Article: Bradley Manning--A Case of Class-based Justice System

The Bush cabinet played a frat-boy prank on the judicial investigation by using Scotter Libby--a longtime member in the neocon fraternity house (PNAC)--as the patsy. Libby was convicted on a handful of felonies. But good 'ol frat-boy G.W. Bush commuted Libby's felonies after only a few weeks in a high-class jail. This rare triumph for equality before the law could not have happened but for an improbable set of circumstances. First, Libby had made the mistake of crossing the CIA, which loathes any outing of covert agents. Because it was the CIA that had asked the Department of Justice to investigate the leak, the request had to be taken seriously. These circumstances combined to produce the rarest of all Washington events: the prosecution of a truly powerful individual for serious crimes committed while in office. (17)

Our so-called leaders still attempt to justify aggressive invasions and occupations in unrelated Iraq and Afghanistan as if the 9/11/2001 disaster called for colonizing and controlling the oil regions. We remember that 15 of the 19 hijackers were born and raised in Saudi Arabia, and that none of them had anything to do with Iraq or Afghanistan. Powerful people in the U.S. used 9/11 to hijack the American people's imaginations and fears into frivolous war and succeeded in doing this by using a "false flag" like the Bay of Tonkin incident in Vietnam. "Consider our invasion of Iraq, a war based on willful distortions, government secrecy, and the complaisant failure of our major media to ask the important questions." (18) The powerful people in the U.S. carry out state terrorism. "Perhaps it is a universal truth that the loss of liberty at home is to be charged against provisions against danger, real or pretended from abroad." (19)

The more the U.S. military invades foreign countries, the more the invaded and occupied foreigners--the Taliban or Khmer Rouge, ragheads, gooks or whatever--will fight to defend their country. The more powerful people can make a farce of American justice, the more the regular Americans become as oppressed as Bradley Manning and the unarmed Iraqis shot down by those Apache helicopters pilots. (20) Bradley Manning is a national hero for shining a little light on an America groping in the dark without a moral compass.

Sources:

1) The Passion of Bradley Manning, by Chase Madar, Or Books, 2012, Kindle page (location) 54.

2) Secrecy in the trial: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jonathan-hafetz/bradley-manning-trial_b_1450955.html />

3) Defense motion denied: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/apr/25/bradley-manning-defence-motion-denied />

4) http://wikileaks.org/

5) National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA): it strips away many of the most basic civil rights in American law: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Defense_Authorization_Act_for_Fiscal_Year_2012 />

6) Officials publicly condemn Manning: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IfmtUpd4id0 />

7) Judge refuses to dismiss: http://www.stuff.co.nz/world/americas/6811592/Judge-refuses-to-dismiss-soldiers-WikiLeaks-case />

8) The Passion of Bradley Manning, by Chase Madar, Or Books, 2012, Kindle page (location) 494.

9) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rXPrfnU3G0 />

10) PNAC: Project for the New American Century: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_for_the_New_American_Century />

11) Pentagon Papers, by Daniel Ellsberg, Penguin (Non-Classics), Sept. 2003. And a recent documentary on this story: The Most Dangerous Man in America: http://www.amazon.com/The-Most-Dangerous-Man-America/dp/B00329PYGQ/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1335641885&sr=8-1 />

12) Drift, by Rachel Maddow, 275 pp., Crown Publishers, NY, New York. And a New York Times review: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/15/books/review/drift-by-rachel-maddow.html />

13) The Passion of Bradley Manning, Ibid, Kindle page (location 62-63).

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