Karen Kwiatkowski
Lew Rockwell

At the culminating point of the movie A Few Good Men, Colonel Jessup, played magnificently by Jack Nicholson, angrily tells the truth and shockingly incriminates himself. The interrogating lawyer LT Daniel Kaffee (Tom Cruise), in his moment of victory, refuses to gloat. Instead, he abruptly ends his interrogation and demands that rule of law prevail, saying, "The defendant has rights!"

The famous courtroom scenes from this movie are well-known and oft-quoted by many Americans. A Few Good Men is formulaic, but it is the formula we particularly love – proud patriots who believe in right and wrong, in black and white, in law over lawlessness, Davids who fight a powerful Goliath. Against all odds, eventually our heroes win when the powerful and vindicating truth is revealed for all to see.

In another time, this would be the story of Bradley Manning.

"A Few Good Men" dramatically exposes the deformation and distortion of right and wrong that is the very demand of state utilitarianism, which is to say, an action is right if is promotes the state’s happiness, and an action is wrong if it tends to make the state unhappy. Colonel Jessup called for the harsh physical punishment of a "substandard Marine" and thus Corporal Santiago was killed by his comrades. The state, represented by Jessup, explains, "…Santiago’s death, while tragic, probably saved lives…."

Charged but not convicted of any crime, American airman Brad Manning is being held largely incommunicado at Guantánamo, without bedding or permission to exercise in his cell. He is purposely deprived of human contact. His current treatment – based on unproven charges – is far harsher than the treatment and sentences of four famous and convicted US federal-level spies.

More »

Stephen Lendman

Among all developed nations, Israel, America and Britain are the most unequal, a trend getting worse, not better.

An earlier article explained neoliberalism's impact on Israeli Jews, beginning in the 1980s. In 1985, the Knesset amended the Bank of Israel Law, prohibiting it from printing money to finance industrialization, full employment, and immigrant absorption.

It was part of a neoliberal takeover, embracing a massive power shift from various government agencies to the Finance Ministry and central bank (the Bank of Israel), similar to American financialization that empowered Wall Street, the Federal Reserve it controls, and US FIRE sector overall (finance, insurance, and real estate).

In 1985, Israeli policy included:

● efforts to reduce budget deficits to near balance; and
● dampen inflationary pressures by cutting wages, prices, credit, the currency's value, public benefits, pensions, and union power to establish a secondary, exploitable, temporary worker market.

The same year, the Arrangements Law established an emergency Economic Stabilization Plan. It sidestepped the normal legislative process, became a permanent budget adjunct, and kept Knesset members from debating its destructive effects on democratic values and social justice.

As a result, a race to the bottom followed, especially since the 1990s, as evidenced by mass privatizations, cutting welfare and social benefits, and, like in America, shifting wealth to the rich. The results were predictable. Israel not only flaunts democracy, it's a land of extreme and growing inequality.

More »

Barry Grey
WSWS

Secret cables published in recent days by WikiLeaks reveal the efforts of the United States to thwart the exposure by the Council of Europe and the International Criminal Court (ICC) of human rights violations by the US and its allies. The cables, among the more than 250,000 State Department documents leaked to the web site, reflect the hostility and contempt of both the Bush and Obama administrations for democratic rights and international law.

A series of cables dispatched in September and October of 2009 give vent to the disdain of Washington for the Council of Europe, which monitors human rights in 47 European nations. The Council in Strasbourg oversees the European Court of Human Rights.

In the likely event that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange faces extradition to the United States, the European Court of Human Rights will become his last court of appeal in opposing such action.

The cables from 2009, drafted by Vincent Carver, the consul general at the US embassy in Strasbourg, express US vitriol over the Council’s earlier exposures and condemnations of Washington’s policy of rendition—in which alleged terrorists are abducted and transported to a third country, where they face interrogation and torture without any legal protections—and the complicity of European governments in the US practice. The Council has also exposed and denounced secret CIA “black site” prisons in Europe and elsewhere.

More »

Mahboob A. Khawaja

When the European forces invaded and colonized the vast Islamic world, there were no television and sounds and voices of reason to call them as “terrorists.” The colonization scheme of things was not outcome of the Western democratic values but ferocity of violence and killings of millions and millions of human lives for the Empires in the making. The European crusaders crossed the channels and unknown time zones to subjugate the much divided Muslims as part of their nationalism perception and values that Muslims were inferior to the European race and could be used as raw material to erect the new Empires. In an information age, knowledge–driven global culture of reason, ignorance is no longer a requisite to learn from the living history. History speaks of the Al-Andalusia Arab civilization as the longest advanced civilization lasting for eight centuries in Europe. Now, the Europeans identify themselves as civilized people but the effective date for the claim remains a mystery.

The previous Empires knew their geography and limits, but the newly articulated American Empire in its infancy, is challenging to the limits of the Laws of God and appears obsessed with “fear” of being replaced by the new emerging economically productive nations of Asia such as China, Japan and India and others. President George W. Bush invoked the “War on Terrorism” as a dictum of power, not reason and wisdom, to camouflage the prospective future with acts of barbarity and to dispel the notion of accountability in global affairs. Historically, people and nations pursuing this path of behavior have ended up in self-delusional and self-destruction.

More »

John Chan
WSWS

In a calculated and reckless provocation directed in the first instance against North Korea, the Obama administration has encouraged South Korea to hold live-fire drills in the vicinity of Yeonpyeong Island. The highly sensitive island was the site of artillery exchanges on November 23 between South and North Korea.

South Korea has ignored North Korea’s threat of retaliation and calls by China and Russia for calm and restraint. The live fire exercise not only has the potential to provoke a military confrontation between the two Koreas, but carries the danger of a broader conflict involving the major powers.

US is backing the South Korean exercise not just as a means for exerting pressure on North Korea, but also on China. In recent months, the Obama administration has waged an aggressive campaign throughout the region aimed at undercutting China’s growing influence. Washington has repeatedly blamed China for not doing enough to “rein in” North Korea and rebuffed every effort by Beijing to ease tensions on the Korean Peninsula.

South Korea has announced that the artillery drill will proceed today. The announcement came within hours of the breakdown of an emergency session of the UN Security Council called by Russia, with China’s support. According to a Reuters report, Russia circulated a draft statement to Security Council members that called for “maximum restraint” and urged UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to send an envoy to Seoul and Pyongyang to prevent the crisis spiralling out of control.

More »