Stephen Lendman

Manning is being emotionally destroyed, assuring his inability to defend himself properly at trial. The Pentagon plans it, besides extracting vengeance and warning other whistle blowers what they'll face if they dare emulate him. Obama very much concurs, showing he's as lawless as Bush.

A previous article discussed him in detail, accessed through this link. Another discussed torture as official US policy, institutionalized under Bush II, continued under Obama, practiced despite official denials.

Manning, of course, is the Army intelligence analyst allegedly turned whistle blower, who supposedly leaked thousands of diplomatic cables, many from Iraq and Afghan war databases, as well as two or more explosive videos, showing US air strikes murdering civilians. As a result, he may have felt obligated to reveal them. They reveal criminal acts by the US government, demanding prosecution of everyone up the chain of command ordering them.

If Bradley [in fact] disclosed them, he did so at great personal risk. He then would deserve praise, not prosecution. He would be a hero, risking personal harm to reveal disturbing truths, what government and media reports suppress, sanitize and distort, letting warlords plunder lawlessly so war profiteers can cash in. Americans are the worse off for it.

More »

John Pilger
John Pilger's ZSpace Page

"The heroic Bradley Manning is kept naked under lights and cameras 24 hours a day. Greg Barns, director of the Australian Lawyers Alliance, says the fears that Julian Assange will “end up being tortured in a high security American prison” are justified. Who will share responsibility for such a crime?"

As the United States and Britain look for an excuse to invade another oil-rich Arab country, the hypocrisy is familiar. Colonel Gaddafi is “delusional” and “blood-drenched” while the authors of an invasion that killed a million Iraqis, who have kidnapped and tortured in our name, are entirely sane, never blood-drenched and once again the arbiters of “stability”.

But something has changed. Reality is no longer what the powerful say it is. Of all the spectacular revolts across the world, the most exciting is the insurrection of knowledge sparked by WikiLeaks. This is not a new idea. In 1792, the revolutionary Tom Paine warned his readers in England that their government believed that “people must be hoodwinked and held in superstitious ignorance by some bugbear or other”. Paine’s The Rights of Man was considered such a threat to elite control that a secret grand jury was ordered to charge him with “a dangerous and treasonable conspiracy”. Wisely, he sought refuge in France.

The ordeal and courage of Tom Paine is cited by the Sydney Peace Foundation in its award of Australia’s human rights Gold Medal to Julian Assange. Like Paine, Assange is a maverick who serves no system and is threatened by a secret grand jury, a malicious device long abandoned in England but not in the United States. If extradited to the US, he is likely to disappear into the Kafkaesque world that produced the Guantanamo Bay nightmare and now accuses Bradley Manning, WikiLeaks’ alleged whistleblower, of a capital crime.

More »

Ray McGovern
Antiwar

Is the U.S. Army stooping to Mafia-style tactics in seeking to imprison 23-year-old Private Bradley Manning for the rest of his life, essentially making him an example for other U.S. soldiers who might be tempted to put conscience and commitment to truth ahead of military discipline and going by the book?

If the Mafia comparison strikes you as a tad over the top, perhaps a seven-year trip down memory lane may prove instructive. Remember what happened after the U.S. Army learned of the obscene and brutal treatment of Iraqi detainees at Abu Ghraib prison in early 2004?

Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba led the first (and only honest) investigation of the scandal. In May 2004, he completed a report that sharply criticized the Army and the higher-ups in the Bush administration for creating the conditions that permitted the mistreatment to occur.

When the report leaked to the press, Taguba found himself treated like a disloyal capo who had talked out of school about the Family business.

Rather than thank Taguba for upholding the honor of the U.S. Army, the Bush administration singled out this hard-working, low-key general for retribution and forced retirement.

More »

John Pilger
t r u t h o u t

Former CIA officer Ray McGovern. (Photo:
Cheryl Biren)

Shortly after the invasion of Iraq in 2003, I interviewed Ray McGovern, one of an elite group of CIA officers who prepared then-president George W. Bush's daily intelligence brief. At that time, McGovern was at the apex of the "national security" monolith that is American power and had retired with presidential plaudits. On the eve of the invasion, he and 45 other senior officers of the CIA and other intelligence agencies wrote to Bush that the "drumbeat for war" was based not on intelligence, but lies.

"It was 95 percent charade," McGovern told me.

"How did they get away with it?" I asked.

"The press allowed the crazies to get away with it."

"Who are the crazies?"

"The people running the [Bush] administration have a set of beliefs a lot like those expressed in 'Mein Kampf,'" said McGovern. "These are the same people who were referred to, in the circles in which I moved at the top, as 'the crazies.'"

I said: "Norman Mailer has written that he believes America has entered a pre-fascist state. What's your view of that?"

"Well ... I hope he's right, because there are others saying we are already in a fascist mode."

On January 22, 2011, McGovern emailed me to express his disgust at the Obama administration's barbaric treatment of the alleged whistleblower Bradley Manning and its pursuit of WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange.

"Way back when George and Tony decided it might be fun to attack Iraq," he wrote, "I said something to the effect that fascism had already begun here. I have to admit I did not think it would get this bad this quickly."

More »

Ray McGovern
Consortium News

It was not until Secretary of State Hillary Clinton walked to the George Washington University podium last week to enthusiastic applause that I decided I had to dissociate myself from the obsequious adulation of a person responsible for so much death, suffering and destruction.

I was reminded of a spring day in Atlanta almost five years earlier when then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld strutted onto a similar stage to loud acclaim from another enraptured audience.

Introducing Rumsfeld on May 4, 2006, the president of the Southern Center for International Policy in Atlanta highlighted his “honesty.” I had just reviewed my notes for an address I was scheduled to give that evening in Atlanta and, alas, the notes demonstrated his dishonesty.

I thought to myself, if there’s an opportunity for Q & A after his speech I might try to stand and ask a question, which is what happened. I engaged in a four-minute impromptu debate with Rumsfeld on Iraq War lies, an exchange that was carried on live TV.

That experience leaped to mind on Feb. 15, as Secretary Clinton strode onstage amid similar adulation.

The fulsome praise for Clinton from GW’s president and the loud, sustained applause also brought to mind a phrase that – as a former Soviet analyst at CIA – I often read in Pravda. When reprinting the text of speeches by high Soviet officials, the Communist Party newspaper would regularly insert, in italicized parentheses: “Burniye applaudismenti; vce stoyat” — Stormy applause; all rise.

With the others at Clinton’s talk, I stood. I even clapped politely. But as the applause dragged on, I began to feel like a real phony. So, when the others finally sat down, I remained standing silently, motionless, wearing my "Veterans for Peace" T-shirt, with my eyes fixed narrowly on the rear of the auditorium and my back to the Secretary.

I did not expect what followed: a violent assault in full view of madam secretary by what we Soviet analysts used to call the “organs of state security.” The rest is history, as they say. A short account of the incident can be found here.

More »

Ray McGovern
Antiwar

“Show me your company, and I’ll tell you who you are,” my grandmother would often say with a light Irish lilt but a heavy emphasis, an admonition about taking care in choosing what company you keep.

On Thursday, I could sense her smiling down through the snow as I stood pinned to the White House fence with Daniel Ellsberg, Chris Hedges, Margaret Flowers, Medea Benjamin, Coleen Rowley, Mike Ferner, Jodie Evans, and over 125 others risking arrest in an attempt to highlight the horrors of war.

The witness was sponsored by Veterans for Peace, a group comprised of many former soldiers who have “been there, done that” regarding war, distinguishing them from President Barack Obama who, like his predecessor, hasn’t a clue what war is really about.

(Sorry, Mr. President, donning a bomber jacket and making empty promises to the troops in the middle of an Afghan night does not qualify.)

The simple but significant gift of presence was being offered outside the White House. As I hung on the fence, I recalled what I knew of the results of war.

More »

Stephen Lendman

Dead on December 13 at age 69 after two aorta tear surgeries failed to save him, Western media headlines hailed the man London Guardian writers Ed Pilkington and Adam Gabbat called a "giant of US foreign policy," saying his loss leaves "a substantial hole to fill."

On December 13, New York Times writer Robert McFadden headlined, "Strong American Voice in Diplomacy and Crisis," saying:

"Mr. Holbrooke was hospitalized on (December 10) after becoming ill. (After two major surgeries, he) remained in very critical condition until his death....A brilliant, sometimes abrasive infighter, he used a formidable arsenal of facts, bluffs, whispers, implied threats and, when necessary, pyrotechnic fits of anger to press his positions." For good reason, he was nicknamed "The Bulldozer."

Former CIA officer, turned activist and political critic, Ray McGovern, called him a favorite Democrat party "go-to diplomat for particularly messy conflicts," like the 1990s Balkans wars and current Afghanistan/Pakistan (Af-Pak) ones "where a strong moral compass was viewed as something of a disqualifier." (He) was counted on to bulldoze through and over any ethical qualms to achieve what Washington wanted." He obliged.

Obama called him "a true giant of American foreign policy," pursuing a belligerent imperial agenda he didn't mention. Nor did major media reports, presenting their customary sanitized versions of current issues, history, and notable public figures like Holbrooke, misportrayed as heroes.

More »

Raw Story interview with
Ray McGovern

'The Empire' is 'being threatened by a slingshot in the form of a computer'

Traditional lines of communication between the people and the press have fallen into such disrepair in America that a whole new approach is necessary to challenge the military-industrial-governmental complex, according to a former CIA analyst sympathetic to WikiLeaks.

"The Fourth Estate is dead," Ray McGovern, of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, told Raw Story in an exclusive interview. "The Fourth Estate in his country has been captured by government and corporations, the military-industrial complex, the intelligence apparatus. Captive! So, there is no Fourth Estate."

McGovern explained that the term the "Fourth Estate," known today as the news media in the US, was first coined by 18th century British statesman Edmund Burke. Burke is said to have pointed to the balcony in Parliament and lauded the print media of his day for being the safeguards of democracy.

"That was very powerful back then," McGovern said. "And just a century later you get Tom Paine, James Madison. You know what Thomas Jefferson said? He said if we have to make a choice between having a government and having a press, I’ll go for the press every time. He understood that any government without a free press will resort to despotism."

McGovern, a CIA analyst for 27 years, whose duties included preparing and briefing the President's Daily Brief and chairing National Intelligence Estimates, said that he preferred to focus on the First Amendment battle of WikiLeaks' founder Julian Assange than on the current "cyber war" in which WikiLeaks is embroiled.

McGovern said that modern people can now become informed through what he termed "The Fifth Estate."

More »

Washington's Blog

Another World Is Possible: As regards the Twin Towers, they may may be a case apart from the rest of the World Trade Center complex. They collapsed and came down because of explosions obviously, but the mid-air pulverization, the "ground-hugging" pyroclastic flows so evident in all the footage and, finally, the samples of the fallen dust confirming that widespread molecular dissociation had occurred at Ground Zero in New York City - all this would strongly suggest that thermonuclear detonations had been carried out. In other words, the Twin Towers would seem to have been nuked. They may have been nuked because of the unfavorable height/footprint ratio. They may have been too tall to be demolished in the same controlled manner as WTC7. Non-conventional methods would have had to be used on the Twin Towers. If this is the case, we would expect that radiation would emanate from the debris. This needs to be confirmed.

ou see in this photo (left), from September 11, 2001, is a box girder that has been cut by an explosive charge at an angle of approx. 45 degrees. Thermite, (nano-thermite) a highly explosive material, was in fact found on the crime scene. Thermite is commonly being used in the demolition business and shaped charges are standard practice. These demolitions have to be prepared weeks in advance. It can take months to set the charges, and set them correctly. - This implies an inside job.

WTC7, in addition to housing the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which kept all the records from the Enron and WorldCom scandals (the largest bankruptcies in history), also "housed high-level government offices including the FBI, CIA and the Secret Service. WTC 7 was also the storage facility for millions of files pertaining to active cases involving international drug dealing, organized crime, terrorism and money laundering" (Serendipity).

Does it then seem reasonable to assume that Osama bin Laden, allegedly operating out of a cave somewhere in Afghanistan, could have been preparing the demolition of the WTC buildings for, weeks on end, right under the noses of FBI, FEMA, Secret Service and the CIA? -We don't think so. And considering the millions of secret files, referring to cases where the Government itself was actively involved in criminal activity, doesn't it also seem likely that these government agencies at some point would have wanted to get rid of all these files?

Anyway, the WTC buildings were demolished. This is a fact. We now believe highly placed elements in the FBI, the CIA and FEMA must have been among the perpetrators of terror on 9/11. This horrendous crime could not have taken place unless these agencies had actively participated in committing it. But who wanted this mega crime to be committed? Essentially, who did 9/11? Everything points in the direction of Israel.

More »

Maidhc Ó Cathail

President Jimmy Carter's National Security Advisor, Zbigniew
Brzezinski visiting 'his boy', Osama Bin Laden, in training with
the Pakistan Army, 1981. Photo originally scanned from the New
York Village Voice. Credited to the Sygma/Corbis Agency, Paris.

Maidhc Ó Cathail argues that, “with the hunt for the elusive bin Laden having already cost thousands of lives and trillions of dollars, perhaps Americans should demand conclusive proof that Israel hasn’t conned them into fighting a phoney ‘war on terror’”.

Who’s keeping the terror myth alive?

In the trigger-happy post-9/11 world, the favoured way to instigate a war is to demand that the designated “evildoer” prove a negative.

Iraq was invaded because it couldn’t prove that it didn’t have weapons of mass destruction. Iran is under constant threat of attack unless it can demonstrate that it’s not seeking nuclear weapons. And now Pakistan is being chastised for allegedly harbouring Osama bin Laden – who in all probability has been dead and buried for eight years.

Questioning Pakistan’s willingness to pursue bin Laden and other Al-Qaeda leaders, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton last year told a group of Pakistani editors: “I find it hard to believe that nobody in your government knows where they are and couldn’t get them if they really wanted to.” And in a recent interview with Fox News, Clinton charged that “elements” of the Pakistani government know where bin Laden is hiding.

But what if bin Laden is not hiding in Pakistan? What if he’s been dead since December 2001? How then does Islamabad prove that some of its government officials are not concealing his whereabouts?

More »