There never was a good war or a bad peace. ~Ben Franklin
12-16-11 4 - Manning's Day In Court, with Daniel Ellsberg - Countdown with Keith Olbermann
Ellsberg accuses the U.S. government and U.S. military of gross misconduct in the indefinite detention, torture, and pre-trial condemnation of a U.S. soldier, who acted out of good conscience as a whistleblower concerned about fascistic practices in the U.S. occupation of Iraq.
Tags:
Comment
America’s Debt to Bradley Manning
By Robert Parry
The cables and videos allegedly leaked by Pvt. Bradley Manning offer the American people gritty “ground truth” about what the U.S. government has done in their names, such as the slaughter in Iraq.
An example of how the material allegedly leaked by Manning helped educate the American people was the infamous gun-barrel video of U.S. attack helicopters mowing down seemingly defenseless Iraqi men, including two Reuters journalists, as they walked down a Baghdad street.
Not only did a U.S. military helicopter gunship slaughter the men amid macho jokes and chuckling – apparently after mistaking a couple of cameras for weapons – but the American attackers then blew away several Iraqis who arrived in a van and tried to take one of the wounded newsmen to a hospital. Two children in the van were badly wounded.
“Well, it’s their fault for bringing their kids into a battle,” one American remarked.
The videotaped incident – entitled “Collateral Murder” by Wikileaks – occurred on July 12, 2007, in the midst of President George W. Bush’s much-heralded troop “surge,” which the U.S. news media has widely credited for reducing violence in Iraq and bringing something close to victory for the United States.
But the U.S. press corps rarely mentions that the “surge” represented one of the bloodiest periods of the war. Beyond the horrific – and untallied – death toll of Iraqis, about 1,000 U.S. soldiers died during Bush’s “surge” of an additional 30,000 troops into Iraq.
It’s also unclear that the “surge” deserves much if any credit for the gradual decline in Iraqi violence, which had already reached turning points in 2006 – before the “surge” – with the death of al-Qaeda leader Musab al-Zarqawi, the U.S.-funded Sunni Awakening against al-Qaeda in Iraq, and the de facto ethnic cleansing of Iraqi cities with Sunnis and Shiites moving into separate neighborhoods.
Further putting the sectarian killing on a downward path was the Iran-brokered agreement with militant Shiite leader Moktada al-Sadr to have his militia stand down in exchange for an Iraqi government commitment to insist on a firm timetable for total U.S. military withdrawal, a process that has just been completed.
However, the U.S. news media continues to repeat the conventional wisdom about how U.S. troops protected Iraqis from violence through the “successful surge.” The “Collateral Murder” video puts the lie to that smug consensus, showing the “ground truth” of how the “surge” – and indeed the entire Iraq War – truly operated.
Many Americans may want to put the unpleasant memories of the Iraq War behind them – from “shock and awe” and the illegal invasion, to the leveling of Fallujah and the Abu Ghraib atrocities, to the incompetent U.S. occupation, the Haditha murders and the sectarian slaughters – but a failure to face the reality honestly will only encourage future war crimes of similar or even greater magnitude.
http://consortiumnews.com/2011/12/24/americas-debt-to-bradley-manning/
TPF is a registered non-profit organization in the State of Oklahoma, a non-partisan and non-sectarian civic sector organization, devoted to peace, social uplift, and nonviolence.
16 discussions
TPF members post reviews, as part of a previously organized monthly book/dvd exchange or other occasional reading circles
10 discussions
People to come together to solve shared challenges at the grassroots level. This discussion forum is for events, plans, strategies and tactics to support sustainability and justice, including mutual aid and self-bootstrapping. Put your reviews of peace-promoting games and nonviolent disobedience training here as well.
15 discussions
© 2024 Created by Tony Nuspl. Powered by
You need to be a member of Tulsa Peace Fellowship to add comments!
Join Tulsa Peace Fellowship