b********n
发帖数: 38600 | 1 In times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act
- George Orwell
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/julian-assange/wikileaks-bradley-
Two Years of Cablegate as Bradley Manning Testifies for the First Time
Julian Assange.
Editor-in-Chief and Founder, WikiLeaks
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 Guantánamo 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.
A War of Terror
The United States' War on Terror has claimed hundreds of thousands of lives,
inflamed sectarian violence, and made a mockery of international law.
Victims and their families struggle to have their stories acknowledged, and
the U.S.' systematic avoidance of accountability for war crimes implicitly
denies their right to be considered human beings. Moreover, as the U.S.
increasingly relies on clandestine military operations conducted outside the
scrutiny of government oversight, the execution of this expanding War on
Terror becomes increasingly uncoupled from the democratic process. While
President Obama had promised the American people in 2008 that he would end
the Iraq War, U.S. troops were only withdrawn when information from a cable
revived international scrutiny of abuse occurring in Iraq, resulting in a
refusal to grant continued immunity to U.S. troops in 2012 or beyond.
In 2007 the U.S. embassy in Baghdad obtained a copy of the Iraqi government'
s final investigation report on the massacre of 17 civilians on September
16th, 2007 in Nisour Square. The report concluded that the incident was an
unprovoked attack on unarmed civilians, asked for $8 million in compensation
for each death and $4 million for each injury, and demanded that the
private security firm Blackwater be replaced within six months. Blackwater
continued to operate in Iraq for two years afterwards, and the U.S. Embassy
compensated victims with $10,000 for each death and $5,000 for each injury.
Five years later, the offending Blackwater mercenaries have escaped from
accountability to Iraq, and attempts to bring them to justice in the U.S.
have resulted in a long chain of dismissed cases and one undisclosed
settlement. WikiLeaks' Iraq War Logs release of 391,832 U.S. Army field
reports uncovered 14 additional cases where Blackwater opened fire on
civilians, along with numerous other incidents of abuse. The Iraq War Logs
also showed how the United States handed over prisoners to be tortured in
gruesome detail -- stories of electrocution, mutilation and of victims being
attacked with drills.
The fact that, five years on, the victims of the Nisour Square Massacre have
seen no meaningful accountability is an atrocity. But it is unfortunately
no surprise that the U.S. claims immunity for its forces in other countries,
then fails to administer justice at home.
These events -- and in particular one cable detailing the summary execution
of 10 Iraqi civilians, including four women and five children -- by U.S.
soldiers and a subsequent airstrike to cover up the evidence, forced the U.S
. withdrawal from Iraq in 2011. The story of handcuffed execution and cover-
up sparked outrage around the world in the midst of negotiations to extend U
.S. troop presence into 2012 and, in response to international coverage,
Iraq revived its investigation into the incident. Iraq ultimately refused to
grant immunity to U.S. troops in 2012, forcing the U.S. to withdraw in
December 2011.
This systemic violence and cover-up extends to the war in Afghanistan. When
news emerged that a midnight bombing campaign on the Afghan village of
Granai in 2009 had possibly resulted in the death of up to 100 civilians, U.
S. officials publicly asserted that most of the dead had been Taliban
fighters. A State Department cable written shortly after the event
summarizes a meeting between the Red Cross' Afghanistan chief Reto Stocker
and U.S. Ambassador Carl Eikenberry in which they discussed findings from an
investigation of the event. In the cable, Stocker is referred to as "one of
the most credible sources for unbiased and objective information in
Afghanistan." The Red Cross report estimated that 89 of the dead and 13
injured were in fact civilians. Neither the U.S. government nor the Red
Cross publicly revealed these figures.
WikiLeaks and the Arab Spring
The Tunisian cables describe the extreme corruption and lack of transparency
of the Ben Ali regime. The Ben Ali extended family are described as the
worst offenders, their lavish life accompanied by "a wide-range of corrupt
schemes," including "property expropriation and extortion of bribes." We
also learned that Ben Ali family assets included an airline, several hotels
and a radio station. One cable describes state censorship of Tunisia's only
private broadcast satellite TV station, and a surprise tax judgment against
the station of almost $1.5 million.
In its 2011 annual report, Amnesty International praised WikiLeaks and its
media partners for catalyzing the revolution in Tunisia:
"While the 'Jasmine Revolution' in Tunisia would not have happened without
the long struggle of brave human rights defenders over the last two decades,
support for activists from outside the country may have been strengthened
as people scrutinized the WikiLeaks documents on Tunisia and understood the
roots of the anger. In particular, some of the documents made clear that
countries around the world were aware of both the political repression and
the lack of economic opportunity, but for the most part were not taking
action to urge change."
When Tunisia's president Moncef Marzouki spoke with me on The World Tomorrow
, he thanked WikiLeaks for its work, saying, "I am very grateful for all
that you have done for promoting human rights, truth, and I admire and
support your efforts."
Shortly following Tunisia's revolution, protests erupted in Libya, and a new
batch of cables revealed the strategic calculations behind U.S. support of
the Gaddafi regime. In Egypt, cables revealed that Mubarak would rather die
in office than step down and that his son would likely succeed him. Then,
just as evidence emerged that Vice President Suleiman was tipped to replace
Mubarak, cables were released detailing his former role as intelligence
chief, as well as his close ties to Israel. Such elements became a crucial
part of the ongoing Egyptian uprising.
A Global Death Squad Consulting Firm?
For years, WikiLeaks faced a chorus of accusations by U.S. officials and
right-wing pundits of making the world a less-safe place, and of having
potentially caused harm through publication of embarrassing secrets. In
reality, the cables show that torture and killing are not isolated events,
but the violent manifestations of an aggressive policy of coercion used by
the United States in the pursuit of its strategic commercial and political
goals around the world.
While U.S. law bans the training of military units with a history of human
rights violations, in practice the law is easily and often circumvented. The
Indonesian army's elite special forces unit KOPASSUS has brutally repressed
the West Papuans' freedom movement (West Papua has been occupied by
Indonesia since 1963), as has been extensively documented by Human Rights
Watch. Despite this, U.S. diplomats in Jakarta judged in 2007 that the time
had come to resume collaboration with KOPASSUS, for the sake of "commercial
interest" and "the protection of U.S. officials."
A diplomatic cable from November 2009 mentions as a side note that right-
wing paramilitaries in Colombia were responsible for the death of 257,089
victims, a figure well above the estimations of local human rights activists
. The U.S. has nonetheless offered generous support to the Colombian
military; Amnesty International, which has called for a complete cut-off of
U.S. military aid to Colombia, has estimated that total U.S. aid in 2006
amounted to $728 million, of which 80 percent was given to military and
police assistance. As of 2012, U.S. military support to Colombia is ongoing.
Such examples illustrate the United States' liberal interpretation of the
laws banning the training of military units with a history of human rights
violations. In another cable from August 2008, U.S. officials acknowledge
that the Bangladeshi death squad, the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), has been
involved in obvious human rights violations, making support for the RAB
difficult -- U.S. officials hoped, however, to improve the RAB's record and
polish its public image. U.S. officials praised the RAB for having "
succeeded in reducing crime and fighting terrorism, making it in many ways
Bangladesh's most respected police unit." In a diplomatic cable from 2009,
it was also revealed that the UK had been training the RAB for the previous
18 months "in areas such as investigative interviewing techniques and rules
of engagement."
Foreign Service Spies
In 2009, Hillary Clinton sent an intelligence gathering directive to 33
embassies and consulates around the world. The directive asked diplomats to
gather intelligence on UN officials, including credit card numbers and
online handles. A similar cable requested intelligence on officials from the
Democratic Republic of Congo, Burundy, Rwanda and Uganda, and specifically
mentioned the collection of DNA samples, iris scans and computer passwords.
Another state department cable revealed that a mole within the German
government was spying for the U.S. Embassy in Berlin, frequently updating U.
S. officials on negotiations between Merkel's conservative Christian
Democrats and Westerwelle's FDP on the formation of a new coalition
government in 2009. Helmut Metzner, formerly chief of staff to Germany's
foreign minister, admitted to being the mole mentioned in these cables when
this story broke in the press, and was subsequently fired.
Lobbying for Unaccountability -- Manipulation of Judicial Process in Other
Countries
Abuse that occurs in war, as it did in Iraq, is often dismissed by its
perpetrators as exceptional, and we are often assured that when abuse has
occurred, the accountability mechanisms in place will bring justice. The
diplomatic cables have given us numerous concrete examples of the coercion
used by the U.S. to manipulate and undermine judicial processes in other
countries, and they establish a clear policy for the evasion of
accountability in any form.
During the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, two journalists -- including the
Spanish journalist José Couso -- were killed and three others were wounded
when a U.S. tank fired on the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad. An investigation
into the event was subsequently launched in Spain, and an international
arrest warrant was issued for three U.S. soldiers involved. Cables showed
that the U.S. aggressively fought to have Spanish officials drop the case.
Writing about the case in one cable, U.S. Ambassador Eduardo Aguirre
emphasizes: "While we are careful to show our respect for the tragic death
of Couso and for the independence of the Spanish judicial system, behind the
scenes we have fought tooth and nail to make the charges disappear."
Shamefully, this quote was redacted in the original reporting on the subject
from El Pais and Le Monde.
In another example from 2003, a German citizen of Lebanese origins, Kalid el
-Masri, was kidnapped while on vacation in Macedonia, renditioned to
Afghanistan by the CIA, and tortured for four months. When his captors
finally decided he was innocent, he was flown to Albania and dumped on a
country road without so much as an apology. In a cable from 2007, we learn
that when a German prosecutor issued arrest warrants for agents involved in
el-Masri's kidnapping, the U.S. ambassador in Berlin warned German officials
that there would be repercussions. No arrests have yet been made and el-
Masri is still seeking justice.
The U.S.' manipulation extended to the UK, where a cable shows that during a
British public inquiry led by Sir John Chilcot into the UK role in the Iraq
War, the Ministry of Defence had "put measures in place" to protect U.S.
interests.
Global Powers Work to Break Environmental Solidarity, and to Exploit "
Opportunities" of Climate Change
On environmental issues, cables show that the U.S. routinely makes symbolic
gestures rather than initiating substantial practices to combat climate
change, and works aggressively to tailor international agreements to its own
commercial interests.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton asked embassies to gather intelligence on
the preparations for the Copenhagen UN Convention on Climate Change Meeting
in December 2009, asking for biographical details of representatives from
China, France, Japan, Mexico, Russia and the European Union. Cables show
that in Copenhagen the U.S. manipulated the accord talks by offering "gifts"
to poorer countries to derail opposition to the accord proposed by first
world powers. Another cable from the Secretary of State revealed that in
2010, a Maldives ambassador designate had stressed the importance of "
tangible assistance" from larger economies to smaller ones. As a consequence
of this meeting, the accord offered financial compensation to poor
countries suffering from the effects of global warming.
In a visit to Canada in 2009 David Goldwyn, the State Department's
Coordinator for International Energy Affairs discussed public relations
assistance to be offered to the oil sands industry. Goldwyn proposed
consulting experts, scholars and think tanks to "increase visibility and
accessibility of more positive news stories." The cable was later used by
environmentalists in their battle against the Keystone XL pipeline, which
ships crude oil across the U.S.-Canada border. In early 2012, President
Obama rejected the Keystone XL pipeline proposal, but recently publicly
announced support for another proposal. It also turns out that Goldwyn
eventually went on to work for Sutherland, a lobbying group in favor of
Keystone XL.
The cables also reveal that the U.S. is carefully positioning itself to take
advantage of new opportunities for harvesting hydrocarbons and minerals
from the Arctic as climate change melts polar ice. U.S. diplomats were
hoping to offer Greenland support for its independence from Denmark in
exchange for access by American gas and oil companies to exploit the country
's resources. The U.S. has been closely watching Russia, America's main
competitor for Arctic resources, but American officials also showed concern
over Canada's potential territorial claim to the Arctic's Northwest passage.
Secret Agreements -- Circumvention of the Democratic Process
The State Department cables revealed that the United States and its allies
systematically make secret arrangements with various governments, hiding
details not only from the country's public, but sometimes even from the
country's representatives, ministers and oversight bodies.
In 2009, Jeremy Scahill and Seymour Hersh broke a story in The Nation on
secret U.S. special operations forces combat missions and drone strikes in
Pakistan. When questioned about the story, Department of Defense
spokesperson Geoff Morrell dismissed the claims as "conspiratorial theories.
" Only one year later, cables released by WikiLeaks confirmed their story.
In addition, cables quoted Pakistan's Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani
telling U.S. officials: "I don't care if they do it as long as they get the
right people -- we'll protest about it in the National Assembly and then
ignore it." Stories based on State Department cables also revealed
agreements between the U.S. and Yemen in which the Yemeni government would
claim responsibility for attacks launched by the U.S. on local militia
groups. The release of State Department cables resulted in total
transparency with respect to certain aspects of the War on Terror.
State Department cables also revealed that the U.S. worked with Australia to
weaken the text of an international agreement banning the use of cluster
munitions -- bombs which spray thousands of smaller bomblets over a large
area. Out of more than 13,000 casualties of cluster munitions registered by
Handicap International, over 98 percent are civilian and one-third of those
are children. Despite this, cables also revealed that the UK's then-Foreign
Minister David Miliband secretly approved the use of a legal loophole to
allow the United States to store cluster munitions on UK territory, despite
the fact that the UK is a signatory to a convention banning them. The United
States is not a signatory to the Convention on Cluster Munitions, and even
attempted in 2011 to have the ban lifted by the UN.
In 2007, former Canadian Deputy Prime Minister John Manley asked U.S.
officials for predator drones to help shore up liberal support for a
sustained Canadian presence in the war in Afghanistan. At the time, Manley
was leading a government-appointed panel charged with investigating Canada's
interests in a future role in Afghanistan. In August 2012, the Ottawa
Citizen reported that the Canadian government is seeking to spend up to $1
billion on a state-of-the-art armed drone fleet.
The cables also revealed that Canada's conservative Prime Minister Stephen
Harper secretly promised NATO in January 2010 that Canada would remain in
Afghanistan to conduct army training even after the end of its mission in
2011. The Canadian public was shocked when the government announced that it
would be extending its mission in November of that year. Harper expressed
concern to U.S. diplomats that an early departure of Canadian troops from
Aghanistan would seem like a "withdrawal," reflecting the low public support
for Canada's mission in Afghanistan.
In 2008, the U.S. proposed an "informal agreement" to Swedish government
officials for the exchange of information on terrorism watch-lists. U.S.
officials explained that they feared scrutiny by the Swedish parliament
would jeopardize "law enforcement and anti-terrorism cooperation." Cables
also revealed that in 2009, the U.S. resumed full intelligence-sharing with
New Zealand after it had been restricted in retaliation for the country's
ban against nuclear-powered or armed vessels in its ports. Both governments
agreed that the newly resumed cooperation should be kept hidden from the
public.
The Realpolitik of Commercial Lobbying
State Department cables illustrate that U.S. officials and their commercial
partners take a default position of having an intrinsic right to resources
and market dominance around the world.
In a 2007 cable to the U.S. Trade Representative, U.S. Ambassador Craig
Stapleton suggested taking a hard-line approach towards the European Union
over its resistance to American genetically modified products and foods.
France's refusal to embrace GMOs and agricultural biotechnology, according
to Ambassador Stapleton, would lead to a general European rejection of GMOs,
and he suggested retaliation to help the French see things differently:
"Country team Paris recommends that we calibrate a target retaliation list
that causes some pain across the EU since this is a collective
responsibility, but that also focuses in part on the worst culprits. The
list should be measured rather than vicious and must be sustainable over the
long term, since we should not expect an early victory."
The cables also showed that the U.S. revoked visas of then-Ecuadoran
presidential candidate Xavier Neira and seven others due to their
involvement in a legal case against the American pharmaceutical company
Pfizer for unfair competition. The timing of the decision to revoke their
visas coincided with the upcoming presidential elections and an impending
court decision on the case. In its explanation of the revocation, officials
cite "corruption" and the case against Pfizer.
The U.S.-based Shell Oil company has a long and sordid history in Nigeria,
and its representatives spoke openly about activities in the country. In a
2009 meeting, Shell representatives told U.S. officials that they would be
able to influence the Nigerian government's 2009 Petroleum Industry Bill to
suit their interests.
Cables from 2005 highlight U.S. determination to "improve the investment
climate" for mining companies in Peru. Representatives from Canada, UK,
Australia, Switzerland and South Africa met to strategize ways of
circumventing anti-mining protests coming from a diverse group of NGOs, the
Catholic Church and indigenous Peruvians. Once protests had turned violent,
the U.S. used this as an excuse for monitoring NGO groups such as Oxfam and
Friends of the Earth, and asked the Peruvian government to enhance security
by taking control of roadways and transit areas.
In other cases, officials in the U.S. Embassy assisted in lobbying for or
against particular pieces of legislation according to U.S. commercial
interests. U.S. officials lobbied on behalf of Visa and MasterCard against a
bill in Russia which would have created a national card payment system,
taking away Visa and MasterCard's market share.
Strategic Duplicity on Human Rights and Press Freedom
A cable summarizing a meeting with a director of Al Jazeera shows that U.S.
officials expected a special report with graphic images of injured Iraqis to
be changed and its images removed. In another cable, the director is asked
to explain Al Jazeera's lack of coverage of the Iran elections and protests
as opposed to their "heavy" coverage of Gaza.
The U.S. Navy's Fifth Fleet is based in the kingdom of Bahrain, and the U.S.
has maintained a mutually beneficial relationship with the country's
leaders over the past years. In one cable, the U.S. ambassador to Bahrain
praised the country and its king, pointing out that U.S. companies had won
major contracts there. This same regime brutally cracked down on protesters
during the Arab Spring, and Bahraini authorities shut down dissident
websites and publications. While the U.S. State Department harshly condemned
the crackdown on protests after Iran's 2009 elections, it remained silent
on the killings in Bahrain.
Thailand's Monarchy Exposed
Thailand's lèse majesté law prevents anyone in the country from speaking
openly about the monarchy without risk of severe punishment. As such, any
reports about political developments in the country are censored, and there
is a huge gap in public knowledge about the country's political environment.
WikiLeaks' release of State Department cables gives an unprecedented view
of not only the monarchy's deep impact on the politics of the country, but
also the close relationship that Thailand had with the U.S. Journalist
Andrew MacGregor Marshall quit his job at Reuters to write his book Thailand
's Moment of Truth, using the Thai cables exposing obscured and taboo
aspects of Thailand's politics, history and international relations for the
first time.
U.S. Aims to Reshape Global Views and Law on Intellectual Property and
Copyright
U.S.-based lobbying groups work hand in hand with U.S. State Department
officials around the world to aggressively lobby for legislation and trade
agreements that favor American companies such as Google, Facebook, Apple and
Microsoft, or large film studios such as Disney, Paramount, Sony and Warner
.
A 2006 cable from Japan describes the first draft proposals for a "gold
standard" in intellectual property rights enforcement, called ACTA. This
standard was meant to give intellectual property owners much stronger powers
, even at the expense of citizen privacy and due process. ACTA was
subsequently negotiated in secret, unknown to the general public, until
WikiLeaks leaked the first draft in 2008. In the film industry, the lobbyist
group for motion picture studios conspired with their Australian
counterpart to establish a legal precedent for holding an Internet service
provider accountable for copyright infringement in Australia. What is the
effect of this push and pull? It is a global environment where legislation
and legal precedents are set to benefit intellectual property owners who are
rich, powerful and influential -- even at the expense of public good.
Breaking the Monopoly on Influence
The examples I present above represent only a small fraction of what has
been revealed by WikiLeaks material. Since 2010, Western governments have
tried to portray WikiLeaks as a terrorist organization, enabling a
disproportionate response from both political figures and private
institutions. It is the case that WikiLeaks' publications can and have
changed the world, but that change has clearly been for the better. Two
years on, no claim of individual harm has been presented, and the examples
above clearly show precisely who has blood on their hands.
In large Western democracies, the political discourse has been so highly
controlled for so long, that it is no longer shocking when Western experts
fill in to speak for third world victims, or when an American president
stands up at a podium to accept his Nobel Peace Prize, and makes the case
for war. It is, in fact, no longer safe to presume that a media outlet such
as The New York Times would perform the same act today as they did in 1971
when Daniel Ellsberg leaked the Pentagon Papers.
In a panel discussion with Daniel Ellsberg and New York Times editor Jill
Abramson discussing the Pentagon Papers, Ellsberg voiced his dissent over
the Times' acquiescence to the Bush administration's request to delay James
Risen's story on warrantless NSA wiretapping until after the 2004 elections.
Abramson equivocated:
"The thing is when the government says -- you know -- by publishing a story
you're harming the national security, you're helping the terrorists. I mean,
there are still people today who argue that the NSA program was the crown
jewel, the most valuable anti-terrorism program that the Bush administration
had going, and that it was terribly wrong of the Times to publish."
On the same panel, Daniel Ellsberg said of the Pentagon Papers:
"The secrecy of these documents has so far condemned over 30,000 Americans
to death and several million Vietnamese. And the continued secrecy of them
will undoubtedly contribute to the death of tens of thousands more Americans
, and so forth. I think that's true. But that comes up in the WikiLeaks case
, right now."
Since the release of the diplomatic cables, WikiLeaks has continued its
operations despite the financial blockade, publishing leaked documents from
companies selling mass interception units to state spy agencies around the
world; detainee profiles for almost all of the people detained at Guantá
namo Bay prison; U.S. policy manuals for detention of military prisoners in
the War on Terror; intelligence databases from the private intelligence firm
Stratfor; and millions of documents from inside the Syrian government. The
information we've disclosed frustrates the controlled political discourse
that is trumpeted by establishment media and Western governments to shape
public perception.
We will continue our fight against the financial blockade, and we will
continue to publish. The Pentagon's threats against us do the United States
a disservice and will not be heeded. | b********n
发帖数: 38600 | 2 Here is a realistic scenario:
- This comment thread will be "analyzed" by U.S. intelligence agencies.
- If you say anything positive about Assange, your screen name will be
added to a classified watch list for terrorist sympathizers.
- Intelligence agencies will use their access to Google and Facebook to
easily determine your identity.
- If you continue acts of resistance to the American Empire, no matter how
small, you will find that you can no longer board an airplane. TSA will not
be able to tell you why or to correct the problem.
- You will be audited by the IRS. You will suspect there is a connection
with your political views, but you won't be able to prove anything.
- If you continue even the smallest acts of resistance, credit card
companies will cancel your accounts. You will not be able to get any credit.
- If you work for a large corporation or the government, your career will
be threatened; you may loose your job.
- If you continue to resist, based on laws already on the books (NDAA 2012)
, you will be arrested and held indefinitely without recourse to due process
. Your detention will not be reported by the media.
- If you are considered a sufficient threat, you will be renditioned,
imprisoned overseas, and tortured. You will eventually be released so your
story will serve as an example to other potential resistors.
This is what America has become. | b********n
发帖数: 38600 | 3 “The greatest patriotism is to tell your country when it is behaving
dishonorably, foolishly, viciously.”
― Julian Barnes, Flaubert's Parrot | b********n
发帖数: 38600 | 4 "Dissent is the highest form of Patriotism." -- Thomas Jefferson
act
since
【在 b********n 的大作中提到】
: In times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act
: - George Orwell
: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/julian-assange/wikileaks-bradley-
: Two Years of Cablegate as Bradley Manning Testifies for the First Time
: Julian Assange.
: Editor-in-Chief and Founder, WikiLeaks
: 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
| b********n
发帖数: 38600 | 5 "Assange points out the crimes of many Western nations, as the Western media
points out crimes in the Rest of the World and ignores it's own, and for
that, he is a very dangerous man to the current power structure that is anti
-democratic at is rotting core"
act
since
【在 b********n 的大作中提到】
: In times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act
: - George Orwell
: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/julian-assange/wikileaks-bradley-
: Two Years of Cablegate as Bradley Manning Testifies for the First Time
: Julian Assange.
: Editor-in-Chief and Founder, WikiLeaks
: 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
| b********n
发帖数: 38600 | 6 "The United States' War on Terror has claimed hundreds of thousands of lives
, inflamed sectarian violence, and made a mockery of international law."
That about sums up the legacy of GWB.
act
since
【在 b********n 的大作中提到】
: In times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act
: - George Orwell
: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/julian-assange/wikileaks-bradley-
: Two Years of Cablegate as Bradley Manning Testifies for the First Time
: Julian Assange.
: Editor-in-Chief and Founder, WikiLeaks
: 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
| b********n
发帖数: 38600 | 7 Ron Paul asked which events caused more deaths, "lying us into wars or the
release of the wikileaks papers?"
act
since
【在 b********n 的大作中提到】
: In times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act
: - George Orwell
: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/julian-assange/wikileaks-bradley-
: Two Years of Cablegate as Bradley Manning Testifies for the First Time
: Julian Assange.
: Editor-in-Chief and Founder, WikiLeaks
: 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
| b********n
发帖数: 38600 | 8 "Assange's article is like a Gravity Bomb dropped into the room that
distorts all the dimensions and makes all the other news look so small. He
makes our political leaders look like clowns, comics and mobsters. He stands
above them with his dignity, his principles, his integrity, and thank god..
.. his work. He will prevail because history and the people are with him. "
act
since
【在 b********n 的大作中提到】
: In times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act
: - George Orwell
: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/julian-assange/wikileaks-bradley-
: Two Years of Cablegate as Bradley Manning Testifies for the First Time
: Julian Assange.
: Editor-in-Chief and Founder, WikiLeaks
: 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
| b********n
发帖数: 38600 | 9 "The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the
people, it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government." --
Patrick Henry |
|
