Cheers for Truth-Tellers

NOVEMBER 25, 2010 THANKS TO THESE AND ALL OTHER TRUTH-TELLERS—WHISTLEBLOWERS, INVESTIGATIVE REPORTERS, PROTESTERS. (OMNI's book fund at UA's Mullins Library, among other purchase subjects, specifies whistleblowers and intestigative reporters.)
Scroll down for Bradley Mnnning.

(Sue Skidmore)
This Holiday & Always Give Thanks for the Whistle Blowers – The Truth Tellers for their courageous efforts in speaking Truth to Power. Truth - Telling including our own actions in relationship with Truth which is considered to be the supreme reality and to have the ultimate meaning and value of existence are our only Hope. ~Sue
Sibel Edmonds: Sibel Edmonds - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Sibel Deniz Edmonds is a Turkish-American former FBI translator and founder of the National Security Whistleblowers Coalition (NSWBC). ...
Early life and education - FBI career - Post-FBI - Notes
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sibel_Edmonds
Indira Singh: 9/11 & Terrorist Financing
Michael C. Ruppert and From The Wilderness Publications http://www.fromthewilderness.com/about.html
Delmart "Mike" Vreeland: http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/1252_rev_12802.html
Former intelligence officer Lt. Col. Tony Shaffer: Mounting evidence that BushCo knew well in advance that the 9/11 attack was being planned Former intelligence officer Lt. Col. Tony Shaffer’s new book reveals that BushCo knew that plans were being made for the 9/11 attack, but chose to do nothing to stop it and a few things to make sure it succeeded.
This is why the Defense Intelligence Agency recently demanded, after buying up the first 10,000 copies of the book, that all references to a meeting between Lt. Col. Tony Shaffer, the book’s author, and the executive director of the 9/11 Commission, Philip Zelikow, be removed from the book. In that meeting, which took place in Afghanistan, Col. Shaffer alleges that the head of the 9/11 Commission was told about the identification of Mohammed Atta prior to the attacks. So why wasn’t any mention of this made in the final 9/11 report?
Cindy Sheehan: Cindy Sheehan - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Cindy Lee Miller Sheehan (born July 10, 1957) is an American anti-war activist whose son, Specialist Casey Sheehan, was killed during his service in the ...
Personal life - Anti-war campaign - Political activism - See also
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cindy_Sheehan -
Coleen Rowley: TIME Magazine: The Bombshell Memo
A TIME cover story on an explosive letter to the head of the FBI, Minneapolis agent Coleen Rowley acuses the agency of obstructing information that may have ...
www.time.com/time/covers/1101020603/memo.html - Cached - Similar
Ray McGovern: Ray McGovern: A "Good" Terrorist Captured by Iran
Feb 26, 2010 ... Ray McGovern was an Army officer and CIA analyst for almost 30 year. He now serves on the Steering Group of Veteran Intelligence
www.counterpunch.org/mcgovern02262010.html - Cached
Naomi Wolf: • Naomi Wolf: Fascist America, in 10 easy steps | World news | The ... Apr 24, 2007 ... From Hitler to Pinochet and beyond, history shows there are certain steps that any would-be dictator must take to destroy constitutional ...www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/apr/24/usa.comment -
Richard A. Clarke
Source Watch: WhistleBlowers: http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Whistleblowers
Robert Scheer: Thank God for the Whistle-Blowers - Robert Scheer's ...
Thanks to Daniel Ellsberg, who risked much to make the record of the .... I guess I have to give you credit for your honesty, but on the ...
www.truthdig.com/.../thank_god_for_the_whistle-blowers_20100728/ -
Jim Hightower: Giving Thanks to Citizens and Grass-Roots Progressives
http://act.commondreams.org/go/3298?akid=289.126591.md5kVv&t=30
Also Thanks to Jim Marrs investigative reporter and author
Daniel Estulin Bilderberger investigative author
Jordan Maxwell investigative author
Dr Steven Greer Disclosure Project
Dr Brian OLeary former NASA scientist and truthteller.
Plus Many, Many More….

Greetings: I thought I would share with you what Rick replied about giving thanks. ~Sue
From: rick meis
Sent: Friday, November 26, 2010 9:38 AM

I give thanks for industrial insurance whistleblower Wendell Potter who more than eighteen months ago provided more than enough information to prove that the Baucus/Obama Insurance Industry Indemnification and Enrichment Act would not work, nay, could not work. He was ignored by the Democrats, Republicans, press and the public. In fact, I think it was he that first labeled the bill as something other than health care reform.

I give thanks for the freedom of the press in Europe that has pointed out that much of what is talked about in the US press, US enviro groups and by US politicians regarding global warming and carbon emissions is not the whole truth; that the rest of the world is suffering the effects of the chosen ignorance of the US as the most responsible country for carbon emissions on the planet. I give thanks that people like David Brower put the basis of that very information into writing before he went on to the big wild country in the sky.. ….Rick


PRIVATE BRADLEY MANNING, LEAKER

http://www.readersupportednews.org/off-site-opinion-section/71-71/2609-bradley-

REMEMBER YOSSARIAN IN "CATCH-22":
"Bradley Manning: An American Hero
How is waging an illegal war where civilians are intentionally killed 'patriotic', but exposing it is 'illegal'?" by Stephen Lendman Saturday, 7 August 2010

Manning exposed cold-blooded civilian murders, the public being unaware that Pentagon rules-of-engagement (ROEs) targets them like combatants in every warfare theater. The public has a right to know their country is waging wars of aggression.
Manning, of course, is the courageous Army intelligence analyst turned whistleblower, who admitted leaking:
• "260,000 classified United States diplomatic cables and video of a (US) airstrike in Afghanistan that killed 97 civilians last year," and
• an "explosive (39 minute) video of an American helicopter attack in Baghdad that left 12 people dead, including two employees of the Reuters news agency" - "collateral murder" he felt obligated to expose.
It got him in trouble. On June 7, the military in Iraq arrested him, saying:
"The Department of Defense takes the management of classified information very seriously because it affects our national security, the lives of our soldiers, and our operations abroad."
Defense Secretary Robert Gates called the leak "potentially dramatic and grievously harmful....The battlefield consequences of the release of these documents are potentially severe and dangerous for our troops, our allies and Afghan partners, and may well damage our relationships and reputation in that part of the world. Intelligence sources and methods, as well as military tactics, techniques and procedures, will become known to our adversaries."
Unmentioned was the following:
• our attack, invasion and occupation are illegal under US and international law;
• war crimes, including murder, torture, and targeted assassinations happen daily;
• civilian men, women, and children are willfully targeted;
• since October 2001, millions of Afghans have been killed, injured or displaced, their country perhaps the most hellish anyway, devastated by decades of war, deep poverty, depravation, and unimaginable human suffering, mostly caused by America;
• the same holds for Iraq, Pakistan, and nations where Washington wages proxy wars; and
• our presence and imperial aims cause harm, not Manning or WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, exposing truths the public has a right and need to know.
They deserve praise [in the above context], not prosecutions, compliments, not condemnation, and accolades, not accusations. They are heroes, risking personal harm to disclose disturbing truths, what government and media reports suppress, sanitize and distort, letting warlords plunder lawlessly so war profiteers can cash in, Americans the worse off for it.
In his August 4 Anti-Empire Report (www.killinghope.org), author William Blum asked:
"So please tell me again: What's the war about?" Lies, of course, about 9/11 and leaders repeating them, Obama for one last August 17 saying:
"But we must never forget this is not a war of choice. This is a war of necessity. Those who attacked America on 9/11 are plotting to do so again. If left unchecked, the Taliban insurgency will mean an even larger safe haven from which Al Qaeda would plot to kill more Americans."
On July 28, 2010, Obama lied again, saying:
"the region from which the 9/11 attacks were waged and other attacks against the United States and our friends and allies have been planned."
Rubbish according to Blum, saying:
"Never mind that out of the tens of thousands of people the United States and its NATO front have killed in Afghanistan not one has been identified as having had anything to do with the events of September 11, 2001."
"The only 'war of necessity' that draws the United States to Afghanistan is the need for protected oil and gas pipelines from the Caspian Sea area, (and) establishment of military bases (there), making it easier to watch and pressure next-door Iran (besides being a land-based aircraft carrier to target Russia and China). What more could any respectable imperialist nation desire? Oh, did I mention that the military-industrial-security-intelligence complex and its shareholders" will profit handsomely.
In 1996, America helped the Taliban gain power, funneling military aid through Pakistan's ISI (Inter-Services Intelligence). Oil was the hidden agenda, Taliban representatives visiting Unocal in Houston in December 1997 to negotiate a trans-Afghan pipeline from the oil rich Caspian area. It was nearly agreed, the kicker being America's refusal to extend recognition, a small courtesy to avoid war, occupation, and a deepening unwinnable quagmire.
On December 14, 1997, London's Daily Telegraph reported:
"the US government, which in the past has branded the Taliban's policies against women and children 'despicable,' appears anxious to please the fundamentalists to clinch the lucrative pipeline contract."
On December 4, 1997, a BBC correspondent said "the proposal to build a pipeline across Afghanistan is part of an international scramble to profit from developing the rich energy resources of the Caspian Sea."
By recognizing the Taliban government, it would have been built and today's quagmire avoided. Perhaps America's graveyard also, no invader ever occupying Afghanistan successfully, not the Soviets or British, the UK government suffering its greatest ever slaughter and defeat in 1842, losing 16,000 soldiers and civilians, except one man, historians believing Afghans let him live to recount the horror. As a result, Britain withdrew all its personnel and left, a lesson now forgotten, about 9,500 UK troops deployed with Americans and other NATO forces.
Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai was a former Unocal adviser when pipeline negotiations took place. He was also a CIA asset. Unocal claimed it abandoned the pipeline project. Secret talks, however, continued up to a few months before 9/11, Taliban representatives visiting the State Department, CIA, and National Security Council. They even had a Queens, New York diplomatic office, and US officials visited Taliban ones in Islamabad.
The French newspaper Le Figaro also quoted Arab specialist Antoine Sfeir, saying CIA operatives met with bin Laden (a CIA asset in the 1980s) and maintained contact with him until his training camp was attacked in 1998.
America's fine line between enemies and friends is their willingness or reluctance to obey - do what we say or we'll boycott or bomb you, a threat with teeth, revealed by Manning and WikiLeaks.
Revealing Disturbing Truths Is Risky
Held initially in Kuwait, a July 29 Baghdad Pentagon press release said:
"US Army officials transferred PFC Bradley Manning from the Theater Field Confinement Facility in Kuwait to the Marine Corps Base Quantico Brig in Quantico, Virginia, on July 29. (He) remains in pretrial confinement pending an Article 32 investigation (like a grand jury or preliminary hearing) into the charges preferred against him on July 5."
"The criminal investigation remains open....findings and recommendations (will determine) whether to recommend (if) the case (will) be referred to trial by court-martial." For sure, that's what's planned, the Pentagon and Obama administration to throw the book at him or worse unless somehow their plans are derailed.
On August 2, Congressman Mike Rogers (R. MI) told Michigan radio station WHMI that Manning should be executed, saying:
"He release(d) this information to a third party who they say will make the determination that there's nothing harmful in it, while we know for a fact that there will be people that will likely be killed because of this information being disclosed. That's pretty serious. If they don't charge him with treason, they ought to charge him with murder."
Asked if he should be punished by death, Rogers said: "Yes, and I would support it 100 percent."
Federal Charges Against Manning
In early July, the Pentagon charged him with four noncriminal offenses, and eight violations of federal criminal law, including one count of violating the 1917 Espionage Act.
Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) charges included:
• eight violations of federal criminal law, including unauthorized computer access and transmitting classified information to an unauthorized third party; and
• four noncriminal Army regulations violations, governing the handling of classified information and computers.
If convicted on all charges, he faces up to 52 years in prison.
The Bradley Manning Support Network
Its purpose is to:
• "Harness the outrage felt by millions (viewing) the 'Collateral Murder' video into a coordinated defense of Manning;
• Raise awareness" about his arrest, charges and likely court-martial;
• "Coordinate" efforts to support him;
• "Collect funds (for a) high-quality" defense;
• "Provide supporters with accurate, updated information as the" pretrial hearing and likely trial progress; and
• "Provide prisoner support for (him) throughout his imprisonment."
Connected with Assange, he's more vulnerable, a 2008 classified Counterintelligence Center report placing WikiLeaks on "the list of enemies threatening the security of the United States," discussing ways to destroy its reputation and effectiveness, saying:
"Web sites such as WikiLeaks.org have trust as their most important center of gravity by protecting the anonymity and identity of the insider, leaker, or whistleblower. Successful identification, prosecution, termination of employment, and exposure of persons leaking the information by the governments and businesses affected by information posted to WikiLeaks.org would damage and potentially destroy this center of gravity and deter others from taking similar actions."
With Manning in custody and facing trial, score one for the Pentagon, expected to exploit his case to the fullest to set an example and deter others. He'll likely be convicted and imprisoned, not executed as Congressman Rogers wants.
Law Professor Francis Boyle "believe(s) a treason charge wo(n't) stick (because) Congress has not declared war." The best outcome for military resisters he helped defend was to "get them off of prison time, out of the military, or else minimum time served." He and others also got Amnesty International to designate Capt. Dr. Huett Vaughn, Staff Sgt. Mejia, and Lt. Ehren Watada Prisoners of Conscience (POC).
Watada was the first commissioned officer refusing to deploy to Iraq, saying: "as an officer of honor and integrity, (he could not participate in a war that was) manifestly illegal....morally wrong (and) a horrible breach of American law."
As a result, he faced court-martial, a possible dishonorable discharge, forfeiture of all pay and allowances, and seven years in prison, but got off thanks to Boyle and others. Before his Article 32 hearing, he publicly called the war illegal. Not wanting that revealed in testimony, the presiding judge declared a mistrial. He'd lost control, knew Watada was right, and had to suppress the truth to avoid an acquittal possibility on constitutional grounds.
Afghanistan is also illegal, Boyle explaining that Congress never declared war. The UN Security never authorized it under Article 51, and the Taliban never "attacked the United States or authorized or approved such an attack." In public testimony, FBI Director Robert Mueller, and CIA's then Deputy Director John McLaughlin admitted finding no link between the Taliban and 9/11.
Nonetheless, the Bush administration preemptively attacked in violation of US and international law. Obama is a war criminal pursuing and escalating it, expanding it cross border into Pakistan, and continuing the Iraq conflict and occupation.
American forces may refuse to serve, citing US and international law, including Army Field Manual (FM) 27 - 10, incorporating the Nuremberg Principles, Judgment and Charter and The Law of Land Warfare (1956).
FM's paragraph 498 states that any person, military or civilian, who commits a crime under international law is responsible for it and may be punished. Paragraph 499 defines a war crime. Paragraph 500 refers to a conspiracy, attempts to commit it and complicity with respect to international crimes. Paragraph 509 denies the defense of superior orders in the commission of a crime, and paragraph 510 denies the defense of an "act of state" to absolve them.
These provisions apply to all US military and civilian personnel, including top commanders, the Secretary of Defense, his subordinates, and the President and Vice President. Boyle calls resisting lawlessness "our Nuremberg moment." Those refusing them and exposing crimes should be praised, not prosecuted.
Manning provided evidence and may denounce the war's illegality, perhaps using it as a defense. He found crimes, needing to be exposed, acting honorably and heroically doing it as did WikiLeaks by publishing them anonymously.
In edited chat logs posted by Wired.com, Manning admitted "want(ing) people to see the truth....regardless of who they are....because without information, you cannot make informed decisions...." He never considered selling it to foreign powers or anyone, saying: "information should be free....it belongs in the public domain....if it's out in the open....it should be a public good," exposing crimes and corruption to generate "worldwide discussion, debates, and reforms."
That's honor, not espionage or treason, Manning saying:
"Everywhere there's a US post, there's a diplomatic scandal (to) be revealed. World-wide anarchy in CVS format. It's Climategate with a global scope, and breathtaking depth. It's beautiful and horrifying. (The documents describe) almost criminal political back dealings. (They belong) in the public domain, and not on some server stored in a dark corner in Washington, DC (or the Pentagon. Our government is involved in) incredible things, awful things."
He exposed cold-blooded civilian murders, the public unaware that Pentagon rules-of-engagement (ROEs) target them like combatants in every warfare theater. Waging permanent wars of aggression, America acts lawlessly and recklessly. The public has a right to know. Manning and Assange are heroes, deserving plaudits for their courage.
A Final Note
On Sunday, August 8, a public rally will be held outside the Quantico, VA Marine base, supporting Manning. War criminals remain free uncharged. Manning, an American hero, faces 52 years in prison for exposing their crimes.
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Stephen Lendman is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization. He lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. His blog is sjlendman.blogspot.com.
Listen to Lendman's cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.
Mr. Lendman's stories are republished in the Baltimore Chronicle with permission of the author.


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This story was published on August 7, 2010.
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