Bradley Manning nominated for Nobel 2013 Peace Prize

Political prisoner and free-speech hero Bradley Manning has been held under inhumane conditions for over 1000 days, and I am hoping this nomination means that the international spotlight will finally be turned on the conditions of his imprisonment. Since he is currently on trial, this is coming at the best possible time. Out of 259 nominees for the Nobel Peace Prize, he is probably the most well-known and 'notorious' name.



Bradley Manning Nobel Peace Prize Nomination 2013

Dear Norwegian Nobel Committee,

We have the great honour of nominating Private First Class Bradley Manning for the 2013 Nobel Peace Prize.

Manning is a soldier in the United States army who stands accused of releasing hundreds of thousands of documents to the whistleblower website WikiLeaks. The leaked documents pointed to a long history of corruption, war crimes, and a lack of respect for the sovereignty of other democratic nations by the United States government in international dealings.

These revelations have fueled democratic uprisings around the world, including a democratic revolution in Tunisia. According to journalists, his alleged actions helped motivate the democratic Arab Spring movements, shed light on secret corporate influence on the foreign and domestic policies of European nations, and most recently contributed to the Obama Administration agreeing to withdraw all U.S.troops from the occupation in Iraq.

Bradley Manning has been incarcerated for more then 1000 days by the U.S. Government. He spent over ten months of that time period in solitary confinement, conditions which experts worldwide have criticized as torturous. Juan Mendez, the United Nations’ Special Rapporteur on Torture and Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment or Punishment, has repeatedly requested and been denied a private meeting with Manning to assess his conditions.

The documents made public by WikiLeaks should never have been kept from public scrutiny. The revelations – including video documentation of an incident in which American soldiers gunned down Reuters journalists in Iraq – have helped to fuel a worldwide discussion about the overseas engagements of the United States, civilian casualties of war and rules of engagement. Citizens worldwide owe a great debt to the WikiLeaks whistleblower for shedding light on these issues, and so we urge the Committee to award this prestigious prize to accused whistleblower Bradley Manning.

We can already be reasonably certain that Bradley Manning will not have a fair trial as the head of State, the USA President Mr. Barack Obama, stated over a year ago on record that Manning is guilty.

Sincerely,

Birgitta Jónsdóttir, Member of Parliament for the Movement, Iceland

Christian Engström, Member of the European Parliament for the Pirate Party, Sweden

Amelia Andersdottir, Member of the European Parliament for the Pirate Party, Sweden

Margrét Tryggvadóttir, Member of Parliament for the Movement, Iceland

Þór Saari, Member of Parliament for the Movement, Iceland

Slim Amamou, former Secretary of State for Sport & Youth (2011), Tunisia

Bradley Manning statement (UK Guardian)

Bradley Manning, Malala among Nobel Peace Prize nominees (CBS News)

Opinion: Bradley Manning trial shows disconnect between transparency and treason (The Daily Reveille - LSU)

Bradley Manning called 'traitor,' 'hero' after Nobel nomination (MSN News)

The inhumane conditions of Bradley Manning’s detention (Salon)

We Must Not Fail Bradley Manning (Counterpunch)

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General Petraeus and the Neo-Con connection

This is like something from one of us crazy conspiracy theorists.

Seriously, you can't make this stuff up.

From Chris Matthews at MSNBC:

Fred and Kimberly Kagan are hawks. They share the ideology of those who backed the Iraq War. Why are they on the inside of an administration elected based on its opposition to the Iraq war?

I am one of those who believed from square one that the war in Iraq was an ideological war pushed from the outset by those who wanted us to overthrow the Iraq government and install ourselves in Baghdad. They got their way under a less-than-informed President, George W. Bush. Now we discover that a pair of them, the Kagans, have been right there in the room with the head of the Afghan mission, advising him every step of the way.

Why? Why did General Petraeus assume the right to allow people who represent the very opposite of President Obama’s philosophy to advise him? What agenda was his seeking here? What was he buying into? Was he buying into the hawkish agenda of those who advocated war on Iraq in the first place? If so, why was he working for President Obama who stood out there against that war?

I have to think that Petraeus either doesn’t understand politics and ideology or he shapes his ideology, or accepts the ideology of those who have stood against Obama from the beginning. This is really strange, really strange and someone in the administration better start paying attention to who is getting into the tent and who they are indeed working for.

Kimberly and Frederick Kagan are very interesting people indeed, close to the American Enterprise Institute and similar neo-con hit-squads. As Matthews asks, why were they "advising" Petraeus?

The Washington Post has the whole timeline of neo-con infiltration of the Obama administration:

Frederick and Kimberly Kagan, a husband-and-wife team of hawkish military analysts, put their jobs at influential Washington think tanks on hold for almost a year to work for Gen. David H. Petraeus when he was the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan. Provided desks, e-mail accounts and top-level security clearances in Kabul, they pored through classified intelligence reports, participated in senior-level strategy sessions and probed the assessments of field officers in order to advise Petraeus about how to fight the war differently.

Their compensation from the U.S. government for their efforts, which often involved 18-hour workdays, seven days a week and dangerous battlefield visits?

Zero dollars.

Although Fred Kagan said he and his wife wanted no pay in part to remain “completely independent,” the extraordinary arrangement raises new questions about the access and influence Petraeus accorded to civilian friends while he was running the Afghan war.

Petraeus allowed his biographer-turned-paramour, Paula Broadwell, to read sensitive documents and accompany him on trips. But the entree granted the Kagans, whose think-tank work has been embraced by Republican politicians, went even further. The four-star general made the Kagans de facto senior advisers, a status that afforded them numerous private meetings in his office, priority travel across the war zone and the ability to read highly secretive transcripts of intercepted Taliban communications, according to current and former senior U.S. military and civilian officials who served in the headquarters at the time.

The Kagans used those privileges to advocate substantive changes in the U.S. war plan, including a harder-edged approach than some U.S. officers advocated in combating the Haqqani network, a Taliban faction in eastern Afghanistan, the officials said.

The pro-bono relationship, which is now being scrutinized by military lawyers, yielded valuable benefits for the general and the couple. The Kagans’ proximity to Petraeus, the country’s most-famous living general, provided an incentive for defense contractors to contribute to Kim Kagan’s think tank. For Petraeus, embracing two respected national security analysts in GOP circles helped to shore up support for the war among Republican leaders on Capitol Hill.

Fred Kagan, speaking in an interview with his wife, acknowledged the arrangement was “strange and uncomfortable” at times. “We were going around speaking our minds, trying to force people to think about things in different ways and not being accountable to the heads” of various departments in the headquarters, he said.

The extent of the couple’s involvement in Petraeus’s headquarters was not known to senior White House and Pentagon officials involved in war policy, two of those officials said. More than a dozen senior military officers and civilian officials were interviewed for this article; most spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss personnel matters.

Petraeus, through a former aide, declined to comment for this article.

As war-zone volunteers, the Kagans were not bound by stringent rules that apply to military personnel and private contractors. They could raise concerns directly with Petraeus, instead of going through subordinate officers, and were free to speak their minds without repercussion.

Some military officers and civilian U.S. government employees in Kabul praised the couple’s contributions — one general noted that “they did the work of 20 intelligence analysts.” Others expressed deep unease about their activities in the headquarters, particularly because of their affiliations and advocacy in Washington.

Fred Kagan, who works at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, was one of the intellectual architects of President George W. Bush’s troop surge in Iraq and has sided with the Republican Party on many national security issues. Kim Kagan runs the Institute for the Study of War, which favors an aggressive U.S. foreign policy. The Kagans supported President Obama’s decision to order a surge in Afghanistan, but they later broke with the White House on the subject of troop reductions. Both argue against any significant drawdown in forces there next year.

Petraeus’s successor, Gen. John R. Allen, allowed the Kagans to stay at the headquarters for his first few months on the job last year and permitted them to return for two additional short visits. After the couple’s most recent trip in September, they provided a briefing on the war and other foreign policy matters to the Republican vice-presidential candidate, Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin.

The Kagans said they continued to receive salaries from their think tanks while in Afghanistan. Kim Kagan’s institute is funded in part by large defense contractors. During Petraeus’s tenure in Kabul, she sent out a letter soliciting contributions so the organization could continue its military work, according to two people who saw the letter.

On Aug. 8, 2011, a month after he relinquished command in Afghanistan to take over at the CIA, Petraeus spoke at the institute’s first “President’s Circle” dinner, where he accepted an award from Kim Kagan. To join the President’s Circle, individuals must contribute at least $10,000 a year. The private event, held at the Newseum in Washington, also drew executives from defense contractors who fund the institute.

“What the Kagans do is they grade my work on a daily basis,” Petraeus said, prompting chortles from the audience. “There’s some suspicion that there’s a hand up my back, and it makes my lips talk, and it’s operated by one of the Doctors Kagan.”

Now, why would we think that?

What an interesting turn of phrase.

Hopefully, we will be getting more on this... in the meantime, read the entire investigative piece by the Washington Post, which is stellar.

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Military Fakes don't help Veterans

At left: My father, who was not a fake veteran.







I first started reading blogs in 1998, when the USA was still at relative 'peace'--in terms of war and military interventions. In the past decade, I have witnessed the increase and escalation of military activity in several countries... and with this escalation, an astronomical increase in online trolls and fakes, claiming all sorts of bogus military experience.

Yes, you read that right. Fakes.

On this Veterans Day, I am hereby calling out the fakes.

A real military veteran is usually not afraid to name themselves, or at the very least, share a significant part of themselves online: their photograph, their blog, their location, their Twitter or Facebook profile. Like all real people, pseudonymous or not, their experience rings true, because it comes from the heart. They don't always make themselves look good, or certain, or without ambivalence. Like the rest of us, pseudonymous or not, real veterans have a social-media presence that is believable and consistent. People know them, and there is genuine proof of their ongoing interaction in the world, including their military service.

By contrast, the fakes are anonymous troublemakers and the tellers of tall tales. They often claim to be signature bad-asses, such as Marines or Navy Seals (as the Vietnam Era fakes could not refrain from claiming to be Airborne Rangers or Green Berets). They always claim the violent, romanticized, movie-magic aspect of war; the fakes never claim kitchen duty or the boring grunt work of checking in thousands of uniforms. They claim to have seen lots and lots of carnage. They tell stories of car-bombs and how they breezed through such events, unblinking. They brag about drinking coffee next to piles of corpses, unfazed.

And this is how we know they are fakes. Nobody drinks coffee next to piles of corpses, unfazed, unless they are monsters. I simply refuse to believe our veterans are monsters.

For this reason, the fakes are a blight.

The posturing phonies who brag about their fictional service are doing actual harm to genuine veterans, making up bullshit-bad-ass stories, thereby claiming sympathy, expertise and respect that simply does not belong to them. The arrogance and superiority that is frequently obvious in their online personas (undoubtedly reflecting feelings of inferiority and unimportance in real life) creates antipathy in people who would otherwise feel great empathy for veterans. The fictional crap they constantly spew forth (and I have caught them in countless contradictions and lies) aggravates existing negative feelings that many of us have about war; it doesn't do the military any favors.

The stories of well-known Vietnam-era fakes (or 'partial fakes'--such as historian Joseph Ellis and recent congressional candidate Kenneth Aden) have been part of our culture for a very long time... and due to the endless war of the past decade, we can now expect to see a whole new crop of them. The problems with these fakes will be never-ending. There is already enough trouble tracking down the frauds who dare to name themselves and claim jobs they do not deserve.

The online versions are fast-becoming the same sort of plague--and there seems to be little we can do to expose them.

My advice to one and all, is, do not readily assume someone (especially an anonymous online person repeatedly blowing his/her own horn) is automatically telling the truth about military service. The internet has made it exponentially easier to research the specificities of war, as well as the in-depth details of various actions and incursions (and their casualties). There are more photos, facts and figures online than ever before in history. Any of us, gifted enough in story-telling and accompanying ego-driven motives, could likely pull this off with enough effort. Americans typically want to honor and believe the best of veterans, and are unlikely to call someone a fake, unless that evidence is literally staring them in the face.

But in the case of anonymous commenters and people hanging out on blogs, be skeptical. Just as anyone can claim to be a model or cheerleader or actor or math-genius, anyone can claim to be a veteran. When that person decides to show their ass or treat people in a deliberately unkind, nasty fashion, they tarnish the reputation of ALL veterans, while using their supposed (nonexistent) military service as an excuse to be a first-class asshole.

They don't deserve your indulgence, they deserve to be exposed.

Or at least ignored.

Happy Veterans Day.

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Religion, Warthogs and Republicans...

From LOLCATS, this comic reminded me of this hapless incident I wrote about a couple of months ago. (You can click to enlarge.)


~*~

As far as I know, this has not been reported locally. I'm very glad that we have the internet to inform us of the unpopular news stories. From the Freedom From Religion Foundation:

The Freedom From Religion Foundation filed a federal lawsuit May 30 in U.S. District Court in Columbia, S.C., against School District 5 of Lexington and Richland Counties over a district policy that sanctions graduation prayer. Matthew “Max” Nielson, 18, who graduated May 30 from Irmo High School, was named as principal plaintiff.

Nielson has received a $1,000 Catherine Fahringer Memorial Student Activist Award from FFRF and will speak at FFRF’s 35th annual convention in Portland, Oregon, October 12-14.

On June 11, FFRF filed an amended complaint adding two new plaintiffs, Jacob Zupon and Dakota McMillan. They will graduate respectively from Irmo High School in 2013 and 2014, keeping the lawsuit ripe. Zupon and McMillan “reasonably anticipate constitutional injury” similar to Nielson’s, due to prayer at their upcoming graduations. All students describe themselves as “religiously unaffiliated,” meaning “they subscribe to no particular organized, institutionalized religion, nor other prescribed set of beliefs.”

A district policy titled “School Ceremonies and Observations” sets guidelines for benedictions and invocations at graduations and athletic events: Use of prayer “will be determined by a majority vote of the graduating senior class with the advice and counsel of the principal.”

Nielson was forced during his senior year to participate in a “vote” by graduating seniors on whether to pray at their 2012 graduation. That vote was organized, distributed and tallied by teachers and other staff. He met with Principal Rob Weinkle and Superintendent Steve Hefner to express his concerns. FFRF formally objected, but the district refused to remove the scheduled prayer. FFRF filed suit on the day of the graduation.

This kind of thing is very common even in public schools here in the Bible belt. Also common: impromptu public prayers given on the spot--usually before standardized tests, sports and field trips. Whoever chooses not to participate in these prayers, is often considered rebellious and/or a troublemaker, simply by fiat.

My daughter also had Bob Jones University students as student teachers in her public high school, believe it or not. (BJU is unaccredited.) In addition, due to budget cuts and lack of space, her school also had instrumental music concerts/recitals in various local churches that were kind enough to volunteer space. Thus, parents and families who wanted to attend their children's recitals were forced to go the churches.

Aside: The aformentioned BJU student teacher (a music teacher), addressed the audience of parents at one such local music recital and informed us he was thankful to his Lord and Savior. This aggravated me, since I went to hear the kids perform, not to listen to a sermon. However, at the time, I did not want to make an issue of these things and put my daughter in a precarious social position.

Therefore, I am pleased these students and FFRF are finally challenging this stuff. Maybe this will make them think twice.

The prayer at the graduation, written by the district but delivered by a student “volunteer,” was addressed to “Father.” The prayer asked for the “Lord’s guidance, protection and mercy,” asked students to be “touched” by “the Lord,” to be led “on the path you intend for their lives to lead,” and thanked a deity for “the teachers, parents and administrators that were here through our 12 years of school.”

... and if this is not your faith, well, they really don't care what you think.

~*~

At left: My daughter took this adorable photo of a warthog mama and baby at the San Antonio Zoo. DEAD FROM CUTENESS!!!

Speaking of warthogs (and how many of you caught that segue?), REST IN PEACE Ron Palillo!

~*~



Other links of note:

Lisa Marie Presley Says "So Long" to Scientology (Village Voice)

POLITICO e-book: Obama campaign roiled by conflict (Politico)

The Conservative Psyche: How Ordinary People Come to Embrace Paul Ryan's Cruelty (AlterNet)

Raising the Ritalin Generation (New York Times)

IN CELEBRATION: Thankful for the Life of Phyllis Diller (GendErratic)

The bizarre, unhealthy, blinding media contempt for Julian Assange (UK Guardian)

Americans ignore the war in Afghanistan, despite 2,000 US casualties (RT.com)

Prayers At Republican National Convention Expected From Cardinal Timothy Dolan And Prominent Mormon Friend Of Mitt Romney (Huffington Post)

Limited Convention Broadcasts Shut Out Ann Romney (New York Times)

And on that happy note (tee hee), we wish you a happy Wednesday evening... don't forget, local peeps, "The Feel-good, Fabulous, Four Hour, Fun-Filled, Festival-like thing we refer to as Dead Air!" (namesake of this blog) is on WNCW-FM tonight, as we speak.

Only a dullard could resist!

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Governor Haley's husband deployed

Developing story, just breaking statewide and nationally.

The cynic in me wonders if this is all a deliberate PR effort to make Nikki look good, as her political support drops dramatically in the polls.

Ya think?

(CNN) - South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley's husband received orders from the South Carolina National Guard on Monday and is expected to deploy to Afghanistan in January, a spokesman in her office said.

1st Lieutenant Michael Haley will deploy to Afghanistan, spokesman Rob Godfrey said.

Michael Haley said in a Monday statement that "this deployment is the reason I joined the National Guard."

"It is important to me to be able to give back. So, in that regard, I am looking forward to the opportunity to serve with a great team from South Carolina," he continued.

Gov. Haley said it is an "an honor to watch him serve our country" and said it is natural to worry about her husband's well-being.

"There's not a military spouse that doesn't worry," she said. "But there's not a military spouse that doesn't have an amazing amount of pride for the fact that these men and women, it's what they do. It's what they love. It's just an amazing willingness to put country over self. And so It's hard to feel anything but pride and, you know, do you worry? Yes, of course you worry.

"But I also know that we've got a very strong military force," she continued. "I know that our training is second to none, and it's like I tell all my military spouses when I speak to other deployments: all needs to be well on the homefront. And so we will be fine here and he just needs to take care of himself when he's there."

She was elected in 2010 with tea party support and has been suggested by some as a possible vice presidential pick for presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney. In an April interview, however, she said that she enjoys her job and "would not accept" the spot.

Michael Haley added that "the only thing that gives me pause is the year long deployment away from family.

"But in the end, I can't help but to think giving one year along with my fellow soldiers, as many have done before me, to secure a life of freedom for my family is well worth all that comes with it," he continued.

I guess this is just the beginning of the local media torrent about Nikki and Michael Haley. Ugh.

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The Funeral of Pfc. Justin Whitmire

At left: Pfc Justin Whitmire, age 20, upstate soldier killed on December 27th, only 19 days after arriving in Afghanistan.






I had planned on titling this post "Up close and personal with the Westboro Baptist Church"--but instead, I witnessed an amazing sight. I saw about 3000 members and associates of the Patriot Guard Riders stand in loose formation outside the Simpsonville Baptist Church. They stood quietly and respectfully during the funeral of Justin Whitmire. (No smoking or cell phones, conversation kept to whispers.) And then, as the honor guard departed, the bikers lined Main Street (Highway 14) in Simpsonville, holding American flags aloft. The phalanx on both sides of the road was impressive, as the Patriot Guard provided an escort for the funeral procession.

The line of people stretched for miles, all the way to the cemetery. It was astounding.

The infamous Fred Phelps and his equally infamous Westboro Baptist Church was nowhere to be seen, although they had threatened to picket Whitmire's funeral. There were copious rumors they had already arrived in the upstate, including (if you heard my radio show this morning) a local sighting at Walmart. I had heard of the Patriot Guard and knew they were attending, but I had no idea there would be so many of them. The rumble of thousands of Harley-Davidsons in downtown Simpsonville, echoing off the old buildings, sounded like the engines revving at Talladega. (Apparently, this is one way they drown out Westboro's noise, when they confront them.)

It is puzzling to me (to say the least) that WBC continues their evil deeds. Nobody likes them. Nobody agrees with them. Certainly, nobody appreciates their picketing of grieving veteran families. They are mostly a grim and disturbing sideshow, at this point. This morning on my radio show, we discussed at length why they continue these bizarre shenanigans... and it was during this conversation that one of my callers used the word ASSHOLE, the first cuss-word on my show to date (unless you count "dumb-asses"--and I don't). I'm just glad *I* wasn't the one to say it!

(Yes, it took Westboro Baptist Church to finally break the no-cussing rule on The Daisy Deadhead Show.)

Apparently, WBC makes money every time they open their whack-ass mouths. SOMEBODY must be buying what they are selling, since they continue to travel all over the country for these anti-veteran protests. In fact, they are majorly lawyered up, so one of their shakedowns is goading people into hitting or hurting them, and then suing them for damages and denial of their civil rights, etc.

The way the Patriot Guard stood so firmly and with such dignity, was heartening. Many of them were wearing Christian-oriented biker wear, and I realized, they feel responsible for confronting WBC as Christians. They will not let these people do this nasty stuff in the name of Christianity, at least not without their own Christian witness alongside them. I have a great deal of respect for that.

They were beautiful.

I am so happy that Justin's family had such dignified, dedicated escorts for their son. My thoughts and prayers are with them at this difficult time.

Photos below--as always, you can click to enlarge. My dastardly camera-battery ran down before the Highway 14 formation, but at least you get an idea of how many folks turned out.

The radical transformation of a moment of fear and hate, into a display of respect, solidarity and love, is a lesson we all can learn.

~*~

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Nikki Haley: "States rights trump everything"

Photo from Charleston City Paper.





I went to Charleston Saturday with Green Party members, right after Hurricane Irene decided to spare the place. We just had time to picket the US Customs House, loudly demand they bring the troops home, chow down on pizza at the Mellow Mushroom, gossip in earnest, howl in indignation, and leave. (Phabulous photos HERE)



Sitting at the Mellow Mushroom with my sweat-soaked comrades (dear God, it is HOT in Charleston!), I perused the wonderful Charleston City Paper, where I found an entertaining and thorough account of the recent Redstate Gathering, by the intrepid Paul Bowers.



The scary title?: This beautiful uprising.



But that isn't even the scariest part. The scariest excerpt concerns the political philosophy of our governor:

After [South Carolina Governor Nikki] Haley's speech, someone asked the governor what she thought about nullification, the doctrine that says a state can declare a federal law null and void within its own borders (which was one of the issues that ultimately led to the Civil War). Haley responded, "I think nullification is something we talk about when we're frustrated." When the same audience member said he really wanted to know Haley's stance on states' rights, she said, "States' rights trump everything. The 10th Amendment trumps everything."

Now, why didn't this fascinating quote make it into any of the other news accounts of the RedState Gathering? Especially since adoring teenybopper-journalists appear to be hanging on Haley's every word? How did they miss that?



Well, I find it damned alarming, so let me underscore and underline the quote here.

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Dead Air: Now with more warfare

I haven't been too sure about what I should write.

Except for this: My apologies to the rest of the world for American interventionism run berserk, once again. We are now at war with THREE countries simultaneously! President Hopey-Changey seems intent upon rivaling Ronald Reagan with his imperialist war credentials. Nobel peace prize, HA HA HA!

I am sick over our newest military adventure in Libya and just wanted to go on record as officially saying so.

Alas, as poor children die of no transplanted kidneys and various curable cancers at home, The United States of Amurrica spends big bucks bombing... who? Why? What for? Huh?

As I said, I am sick over it.

Your opinions?

PS: President Hopey-Changey (PHC for short) comes courtesy of Larry at LOTUS.

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