He violated his contract. You do the crime , you do the time.
I wonder what vrilliant statist propaganda artist invented that little rhyme?
The signed the contract line sounds to me like the "I was only following orders" defense.
I was only following my contract.
the nurenberg arguements by the prosecution are more eloquent than I can muster.
The Nazis were always careful to follow laws and procedure. The most horrendous crimes can be commited under the cover of law.
In Mannings case, the white van was clearly acting as an ambulance.
After shooting up the van, a baby was left to presumably die, as the soldiers were commanded to leave it there. Then an APC was ordered to run over possibly injured bodies, even there was never any sign ofhostility in the area.
In addition, the Army had illegally withheld information on the killing a reuteeurs reporter for years , in violation of the freedom of information act., not to mention the cowardice of hiding it's stupidity and incompetence in killing the reporter and his camera crew.
One must add creulty to the charge of cowardice onthw part of the Army, as the emotional pain of the widows a children of the slain reuters team not knowing the fate of thier loved ones was another injury imposed upon the innocent.
The contract defense of the governments position saddens me,
As I have been saying, I would prefer to discuss each issue separately. When we keep bundling facts, and non-facts (the van was not white, and not an ambulance), all we have left is a muddled mish-mash.
As I have said before, again and again, good for Manning for releasing the information he did; therefore, the comparison to "I was only following orders" muddles things further. It is easy to simply regurgitate emotionally-charged, barely relevant statements -- as well as old soundbites, like "communism!", but not helpful in the development of a rational discussion.
I like "commie" and "communist" as a deprecatory catch-all for democide, statism, collectivist poverty, police-statism, government worship, mass theft, corruption, etc.
I don't think it is correct to say the Nazis were always careful to follow laws and procedure.
(1) they wrote the laws and procedures and slanted them to achieve the outcome they wanted.
(2) I have read that the Nazis would paint the red cross signifying a medical vehicle on military and troop transport vehicles to shield them from attack from Allied gunners. Once the Allies caught on, they shot up vehicles bearing the red cross anyway. The Nazis had forfeited the right to the protections of Geneva Conventions by using the red cross to shield legitimate military targets. Sometimes the Allies discovered they had shot up a vehicle that actually was an ambulance.
(3) "The white van was clearly acting as an ambulance". Were you there? How do you know this? How do you know that Al Qaeda (or whoever the enemy was) had not used vehicles "acting as ambulances" as platforms from which stage attacks in the past? You seem to be assuming that only the US forces were violating any rules of warfare; everyone else was playing strictly by the rules.
I wasn't there either so, of course, I don't know what really happened any more than you do.
I am sure you're not going to agree with any part of this. You appear so eager to paint the US forces as evil that you will believe anyone and anything that will support this belief.
Have you seen the video? I doubt you have seen it because it is truly
shocking beyond belief. A real War Crime, suitable for War Crimes trials.
The video is taken from an Apache helicopter gunship. As it circles around
it shows a group of men walking across an open area. We are not told who
those men were.
After being given permission to fire, it shoots and presumably kills all of
the men. However after still circling for about five more minutes it
realizes that one of the men is moving a bit and is still alive. So, it
asks permission to shoot again the one still alive man.
At just this time a passing van comes by. Seeing a seriously injured man on
the ground it stops to pick up the injured man obviously to take him to the
hospital. The van contains two adult men and a small child.
At this point, the men at the helicopter gunship ask permission to fire
again. Permission is granted. The helicopter gunship fires again and kills
the man on the ground and one of the two men who were trying to take him to
the hospital. I think the child was shot too but survived.
Turns out the wounded man who survived the first attack was killed in the
second. He was an acclaimed Reuters news correspondent.
The video, available at www.collateralmurder.com, shows Americans shooting
and killing 11 individuals. Two of those killed were Reuters’ employees,
including 22 year old Reuters’ photojournalist Namir Noor-Eldeen and his
driver, 40 year old Saeed Chmagh.
This is I believe the worst crime, not even a war crime, by Americans ever
documented. Every American should be allowed to see this. However, because
of releasing this video, Bradley Manning has spent three years in jail
under horrific conditions without any trial.
Yes, I have seen the video. Whoever sent it to me said I should not delay because it would probably get taken down any minute. I did see it. It was taken down shortly thereafter.
Sam's description is accurate. It was horrible. I tried to send it to as many people as I could at the time, but few were able to view it because the government forced its removal as we all suspected it would.
Manning did the RIGHT thing by releasing it. The public has the right to know what "our" military is doing in "our" name. I have to wonder if the run-of-the-mill German people had known what was really going on, would they have tolerated it.
I have read accounts of people who lived in Germany during the holocaust. They were children then. They mostly all deceased now. One old lady who ended up in Sebastopol said she was about six at the time and she was told that the Jews were going on "vacation" and she was jealous and wanted to go, too.
Nina
"Freedom had been hunted round the globe; reason was considered as rebellion; and the slavery of fear had made men afraid to think. But such is the irresistible nature of truth, that all it asks, and all it wants, is the liberty of appearing."
--Thomas Paine, Rights of Man, 1791
Indeed, this video is a must see, and it is easily available for viewing by Googling "Collateral Murder." I just saw it three days ago, and could not help but do a bit of crying then redoubling my efforts to oppose resolution of conflict through war. This type of wanton carnage shown on the video is the stuff of war, since the beginning of time. Just have a heart-to-heart talk with any veteran of any war who trusts you enough to tell you the truth of what they know.
Again, and again, yes, it was courageous (and useful to my cause as an anti-war activist)for Manning to release the ton of transgressions, including this video. The issue of his trial is another matter. I feel the two issues should be analyzed separately.
BTW, I only offer a list of American war crimes because that is the subject of this particular discussion. If we are to include all war crimes, the list would be endless.
WikiLeaks still remains online, but only mirrored in free countries like Poland, Iceland, and Switzerland.
Go to http://www.wikileaks.nl for example, to find other mirrors or search for "Collateral Murder"
Meanwhile we are silent about the hours days weeks months and years Bradley Manning sits in prison, while we enjoy the freedom given to us. Then we offer excuses for inaction and justification for being the unfit heirs of liberty.
--- Sent with mail@metro, Real Life Real Time Mobile ---
Meanwhile we are silent about the hours days weeks months and years Bradley Manning sits in prison, while we enjoy the freedom given to us. Then we offer excuses for inaction and justification for being the unfit heirs of liberty.
--- Sent with mail@metro, Real Life Real Time Mobile ---
From: lpsf-discuss@yahoogroups.com
Sent: 7/14/2013 6:50 pm
To: lpsf-discuss@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [lpsf-discuss] Re: Manning etc.
BTW, I only offer a list of American war crimes because that is the subject of this particular discussion. If we are to include all war crimes, the list would be endless.