Sunday, December 2, 2012

12-12-02 Outrage Over Morsi But Not Over Our Dictator


Outrage Over Morsi But Not Over Our Dictator
By Jacob G. Hornberger
November 28, 2012 "fff" --  It is so amusing to see mainstream commentators condemning Egypt’s president, Mohamed Morsi, for assuming dictatorial powers. Their critiques are well-taken, as I observed in my blog post of yesterday, “Morsi’s Democratic Dictatorship.” But what’s amusing about the mainstreamers is how they can so quickly identify and condemn dictatorial conduct on the part of foreign rulers but maintain an absolutely obsequious blind spot when it comes to the dictatorial actions by their own ruler.

 READ MORE:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article33165.htm


For the constitutional philosophers - the article ends with a proposed novel Constitutional Amendment:

What’s the solution to the dictatorial system under which we now live? How about an amendment to the Constitution that reads as follows:
The federal  government shall not deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law, and every person accused of a crime shall be accorded the rights of trial by jury, the presumption of innocence, and the right to confront witnesses, and no cruel and unusual punishments shall be inflicted on anyone, and this time we, the American people, really do mean it.

Posted by at No comments:

12-12-02Assange on the State of the First Amendment, Bradley Manning...

The undermining of the First Amendment will make any peaceful resolution of the current crisis in the United States more difficult. jz



Two Years of Cablegate as Bradley Manning Testifies for the First Time

By  (about the author)     Permalink       (Page 1 of 5 pages)
OpEdNews Op Eds 11/30/2012 at 20:44:40
Become a Fan
  (9 fans)

Cross-posted from Huffington Post



Thursday, November 29th, Bradley Manning testified for the first time since his arrest two-and-a-half years ago in Baghdad. Today also marks the two-year anniversary of the first front pages around the world from Cablegate, an archive of 251,287 U.S. State Department diplomatic cables -- messages sent between the State Department and its embassies, consulates and diplomatic missions around the world. In collaboration with a network of more than 100 press outlets we revealed the full spectrum of techniques used by the United States to exert itself around the world. The young intelligence analyst Bradley Manning was detained as an alleged source.
WikiLeaks came under attack, with American politicians and right-wing pundits calling for all of us to be designated as terrorists; some even calling for my assassination and the kidnapping of our staff. Speaking on Meet The Press, Vice President Joe Biden referred to me as a "high-tech terrorist," while Senator Joe Lieberman demanded that we be prosecuted under the U.S. Espionage Act. The Department of Justice spokesperson Dean Boyd admitted as recently as July 2012 that the Department of Justice investigation into WikiLeaks is ongoing, and the Pentagon renewed its threats against us on September 28th, declaring our work an "ongoing crime." As a result, I have been granted political asylum and now live in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, surrounded by armed police while the FBI portion of the "whole of government" investigation against us, according to court testimony, had reached 42,135 pages as of December last year.
Earlier this week, WikiLeaks released European Commission documents showing that Senator Lieberman and Congressman Peter T. King directly influenced decisions by PayPal, Visa and MasterCard to block donations to WikiLeaks, which has blocked 95 percent of our donors since December of 2010. Last week the European Parliament expressed its will that the Commission should prevent the arbitrary blockade of WikiLeaks.
Bradley Manning, who is alleged to be a source of the cables, started testifying on Thursday about his pre-trial treatment, which UN Special Rapporteur Juan Mendez said was "at a minimum cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment in violation of Article 16 of the Convention against Torture." Captain William Hoctor, the government psychiatrist with 24 years of experience who evaluated Manning at Quantico base in Virginia, testified that brig commanders had ignored his recommendations for Manning's detention, something he had not even experienced in his work at Guantanamo bay prison.
Bradley Manning has been detained without trial for 921 days. This is the longest pre-trial detention of a U.S. military soldier since at least the Vietnam War. U.S. military law says the maximum is 120 days.
The material that Bradley Manning is alleged to have leaked has highlighted astonishing examples of U.S. subversion of the democratic process around the world, systematic evasion of accountability for atrocities and killings, and many other abuses. Our archive of State Department cables have appeared in tens of thousands of articles, books and scholarly works, illustrating the nature of U.S. foreign policy and the instruments of U.S. national power. On the two-year anniversary of the start of Cablegate, I want to highlight some of the stories that have emerged.
READ MORE:
Posted by at No comments:

12-12-02 Beauty and the Beast




Posted by at No comments:

12-12-02 Hello World!


Recent: 
Sunday, December 02 @ 06:14 : Dallas, Texas, US
Sunday, December 02 @ 05:45 : Moscow, RU
Sunday, December 02 @ 04:55 : Mountain View, California, US
Sunday, December 02 @ 04:47 : Los Angeles, California, US
Sunday, December 02 @ 03:22 : Newport, GB
Sunday, December 02 @ 02:10 : Tucson, Arizona, US
Sunday, December 02 @ 01:54 : Jerusalem, IL
Sunday, December 02 @ 01:18 : Pikesville, Maryland, US
Saturday, December 01 @ 21:49 : Northport, New York, US
Saturday, December 01 @ 15:01 : Fukuoka, JP
Posted by at No comments:
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)