better than Boeing’s he intended to make a ‘political’ decision to have Royal Jordanian buy Boeing aircraft,” a State Department cable said, although the United States still had to help Boeing secure the deal.
It looks like the deals are quite cosy. Billion of dollars in ‘aid’ from the US government goes to dictators, who then use the money to buy expensive planes from US companies, with complete support and ‘perks’ from the US state department and senior diplomats. That keeps the dictators in business and human rights abuses swept under the carpet, and keeps American jobs subsidised by the US taxpayer. It also makes big corporations like Boeing and Airbus lots of money, and keeps the diplomatic oils greased.
The best defense of WikiLeakse so far comes from the Spanish paper El Pais itself, which has published this brilliant editorial.
The Spanish on why Freedom of Speech & Press is so Important. // Current http://ow.ly/3xuQH
No really – read the whole thing – it comprehensively destroys the naysayers, smear-merchants and useful-idiots who wanted to keep this all a secret.
A key paragraph:
Political classes on both sides of the Atlantic convey a simple message that is tailored to their advantage: trust us, don’t try to reveal our secrets; in exchange, we offer you security.
But just how much security do they really offer in exchange for this moral blackmail? Little or none, since we face the sad paradox that this is the same political elite that was incapable of properly supervising the international financial system, whose implosion triggered the biggest crisis since 1929, ruining entire countries and condemning millions of workers to unemployment and poverty. These are the same people responsible for the deteriorating quality of life of their populations, the uncertain future of the euro, the lack of a viable European project and the global governance crisis that has gripped the world in recent years, and which elites in Washington and Brussels are not oblivious to. I doubt that keeping embassy secrets under wraps is any kind of guarantee of better diplomacy or that such an approach offers us better answers to the problems we face.
I bet most of 2011 is going to be dominated by WikiLeaks related controversies.
For Full story: http://www.pickledpolitics.com/archives/11290by Sunny
3rd January, 2011 at 10:30 am
The US government is stepping up... more
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Wikileaks ~ A Swedish Documentary Film About Julian Assange & Wikileaks
(60 Min / SVT)Wikileaks ~ A Swedish Documentary Film About Julian Assange & Wikileaks
(60 Min... more
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2010 can be defined as the year of WikiLeaks. The whisteblowing website first made headlines around the world in April when it released a video of a U.S. helicopter gunship indiscriminately firing on Iraqi civilians killing 12 people, including two Reuters news staff. In July, WikiLeaks created a bigger firestorm when it published more than 90,000 classified U.S. military war logs of the war in Afghanistan. Then in October, WikiLeaks published some 390,000 classified U.S. documents on the war in Iraq—the largest intelligence leak in U.S. history and the greatest internal account of any war on public record. And in November WikiLeaks began releasing a giant trove of confidential State Department cables that sent shockwaves through the global diplomatic establishment. Throughout it all, WikiLeaks and its founder Julian Assange were targeted by the U.S. and other governments around the world. We play our interviews with Assange and with Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg.
CLICK ON THE LINK BELOW TO GO TO THE VIDEO:
http://www.democracynow.org/2010/12/31/julian_assange_on_wikileaks_war_and?sms_ss=email&at_xt=4d1e25d016b1f1e4%2C02010 can be defined as the year of WikiLeaks. The whisteblowing website first made... more
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The Film: "Personal Responsibility"
[ Warning: This Video Has a PG Rating ]
~ About Freedom of the Press & Freedom of Speech
How very important of a roll that all members of a Free Press and Journalism play in our Society .
JFK spoke of how the press and it's manipulation by powerful corporations and secrecy will destroy the fabric of democracy. A process that today has turned most of us in Journalism into no more than PIOs. and PR agents.
JFK's words on Secrecy, Censorship, and Freedom of The Press ~ remind all of us how very important it is... that today we all standup and reevaluate ourselves again and repoint our journalistic compasses to the North star again...
This is a chance for all the media and all Journalists to begin again to perform our mandated historic investigative rolls to uncover and report the full complete truth and wrongdoing where ever that may lead us and no matter how painful it may be....
That is the only way to get our country back on course again.
Our freedom our Democracy and our future all depend on that.
The Truth is courageous...
Be Courageous...
~The Film: "Personal Responsibility"
[ Warning: This Video Has a PG... more
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On Thursday December 16th 2010, snow fell as 131 people were arrested in a Civil Disobedience at the White House protesting the continuing wars in Afghanistan, Pakistan and in Iraq. Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, Chris Hedges provides an extraordinary anti-war soliloquy which is inter-cut with interview of Veterans of the recent wars and with Daniel Ellsberg, who leaked the top secret Pentagon Papers. This action was organized by the Veterans Peace http://www.veteransforpeace.org/ Stop These Wars http://www.stopthesewars.org/ Read an interview with Chris Hedges just after the speech on the RawStory. And another Interview on Democracy Now where he discusses his most recent book, "Death of the Liberal Class" http://www.democracynow.org
America's military and economic empire could collapse at any time, but predicting the precise day, week or month of its potential demise is unattainable, according to a former New York Times war correspondent who spoke with Raw Story. "The when and how is very dangerous to predict because there's always some factor that blindsides you that you didn't expect," Pulitzer-winning journalist Chris Hedges said in an exclusive interview. "It doesn't look good. But exactly how it plays out and when it plays out, having covered disintegrating societies, it's impossible to tell." He explained that he learned this lesson as events unfolded around him in the fall of 1989. Then, members of the opposition to the Soviet Empire told him that they predicted travel across the Berlin Wall separating East from West Germany would open within the year. "Within a few hours, the wall didn't exist," he said. Hedges was one of the 131 activists were arrested in an act of civil disobedience outside the White House yesterday, even as Obama was unveiling a new report citing progress in the Afghanistan war. Speaking to Raw Story on Wednesday night, he said the signs of US collapse are plain to see and compared the country's course through Afghanistan to Soviet Russia's. "We're losing [the war in Afghanistan] in the same way the Red Army lost it," he said. "It's exactly the same configuration where we sort of control the urban centers where 20 percent of the population lives. The rest of the country where 80 percent of the Afghans live is either in the hands of the Taliban or disputed." "Foreigners will not walk the streets of Kabul because of kidnapping, and journalists regularly meet Taliban officials in Kabul because the whole apparatus is so porous and corrupt," he said. One day after this interview was conducted, reports hit the global media noting the CIA's warning to President Obama, that the Pakistan-supported Taliban could still regain control of the country. Hedges predicted that President Obama's war report released Thursday would "contradict not only [US] intelligence reports but everything else that is coming out of Afghanistan." His prediction came startlingly true: the CIA's own assessment was said to stand in striking contrast with President Obama's report. Defense Secretary Robert Gates, however, insisted that the US controlled more territory in Afghanistan than it did a year ago. 'A corporate coup d'état in slow motion' Hedges said he attended the protest and planned to get arrested because he is against the corporate powers that have enveloped the nation. "We've undergone a corporate coup d'état in slow motion," he said. "Our public education system has been gutted. Our infrastructure is corroding and collapsing. Unless we begin to physically resist, they are going to solidify neo-feudalism in this country." "If we think that Obama is bad, watch the next two years because these corporate forces have turned their back on him," Hedges warned. Hedges, author of "Death of the Liberal Class," said that his vision of America is one with a functioning social democracy, which stands in stark contrast to the nihilism of the corporate state. "American workers, as they are repeatedly told, will have to become competitive with prison labor in China," he said. "That's where we're headed, and all the pillars of the liberal establishment are complicit in this." "At least if you get sick in the UK, you don't go bankrupt or die," he added. Hedges said that another pressure point is the US dollar, which he pointed out had been dropped by Russia and China in favor of modified ruble/renminbi exchanges. "A few more deals like that, and our currency becomes junk," he said. Hedges continued, "As long as we have relative stability, these lunatic fringe movements can be held at bay, but if we don't undertake serious structural reform, which we're not doing, then it is inevitable that we will come to a tremendous crisis - economic and political as well as environmental."
Iraq Veterans Against The War Operation Recovery 678.986.0617 http://www.ivaw.org
This is a zgraphix production. Produced by Jeff Zavala. http://zgraphix.orgOn Thursday December 16th 2010, snow fell as 131 people were arrested in a Civil... more
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Before dying, Richard Holbrooke admitted it, saying “You’ve got to stop this war in Afghanistan.” The Washington Post reinterpreted it, saying:
“Holbrooke’s death is the latest complication in an effort plagued by unreliable partners, reluctant allies and an increasingly skeptical American public.”
They’re not alone. Include noted analysts, administration officials, the influential Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), and Pentagon top brass. An earlier article discussed it, accessed through the following link:
http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/2010/11/imperial-americas-end-time.html
A recent article remembered Chalmers Johnson, best known for calling America’s global wars and imperialism a “suicide option” unless reversed. Access it through the following link:
http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/2010/11/remembering-chalmers-ashby-johnson-8631.html
Naming us our own enemy, he called our policies “arrogant and misguided,” America’s condition dire, and it’s “too late for mere scattered reforms.” We can choose democracy to survive or perish under current policies. He said America is plagued by the same dynamic that doomed past empires unwilling to change, what he called:
“isolation, overstretch, the uniting of local and global forces opposed to imperialism, and in the end bankruptcy,” combined with authoritarian rule and loss of personal freedom.
The other article titled Imperial America’s End Time included two grim assessments – from the Pentagon and CSIS. In discrete understatement, a November Pentagon report said:
“Progress across the country remains uneven, with modest gains in security, governance and development in operational priority areas.” Progress overall has been “slow and incremental….key terrain….relatively unchanged.”
http://www.pakalertpress.com/2010/12/18/americas-dirty-secret-the-afpak-war-is-not-winnable/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed:+pakalert+(Pak+Alert+Press)Before dying, Richard Holbrooke admitted it, saying “You’ve got to stop... more
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Is imitation the sincerest form of flattery? Should we be elated or alarmed that Fox News host Glenn Beck now sounds almost identical to Alex Jones? Earlier this week on his television program, Beck talked about Pentagon war games which featured National Guard soldiers training to take on protesters holding signs with the words “FOOD NOW” scrawled on them.
On Beck’s website TheBlaze.com, a lengthy article appeared in which the author warned that the military is “preparing its domestic response to a potential economic collapse” focused around “civil unrest over lack of food caused by a financial crisis”.
Of course, we were talking about all this years ago but at the time, Beck labeled us “domestic extremists” for doing so. Has Beck had a complete change of heart? His 180 degree flip regarding Wikileaks’ Julian Assange in realizing that the threat posed by those who wish to abolish free speech in the United States is far greater than any harm done by Wikileaks itself suggests that Beck is starting to see beyond the left-right paradigm.
We’ve asked the question time and time again but with no real answer. If Beck continues to talk like this, will Fox News allow him to stay on air? Or is the whole thing all part of a revelation of the method process?
Beck is on the verge of going head to head with the same military-industrial complex that will enforce any martial law scenario, the same entity that funds and controls the corporate media which provides Beck with his platform.
This dichotomy seems irreconcilable, but it’s certainly going to be interesting to see how such a seemingly discordant conflict plays out in the long run.
http://www.prisonplanet.com/glenn-beck-channels-alex-jones-economic-crisis-food-riots-martial-law-coming.htmlIs imitation the sincerest form of flattery? Should we be elated or alarmed that Fox... more
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